The “Saigon Moment” reappeared in the 20 Years’ War. What did the United States gain?What is left for Afghanistan?

Recently, the situation in Afghanistan has undergone dramatic changes. It took only 11 days from the Taliban armed forces to seize the first provincial capital city of Zaranj in Afghanistan at the beginning of the month to the final occupation of the Presidential Palace in Afghanistan. The Taliban’s armed forces are like a broken bamboo, the Afghan security forces are completely defeated, and American diplomats are evacuated hastily. No one thought that the 20-year war in the United States would end in this way.

　　The “Saigon Moment” of the U.S. Emergency Evacuation from Afghanistan Reappears

On August 19, the Afghan Taliban announced the establishment of the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”.

At a press conference held on the evening of the 17th, Taliban spokesperson Mujahid repeatedly stated that he hopes to establish an “inclusive Islamic government acceptable to all” and stressed that there will be no retaliatory actions against those who have opposed the Taliban. .

On the evening of August 15, Al Jazeera reported that after occupying the Presidential Palace in Afghanistan, the Taliban took off the flag of the Republic of Afghanistan and placed it aside. A group of Taliban fighters began to recite the Quran at the desk of the fleeing Afghan President Ghani.

In the Associated Press’s view, this shocking picture means that the United States‘ 20-year war on terrorism ended with the Taliban’s overall victory.

In stark contrast to the Taliban’s celebration of the victory, the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan personnel evacuated hastily.

On the 15th, a CH-47 US “Chinook” helicopter hovered over the US embassy and took away the staff in the embassy in batches. According to a U.S. military official told CBS, on the same day, the staff in the U.S. embassy were still urgently destroying computer hard drives, paper documents, and all items containing sensitive information. The Stars and Stripes hanging on the roof of the US Embassy were also taken off. The US military stated that the move was to prevent Taliban armed forces from acquiring the national flag after entering the building to humiliate the US.

On May 4, the Taliban aggressively attacked 7 provinces including Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan.

Fierce fighting took place in 26 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces on June 7.

On June 22, the Taliban occupied more than 50 district-level administrative areas.

On July 2, the US military evacuated Bagram Air Force Base, which is only an hour away from Kabul.

On August 6, Zaranj became the first capital city to fall into the hands of the Taliban.

The Taliban encircled the capital Kabul on August 15

On August 16, the Taliban occupied the Afghan Presidential Palace.

What’s happening in front of me is reminiscent of a scene 46 years ago. On April 30, 1975, the U.S. military urgently launched the “Operation Constant Wind” and evacuated the last 1,000 U.S. diplomats from the roof of the embassy building in South Vietnam by helicopter.

　　CNN anchor:That was the most symbolic and frustrating moment in American history. The photo on the left shows the U.S. diplomats hastily evacuated. The capital of South Vietnam has collapsed. The picture on the right shows Kabul today. U.S. diplomats were forced to flee the embassy in a hurry.

On April 28, 1975, the Americans left this famous “Fist of Saigon” photo when they were evacuated by plane.

According to ABC reports, US military personnel opened fire on Afghans when arranging helicopter evacuation, resulting in several deaths.

Stephen Nick, chairman of the Republican Conference of the U.S. House of Representatives, bluntly stated that Kabul now is Biden’s “Saigon Moment.”

According to the Washington Post, in mid-April 15, 1975, about two weeks before the final Saigon “Great Retreat” (April 30), Biden, then a member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had the same name. High-level US military officials were summoned by then-President Ford to the White House to participate in a top-secret “ventilation meeting.”

At the beginning of that year, the South Vietnamese regime backed by the United States was retreating steadily. The 32-year-old Biden delivered a clear suggestion to Ford: Vietnam has no hope, and the United States should get out of it as soon as possible.

According to the Washington Post, nearly 50 years later, history is surprisingly similar. And Biden’s decision remains: get out as soon as possible.

In fact, Biden’s idea of ​​getting rid of Afghanistan has been around for a long time. Holbrooke, the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan during Obama’s time, recorded a private conversation with Biden in 2019 in his autobiography “My Man”.

