Afghanistan: Do or Die
Apparently tired of doing, this Administration chose the die route. Due to, it certainly appears, lack of effective planning and comprehensive execution, not only will an unknown number of innocent Afghan citizens now die at the hands of militant Islamics, for all manner of perceived violations, including gender, but, so too, will the twenty-year experiment in Western ways, education, and freedom die with it. And in all likelihood now, due to the unconscionable haste of our departure, turning over, instantly, total control of that nation, the death of our whole package of modernization efforts will be rapid rather than prolonged, or even moderated.
Twenty-years of extreme sacrifice, primarily human, of course (too many of our courageous military members killed or injured), but also mega-millions or more in American funding, both of which were invested to hopefully have built a stable, peaceful society, now all likelihood, lost forever. Including, it appears from reports, a huge amount of military equipment and ammunition(!) now in the hands of at least one enemy, the Taliban, and perhaps to be passed along to who knows how many other enemies of the free world’s sane people. There is no rational reason why, knowing we had supposedly committed to leaving in what should have been planned, calculated, sequential steps, that we could not have evacuated most of not all of that valuable equipment.
And speaking of colossal, damaging foul-ups: Bagram Air Base. By failing to protect and hold this major U.S. military airfield, ours exclusively for the better part of twenty-years, we gave up a vital facility for evacuating both our equipment and our personnel. We, due to our own government carelessness, were then left with only the civilian airfield in Kabul. And you all saw what a tragic cluster that turned into, both for our own U.S. diplomatic and other American personnel, and for the mobs of understandably frightened Afghan citizens who rightly feared their bleak future under Taliban dictatorship, with its fully anticipated loss of civilian life and well-being.
Then there’s the issue of saving the brave and vital Afghan interpreters and others who chose to assist the U.S. troops during those two largely combat decades. Reportedly, a couple of thousand (unverified), or hopefully more, were flown out by commercial or American military aircraft before the fall of Kabul, but apparently there may be tens of thousands of others still hoping to get themselves and their families to safety, either in America or some other welcoming, allied country. News reports had nine additional C-17 Air Force transports arriving at the Kabul airfield last night (8-16/17-21), which hopefully can begin chipping away at the backlog of America’s friends there, now very much in danger of execution. It’s likely going to take a continuing large number of transports, military and commercial, to get all of those friends of America out, for as long as the U.S. military perimeter around that airfield holds. With 6,000 U.S. troops now in the Kabul area, we should be able to keep attacks and other medieval-militant stupidity to a manageable level.
And speaking of danger for U.S. citizens, friendly-to-America Afghans, and all other Afghan citizens as well, there is no central, controlling Taliban leadership now in place. Regardless of a supreme leader who shows up in news video, there is NO national discipline or control over Taliban “soldiers” and aligned-thugs spread all throughout Afghanistan. That means individual Taliban types operating in cities, villages, and beyond, are free-lancers. With the national government no longer in place, what these unsavory types say, decide, and do is, for now at least, beyond anyone’s control. Meaning that if they choose to go house-to-house searching for American sympathizers to slaughter or take women (young and old) for “wives” (that usually really means sex-slaves), they can do what they please. Until some form of national Taliban policy is established and enforced, if it ever can be (doubtful), these wandering Taliban members exist as sole judge and jury. And they do seem to enjoy torturing and killing people they can’t tolerate, whether due to ancient Islamic code or desire of the moment.
That brings us to Afghan women and daughters. Under U.S. patronage, dictate, and assistance, Afghan girls have enjoyed the privilege, for them, of going to school, and becoming more like equal citizens, something previously rare there, and which Americans back home take for granted. From those who’ve witnessed their treatment while serving there, daughters are considered second-class beings to sons. And treated as such. Heart breaking for those Westerners who have observed that practice within families. While you can’t change centuries of teaching and practice, our presence there, during these last two decades, has ushered in a new world of possibilities for girls and women, with the latter able to take on positions in business, education (teachers), and even in politics.
