China News Service, August 31 (Dong Hanyang Guan Na) On August 30, local time, the Pentagon announced that it had completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Twenty years ago, the United States aggressively invaded Afghanistan in the name of "anti-terrorism." Twenty years later, the U.S. military "slid away" from Kabul on the grounds of "ending the long war."
In the past 20 years, terrorism has left deep scars in Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of people have died as a result of wars. Poverty and hunger linger in this land. What exactly has the US military left behind?
The picture shows a rocket attack on a residential area near Kabul International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 29, local time.
Twenty years of blood and tears have been intertwined, and
Afghan
lives have been charred
During the hurried withdrawal of the U.S. military, a picture of a U.S. female soldier "holding an Afghan baby at the airport" was reposted by several U.S. military social media accounts recently, and it was dubbed "humanitarian glory".
Who could have imagined that this female soldier was killed in an attack on the Kabul airport five days later.
She is just one of many foreign soldiers who died on the battlefield in Afghanistan.
In 20 years, 2,448 American troops and 1,144 NATO allied troops died in the war.
However, the consequences of this war are more borne by the Afghan people.
On the one hand, out of self-interest considerations, the United States has been fostering some extremist forces in Afghanistan for a long time, and fighting against other forces, further breeding chaos.
In the capital, Kabul, bombings and terrorist attacks are almost a part of "daily life", and the lives of the Afghan people are miserable amid continuous wars everywhere.
On the other hand, accidental bombings, accidental injuries, and even atrocities against civilians in Afghanistan by the coalition forces headed by the United States are endless.
Statistics show that more than 30,000 civilians were killed by the US military or died as a result of the war brought by the US military, and more than 60,000 civilians were injured.
Today, this protracted war is coming to an end, but the US military is still creating chaos.
On August 29, an air strike by the US military against extremist organizations affected residential areas. There were reports that the air strike caused the death of many Afghan children.
On August 28, local time, vendors peddled children's clothing at a market in the center of Kabul, Afghanistan.
War drags down development, Afghanistan is among the least developed countries
In the past 20 years, the US military has failed to bring a stable life to the Afghan people.
On the contrary, what is presented to the world is a devastated Afghanistan and a shocking humanitarian disaster.
This land is full of gunfire and gunfire, poverty and hunger, life and death and parting.
Statistics show that the war in Afghanistan forced 2.7 million Afghans to flee abroad and 4 million people were displaced.
"My hometown is fighting and it has become a battlefield. In order to survive, we can only escape," said Hashiba, a refugee who fled from Tahar Province to Kabul. "But we want to go home."
Years of wars have also caused the livelihood of Afghan people to decline and the economy has stagnated.
Afghanistan has long been among the least developed countries, with a per capita GDP ranking 213th in the world. About 72% of the people live below the poverty line, and the unemployment rate is as high as 38%.
The average life expectancy of Afghans is only 53.25 years, ranking first in the world.
In addition, the drug cultivation industry has developed rapidly in Afghanistan thanks to the "push to fuel the flames" of the United States.
The poppies planted by the locals may become a "source of evil" that endangers generations of Afghans.
Today, the Taliban promised that Afghanistan "will no longer be a center of opium cultivation and drug trade."
But what the future holds remains to be seen.
On August 15, local time, in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, people lined up outside the bank to withdraw money.
The US military has done some "useless work" on the 2 trillion dollar bill?
The United States itself paid about 2 trillion U.S. dollars for this so-called "anti-terrorism" war.
But the average daily "burning" of about 300 million U.S. dollars, why is it exchanged for a more divided and impoverished Afghanistan than it was 20 years ago?
On the one hand, the US hopes to impose so-called "Western democracy" on Afghan society, while ignoring the uniqueness of its nation and tribe, further leading to political and social polarization in Afghanistan and national instability.
On the other hand, some construction projects promoted by the United States were ultimately regarded as "useless."
The U.S. Department of Agriculture ignores Afghanistan’s national conditions and grows soybeans that no one cares about. The U.S. State Department and the Agency for International Development once claimed that they spent 769 million U.S. dollars across Afghanistan to build 680 schools.
The reality is that a large number of schools have been abandoned since they were built.
The Afghan Reconstruction Special Monitoring Group created by the US Congress has pointed out that the US’s Afghanistan reconstruction strategy lacks coherence; the personnel trained in Afghanistan are not qualified; the understanding of Afghanistan’s cultural and political background is insufficient; and there is a lack of adequate supervision and evaluation.
This led to the US policy in Afghanistan "destined to fail from the beginning."
On August 16, local time, the crowd waiting for the evacuation gathered at the Afghan airport.
Unwinnable war? The future of Afghanistan is still perilous
In fact, from Vietnam, to Syria, and then to Afghanistan, the United States has repeatedly used military force to prove that force cannot solve the problem. Instead, it has become a "troublemaker."
The US military has been stationed for 20 years. The number of terrorist organizations in Afghanistan has not decreased but has increased from single digits to more than 20. As a result, the US "war on terrorism" has fallen into a vicious circle of "the more counter-terrorism".
Former German Foreign Minister Fischer once said, "Apart from killing a few terrorist organization leaders and weakening individual extremist organizations, this war has almost no results at all."
And as the "Saigon Moment" was staged in Kabul, it also meant that the United States' Western democratic experiment in Afghanistan ended in "complete failure."
In Afghanistan, known as the "Imperial Cemetery", a new "tablet" is already in place.
But what is even more worrying is that the future of Afghanistan will still be perilous.
Whether Afghanistan can establish an inclusive government to achieve national reconciliation and peaceful development is an issue that must be resolved in the future.
Twenty years after the invasion, the US military left, but the various "legacy" left behind will still have an indelible impact on Afghanistan.
(over)