Yes, the primary news today and during the past year in North America is all about the pandemic and how governments are attempting to cope. However, loss in all of this is the deteriorating state within Afghanistan. I have previously blogged on issues surrounding the survival of the current American-backed government in Kabul and the past tremendous investments that Western countries, most notably the U.S., made in that country as noted in: Afghanistan-good-investment-or-sink-hole-and-lost-cause/. In the meantime, the Taliban have been encroaching on key cities around Afghanistan for months, threatening to drive the country to its breaking point and push the Biden administration into a no-win situation just as the United States’ longest war is supposed to be coming to an end.
Under the deal struck by President Trump with the Taliban last year, all foreign troops — including the remaining 2,500 U.S. service members who support Afghanistan’s army and security forces — were scheduled to have withdrawn by May 1, 2021, leaving the country in an especially precarious state. As talks between the Afghan government and Taliban continue, the reality is that insurgents already hold much of the country. The Taliban is back to using terror and fear tactics to control the population in those parts of the country occupied by its forces. They have a loose network of prisons wherein many people are being tortured. They also operate a parallel network of civilian courts in which religious scholars adjudicate land disputes and family disputes, much like they did when they ran Afghanistan’s government two decades ago. Supported by the local tribal officials, Taliban courts also try murders and suspected moral and religious offences.
It has been argued that if the U.S. delays its withdrawal deadline, the Taliban would likely consider the 2020 deal with the U.S. void, likely leading to renewed attacks on American and NATO troops. The result potentially could draw the U.S. deeper into the war to defend Afghanistan’s beleaguered army and security forces, whom the Taliban could still retaliate vigorously against. Unfortunately, many Afghans see the current government as corrupt and its justice system as crooked.
Then, there’s the ongoing cost of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, the total military expenditure in Afghanistan from October 2001 until September 2019 was $778 billion. In addition, the U.S. State Department – along with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other government agencies – spent $44 billion on reconstruction projects. Then there were the American lives lost. As of July 2018, there were over 2,300 U.S. military and over 16,000 civilian deaths in the Afghan war. In addition, over 20,000 American service members had been wounded in action up until then. There were also over 1,700 U.S. civilian contractor fatalities.
All of this leads one to understand the American hesitancy to simply pack up and leave Afghanistan as it did during the Vietnam war. Much has been sacrificed in a cause that was a no-win from the outset, demonstrating the dangers associated with trying to impose democratic ways in a poor country which has only known authoritarianism. Unfortunately, without U.S. support, the current Afghan regime obviously cannot stand on its own. It’s a difficult decision for President Biden to make, but it’s one that has to be made sooner than later given the daily costs, human and financial, associated with sustaining the current regime in Kabul. Afghanistan is certain to be back in our headlines once again.
FROLITICKS 