Why Withdrawing U.S. Troops from Afghanistan is Historically Bad for the Afghan People

by Matt McEnery and Michael Greenwald

“We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build,”

proclaimed president Joseph R. Biden on July 8th, 2021 [1]. In a speech loaded with “Biden Doctrine” rhetoric, The White House announced the remaining 2,500 American soldiers in Afghanistan will withdraw on August 31st, marking a formal end to the longest military conflict in American history. Biden justified his decision with “America has done enough to empower Afghan police and military to ensure peace and stability of their country.” [2] While the White House proudly touts American military achievements in Afghanistan, namely assassinating Osama Bin Laden and expelling the Taliban, Afghanistan is far from stable.

Without successful peace negotiations under any U.S. Presidential Administration (despite unprecedented efforts and tactics), without proper humanitarian work, and without a democratic and united Afghanistan, Biden is failing to finish what past administrations set out to achieve and instead will leave Afghanistan socially, economically, and politically vulnerable to a Taliban takeover.

“Don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.” -Joe Biden

Afghanistan is surrounded by the Himalayan Hindu Kush mountain range. The region’s hot and unforgiving climate means farmable land is scarce for this agrarian-based country, which creates geographically compact city-states. Modern Afghanistan as we understand it did not unify until 1747. First and foremost, Afghanistan was united under the idea that it would be an Islamic-lead state. This theocratic vision for the country has been challenged by foreign powers since its conception, including the British Royal Army on three occasions. Achieving independence in 1947, Afghanistan had many foreign influences such as the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and India. Along with the infighting of power-hungry terrorist cells, the landlink of Asia was once again vulnerable to foreign influence and invasion. Centuries of violent conquest led to inconsistent leadership and national vision while the everyday Afghani experienced displacement, starvation, and economic ruin. Infamously, Afghanistan is susceptible to exploitation by fringe terrorist organizations like the Taliban.

In 1992, the Taliban capitalized on the infighting of the Mujahideen and seized the capital, Kabul, and garnered control over the entire country of Afghanistan. Overnight, the Taliban became a legitimate totalitarian Theocratic government: The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Only ever officially recognized by the U.A.E, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, Afghanistan became a safe haven for black market trade and international terrorists. Today, Afghanistan is the world’s leading supplier of opium [3]. The huge global demand for opium gives the Taliban the financial ability to arm its soldiers, maintain outposts in conquered territories, and appear legitimate in the eyes of Afghan citizens understandably distrusting of Western influence. Many Afghan people are given jobs harvesting said opium, and in many villages and towns, farming opium is the only work available. This leaves many Afghans financially dependent on the Taliban, adding to the complexity of balancing geopolitical objectives in the Hindu Kush Mountains and defending human rights in the region. The Taliban have proven to the Afghan people that they are a viable contender to lead their country through employment opportunities, but that alone is not sustainable. The United States and the standing democratic government of Afghanistan have been neglectful and at points have amplified Afghan dependence on the Taliban.

U.S. Military Presence

Shortly after 9/11, President George W. Bush issued a passionate, vulnerable call to action to bring the persons responsible for the heinous attacks to justice. The American public and the international spotlight quickly turned towards Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban as the responsible parties. Operation “Enduring Freedom” formally initiated the Afghanistan-American War on October 7, 2001. The efficient Taliban opposition of the Northern Alliance, a combination of local Anti-Taliban militias alongside American, British, Australian, Canadian, and Dutch troops were able to expel the Taliban from Kabul within a calendar year. Throughout 2002 the coalition of forces seized the largest Taliban strongholds and pushed back Taliban and Al-Qaeda leaders into complex cave tunnel systems deep underneath the country. Although the forces failed to finally capture Osama Bin Laden and top Al-Qaeda leaders, Afghanistan fell out of Taliban control and entered a period of American occupation to establish a democratically elected government. While Biden claims in 2021 that America did not enter Afghanistan to nation build, they certainly remained for that reason.

This twenty-year era of American occupation was plagued by internal dissent and externally-backed rebellion. The Taliban quickly resurfaced in Pakistan and began to fight for territory in Afghanistan. The Obama administration campaigned on removing troops, but previously failing to completely expel the Taliban resulted in a necessary escalation of America’s military presence with troop count peaking at 140,000 troops. Afghanistan witnessed regular conflicts and many provinces have stayed closed or restricted since fighting resumed post-2004. Territories frequently changed hands between coalition forces and Bin Laden and Al Qaeda led Mujahideen.

Throughout the war, urban Afghans underwent a period of economic and cultural opportunity under American occupation while rural Afghan were caught in the military crossfire. After another neglectful period of foreign occupation, NATO suspended its combat operations in late 2014. Soon after in 2015, the Taliban carried out a bold attack on the city of Kunduz and an attack on the parliament building in the capitol Kabul. A lame-duck Obama Administration did little to remedy this exodus and in the midst of the 2016 election cycle, many Afghan were once again left to rely on the Taliban as the west and their own government have chosen other priorities.

The Failure of Afghanistan’s Democracy

After forming in 2004, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan would immediately fall back into the cycle of conflict and struggle to maintain a unified nation. This did not lighten the significant need the Afghan army had for NATO forces. The presence and firepower did well to enable humanitarian efforts throughout the country. While maintaining some form of peace, general infrastructure was improved in larger cities and women’s rights were codified into law. For women citizens, education at all levels, ability to own and operate businesses, ability to hold public office, and the right to drive, all became commonplace in Democratic-controlled territories. Afghanistan’s Presidential Elections in the years 2004, 2009, 2014, and 2019 have all since taken place, but most recently the 2014 and 2019 elections have been especially scrutinized. Incumbent Ashraf Ghani has had both election results challenged by political adversary Abdullah Abdullah. With the 2019 election result in contention from Abdullah, a compromise to a power split between the two parties was accepted. This created a huge divide within the top chamber of government where Ghani handled day-to-day runnings of the country and Abdullah relegated to minor foreign policy dealings. Abdullah seized his opportunity under his vague umbrella and took charge of peace talks with the U.S. and the Taliban. This divide did not help unify any vision of Afghanistan, and foreign policy of peace set by Abdullah would conflict with combative measures led by Ghani’s police. Internal strife only worded the likelihood of any diplomatic resolution and ultimately fell to the responsibility of outsiders and Afghan citizens to fight back.

