Afghanistan
continued
Months before the American withdrawal, we wrote, “Having no U.S. troops in Afghanistan is just not feasible unless we are cool with a resurgence of terrorism and the Taliban slaughtering people as they overthrow the Afghan government to establish Sharia law – which is exactly what we found when we stormed into Afghanistan twenty years ago. Not to mention that, because we will no longer have a CIA presence in Afghanistan, we will lose all ability to gather intelligence and carry out counterterrorism strikes – a decision that we promise we will live to regret.”
We stand by those words 1000%. Even a modest American presence would have helped protect the enormous investment we had made.
Despite what Joe Biden said in his speech, maintaining an American presence in Afghanistan was not analogous with America continuing to fight an “endless war.” In the years before the withdrawal, our Afghan war strategy had transitioned from a conventional “troops on the ground” mission to one that relied heavily on U.S. Special Forces and missile and drone strikes. Our presence in Afghanistan was finally beginning to look like the light-footprint, low-cost operation formula that had been successful in Syria and Iraq.
We recognize these are all very different places – and we don’t pretend to know exactly how many U.S. troops it would have taken to maintain order in Afghanistan – but, in Syria, 900 U.S. troops had been able to successfully help hold back Russians, Turks, Iranians and ISIS.
American troops being stationed around the world to maintain stability in certain regions is nothing new for the United States. That’s kind of what we do, right? After all, this is the strategy we followed in South Korea and Western Europe after World War II (except, in those cases, we left way more troops). After World War II, we left almost 30,000 troops in South Korea and almost 40,000 troops in Western Europe. To this day, the United States has 35,068 troops in Germany, 54,774 in Japan, and 24,234 in South Korea. Obviously, we have not been “at war” in any of these places for decades, but we still have a vested interest in maintaining peace and prosperity in those regions.
As Imran Khan, the former prime minister of Pakistan, said before the Taliban takeover, “All those who have invested in the Afghan peace process should resist the temptation for setting unrealistic timelines. A hasty international withdrawal from Afghanistan would be unwise. We should also guard against regional spoilers who are not invested in peace and see instability in Afghanistan as advantageous for their own geopolitical ends. Like the United States, we do not want the blood and treasure we have shed in the war against terrorism to be in vain.”
There are two very distinct questions involved here and, even though the Biden administration tried hard to muddy the waters by merging the two, they must be kept separate: 1) Should the United States have completely withdrawn from Afghanistan, and 2) After the decision was made to leave, how and why did our withdrawal go so horribly wrong.
First up, should we have completely withdrawn from Afghanistan in the first place? Again, our answer is a resounding NO for two reasons (the first being that we had already spent a fortune there in blood and treasure, which we’ve already covered). The second reason is the persistent threat of terrorist activity. To help us break this one down, let’s take a closer look at the head-exploding speech President Biden gave that Monday after the Taliban takeover:
President Biden: “So I’m left again to ask of those who argue that we should stay: How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghanistan’s civil war when Afghan troops will not? How many more lives – American lives – is it worth? How many endless rows of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery?”
This is a completely disingenuous argument. For one, American military casualties in Afghanistan had been steadily declining for years. The U.S. Department of Defense reported there were 13 U.S. combat deaths in 2018, 17 U.S. combat deaths in 2019, 4 combat deaths in 2020, and zero combat deaths in 2021…until, that is, the unspeakable tragedy on Thursday, August 26th – after our withdrawal – when we lost 13 of our brave soldiers.
For another – regardless of whether we should have gone in the first place – we were never in Afghanistan to “fight Afghanistan’s civil war.” We were there, at least in part, to prevent terrorism from once again rising to the point where it can harm America and our allies. At some point during the withdrawal process, we heard an American veteran of the Afghan war say that our leaving U.S. troops stationed around the world to maintain stability after World War II doesn’t make sense in terms of Afghanistan; rather, a more appropriate comparison would be our experience in Vietnam.
