Author: Uwe G. Kranz
First publishing: October 5, 2021 on https://ansage.org
Foreword
by CrisHam
I found this remarkable article on Ansage.org shortly after its publication in October 2021. It offers a frank analysis of the war in Afghanistan (2001-2021) and the reasons for the failure of this nearly one trillion dollar mission. At the end of part 2, it also illuminates the context of the war, namely identifying it as part of the resurgent rivalry between the liberal-democratic West and the predominantly autocratic Middle East.
While the Western mainstream media ignore or even explicitly taboo the topic, it is highly present in the political consciousness of Islamists. In movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, sympathy for terrorist violence is combined with an outwardly peaceful approach to establish a radical and expansionist ideology in Western countries. https://www.hstoday.us/subject-matter-areas/counterterrorism/the-documented-strategy-of-civilization-jihad-by-the-muslim-brotherhood/
The Taliban, the subject of Uwe G. Kranz's two-part documentary, also embody these two sides of Islamism, waging not only armed struggle but also a propagandistic, ideological, and organizational jihad against all reform-minded forces.
Triumph of the Taliban: „After Kabul comes Rome“ (Teil 1)
by Uwe G. Kranz
Translation CrisHam
Two or three photos have come to symbolize the "disgraceful defeat of the West" in Afghanistan since August: the photograph of the military evacuation helicopter taking off from the roof of the US embassy in Kabul (drawing an analogy to Saigon in 1975), the greenish night-vision shot of Major General Chris Donahue, commander of the US Army's 82nd Airborne Division, as the last US soldier to leave Afghanistan, boarding an Air Force C-17 cargo plane, and the image of the Taliban unit posing in full US combat gear and with full weapons at Kabul airport. The press called them "iconic" images; images that express what they show: a dishonorable retreat, a complete failure, a loss of control, and more or less indirect gloating.
'Iconic' images, the press wrote; images that express what they do: a dishonorable retreat, a complete failure, a loss of control, and more or less indirect gloating.
... The war historian Herfried Münkler's description of this withdrawal as a historical turning point is only partially justified – for this turning point was not a singular event, but had several grandiose precursors in history:
Alexander the Great (334-331 BC), who quickly found the most astute solution in marrying a warlord's daughter to bring about a peaceful end to the terror and guerrilla war that he could not overcome with his powerful army.
The British (1832-1842 and 1878-1880), both times out of fear of Russian threats to the Indian crown colonies, both times with an arrogant and fatal underestimation of the freedom and independence aspirations of the proud Afghan tribes, and both times with historic, humiliating defeats.
... A Complete and Historic Failure
The Russians (1979-1989) attempted to stem the Iranian spark of Islamization in the region, a quest that proved costly, resulting in at least 15,000 deaths and an estimated $85 billion in war costs. Despite this, the Taliban gained influence and power. In 1989, the operation ended ignominiously and without victory – also marked by an iconic image: General Boris Gromov, after ten years of occupation, symbolically and almost defiantly retreated on foot across a border bridge into Russia, carrying red flowers. In 1996, the Taliban captured Kabul, proclaimed a theocracy, implemented Sharia law, provided refuge to al-Qaeda terrorists, and occasionally cooperated with them.
The operation ended ignominiously and without victory in 1989 – also with an iconic image of General Boris Gromov, symbolically, almost defiantly, retreating on foot across a border bridge into Russia after ten years of occupation. The Americans and their NATO allies (2001-2021) occupied Afghanistan after the attacks of September 11, 2001, with the ISAF mission (International Security Assistance Force), based on a UN Security Council resolution of December 20, 2001 – allegedly because it provided refuge to Osama bin Laden and the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, who were directing the global jihad from there. This became the longest military operation in US history, costing the lives of approximately 2,500 US soldiers, injuring or traumatizing more than 20,000, and costing almost 830 billion US dollars. Afghanistan thus became the US's second Vietnam.
Trillions of dollars and euros were sunk in the Hindu Kush, where, as then-Defense Minister Peter Struck (SPD) falsely claimed in May 2007, Germany's security was also being defended. One might give him credit for not knowing that the Taliban had already offered in 2004 to surrender to the overwhelming US alliance in perpetuity – but the US had neither accepted this offer nor informed its allies or its own people, for whatever reason, as Afghanistan's former president Hamid Karzai already complained in 2007. Therefore, Germany now also had to experience "its Vietnam" – as an American vassal, with 59 dead German soldiers.