“Don’t worry, we did that in Vietnam. Nixon and Kissinger both retired.”

–Biden

But this time, Biden was not as lucky as his predecessors.

The Republican Nixon stepped down in August 1972, leaving the most embarrassing “Saigon moment” in the United States to his successor Ford.

The Democrat Biden has to face an even more embarrassing “Kabul moment.” CNN therefore commented that the chaos in Afghanistan has made Biden’s ability as president have been questioned like never before.

Prior to July 8, Biden also stated with confidence that the nightmare of Saigon in the United States would not repeat itself.

　　Reporter:Will the Taliban eventually control Afghanistan?

　　U.S. President Biden:No, because Afghanistan has 300,000 well-equipped troops, the level of the military is world-class, the Afghan government (and the air force), their opponent is only 75,000 Taliban, so this (the Taliban in power) is not inevitable. This will not happen, and no one will be evacuated from the roof of the US Embassy in Afghanistan.

But on August 15, Biden, who was on vacation at Camp David, witnessed all this through live video.

　　U.S. President Biden:Our operations in Afghanistan are being committed and made many mistakes. In the past two decades… the fact is that this (the situation in Afghanistan) has changed much faster than we expected.

Afterwards, Biden returned to the White House by helicopter. After making the above-mentioned speech according to the teleprompter, he refused all questions on the scene and turned away.

According to Time Magazine, “Runaway President” Biden was never a “liberal interventionist”. He eventually withdrew from a war that the United States could not win, but made a major mistake in time.

British journalist Thorpe believes that Biden’s choice of withdrawal time is exactly the “battle season” in Afghanistan. From the perspective of the climate, the Taliban will usually return to their bases in the south if it is in the cold winter. But the key question is, can the United States really survive that time?

Like all presidents, in order to create a highlight in his ruling career, Biden set the deadline for withdrawal of troops before September 11 this year, which is the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

But Americans who are not familiar with history never expected that August 19 would be the Independence Day for the Afghans to drive out the British colonists. The Taliban captured Kabul on August 16, and announced that the nation was founded on August 19, marking that 102 years later, the Afghans “independence again.”

In the eyes of former White House press secretary Fleischer, Biden’s choice was far more than the timing of the withdrawal.

　　Former White House Press Secretary Fleischer:The correct order of retreat should be civilians first, weapons second, and the army retreat last, but he let the troops retreat first.

On July 2, the base camp of the US military in Afghanistan, Bagram Air Force Base, was empty.

Kosistani, the Afghan commander who took over the Bagram Air Force Base, said that due to the unidentified U.S. military’s leaving without saying goodbye, a group of unidentified “predators” “catch the first step” and ransacked the barracks one by one.

On August 15, Taliban members posted on Twitter the US A-29 “Super Tucano” fighter jet and MD-530F military helicopter that had just been intercepted at Mazar-e-Sharif Airport.

On the 20th, US Secretary of Defense Austin stated that it is impossible to predict what kind of security threats the US military planes falling into the hands of the Taliban will pose to the United States in the future.

In addition, the heavy ground equipment that fell into the hands of the Taliban is countless.

329 M1151/M1152 “Humvee” tanks

21 Oshkosh anti-ambush all-terrain tanks

According to O’Hanlon, a senior researcher at the Brookings Think Tank, the US abandonment of Bagram Air Force Base triggered a chain reaction and accelerated the overall defeat of the Afghan government forces.

　　Millie, Chairman of the United States Joint Council:The military estimates that the (Afghan government forces) will quickly disintegrate in weeks, months, or even years after the United States left. I or anyone did not expect that there is any sign that the military and government will It collapsed in 11 days.

However, on the same day, Biden said in an exclusive interview with ABC that the “major chaos” had already been expected.

　　U.S. President Biden:I don’t think we can do better. Even if we look at this afterwards, our retreat will not avoid chaos. I can’t think of a (better) plan.

According to an anonymous US intelligence official to the New York Times, in recent months, as the situation in Afghanistan has changed, the US intelligence agency has continuously updated Biden’s national security team with the latest intelligence information. As recently as July 2021, the CIA clearly stated in a report that Kabul was at risk of being completely captured.

