As many of us predicted some time ago, the Afghan ruling government was overthrown by the Taliban this past week. This despite the fact that President Biden had just reassured Americans that the Afghan military and security forces would be able to defend Kabul against any Taliban attacks. One counted on the over 300,000 security forces, armed and trained by the Allies, to defend the capital and reigning government against a poorer armed estimated force of 85,000 Taliban insurgents. Well, as in the case of South Vietnam and the fall of Saigon in April 1975, the disintegration of the military and ruling government ended with the rapid fall of Kabul. Thus came the familiar sight of Allied embassy staffs, their families and some Afghan officials fleeing the country in frightening moments of utter chaos. Like in Saigon, helicopters circled the U.S. embassy in Kabul as its diplomatic personnel were under evacuation orders. Frankly, it appears that no one expected to see this, and most especially U.S. military commanders.
Let’s take a step back. Once the President announced the complete American troop withdrawal by this fall, there was an obvious surge in Taliban attacks in several provinces, ending in the successful capture of key cities and border areas — in some cases with little opposition from government forces. Next, Afghanistan’s president Ashraf Ghani and members of his administration suddenly fled the country to God knows where, without really any advance notice to the Americans. No interim governing administration was left in his place. What’s interesting is that, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter, there had been an already stark intelligence assessment predicting Kabul could be overrun within six to 12 months. Even as the President Biden was telling the public that Kabul was unlikely to fall, intelligence assessments apparently painted a grimmer picture, suggesting that the Afghan military collapse could be more rapid than expected. In addition, it became clear that the so-called peace agreement hammered out under former President Donald Trump, that promised the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan, wasn’t worth the paper on which it was written.
Taliban co-founder and de facto leader Abdul Ghani Baradar triumphantly arrived in Afghanistan this week for the first time in more than a decade, and immediately declared ‘amnesty’ for former Afghan government officials. If anyone believes in the Taliban’s generosity and promised clemency, I’ve got Florida swamp land to sell them if interested. Right now, there continues to be western media coverage while the Americans and allies continue the evacuation efforts at the Kabul airbase. Once completed, you can bet that the Taliban administration will impose tight controls on all media and telecommunication networks, most likely including internet services which didn’t exist twenty years ago. Future news about the Taliban regime’s actions will be tightly controlled, especially anything dealing with the anticipated reprisals among Afghan security personnel and Allied collaborators.
Now with the Americans hastily exiting Afghanistan and no U.S.-backed government in power, one can bet that bordering countries such as Pakistan, Russia and China are considering how to promote their interests in a Taliban-led Afghanistan. On the other hand, the U.S., Canada and their NATO allies have no plans to recognize the Taliban as the official government of Afghanistan, as was the case 20 years ago. Indeed, the U.S. and Canada still view the Taliban as a ‘terrorist’ group.
Unfortunately, while many Afghan national army troops may have fought bravely, the inevitable government’s collapse happened much faster than expected. U.S. military sources, as early as a week ago, wrongly expressed glowing and misleading reviews of the Afghan army’s readiness. However, even the American intelligence community was taken by surprise at how fast the total collapse occurred. Sounds familiar, think back to the rapid collapse of the American-backed government and military in South Vietnam!
FROLITICKS 
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