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With the clock ticking down to America’s planned departure from Afghanistan, a terrible situation became even worse on Thursday when terrorists affiliated with ISIS-K detonated bombs outside the Kabul airport where thousands of Afghan citizens, and many Americans, are crowded in hopes of being evacuated.
The bombs killed 13 U.S. service members and 169 Afghans. It was a heinous act of terror, which must be punished. But first, U.S. forces must complete their dangerous mission of evacuating as many eligible people as possible from Afghanistan, which is quickly descending into chaos, violence and uncertainty.
“We will not be deterred by terrorists. We will not let them stop our mission. We will continue the evacuation,” President Joe Biden said in a press conference on Thursday.
“Here is what you need to know,” he added. “These ISIS terrorists will not win. We will rescue the Americans who are there. We will get our Afghan allies out, and our mission will go on. America will not be intimidated.”
These are big promises; ones that are increasingly difficult for the president to keep as Aug. 31 approaches and groups like ISIS-Khorasan are emboldened to attack the U.S. and to battle with the Taliban, who are now in control of Afghanistan.
“This one hurts,” Larry Butler of Thomaston, a former ambassador and career foreign service officer who worked with U.S. and NATO commanders in Afghanistan, told the Bangor Daily News editorial board. “But sticking around will not make it better.”
One of the biggest U.S. mistakes, Butler said, was staying in Afghanistan — and even increasing our military presence there — after our military mission of routing al-Qaida and its leader Osama bin Laden from the country was accomplished.
The best outcome in Afghanistan, he said, would be for the Taliban, which has previously shown itself to be incapable of governing, to become a less violent version of Hezbollah, which he acknowledges has perpetrated terrible attacks against Israel and other countries. But the group does provide essential social services in the absence of a functional Lebanese government.
To govern Afghanistan, the Taliban will need assistance — technical, financial, humanitarian and otherwise — from other countries.
“The U.S. has a strategic interest and obligation to take measures to prevent the looming economic and humanitarian crises in Afghanistan, at times that may necessitate negotiating with the Taliban, while making sure not to fall into the trap of trusting the Taliban,” Barbara Elias, an associate professor of government at Bowdoin College, told the BDN editorial board.
“The bombing is a reminder that the war in Afghanistan does not end with U.S. withdrawal,” she said. The U.S. should stay engaged and — belatedly — learn the nuances of the country, the region and its people.
“We owe it to the dead to pay more attention,” Elias said.
The lead up to the chaos at the Kabul airport has been filled with many missteps and miscalculations. Afghanistan, for centuries, has been a land of tribes and hostile terrain with little centralized coordination. That has not stopped the U.S., and other countries, from trying to impose their visions on the country, which is sometimes called the “graveyard of empires.”
The Soviet Union was bogged down in Afghanistan for years, at a time when the U.S., under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, was backing the mujahadeen, some of whom became affiliated with al-Qaida. Under President George W. Bush, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to drive al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden from the country. Yet, after bin Laden was killed in Pakistan in 2011, American troops stayed in Afghanistan, with then-President Barack Obama authorizing a sharp increase in the number of U.S. military members there.
Last year, then-President Donald Trump negotiated a ceasefire and withdrawal agreement with the Taliban, bypassing the government of Afghanistan. This legitimized the Taliban as the rulers of the country and set the stage for the ongoing departure.
Many presidents are to blame for the current debacle in Afghanistan. But, Joe Biden is our president now and his administration has made terrible, deadly miscalculations about the ongoing withdrawal. Responsibility for the current situation — and what comes next — lies squarely with him and his administration.
That said, there are no easy alternatives to the path the U.S. is currently taking. Thursday’s deadly bombings exposed the delicacy of the current situation. The Biden administration badly misjudged the strength and ability of the Afghan government and military to withstand the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Government leaders fled and the Army, the strength of which was vastly overrated, essentially disappeared. This should not have come as a surprise to U.S. leaders.
Also, abandoning the long-time Bagram airbase, from which airstrikes could be launched to further secure evacuation efforts — while the U.S. withdrawal was occurring — was a massive strategic blunder.
Yet, the airlift from the Hamid Karzai International Airport is a miraculous mission, because of the dedication of U.S. military members and our coalition partners. More than 100,000 Americans, Afghans and others have been evacuated from the airport in the past 11 days.
Yet, there is much remaining to be done.
“I am deeply saddened to learn that U.S. service members have been killed and others wounded by terrorist attacks in Afghanistan,” U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Afghanistan, said in a statement on Thursday. “The security mission that they are carrying out at the airport in Kabul is critical to evacuating American citizens that are still in Afghanistan, and we should honor their sacrifice by ensuring that the mission is completed and that no American is left behind.”
He added: “We must come together as a country in support of the troops on the ground at the Kabul International Airport. Our top priority must be getting our citizens out safely and then bringing our service members home.”