Previously unheard of for women to be in any position of power or leadership. And all of that is now likely, sooner or later, to evaporate, once the friendly, “peaceful” faces of the Taliban are no longer showcased on the nightly news. As the real Taliban, and/or other militant Islamic gangs, exert full control, women in positions of authority, or just plan visible women in society, will be at risk of torture, confinement, or slaughter. That culture simply will not allow otherwise, now that the American protectors have left, in haste. You may have seen the sad report of an Afghan woman who is currently serving as the mayor of a small Afghan town. She knows that the Taliban will be coming to find and kill her. As she said in the news report, she can apparently do nothing but wait for her certain death. One would hope that American military members, or other U.S. operators, might be able to locate and save her before the inevitable arrives.
And there you have it. A catastrophe at our southern border, a possible (likely?) pending economic travesty with politically-crazed wasteful, excessive, purposely mischaracterized spending bills surging through Congress, and now the sudden complete loss of a nation we had invested in so heavily to try to provide a better, less violent life for the citizens of Afghanistan, for the first time in that nation’s history. In the absence of sufficient U.S. troops, following our draw-down earlier this year, with ample American military equipment given to them, why didn’t the Afghan security forces prevent or at least slow the take-over and resulting chaos? Because they didn’t try. They didn’t fight back. When challenged, without our back-up support, they simply did not have the will to fight. They gave up. Different centuries-old culture (family first, tribe second, nation last), and values (treatment of women, some say, treated little better than animals, attitude-wise).
There is no question, the blame for the final fall of Afghanistan, and it’s return to the middle-ages, or worse, rests with the intelligence, planning, observational, and military retention/positioning failures of this Administration. It wasn’t President Trump’s fault, the leader who established security through strength; the leader with a backbone, and the person that our enemies knew he meant what he said. The fault lies with our current national civilian leadership (reportedly, top military warned our civilian leaders the inevitable danger of pulling out that quickly with too little planning; and now we’ve had to send 6,000 troops back in to face and deal with a needlessly volatile situation).
New York Post writer, Miranda Devine, in her follow-up article that spoke of “a defeat that will echo for eternity,” wrote: “The humiliating scenes of Americans evacuating from Kabul’s airport were avoidable, as is the specter of American weapons and ammunition in the hands of our enemies. This lawless, feckless administration has wrecked untold damage at warp speed in seven months. These aren’t mistakes that you can bounce back from. They will have ramification well into the future.” Former National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster echoed Devine’s overall thoughts, when he stated: “It’s heartbreaking, it’s frustrating, I think it’s wholly unnecessary. This all (resulting from) our precipitous withdrawal. And I think just the utter lack of planning for what we knew would be a humanitarian catastrophe of colossal scale.”
Beyond the huge upcoming, on-going, and potentially unnecessary humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, as the well-being and very lives of its citizens (in too many cases) remain very much in question, with inevitable future negative news reports from there that none of us want to see and hear. Through careless, leftist political desire for expediency in leaving that country completely to the ruthless hands of the dark-ages Taliban, without adequately weighing the human consequences, we have not only turned a Middle Eastern nation back twenty-years, but more likely many centuries. Note also the reported interest that China, Russia, and likely Iran now have in working with the newly-in-control Taliban. This, too, is far from good news for America’s security, protection, and future.
And along with the societal negativity in Afghanistan, we have now opened that country, under Taliban guidance, to becoming an on-going, festering source of terrorist groups and activities, potentially impacting not only America with subsequent attacks, but also our European allies. Important to note here, that with the outrageously open southern border, the welcome mat is out, not only to ordinary migrants, but to criminals, drugs, and in this context, terrorists, now able to sneak into our country undetected, due solely to the destructive political policies of the current Administration, now under the directing and damaging illusionary-spell of Socialist-Marxists, who demonstrate, daily, their distain and hate, rather than love, respect, and devotion, for our United States of America. May Almighty God continue to be with us as we work our way through, and ultimately free from, their destructive-to-America acts.
(“Echo for Eternity” quotes via nypost.com, Miranda Devine, 8-15-21; H.R. McMaster quote via foxnews.com, Staff, 8-17-21).