To declare the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan has become a good custom among American leaders
Dozens of times they have made such statements. Joe Biden is among them. He is known as a backer of withdrawal – in words. As long ago as he was a vice president, Biden repeatedly promised he would withdraw. But promising does not mean marriage. And now Joe Biden has refused to honour his agreement with the Taliban to withdraw from Afghanistan. Time is running out before May, he says. You will bleed if you don`t go, a Taliban leader told him in reply.
His colorful predecessor, Donald Trump, negotiated with great difficulty in February 2020 to withdraw American troops by May 1, 2021, meaning the Americans had a year and three months to pull themselves together and withdraw. But now Biden says there wasn’t enough time. More is needed. How much more? We’ll see. He does not give a date, he does not offer a deadline, he does not say “be patient. We want to get out, but not by May 1. And the agreement? So what if there is a treaty? No, the US does not want to stay in Afghanistan forever. They want to leave, but not now. Someday.
It’s not dripping over them. The past year since the signing of the treaty has been convenient for the Americans: the Taliban have honored the agreement and have not shot at American soldiers. In the year the Americans had practically no combat losses. Many Afghans, Kabul regime soldiers and civilians, had been killed, but the Americans had been given time to pack up and leave in peace: not under fire, but in peace.
But Afghanistan is a source of cheap drugs, believed to bring in many billions of dollars to the US churches and other elements of the “deep state”. The export of narcotic products is well established there. “The goods” are transported by U.S. military transport planes from Bagram base in occupied Afghanistan to Bondsteel base in occupied Kosovo, and from there it is distributed in Europe.
Neither the people of Afghanistan nor the people of the United States benefit from this trade. The U.S. taxpayer has poured more than $1 trillion into Afghanistan’s bottomless barrel; but nothing has reached the Afghans from U.S. largesse – all has gone to the pockets of Kabul bribe-takers.
The Russians have built schools and factories in Afghanistan; the Americans have only built prisons.
Since 2001, since the beginning of the occupation, Afghanistan has become poorer. Besides drugs, the country exports young men, who are fleeing by the many thousands, mostly to Iran and Europe. They are fleeing poverty and conscription by the Kabul regime.
They have no desire to die defending drug lords and American proxies – and they are understandable.
“May 1 is a serious date,” says General Miller, commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The Taliban are serious about withdrawing American troops by May 1, and if the withdrawal does not take place, the occupiers may yet bleed. There are only 3,000 American soldiers, but there are also 30,000 mercenaries and 10,000 NATO soldiers. If the politicians give the go-ahead, there is still a chance to withdraw quickly and without panic, says The New Yorker, citing General Miller, but it requires a rapid downgrading: not to insist on the preservation of Western democracy in Kabul, on American values, but to let the Afghans sort it out themselves.
Proponents say the withdrawal will affect the rights of Afghan women and gender minorities, and the American-led government in Kabul will inevitably collapse. “It’s none of our business,” say supporters of withdrawal.
The US has very little interest in Afghanistan and withdrawal. Mostly mercenaries and professionals are serving there. The people are not concerned, and everyone has enough to worry about.
Russia supports attempts to negotiate and reconcile in Afghanistan. It is in Russia’s interest that Afghanistan be a peaceful and prosperous state, and that no Islamic terrorism penetrate into Central Asia, and from there into Russia itself.
Cynics argue that the presence of American troops is rather to Russia’s advantage: without Americans, the Islamists would quickly cross the Panj and head north. Let American soldiers rather die in Afghanistan than ours in the Volga and the Caucasus. But the cynics are wrong: The presence of American occupation forces has already ensured that thousands of militants of the Islamic State* have been moved from Syria and Iraq to Afghanistan, closer to Russian lines. The transfer has been carried out on American transport planes. Now the Taliban is fighting the Islamic State, the Kabul regime, and NATO forces – and still winning. Without the Americans, the chances of domestic tranquillity in Afghanistan, of defeating or pacifying elements of the IS, would increase. But if the Americans want to die in the mountains of Afghanistan, that is up to them. The Taliban fighters will help them.
Biden’s decision fits into the fabric of America’s new aggressive foreign policy. It`s not for nothing that Joe Biden was vice-president under Obama and a fervent advocate of bombing Belgrade. The Americans need Afghanistan both to put pressure on Central Asia and Russia and to be able to attack Iran from the east. And this decision underlines the main qualities of Biden’s policy: aggressiveness and short-temperedness.
Yisrael Shamir, RT