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US report with devastating results: Trump and Biden caused Afghanistan to collapse

2022-06-09T15:48:20.370Z


US report with devastating results: Trump and Biden caused Afghanistan to collapse Created: 06/09/2022, 17:43 From: Foreign Policy The Taliban should not have taken power. But Washington made sure it was. The decisions of two US presidents led to the Taliban taking power in Afghanistan, argues Foreign Policy author Lynne O'Donnell. Former US President Donald Trump's bilateral agreement -- and


US report with devastating results: Trump and Biden caused Afghanistan to collapse

Created: 06/09/2022, 17:43

From: Foreign Policy

The Taliban should not have taken power.

But Washington made sure it was.

  • The decisions of two US presidents led to the Taliban taking power in Afghanistan, argues Foreign Policy author Lynne O'Donnell.

  • Former US President Donald Trump's bilateral agreement -- and US President Joe Biden's decision to honor it -- led to the collapse of Afghan security forces.

  • This is the conclusion of the report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the US government's most important oversight body for Afghanistan.

  • This article is available in German for the first time – it was first published in

    Foreign Policy

    magazine on May 18, 2022 .

Kabul - The catastrophic collapse of the Afghan republic and the country's subsequent takeover by a gang of terrorists, drug traffickers and misogynists were direct consequences of the decisions of successive US presidents.

They chose to deal directly with the Taliban and honor unilateral promises to withdraw the forces vital to the state's survival.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the US government's most important oversight body for Afghanistan, came to this devastating conclusion in a report to two congressional committees.

Meanwhile, Europe is angry about the US debacle in Afghanistan.

Former President Donald Trump's bilateral deal with the Taliban, and President Joe Biden's decision to honor it, led to the collapse of Afghan security forces.

Its collapse prompted senior Afghan government officials, including President Ashraf Ghani and his national security adviser Hamdullah Mohib, to flee the country as the Taliban invaded Kabul on August 15, 2021 to complete the crackdown and move toward victory to explain.

Taliban takeover in Afghanistan: Trump deal destroyed the morale of the security forces

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) concluded that the inadequate deal between Trump and the Taliban, signed on February 29, 2020, and Biden's decision to honor the withdrawal terms, despite the Taliban's failure to honor their commitments , such as the severing of ties with al-Qaeda, destroyed the morale of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF).

The rapid withdrawal coincided with low and often unpaid salaries in the Afghan army, poor logistics that meant food and ammunition did not arrive, corrupt leadership that siphoned off weapons and fuel often in Taliban hands landed, and Ghani's paranoia that the deal was a way to overthrow him.

The end was inevitable.

Foreign Policy writer Lynne O'Donnell

The Afghan army, special forces, air force and military police received almost $90 billion in US security aid between 2002 and 2021.

According to SIGAR, the Afghans relied on US forces and, more importantly, the airstrikes, which gave the republic its only real advantage in the fight against the Taliban.

Trump agreed not only to withdraw US troops, but also the subcontractors responsible for helicopters and fighter jets.

The rapid withdrawal coincided with low and often unpaid salaries in the Afghan army, poor logistics that meant food and ammunition did not arrive, corrupt leadership that siphoned off weapons and fuel often in Taliban hands landed

and Ghani's paranoia that the deal was a way to overthrow him.

The end was inevitable.

The findings are part of an interim report on the collapse of the Afghan security forces and vulnerabilities in their development over two decades, presented to the US House Oversight and Reform Committee and the Armed Services Committee.

The full report is due out later this year.

The conclusions so far are consistent with the narratives of many politicians in the Afghan government, including Mohib, the former national security adviser to Afghanistan.

According to Mohib, the collapse of Afghan security forces began in February 2020 with the Trump-Taliban deal.

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Afghanistan: Trump deal is said to have glossed over Taliban as "government on hold".

Speaking to the Oxford Union, a debate society in Oxford, England, Mohib said the Trump deal and subsequent talks with insurgency leaders - many of whom are internationally sanctioned terrorists - glossed over the Taliban as a "government-on-hold."

The government supported by the western alliance was excluded.

"The security forces fought bravely as far as they could, and when it became clear that the battle was lost, morale dropped and they finally had to give up," Mohib said.

"I think like in any war it's important to know who the enemy is and when that line blurs it becomes really difficult for any soldier to keep fighting."

According to SIGAR, Afghan forces could not continue after the sudden loss of US support.

Foreign Policy writer Lynne O'Donnell

The Biden administration blamed the Afghan army for the collapse of the republic.

It lacks, as White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, "the political will to fight back." According to SIGAR, Afghan forces could not continue after the sudden loss of US support.

The latter had enabled them for 20 years to ward off a malicious insurgency.

Without this support, the Afghan armed forces and the civilian militias fighting alongside them were forced to flee the Taliban advance.

Some provincial capitals were "captured with little or no fighting," the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan's Reconstruction noted in his report.

SIGAR Report on Afghanistan Collapse: Factors in Afghan Army Failure

The SIGAR report identified six factors that contributed to the failure of the Afghan Defense and Security Forces.

The list is headed by the decisions of Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

The loss of US air support and other support follows.

The other factors include Ghani's frequent leadership changes in the Afghan security forces and his appointment of key loyalists, the lack of a national security plan, the Afghan security forces' lack of viability due to numerous deaths and high failure rates, and the Taliban's exploitation of these weaknesses.

The presence of US troops had helped convince Afghan security forces troops that Kabul would continue to pay their salaries and oust, at least nominally, corrupt officials.

Likewise, the Afghan elite believed that as long as the Americans were there, it was safe to stay.

That confidence quickly eroded as the Taliban's legitimacy grew.

Before long, all players in the Afghanistan conflict, from regional governments to domestic rulers to neighboring countries, began hedging their bets.

Some ethnic warlords negotiated directly with the Taliban leadership, the sources said.

Taliban leaders have been hailed in Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and Islamabad.

USA and concessions to Taliban: SIGAR report with devastating results

The US concessions to the Taliban - including the release of thousands of Taliban prisoners without compensation and without consulting the government in Kabul - were the decisive tipping points against the continued existence of the republic.

Taliban special forces fighters arrive at Kabul Airport on August 31, 2021 after the withdrawal of US troops.

© Khwaja Tawfiq Sediqi/dpa

"The international community has taken note of the change in US policy and has adjusted its stance accordingly," write Ahmad Shuja Jamal, the former director-general of international relations at the Afghan National Security Council, now in exile, and William Maley, Afghanistan- Expert at the Australian National University.

“Both the concessions made by the US and the changing attitude of the international community have had an increasingly adverse impact on the Afghan state.

The new US administration promised a course correction, which they did not implement," was the conclusion.

Meanwhile, Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is calling on the international community not to abandon Afghanistan - but aid is conditional.

By Lynne O'Donnell 

Lynne O'Donnell

 is a 

Foreign Policy

columnist  and an Australian journalist and author.

Between 2009 and 2017 she was the head of the Afghanistan office of Agence France-Presse and Associated Press.

This article was first published in English in the magazine "ForeignPolicy.com" on May 18, 2022 - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to the readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.

*Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.

Foreign Policy Logo © ForeignPolicy.com

Source: merkur

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