With the deadline to complete withdrawal on August 31, the evacuation brought about 112,000 people in its first two weeks. The 5,400 evacuated U.S. citizens leaves about 350 U.S. citizens still trying to leave the country as of yesterday although some of them may have gotten out. Another 280 wish to stay or haven’t told the State Department their intentions. The U.S. has begun its withdrawal from the airport in Kabul but will continue its operation there “up until the end,” according to Army Maj. Gen. William Taylor. The U.S. destroyed Eagle Base, the last CIA outpost outside the airport, to keep equipment and information from the Taliban.
The U.S. occupied Afghanistan for almost 20 years, compared to the 14 years of the Vietnam conflict. The evacuation from that conflict, 7,500 people, brought out only 1,500 U.S. citizens. Thursday, a suicide bomber from ISIS-K, a terrorist group and enemy of the Taliban, killed 13 U.S. service members, wounded 15 others, and killed approximately 170 others. After the bombing, evacuations continued. President Joe Biden had previously warned the public of attack threats and said there may be more before the evaluation deadline on August 31.
U.S. military troops conducted an unstaffed airstrike against an ISIS-K planner and may have killed two “high-profile ISIS targets.” Another was wounded. Biden said this airstrike will not be the last and promised to “hunt down” this group that took credit for the attack outside the airport entrance. by one suicide bomber. The Taliban said it arrested two ISIS-K members but didn’t give details.
On the same day of the attack killing almost 200 people, US Marine Corps Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller posted a video on his Facebook page criticizing the handling of the situation. He has been relieved of command. With no solutions, Republicans—politicians, media pundits, letter-writers, etc.—have criticized Biden for the withdrawal. Last week, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said Afghanistan should have no troops; a few days earlier he wanted to keep a military presence and Bagram Air Base. With no evidence, McCarthy claimed the U.S. could have “maintained it safely” with no casualties. McCarthy also lied when he blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for trying to defund the attempt to get more U.S. citizens out of Afghanistan.
The hawks who started the war and those who continued it returned to cable TV, complaining about the withdrawal before the U.S. “won” the war. Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s aide called the withdrawal Biden’s “stain.” John Bolton, who wants regime change around the world, called DDT and Biden “Tweedledee and Tweedledum” in their approaches. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), daughter of Afghanistan architect former VP Dick Cheney, said “the catastrophe … did not have to happen.” Neither she nor her ABC interviewer mentioned her father or his part in the “catastrophe.”
DDT’s officials who offered no objections to DDT’s agreement are now bitterly complaining about it. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who negotiated and attended the agreement signing, said this “debacle … will certainly harm America’s credibility with its friends and allies.” Pompeo turned 5,000 Taliban fighters loose from prison, and now he complains about how they “run free and wild.” DDT’s former national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who quit a year before DDT’s idea of befriending the Taliban, said about his “surrender agreement,” “The Taliban didn’t defeat us. We defeated ourselves.”
According to DDT’s deal, signed on February 29, 2020, the U.S. and NATO were to release 5,000 Taliban fighters from prison, reduce military members from 14,000 to 8,600 within 100 days, and leave five military bases. The remainder of the troops would be gone within the next nine months. A U.S. inspector general report summarized DDT’s deal:
“The Taliban views the negotiations as a necessary step to ensure the removal of U.S. and other foreign troops under the U.S.-Taliban agreement, but the Taliban likely does not perceive that it has any obligation to make substantive concessions or compromises.”
Ironically, the same Republicans who whine about how Biden has failed to get refugees out of Afghanistan then scream about not wanting any of them in the U.S. Tucker Carlson leads the pack in claiming Democrats want these “criminals” in the U.S. to vote for their party.
DDT made a campaign promise to take the U.S. out of Afghanistan and started withdrawing thousands of troops. His defense secretary Mark Esper was fired after he disagreed with DDT’s actions. Esper now says that DDT’s withdrawals at that time contributed to current problems in Afghanistan. Despite his promises, DDT lost the election, but by the time Biden was inaugurated, only 3,500 service members remained in Afghanistan. With no leverage, Biden decided to pull the rest of the troops from the country. He said his choice was to follow the deal with a short extension of time and get U.S. forces and allies out safely or replace the troops to continue the participation “in another country’s civil conflict.” The Taliban has not attacked the U.S. during Biden’s withdrawal.
