In just a few days, the Taliban in Afghanistan undermined the achievements of the past 20 years. The images of the chaos in Kabul leave many former US soldiers stunned. Was it really all for nothing?
Once they fought in Afghanistan in the “war on terror” – now they look with horror at the dramatic developments in the Hindu Kush. Many US veterans are shocked by the return of the radical Islamic Taliban to power and the chaotic scenes in Kabul. They are concerned about the Afghan aid workers and Afghan women who face a bleak future. And they wonder whether their efforts – and the deaths of many soldiers – were in vain.
“I was in favor of a trigger, I thought it was time after 20 years and billions of dollars spent,” says Marc Silvestri, who served in Afghanistan a decade ago. But he could not have imagined that the Taliban would regain power so quickly. “I never thought that the Afghan army, into which we put so much training and money, would just lay down their arms and hand over the land,” says the 43-year-old, who looks after other veterans in Revere, Massachusetts. “That shocked me.”
“Many people will ask, why?”
In his own words, the veteran Chad Fross had always assumed that the US troop withdrawal would be “chaos”. Even 20 years after the start of the military operation, in the course of which around 2,450 US soldiers were killed, the US did not understand Afghanistan correctly. “Many people will ask, why? It was pointless to be there to see friends lose their lives or parts of their bodies or their minds,” says the veteran. “But I also wonder how senseless it would have been to stick to the previous course if the result in 20 years had been the same as it is now.”
In the midst of the ongoing withdrawal of western troops, the Taliban had overrun the country at a breathtaking pace. On Sunday, the Islamists marched into the capital Kabul without resistance. Western states are now attempting a dramatic evacuation operation to get their citizens and Afghan local staff out of the country.
The Afghans, who worked as translators for the western armed forces during the war, fear the revenge of the Taliban, even if they have promised a general amnesty. And US President Joe Biden has to be asked why he didn’t bring the Afghan aid workers to safety much earlier. “They helped us and we are now abandoning them,” criticized veteran Fross. “That is not right.”
“I’m reliving the fall of Saigon”
“We have to keep our promises to those who have sacrificed so much for us,” said Tom Porter of the Association of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans. “I get so much anger.” The reason for the annoyance is, mind you, not the troop withdrawal as such, but the “haphazard and chaotic” implementation.
Silvestri reports that a Vietnam veteran contacted him and made comparisons between Kabul and the Saigon case in 1975. “I never thought I’d see something like this again,” the veteran told him. “I’m reliving the fall of Saigon.”
For many veterans, the return of the Taliban to power is also so bitter because the achievements of the past 20 years are likely to be undone. Afghan women in particular are threatened with repression, as they did during the first Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001. Many US veterans, but also relatives of killed soldiers, are now wondering whether the victims have been in vain, says Silvestri. He assures the parents that their sons and daughters did not die for a “lost cause”. “In the end they fought for us,” says Silvestri. “Some didn’t make it home, but made it possible for us to return home.”
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