What remains as US ends Afghan 'forever war'
After 20 years, America is ending its "forever war" in Afghanistan. Announcing a company withdrawal deadline, President Joe Biden cut through the long debate, even within the U.S. military, over if the time was right. Starting Saturday, the last remaining 2,500 to 3,500 American troops will commence leaving, to be fully out by Sept. 11 at the most recent.
Another debate will likely continue far longer: Was it worthwhile? Since 2001, thousands of Afghans and 2,442 American soldiers have already been killed, an incredible number of Afghans driven from their homes, and vast amounts of dollars spent on war and reconstruction.
As the departure begins, The Associated Press requires a consider the mission and what it accomplished. In the early days following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in the U.S., the mission seemed clear: Hunt down and punish the perpetrators. The U.S. determined that al-Qaida and its own leader, Osama bin Laden, had plotted the attack from the safety of Afghanistan, protected by its radical Taliban rulers.
At the time the Taliban were a pariah government, under U.N. sanctions and vilified in the West for his or her rule by a harsh interpretation of Islamic law.Until 9/11, the U.S. had watched Afghanistan from a distance, occasionally requesting the Taliban at hand over bin Laden as soon as in 1998 firing a couple of cruise missiles at an al-Qaida base in eastern Afghanistan.
Now America was leading an invasion, dubbed Operation Enduring Freedom, with the mission of removing the Taliban and destroying al-Qaida. Washington considered the only allies in Afghanistan it might - a assortment of warlords, most of whom were former mujahedeen backed by the U.S. in the 1980s in the fight the invading Soviet Union. Rallying around the U.S. after 9/11, NATO joined the coalition.
Within weeks of the invasion and aerial bombardment, the U.S.-led coalition had pounded the Taliban into submission and driven them from power. Its leadership fled, its fighters lost control of the whole nation. Al-Qaida aswell fled underground, crossing into neighboring Pakistan.
The hunt for bin Laden took a decade. Finally, he was tracked to his hideout in Pakistan, barely 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Islamabad. A U.S. Navy Seals team went within cover of darkness and killed him. However in the interceding decade, America and NATO have been dragged into a significantly expanded mission. Then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld initially said America had not been in Afghanistan to nation-build. That could change.
When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, it took its eye off Afghanistan. It left it to the former warlords, pre-occupied with wealth and power. The first post-Taliban president, Hamid Karzai, raised the thought of talks with the Taliban to work out a peace, and the crushed militants put out signals they wanted to reach an accommodation.But American officials blocked any negotiations with the Taliban, convinced the insurgents could be militarily destroyed.
Instead, the militants re-emerged in an extended insurgency, and the U.S. found itself pouring in money and manpower to help the Afghan government fight and rebuild the war-shattered nation. With the flood of vast amounts of dollars, corruption only grew in the U.S.-backed government, only growing worse as the years went on. Meanwhile, al-Qaida's capability to strike the U.S. and the West has been severely damaged. However the group has spread in branches in multiple countries fighting in insurgencies.
Biden explained his decision to grab the last 2,500-3,500 American soldiers from Afghanistan, saying America's security concerns had evolved. "Bin Laden is dead, and al-Qaida is degraded in Iraq and Afghanistan," he said, arguing that the terror threat has "metastasized" right into a global phenomenon, never to be fought with thousands of troops on the floor in a single country but with new technology.
The U.S., he said, should be freed to fight the 21st century's more complex challenges, including competition from Russia and China.For the problem in Afghanistan, he said he didn't see how continued American military occurrence would bring a turnaround. "When will it be the proper moment to leave? Yet another year, two more years, ten more years?" he said.
The U.S. and NATO leave behind an Afghanistan that's at least half run directly or indirectly by the Taliban - despite billions poured into training and arming Afghan forces to fight them. Riddled with corruption and tied to regional warlords, the U.S.-backed government is widely distrusted by many Afghans.
Washington and its international allies are putting heavy strain on the government and the Taliban to attain a peace deal. The hope is that both sides know military victory is impossible and that peace together may be the only way forward. The very best case scenario is some kind of government like the Taliban that may pave just how for a drawing up a fresh constitutional system for the future, including some type of elections.
The possible worst case scenario is that peace talks fail, and Afghanistan is plunged right into a new chapter of its decades of civil war. That new phase could possibly be more brutal than ever before, with not only the Taliban but the country's other, multiple warlords and armed factions battling it out for power.
The past 20 years since the Taliban were ousted have unquestionably seen gains for the Afghans. However they are fragile and risk being wiped away as the Americans step away - whether frittered away under a new government or crushed by continued war. Girls are allowed an education, which have been banned under the Taliban. Still, at least 3.6 million children, most of them girls, are not in school, according to UNICEF.
Women are working and so are in Parliament. Their voices are strong but still Afghanistan's Parliament has been unable to pass The Violence Against Women bill because religious conservatives dominate. The Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security has constantly ranked Afghanistan among the worst countries on the globe to become a woman.
Prior to the war in 2001, the Taliban had eradicated opium production in Afghanistan, according to US figures. Today, it produces more opium than almost every other opium-producing country combined, despite the U.S. spending millions to eliminate drug production.
The opium industry in 2019, the most recent available figures show, earned between $1.2 billion and $2.1 billion, outstripping the value of the country's legal exports, according to John Sopko, the U.S. government's watchdog on Afghan reconstruction. A lot more than $14 million of this went into the coffers of the Taliban, who tax drug movement throughout the country.
Despite billions in U.S. humanitarian and reconstruction aid, over fifty percent the populace of 36 million lives beneath the World Bank-set poverty line of $1.90 a day - and millions more live not much above that level. Unemployment reaches 40%. The U.N. and Red Cross say almost half of most Afghan children face the danger of hunger. The majority of Afghans hold on little expect their future according to a 2018 Gallup poll.
"Afghanistan is bordering a failed state status and will enter the category soon after the withdrawal of the foreign forces absent a better political arrangement," said Torek Farhadi, a political analyst and former government adviser. "This is the reality of Afghanistan."
