Despite spending a trillion dollars to rebuild the country
The legacy of the failure of the US campaign in Afghanistan continues today
Taliban militants celebrate one year since their victory and their return to Kabul.
EPA
Chaos spread at Kabul airport, where thousands of Afghans were trying to escape from the Taliban.
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A year ago, the Taliban movement took control of the Afghan capital, Kabul, and the resounding fall of the weak Afghan government that was backed by the United States occurred, and the longest American war ended in tragedy and great disgrace.
The Taliban, which was ousted from power 20 years ago, returned to lead Afghanistan in 2021, and the legacy of two decades of US-led efforts to rebuild the country and fight the insurgency has squandered nearly $1 trillion in American taxpayer money, and killed nearly 3,500. An American soldier and other countries allied with Washington, as well as tens of thousands of army soldiers and Afghan civilians, have all been painfully for nothing.
Chaos at Kabul airport
Hours after the world saw the scenes of chaos at Kabul airport, where thousands of Afghans were scrambling and trying to flee as victorious Taliban soldiers advanced, the Special Inspector of Afghanistan Reconstruction, a US government investigator, released a report on US efforts in Afghanistan over the past 20 years. last year.
"If the goal of what the United States has done in Afghanistan is to leave behind a country that can rise on its own and does not pose any threat to the security interests of the United States, then the final picture of what happened looks bleak and depressing," the report said in desperation.
Billions of dollars in US aid were squandered, perhaps on unimportant projects, some of which went into the pockets of deceitful and opportunistic Afghan officials from US military contractors.
Although the threats of al-Qaeda extremists operating in Afghanistan have largely been eliminated, ordinary Afghans see the security situation in their country becoming increasingly dangerous amid ongoing bombings and terrorist attacks.
And there is a branch of the "ISIS" organization that was established in Afghanistan's fertile soil for terrorism and its rugged terrain.
But two decades of American efforts to support the fledgling government and train its new army did little to prevent the sudden and total collapse of this army.
The Taliban backtracks on its guarantees
As a result, the comprehensive, generation-long progress in women's development and education was derailed after the Taliban reneged on its earlier guarantees that all girls would be allowed to return to school.
Poverty that struck the country quickly led poor families to sell their daughters as infancy wives.
Tens of thousands of Afghans who provided aid to the United States and international forces remain stuck in the country, feeling threatened by the Taliban government, which views them as collaborators with a former occupier.
And in Washington, there was plenty of lament over the mistakes that had been made.
Some former military officials believe that the United States was to instill its values in a place completely different from Western culture in general, and the success of the political system that it imposed on the Afghan tribal scene was absolutely not possible.
Others put much of the blame on former US President Donald Trump, who signed a peace agreement with the Taliban that the president's critics said "was a severe blow to the US-backed government in Kabul", and President Biden, who carried out the full withdrawal despite the fact that The Afghan regions were falling into the hands of the Taliban like dominoes.
The former commander of the American and other forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), David Petraeus, wrote an article for the “Atlantic” magazine in which he said:
Moral justification for war
This is a difficult view to accept given the extent and length of the United States' commitment to Afghanistan.
As my colleagues reported in 2019, many US officials tasked with carrying out counterinsurgency and reconstruction missions knew in private circles that the mission was a failure, but were publicly saying something different.
The American researcher, Fareed Zakaria, wrote to the Washington Post: “For a long time, the elite in Washington saw what was going on in Afghanistan as a 'good war', morally justified, and approved by the United Nations.
Americans have always believed that this war was a success, and many have closed their eyes to the evidence that it was not.
Now that the ruling establishment in Washington has rid itself of its illusions, Afghanistan has faded from America's sight.
Biden repeatedly said that the legacy of the post-9/11 military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq was obscuring more important challenges to US strategies, which were now completely preoccupied with the Russian invasion, Ukraine and China.
miserable future
Now many Afghans look to the future with despair.
The evaporation of international aid to Afghanistan, in addition to US sanctions and the freezing of seven billion dollars of Afghanistan's foreign assets, has led to the deterioration of the Afghan economy, the banking sector is in a state of paralysis, while food prices have risen to alarming rates.
Most of the Afghan population is in need of humanitarian assistance, while about half of the population suffers from hunger, and about one million children are severely malnourished.
The United Nations estimates that about 97% of the country may be below the poverty line by the end of this year.
“Regardless of the Taliban’s status or their credibility with foreign governments, the economic restrictions imposed on Afghanistan push the country towards catastrophe.”
In the rural areas of this country that has been devastated by years of war, it seems that Taliban control will give it a future of peace.
But according to what my American journalist colleague Susanna George told me in her recent report from Helmond province, Afghanistan, which was formerly a hotbed of insurgency, the economic problems make all prospects bleak.
Susanna had met a mechanic in the town of Marja, who had rebuilt his workshop three times and is now seeing a huge drop in business.
"Every time I started from scratch," the mechanic told journalist Susanna.
There is no doubt that a mood of pessimism also prevails in Kabul.
My American journalist colleague, Pamela Constable, spoke with Afghan Syed Hussain, who owns a wedding dress shop, who says he has lost almost most of his customers.
Hussein added: “I feel anxious and upset all the time.
Everyone who lives in this country is concerned.
We have no idea what might happen next, or what our future will look like.
So I am thinking that I should take my family and leave too.”
Hours after the world saw the scenes of chaos at Kabul airport, where thousands of Afghans were scrambling and trying to flee as the victorious Taliban advanced, the Special Inspector for Afghanistan Reconstruction, a US government investigator, issued a report on US efforts in Afghanistan during the past 20 years. The report stated in desperate language: "If the goal of what the United States has done in Afghanistan is to leave behind a country that can rise on its own and does not pose any threat to the security interests of the United States, then the final picture of what happened looks bleak and depressing."
• The comprehensive progress that lasted for an entire generation for the development and education of women was derailed after the "Taliban" retracted the guarantees it had previously provided, which stipulated that all girls would be allowed to return to school.
Ishan Thoror is a columnist for the international press for The Washington Post.
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