Afganistan war – Kabul was taken
over by the Taliban forces
Afganistan war – after 20 years of American military occupation
17/8/2021,
Kabul was taken over by the Taliban forces after 20 years of American
military occupation. My take:
It is not the first time America descended on a country as saviors and left as slackers. It
happened when GIs left Saigon in 1975 after it wrecked the country with a civil
war. It also happened when Americans invaded Iraq and turned it into an
ungovernable place in 2003. ( Afganistan war )
America failed in many ways.
First of all, it is a political failure.
It started with irresponsible decision making. America invaded Afghanistan to
take out al-Qaeda harbored by the Taliban. But America never fulfilled its promise
to rebuild the country. It did not have a plan in the first place. It changed its plans
along the way and it bowed out without a plan for the remained.
It is a also humanitarian failure. ( Afganistan war )
The war killed people and, more importantly, it shattered lives.
The cost of war is still counting. According to the Costs of War project at Brown
University, as of April this year, the war has killed some 174,000 people in
Afghanistan (including 47,245 civilians, 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan military and
police and more than 51,000 Taliban fighters). That’s 23 every day.
It also wreaked havoc to a struggling economy and society. According to the U.N,
as of 2021, 2.6 million Afghans remain refugees or have fled, mostly in Pakistan
and Iran, and another 4 million remain internally displaced within the country.
Along the way, most of the Afghans on the move lost the few assets they possess.
Those who have financial assets moved their wealth abroad. This capital flight doubled Afghanistan’s private capital stock overseas.
The violence from the war also created fear. Businesses closed and people
stopped shopping. And now Afghans are rushing to the banks to take cash out.
The country is on the brink of economic collapse.
People are starving, suffering and stressing out on the streets, in the parks and
away from home.
It is a strategic failure. ( Afganistan war )
All the American failures in wars since 1950’s are strategic mistakes.
What is most sad and shocking is that from the Korean War, the Vietnam War,
to the Iraq invasion and Afghan occupation, America fails to learn every time.
The repetition of debacles reveals a deep-rooted but wrongly-placed complacency
of the American creed about its role in the world: America First!
It never shrunk from its oversized ambition to make the world in its image. It never
put itself in the shoes of those it invaded to think or feel. It believed in universalism
that amount to a religious faith: America can fix problems and the world will appreciate it.
No, no, no. By resorting to arms, America created more problems than it solved and
the world had no appreciation for America bungling their problems by shedding their blood.
It is in the end a moral failure. ( Afganistan war )
America is not helping anyone by helping itself. Biden is more an “America First”
President than Donald Trump in the sense that he says a lot about international
responsibility but bears little in the meantime. Bush launched the war, Obama dithered
about peace. But they still believed in America being responsible till the end. Trump
was the first American president to say it out loud to ditch Afghanistan. But at least
Trump was honest about being “America First” and “Who cares Afghanistan.” Biden
wanted to have it both ways, being selfish and being upright. And he left Afghans
tumbling in pain.
