Sunday, August 15, 2021

The Final Reckoning: Afghanistan Was Sold Out By Weak-Kneed Afghan Leaders

Kabul has fallen. The Taliban seized the city without a shot yesterday. A new era has begun for war-torn Afghanistan.

After 20 years of training and billions of dollars in American aid it was obviously a wasted effort, trying to bring democracy to a Muslim country that never wanted it. 

Why did the Afghan government collapse in just one week?

The major error Biden and the Pentagon made was in assuming the Afghan government would stay intact after we left. It wasn't on anyone's radar that the government ministers would desert the country the minute the Taliban attacked.

The Taliban cleverly exploited a weakness in the Afghanistan government that our military wasn't aware of, or chose to ignore.

Corruption. 

Top officials no longer represented the people. The military was full of disgruntled soldiers who hadn't been paid in six months. When the Taliban offered them money to hand over their weapons and allegiance they eagerly complied.

Cities like the government-held Jalalabad surrendered to the militants without a shot. Within hours they ringed Kabul and the government forces simply melted away.

Meanwhile the American embassy has been evacuated. The American flag was taken down and the diplomatic core were ferried to Kabul airport where most have already flown out of the country.

Thus far there's been no engagement between the Taliban and retreating American forces and civilians.

Americans, and their Afghan allies, are still waiting for a flight at the airport. Timelines had to be moved up after the Afghan government's spectacular failure to hold it's ground.

Despite having 300,000 soldiers versus 75,000 Taliban insurgents, it was no contest. High and low government officials decided that after the February 2020 Doha agreement between America and the Taliban, they'd been sold out.

The war was essentially over after that.

The writing was on the wall. The Americans were finally going, and it demoralized the Afghan troops who knew their government was on shaky ground.

Simply put, all the Taliban had to do was buy the loyalty of the disgruntled members of the military and the war was over. It took a year, but the results were dramatically effective.

Why American military experts did not see this coming is a mystery to me. It speaks of poor intelligence and planning. It seems we never understood the Afghan people, and what motivated them.

Without exaggeration, it can be said the country was sold out by it's own administration.

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