During all the political gamesmanship, citizens across the people of Afghanistan suffered the most. In December of 2012, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported widespread corruption, including extortion of citizens and knowledge of bribing government officials. No action has yet been taken by the Afghan government in response to this report [4]. Government-stationed outposts were forcefully taking tolls for transportation crossings, government officials were openly discussing active bribery, and the opium epidemic worsened. The country’s officials were all too aware of the vulnerability of its people and region and chose to neglect both in order to profit individually.

Trump, the Taliban, and Biden

After NATO exited the Afghanistan conflict, the U.S. led domestic operations and only a handful of English, Canadian, and American troops remained. The Taliban once again capitalized on the exodus of western troops to commensurate attacks. The Trump administration took an unprecedented method of negotiating peace: excluding the Afghan democracy, Taliban and Trump Administration negotiators met in talks for the first time. Spearheading peace talks between a semi-legitimized Taliban and the Afghan Government in 2019, the Trump administration moved to agree on a ceasefire and an end to violence levied by Al-Qaddafi through the Taliban. The Taliban would only agree to cutting ties with Al-Qaddafi if the U.S. agreed to withdraw 14,000 American soldiers within 16 months and to guarantee the Taliban would get an equal seat of power in the Afghanistan government [5]. It must be stressed that the Afghan people nor its democratically elected government had no voice in the negotiations. Predictably, the Trump administration’s approach backfired as violence rose, negotiations ended, and any hope of peace in Afghanistan evaporated.

When Joe Biden won the presidency, rumors about following through on his campaign promise of withdrawing troops immediately started to circulate. Then it happened.

Seemingly overnight, NATO withdrew a majority of their standing forces (over 7,000 coalition soldiers). Two decades of fighting, trillions of dollars, and thousands of deaths resulted in a tail-between-the-legs exit that reeks of unfinished humanitarian and political business. Today the Taliban controls nearly half of the country’s territory and is knocking on the door of the other half [6]. On July 9th, 2021, the Taliban seized a key border crossing and trade route along the Tajikistan and Iranian Border, thus expanding their capabilities and base of operations. As the United States begins to withdraw its military forces, Afghanistan is split between two ruling governments and is about to lose the desperately needed American military support that kept their country stable enough to see out political and economic advancement.

The White House is claiming that the United States needs to protect worldwide interests other than Afghanistan such as Syria and Yemen [7]. But political reasoning aside, military intelligence points to history repeating itself as the Taliban is again aggressively invading contested territories. Biden’s decision to withdraw, in spite of the Taliban’s imminent threat to an already vulnerable Afghanistan’s human rights and geographic stability, suggests that this premature exit from Afghanistan will be likened to the historic failure in Saigon a half-century ago.

The Future of Afghanistan

At stake is not a grandiose idea of “peace in the Middle East and stable modern democracies,” but the actual loss of human rights, and the rebirth of an infamously dangerous terrorist cell. Humanitarian progress has been made under American occupation, but democracy in Afghanistan is fragile. History in the region tends to repeat itself by illustrating that no one group can control it for long. The British post-Afghan unification, the Soviets after them, and even the Taliban themselves cannot maintain a stranglehold on such a multi-national and politically diverse people without using force.

According to Brown University, the two-decade-long conflict resulted in the loss of 240,000 lives [8], including 71,000 Afghan and Pakistani civilians and 2,448 American Military and Department of Defense personnel [9].

Where history remembers American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as needlessly interventionist and a continuation of the ever-evolving Military Industrial Complex, the fact remains that the 20-year war waged between the United States and the Taliban has yet to reach a peaceful or diplomatic conclusion, and Afghan people will continue to suffer. The United States Government nor the Republic of Afghanistan have done nearly enough to instill peace in the region and on August 31st, half of the said coalition will turn its back on the people that it once started a war for. This leaves the Afghan, just like all members of marginalized societies, to seek alternative forms of income and employment: the exact moment the Taliban were preparing for.

Endnotes:

1. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/07/08/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-drawdown-of-u-s-forces-in-afghanistan/
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/08/us/politics/biden-afghanistan-withdrawal.html
3. By 2002, Afghanistan became the world leader in opium cultivation, soaring to over 70% of the world’s total supply. According to the Economist that number in 2018 has shot up to new heights reaching above 90%, estimating that of the 10,500 metric tons of opium cultivated per year, 9,000 of them come from Afghanistan. https://www.unodc.org/pdf/publications/afg_opium_economy_www.pdf
4. https://www.unodc.org/documents/frontpage/Corruption_in_Afghanistan_FINAL.pdf
5. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/08/world/asia/afghanistan-trump-camp-david-taliban.html
6. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/07/10/americas-longest-war-is-ending-in-crushing-defeat
7. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/biden-us-troop-withdrawal-afghanistan/2021/04/13/918c3cae-9beb-11eb-8a83-3bc1fa69c2e8_story.html
8. https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan#:~:text=About%20241%2C000%20people%20have%20been,those%20killed%20have%20been%20civilians.
9. https://www.defense.gov/casualty.pdf