With the greatest respect, we disagree with his assessment. Although the entire thing devolved into a holy mess, our mission in Vietnam was to ostensibly prevent the spread of communism, a problem relatively contained to just a few clearly identified countries. The challenge we face today is completely different. The United States continues to battle a global war on terror, a fact President Biden acknowledged when he said in his speech, “Today, the terrorist threat has metastasized well beyond Afghanistan: al Shabaab in Somalia, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Nusra in Syria, ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and establishing affiliates in multiple countries in Africa and Asia.” Biden’s position seemed to be that leaving Afghanistan was necessary because these new threats warranted “our attention and our resources.”
Our position is the exact opposite. Given these emerging threats around the world, doesn’t it make lots of sense to have a relatively small number of troops hold what we’ve got in Afghanistan – especially since we had already invested trillions of dollars and thousands of precious lives – instead of giving the Taliban a wide-open field to turn Afghanistan back into a cornerstone of terror?
Joe Biden, again: “We went to Afghanistan almost 20 years ago with clear goals: Get those who attacked us on September 11, 2001, and make sure al-Qaeda could not use Afghanistan as a base from which to attack us again. We did that. We severely degraded al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. We never gave up the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and we got him. That was a decade ago…our only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what it has always been: preventing a terrorist attack on American homeland.”
Exactly! That’s why we should have maintained a presence there! Did anyone really believe for one second that empowering the freak’n Taliban was going to move us closer to preventing a terrorist attack on the American homeland? Seriously?
Without question, at the time it was great news that, over a decade after we finally got Osama bin Laden, the threat from terrorism had weakened around the world. In the Institute for Economics and Peace’s 2020 Global Terrorism Index, they reported that, “In 2019, deaths from terrorism fell for the fifth consecutive year, after peaking in 2014. The total number of deaths fell by 15.5 percent to 13,826. The fall in deaths was mirrored by a reduction in the impact of terrorism, with 103 countries recording an improvement on their Global Terrorism Index (GTI) score, compared to 35 that recorded a deterioration (the full GTI score considers not only deaths, but also incidents, injuries, and property damage from terrorism, over a five-year period.)”
Again, great news! And it’s also our entire point. Momentum was finally going in our direction. We should have taken the opportunity to diminish terror organizations even more, not given them a chance – on a silver platter – to regroup and once again thrive. Why in the world would we let up on the gas when things were finally going our way?
… and there are so many other interesting ways we could have taken advantage of this new momentum. One involves a concept we rarely hear anyone talk about: Counter-Ideological Warfare. For decades, the United States has allowed terrorist organizations to frame our image for a vulnerable portion of the Muslim world. These terrorists have done a masterful job of making sure their audience knows all about the “evil” that is America: The brutal, wealthy bully that uses power, might and military strength to repress Muslims on a global scale. Naturally, the terrorists are the good guys who fight bravely and unselfishly to protect Islam and Muslims around the world.
Terrorists have achieved great success with their America is Evil narrative using Information Warfare (i.e., “using truth, intelligence, propaganda, psychological warfare, and media in a unified effort to control the way an enemy’s own ideology or policies are perceived by the global public”). They base their storylines on half-truths or outright lies, then fill in the blanks with America’s actual failures – like the catastrophes of U.S. waterboarding and the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. And now – add to the list, of course – our humiliating capitulation to the Taliban.
Conspiracy theories like The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion (a fraudulent document that served as a pretext and rationale for anti-Semitism in the early 20th century) and the 9/11 Truth movement (a conspiracy theory that disputes the conventional wisdom of the 9/11 accounts, specifically the part where al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four airliners and crashed them into the Pentagon and Twin Towers) are exploited mightily.
Terrorists wage their propaganda war by using everything from CDs to television to radio. Now they have the enormous benefit of the Internet, which gives them the opportunity to reach into unlimited parts of the world. It’s imperative we fight back – in real time – and reframe this highly damaging, globally destructive narrative.
