Afghanistan

At just short of 20 years, the now-ending U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan was America’s longest war. Ordinary Americans tended to forget about it, and it received measurably less oversight from Congress than the Vietnam War did. But its death toll is in the many tens of thousands. And because the U.S. borrowed most of the money to pay for it, generations of Americans will be burdened by the cost of paying it off.

As the Taliban in a lightning offensive recapture much of the country before the United States’ Aug. 31 deadline for ending its combat role, and the U.S. speeds up American and Afghan evacuations, here’s a look at the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, by the numbers.

Amputations, stonings and executions of criminals could return in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover, the organisation has admitted.

As its fighters prepared to assume power in Kabul, the militant Islamist group insisted it would protect the rights of women, the media and diplomats.

But, asked about violent punishment of offenders – a hallmark of brutal Taliban rule in the 1990s – a spokesman said: “That is up to the religious followers and the courts. They will decide about the punishment.”

Adverts of women wearing wedding dresses appear to have been painted over in Kabul after Taliban fighters entered the Afghanistan capital.

A man can be seen using a roller and white paint to cover up the large images outside a building in a photograph posted on Twitter by an Afghan journalist on Sunday.

The adverts appear to be outside Taj Beauty Salon, which describes itself as “the best bridal beauty salon in Afghanistan”.

I trust gas station Sushi more… https://t.co/0gj7UE1Y3o

— Fancypants Maloney (@fancypants_s) August 15, 2021

KABUL, Aug 15 (Reuters) – Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani has left the capital Kabul for Tajikistan, a senior Afghan Interior Ministry official said on Sunday.

Asked for comment, the president’s office said it “cannot say anything about Ashraf Ghani’s movement for security reasons”.

A representative of the Taliban, which entered the capital Kabul earlier on Sunday, said the group was checking on Ghani’s whereabouts.

KABUL, Aug 15 (Reuters) – Taliban insurgents entered Afghanistan’s capital Kabul on Sunday as the United States evacuated diplomats from its embassy by helicopter and a government minister said power would be handed over to an interim administration.

The developments capped a lightning advance by the Islamist militants, who were ousted from Kabul 20 years ago by U.S.-led forces after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

A senior Afghan interior ministry official told Reuters the Taliban were coming “from all sides” into the capital but gave no further details. There were no reports of fighting.

Taliban enter Kabul, await ‘peaceful transfer’ of power

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban fighters entered Kabul on Sunday and sought the unconditional surrender of the central government, officials said, as Afghans and foreigners alike raced for the exit, signaling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking Afghanistan.

The beleaguered central government, meanwhile, hoped for an interim administration, but increasingly had few cards to play. Civilians fearing that the Taliban could reimpose the kind of brutal rule that all but eliminated women’s rights rushed to leave the country, lining up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings.

The United States spent more than $88 billion to train and equip Afghanistan’s army and police, nearly two-thirds of all of its foreign aid to the country since 2002. So why are they crumbling in the face of the Taliban onslaught?

The breathtaking failure to mold a cohesive and independent Afghan fighting force can be traced to years of overly optimistic assessments from U.S. officials that obscured — and in some cases, purposely hid — evidence of deep-rooted corruption, low morale, and even “ghost soldiers and police” who existed merely on the payrolls of the Afghan Defense and Interior Ministries, according to current and former officials directly involved in the training effort.

h/t PK

The end for Afghan forces in the south-western provincial capital of Zaranj, a trading hub close to the Iranian border, was announced by a Taliban commander. Except that he framed it as a start, and an ominous one.

“This is the beginning,” he declared in a statement. “See how other provinces fall in our hands very soon.”

The capital of Nimroz province, Zaranj was captured on 6 August, the first major city to fall to a Taliban assault in years.

Seven-hundred seventy-eight billion dollars spent. Twenty years of warfare. 3,000 American lives lost. And Afghanistan looks like it’s going to collapse by the day Joe Biden pulls out on 9/11. The Taliban has done an ISIS-like blitzkreig-style takeover of the country in the last month and they’re dancing with glee in government offices of the provincial capitals they’ve taken over. As Joe Biden pleads with the barbarians not to attack the embassy, they’d get a kick out of setting fire to the soon-to-be undefended U.S. embassy in the capital on that grimly symbolic day.

This is far from Joe Biden’s only idiocy on the Afghan pullout front.

Everything he’s done in recent days has been a colossal mistake.

On Wednesday Axios reported that “the Taliban has stunned even some seasoned military and national security officials in the U.S. government with the speed of its conquests over the past week.”

This admission that much of the D.C. national security establishment was clueless to the rapid rise of Taliban rule and swift fall of the Afghan government is not surprising. They are at fault for promoting an unattainable outcome in Afghanistan for almost two decades, and are suddenly “stunned” when faced with the reality that has existed in Afghanistan all along.

… The Afghan army and police has a troubled history of high casualties, desertions and corruption – with some unscrupulous commanders claiming the salaries of troops who simply didn’t exist – so called “ghost soldiers”.

In its latest report to the US Congress, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR) expressed “serious concerns about the corrosive effects of corruption… and the questionable accuracy of data on the actual strength of the force”.

Jack Watling, of the Royal United Services Institute, says even the Afghan army has never been sure of how many troops it actually has.

If you like neat lines, tidiness and admire symmetry, what’s not to like about the decision of Joe Biden to pull American combat troops out of Afghanistan by 11 September 2021 – exactly 20 years on from 9/11?

In modern day America it often feels that all roads lead back to 9/11; the single most defining – and scarring – event since Pearl Harbor: the surprise attack by the Japanese on America’s Pacific fleet, which would ultimately bring America into World War Two.

Little to nothing was accomplished after 20 years and the cost was just too high. Too many lives lost.

It’s ugly but getting out is the right thing to do.

If another attack originates from there or elsewhere bomb them into the stone age, forget about nation building.

Canada sending forces to close Afghan embassy: official

TORONTO — Canadian special forces will deploy to Afghanistan where Canadian embassy staff in Kabul will be evacuated before closing, a source familiar with the plan told The Associated Press.

The official, who was not authorized to talk publicly about the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity, did not say how many special forces would be sent.

Taliban sweep across Afghanistan’s south; take 4 more cities

The Taliban completed their sweep of Afghanistan’s south on Friday as they took four more provincial capitals in a lightning offensive that is gradually encircling Kabul, just weeks before the U.S. is set to officially end its two-decade war.

The latest significant blow was the loss of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, where American, British and allied NATO forces fought some of the bloodiest battles in the past 20 years. Hundreds of foreign troops were killed in the province, which is also a major opium hub.