US troops exit Afghanistan after nearly two decades

Bloomberg

The US officially ended its military presence in Afghanistan on Tuesday with the final flight out of Kabul, concluding two decades of American involvement touched off by the September 11 terrorist attacks.
“I’m here to announce the completion of our withdrawal from Afghanistan and the end of the military mission to evacuate American citizens, third-country nationals and vulnerable Afghans,” General Kenneth McKenzie, the head of US Central Command, said in the US “The last manned aircraft is now clearing the airspace above Afghanistan.”
America’s longest war ended with a rushed withdrawal of more than 123,000 people since August 14. That followed the Taliban advance to Kabul, and the killing of 13 US service members in a suicide bombing outside the capital city’s airport last week.
Those deaths followed the loss of about 2,400 Americans, even more employees of American contractors and tens of thousands of Afghans, as well as about $1 trillion in US spending since the conflict began. The war has dragged on so long that a huge slice of Afghanistan’s population has lived their entire lives with their nation at war, while the US troops who were killed last week were mostly infants when New York’s Twin Towers were brought down.
President Joe Biden, who set the August 31 departure date, said in a statement that “it was the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs and of all of our commanders on the ground to end our airlift mission as planned. Their view was that ending our military mission was the best way to protect the lives of our troops, and secure the prospects of civilian departures for those who want to leave Afghanistan in the weeks and months ahead.”
Biden, who said he will address the nation on the withdrawal, said the Taliban who now rule Afghanistan have “made commitments on safe passage and the world will hold them to their commitments.”
General McKenzie said some Americans — numbering in the “low 100s” — who wanted to leave were not able to get to the airport in time for the military to transport them. No US citizens were evacuated on the last five flights. Leaving Americans behind is sure to prompt criticism of the Biden administration from lawmakers from both parties.
In remarks, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US is moving its Afghanistan consular work to Doha, Qatar, which had been the site of talks with the Taliban over the last two years. He said US humanitarian assistance to Afghans would continue but any engagement with the Taliban would be motivated solely by US national interests.
“Every step we take will be based not on what the Taliban-led government says but what it does to live up to its commitments,” Blinken said. “The Taliban seeks international legitimacy and support. Our message is any legitimacy and any support will have to be earned.”
Blinken didn’t say how the US and allies — bolstered by a United Nations Security Council resolution approved — would exert pressure on the Taliban. But earlier in the day White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said “we have an enormous amount of leverage, including access to the global marketplace,” suggesting the use of existing and perhaps new economic sanctions against the Taliban if they don’t cooperate.
General McKenzie said an offshoot of IS blamed for the airport bombing last week was working until the final hours of the US presence to launch more attacks. But the top American general for the Middle East said a US retaliatory strike on Sunday against the group, known as ISIS-K, disrupted their plans and will become the Taliban’s problem now.
“I believe the Taliban are going to have their hands full with ISIS-K,” McKenzie said.
With American troops no longer in charge of Kabul’s airport, US and European leaders are demanding that their citizens and Afghans at risk be allowed to leave the country freely, and Taliban leaders have said they will respect the freedom to travel.
But for now the militant group is back in charge. In a conclusion American leaders didn’t envision when special forces troops first arrived in the country in late 2001, Afghanistan will be under Taliban rule when the US marks the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks next month.
Even as the pace of the evacuation and withdrawal picked up in recent weeks, a bipartisan chorus of US lawmakers and allies urged Biden to put off his end-August deadline, saying more time was needed to get American citizens and Afghans who aided the US effort out of the country.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said last week that Biden should “forget about Aug. 31” and send troops out beyond the Kabul airport’s perimeter to ensure more people are evacuated. Democratic Representative Elissa Slotkin of Michigan cited “strong bipartisan support” to extend the deadline.
But Biden wouldn’t budge. His only concession after inheriting President Donald Trump’s 2020 peace deal with the Taliban was to delay the original troop withdrawal from May to August. The president, who opposed sending more forces to Afghanistan when he served as Barack Obama’s vice president, said he couldn’t justify more American deaths and the military force increase that would be needed to stay.
America’s mission was complete after al-Qaeda was routed in the country and its leader, Osama bin Laden, killed in neighbouring Pakistan a decade ago, he argued.
“I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth president,” Biden said in an address to the nation August 16. “I will not mislead the American people by claiming that just a little more time in Afghanistan will make all the difference.”
The departure of foreign forces leaves huge questions remaining for one of the world’s poorest and war-torn countries. The Taliban have entered talks with officials from previous governments as it seeks to consolidate its hold on power and broaden its base of public support. But the group’s access to about $9.5 billion in central bank assets remains frozen by the US, and the World Bank has suspended billions of dollars-worth of projects in the nation.
The longer-term political damage to Biden from the killing of the 13 troops last week, on top of the US failure to anticipate the rapid Taliban victory, remains to be seen. The president and his team had warned the public that terrorists would seek to capitalise on the US departure, and the administration has counted on US weariness with what has come to be known as a “forever war.”
But the deaths of so many troops with just days to go before the withdrawal will be tough for the administration to get past.

