By Ni Haining

Both US President Joe Biden and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced recently that their troops stationed in Afghanistan would start returning home from May 1, and all troops will be pulled out by September 11.

Biden and some American politicians are racking their brains to deliver the message that American troops in Afghanistan have completed their mission; and they chose to complete the withdrawal by the special and symbolic date of September 11 as a solace for the American people. Yet the indisputable fact is that the nearly-20-year-long Afghan war is the longest that America has waged and fought overseas. It has dragged the US and its allies deep into the “Graveyard of Empires” and thrown the Afghans into excruciating misery and suffering.

The American troops, having paid a heavy price in Afghanistan, cannot wait to leave this land. The protracted war has claimed the lives of more than 2,000 soldiers and injured about 20,000, and cost more than USD1 trillion, including over USD 170 billion in medical and nursing bills for veterans fighting in Afghanistan. Biden admitted in his speech that “no amount of US forces on the ground can deter the Taliban or end the war.”

America’s plan for duplicating democracy in Afghanistan also proves a total failure. Ever since the presidential election in 2014, the country has been hanging on the brink of ethnic turmoil. To make things worse, the US slashed a USD 1 billion aid to it in 2020 on the grounds that Kabul failed to form an inclusive government. How sarcastic for the “human rights preacher”!

The US opened the “Pandora’s box” in Afghanistan and let it run amuck for about 20 years, bringing an inestimable humanitarian disaster for the Afghan people. It is reported that more than 30,000 Afghan civilians have been killed by American troops or died from the chaos and battles they caused, with another 60,000 injured and 11 million or so left homeless.

Now the US is eager to pack up and pull out, leaving nothing but ruins and messes for the Afghan people, who have paid an unbearable price for a war imposed upon them by the unscrupulous hegemony.

Despite all its big talk about counterterrorism, America has seen terrorism on the rise in Afghanistan. The American-style democracy is unable to give birth to a powerful government there because it is out of place in a country where family and tribal cohesion is just too strong. In recent years, the Taliban has made a comeback, controlled about half of the national land, and grown into an important force that can sway the future political situation in the country – topped by the booming morale that it now has the initiative to fight for a legitimate position. The current Afghan government, which has got used to relying on the US troops when fighting and on tariffs for finance, will be left helpless in front of the Taliban and strong local factions once external military support is gone. People in Afghanistan are worried that the country, troubled by poor, if any, governance and various vying forces, may once again become the hotbed for terrorist organizations, or worse, fall into the abyss of aggravated civil war and national secession.

The US has always been half-hearted about boosting the economic and social development in Afghanistan. Washington Post reported in December 2019 that of the USD 133 billion that Washington had spent on Afghanistan’s “reconstruction” – more than what was spent on Europe’s post-WWII reconstruction under the Marshall Plan – USD 87 billion went to training local security troops and police force rather than developing production and normalizing the society. Due to constant battles and turbulence, the country’s industrial foundation remains weak, with the output value accounting for only 1/3 of GDP, and agriculture and animal husbandry make up the main part of the national economy. Not much is left of the education system, with a general illiteracy rate of 65% and up to 96% among females, leaving the uneducated young generation more vulnerable to terrorist indoctrination.

Since American troops set foot on its territory 20 years ago under the pretext of “counterterrorism”, Afghanistan has been going down a path to hell. Now the country that has created all this chaos is turning its back because it finds it more important to deal with other overseas priorities and dedicate all resources to responding to more pressing threats and challenges. Seeing Afghanistan as a burden now, Washington feels no qualms about leaving it high and dry in an embattled environment and asking the international community to pay for what it has done.

The question is, having ravaged and abandoned one country after another, who is the US going to devastate next?