Taliban marks turbulent 2nd year in power, chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan
August 30 marks the second anniversary of the US hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan and the end of a 20-year military campaign in the war-torn country.
The US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians and displaced millions more. Afghans were now marking the Washington withdrawal, US curbs, and assets freezing fueling the crisis there.
Taliban authorities in Afghanistan recently declared August 31 a national holiday to commemorate US troop withdrawal.
Also on August 15, the Taliban marked two years since the group stormed into the Afghan capital and upended the lives of millions of Afghans, creating a dilemma for the international community that has since only grown.
Last year, festivities were organized by authorities and Taliban supporters to celebrate the first anniversary of the withdrawal of foreign troops. A demonstration was particularly held at Kabul’s Massoud Square, outside the former embassy of the United States.
The last US soldier to leave Afghanistan was Army Major General Chris Donahue. With the withdrawal, 20 years of bloody military occupation of Afghanistan came to an end.
The US war in Afghanistan has officially ended. But Afghans still suffer and die from post-war impacts.
When in 2001 the United States and its allies deployed troops to Afghanistan, they said the objective was to fight al-Qaeda as part of Washington’s so-called “war on terror.” The pretext had taken shape in the 9/11 attacks.
In August 2021, the Taliban recaptured several provincial capitals and seized Kabul with little-to-no resistance. The unexpected fall of the capital forced the US to carry out a hasty evacuation of diplomats, nationals, and Afghan helpers.
Washington received severe criticism for its poor handling of the evacuation.
US troops evacuated the Asian country in August 2021 following the Taliban's return to power. After its withdrawal, Washington imposed sanctions on Afghanistan and blocked its assets.
Foreign aid has declined dramatically since then and key central bank assets have been seized by the United States, compounding one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
Brutal sanctions imposed by US exacerbating financial paralysis
On the eve of the two-year anniversary, media reports said the US government's brutal sanctions imposed on Afghanistan were leading to the reduction or even suspension of medical aid from international organizations.
In Kabul Children's Hospital, a doctor from the Department of Malnutrition recently told the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) had suspended its grants to hospitalized children for several months.
In addition, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has also announced that it will stop funding all 25 hospitals in Afghanistan by the end of August.
"In the past, UNICEF would provide 9,000 Afghanis (about 110.8 US dollars) each to those hospitalized children undergoing treatment in the department of malnutrition, which was a great help for the patients to buy medicine and other things. But now the subsidy has been suspended for about four or five months," said Samiullah Ahmadi, a doctor of the department at Kabul Children's Hospital.
Mohammad Aref Hassanzai, director of the department said that the treatment for the children of malnutrition relies mainly on two special types of imported milk powder. If aid is suspended and imports are blocked by sanctions, treatment for them will be a problem.
"For the treatment of malnutrition, the milk that we provide to them is more important than medicine. Malnutrition can be treated with food, and currently, there is no immediate shortage of this kind of milk so far. But challenges may arise if the aid is suspended," Hassanzai added
According to the revised Afghanistan Humanitarian Response Plan for 2023, 28.8 million people in Afghanistan require immediate assistance of humanitarian aid, accounting for 70 percent of the total population of the country.
The concept of a ‘reformed’ Taliban has been exposed
Despite promising a more moderate administration compared with their previous stint in power in the late 1990s, the Taliban has enforced harsh rules, banning girls’ education after the sixth grade and barring Afghan women from public life and most work, including for nongovernmental organizations and the UN.
There’s no such curb on women’s education and employment in most Muslim-majority countries around the world.
No country has yet recognized the Taliban as legitimate rulers of the country. Regional nations say the establishment of peace and stability in Afghanistan is only possible through the formation of a broad-based government in the war-ravaged country.
In a joint statement, UN human rights experts recently said that two years into Taliban rule, it is clear that “the concept of a ‘reformed’ Taliban has been exposed as mistaken.” All indications point in the direction of “an accelerated, systematic, and all-engulfing system of segregation, marginalization, and persecution.”
Questions remain unanswered two years after US chaotic withdrawal
An opinion commentary published on Dallasnews on Wednesday said that veterans deserve answers on the second anniversary of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
The commentary says important questions remain unanswered two years after the United States’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Since then, powerful testimonies have been heard from the families of those killed.
The US authorities have heard from Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, detailing how he was not allowed to engage the bomber who killed 13 American troops and 170 Afghans at Abbey Gate, it added.
Members of Congress — from both parties — have rightly demanded more answers, only to be delayed or stonewalled altogether by the State Department.
Americans don’t need to have a position on whether or not withdrawing from Afghanistan was the right course of action to understand the execution was mismanaged in Washington, it noted.
We cannot let responsibility for this disastrous operation that killed US troops, left American citizens, and abandoned our allies be lost in a sea of nameless decision-makers, the commentary concluded.
An opinion piece appeared on the Right-wing Fox News website, saying that even against the advice of his own military advisors, President Joe Biden doubled down on a rushed process to meet his arbitrary exit deadline, resulting in the greatest US foreign policy disaster.
"By abandoning Americans and our allies, emboldening our adversaries, and making the world a less safe place, President Biden sent a signal of weakness to our friends and foes...After two years, the devastating impact of Biden’s failed Afghanistan withdrawal is still felt at home and abroad."
"Russia invaded Ukraine. China encroached on our own sovereign air space with their spy balloon and continues their malign spying only 90 miles from our shores," it said, adding, "North Korea has increased its intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities. And China and Russia are conducting joint naval exercises near Alaska."
According to a study conducted by Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, the “war on terror” in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen killed between 4.5 and 4.6 million people. The exact figure remains sketchy.
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