Afghanistan: Taliban seize power, shame US imperialism, Afghans pay the price

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The imperialist forces worry about the negative effects they will suffer, and at the same time they ignore the Afghan masses

Rob Jones International Socialist Road

The 20-year occupation of Afghanistan by the United States and its allies has been a disaster for the people who live in this country. At least 250,000 people, including combatants and civilians, were killed, and the actual number could be much higher. Corruption permeates the government, the police, the military and the courts. Drug-rich warlords have been profiting from bribes, yet the country's GDP per capita is less than $500. Millions of people use drugs to paralyze themselves and escape reality. Although the status of urban women has improved somewhat, the vast majority of those living in rural areas still face extreme poverty and the threat of violence and war.

We have seen a series of humiliating disasters brought about by US imperialism on the Korean peninsula, Vietnam, Somalia, Syria, Libya and now Afghanistan. Thousands of people poured into Kabul airport, hundreds of people crowded into American planes, and some people even dropped planes in a desperate attempt to flee the country. These terrifying images vividly demonstrate the impact of these events on the reputation of American imperialism. of heavy damage. Biden said in July of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Saigon, Vietnam, that "you don't see people being hoisted from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan," when reality hit Biden hard in the face.

This is not just a personal humiliation for Biden after he continued Trump's foreign policy, but also a blow to American interests. The U.S. launched Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 after the Taliban government refused to confess to Al Qaeda, which planned the 9/11 attacks. The war initially involved a coalition of 40 countries, but the war has consumed a lot of manpower so far. and financial resources.

More than 100,000 Afghan soldiers, both pro-government and pro-Taliban, lost their lives in the war, and more than 3,500 coalition soldiers and many mercenaries (personally hired combatants) lost their lives, and many more Thousands of Afghan civilians died.

At the same time, the United States has spent $2.2 trillion on the war, half of which has been spent by the Department of Defense. An incredible $530 billion went into banks as interest on war loans. The latter spending is much higher than the Afghan Defense Forces' training budget ($100 billion) or the basic programs generally used to pay Western contract troops and non-profit organizations ($144 billion). The United States will also continue to pay for the war in the form of reparations and pensions for veterans and interest payments for many years to come.

strategic competition

Biden explained of the sudden withdrawal of American soldiers, "The American military cannot and should not fight a war that Afghan forces are unwilling to fight for themselves and die in that war." Of course, although both American and British veterans are Expressing their voices in their protests, many will have some sympathy for this statement. A bomb disposal expert disabled by the war tweeted: "Is it worth it, probably not. I lost my legs for nothing, it looks like. My comrades died senselessly Yes. It's a heavy day on the eleventh anniversary of my bombing. My emotions, anger, sadness of betrayal hit my brain."

Although Biden tries to explain the withdrawal of US troops in this way, the truth is that Biden continues to pursue Trump's strategic competition tactics aimed at clearing the way for a blatant war with China. But on the contrary, these times in Kabul weakened the US imperial attention and strengthened the position of its main adversaries (primarily China, but also Iran and Russia). These countries are certainly more confident in their own current actions.

Soon, the Chinese regime, through its mouthpiece, the Global Times, warned whether the US abandonment of Afghanistan after 20 years "is some kind of harbinger of Taiwan's future destiny." Although Su Zhenchang responded that "Taiwan will not be as rout as Afghanistan," these incidents have heightened concerns that the United States will be unable or unwilling to help Taiwan if it is attacked by China.

Why did the Ghani regime collapse so quickly?

The most recent international leader to blame the Afghan government was NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who said "at the end of the day, Afghan political leaders have failed to stand up to the Taliban and fail to achieve what Afghanistan desperately desires. peaceful solution.”

After two decades and a cost of $2 trillion, imperialist regimes, including NATO, which fought the war until 2014, have failed to build a stable and capable regime against the Taliban. The Pentagon insists that the Afghan military and police are four times larger than the Taliban, but the military and police succumbed to the Taliban within days.

