With US’ Shameful Rout from Afghanistan, Who Can Trust America Again?
“I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not extending a forever exit … The fundamental obligation of a president, in my opinion, is to defend and protect America, not against threats of 2001, but against the threats of 2021 and tomorrow. That is the guiding principle behind my decisions about Afghanistan,” said US President Joe Biden in his address to Americans a day after the last US troops left Kabul.
There are many words to describe what the Americans and the NATO have done in Afghanistan. You could use the neutral term “withdrawal”, but any objective person would describe what happened to them as a combination of a retreat and a rout.
True, the withdrawal was in reasonably good order, and but for 13 soldiers killed in last Thursday’s bomb attack, the US did not suffer casualties. But how do you judge an army that left behind a vast quantity of weapons and equipment on the battlefield and abandoned thousands of supporters whose lives and liberties could be at risk at the hands of the Taliban?
The Shock Departure From Bagram
True, a large number of the weapons are those supplied to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) that collapsed in the face of the Taliban. Between 2002-2017, the US gave the ANSF $28 billion worth of weaponry, including guns, rockets, night-vision goggles, some 2,000 armoured vehicles, 40 aircraft, including UH-60 Black Hawks, Scout attack helicopters and ScanEagle drones. Now, all of it is with the Taliban.
But the real measure of American incompetence came through its decision to abandon its major and well-protected base in Bagram, an hour’s drive from Kabul, without informing the Afghans. Remarkably, this hubristic act took place on 2 July, two days before the 245th year of American independence.