A smart counter-ideological warfare strategy goes way beyond the standard “winning hearts and minds” campaign. Abu Yahya al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda leader, scholar, and strategist, once laid out the outlines of a successful campaign in an interview. His advice: “Start a social epidemic of rejection. Create a social epidemic of personal revulsion against the “cult;” Identify the criminality to al-Qaeda’s target audience. Appeal to the universal value placed on stability, law and order, and justice. Make al-Qaeda answer publicly for killing innocents, particularly children; Make the terrorists’ community and families fear for the spiritual safety of recruits; Make people remember they can’t depend on terrorists; Reframe al-Qaeda as political opportunists; Encourage positive ideological fitna (civil war). Support former militants who recant terror and speak out against it; and demand al-Qaeda pay blood debts (wrongful deaths they have caused) to Muslims and Non-Muslims, as proscribed in the Qur’an.”
The timing for this approach was perfect in 2021 – especially when the Muslim world was becoming as concerned about Islamic extremism as we were. Even as far back as 2013, the Pew Research Center found that “concern about Islamic extremism remains widespread among Muslims from South Asia to the Middle East to sub-Saharan Africa. Across 11 Muslim publics surveyed, a median of 67 percent say they are somewhat or very concerned about Islamic extremism. In five countries – Pakistan, Jordan, Tunisia, Turkey and Indonesia – Muslim worries about extremism have increased in the past year. In many of the countries surveyed, clear majorities of Muslims oppose violence in the name of Islam. Indeed, about three-quarters or more in Pakistan (89 percent), Indonesia (81 percent), Nigeria (78 percent) and Tunisia (77 percent), say suicide bombings or other acts of violence that target civilians are never justified.”
In 2019, The Economist revealed that, across Arab countries, “The share of people expressing much trust in political parties, most of which have a religious tint, has fallen by well over a third since 2011, to 15 percent. (The share of Iraqis who say they do not trust parties at all rose from 51 percent to 78 percent). The decline in trust for Islamist parties is similarly dramatic, falling from 35 percent in 2013, when the question was first widely asked, to 20 percent in 2018. The doubts extend to religious leaders. In 2013 around 51 percent of respondents said they trusted their religious leaders to a ‘great’ or ‘medium’ extent. When a comparable question was asked last year, the number was down to 40 percent. The share of Arabs who think religious leaders should have influence over government decision-making is also steadily declining.”
Employing strategies like Counter-Ideological Warfare is more important than ever because, as we covered earlier, there are plenty of menacing groups chomping at the bit to fill the vacuum created by the exit of American forces from the region – first from Afghanistan, and now Iraq and Syria.
Predictably, Afghanistan is once again a refuge for ISIS-K, al- Qaeda, and other jihadists. In 2023, The Washington Post reported – based on highly classified documents that airman in the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard Jack Teixeira leaked online – that Afghanistan "has become a significant coordination site for the Islamic State as the terrorist group plans attacks across Europe and Asia, and conducts ‘aspirational plotting’ against the United States. The attack planning reveals specific efforts to target embassies, churches, business centers and the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament, which drew more than 2 million spectators last summer in Qatar. Pentagon officials were aware in December of nine such plots coordinated by ISIS leaders in Afghanistan, and the number rose to 15 by February. ISIS has been developing a cost-effective model for external operations that relies on resources from outside Afghanistan, operatives in target countries, and extensive facilitation networks. The model will likely enable ISIS to overcome obstacles – such as competent security services – and reduce some plot timelines, minimizing disruption opportunities."
Onward we go through President Biden’s Monday speech. Next, again in defense of his opting for a full withdrawal, Biden said, “We conduct effective counterterrorism missions against terrorist groups in multiple countries where we don’t have a permanent military presence. If necessary, we will do the same in Afghanistan.”
Wait, what? Mr. President, what do you mean by “if necessary?” Less than one week after the Taliban captured Kabul, your own national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the threat of the Islamic State “is real. It is acute. It is persistent.”
Again, no Monday morning quarterbacking here – he knew! It wasn’t even necessary to have a high-level security clearance. Anyone with eyes and a television could see that U.S. counterterrorism missions were already needed in Afghanistan right then. That very day!