From the very beginning, the US approach was based on fantasy, wishful thinking that it could bring Afghanistan to its knees. In 2006 Bush's Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld authorized the torture of Afghan criminals, claiming that a few years ago "al Qaeda and the Taliban were torturing the Afghan people. Now terrorist training camps are closed and football fields are being used for football." Rather than executions ... it's all for the benefit of the Afghan people."

President Obama and Vice President Biden decided to send more troops, tripling the number of U.S. troops to 100,000, which he claimed would end the war when he ran for re-election in 2014. Later, the scale of reinforcements was reduced, because part of the Afghan government forces began to attack the US military, becoming the so-called "internal response".

Trump believed the Taliban could negotiate a deal in Doha, so he announced that he would withdraw, and now Biden has done so. In their blueprint, Afghan government forces are capable of stopping the Taliban. In the worst-case scenario, the United States also expects the Taliban offensive to continue for months.

The corrupt Afghan government

Even the U.S. military's West Point military academy estimates that the Pentagon's claims of military and police numbers are grossly inflated, and that many existing units are poorly trained. Corruption at the top led to the prevalence of "ghost soldiers", whose wages all went to the generals' pockets. Many soldiers are illiterate, and 25 percent become deserters every year. In this case, the Pentagon's high-tech drones equipped with government forces and fighter jets used to attack the Taliban simply cannot be maintained after the withdrawal of American troops. In May, U.S. Secretary of Defense Austin pledged to continue air support through virtual meetings, a ridiculous idea given that there is little internet available in Afghanistan. As if that wasn't enough, most government military personnel were paid directly by the Pentagon until recently, and now many of them have lost their income. So it is not surprising that they have no resistance.

The fact that Afghan President Ghani has fled Afghanistan so quickly that he has made no serious attempt to resist the Taliban reflects his regime's complete lack of social foundation. Although Ghani won a majority, the turnout was below 20 percent. According to Ghani himself, 90 percent of Afghans earn less than $2 a day. Only 43% were educated, 55% lacked clean water and 31% lacked clean sanitation and systems. The country's GDP is $20 billion, a tiny amount compared to what the U.S. has spent over the past 20 years. If imperialism is serious about helping to develop a proper economy, those who are involved in the drug trade or smuggling (Afghanistan's main source of international trade), or those who support the Taliban for economic reasons, can engage in socially useful work, and Islamic fundamentalism There is no basis for development.

For a short time, some local warlords who profited from the opium trade and other illegal operations thought that the government forces would seriously resist the Taliban. The three most influential warlords, Atta Muhammad Noor, Abdul Rashid Dostum, and Haji Muhammad Muhaqiq, formed an anti-Taliban coalition with government forces. But when the city quickly fell into the hands of the Taliban, they quickly gave up their resistance and fled abroad. The other warlords, of course, temporarily accepted reality and turned to the Taliban.

The imperialist powers responded

The humiliating failure of U.S. imperialism, and Biden’s response on live television was of course just an effort to shirk responsibility. They, along with other imperialist powers such as Canada, Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom, quickly rescued their citizens and their translators and other staff from the besieged Kabul airport. As for Iran, China and Russia and Pakistan are still maintaining their embassies.

All the powers have almost unanimously said they will wait and see whether to recognize the Taliban government. "The legitimacy of any future Taliban government depends on whether they uphold internationally recognized standards of human rights and inclusiveness," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in an extremely sharp debate in an emergency parliament. But Western powers now have few tools to press new governments to ensure they meet these standards.

The non-Western imperialist powers, including China, Russia, and Iran, were significantly strengthened by these events. China can't wait to get down on the United States' failure. "Xinhua News Agency" called it "the death knell of the decline of American hegemony" and "the roar of airplanes and the rush of retreating crowds reflect the last dusk of the empire." But these regimes still see the situation as both a challenge and an opportunity.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said China would only recognize the Taliban after it established an "open, inclusive and broadly representative government."

