Abandoning The "Forever War"

"I want to be clear: the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan continues through the end of August."

"[The U.S. would continue] to speak out for the rights of women and girls [Taliban advance through Afghanistan notwithstanding]."

"I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome. The United States cannot afford to remain tethered to policies created in response to the world as it was twenty years ago."

"They [the Afghan military] have the capacity, they have the forces, they have the equipment. The question is: will they do it?"

U.S. President Joe Biden

"We will take all measures so that Islamic State will not operate on Afghan territory… and our territory will never be used against our neighbours."

"[Y]ou and the entire world community have probably recently learned that 85% of the territory of Afghanistan has come under the control [of the Taliban]."

Taliban official Shahabuddin Delawar

Mohammad Naim, Mawlawi Shahabudding Delawar and Suhil Shaheen, members of a political delegation from the Taliban, attend a news conference in Moscow, Russia, on July 9, 2021.

"Claiming territory or claiming ground doesn’t mean you can sustain that or keep it over time."

"And so I think it’s really time for the Afghan forces to get into the field – and they are in the field – and to defend their country, their people."

"They’ve got the capacity, they’ve got the capability. Now it’s time to have that will."

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby 

The capacity in numbers and military advantages such as air power, the capability in training but sadly, the will appears to be lacking; dissipating swiftly as Western allies depart and the Taliban not even waiting until the country is entirely clear of the presence of foreign military personnel, and seemingly discounting the potential of a reversal in departure in favour of aiding the government of Afghanistan and its clearly befuddled military, mounting a swift and ultimately irreversible capture of those parts of the country they have not already taken under their rule.

 

Not only are Afghan civilians in proximity to newly-captured Taliban territory swiftly becoming refugees as they flee in their tens of thousands to urban areas, in anticipation of their lives being impacted in ways they have no wish to return to, but so too are hundreds of Afghan security personnel crossing in haste over the border into neighbouring Iran and Tajikistan. Keenly and with no little discomfort, regional capitals from Moscow on to other foreign capitals are watching this drama unfold in real time with concerns over the potential for radical Islamists infiltrating Central Asia.

 

There are some reassuring moments, as when a prominent warlord known as an anti-Taliban commander pledged to support the Afghan forces in their determination to take back control of portions of western Afghanistan that includes a border crossing with Iran. Widely known as the Lion of Herat Mohammad Ismail Khan urged Afghan civilians to become involved, claiming that hundreds of armed civilians from Ghor, Badghis, Nimroz, Farah, Helmand and Kandahar provinces had approached him, prepared to fill the security gap foreign forces' withdrawal has created. 

An Afghan army soldier walks past Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAP) that were left after the American military left Bagram air base, in Parwan province north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, July 5.

To President Biden's assertion that the U.S. had achieved its mission, that it was not the responsibility of the United States to remain in Afghanistan longer than the two decades it has already sacrificed to aid the country, that the government of Afghanistan must itself build a secure Afghanistan....scant comfort for the government of that forlorn country that the U.S. under President Biden would continue to "speak out for the rights of women and girls", rights scheduled to become dim memories in short order. But it is undeniably, Afghanistan's duty to itself to defend itself.

Assurances from the American President that his country was prepared to help the Afghan defence forces from afar in the maintenance of their air force mean little in the fact of the reality that the planes are U.S. planes, and all the American contractors that keep them in flying condition left with their military.. And that the U.S. remains committed to the provision of civilian and humanitarian aid -- minus a physical presence. It was time, he stressed, for other countries in the region to step up to offer help to its neighbor. The inevitability of the Taliban once again taking over the country is not foreordained, he insisted.

 

Afghan security forces keep watch after the American military left Bagram air base, in Parwan province north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, July 5, 2021. The U.S. left Afghanistan's Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years, winding up its "forever war," in the night, without notifying the new Afghan commander until more than two hours after they slipped away. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

 

After all, the Taliban has no air force, and Afghanistan's total military forces are greater in number than that of the Taliban fighting their asymmetrical type of guerilla warfare. A confident assurance that somehow fails to comfort those to whom it is directed. Courage cannot be conferred by decree. The U.S. Administration had considered temporarily relocating some 9,000 Afghans viewed as being at high risk for reprisals for their role in aiding U.S. forces, by sending them to three Central Asian nations for processing.

To date, 2,500 Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans known to have cooperated with American forces have been approved, almost 50 percent of which have gone unused by those eligible to take advantage of them. The withdrawal date was stepped up from September to late August, an event that would highlight the completion of the longest war America has ever invested itself in. Only a small contingent would be left in the country to provide protection for U.S. diplomats, in a best-possible scenario. 

Close to $1 trillion in treasury was spent in Afghanistan, the "graveyard of empires". There were 2,448 U.S. service members who lost their lives in Afghanistan, with another 21,000 wounded. As for the many Afghan civilians who were employed or somehow linked with foreign and American diplomatic missions and translators for the foreign military, the U.S. is on the lookout for countries to receive thousands of Afghans who worked for the U.S. military, to provide haven.

 

"Afghans who worked with foreign troops or embassies face huge risks of retaliation from the Taliban", asserted associate Asia director Patricia Gossman, of Human Rights Watch, calling on countries involved in Afghanistan to "urgently accelerate" visa processing and relocation for Afghan interpreters and other employees (along with their families).

Blast walls and a few buildings can be seen at the Bagram air base after the American military left.