Thinking minds have raised intelligent questions upon Taliban’s spectacular military success and finally the swift capture of Kabul in a matter of weeks much against predictions by leading world think tanks, military strategists, US State Department, Pentagon, and Joe Biden the US President himself, albeit all part of the same jingle chorus as it turns out in hindsight.
Pakistan all along was the wise discordant and kept emphasizing from President Bush to self-satisfied Joe Biden that there is no military solution to Afghan issue, it has to be resolved by political means and by Afghans themselves. This prudent advice was superciliously ignored under the US military power overload and influence of ringside cheerleaders like India. The result has been catastrophic if not more.
Pakistan was heeded too late and in haste and then the panic struck the US military command and political leadership simultaneously. They pulled out in the middle of the night from their largest garrison in Afghanistan, Bagram Airbase without notice and without informing the local Afghan base commander. This signaled the start of the hasty US retreat and kicked off Taliban advance to capture vast territories almost without a fight from Afghan Army troops in a wide circle around Kabul heartland.
What happened thereafter till the fall of Kabul is history and a testimony to 20 years of aimless US war in Afghanistan that resulted in their defeat in detail at the hands of superbly determined but rag-tag Taliban fighters.
The questions that prompted this write-up mainly pertained to four aspects of this brilliant Taliban victory.First was why were US forces not able to knock out Taliban sanctuaries during twenty years of their ruthless occupation? Followed by how come transition happened ‘without bloodshed and Taliban took over without any resistance’? Where did they manage their funding from and structure it so well to end up in power again? Finally, how will they relate to the world outside and the strategic significance of the country if any? Brainy questions indeed.
Let me explain beginning with a punch line; the US has been defeated in detail in Afghanistan after 20 years of poor generalship, patronizing political pariahs, demographic engineering, and pinion riding with drug mafias. It can be seen that the US defeat was inlaid in the very script that they were following.
The lingering fear is that if they persist in ferrying and keeping more troops in Kabul they might meet a fate like the British Expeditionary Force at the Battle of Gandamak 1842. Besides it makes no military sense while the main US force has withdrawn, a pocket of troops is being placed back again. It looks like the last swagger of the beaten bully’s attempt to prevent public booing before he mounts his tired horse home.
Right now Taliban are showing remarkable military wisdom not to poke the retreating burly grizzly in the ribs, but Afghan patience is like the dry cordite,it can detonate suddenly and madly. One hopes the US commander at Kabul will have the horse sense to forejudge when enough is enough before Afghan fury explodes. The detonating cord has been already lit by the most unfortunate fall to death of three Afghans from a departing US plane over the Kabul airport and shooting down of five more over the tarmac by jittery US troops.
Sadly, the media captured the strange spectacle of pet dogs being taken along and loyal Afghans abandoned and being shot down. Sooner than later this rumbling volcano will erupt like the proverbial gunpowder magazine with unimaginably devastating effects.
Now the question of Taliban sanctuaries in Afghanistan. This is a myth created by incompetent US commanders and their media and think tank megaphones to cover their failure to pin down and destroy Taliban resistance. What they dubbed as sanctuaries were in fact a broad and illusive swath of Afghan population and territory where the Taliban exercised control and thrived after 2010. All US military attacks against this phenomenon hit thin air.
A classic case of guerilla warfare against a superior but lumbering occupation force. Despite their failures to create any effects over the Taliban resistance, US military, and political hubris, and incompetence continued to reinforce their unforgivable error, which became an unfolding strategic blunder of cinematic proportions.
Taliban kept expanding their control over rural Afghanistan and were able to show and convince fellow Afghans that this time they were different, tolerant, and inclusive men. This was vindicated when the Taliban began their present sweep of conquests and seizures of territories from non Pushtoon areas like Juzjan, Quduz, Mazare Sharif, and Heart with the least amount of fight or bloodshed. Notice their political maturity the way they respectfully treated surrendering notables like Ismail Khan and prevented revenge killings and lootings by their foot soldiers.
Most unusual has been their declaration of literally ‘unthinkable’ liberty and sanctity extended to women and declaration of general amnesty before the fall of Kabul. Similarly, they kept the escape hatch open for hirelings like Ashraf Ghani, Amrullah Saleh, Hamdullah Mohib, and other reptiles in order not to have to dispose of them violently like late Najeebullah. That shows this time around they are truly a different class of Taliban which the US made the fatal mistake of reading by the old script.
Just where did the Taliban get their funding from was an interesting question which has been scandalized by the US and Western media and administrations alike to screen their inability to sap the source. Taliban gained control over the territory inside Afghanistan by 2010 and quickly expanded it. This control enabled them to levy taxes especially on the US encouraged poppy cultivation. That brought in hefty revenues whereas expenditures and pilferage were arguably minimal. Then also there is a possibility outside forces and interests might also have helped as the US is not a universal darling in this part of the world and definitely not a great favorite around the Asian dinner table.
The dismal performance of the Afghan Army was the next aspect requiring elucidation. The armed forces that the US raised and trained with their ad nausea refrain ‘after spending billions of dollars’ were treated as rentier troops to help occupation forces. It is morally vulgar and very commercial-minded to measure such undertakings in dollars when comparing effects. As long as the dollar is their Vatican,US will never learn the higher and finer values of conduct of international relations.
This was not a very decent label and Afghan soldiers knew very well the consequences of fighting against their own people when the US had suddenly decamped and Ashraf Ghani’s proxy government was desperately fluttering to escape any time. Regular troops do not fight for money. A very strong motivation, a higher purpose is needed which was utterly missing in the Afghan Armed Forces hence their ignominious meltdown before the Taliban onslaught. Taliban knew this and played it to the hilt.
Finally, the worry was how will they relate to the world around them and with what intrinsic significance? Taliban skillfully juggled the US and other stakeholders on the diplomatic table for years and emerged as the better side. Russian and Chinese envoys will be meeting with Taliban leadership soon and the EU has announced the decision to engage with the Taliban. There has been a flurry of inspired press conferences, TV interviews, and some really sunny policy pronouncements by various Taliban officials within days of taking over.
Their superlative military success and diplomatic, social high pedestal have taken their most crusted critics by complete surprise. They find it very difficult to rewrite their well-known Afghan handbooks or reframe their old forecasts. One is truly amazed at US audacity who fished out another Ashraf Ghani from one of their universities, somebody Mr. Jalali and told the Taliban that he would be the next interim President of Afghanistan. It was rejected out of hand by the Taliban and just as expected .
One would like to quote old sage Toynbee who had said that there were two roundabouts of history in the world. One was Syria and the other Kapisa Kanish(Afghanistan). Every event that affects the world must pass through one of them. The US fought against its own shadows and lost to itself. It was never designed to be her glorious military moment, not in Afghanistan.
