After 20 years of guerrilla war, Taliban came back to power again after US army pull out and President Ghani ran away with truckloads of cash. Ironically, this is the second time in recent history that a poor undeveloped nation like Afghanistan drives two of the world’s most powerful armies out of its territory, the first one was Soviet in 1989.
Mr. Biden, politically right to put an end to the empty promises of his former predecessors on withdrawing US army from Afghanistan, was caught shocked by the sweeping advance of Taliban fighters and the crunchy collapse of Afghan army. Reality derailed from his plan of 300,000 well equipped and properly trained Afghan army holding on for a while against the attack of 75,000 Taliban fighters, for six months at least, so that Afghanistan could win itself enough time to fall into chaotic civil war again like the post Soviet withdraw era. Equippment provided, salary paid, money spent…, but the Afghan army surrendered.
People can’t help but questioning: how come? A 400 pounds muscle hunk is supposed to KO a skinny kid in minutes if not seconds, but it turned out that the skinny kid fended him off all the heavy fist attacks and stood on for 20 years and managed to lay off the big guy and kicked him out of the ring. This article will try to shed some light on the puzzle, here we go:
- Nobody can win an invasion wall, not in history, neither in future. This is true in the history of every corner of the world. Colonialism, World Wars, you name it. Why? Justice prevails, not army force, not power, not nothing else. Those who are with the US would say it’s not unjustified for the US army to enter Afghanistan because it is the breeding ground for terrorism and Bin Laden was responsible for the attack on the World Trading Center. Well, that’s true, but if we dig a little deeper, what is the root cause of terrorism and how did it come into shape at the first place?
- When you are waging a war in another country you run short of support, of every kind. Intelligence for example. The US army couldn’t collect useful and timely intelligence that help them to win, that’s why it took them 10 years to kill Bin Laden after entering Afghanistan. By book, the US army’s mission was accomplished on the killing of Bin Laden, but they maintained their presence for another ten years, for what?
- Corruption. When you are fighting a war of injustice, the soldiers got depressed and they lost the will to fight or to kill. Some knew that they were killing innocent people and they were fighting a war without justifiable reason. So PTSD, so is corruption. When one is not equipped with a mind of justice, they got corrupt. Corruption led to loss of hope.
- Drugs. Afghanistan is not scarce in drugs at all and the soldiers can easily put their hands on it. Especially when they are corrupt and see no hope for their future. Killing innocent people make them guilty, but they don’t want to be killed either by their enemy, and they are not 100% sure if their enemy is their enemy.
- Taliban is not fighting alone. Killing of innocent people by US army definitely caused outcry and hatred. Slowly, there are more and more people coming against them. Also, from day one, there had been continuous support in terms of military equipment, money, fighters from countries around Afghanistan.
- At the end of the day, nobody, black, white or brown, would like to be ruled by another country, no matter how weak they are.
History is a mirror that reflects the past and forecast the future. The common consensus is that all people are created equal, no one should ride upon another. What’s bygone is gone, and each and every of us human should learn from the past and avoid repeating the mistakes committed. Let’s join hands in building a community of shared future for mankind.