DOES THE U.S. EXPORT TROUBLE?
By Vincent Lyn
These past few days the western world has watched in bewilderment as the Taliban has swept across Afghanistan at breakneck speed. It makes you wonder, and it seems like a very well strategically planned take back of the country. One important and possibly alarming question it raises, how will the Taliban’s control of the country impact the rest of the world?
But let’s reel-back time. How on earth did we get to this place? It seems, as always, people, leaders, nations never learn from history. The Greek Empire of Alexander the Great, The Mongol Empire led by Genghis Khan, The British Empire left defeated, the Russians left beaten and demoralized — and now, in a seemingly rather hastily fashion, the U.S. after two decades of war are trying to get all the remaining Americans out of Afghanistan. The Taliban, patient and tenacious, have been waiting 20 years for this day to come. It was inevitable.
Looking from one news feed to another it seems like main-stream media is fueling another Cold War with ridiculous and uninformed rhetoric. What has Afghanistan, Pakistan and China got to do with the Axis of Evil?
And China’s official news agency, Xinhua, called the U.S. “the world’s largest exporter of unrest,” adding that “its hegemonic policy of ‘only me, rather than the world’ has caused too many human tragedies.”
Randy Phillips, a former CIA officer who worked in China, said: “There is no doubt that the Afghanistan debacle represents a major hit to U.S. credibility and will only further strengthen the belief in the Chinese leadership that the U.S. is a declining power and a paper tiger. The risk of miscalculation in the South China Sea just went way up.”
Almost fifty years ago, the United States failed to have its way in Vietnam. Decades later, America has accused a nation of harboring terrorists, and as a result besieged them, toppled them, killed them en masse, arrested them, jailed them in Guantanamo Bay, and made a human rights abuse spectacle at Abu Ghraib for the world to see. How devoid of conscience and barbaric we are. Just because we have big guns and heavy artillery we bulldozed over the lives of the Afghans for 20 years, yet they remained courageous in the face of so much upheaval. Unfortunately, so did the Taliban. They waited us out. They knew that only patience will work against greed and arrogance. A reminder of Aesop fables: “The tortoise and the hare” — we are the hare and we lost!
We can try to claim moral high ground, but we were never there for the benefit of Afghanistan or its people but our own benefit. Biden was wise to cut our losses and get out. Just like Lyndon B Johnson, whose presidential career was consumed by the Vietnam War. By 1968, the United States had 548,000 troops in Vietnam and had already lost 30,000 Americans there. Johnson’s approval ratings had dropped from 70 percent in mid-1965 to below 40 percent by 1967 and, with it, his mastery of Congress. “I can’t get out, I can’t finish it with what I have got. So what the hell do I do?” he lamented to his wife, Lady Bird. Johnson never did figure out the answer to that question. But Nixon campaigned on peace. The price the U.S. paid was shame and that is the same price for leaving Afghanistan. People will run helter-skelter. It’s a movie we have all seen before. The U.S. is shameless, so it will survive. The Taliban will move on. They can’t eat their guns or their Islamic books, so they will have to organize. But being who they are and as ruthless as their sharia is, those Afghans who supported the U.S. over the years will be forced to run for their life. Meanwhile, the press/media is brewing another war with the new axis of evil. Do we even look in the mirror? What the U.S. lacks is empathy and wisdom beyond its borders.
Poor President Biden, you can really tell he just doesn’t know how to speak about this issue. He seems to have placed high confidence on the Afghan army, trained by the U.S. military — a clearly ill-advised confidence. It is an assumption or assessment which seems to have little knowledge of the reality of the situation, a longstanding problem in U.S. foreign policy. Why is it that the U.S. continually thinks it can just go wherever it pleases and plant themselves for however long they feel? Believing they can change that place and culture — in this case a very traditional age-old, tribal culture that dates back 7,000 years. It really defies any logic and I shake my head with incredulity.
The Afghans would die for their lands and they have shed much blood, and the Taliban, likewise. The U.S. has killed many of the Taliban leaders, but in doing so only breed a new generation of warriors who are even more tenacious and determined. So, is it really worth it? Dumb question, of course it’s not worth it.
Biden took a gamble. Now that it has played out so badly, his narrative henceforth is going to be important. He made a judgment call. The Afghan army was more equipped, better trained, and had the advantage of the numbers. While in hindsight we could say it’s not enough, pundits are divided on the clarity of this issue. Even Trump has voiced vehement criticism, though he himself wanted out of this unprofitable war.
The U.S. is not some random disorderly country. Its pullout was strategic, timely and decisive. Don’t you think they had the intelligence? To destroy the Taliban, you need to take out Pakistan, Bangladesh, Syria, Iraq, and the rest of the nations which make up the remnants of the former Ottoman empire. The Russians controlled the rest of that region, but they couldn’t lay a finger on Afghanistan. The Americans tried and failed. The British Empire got close, but once it got too expensive they quit. This has been debated to the nth degree for decades, in the end occupying Afghanistan is just too draining an endeavor. Biden was smart to cut the U.S. losses. As for being there to begin with, find Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush 2 who had reasons to go in there for pseudo-vengeance, if you are looking for someone to blame.
