This was the backdrop to President Biden’s speech later in the day where he concluded: ‘The events we’re seeing now are sadly proof that no amount of military force would ever deliver a stable, united, and secure Afghanistan — as known in history as the ‘graveyard of empires’.’ After twenty years of a bloody war that destroyed the country and cost over 240,000 lives, Biden was admitting what anti-war campaigners had warned would happen from the start.
Less than a week ago, a leaked US intelligence report estimated Kabul could come under Taliban attack in thirty days, and the government could fall within ninety. This was revised down from the June estimate of the government lasting at least six months after US withdrawal. By Sunday, the Taliban had taken the Presidential Palace in Kabul and President Ghani had fled the country.
Contrary to the emerging consensus in the mainstream media and among neoconservative politicians, the mistake wasn’t with the manner of the US’s departure – it was that it began the war in Afghanistan at all.
George Bush was clear when he announced the US had begun its invasion of Afghanistan: the goal was to ‘attack the military capability of the Taliban regime’ to ‘disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations’. With the Taliban back in power and stronger than it was in 2001, and with ISIS now operating in the country, the US has by all accounts failed.
As argued by people like Jeremy Corbyn at the time, the killing of civilians and the destabilisation of the country that the war would bring would only provide a breeding ground for terrorist groups. Just like the invasion of Iraq created the conditions first for Al Qaeda to set up, and then for ISIS to be formed, the devastation of Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Afghanistan have allowed ISIS to gain a foothold in these countries.
But Biden is right that that’s not what the US was actually trying to do. During the course of the last twenty years, the US dropped over 300,000 bombs on Afghanistan, killing an estimated 70,000 civilians, at least forty-three percent of them women. None of the $2.2 trillion the US spent on its war and only a fraction of the aid given to Afghanistan has been spent on improving the lives of Afghans. There has been very little if any development outside of Kabul and a few big cities, which has meant that poverty has only deepened; over two thirds of girls outside Kabul haven’t had access to primary school education.
The war in Afghanistan was never about humanitarianism, democracy, or protecting women – and those now arguing that Western military engagement is needed to protect Afghan people are simply lying.
Since 2008, more than 70,000 Afghan refugees have been sent back from Europe to Afghanistan under the claim that it is a safe country. Britain sits at the top of the list, having deported over 15,000 Afghans and having spent £4 million on a ‘reintegration centre’ in Kabul.
One of tangible things that we can now do is to provide safe passage for refugees, end sanctions on countries like Iran where the bulk of refugees will inevitably end up, and provide the financial support needed to help undo the destruction our imperialist wars have caused. This is what we need to call for now, and we should be clear that more war will not help the people of Afghanistan or anywhere else. There is nothing humanitarian in the intentions of those arguing for it.
Source: Tribune