After 20 years and $2tn spent in Afghanistan, what was it all for?

Date: 18‑08‑2021

Source: The Guardian

Analysis: The stunning US defeat has left Afghans and Americans distraught and confused but some gains may not be easily erased

On 1 October 2001, three weeks after the 9/11 attacks and six days before the bombing of Afghanistan began, there was a small protest march in Washington.

The marchers wore badges saying “Don’t Turn Tragedy into War” and “Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War”, and argued that war was not the inevitable response to the terrorist outrage.

The protest was dismissed in the wake of the atrocities committed by al‑Qaida. The headline on the New York Times report on the march was “Marchers Oppose Waging War Against Terrorists”.

Twenty years on, in the wake of a stunning defeat for the US and its allies and the return of the Taliban to power, the questions the marchers were asking are being asked again – this time in a spirit of resignation and despair.

The Real Failure Is Pakistan

Date: 18‑08‑2021

Source: Project Syndicate by Bill Emmott

Bill Emmott, a former editor‑in‑chief of The Economist, is co‑director of the Global Commission for Post‑Pandemic Policy. 

The blame for the return of the Taliban to power lies largely with Pakistan and America’s inability to bring the country onside. Even if the US had not diverted its attention and resources to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, that failure would have doomed its policy in Afghanistan.

LONDON – There is only one good thing about the fact that the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks will take place less than a month after the Taliban have re‑established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. It will serve as a reminder of why it was necessary to invade the country and topple the Taliban government two decades ago.

When nearly 3,000 people are slaughtered on your soil in an operation planned and ordered by a known terrorist group residing in a country whose government refuses to cooperate in bringing that group and its leader to justice, there are no good options.

The retaliatory attack on Afghanistan was the only time Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, under which signatories agree to consider an attack on one as an attack on all, was invoked. The United States‑led invasion was widely supported; unlike the invasion of Iraq two years later, only a few countries condemned or opposed it.