Since the removal of troops and the Taliban takeover, Biden referenced the deal Trump struck with the Taliban — which the GOP hopes people will forget — in his statement over the weekend, saying: “When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor — which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019 — that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on U.S. forces. Shortly before he left office, he also drew U.S. forces down to a bare minimum of 2,500. Therefore, when I became president, I faced a choice — follow through on the deal, with a brief extension to get our forces and our allies’ forces out safely, or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country’s civil conflict. I was the fourth president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan — two Republicans, two Democrats. I would not, and will not, pass this war on to a fifth.”
The Taliban now has all the U.S. technology and weaponry left behind, and the Afghan president has fled. This is what happens to sand castles. What we have witnessed is not the lack of Afghan military prowess but the tenacity and power of these Islamic warriors. The Taliban’s fighting spirit will always be regarded as an example for others to follow.There is no doubt that Washington has lost all credibility for this recent debacle. The imagery from Afghanistan is deeply damaging to President Biden politically and paints a disastrous picture for a nation that has long seen itself as a global leader and guardian of democracy, human rights and humanitarianism.
What is most alarming is that the U.S. is scouring the earth to broker deals with any country that will take in Afghan refugees. Shabia Mantoo, spokesperson of the U.N High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), has warned that Afghans who wish to flee the Taliban have “no clear way out” and the “vast majority” are unable to leave through the regular channels.
The UNCHR estimates that 90% of the 2.6 million Afghan refugees outside of the country live in neighboring Iran and Pakistan. But the Taliban has closed key checkpoints, and Pakistan has recently fortified its border with Afghanistan and Turkey. By comparison, around 630,000 Afghans have applied for asylum in E.U. countries in the past 10 years, with the highest numbers in Germany, Hungary, Greece and Sweden, according to the E.U. statistics agency.
Which countries are accepting refugees from Afghanistan?
The United Kingdom has pledged to take up to 20,000 Afghans over the next five years. Priority will be given to women, children and those facing persecution. However, just 5,000 are expected to be granted asylum in the next year, with campaigners warning that targets would need to be increased to reflect the U.K’s commitment to Afghans. Canada has promised to resettle the same number. Meanwhile, the United States has authorized $500 million dollars from an emergency fund to meet “unexpected urgent” refugee needs, including for Afghan special immigration visa (SIV) applicants. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said her country will grant asylum to some 10,000 Afghans who have worked with the army, alongside human rights lawyers and activists. Hungary has promised to help a “few dozen” families who have helped its armed forces but rejected any call to take a large number of refugees. Australia also intends to resettle some 3,000 refugees through an existing humanitarian program this year. However, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he would take a hardline stance on those who entered the country “illegally” and refugees could only arrive through “the official channels”. The UAE agreed to take in 5,000 and a deal to house 8,000 in Qatar, even North Macedonia has taken in 500 refugees.
Tajikistan has pledged to take in up to 100,000 refugees from its neighboring country and are already building two large warehouses to store supplies for refugees in the Khatlon and Gorno-Badakhshan provinces adjacent to the border. Neighboring Iran, which already hosts 780,000 registered Afghan refugees, has set up emergency tents for refugees in three of its provinces. Hossein Ghassemi, Interior Ministry Border Affairs Chief, said last week that anyone crossing into the country would “once conditions improve, be repatriated”.
Turkey’s President Erdogan said that his government would work with Pakistan to prevent an exodus of refugees from Afghanistan. In recent days, officials stepped up the construction of a border wall with Iran. Pakistan, which hosts an estimated 3 million Afghan refugees, has fortified its border after Prime Minister Imran Khan promised to seal it in June if the Taliban took control.
Iran has set up emergency tents for refugees in three provinces that border Afghanistan. Uganda has also agreed to take in 2,000 refugees at the request from the U.S. The East African country already has the largest number of refugees of any country in Africa. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has not specified how many refugees the U.S. will take. Prior to resettling in the U.S. some of these refugees will be temporarily sheltered in Albania, Kosovo or northern Macedonia — the three Balkan countries in Europe which have pledged to welcome Afghans fleeing the Taliban.
The United States will accept people from Afghanistan who have previously worked with the government. So, instead of taking responsibility and taking in the Afghans with open arms the U.S. government instead pawns-off disposable people to other impoverished nations.
“We have to follow through on our promises to the thousands of Afghans who risked their lives to help us. It’s time for the Biden administration to cut the red tape and get this done,” said Democratic congresswoman Sara Jacobs.
It’s time for the U.S. to take responsibility for its actions. It can no longer charge head long wherever it chooses and lay waste to it, and then simply leave the suffering people and carnage behind.
Vincent Lyn
CEO/Founder at We Can Save Children
Director of Creative Development at African Views Organization
Economic & Social Council at United Nations
Middle East Correspondent at Wall Street News Agency
Rescue & Recovery Specialist at International Confederation of Police & Security Experts