The Fiction of the Well-Equipped Afghan Army
ISAF, at its peak numbering around 130,000 troops from 50 nations, was terminated without a stable, nationwide Afghan government with a functioning administration, without a resilient and effective Afghan National Army (ANA), which had already suffered tens of thousands of casualties in the fight against the Taliban, and without establishing sufficient and consolidated security forces (judicial, police, and public order services). Regarding the ANA, it should be noted that estimates of its strength varied between 85,000 and 200,000 troops; the figure of "nearly 300,000" supposedly fully equipped Afghan soldiers, cited by US President Joe Biden at a press conference on June 7, 2021, was a fiction.
... In 2014, ISAF was seamlessly replaced by the NATO mission "Resolute Support" (RS), which, with only 90,000 troops, was tasked with "resolutely supporting" the training and advising of Afghan security forces. This massive troop reduction was actually a harbinger of the withdrawal – because in the years leading up to 2014, the alliance's troops had already been reduced by an average of around 73 percent by the contributing states, each time at absolutely the wrong moment, which naturally led to a further strengthening of the Taliban.
... By February 2021, NATO's "Revolutionary Defense" mission had dwindled to a mere 9,600 troops. The focus had long since ceased to be on combating terrorism, defending democracy, or nation-building; at best, it was still focused on "army building." The negotiations in Paris and Doha between the US Special Envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, and the then-head of the Taliban's political office, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, which excluded both the elected Afghan government and the US's NATO allies, were primarily aimed at reaching an agreement on terms resembling a surrender, reportedly from a position of strength. These negotiations, incidentally, were conducted under a veil of secrecy by the US with representatives of the Taliban, the Deobandi Islamist terrorist group founded in 1994. The Afghan government was not involved, and NATO allies were only partially or significantly delayed in receiving information. Not a sound exit strategy.
"Unable to see progress!"
The negotiations, which were conducted by the US with representatives of the Taliban, the Deobandi Islamist terrorist group founded in 1994, were conducted without any semblance of secrecy. Nevertheless, the justified accusations have also been leveled at the German government for years, which has been chasing castles in the air regarding foreign and security policy. Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) continues to deny having conducted a disastrous situation analysis and having wasted valuable time, particularly on the evacuation of German citizens and their local staff; in an attempt to save his own skin, he even openly accused the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) of failure. However, he cannot deny that evacuation plans have been in place since April 2021, but have not yet been implemented.
In any case, the failure of the Western community of nations was nothing new, nothing sudden. While browsing through my archives, I came across my PowerPoint presentations from European Police Congresses and other international expert panels. As early as 2006 and 2007, I critically and realistically analyzed German police and military missions around the world – including in a packed hall of the Berlin Congress Center that could barely hold all the attendees; naturally, not exactly to the delight of those present. Despite the almost 10 billion euros in German development aid that had already flowed since 2005 to the 25 most undemocratic or corrupt heads of government or regimes in the world (a negative selection from the 199 countries of the world), despite all these foreign missions, no real progress had been achieved even then; neither by the European Union (e.g., EUPM, EUPT, EUBAM, EUPOL, EULEX), the OSCE, nor the UN (e.g., UNMIK, UNOMIG, UNMIL, UNMIS, UNAMID). Day-to-day political activism, nationalistic "catch-all" schemes, and vain or obsequious self-aggrandizement in politics and the media were already replacing international systems thinking and comprehensive, analysis- and evidence-based strategies.
Want an example from Afghanistan? The hubris of having, as part of the German EUPOL mission with 160 experts from 21 countries, created an Afghan National Police (ANA) with 70,000 officers – including 1 percent women – and built beautiful new police training facilities, obscured the security policy perspective of the reality in which the ANP's suitability, performance, and capabilities were quite low, and a lack of accountability, widespread corruption, and a high propensity for desertion prevailed.
The core problem was aptly described by the American journalist Sarah Chayes in April 2007, after years in Afghanistan, with the statement: "Corruption is not the right word to even adequately describe the scale of this phenomenon in Afghanistan." Nevertheless, Germany, in particular – following the motto "Unlimited Solidarity" – knowingly allowed itself to be drawn ever deeper into responsibility, for example through the deployment of (reconnaissance) for target identification since 2007, or through the deployment of the KSK as Quick Reaction Forces since 2008.