Afghans face hell as States try to unite

People under 20 have never known a world before the September 11, 2001, attacks and America’s “war on terror”. For them, the United States has always been at war in Afghanistan.

President Joe Biden’s decision to draw a line under US involvement in a country which has historically been a quagmire for foreign invaders has been a long time coming. Donald Trump had eyed May 1 as a date for withdrawal as peace talks continued and the Taliban gobbled territory. The UN says more than 1700 civilians have been killed or wounded in attacks this year, up 23 per cent on the same period last year.

A war originally about revenge and destroying al-Qaeda became a seemingly endless attempt to prop up a government and its military under Taliban siege.

US numbers peaked at 100,000. There were continual reasons to stay. Afghanistan couldn’t become a base again for extremists out to attack the US. The “conditions on the ground” had to be right. Afghan armed forces had to be trained.

But Biden’s withdrawal appears to be primarily about domestic considerations — a Pew Research Centre poll in 2019 showed nearly 60 per cent of American respondents felt the war wasn’t worth fighting. Timing the US pullout for the 20th anniversary of the al-Qaeda terror strike is meant to put a full stop on the militaristic, security-focused past two decades. Biden wants to focus on improving America’s competitiveness and social stability in other ways. That means trying to improve its deeprooted problems to deal with China and Russia from a position of structural strength.

There are other problems. Conflict is also waged with malware, and space is its next frontier with hypersonic weapons. Russia is menacing Ukraine, Chinese warplanes have intruded in Taiwan’s airspace. Myanmar is in a bad way.

In two decades in Afghanistan, 2200 US troops have been killed and 20,000 wounded. It has cost more than US$1 trillion. The deaths of Afghan civilians have been in the tens of thousands.

For Afghanistan, this is a step into the unknown.

The exit could spur the sides towards a deal or herald a vicious scrap between government forces, the Taliban, warlords and Isis. Political and military chaos likely looms and possibly a return to oppressive Taliban rule. Women live under tight restrictions in Taliban-controlled areas. The world may no longer care, but the endless war isn’t going anywhere.