It was also beyond clear that the Taliban remained thicker than thieves with other terrorist groups, and they had been from the moment the Trump administration started its bogus negotiations with them for a “peace” agreement. From the beginning, these terrorists were ten steps ahead of Presidents Trump and Biden the entire time. Being outfoxed by a bunch of radical fanatics is humiliating enough but, to make matters worse, by then terrorists had become so indifferent to the United States that they didn’t even try to disguise the cozy relationships among themselves.
This charade of a “peace” deal was signed in February 2020 by the Taliban and Trump administration officials in Doha, Qatar. Several points of agreement were supposedly established, but the essence of the deal was this: Taliban insurgents assured U.S. officials that Afghanistan would never again be a harbor for international terrorism in exchange for a full withdrawal of American troops. Yeah, right.
Obviously, the Trump administration officials weren’t paying close attention – or, more likely, they didn’t care – but the agreement was countersigned by an organization led by the Haqqani Network. At the time, the Haqqani Network’s leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, was the Taliban’s deputy leader and military commander. After the Taliban takeover, he was announced as their new Interior Minister.
The Haqqani Network, then and now, was/is designated as a foreign terrorist group by the United States, and Sirajuddin Haqqani – who has an active $10 million U.S. bounty on his head – is wanted for questioning in conjunction with, among other murderous acts, a hotel bombing in Kabul, a failed assassination attempt on former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and attacks on the Afghanistan U.S. embassy and NATO bases.
Because of their close ties to the Haqqani Network, members of al-Qaeda were on hand to coach the Taliban throughout the negotiations, even though part of the Taliban’s agreement with the United States was that they would sever all ties with them. Yeah, right.
It’s understandable that war weary Americans were encouraged by this “groundbreaking” agreement at first, but not so fast. Setting aside the fact that we should never believe a word that comes out of these murderers’ mouths, to close the deal, the United States capitulated on everything. We even agreed to stop using the word “terrorist” when describing al-Qaeda, which was just a jaw-dropping concession.
The U.S. also agreed to help convince the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners (while the Taliban was only required to release 1,000) and agreed to what the Taliban called a “reduction in violence” instead of the total cease-fire that we had demanded at the beginning of the negotiations. The United States also agreed to support the gradual removal of Taliban leaders from international sanctions blacklists, including the lists of the United States and United Nations.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the Afghan American diplomat supposedly leading the negotiations for the United States, consistently said that the United States was not looking for a withdrawal agreement but “a peace agreement that enables withdrawal.” Give us a #*% break. This entire episode is mortifying enough. Let’s at least have the dignity to call this what it really was: total surrender.
The Taliban certainly had no problem calling it what it was. At the Doha Sheraton hotel where the Taliban and the Trump team signed the deal, the Taliban’s press guy gleefully called the agreement “the defeat of the arrogance of the White House in the face of the white turban.” Hmmm…catchy!
At one point, Sirajuddin Haqqani proudly said that “no mujahid ever thought that one day we would face such an improved state, or that we will crush the arrogance of the rebellious emperors and force them to admit their defeat at our hands.” What a shining moment for us all.
These statements undoubtably sent chills up and down the spine of every Afghan. But of course, they didn’t hear it firsthand because the Afghan government didn’t even get to attend the February negotiations because the Taliban refused to negotiate with them. If ever there was a flaming red flag, this was it. How in the world could anyone believe that peace and cooperation were possible between the Taliban and the Afghan government after we left if the Taliban wouldn’t even sit at a table with them? We gotta tell ya, we had some on-the-ball negotiators.
The incendiary comments from the Taliban certainly came as no surprise to the Afghan people, who had already seen this play before. They had already lived through at least one brutal civil war, which is the reason they were living under the tyrannical rule of the Taliban when U.S. forces arrived in 2001 to stop the ruthless Islamic regime.
In September 2020 – after multiple delays over the terms of the prisoner swap the U.S. had negotiated with the Taliban without the input of the Afghan government – the Afghans and Taliban did finally sit down at the same table to engage in “peace” talks.