According to the latest poll released by the Associated Press and the National Opinion Center of the United States, more than two-thirds of Americans believe that the war in Afghanistan is not worth continuing. This is very similar to the situation in the late Vietnam War.

It was also under the pressure of widespread war exhaustion in China that Biden continued to implement the withdrawal plan that Trump unilaterally signed with the Taliban in February last year.

In addition, according to the “New York Times” report, former U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Director Bergling believes that the U.S. did not learn the lesson of “underestimating the enemy” during the Vietnam War.

The US military intelligence department compared the Afghan National Security Forces with the South Vietnamese puppet force, the “Republic of Vietnam Army” at the time, and believed that the South Vietnamese army survived for up to two years even after the United States withdrew and terminated economic support, so it was optimistic. It is believed that with the aid of the United States, the Afghan forces can theoretically last for about 18 months.

In fact, since July, the Afghan government forces have collapsed one after another.

Now, with the fall of Kabul, Biden began to work with his predecessor Trump to “who lost Afghanistan” and entered the “dumping pot mode.”

　　U.S. President Biden:When I took office, I inherited the negotiation agreement between President Trump and the Taliban. As your president, I must make a choice, either to abide by the agreement and continue with the agreement, or to prepare to go to war with the Taliban again. I am now the President of the United States, and the responsibility falls on me.

　　Former U.S. President Trump:To be honest, I have never had much confidence in (President of Afghanistan) Ghani. I have said this openly and frankly. I think he is a complete liar.

In response to Western media accusing the Afghan government forces of failing to contribute to the American “cause” in Afghanistan, but fleeing, on August 18, Afghan President Ghani, who was already in the UAE, denied the rumors of fleeing with huge amounts of cash. He said that he had been negotiating with the Taliban on the formation of an inclusive government.

Ghani emphasized that he left Afghanistan to avoid internal bloodshed.

On August 18, Fox News reported that the White House, the Pentagon, and intelligence officials all tried to shirk their responsibilities, and mutual accusations surrounding the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan have intensified.

The minority leader of the U.S. Senate and Republican Senator McConnell of Kentucky criticized: “Our experts have long anticipated what will happen in Afghanistan today. ).”

　　Former U.S. President Trump:They (other countries) laugh at us together. Not only is it embarrassing, but it will also affect our foreign relations in the next few decades. This is the most embarrassing time in our country’s history.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas accused the United States of giving priority to allowing American citizens to enter Kabul Airport. Agence France-Presse noticed that there were no Dutch citizens on the first Dutch plane to leave Kabul because all Dutch people were stopped outside the airport. The British “Guardian” is worried that once the Kabul International Airport is closed, it will affect the evacuation of the United Kingdom.

In this regard, CNN commented that “Biden once promised his allies that’the United States is back’, (but) the chaotic withdrawal has made allies worry that’America first’ still exists.”

Regardless of whom the pot is ultimately thrown to, CNN noted that as of the 20th, there are still tens of thousands of Americans, including diplomats, journalists, and contractors, who have not yet withdrawn from Afghanistan.

The number of Afghans eligible for evacuation who have assisted the US military may be as many as hundreds of thousands.

On the 15th, at the Kabul Airport, the Afghan people chasing the US military transport plane shocked the world.

Some Afghans who failed to enter the cabin even chose to take the risk and climbed onto the aircraft’s landing gear despite the danger. Some media have filmed that at least three people fell from the transport plane while the plane was still climbing.

According to the Guardian, there were 600 or even 800 people in the cabins of several US C17 transport planes flying to Qatar and Dubai, which were approved to carry 150 people.

On the 19th, US Pentagon spokesperson Kobe Bryant said that he planned to evacuate all American citizens before August 31, but he did not make a commitment to the Afghan people.

According to Al Jazeera, as early as the 16th, the Taliban blocked all roads leading to the airport and set up checkpoints, which also made evacuation more difficult.

