What remains as US ends Afghan ‘forever war’
AFTER 20 years, America is ending its “forever war”in Afghanistan. ANNOUNCING A firm withdrawal deadline, President Joe Biden cut through the long debate, even within the US military, over whether the time was right. Starting Saturday, the last remaining 2,500 to 3,500 American troops will begin leaving, to be fully out by September 11, at the latest.
Another debate will likely go on far longer: Was it worth it? Since 2001, tens of thousands of Afghans and 2,442 American soldiers have been killed, millions of Afghans driven from their homes, and billions of dollars spent on war and reconstruction. As the departure begins, The Associated Press takes a look at the mission and what it accomplished.
In the early days after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the US, the mission seemed clear: Hunt down and punish the perpetrators.
The US determined that al-Qaida and its leader, Osama bin Laden, had plotted the attack from the safety of Afghanistan, protected by its radical Taliban rulers. At the time, the Taliban were a pariah government, under UN sanctions and vilified in the West for their rule by a harsh interpretation of Islamic law.
Until 9/11, the US had watched Afghanistan from a distance, occasionally requesting the Taliban to hand over bin Laden and, once in 1998, firing a couple of cruise missiles at an al-Qaida base in eastern Afghanistan.
Now America was leading an invasion, dubbed Operation Enduring Freedom, with the mission of removing the Taliban and destroying al-Qaida.
ONLY ALLIES IN AFGHANISTAN
Washington turned to the only allies in Afghanistan it could – a collection of warlords, most of whom were former mujahedeen backed by the US in the 1980s in the fight against the invading Soviet Union. Rallying around the US after 9/11, NATO joined the coalition.
Within weeks of the invasion and aerial bombardment, the US-led coalition had pounded the Taliban into submission and driven them from power. Its leadership fled, its fighters lost control of the entire nation. Al-Qaida as well fled underground, crossing into neighbouring Pakistan.
The hunt for bin Laden took 10 years. Finally, he was tracked to his hideout in Pakistan, barely 60 miles from Islamabad. A US Navy Seals team went in under cover of darkness and killed him.
But, in the interceding decade, America and NATO had been dragged into a dramatically expanded mission. Then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at first said America was not in Afghanistan to nation-build. That would change.
When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, it took its eye off Afghanistan. It left it to the former warlords, pre-occupied with wealth and power. The first post-Taliban president, Hamid Karzai, raised the idea of talks with the Taliban to work out a peace, and the crushed militants put out signals they wanted to reach an accommodation.
But American officials blocked any negotiations with the Taliban, convinced the insurgents could be militarily destroyed.