Lessons from the Afghan war

BY KENNETH MUFUKA

As United States troops leave Afghanistan in utter chaos and humiliation, historians, who are the wisest among the fundis (scholars) are opening the pages of their ancient scripts and saying; “Ah, so what else is new under the sun?”

The cause for US defeat and the reasons for US presence, as was indeed the causes for Russian and British presence before them are the same. All three great powers wanted to replace native rulers with puppet leaders.

Backed by a British and Indian army, known at the time to be “incredibly powerful with a reputation for efficiency and order,” writes historian George Fraser. Sir William Macnaghten replaced Emir Dost Muhammad with a British puppet ruler of his choice.

Within months the puppet ruler, uncertain of total support, was part of the treachery against the British. Thus a British military base with 16 000 troops and civilians was threatened.

After Macnaghten’s murder on January 13, 1842, an understanding of “safe passage” having been reached, the British made a run for Jalalabad, 90 miles away.

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The promise of “safe passage” to the British infidels was not kept. Of the 16 000 who left, only Dr William Brydon arrived at Jalalabad. Some say that Brydon was allowed to leave so he could tell the story, so that no infidel would ever try to bother the righteous Afghans ever again.

The name Taliban means the righteous ones.

These are the lessons of Afghanistan, but the infidels never learn, they forget everything and keep on bothering the Afghan people.

From the beginning, in 2002, after driving Bin Laden and his supporters from Afghanistan, to which they were justified, the US then exceeded their mandate and imposed their puppets, first Hamid Kazai, a former operative of the US secret service and an employee of Unical, an oil company. The Americans accused Kazai of the worst cases of corruption, squirreling money into foreign accounts and failing to crush anti-American sentiments. Ashraf Ghani was their second choice. Former president Donald Trump said last week that Ghani was a total crook, as witnessed by the sumptuous lifestyle at his palace and his attempt to bribe US senators.

Ghani, a US citizen educated at the American University in Beirut and Columbia University in New York, was Afghan in clothes only but American in thought and deeds. A former World Bank official, he was a campaigner against corruption. He turned against his masters, bitterly accusing them of looking over his shoulder and undermining his authority. In turn the US froze US$100 million in aid money, citing corruption charges.

Like his predecessor, Kazai, Ghani argued that US practices fuelled corruption in Afghanistan. First, aspiring Afghans were offered high paying jobs at US NGO’s in Kabul, thus depriving the country of their best talents. Secondly, a US contract to build a school could get away with US$250 000 since foreign contractors were paid expatriate fees. A similar project awarded to natives cost U$50 000.

Nevertheless, treachery was found on both sides. After spending U$800 billion in training the Afghan army and special forces, the Afghans made a deal with the Taliban not to fight when their colonial masters left. Thus a huge army of 380 000 troops melted into the populace as their US masters fled the country.

The US itself, abandoned Bagram Air Base, the largest in the world outside the US in the middle of the night without telling the Afghan commander they were leaving.

So each side accuses the other of committing the mother of all treacheries.

The US was naïve beyond imagination. The US government relied on Pakistan for intelligence and logistics about the Taliban in Afghanistan. Despite billions of US foreign aid ear marked for Pakistan over a long period of 20 years, Pakistanis were never faithful allies of the US.

When Bin Laden fled from Afghanistan, he found shelter a few miles from a Pakistani military base and lived here for more than 10 years. Pakistani president pretended not to know where he was.

Defenseless against US mountain busting bombs, the Taliban abandoned their cave hide-outs and found shelter in Pakistan. Perhaps tribal and religious ties across borders were more important than all the money the US could dispense with.

Colonial treachery and confusion abounds everywhere. As I write, Wednesday, the news reaching the US is that the British parliament and the House of Lords have both condemned the US hasty withdrawal. It appears that when US President Joe Biden made this decision in April, the European Union was not fully consulted beforehand. The plight of 100 000 native workers in US employment, now at the mercy of the Taliban was never considered and this is what irks the British.

There is a protocol among the Taliban that some folks are so guilty that they must be shot on sight. The British like their European allies were informed after the decision was made and US withdrawals had started.

Nevertheless, a fact none of the US and its allies failed to understand is that there is no nice way of losing a war. Trump had consulted with the Taliban in Dohar and says that he had them to “promise” not to attack US troops and allies as they leave.

A similar “understanding” was reached in January 1842 with the British forces that they would be allowed safe passage to Jalalabad. A defeated army has no negotiating power, really. That is just part of natural law.

The British can fume, but their naïve allies in Afghanistan must face the Taliban alone.

As in Vietnam, US Secretary of State negotiated peace with North Vietnamese and shared a Nobel Peace prize with Le Duc Tu. There was no peace as US forces were driven out of South Vietnam. South Vietnamese allies of the US were not at the “peace talks”.

Oh, how puppets never learn from the past. When Trump decided to leave Afghanistan in September 2020 and announced that at Dohar, none of his Afghan allies were there.

Biden is not entirely to blame. When he was vice-president, he travelled to Afghanistan. He talked to 100 US soldiers there. “What is your mission in Afghanistan?” He asked. He got 100 answers. The commonest answer was that the US wanted to liberate Afghan women from Islamic tyranny.

They expected Islamic men, the Mullahs and bearded tribal elders to support their mission. That is the mother of all confusion.

PEACE.

• Ken Mufuka is a Zimbabwean patriot. He writes from the US.