　　“The international media keeps silent about the U.S. killing civilians everywhere in Afghanistan”

The “Capitol Hill” commented that the chaotic withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan may make the United States wobbly on the international stage.

From Bush Jr.’s high-profile start of the war in Afghanistan to Biden’s low-key pursuit of “a decent departure”, these have been 20 years in which the United States‘ war goals have been shrinking and retreating. It has also been 20 years in which the situation in Afghanistan has continued to be turbulent and the prospects for peace are worrying. It can be seen from this that the 20-year war in the United States was not only a great defeat, but also a heavy disaster for the Afghan people.

After the “September 11” incident, the United States launched a war to invade Afghanistan under the banner of “anti-terrorism” on the grounds that the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden.

In fact, 15 days after the “September 11” incident, more than a dozen CIA agents carrying $10 million in cash had already landed in northern Afghanistan by helicopter.

On November 13, 2001, five weeks after the start of the war, the local warlord “Northern Alliance”, which was bought by CIA agents, and with the strong support of the US military, captured Kabul.

In the view of “Kabul News” editor-in-chief Zavok, the United States‘ fight against terrorist organizations is false, and the fundamental purpose is to use Afghanistan, which is located in the “heart of Asia”, as a “military fulcrum” for further expansion.

From a historical point of view, the United States experienced two major military expansion periods after World War II. One began with the Korean War in 1950 and ended with the defeat of the Vietnam War in 1975. The second time was a series of wars launched in West Asia, the Middle East and other places starting with the Afghanistan War.

On March 20, 2003, the US military launched the Iraq War, which brought even greater disasters to the people of the Middle East. What has brought to Afghanistan is mess.

Years of wars have brought devastating blows to the Afghan economy. Since 2001, Afghanistan’s economic and social development has basically stagnated.

In the 2019-2020 fiscal year, Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is about 18.89 billion U.S. dollars, and its per capita GDP is only 586.6 U.S. dollars, or about 3,800 yuan.

The urbanization rate is only 26%, the unemployment rate exceeds 40%, and the poverty rate exceeds 70%. The average life expectancy of Afghans is about 45 years, and nearly half of children are malnourished. But lack of food and clothing is not the biggest nightmare.

　　Afghan political analyst Mushda:The international media always said that the Taliban made attacks and kept silent about the American killing of civilians everywhere in Afghanistan. The Americans are criminals and they kill people. All US troops, from commanders to ordinary soldiers, are criminals. In the future, they should be tried in court.

In May 2006, Kabul, a US military vehicle in Afghanistan attempted to flee the scene after hitting and killing Afghan civilians. After being surrounded by local people, the two sides clashed.

In December 2009, in Kandahar, U.S. soldier Gibbs formed a 5-person “killing team” to target Afghan civilians and started a “killing game”. After the assault, he even hid his bones to show off to others. It was nearly a year later that the killing team was killed. Arrested and tried.

In March 2012, U.S. sniper Bells attacked two villages in Kandahar and shot and killed 16 Afghan civilians, including 3 women and 9 children, but in the end Bells escaped the death penalty by voluntarily pleading guilty.

The American soldier Bryant, who has never set foot in Afghanistan, has “extreme achievements” in Afghanistan.

At Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, from 2006 to 2011, Bryant’s job was to control a Predator drone with Hellfire missiles flying over Afghanistan 13,000 kilometers away.

Bryant performed a total of 7 missions to fire on human targets, killing a total of about 13 people. According to his memory, only 3 of them were armed personnel.

　　Bryant:In 2007 we received an order to open fire on a building with two men inside, so we opened fire. It was an L-shaped building. A person suddenly came in from the outside of the screen. It looked like a person, not a dog. They told me it was a dog, but it was indeed a person who ran in from the outside.

　　Reporter:Is that a high-value goal?

　　Bryant:No, he is too young to be an adult man.

　　Reporter:You mean, is that a child?

　　Bryant:Yes, I believe that is a child. I asked the driver what it was, and he said it was not important. They don’t care, they don’t care, they don’t have sympathy, they don’t care, they don’t understand. They just said lightly that it is a tragedy and we have to keep it secret.

