INDEPENDENT by Sean O'Grady 8/16/2021
The consequences of America’s betrayal and weakness will be no less grievous than after their defeat in Vietnam
It’s over. The great betrayal is complete. Great betrayals, in fact. The most painful to watch – and it has barely begun – is the betrayal of the Afghan people and the torture and persecution about to be visited upon them from their own government. The subjugation of women and girls is already a fact and only the start of the horrors.
Not only that, but the complex rivalries of tribes and near states (Pakistan, Russia and Iran), Islamic State, al-Qaeda and the rest will mean unfathomable civil unrest between shifting alliances for years to come. The Taliban’s main source of revenues will be extortion, narcotics and, very possibly, extraction of funds from those desperate to flee abroad. Afghanistan is a failed state, possibly soon the most failed state in the world.
We know well who is to blame – America. For years successive administrations, even including that of George W Bush, signalled that they had little interest in “nation-building”, and they couldn’t wait to get the hell out. The resolve of the American people weakened with every day that passed from the atrocities of 9/11. Memories of why they were in Afghanistan faded; the UN-backed conflict in Afghanistan was mixed up (or deliberately conflated) with the illegal war in Iraq; the Obama and Trump administrations’ commitment to the country grew progressively weaker, until Joe Biden’s blunder completed the betrayal of Afghanistan.
More:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/taliban-kabul-war-terror-us-retreat-b1903180.html
