The disaster now unfolding in Afghanistan is the consequence of a twenty-year long failed military intervention. The responsibility rests with the US, British and other NATO governments which plunged into a war that was always doomed to fail. The starting of the conflict, not the manner of the ending of it, was the problem. Twenty years ago, many warned against the rush to war and urged other ways of responding to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In particular, it was argued that military occupation of Afghanistan could not lead to stable governance, and would be rejected as a foreign imposition by many Afghans. The defeat of the US and British militaries in Afghanistan means that this intervention joins those in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen as a calamity that has cost tens of thousands of lives and vast resources to no purpose. It is time that the “war on terror”, the pretext for these interventions, is declared over.
Aug 2021. Nigel on Afghanistan
