The New York Times editorial on 15 August was all about tragedy in describing the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. ‘Tragic because the American dream of being the “indispensable nation” in shaping a world where the values of civil rights, women’s empowerment and religious tolerance rule proved to be just that: a dream.’
That view, in some form or rather, was repeated among Washington’s allies, many critical about the perceived forfeiture of the Western project. Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the German parliament’s foreign relations committee, assessed the withdrawal by Coalition forces and personnel as a calamity for ‘the political and moral credibility of the West’ and believers ‘in democracy and freedom, especially for women’. Conservative UK parliamentarian Tobias Ellwood considered the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan ‘appalling’. ‘Our exodus allows dictatorship to replace democracy.’
Such views do much to ignore that most important lesson of history: foreign interventions in defiance of local conditions, and missions inspired by civilizational change, tend to fail. Afghanistan provides no better instance of this.
President Joe Biden, for his part, never agreed with the civilizational project. As he explained in his August 16 speech, the invasion of Afghanistan had only one purpose: counterterrorism. It was never, in his mind, a ‘counterinsurgency or nation building’ mission. He also scorned those ‘political leaders’ who had given ‘up and fled the country.’
The US-armed Afghan military of 300,000 strong and ‘incredibly well equipped — a force larger in size than the militaries of many of our NATO allies’ had ‘collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight.’ That very fact convinced him ‘that ending US military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision.’ US troops ‘cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.’
The speech received much criticism. US Representative Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, issued a plea to the administration for ‘swift, decisive action’ lest Afghan civilians ‘suffer or die at the hands of the Taliban.’ Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Seth Moulton lamented the fact that the Coalition occupation had not been prolonged. Democrats and Republicans had ‘failed to hold the votes for re-authorizing this conflict for the last two decades since we invaded to find Osama bin Laden. For that, all of us in Congress should be ashamed.’
While Biden’s comments on the unwillingness of the Afghan National Army to fight stung the nation-building advocates, they highlighted an essential truth. Funding, equipment and training in the absence of conviction and legitimacy is meaningless. Numbering only 75,000 or so, the Taliban takeover could never have been so swift or comprehensive without both conviction and local support. The picture of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani finding exile in the United Arab Emirates, rumoured to have pinched US$169 million from state coffers along the way, said much about the legitimacy of the Kabul administration.
'Funding, equipment and training in the absence of conviction and legitimacy is meaningless. Numbering only 75,000 or so, the Taliban takeover could never have been so swift or comprehensive without both conviction and local support.'
But what was the mission? From Australia’s perspective, it also began as a counter-terrorist exercise. In October 2001, a few days after the departure of the first deployment of special forces, Prime Minister John Howard reiterated the goals of the administration of US President George W. Bush. ‘We should be clear about our aims in this operation. The immediate goal is to seek out and destroy al-Qaeda and ensure that Afghanistan can never again serve as a base from which terrorists can operate.’ There was little by way of indication that state-building would become a priority. ‘In Afghanistan itself, the mission is likely to be pursued through precision, ground operations conducted by small teams of specialised forces.’
Australian special forces left Afghanistan in November 2002, only to be redeployed three years later. The mission duly changed to one of nation building and protecting an incipient, frail democracy. Australian soldiers were to, as Howard stated, protect ‘the democratic embrace by the people of that country’ and frustrate efforts made by the Taliban and ‘elements of al-Qaeda’ to prevent elections from taking place. What followed were 20 rotations comprising 3,000 Australian personnel, accompanied at stages by regular troops of the Reconstruction Task Force primarily located in Uruzgan province.
By the time Prime Minister Tony Abbott visited Afghanistan in October 2013, the mission had morphed into the vague, imprecise nature of an indeterminate guardianship. Australia’s war, he declared, was ‘ending not with victory, not with defeat, but with, we hope, an Afghanistan that’s better for our presence here.’
Forgotten in the desperate, teary condemnations of the withdrawal were the various brutal exploits and actions of the Coalition forces. Nation building came with fair share of destruction. There have been at least 241,000 deaths during the course of the occupation, 71,000 of them civilians. In 2017, the US military eased the rules of engagement for airstrikes in Afghanistan, which saw a massive increase in civilian casualties. The Central Intelligence Agency has maintained its old role funding and arming Afghan militia groups to fight the Taliban, the same groups responsible for grave human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings.
Australia’s own special forces have also played a part in this blood-spattered saga. The ABC’s publication of the leaked Afghan files revealed alleged instances of torture, maiming and executions. The Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force Afghanistan Inquiry last year found that 39 Afghan non-combatants and prisoners were allegedly killed by Australian special forces personnel.
The failure of the state building exercise also accompanied another synoptic delusion: that the Taliban, if they could not be defeated, might be contained with a Western-armed local defence force. In adopting this formula, NATO made the same error that the Soviet Union had done in the 1980s. Then, Moscow hoped to keep a communist regime in Kabul functioning, defended by demoralised troops in the face of the determined mujahedeen.
The critics of the withdrawal are now returning to a few hoary old chestnuts: that the Taliban will either be weak in maintaining order, thereby permitting Afghanistan to become a staging post for global terrorism, or fail to contain rival war lord groups. These points are particularly disingenuous, given previous Western support for such warlords as the notorious ethnic Uzbek Abdul Rashid Dostum and his rival, the Tajik Atta Muhammad Noor, both of whom had previously pledged qualified allegiance to Ghani. They will be rearming and awaiting their next spoiling role, looking for such old sponsors as the CIA.
The theme here is telling, and a tired one. It is one of paternalism. Afghanistan must be protected by outside powers. Afghans, likes squabbling children, should not be permitted to sort out their differences or steer their own nation building exercise. Well may it be for them to have peace, but it can never be one dictated or shaped by the Taliban. Ellwood, in a rare moment of candour, reveals the rationale behind trumpeting about about women’s rights and democracy in the country. ‘Would it not make sense to stay close to the Afghan people given the importance of this bit of global real estate?’ The roots for the next intervention are already growing.
Dr Binoy Kampmark is a former Commonwealth Scholar who lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Main image: The city of Kabul can be seen at sundown from the rear deck of a U.S. Army helicopter (Getty Images)