The Taliban are Afghans. And Trump set the stage for their return.
One thing we need to remember is that the Taliban are Afghans. Most media coverage I’ve seen paints them as some sort of invading force. The Taliban ran the country from 1996 through 2001. For the past 20 years, they’ve been hanging around in rural areas, fighting and killing Americans, allied forces, and especially their Afghan brethren, acting like local tough guys around the edges of the American footprint. And they’ve received help from all kinds of bad actors in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Their leader, Abdul Ghani Baradar, was arrested in 2010 and imprisoned in Pakistan. Baradar was released in 2018 because the Trump administration thought he might come in handy for negotiating a peace agreement. He’s back in Afghanistan now, having spent the past few years in Qatar. And the Taliban have the country.
Another thing to remember is that the Afghan government we’ve been helping, and the military we’ve been supporting for 20 years, couldn’t have held the country last year if we pulled out. They couldn’t have held the country next year if we pulled out. They couldn’t have held the country 10 years ago or 10 years from now.
Trump recognized the Taliban, officially, last year by signing a withdrawal agreement with Baradar. This jaw-dropping move clearly signaled to the rest of Afghanistan—to its citizens, its government, and its military—just what was in store for them when the Americans pulled out. Trump wanted to pull out before Christmas. Conveniently, he landed on May 1 of this year.
Joe Biden inherited that date, but he wanted out, too, apparently. He pushed Trump’s May 1 date back to August 31. His people told him Afghan was going to fall. Might be a year, maybe two. Might be quicker.
The Afghans have had 20 years to prepare, on both sides. This is a civil war on simmer for two decades. And it’s a mess.
More could have been done to prepare for the evacuation of those who needed out. But Trump’s people made it extremely difficult for our Afghan friends to get the visas they needed to get out (think Stephen Miller, whose black-and-white photo would look right at home in a yearbook of Hitler’s senior staff). So, many of our Afghan friends waited years for visas that never came.
The Afghans have had 20 years to prepare, on both sides. This is a civil war on simmer for two decades. And it’s a mess.
But the truth is, no Afghan is safe who lived under the Afghan government we supported. Hundreds of thousands, even millions, of Afghans who were friendly to us just by being good citizens under that government. And they can’t possibly all get out.
But Biden wanted America out, and he wanted it now. It’s easy to think it could have gone better. But after Trump’s 2020 withdrawal agreement with the Taliban, it’s hard to think exactly how Biden could have done that. Had he waited until next year to put some undefined system into place, the inevitably disastrous withdrawal would have occurred during the height of the midterm election season. Had he waited for two years, he might be facing a Republican majority in Congress and fallout that would affect the 2024 general election.
At this point, I’m just praying the Taliban has changed—that they let out those Afghans who helped us directly. And I’m throwing in some prayers for the millions who are stuck there. Especially the women.
Originally published at http://kcroes.wordpress.com on August 28, 2021.