Former Secretary of State and senator Hillary Clinton has paid to charter airplanes, rescuing Afghanistan’s vulnerable women and children. In contrast, wealthy mercenary Erik Prince, brother of DDT’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, is charging $6,500 for flights out of Afghanistan—per person. He charges extra to get them from their homes to the airport.
Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) keeps delivering his opinions even without wide-spread social media. A few days before the anniversary of the 9/11 attack that George W. Bush used to make himself important, DDT, who declared he defeated “100%” of ISIS, said on the far-right Hugh Hewitt radio program:
“We took out the founder of ISIS, [Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi, and then of course [Iranian military leader Qassem] Soleimani. Now just so you understand, Soleimani is bigger by many, many times than Osama bin Laden. The founder of ISIS is bigger by many, many times—al-Baghdadi—than Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden had one hit…”
DDT went on to say that bin Laden wasn’t a “monster.” Bess Levin pointed out bin Laden’s links to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings killing over 200 people and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole killing 17 U.S. Navy sailors. The “one hit” on 9/11 immediately killed 2,996 people.
Levin also explains how a difficulty in the evacuation came from DDT’s top advisor, Stephen Miller, who slowed down processing of Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) for Afghan interpreters, embassy staff, and other top targets for Taliban assassination. With Miller, DDT refused to follow congressional mandates for time limits and a senior coordinating official for the SIVs along with DDT’s requirement of the “human resources” employer letter. Miller now says no Afghan refugees should enter the U.S. DDT’s agreement with the Taliban also has no method of enforcement, no denunciation of al-Qaeda terrorists, and no demand for the Taliban to stop attacks against Afghan security forces.
The U.S. could have left Afghanistan almost 20 years ago if George W. Bush had taken the unconditional surrender offer from the Taliban. On December 5, 2001, they said they would disband and disarm with no military force. Bush ignored their offer and attacked the Taliban throughout his two terms. Within ten days of taking office on January 20, 2001, Bush also formalized a decision to preemptively invade Iraq—months before 9/11. The goal was access to Iraqi oil and a pipeline right-of-way through Afghanistan for the Unocal Corporation.
Bush ignored another offer from the Taliban in late 2000 to assassinate or surrender Osama bin Laden after the bombing of the USS Cole. The Bush administration refused the offer four times before 9/11 and a fifth time on 9/16. George W. wanted his “war on terrorism” for the pipeline. On November 27, 2001, Bush ordered his defense department to plan the Iraqi invasion, eleven months before Congress authorized it.
The U.S. has failed in the Middle East. Oil companies from Egypt, Italy, Japan, France, Austria, the UK, Canada, Hungary, India, Norway, Russia, and China dwarf the few from the U.S. The U.S. has no oil pipeline in Afghanistan, which boils with violence. U.S. journalist Anand Gopal tells the story in his 2014 book, No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes.
The editors of Commonweal wrote about the “unwinnable war”:
“For Americans, it cost thousands of lives and more than $2 trillion. But the toll for Afghans was far worse: there the war meant not only occupation by a foreign power, but also constant political instability, corruption, drone strikes, civilian deaths, starvation, and displacement… Even Afghans who despise the Taliban may care less about who rules in Kabul than whether they can travel to work, plow a field, or attend a wedding without the constant fear of being shot at or bombed. ‘Give me liberty or give me death’ is heroic, but ‘Give them liberty or give them death’ is obscene.”
In mid-August when the Taliban took over Afghanistan and the withdrawal began, almost two-thirds of people in the U.S. believed the conflict was not worth fighting. Even 57 percent of Republicans saw it as not worthwhile. Another two-thirds of respondents stated the Iraq War that coincided with Afghanistan was a mistake. As usual, however, Republicans in Congress ignore their constituents’ opinions. One of the reasons? Making money from defense contractors’ donations and businesses.