In 2011, Bryant retired from Creech Base, and as usual he received an envelope. Inside is the total number of kills in his combat squadron.

Many people will choose to destroy the envelope at the first time or throw it away, but Bryant chooses to open it, and it says: 1626.

In 2013, Bryant chose to expose the real situation of the U.S. military’s use of drones. A year later, he testified against the inhumane nature of the U.S. drone program before the UN Committee of Experts.

However, at the Senate hearing, Brennan, the then head of the CIA, argued that drones are a more “humane” approach than bombs and cannons.

This “sophistry” of American intelligence agencies sounds familiar.

　　Former U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo:The motto of the West Point Military Academy, first of all, requires that we must never lie, cheat, or steal, nor can we tolerate such people. But when I was the director of the CIA, we lied, cheated, and stole, and we had a whole set of training courses. This reminds you that this is the glory of America.

And Afghanistan under the occupation of the US military has become a place to embody the so-called “American glory.”

In Bagram Air Force Base, there is a secret prison under the jurisdiction of the CIA that can hold more than 1,200 people. On August 15, Afghan Taliban spokesman Mujahid stated that all prisoners in prison had been released.

In the north of Kabul, there is also a black prison code-named “Salt Pit”. It is the largest secret prison established by the CIA in Afghanistan and is also known as an unmarked cemetery.

According to the British “Guardian” report, on November 20, 2002, a 34-year-old Afghan man named Gul Rahman died in a “salt pit” and was guarded in a single cell after being detained for less than a month. When Rahman’s body was found, he was only wearing a sweater on his upper body, and his lower body was completely naked. He was handcuffed to a cold concrete wall with small blood stains at the corners of his mouth and nostrils. The doctor diagnosed that Rahman died of hypothermia. The temperature on that day was only -1°C, and there was no heating device in the cell.

According to the declassified CIA report, it is the usual practice of “salt pits” to wear only a pair of adult paper underwear to prisoners.

According to NBC and other US media, Rahman also suffered 48 hours of sleep deprivation, overloaded noise, total darkness, isolation, cold showers and other rough treatments during his lifetime. He was only suspected of being an activist and was not charged with any charges. .

After Rahman was killed, the U.S. military kept his name tight for seven years, during which Rahman’s family was looking for people everywhere. At the US military station in Azerbaijan, they were given a document stating that Rahman was not detained here.

Until 2015, following the declassification of a series of internal CIA documents, Rahman’s family learned of the bad news through the news media. The shady scenes of the US military’s abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan were exposed, but even so, the CIA never sent anyone to contact them. According to statistics from Brown University in the United States, since the United States launched its war on terrorism in the Middle East and Afghanistan in 2001. In 20 years, 480,000 people died, of which more than half were civilians. Among them, 157,000 people were killed in Afghanistan, and tens of thousands of them were Afghan civilians.

On March 5, 2020, Judge Hoffmanski of the International Criminal Court, headquartered in The Hague, the Netherlands, stated that he decided to launch a full investigation into suspected crimes committed by the US military in Afghanistan since May 1, 2003.

However, in September 2020, the United States used economic sanctions and visa restrictions to retaliate against the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor Bensouda and other staff and their families in an attempt to obstruct the international community’s investigation of US military atrocities.

　　Ben Souda, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court:Regarding those sanctions, I have already stated publicly that it is very regrettable that the Washington government should take this stance against the International Criminal Court.

　　True lie: The United States has long concealed the true situation in Afghanistan

Twenty years are not short in the historical process. It is also easy to remind people of the Vietnam War, which also fought for 20 years.

The prolonged war has caused Afghanistan to experience more division, turmoil and poverty, and finally ended with a great escape, great defeat, and great collapse triggered by the sudden withdrawal of US troops.

Now, as the situation in Afghanistan suddenly changes overnight, it has also forced the United States, the initiator of the war, to rethink.

On August 16, U.S. President Biden gave a speech, trying to attribute the “great defeat” of the United States to the ineffectiveness of the “Afghan Army”. However, including this speech, the Biden administration’s recent actions on the issue of the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan have caused strong dissatisfaction in the United States.

