Kabul by Christmas.
Which is where we were, Kabul at Christmas, 2001, when the Taliban had just been toppled, ousted by an intense bombing campaign led by American and British forces, with the brutal regime’s Al Qaeda “guests’’ in disarray and on the run.
With the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks looming, the U.S. has extricated itself from its longest foreign war — in an unseemly military scramble for the exits — the Brits and NATO have bugged out, and Afghanistan is teetering on the precipice of disastrous déjà vu.
Leaving behind the vast Bagram airfield outside the capital, with thousands of civilian trucks and hundreds of armoured vehicles just sitting there. A ghost-base, hastily evacuated and handed over to Afghan forces, awaiting scavenging by the Taliban.
Leaving behind, too, a litany of broken promises — the assurance, from the West, that Afghanistan would never be abandoned again.
But, just like the Soviets in 1989, skedaddling with their tail between their legs, militarily hamstrung by an exhausting war against the mujahedeen that couldn’t be — or wouldn’t be, not in the long game as tactically waged by the Taliban — won. With President Joe Biden asserting, astonishingly and untruthfully, that the U.S. was never in the business of nation-building. After some $133 billion (U.S.) was expended on exactly that, most of it on America’s dime. And more than 2,300 of its troops killed.
“I will not send another generation of Americans of war to Afghanistan with no expectation to achieve a different outcome,’’ Biden declared on Independence Day.
In the wake of U.S. departure, the dominoes are falling quickly.
Within hours of Bagram being vacated, the Taliban was on the march, surging and expanding their reach, with only the Afghan air force to check their advance. They captured hundreds of rural districts in the north and surrounded the capital of Badakhshan, with upwards of 1,000 Afghan troops — demoralized and poorly equipped — fleeing their posts, crossing a river bridge into bordering Tajikistan. Hundreds more — Afghan army, police and intelligence troops — laid down their weapons and surrendered when their positions were overwhelmed.
Badakhshan was once the stronghold of anti-Taliban resistance, the last toehold for mujahedeen fighters under revered Ahmad Shah Massoud, assassinated on Sept. 9, 2001, a murder believed carried out on the orders of Al Qaeda, by two killers posing as journalists. Now the trade routes and checkpoints into Tajikistan are controlled by the Islamist insurgents, already collecting customs revenue.
On Friday, Taliban forces penetrated Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city, Pashtun heartland in the south and birthplace of the Taliban — whelped by Pakistan’s intelligence service. Kandahar Province, which had been the responsibility of Canadian Forces during the NATO mission, where 158 of our troops soldiers sacrificed their lives.
Militants first overran Panjwai — the lush region that Canadians once upon a time had cleared out and made safe — using it as springboard for the assault on Kandahar City, a military and metaphorical triumph.
In the western part of Afghanistan, powerful warlord Ismail Khan, whose vast militia helped US forces bring down the Taliban regime, is mobilizing loyalists to defend Herat. “We demand all the remaining security forces to resist with courage,’’ he said on the weekend. “We hope that men and women of Herat decide at this moment to support the resistance front to defend their freedom and safeguard their honour.’’
Which sounds very much like a call to arms for another civil war. The last one decimated Afghanistan and turned Kabul into rubble.
While many western experts claim a high improbability of heavily fortified Kabul seized anew by the Taliban by the end of the year, there’s little reason to put any faith in such whistle-by-the-graveyard-of-Empire assurances. Kabul will fall, if not by Dec. 31, then soon enough thereafter. And the endless cycle of conflict will continue in a country that has known nothing but war for the last four decades, from without and within.
The only glimmer of hope for Afghans is that the Taliban will prove to have undergone some kind of internal reformation, less intent on murdering civilians and imposing Draconian interpretations of Islamic law. That there will still be music and schools for girls and civil rights for women and protected rights for ethnic minorities such as the eternally persecuted, predominantly Shiite Hazaras, bracing for a vicious backlash.
“Rumours are being published that the Taliban are imposing restrictions or even a complete ban on media, people and women in the newly liberated areas,’’ Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement released last week. “We reject such propaganda. All schools are fully open, the media is allowed to operate in a free and neutral manner within Islamic rules, clinics and health centres are able to work without any constraints. Civil servants, journalists can also live and perform their duties without fear.’’
Right. Pull the other one.
This was the fundamentalist regime that banned music and television, forced men to grow their beards, executed, threw suspected homosexuals off rooftops and conducted public executions for those caught breaking Taliban edicts.
There are reports of schools already being burned and teachers going into hiding. The Taliban have been blamed for a wave of murders targeting lawyers, journalists and professional working women. Scores have been shot dead or killed in car bombings. The Taliban denies responsibility.
Reports also say that ISIS, what’s left of it, is reconstituting in Afghanistan.
Though the central government still holds most of the country’s main cities, urban areas will inevitably come under siege. Descent into widespread violence seems unavoidable and without an end in sight. The Soufan Center, which provides analysis of global security threats, has disclosed that recent assessments by the U.S. intelligence concluded the government of beleaguered President Ashraf Ghani could collapse within the next six months.
Just as expected when Biden announced earlier this year that the U.S. withdrawal would be finished by Sept. 11, the date chosen for symbolic reasons, although likely the American exodus will be completed before then, leaving behind only a thousand or so troops to protect diplomatic missions, the American Embassy and the Kabul airport.
Unacceptable, counters the Taliban. Any and all foreign troops on Afghan soil after Sept. 11 will be considered “legitimate targets.’’
Territorial gains by the Taliban have been swift and stunning this year. In the span of just the last two months, they’ve seized at least 150 districts — they claim many more — in 34 provinces, comprising half of the country. In some areas, they’ve been welcomed by a citizenry weary of conflict and corrupt government.
“I don’t like leaving friends in need,’’ Gen. Austin Scott Miller, commander of U.S. and NATO forces, admitted in a recent ABC interview, acknowledging that the situation he’s leaving behind is dire. “War is physical but it’s also got a psychological or moral component, and hope actually matters. What you don’t want to have happen is that the people lose hope.’’
Except there’s no hope for Afghans. They’re doomed, even as the Taliban says it will present a written peace proposal to the government as soon as next month at the stalled negotiations in Doha. The U.S. has repeatedly sought neighbouring Pakistan’s help to convince the insurgents to deliver a written plan. But Pakistan is treacherous. It incubated the Taliban and its regional aspirations have long relied on the Taliban. This is, after all, the country that sheltered Osama bin Laden, its denials not worth a fig.
My fixer, driver and friend for nearly two decades, sends desperate texts. “I need to get my family out. They’ll come for the interpreters first. Please can you help?’’
He’s been an interpreter for NATO for years.
Canada’s combat mission in Afghanistan ended in 2011, transitioning to a training mission. Ottawa has said it will take in hundreds of vulnerable Afghans, interpreters, embassy staff and their families. The U.S. has promised to relocate thousands of interpreters by next month. Which might be too late.
I’m sorry Faramaz. I’m so sorry.