After the American report, how did the chaotic Western withdrawal lead to a disaster in Afghanistan?
The fall of Kabul in August 2021 was accompanied by a chaotic evacuation of US and British troops, foreign nationals and limited numbers of Afghan civilians, bringing an end to twenty years of Western fighting and state-building intervention in Afghanistan that began after the September 11, 2011 attack.
It was also the most blatant reflection and insult to American and British foreign policy in recent memory, and it is extraordinary that almost two years later, no one in either government has taken responsibility for this fiasco.
AMERICAN REPORT
The British Observer newspaper reported that a report on the Afghan collapse, published by the administration of US President Joe Biden last week, perpetuates this blatant refusal to accept the fall of ministers, senior officials and intelligence chiefs on both sides of the Atlantic while in office.
At least President Joe Biden and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken were already in their offices as the crisis unfolded, while Boris Johnson, then secretary of state Dominic Raab, minister of Afghanistan Tariq Ahmed, and State Department Permanent Secretary Philip Barton went on vacation, she said.
It added that the US report amounted to a schoolboy’s apology for failing to perform his homework, defensive, self-justifying, unapologetic, and even self-congratulatory duty. It is quite clear that what the report calls the “intelligence and military consensus” of early 2021 that the Afghan army and security forces “would be able to fight effectively to defend their country and their capital Kabul” after the Allies’ withdrawal was hopeless, foreseeable.
A Catastrophic Decision
According to the paper, it is also clear that despite “a deliberate, intense, rigorous, and comprehensive decision-making process,” Biden’s pressure to proceed with Donald Trump’s withdrawal was hasty, wrong, and led to a disaster: American forces laid down their lives in a suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai Airport at the monastery gate, and countless Afghans killed when Taliban insurgents came close to killing; they are still dying.
The United States says it has learned the lessons, and future evacuations will take place earlier: The killing of 10 civilians in a drone strike after the airport bombing was a “tragic mistake” caused by a “dynamic, high-risk threat environment,” and reiterates Biden’s view that the United States has done well in “implementing the largest noncombatant airlift in its history.”
Blaming Trump
The British newspaper explained that for some, the report seems like a partisan attempt to blame Trump, when Republicans investigate Biden’s actions, while it serves self-interest politically, distortion of Trump is fully justified.
