After tracing the 9/11 attacks to Osama bin Laden, who was believed to be living in Afghanistan, America asked the Taliban to surrender him to the US. When they refused, stating that he was a guest of the Afghans, America attacked Afghanistan with all its might.
General Pervez Musharraf, who was ruling Pakistan at the time, gave a widely televised interview in which he described in gripping detail how the attack would unfold. Musharraf had decided to put Pakistan on America’s side, to avoid being bombed back to the Stone Age.
It was not just Musharraf who cheered the Americans as they attacked Afghanistan. There were many throughout the globe who cheered as they saw televised footage of American warplanes swooping down from the skies to give the terrorists a much deserved comeuppance for attacking the Twin Towers. The Afghan war was considered a justified war of necessity, unlike the Iraq War which came two years later.
Afghans had successfully used guerrilla warfare against the Soviets in the 1980s, with America on their side. In the previous century, they had used it to evict the British Raj. Their skills to wage war against much greater armies had been honed over millennia, dating back to the invasion of Alexander the Great. Guerilla warfare skills are ingrained in Afghan DNA. They had only failed against Genghis Khan, the great invader from Mongolia
Mullah Omar and his ilk were quickly removed from power. They had no chance of winning a conventional war against the Americans but were prepared to fight a long, protracted guerilla war. The Afghans had used this tactic well against the Soviets in the 1980s, with America on their side. In the previous century, they had used it to evict the British Raj. Their skills to wage war against much greater armies had been honed over millennia, dating back to the invasion of Alexander the Great. Guerilla warfare skills are ingrained in Afghan DNA. They had only failed against Genghis Khan, the great invader from Mongolia.
When hammered by the strongest army in the world the Taliban yielded, but they did not die ideologically, politically or physically. Thousands of Taliban fighters probably died, and many more were probably maimed. But a large number simply changed clothes and blended into the civilian population.
This was an eerie repeat of what the Viet Cong had done decades earlier when fighting the Americans in Vietnam. They would meld into the local population during the day, attack at night and disappear into the tunnels.
Bin Laden, the most wanted man in the world, eluded what was probably the most intensive manhunt in world history. A kidney patient living off dialysis not only survived the US bombings at Tora Bora against all odds, he actually escaped to Pakistan where he remained in hiding until he was found and killed a decade later. Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban,similarly lived on for many years. He was never found. He died a natural death two years later in Pakistan.
As the war dragged on, the tide of battle began to turn against the Americans. It was no longer safe for US infantry to patrol the streets of Kabul on foot. They would patrol in armoured Humvees, unable to come out of fear of being shot. Americans found it increasingly hard to tell friend from foe. The hunters had become the hunted.
Having run out of hard targets to decimate with air strikes, they began resorting to drone attacks to hunt down the leaders of the Taliban. These required precise, on-the-ground intelligence which was not always there. Innocent civilians began to be killed, including people attending weddings, pregnant woman and school children.
The deaths of civilians began to make headlines in world news. International opinion began to turn against the Americans. And even in Afghanistan, the common man who had suffered an enormous loss of freedom under the Taliban began to feel that America had overstayed its welcome, evoking shades of the ‘Yankee Go Home’ signs that were ubiquitous in Southeast Asia during the closing years of the Vietnam War.
Emboldened, the Taliban began to resort to suicide bombings in major Afghan cities. Worse, they facilitated the birth of a sibling in Pakistan. Suicide bombings began occurring there in large numbers, often killing large numbers of civilians during religious services, and at weddings. They hit a naval base in Karachi and later hit the Army Public School in Peshawar, killing 141 children and teachers.
A kidney patient living off dialysis, OBL not only survived US bombings at Tora Bora, he actually escaped to Pakistan where he remained in hiding until he was found and killed a decade later. Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, similarly lived on for many years. He was never found. He died a natural death two years later in Pakistan
America was stuck in a quagmire of its own making, validating yet again the nineteenth century dictum of Field Marshal Helmuthvon Moltke’s, that no war plans survives the first 24 hours of the contact with the enemy.
Spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the fifth-poorest country on earth had failed to win over the population. In fact, as one American general noted in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, for every innocent person killed by the US, 10 new enemies were created. He stated that the US could not win against the insurgency by killing people. He recalled that the Russians lost the war even though they had killed one million Afghans.
An American veteran who had spent two years in the Afghan countryside noted that even “the most hardened Afghan commanders, who hate the Taliban remorselessly, have lectured me on how civilian casualties and entering homes at night cause innocent Afghans to turn to the Taliban. I have seen scores of villages empty out to riot over desecration of the Quran.”
Against this backdrop, Scott Horton has written a brilliant book that is bluntly titled, “Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan.” He says that the US failed to understand Afghanistan, its history and culture, and its terrain. Neither did the US understand the canny nature of Afghan leaders who pretended to support western style democracy in order to keep the money flowing into their coffers. He said that US generals, many of whom had prematurely become heroes in Iraq, failed to comprehend the difference between the two wars.
Horton concludes that “After more than a decade and a half, the results are in. The U.S. government has been unable to achieve its goals in Afghanistan. Even worse, the state it has been able to establish there is completely unsustainable and is certain to fall apart when the occupation is finally called off. The politicians, generals and intelligence officers behind this unending catastrophe, who always promise they can fix these problems with just a little bit more time, money and military force, have lost all credibility. The truth is America’s Afghan war is an irredeemable disaster. It was meant to be a trap in the first place. America not only failed to defeat its enemies, but is destroying itself, just as Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda always intended.”
Now, in a last ditch attempt to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, America has announced a new war strategy. Deploying a few thousand additional troops is not going to change America’s fortune. It is a case of doing too little, too late. It is time for America to pack up and leave, letting Afghans decide their own fate.
The writer has authored “Musharraf’s Pakistan, Bush’s America and the Middle East”
Published in Daily Times, November 14th 2017.