Good morning,
Afghanistan
The last U.S. aircraft took off from Kabul, Afghanistan last night and some declared America’s longest war at an end. Don’t be fooled, because the war was always a war on terror and that is entering a new and dangerous chapter. Credit is due to the U.S. and allied soldiers who carried out an imperfect but herculean evacuation over the last 2 weeks in an impossible environment. But now the conversation continues.
20 years ago, an Afghanistan based Al Qaeda designed plot, to fly airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, kicked off a 2 decade struggle to hunt down Osama Ben Laden and an invasion of Afghanistan by the allies. The 9/11 attack on America killed 2,977 and wounded more than 6000 others.
It took ten years to find and kill Osama Ben Laden who was being hidden in full sight of the Pakistan army and intelligence. And Pakistan is now behind the Taliban’s return to power. What’s changed? Unfortunately by allowing the Afghan Government to fall, nothing.
The Taliban, which are still linked to Al Qaeda and possibly to ISIS have not changed and Afghanistan will once again become a launch for terror attacks. And imagine what comes in the days and weeks ahead - The U.S. and its allies will be forced to carryout airstrikes against targets in Afghanistan such as ISIS, and possibly against the Taliban itself.
Today for example British newspapers carry headlines the UK is "ready" to launch strikes at ISIS in Afghanistan, after it was revealed by the Pentagon there are at least 2,000 "hardcore" ISIS-K fighters in the country.
But because of former President Trumps decision to leave Afghanistan, and President Biden’s follow on support for that highly questionable strategy, the fight against terror will largely be blind, and fought with minimal intelligence.
Air strikes kill civilians, as we saw Sunday when the U.S. carried out a drone strike against a car in Kabul claiming it had targeted an ISIS-K car bomb, and in fact killed 10 civilians including 7 children. This tweet by former Canadian Ambassador Chris Alexander goes on to blame Pakistan, and says “NATO and the U.S. were not defeated but declined to be a foil for Pakistans self defeating hybrid war”.
I wonder what is on the horizon, or just ‘over the horizon’ which is the new military coin phrase.
-Will NATO allies now bomb Taliban held aircraft and equipment that was abandoned by the Afghan army?
-Will retribution by the Taliban include taking hostage some of the foreigners who didn’t make it out of Afghanistan?
-Will the Taliban react to U.S. bombing of ISIS targets?
-Will all of this fuel more resentment and anger towards the West, and spark terror attacks in places like London and Paris and New York?
-Will the Taliban now try to destabilize all of Central Asia pitting it against Russia?
Any or perhaps all of these scenarios are quite possible and thats why the war in Afghanistan shouldn’t have come to an end with the collapse of the Afghan Government and a Western funded and trained army. It was our best hope for stopping terror and that’s why the allies committed 20 years to nation building in Afghanistan.
Former President Trumps, and now his successor President Biden’s decisions to cut and run is a disaster, and that’s why any newspaper headlines this morning telling you ‘the last U.S. plane has left and the 20 year war is over’ is a childish slogan spun by the White House for political gain. But that’s why you have Back Story newsletter for a quick reality check and some sober reflection.
On that note have a good morning!
Dana Lewis