It is awful how the corporate media perceives what is happening in Afghanistan. Yes, just over 2,300 American dead. How many Afghans, though? Wiki keeps a list and it is over 111,000. 111,000. What was the reason the US invaded Afghanistan? To go after bin Laden in the wake of Bin-Laden's attack of the US on 9/11/2001. However, the Taliban was not behind the Al=Queda the 9/11/2001 attack. It was a bunch of Saudis led by a guy the US used to arm, and whose family the US had close ties: Bin Laden. Within a year, though, George Bush (the Second) admitted he no longer thought about Bin Laden as he and Cheney lied the nation into a war against another nation, Iraq, that had nothing to do with the events of 9/11/2001.
When did we lose this Afghan war? One can better say we lost the war the moment Jimmy Carter decided to arm Muslim fanatics who were opposing a secular regime in Afghanistan the Soviet Union (Russia and satellites) had decided to prop up in Christmas season of 1979. The few who read this blog know about the photo that circulates on the Internet of young women at the U of Kabul from the 1960s and 1970s. However, most Americans don't know the story of Afghanistan's king voluntarily giving up power in 1973, a civilian national assembly created with many who were secular, and how the US did not care a fig about promoting that in the 1970s. The Soviet Union, which had a border with Afghanistan, sure did. And while its own designs were largely imperial, they knew it was proper to ensure a secular, modern society that valued women should be promoted. I am so old I remember supporting the Carter idea--at least until around 1984, when I saw an interview on tv with a village or regional mujahideen leader (I thought it was Dan Rather, but now don't believe so), and shuddered, because the guy said, after they kicked out the Soviet Union, they would turn against the US, as we were all infidels, essentially. It is too long to remember exact words, but I remember my own reaction: Oh my God, Alexander Cockburn, the left wing and marginally pro-Soviet journalist was right. These guys are 14th Century minds and the US is giving them 20th Century weapons to start a holy war.
Yes, I am hoping the US can take as many people out of Afghanistan who trusted us. You know, maybe more than we did as our invented state of South Vietnam finally collapsed in April 1975. But, I see no point in any further American involvement. And here is the final ironic point: The US is really not leaving as we think. Trump and Biden are the same here. Both wanted to replace US troops with mercenaries, the privatized military Clinton had a dream about, Bush II-Cheney deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama further developed ties with, and Trump cemented. What Chomsky says about US foreign policy remains true: There is a continuity of policies designed to prop up the American Empire, whether the policy is moral or not (mostly not), and whether it is strategically advantageous or not (the US does bad things that don't work to ensure other places where we do bad things continue to work; that is how we continued killing Southeast Asians for multiple decades).
Nobody on corporate media cable "news" will say any of this, or say it in any understandable way. Anyone who principally relies on corporate media cable "news" is angry, frustrated, and sad--yet unable to comprehend what has actually gone on for the past 35 years, and not able to understand how what happened with US intervention in Afghanistan is part of an overall imperial strategy. Oh, and historically, as at least more know due to social media, the Brits had invaded Afghanistan twice in the 19th Century, staying the first time for 20 years before bugging out, and then a shorter time about twenty years later. Then, the Soviet Union spent a decade there before bugging out. And now the US for twenty years. What Afghan rebels then, more recently, and now do is continually shift alliances that ultimate wear down and confuse invaders. They seem so simple, but they are not simple-minded. What is different now is the Islamic fundamentalist militancy, and how destructive they can be with modern weaponry courtesy of, well, the US. Great job, leaders. Great job. But, the soldiers who are especially right wing will be blaming Biden because they can't remember politics from last week, and can't remember Trump wanting to bug out, and don't know some of their friends are with the mercenaries that will be pushed in or remain if there. And have no idea what the hell I am writing about.
