The Islamic militant group, Taliban recaptures Afghanistan after the US Forces ousted them 20 years ago brringing an end to two decade of war between the US Forces and the insurgents. The US spent trillions of dollars training and equipping Afghan Army, but they fell to the Taliban without any resistance.
The Taliban started to escalate its offensive attacks Afghanistan in 2020, after the Trump administration committed to a full withdrawal of U.S. troops by May 1, 2021. Their efforts accelerated after President Biden announced earlier this year that he was delaying the deadline to August 31st. The Taliban had been expanding its control of Afghanistan ever since, culminating the past week’s furious offensive attack that saw the militant group seize every major power center in the nation with little resistance.
Meanwhile, President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani fled the nation on Sunday, August 15, as Taliban insurgents entered the capital city of Kabul, marking the collapse of the government the U.S. spent the past 20 years attempting to remake. As the Taliban moved into Kabul, officials said they expect a complete transfer of power.
The collapse of the Afghan government comes after a week in which the Taliban escalated its months-long offensive attack across the nation, seizing several key provinces, districts, and cities in rapid succession, and forcing thousands of civilians to flee.
The Taliban held outside Kabul early on Sunday, saying they wanted a “peaceful transfer,” before armed insurgents moved into the city. Helicopters hovered over Kabul all morning, waiting to remove personnel from the U.S. embassy. The Afghan citizens who had packed into the capital city as the Taliban swept through the rest of the nation, didn’t have the luxury of an aerial evacuation.
Biden, however, stood by the decision to remove troops from the nation as the Taliban forced the Afghan government to its breaking point. On Tuesday, he put the onus on the Afghan forces to ward off the Taliban insurgents and preserve the nation’s government. “We spent over $1 trillion over 20 years,” the president said during a news conference.
“We trained and equipped with modern equipment over 300,000 Afghan forces, and Afghan leaders have to come together. We lost thousands, we lost to death and injury, thousands of American personnel. They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation.”
President Joe Biden
However, the situation stands to get worse once the Taliban assumes control, with many fearing a return to the Islamic extremism that characterized the country years before the U.S. ousted the group from the nation after 9/11. Meanwhile, women are especially vulnerable.
It can be recalled that when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, women were forbidden from receiving an education, prohibited from working, deprived of health care, and not allowed to leave their homes without a male to escort them.
Meanwhile, the 20-year war in Afghanistan is the longest in American history. It is estimated to have cost over $2 trillion while resulting in the death of over 240,000 people, including more than 2,400 U.S. service members, according to a study by the Costs of War Project.
The U.S. committed so many resources into strengthening Afghanistan’s government and military precisely so it could sustain itself in the face of aggression from insurgents. However, the Taliban toppling the Afghan government and seizing power before the U.S. could even finish withdrawing from the region cements the war in Afghanistan as one of the most catastrophic failures in the history of U.S. foreign policy.
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