Facing the threat of refugees, China quickly consolidated its 70-kilometer border between Xinjiang and Afghanistan. Concerned that the Taliban's victory will boost the status of Uighur Muslims, China has urged the Taliban to limit the activities of groups such as the Uighur East Iraqi Movement.

In recent negotiations with the Taliban, China has raised the possibility of expanding the Belt and Road project, but only on the condition that groups such as the East Turkistan Movement need to be suppressed. However, these projects only make sense if China can expand the CPEC. But the Belt and Road project appears to have been delayed by some local opposition, including terrorist attacks on Chinese workers, and the prospect of Pakistan defaulting on Belt and Road-related debt.

China has already had an influence on Afghanistan. China was the country's largest investor during the U.S. occupation, in part because of its relative stability. Local proven iron, copper, talc and lithium resources are estimated to be worth as much as $1 trillion. Lithium metal is key to producing electric vehicles, and Afghanistan is known as the Saudi Arabia of lithium mines. Although the Chinese and Arab governments signed an agreement to mine copper in 2007, the project has been delayed.

Future investments depend not only on whether the Taliban can guarantee stability in Afghanistan, but also on the situation in Pakistan, where a Taliban victory will strengthen those anti-Chinese Islamic groups in Pakistan. For these reasons, China is as eager as Iran to see the Taliban negotiate with other groups to form an inclusive government.

Russia does not have the same economic power as China, but it has a strong military and has security agreements with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, two countries with long borders with Afghanistan. Turkmenistan, known as "North Korea in Central Asia," has to manage its borders; Turkey is said to be strengthening its border walls to stop refugees.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has displayed its usual hypocrisy. The Russian ambassador in Kabul even commented when the Taliban took over Afghanistan that "the Taliban's takeover of the city is positive and maintains law and order". Now Taliban soldiers are protecting the Russian embassy in Kabul.

The Taliban has been designated a terrorist organization in Russia since 1999, when the Taliban sent troops to support the Chechen militia. But that didn't stop the Taliban from sending a delegation to negotiate with the Russian government in July. Russia also wants to see "a government with the participation of other political forces" and "the beginning of an inclusive dialogue, involving various political and ethnic groups", Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying. It is seeking assurances from the Taliban that some extremist groups will not flow into Central Asia and to stem the influx of refugees. Russia has sent 7,000 troops to strengthen the border of the Republic of Tajikistan after receiving news that Tajik soldiers fighting the Taliban were patrolling the other side of the border in Badakhshan province.

wrong comparison

Many have understandably compared the scene to the 1975 U.S. retreat from Saigon, Vietnam. But the situation at the time, at the height of the first Cold War, was completely different. The old Cold War was between two different political and economic systems - capitalist imperialism and the non-capitalist Stalinist bloc. The Vietnam War represented the struggle of the colonial peoples to break with capitalism, and the elements of land reform and planned economy based on the struggle of the peasants and the masses were also a victory for the international labor movement. But the current defeat of U.S. imperialism has not only strengthened another capitalist imperialist power, China, but has also brought a reactionary, religious and almost feudalist force to power.

Others also recalled the last Soviet "humiliating withdrawal" from Afghanistan in 1989. The Chinese regime also said triumphantly: "Afghanistan is the grave of empires" - although the Soviet Union was not an empire in a Marxist sense.

The Soviet retreat took place against the backdrop of the rapid disintegration of the Stalinist bloc. The Brezhnev regime's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, ostensibly at the "invitation of the Afghan government", gave Western imperialism a propaganda weapon. Yet Soviet forces helped maintain Najibullah's regime, implementing partial reforms of land reform, health care and education, while women enjoyed at least formal equality. Three years after the Soviet withdrawal, the regime collapsed. Back then US imperialism supported jihadist groups, including Prime Minister bin Laden, providing weapons and resources to fight Soviet troops, which is how imperialism led to the rise of the Taliban, the Frankenstein monster of the Cold War.

So, has the Taliban changed now?

