President Ashraf Ghani has fled Afghanistan, and his government has effectively collapsed. This marks the end of decades of US-backed governments during the US occupation, and an interim government of sorts is expected to be established.
Ghani, who is headed to Tajikistan, said he decided to leave Afghanistan to avoid further bloodshed. Taliban spokesmen say they don’t intend to carry out revenge attacks, and that they are awaiting a peaceful transition of power.
Afghans are a lot more pessimistic about Ghani’s departure, seeing it as a “disgrace” and abandonment of his responsibilities. His political opponents were quick to dismiss his departure, and said that they don’t expect history to remember him kindly.
There wasn’t much out of Ghani’s allies, because he didn’t have very many. The president was long isolated, and analysts were critical of his efforts to centralize power in his hands, seeing it as a big part of Afghanistan’s rapid collapse.
The latest reports are that Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is being reported as likely president of the new Taliban government, though conflicting reports say former Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali would head a transitional government.
Baradar has been presented as a relatively moderate figure in the Taliban for years, and this likely will make him more palatable than some other hardliners for the world. Baradar also served as a chief negotiator for the Taliban in Doha.
Taliban officials are openly announcing the reestablishment of Afghanistan as an Islamic Emirate and trying to reassure the public about the fate of Kabul.
The US, for its part, has completed the evacuation of the Kabul Embassy, Staff is being taken to the Kabul Airport for flights back to the US. The airport is being closed to commercial flights, and videos show people crowding into the airport trying to flee the country on cargo planes.
This caps about 10 days of serious Taliban military offensives, culminating in a more or less complete takeover of Afghanistan. The situation continues to change rapidly, but the trend is clearly toward the Taliban taking over.
Idiots and incompetents,
And thus ends twenty years of folly. This ending was inevitable.
Not quite inevitable, it could have been much bloodier like the Syrian war. This was the least brutal outcome that could have been hoped for.
So far, reports are good.
And hopefully the Baradar government will suspend till later the “Committee on Public Safety”, and accommodate the non-political, civil service, the professional class, and petit bourgeoisie in order to maintain the absolute basics and have a chance for a future.
On the other hand Cultural Revolution is exactly what the doctor ordered for the US.
Unless it’s Dr. Kavorkian… Or Fauci.
Could have been better to… We could have gotten out on May 1st like we promised.
Then at least it would have been an honorable defeat.
I already covered this travesty a decade ago:
Another Catastrophic Success
With their tails tucked proudly ‘tween their legs
Advancing towards the exit march the dregs
Of empire, whose retreat this question begs:
No promised omelet, just the broken eggs?
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2011
Maybe the best outcome we could hope for. A quick and decision victory by the Taliban minimizes the fighting. The Taliban will quickly have to learn to govern and provide services for the people. My fantasy is that the U.S. will have learned once and for all that we cannot impose our will on others. Insurgents in other regions of the world may be encouraged to up their game against U.S. occupying troops, sending them packing. Maybe, just maybe the U.S. military is coming home at last. The end of the American imperialist empire. Imagine that–we have Bush 45, Cheney, Rumsfeld to taink.
Afghanistan has always been the graveyard of empires.
Assuming Bardar doesn’t get droned, yeah he might be the next Afghan President.
The Afghans should just ditch Western styled elections anyway and govern by popular referendum.
One of the few Western democracies still credible is Switzerland, because they have popular binding referendums on government policy.
Governance is too important to be left to the handful of cliques who can chose which hollow-headed politicians get on a ballot.
They might have elections for some public officials, but their legislative side will be clerical, based on Sharia law. Not hugely progressive, but the world is the way it is.
Maybe, but word from Sputnik is, there won’t be any ‘democracy’ in Afghanistan.
https://sputniknews.com/asia/202108181083651082-there-will-be-no-democratic-system-at-all-in-afghanistan-senior-taliban-figure-reportedly-says/
It would be a massive waste of time, money and effort to re-institute NATO’s corrupt electioneering regime.
They’d be better off with direct democracy and referendums under the Taliban Ulema.
“The US, for its part, has completed the evacuation of the Kabul Embassy”____ No evacuation is complete until All Evacuees have left Afghanistan airspace…!
Idiots and incompetents,
There are still 6,000 US troops in Kabul. It is not too late for Biden to manufacture an incident to justify a new surge. I am holding off on celebrating until the last US troops leave.
Agreed. Also, there should be an unknown number of mercenary troops as well; at one point up to 18 000 private contractors were in Afghanistan.
Not all were in direct combat-related positions, maybe there was a drawdown of those as well, but the original pullout plan was for private contractors to take over the occupation.
Although inserting more official troops would be awkward, stupidity can’t ever be discounted. U.S. air power has not been very effective while there aren’t another 20,000 boots waiting.
Green on blue was already a chronic problem with Western occupation forces; now there’s no-one left indigenously to even pretend to work with. A new force would have to fight for every inch.
From my understanding, the only place to land any new US invasion troops is the Kabul airport.
The Taliban have the airport surrounded and US troops would be surrounded and outnumbered 10 to 1.
It would be a bloodbath and plenty of US POWs if the US starts up the hot war again.
“From my understanding, the only place to land any new US invasion troops is the Kabul airport.”
Is that how US invasion troops arrived in 2001?
Please explain how in the world the US could invade Afghanistan again.
All neighboring countries have denied the US any use of their airspace for any future military operation against Afghanistan.
Even if the US somehow managed to land any troops into Afghanistan, the Taliban are in complete control everywhere and now have all the captured former government’s American military gear. Any US military aircraft that managed to land in one piece, would be completely surrounded and destroyed.
Iran, Russia and China also have big plans for the new Afghanistan, as part of the Belt and Road initiative and SCO, and would never allow another invasion.
So, in what universe could the US repeat the invasion Afghanistan and somehow win this time?
Hahahaha.
That’s a lot of non-answers to a simple question.
Oh, OK. Sorry, I assumed a certain level of sophistication.
I will try to use simple words for a simple question.
The US can not repeat 2001 attacks against Afghanistan in the same way because people in power now will not let US commit whatever crimes wants to anymore.
How it was done before can NOT be done again so does not matter.
The people in power now are, institutionally, the same people who weren’t able to stop the US from invading 20 years ago.
A second US invasion would be no more successful than the last one at turning Kabul into Kennebunkport. But if the people in the US who wanted a second invasion took political power, they could certainly put lots of troops on the ground there and re-start their failed counter-insurgency.
The Biden administration has not stated that it will also stop air attacks of various kinds on Afghanistan territory.
That raises the issue whether the Taliban government will organize regular national armed forces with anti-aircraft (especially anti-drone) defenses.
I am not aware of any territorial demands on Afghanistan by Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, or Pakistan hence an army to defend the borders should have low priority.
Armed forces are expensive.
“Afghans are a lot more pessimistic about Ghani’s departure, seeing it as a ‘disgrace’ and abandonment of his responsibilities.”
The linked source cites one anonymous politico, not “Afghans” generally. No doubt most Afgans have zero respect for Ghani, but I think most of them are also actually quite happy to see him go.
About that disinformation the Russians are putting out, you know, this thing in RT, Afghan president fled Kabul with cars full of cash & was forced to abandon some loot on airport runway, Russian embassy claims, now don’t believe everything Putin tells you.
Our friend Ashraf is just liberating the Afghan treasury to finance the Free Afghan Government-in-Exile, which will be leading the liberation movement when Liz Cheney becomes POTUS.
Edit to add: And I do suspect that one of the new government’s first steps will be to rename the “Hamid Karzai International Airport.”