Doug Bandow
No one ever accused President Donald Trump of being a systematic thinker. Were not the potential consequences so great, the obvious response to his demand on Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban to “return” Bagram air base would be uproarious laughter.
It’s been more than four years since the Biden administration withdrew U.S. forces from the central Asian state. The departure, just a few weeks shy of the 20-year anniversary of the arrival of American forces, made Washington’s 1975 exit from Saigon look orderly. However, the U.S. military’s retreat was long overdue and completed the accord negotiated by Trump during his first term. Some of the insurgents had been fighting since the Taliban first emerged in 1994, and even before, against Soviet occupiers. Demanding that the victors accept a permanent U.S. military presence would have killed any agreement, turning Afghanistan into a truly forever war.
Since then, the people of Afghanistan have suffered under the Taliban’s oppressive, theocratic rule. However, for many the end of the war was still a relief. While Americans like to view themselves as liberators, many Afghans saw them as anything but that. Explained interpreter Baktash Ahadi:
Virtually the only contact most Afghans had with the West came via heavily armed and armored combat troops. Americans thus mistook the Afghan countryside for a mere theater of war, rather than as a place where people actually lived. U.S. forces turned villages into battlegrounds, pulverizing mud homes and destroying livelihoods.
Unsurprisingly, Ahadi continued, “any sympathy for the West evaporated in bursts of gunfire.” Compared to the distant, corrupt, and incompetent Kabul government and its American ally, the Taliban became the lesser of two evils.
Even critics of the latter welcomed peace. After visiting the country shortly after the insurgents’ victory, journalist Anand Gopal observed that “the biggest thing I noticed on the ground is just how tired people were of fighting.” Most Americans had no idea. Added Gopal:
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