Some important facts about Afghanistan

About the situation in Afghanistan

Afghanistan and a painting by Shukran Shirzad

Afghanistan and a painting by Shukran Shirzad

In order to better understand the situation in Afghanistan today, we should know some background facts.
Fabian (14) from S'BRENT responds to recurring claims about the Afghan people:
Again and again one hears the accusation that the Afghan people wanted the Taliban regime after all. They would not have done anything against them and the army would not even have tried to fight. So now they just have to live with it.
But is that really true?
Looking at the historical facts, we see, that this is not the first time the Taliban have come to power in Afghanistan. On September 27, 1996, the Taliban captured the Afghan capital Kabul for the first time. This was preceded by a 2-year conquest from the south. The Taliban were a movement composed mainly of former Mujahideen - former opposition forces to the communist regime in Kabul and soviet troops - who fought from Pakistan in the 1980s. There has been a civil war in Afghanistan since 1992. In this civil war, the once united resistance against the Soviets and Kabul shattered after the common enemy no longer existed. This happened with the withdrawal of Soviet troops in early 1989 and the collapse of the Najibullah regime in Kabul in early 1992. The fights that ensued between the former opposition parties meant terror for the civilian population, for whom the individual warring parties could no longer be clearly distinguished from one another and none of them had any vision for Afghanistan. Everyone fought against everyone and the country suffered from the war and the enormous destructive power that came with it. Out of this chaos, many people took up arms and saw themselves as a religious movement or as a legitimate jihad against the excesses of the civil war.
The Taliban, a group around Mullah Omar in Kandahar, emerged as a reaction to this civil war.
But how could they come to power?
They were able to do this largely because they had previously been funded and armed by the Unitet States to act against the Soviets in Afghanistan. “Operation Cyclone” was the code name for an undertaking by the US foreign intelligence agency CIA, which, from the summer of 1979, in close cooperation with the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, had the arming, training and financing of the Afghan resistance fighters (Mujahideen) as their subject. They fought the communist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan - in office since April 1978 - and its secularization program and, from December 1979, the Soviet troops after their intervention in Afghanistan. The United States pursued the goal of curbing the spread of Soviet communism. Intervention by the US and its allies escalated the conflict into a Cold War proxy war.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, NATO determined that the collective defense case had occurred.
For the first time in NATIO history. George W. Bush announced the "war on terror" in both chambers of the US Congress. Barely four weeks after the attacks in New York and Washington, the United States and Great Britain began "Operation Enduring Freedom" against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Minutes after the US attacked targets in Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden called for a holy war against Jews and Christians. 2 months after the start of the US military action in Afghanistan, the Taliban gave up their last remaining bastion, Kandahar.
One of the main goals of the United States and its NATO allies in Afghanistan was to build up a powerful army and police force that would alone be able to stand up to the Taliban in the longer term.
83 billion were invested in the training and upgrading of Afghan security forces.
Despite this, the Taliban conquered the country in just a few days. Nobody had expected that.
How could this happen?
Before we hastily blame the Afghan army and the population for this, we should carefully research what actually happened beforehand. There were many reasons for this failure of the army. The West had tried to build up a highly modern army based on the American model in the bitterly poor country. With its complex structure and logistics, however, it didn’t do justice to local conditions and has not functioned at any level without Western support. This was most evident in the Air Force. The Afghans remained dependent on American technicians for the maintenance of their helicopters and fighter jets. The withdrawal of troops had correspondingly devastating consequences. Until recently, the Americans had regularly flown airstrikes themselves to deter the Taliban. The Afghan Air Force was then completely overwhelmed with the task of supplying surrounded troops on various fronts and at the same time supporting them with airstrikes. Inferior equipment, ghost soldiers, old warlords and regional princes, who only used their political power to enrich themselves, enormous losses and a shattered morale have done the rest. However, the US not only withdrew forces but also cut off all aid support to the Afghan Army soldiers on the frontlines, leaving war prospects bleak.
So the reason the Afghans didn't defend themselves was not, because they wanted the Taliban, but because without US support, Afghanistan was at the mercy of the Taliban.

Information taken from the following sources:
bpb, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung
nzz, Neue Züricher Zeitung
Wikipedia

Updated at: 11.5.2023

Created at: 14.3.2023