By Press TV Website Staff
The green-hued image became an emblem of US failure and capitulation in the country’s longest war as the Taliban returned to topple the US-backed government and defeat the US-led coalition forces.
After twenty years of costly and futile military engagement, the US withdrew from Afghanistan, known as the “graveyard of empires,” leaving behind a country devastated by war.
It was a reminder that military invasions abroad have been a defining feature of American foreign strategy since the late 1940s. From Vietnam, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, and Cuba to Nicaragua, Congo, Haiti, Grenada, Greece, Cambodia, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan, American forces have left behind destruction almost everywhere they ventured.
Prominent US political intellectual Noam Chomsky captured this in his book ‘Western State Terrorism’: “The guiding principle, it appears, is that the US is a lawless terrorist state and this is right and just, whatever the world may think, whatever the international institutions may declare.”
Washington’s disastrous mismanagement in Afghanistan was no secret. Yet to return after 20 years of carnage and claim that the crisis had no “military solution” was an insult to common sense.
Origins of the longest war
To understand America’s disastrous failure, one must look back to the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US. Within weeks of the attacks, the George Bush administration launched what it called the “war on terror.” Afghanistan, ruled by the Taliban at the time, became the first battleground.
On October 7, 2001, US jets and missiles rained down on Afghan soil. Then-US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced that the aim was to wipe out Taliban and al-Qaeda hideouts, while President Bush promised to “crush” them.
Two decades later, it was the US that exited in humiliation, as the Taliban made a stunning comeback.
Ironically, reports indicate that the Taliban had offered to hand over Osama bin Laden — accused of masterminding 9/11 — to a neutral country for trial, even dropping their earlier demand for proof of guilt. The Bush administration rejected this offer, choosing instead to unleash airstrikes.
The irony was deeper still: bin Laden was a Saudi national, once backed by the CIA as a fighter against the Soviets in the 1980s. The 9/11 hijackers, too, were Saudis — citizens of a close US ally.
Journalist Anand Gopal, author of ‘No Good Men Among the Living’, recalled in a 2015 interview that Taliban leaders had tried to surrender in the early days of the invasion.
But America’s position was uncompromising: as Bush declared, “you are either with us or against us.”
Some accounts suggest the Taliban wrote to then-President Hamid Karzai, offering to disarm and accept his authority. Their attempt was thwarted by Gul Agha Sherzai, a powerful tribal leader and US favorite.
Many Taliban fighters were instead imprisoned and tortured by the CIA-backed Afghan intelligence agency, and some ended up in Guantanamo Bay.
Occupation and brutality
Washington’s preference for unprovoked aggression over dialogue, which was again evident recently in the context of Iran, became evident quickly. Calls for peaceful solutions were ignored as American leaders and their Afghan allies pursued war at any cost.
Over the years, US “counterterrorism” campaigns brought with them appalling human rights violations, including drone strikes that obliterated civilian homes. summary executions during nighttime raids, arbitrary arrests and torture in custody and sponsorship of warlords and militia commanders.
Airstrikes became the most visible sign of the US military-industrial complex in Afghanistan.
Barely two months into the war, on December 23, 2001, an American bombing raid killed 65 tribal elders traveling to Karzai’s inauguration. US officials claimed they were al-Qaeda fighters, but evidence suggested otherwise.
This was only the first in a long series of state-sanctioned atrocities that were routinely covered up by both US officials and their Afghan allies.
US war crimes in Afghanistan
In August 2008, nearly 90 civilians — most of them children — were killed in western Afghanistan. The UN confirmed entire homes were destroyed. No one was punished.
In May 2009, about 150 civilians were massacred in western Farah province, some blown into “unrecognizable pieces.” The New York Times observed that such attacks turned many Afghans against both the government and foreign troops. Again, there was no sign of accountability.
In September 2015, a US aircraft targeted a hospital in northern Kunduz operated by Doctors Without Borders, killing 42 patients and staff. Once more, no consequences.
During Donald Trump’s presidency, the state-sanctioned violence intensified. Restrictions against striking residential areas were lifted, effectively giving troops license to kill.
Civilian casualties soared, with conservative estimates showing nearly 1,600 civilians — 40 percent of them children — killed by US strikes between 2016 and 2020. These figures even exceeded Taliban and Daesh-caused casualties.
Any attempt to pursue justice was blocked. The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) efforts to investigate American war crimes were swiftly shut down by Washington.
Meanwhile, America’s reliance on ruthless warlords deepened the chaos. Figures such as Gul Agha Sherzai, Abdul Rashid Dostum, Asadullah Khalid and others committed rampant abuses under US patronage. Their brutality undermined governance, fueled insecurity, and bolstered Taliban recruitment.
The endgame
In July 2021, President Joe Biden announced that the US military mission would end on August 31, earlier than his initial September 11 deadline.
“Speed is safety,” he remarked. “We did not go to Afghanistan for nation building,” he added, insisting Afghan leaders must take charge of their own future.
But Washington had already undercut Kabul. In February 2020, the Trump administration bypassed the Afghan government entirely, signing a secret deal with the Taliban. This arrangement gave the US safe passage while strengthening the opposition, effectively sidelining any real peace negotiations.
By mid-2021, the withdrawal was already more than 90 percent complete. American forces even abandoned the vast Bagram Air Base, once home to nearly 100,000 US and NATO troops.
It took 20 years, trillions of dollars, and countless lives for Washington to admit what was obvious from the start: the war was unwinnable. As Chomsky remarked years earlier, the US owes immense reparations to the Afghan people for the destruction it caused.
Long history of resistance
Afghanistan has long humbled the world’s most powerful armies. From Alexander the Great in the third century BC to the Americans in the 21st century, foreign powers have repeatedly faced defeat there.
Many have tried to conquer its mineral-rich lands, but geography, fierce tribal resistance, and harsh climate combined to repel them.
The first Anglo-Afghan War (1839–1842) ended in catastrophe when thousands of British troops and civilians were wiped out at Gandamak. The second war (1878–1880) forced the British to retreat after heavy losses, leaving the Afghans their internal autonomy. The third war in 1919, led by Amanullah Khan, resulted in full independence and cemented Afghanistan’s reputation as unconquerable.
In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded to prop up a puppet regime. Nearly 100,000 troops were deployed, facing a fierce insurgency from fighters supported by the West. Nine brutal years left over a million civilians dead, 90,000 fighters killed, 18,000 Afghan troops lost, and 14,000 Soviet soldiers dead.
In 1989, the Soviets withdrew, and the empire collapsed shortly after. Gorbachev later called the invasion a “political mistake.”
Beginning in 2001, Washington came on the pretext of eradicating terrorism and reshaping Afghanistan. Instead, after two decades, more than $2 trillion in investments, and tens of thousands of lives lost, it was forced to leave in defeat and humiliation, just like its predecessors.
America’s war in Afghanistan is today regarded as one of the greatest strategic miscalculations of the past century. After twenty years of occupation, the US withdrew with nothing to show but destruction, a resurgent Taliban, and a shattered country.
After the botched withdrawal, the American authorities hurriedly froze assets belonging to the Afghan people and reimposed crippling sanctions that have paralyzed the country's economy and compounded the suffering of the people.
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