US withdrawal leaves Afghanistan in crisis
Bloomberg

The departure of the last US military plane from Afghanistan left the region facing uncertainty, with the Taliban seeking to cement control of a nation shattered by two decades of war and an economy long dependent on foreign aid and opium sales.
The chaos of the American withdrawal following collapse of Ashraf Ghani’s government only underscores the country’s fragility and the daunting challenges that await.
Many in Kabul and most outside the country are skeptical, suspecting a rapid return to the brutality that defined Taliban rule in the late 1990s that some Afghans initially welcomed for bringing order in the wake of a bloody civil war. And with even the Taliban surprised at how quickly they seized power, it’s unclear if the group’s leaders can impose order within their own ranks of young, often poorly-educated fundamentalists.

After evacuating some 120,000 people, the US says it will look to help any Americans who remain in the country. Less certain is the fate of the tens of thousands of Afghans — civil society workers, women and girls, minorities — who may still want to flee but couldn’t make it through the crush of people at Kabul’s airport this month.
The more complicated question is the fate of those Afghans who worked for the US government and military and the country’s US-backed government, as well as people who may be subject to oppression and reprisals by the Taliban — women and girls, ethnic and religious minorities, educators, employees of charities and other non-government organisations and others.
But there’s some incentive for the Taliban to attempt a different approach. Ethnic and religious conflicts have defined politics in Afghanistan, and a viable power-sharing agreement has long eluded the country’s rulers. To avoid yet another civil war, the largely Pashtun leaders in the Taliban will need buy-in from the ethnic Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras that wield regional power.
That task becomes even taller with the Taliban facing terrorist threats of their own from a local offshoot of IS. And in a digital age where mobile phone cameras put atrocities in the full view of the world, a reign of terror could again isolate Afghanistan from the world, destabilising the Taliban government.
“The Taliban will be different from what they were, but whether that’s enough to comfort the international community is another question,” said Carter Malkasian, author of “The American War in Afghanistan: A History.”
“Life will be worse for women,” he said. “Reprisals and such are probably fairly likely.” But, he added, “I don’t think it’s going to be as brutal as it was in the ‘90s.”

Taliban seek friendly US ties
Bloomberg

The Taliban called for friendly ties with the US hours after the last American soldiers flew out of Kabul to end 20 years of war, with the militant group now facing a host of fresh challenges.
“The Islamic Emirate wants a good and diplomatic relationship with the Americans,” Zabihullah Mujahed, the Taliban’s main spokesman, told reporters on Tuesday from the Hamid Karzai International Airport, which was the last place under American control. Key Taliban leaders took a symbolic victory lap, walking across the tarmac to mark their victory.
“We highlight to every occupier that whoever sees Afghanistan with an evil eye will face the same fate as the Americans have faced,” he added. “We’ve never given up to pressure or force, and our nation has always sought freedom.”
“Since the Taliban came, the security looks good so far but the biggest worry and problem for people is the economy and lack of jobs and the markets prices have also increased,” he said by phone from Kabul. “What did the US or its installed government do to Afghanistan? Tell me a good thing about them. Nothing. It was a corrupt government — all its rulers and leaders were made corrupt by the US’s money.”