On the same day, Reuters polls showed that Biden’s approval rate dropped by 7 percentage points, falling to 46%, setting the lowest record since he took office.

Also on August 16, the US Special Monitoring Group for Afghanistan Reconstruction issued a 140-page “retrospective report” entitled “What We Need to Learn from: Lessons from 20 Years of Afghanistan Reconstruction”.

The Afghanistan Reconstruction Special Monitoring Group was established by the U.S. Congress in 2008. It is responsible for auditing and investigating the expenditure of the U.S. government on the battlefield in Afghanistan to eliminate corruption and inefficient spending.

In the report, the monitoring team summarized the seven major lessons of the United States on the Afghanistan issue, including the incoherence of Afghanistan’s reconstruction strategy, which resulted in “20 years” instead of “one 20 years”; the US trained personnel in Afghanistan were not qualified. ; Insufficient understanding of Afghanistan’s cultural and political background; lack of adequate supervision and evaluation, etc. The report clearly pointed out that the policies pursued by the United States in Afghanistan were “doomed to fail from the beginning.”

In fact, this is the 11th report on the experience and lessons of Afghan affairs issued by the monitoring group since its establishment.

In 2019, the “Washington Post” exposed an internal interview report of the monitoring team called “Afghan Documents.” In the report, the monitoring team interviewed more than 400 government insiders. These people were told that what they said was confidential information, so most of them answered frankly.

These interviewees unanimously stated that the U.S. affairs in Afghanistan are full of lies and deceit.

　　“Washington Post” reporter Whitelock:When you talk about some of the most basic questions, such as why are we in Afghanistan and what goals we want to achieve. These people in charge of war, from military commanders to ambassadors to the White House, they all said very bluntly that we have no strategy at all, and we don’t even know who the enemy is and who we are fighting against.

What shocked the “Washington Post” reporters was that these interviewees mentioned that from Bush Jr. to Obama to Trump, their strategies on Afghanistan were of no value.

　　Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Nicholas Burns:After 2003 and 2004, after we were deeply involved in two wars (the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war), I don’t remember if we asked, should we go there, is it useful for us, and will we win?

However, what is ridiculous is that the speeches of these government officials and military commanders in public are a completely different set of rhetoric.

According to “Washington Post” reporter Whitelock, government officials and military commanders usually have similar points in their speeches. The progress of the war is very difficult and the conditions are very difficult. This year is a very difficult year. The fighting is still going on. Taliban activities Increasing, violence has escalated, but we have made progress, tremendous progress.

The “Washington Post” commented that successive U.S. administrations misled the people by various means, kept silent about the troubles they encountered, and constantly created the illusion that “the situation is great and the victory is in sight.”

This “Afghan document” shows that of the 352,000 soldiers and policemen counted as members of the Afghan security forces, only 254,000 can be confirmed by the Afghan government.

According to Reuters, in 2016, a report issued by a U.S. government monitoring agency showed that in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, about 40% to 50% of the security forces did not exist at all. Commanders not only made “ghost soldiers” to replace payrolls, they also withheld the salaries of active soldiers and did not provide them with necessary supplies.

Some interviewees admitted frankly that it is common for the military headquarters in Kabul and the White House to distort and falsify statistics at will, in order to make people feel that the United States is winning the war.

Colonel Crowley, who served as a counter-terrorism adviser at the U.S. military headquarters in Kabul from 2013 to 2014, said in an interview:

“Every data point has been modified to present the best possible side. For example, various surveys are completely unreliable and only reinforce that everything we do is right. We have become a self-licking ‘Ice Cream Cone'”.

It was not until July this year that the British “Economist” magazine began to admit that the war in Afghanistan was a “disastrous defeat.” Previously, in Western media reports, Afghanistan has been touted as the place where the United States has won “flowers and applause.”

But nowadays, what blooms in the fields of Afghanistan is not flowers, but poppies.

On August 17, 2021, Afghan Taliban spokesperson Mujahid stated that Afghanistan will no longer be a poppy-growing country.

