Friday, August 13, 2021

The entire occupation of Afghanistan was an utter failure

I don't understand why the Afghan governments speedy collapse as soon as U.S. forces aren't there to prop them up is not broadly seen as an indictment of U.S. policy in Afghanistan since early 2002. Ever since the U.S. occupation began, Americans were supposedly "training" Afghan forces. That training mission has gone on for 19 years, longer than some of the current soldiers have been alive! If that isn't long enough to make them capable of defending themselves, then training was never the issue.

If anything the two-decades long occupation of Afghanistan seems to have made the Taliban stronger. In early 2001, the Taliban could not conquer northern Afghanistan because outside of the Pashtun-majority areas, they met stiff resistance from the Northern Alliance. But after the NA was incorporated into the U.S.-backed Afghan national army, the Taliban are now viewed as the only force that was resisting foreign occupation of Afghanistan, they could easily take non-Pashtun provinces with minimal local resistance. American presence may have inadvertently weakened the local forces that were opposed to the Taliban.

Make no mistake, what is and soon will happen in Afghanistan is horrible for the Afghan people. But the horror is because of decades of failed U.S. policy in that country. It's silly to blame it all of Biden's decision to pull the plug on that ongoing debacle.