After the collapse of Najibullah's government, different groups clashed with each other and civil war began. The Taliban grew out of these jihadist groups with the support of Pakistan. Many were trained in fundamentalist Islamic schools in Saudi Arabia. They occupied Kabul in 1996, banned all opposition organizations, political parties, trade unions, and enslaved women, banned women from work and education, banned music sports and games. Those who violated Sharia law were cruelly treated. Female adultery was punished by stoning, and homosexuals were buried alive. A United Nations-funded soccer field was later used to carry out public executions.

Now people are discussing whether the Taliban will change from 20 years ago, and the future will tell. There are signs that the Taliban are being forced to soften their stance. In the 1990s, its supporters were not even allowed to use phones, but now soldiers in Kabul can be seen taking selfies and using Twitter. Leading figures have repeatedly said women's rights will be respected and pledged to allow "media freedom" within Islamic law. They claim to offer amnesty to members of the former government. But many women were fired and forced to wear headscarves.

The Taliban is still fundamentally a village-based organization. In the past 20 years, Afghanistan's urbanization has increased, and Kabul's inhabitants have grown from 1.5 million to 4 million. Urban residents grew from 2.6 million to 10 million. And 46% of the population is under the age of 15. The Taliban have so far been able to unite to fight a common enemy, but future conflict is likely to intensify within the Taliban, dividing fundamentalism based in backward rural areas and those in more open urban areas. The presence of other fundamentalist groups will exacerbate this situation. It is also possible, however, that the Taliban will fall back on their old methods after the city's growing opposition.

Can the Taliban build a stable government?

The previous Taliban government ruled from 1996 to 2001 before being overthrown by a US offensive. At that stage, they never took full control of the entire country, especially in the face of fierce resistance from the Northern Alliance, backed by Iran, India and Russia. Now they have faced some resistance, with anti-Taliban protests in Jalalabad state attracting tens of thousands of residents and possibly Khost province as well. And it is reported that an attempt is being made to establish a "Northern Alliance 2.0" in the Panjshir Valley.

But a new resistance has emerged in Afghanistan. Women in the country who have had some freedom over the past 10 years, united by the global feminist movement, are unlikely to be willing to put up with these new restrictions. The same is true of the country's youth, whose cosmopolitan outlook and modern communication have contributed to their protests. The labor movement was not strong but did exist because of the weakened industry, and the main trade unions were indeed suppressed by the Ghani regime.

As the Taliban try to consolidate power, there are likely to be many difficulties. Will the warlords maintain their passive support? Will the Taliban maintain internal unity? Other countries like Iran, Russia and China support different interests through some interference? Russia is reportedly in talks with some warlords.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan itself is riddled with a serious crisis. A third wave of Covid-19 is thought to be sweeping the country, "thought" because there are simply no accurate testing facilities there. A survey showed that more than 40% of people are now infected, but hospitals do not have the resources to deal with them. One doctor said they were barely able to treat a third of the sick.

After a severe drought in 2018, one farmer said: “It will no longer rain, and the ground will no longer grow grass.” The next few months will be even worse, with one-third of the 12 million Afghans living in "Emergency food shortages".

The Taliban will face a huge test in the coming months, dealing with these problems and economic collapse, refugee flows, border crises and the ongoing drug trade.

Is there any solution?

One thing is clear. Imperialist intervention would be a disaster, and Taliban rule would be a nightmare if allowed to continue. The Soviet-backed Najibullah government failed to transform Afghan society due to measures that limited social modernization, and a top-down undemocratic implementation. All social problems, including poverty, lack of democratic rights, ethnic oppression, religious fundamentalism and social oppression, persist and cannot be solved on a capitalist basis.

So what is needed is to unite the working class, the poor peasants, women, youth, to build a mass struggle against the Taliban and imperialism, to build a democratic workers and peasants' government. For this to be successful, it needs to be part of the international working-class struggle to pave the way for a genuine, democratic, voluntary socialist coalition in the region.