The victory of the Afghan Taliban through the non-violent takeover of Kabul, contrary to the US President’s claims, is indicative of many flaws and failures. A lot of analysts are offering a host of reasons for this sudden collapse of Afghanistan. However, none make sense as the Afghan Taliban have showed a mature way of handling affairs. It is amusing to watch the embarrassed western media go berserk trying to cover up the lies and foolish narratives of the last 20 years to justify the war unleashed on Afghanistan. Nevertheless, there are still some who are trying to give life to old plots by raising the fears of a nuclear Pakistan supporting the Taliban, women and children rights, economic failure and Afghanistan becoming a sanctuary for global terrorists once again. Ironically what is not talked about is that one of the greatest reason for the failure of the US and its allies was rampant corruption.
Let’s first have a look at what affiliated experts have to say about the situation. Christina Lamb was told that the war in Afghanistan could not be won militarily by the British Brigadier, Mark Carleton-Smith. 13 years later, U.S. President Joe Biden reached the same conclusion. The writer of ‘The American War in Afghanistan’, Carter Malkasian, questions how 140,000 soldiers with some of the world’s most sophisticated equipment, the United States and its NATO allies failed to defeat the Taliban. He further asks why the western powers stayed on at a cost of more than $2 trillion and over 3,500 allied lives lost, plus many more soldiers badly injured when they were aware that it was a war that could not be won. In the end, he asks the disturbing question of whether the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan do more harm than good.
“The United States exposed Afghans to prolonged harm in order to defend America from another terrorist attack,” he writes. “Villages were destroyed. Families disappeared. . . . The intervention did noble work for women, education, and free speech. But that good has to be weighed against tens of thousands of men, women, and children who died. There is one seductive argument made by critics of the withdrawal: that a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan will again become a haven for terrorist groups threatening the security of the United States. This argument is a backhanded acknowledgment that we succeeded in reducing the threat from Afghanistan to minimal levels–the original rationale for U.S. intervention. The sacrifice, however, was significant: more than $2 trillion, the deaths of 2,400 U.S. service members (and thousands of contractors), more than 20,000 wounded Americans”, he wrote.
What happened in Afghanistan is a terrible tragedy, but the blame cannot be laid at one door alone. The Biden administration’s short timetable for withdrawal, tied to the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and in the middle of the fighting season, may be termed as a mistake. However, the situation on the ground was the result of two decades of miscalculations and failed policies pursued by three U.S. administrations and of the failure of Afghanistan’s leaders to govern for the good of their people. Many of the critics speaking out now were architects of those policies.
The US intervention in Afghanistan along with a long list of allies was premised on the stated objectives of the elimination of Al-Qaeda, the destruction of the Afghan Taliban, introduction of a democratic government and to rebuild Afghanistan on western footings. None of these objectives were achieved and strategies kept changing and failing with the passage of time.
Annual audit reports by the US Special Inspector General on Afghanistan (SIGAR) always tactfully highlighted the mismatch in the political, military and intelligence pretense of successes, funds misappropriations and rampant corruption that was going around because a syndicate of Afghan elite and US officials worked hand in glove. The defence industrial complexes, narrative building think tanks, overrated policy advisers, military contractors, money dolling intelligence operators, covert war contractors, multiple proxy runners, local warlords, drug barons and Afghan dummy political elite kept on making hay while the clouds above Afghanistan rained bombs and missiles over hapless people.
There was a serious failure to understand Afghan history, tribal culture, unfamiliar rugged terrain, Taliban’s faith, determination and fighting skills, their ability to wait out the interventionists, the local support they enjoyed, US reliance on the Afghan National Army as well as the police, American disregard of the eroding stalemate, misreading of a fragmented Afghan political reality and the disproportionately cruel use of military muscles. Even prematurely declaring Afghanistan as a success and turning to Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen could not have been possible without an overall master plan to destroy the listed countries historically, culturally and financially because they were considered a threat by the capitalist world. Hence, the long hypothesised destruction of political Islam through a Clash of Civilizations just happened in the last two decades and continues unabated in different forms and in newer regions. Needless to say that in the bigger context, the US misread the geopolitical realities of the region; it soon found itself confronted by strategic competitors like China, Russia and other regional countries in the arena, which had not been factored-in adequately in their strategic calculus. Nevertheless, these factors resulted in imperial over-stretch for the USA and NATO allies.
The current U.S. plan is to contain terrorism from afar by using drones, intelligence networks, and special operations raids launched from bases located somewhere in the region. William Burns, the CIA director, admitted that this plan involved ‘a significant risk.’ Even if the United States’ war is over, Afghanistan’s is not. Now, threats to withhold international recognition as the Taliban finally retook Kabul by force mean little. Taliban leaders are not concerned about whether the United States and its allies recognises them as a government despite the accommodation and magnanimity shown to the exiting invaders’ troops, diplomats, citizens, media persons, NGOs, undercover spies, and the undercover agents and helpers. Nonetheless, such statements are indicative of the difficult times that Afghanistan and neighbouring countries will have to brace for.
The futile war in Afghanistan has a lot of lessons and pointers for the regional countries, including Pakistan. Mega financial corruption and nepotism at the top political, military, intelligence and judicial institutions leads to malfunctions due to a lack of trust, betrayal and disillusionment with the leadership. The swarms of people fleeing Afghanistan in spite of general amnesty announced by the Taliban are mostly those corrupt people who preferred serving the interventionists as translators, helpers, proxies, spies and subservient people. A country filled with a lot of traitors, corrupt elites, opportunists and sycophants can neither prosper nor be at peace; that is the best of lessons that we all need to learn.