9/11 and Twenty Years of Afghanistan: What's Next?
Today is a somber reminder of the value of life and how quickly it can be taken away by those who seek to destroy the democracy this nation has built, notwithstanding its flaws. Continued condolences to all those families and friends of the innocent victims who lost their loved ones twenty years ago today.
We all correctly correlate the attack against America on September 11, 2001, to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. And in the twenty years since 9/11, thankfully, there have been no attacks on U.S. soil. But the terrorist threat domestically and abroad has never been quashed. It’s still out there and our government works to combat it every day all over the world. Naturally, after 9/11, since bin Laden and al-Qaeda had been provided safe harbor by Afghanistan’s leadership, which at that time was the Taliban, our military was sent there to extinguish our new enemy. Yes, we succeeded in removing the Taliban from power, and then installed new leadership to run the Afghan government, but we also know that twenty-year incursion failed miserably and continuously, evidenced by exactly where we are today. So, twenty years later, what does the future of terrorism look like? Once again, it starts with Afghanistan and the Taliban being back in power.
The history of war in Afghanistan is filled with irony. No country in the last 200 years has successfully invaded and defeated the Afghans. Great Britain failed three times in the British-Afghan wars (1838-42, 1878-80 and 1919-21). The Russians lost as well in their 1979-1989 incursion, with the United States assisting the Islamic guerillas, then known as the ‘Mujahadeen.’ Many of you probably saw the Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts movie, Charlie Wilson’s War, which explains how a U.S. Congressman caused American dollars to be sent to fund the Mujahideen fight against the Russians. What most don’t know is that after that war, the Mujahadeen organized themselves better and ultimately became, yes, the Taliban. So, here’s the irony: first, Russia invaded Afghanistan and unsuccessfully fought the ‘Taliban’ Islamic radicals, who were funded and armed by the U.S. Second, only a dozen or so years later, sparked by 9/11, the Russians returned the favor against the United States by funding and arming their prior enemy, the Taliban, who, as we know aligned themselves with al-Qaeda. Now Russia is in tight with the Taliban, and we are out of the country completely. You’ve probably heard the expression, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
It was a no brainer that President Biden said enough was enough and pulled the country out of Afghanistan. We were never going to win that war, and the proof is that we made virtually no progress in the past twenty years. Moreover, it is effectively incontestable that over these past twenty years, it was mostly the United States who carried the financial and manpower burden of that war, with some, but not much help from our alliance with NATO. At its height, approximately 130,000 total U.S. and combined NATO troops were stationed in Afghanistan. The sad reality is that about 7,000 American troops and contractors lost their lives fighting the Taliban, as did 1,100 NATO troops, 47,000 Afghan civilians and 73,000 Afghan troops. Nobody knows how many Taliban died. We do know that over these past twenty years, the U.S. also spent $2.26 trillion dollars on Afghanistan. Finally, our country could no longer afford either the loss of life, or the wasting of significant dollars on a war that could never be won. To be sure, we all understood why in the aftermath of 9/11, President Bush sent troops into Afghanistan. It was to capture or kill bin Laden and to destroy al-Qaeda. It was not to fight the Taliban, but it did work out that way.
The result of this debacle, for which both parties were at fault, is that over the past decade the Taliban has grown larger and stronger. Its violence against non-Taliban Afghan citizens, particularly women and children, has been historically vast and horrific. They have proven that they will kill their own Muslim citizens who refuse to convert to the Taliban’s even more radical Islamic beliefs. Hundreds of thousands of innocent Afghans could die. The Taliban will run Afghanistan with an iron fist as no other country is ready, willing, or able to stop them. In fact, the Taliban are now armed better than ever before given the vast number of weapons worth billions of dollars that the United States left behind. The inventory includes up to 208 aircraft including Black Hawk helicopters and A-29 Super Tucanos, 2500 bombs, 600,000 M-4 carbines and M-16 rifles, 7000 machine guns, 20,000 hand grenades and about 76,000 vehicles. What a going away gift that was.
What exactly did the United States accomplish over these past twenty years? Unfortunately, nothing positive, because the end result simply speaks for itself. We have suffered a substantial loss of life, a massive financial expense, a loss of face across the globe and an emboldened Taliban with a new arsenal of U.S. weapons. As the expression goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Looking into the crystal ball, I estimate that for the next ten years, the Taliban’s hold on Afghanistan is very bad for the world at large. First, Afghanistan is the world’s largest opium producer. The U.S. spent over $8 billion to stop the Afghan drug trade, unsuccessfully. The Taliban have few sources of income. Afghanistan has no tax base or legitimate income producing assets. It is known to be one of the poorest countries in the world. While the Taliban publicly proclaims to be anti-drug, it has been producing opium nonstop for at least the past fifteen years. The Taliban needs and wants the money, and there is nobody to stop them from expanding their role as the opiate drug kings of the world.
Second, al-Qaeda and the Taliban are kindred spirits. The world hasn’t heard much from al-Qaeda the past few years in terms of committing massive terrorist attacks, but the fact is, the organization has more funding and soldiers than ever before. Not only are al-Qaeda soldiers already returning to Afghanistan, but al-Qaeda also has significant influence in certain African countries. History will repeat itself. In the late 1970’s and 1980’s, Afghanistan was the largest terrorist training ground worldwide, and the Taliban didn’t even then run the country. Militant Islamists from all over the world trained in Afghanistan, then traveled to London (and other Western cities) where they spread their fundamentalist views in mosques, including the Finsbury Mosque which produced the notorious terrorists Abu Hamza, the shoe bomber Richard Reid, and 9/11 participant Zacarias Moussaoui, plus many more. Expect this cycle of Islamist indoctrination to expand again, because there will be no Western intervention to stop the spread of terrorism in Afghanistan.
Finally, Afghanistan shares a 570-mile border with Iran, who, for many years, supplied the Taliban with money and weapons. Iran and Afghanistan have also long been trading partners, which means these two hard Islamic fundamentalist countries will become stronger allies. Perhaps even worse, it would not be surprising if Russia and/or China both step in to exert their influence and prop up the Taliban, both of which countries have interests directly opposite to those of our America.
The foundation for these events is already in place. Let’s hope that somehow, the Taliban can be derailed. But don’t bet on it. And going forward, the United States will have to hunker down even more to protect itself to assure there is never another 9/11, or anything close to it, again.