According to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in 2020, the opium poppy cultivation area in Afghanistan reached 224,000 hectares, an increase of 37% over 2019, and the opium production was 6,300 tons, accounting for about 85% of the world‘s supply. It took the United States 20 years to turn Afghanistan into a world-class drug laboratory. Afghanistan’s drug production has increased by 40 times, but its economic development has gone backwards for decades.

In April of this year, Brown University in the United States conducted a “war cost accounting” on the war in Afghanistan.

The calculation results show that since 2001, the United States has invested 2.26 trillion US dollars in Afghanistan. The largest expenditure item of which is nearly $1 trillion, is used for the overseas emergency response budget of the US Department of Defense.

The Forbes website pointed out that the United States spent more money to stop the Taliban than the net worth of the 30 wealthiest American billionaires including Amazon founder Bezos, Tesla CEO Musk, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Add up to more.

Brown University also estimates that even if the United States completes its withdrawal from Afghanistan, American taxpayers will continue to pay for it, because the money the United States borrowed to finance the war in Afghanistan is still accruing interest. Researchers estimate that the United States has paid more than $530 billion in interest. By 2050, the interest cost of Afghanistan’s war debt alone may reach US$6.5 trillion, which is equivalent to paying US$20,000 per American citizen.

On August 16, McKinley, the former US ambassador to Afghanistan, wrote on the Foreign Affairs website that the US’s failure in Afghanistan was not a question of which president, government or adviser, but a collective crime committed by the US as a country. Sexual error.

“We all lost Afghanistan”

“20 years of mistakes, misjudgments and collective failures”

“The current situation in Afghanistan makes it difficult to defend the’war on terrorism’ that (the United States) has waged in the country for more than 20 years.”

——Michael McKinley, former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan

On October 11, 2001, after the United States officially used force in Afghanistan, a reporter asked whether Bush Jr. could prevent the United States from falling into a quagmire similar to the Vietnam War in Afghanistan. Bush Jr. confidently said at the time: “We learned some very important things in Vietnam. Lesson.”

However, in the view of The Washington Post, the shadow of the Vietnam War has hung over Afghanistan from the very beginning.

Because of overestimation of his own strength, he rashly went to war, and was unable to get out for various reasons. In the end, he was caught in the quagmire of war and paid a huge price.

The Vietnam War was fought from 1955 to 1975. It experienced four U.S. presidents, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, and finally ended in a disastrous American defeat.

German counter-terrorism expert Rolf Tophofen said in an interview with the German media “Focus Online” that Western politicians have never known Afghanistan as a country. They want to quickly establish a view of democracy and human rights in this country, but they don’t care. The thinking of the Afghans. We cannot simply apply Western values ​​to Afghanistan. This is a fatal error.

In April 2021, when US Vice President Harris was participating in activities related to employment and infrastructure policies, he accidentally “missed his mouth” and revealed the real reason for the United States to start the war.

　　U.S. Vice President Harris:I have participated in many conferences on foreign policy. For many years, wars have been fought for oil. Soon, water resources will become the focus of contention.

In fact, the United States has repeatedly exported unrest in the name of “anti-terrorism” and “promoting democracy” for many years. The victims are not only Afghanistan, but also Syria, Iraq, and Libya.

As the Russian “Eurasia Daily” commented, wherever the so-called democracy promoted by the Americans goes, conflicts, chaos, and terrorism will appear.

The British newspaper The Independent stated that the United States and Britain have been trapped in the battlefield in Afghanistan for 20 years, but they are now defeated at such a rapid rate. This highlights the serious failure of the West and once again heralds that the era of the United States as the sole superpower is coming to an end.

Indeed, at the juncture of war and peace, chaos and governance in Afghanistan, the United States, as the instigator, left a mess and then turned and left, exposing its hypocrisy and recklessness of morality and selfishness.

After 20 years of scorched earth, facing the devastated land and chaotic situation, stopping war and achieving peace are the aspirations of more than 30 million Afghan people and the common expectation of the international community and regional countries.