Afghanistan

The rapid collapse of Afghanistan’s armed forces may have surprised President Biden but dozens of reports from a federal watchdog revealed how the U.S. bungled efforts to shore up the country.

From millions spent on military planes left rotting at Kabul’s international airport to the billions of dollars wasted trying and failing to eradicate the country’s opium crops, the dispatches from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction Illustrated the fraud and abuse that derailed a $145 billion effort.

‘If the goal was to rebuild and leave behind a country that could sustain itself and pose little threat to U.S. national security interests, the overall picture in Afghanistan is bleak,’ John Sopko concluded in his most report published this week.

“… The Afghan army didn’t “surrender”.

Its Pashtun members surrendered to the Taliban who are fellow Pashtuns. Hazaras fled to Iran and took our equipment with them for the benefit of Hezbollah, the Houthis, and any other Shiite terrorists. The Uzbeks fled to Uzbekistan.

There’s no Afghanistan. It’s a collection of tribes whose members are loyal to their own.”

One of the most insightful reports I’ve seen about the state of evacuation outside of a Clarissa Ward segment on CNN. David Fox works in Kabul, is married to an Afghan woman, and has a young son with her. One would think that would make them a priority for evacuation, but there’s a problem: The crowding outside Karzai International Airport is so chaotic that they simply can’t get to a gate to make contact with troops or diplomats within.

TALIBAN propaganda channels are showing brazen fanatics tooled up in the streets of Kabul in what appears to be stolen US-made military gear.

The ISIS-style video shows troops armed to the teeth with modern military equipment — rather than the militants’ signature AK-47 slung over the shoulder.

On Nov. 4, 1979, militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking more than 60 American hostages. It was hell for the captured Americans, and Jimmy Carter’s inability to extricate them helped doom him to a one-term presidency.

The way things are shaping up in Kabul, that national humiliation is being recreated on a far, far bigger scale — it is no hyperbole to say that it is starting to look like America’s worst hostage crisis.

That may be the right call.

Afghanistan: Danger lies on Kabul’s airport road to freedom

As thousands of citizens and foreign nationals attempt to flee Afghanistan, scenes outside Kabul airport have become increasingly desperate.

Since the Taliban took control of the country at the weekend and closed land border crossings, the capital’s airport has become the only way out of the country for many.

But the militants have said they don’t want Afghans to leave the country. They have set up checkpoints on Airport Road – shown in yellow, below – the main route to Hamid Karzai International Airport, and have attacked people.

Our country has undergone a radical change in the 21st century. It has not been a change for the better. We have focused more on arguing among ourselves while the “barbarians are at the gates,” so to speak. If we learn no other lesson from the Afghanistan debacle, it is that our military and intelligence agencies need to refocus their priorities. If we fail to do so, situations such as Afghanistan might become much more common.