On Wednesday Axios reported that “the Taliban has stunned even some seasoned military and national security officials in the U.S. government with the speed of its conquests over the past week.”
This admission that much of the D.C. national security establishment was clueless to the rapid rise of Taliban rule and swift fall of the Afghan government is not surprising. They are at fault for promoting an unattainable outcome in Afghanistan for almost two decades, and are suddenly “stunned” when faced with the reality that has existed in Afghanistan all along.
I’ve said it for years: The end result in Afghanistan will look the same, whether we leave in two months or 10 years. The Taliban will quickly topple the Afghan military and government and rule Afghanistan once again.
The Afghan government was never going to be able to stand on its own without the U.S. military and dollars propping it up. That is what the situation on the ground in Afghanistan has always been.
But generals, political leadership at the Pentagon, and DC think tanks painted a different picture. They sold the story of women’s rights, freedom, kids going to school and peace, and overall an Afghan government and military that was self-sustainable, in one of the most volatile regions in the world often referred to as the Graveyard of Empires. Year after year, they continued to make the case that investing in Afghanistan’s future was worth the cost of thousands of American lives and what is now more than $2 trillion of U.S. taxpayer dollars.
They knew the truth, but they lied to us anyway—for almost 20 years. The story was always the same: we are making progress in Afghanistan, the war was worth it, it’s preventing another 9/11, all that’s needed is more time and money. They continued to make these proclamations with nothing to back them up, but met little to no resistance.
WARS ARE ABOUT MAKING MONEY & noone cared about the ones Who suffer & die in them !!!