The New York Times: The Taliban invaded Afghanistan after years of miscalculation by the United States

The New York Times published two articles on the Afghan scene, one of which said that the Taliban swept Afghanistan after years of miscalculation by the United States, while the other noted that the American support for the Afghan government for 20 years was wiped out by the movement in a few weeks.

The two articles, co-written by four New York Times journalists (two per article), attributed the resounding defeat of the US and Afghan government forces to the US overestimation of the results of the huge money it spent on the war in Afghanistan, and the unwillingness of the Afghan army to fight for Government.

rampant corruption

An

article

written by David E. Sanger and Helen Cooper noted rampant corruption, the government's failure to pay the salaries of many Afghan soldiers and police officers for months, defections, and sending soldiers to the front without adequate food and water, let alone weapons.

Another

article

, written by Scott Reinhard and David Zucchino, stated that the Afghan army, which did not believe in itself, and the American effort that President Joe Biden and most Americans no longer believed in, had put a pernicious end to America's longest war.

Sanger and Cooper note that Biden's top advisers have expressed their astonishment at the rapid collapse of the Afghan army in the face of a well-planned attack by the Taliban that is now threatening the Afghan capital, Kabul, saying that the past 20 years prove that these advisers should not have been surprised.

abulia

Reinhard and Zucchino said that although US administration officials say that the Afghan army outperforms the Taliban in training and numbers (300,000 to 75,000), they forget that the Afghan army is unwilling to fight for the government for many reasons, including the reported rampant corruption and loss of will. .

Regarding the wrong American calculations, Sanger and Cooper stated that the Pentagon issued dire warnings to Biden even before he took office about the possibility of the Taliban invading the Afghan army, but intelligence estimates, which now show that they missed the goal greatly, estimated that this could happen within 18 months, not weeks.

They added that US commanders knew that the suffering of Afghan forces continued.

The authors quoted aides to the president as saying that the persistence of these problems reinforced Biden's belief that the United States could not support the Afghan government and the military forever.

And at Oval Office meetings this spring, he told aides that staying for another year, or even five, wouldn't make much difference and was not worth the risk.

tragic end

The authors said that the Afghan force that did not believe in itself and the American efforts that Biden no longer believed and most Americans believed would change the course of events in the longest American war, had led to this tragic end, noting that the United States of America kept its forces in Afghanistan for much longer than the British did In the 19th century, the survival of Soviet forces twice, with almost the same results.

Reinhard and Zucchino said Biden, who had become deeply skeptical of US efforts to remake foreign nations in his years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as Vice President, no longer believed in any change in the course of the war.

They miss a big point

The authors note that Biden recently wrote: "Those who highlight the military superiority of the Afghan government, in terms of numbers, training, equipment, and air power, miss the big point, which is that everything depends on the desire to fight for the government. It turns out. It depends on our presence and our support, and we have been urging Afghans to show their political will at a time when their will depends on ours, and here we go.”

Prior to that, Biden was seeking a change in the war, stressing that he had confidence in the ability of the Afghan army, "which is better trained, better equipped and more efficient in terms of waging war," he said.

The most exciting week

But in the past seven - the most exciting days of two decades of war, Sanger and Cooper say - that army has collapsed, vital cities have fallen into the hands of the Taliban one by one, and there is a sense of panic.

Biden was quoted as saying when he took office that he had two options: either stick to the agreement that former US President Donald Trump made with the Taliban or ramp up the military presence and send more troops to fight again in another country's civil war.

"I was the fourth president to oversee the presence of American forces in Afghanistan, and I will not pass this war on to a fifth," Biden added.