The Afghanistan Reckoning
Key takeaways
- Forever Wars and the Costs of Collective Forgetting
- Five years ago, the 20-year American war in Afghanistan came to an inglorious end.
- The same group that had harbored al-Qaeda while it planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks had triumphantly returned to power, and fears of a resurgent terrorist threat mounted.
Forever Wars and the Costs of Collective Forgetting
Five years ago, the 20-year American war in Afghanistan came to an inglorious end. In April 2021, the United States had begun its final withdrawal, with the goal of pulling out the 2,500 U.S. troops that remained in the country by September. Within weeks of the first U.S. departures, the Taliban had swept up scores of positions as Afghan government forces melted away. By early August, the group had taken control of most provincial capitals. Finally, on August 15, 2021, the U.S.-backed government in Kabul collapsed. Hundreds of thousands of terrified Afghans besieged the city’s airport. Roughly 120,000 were evacuated in planeloads by the United States, its allies, and even groups of private citizens. In a heartbreaking final blow, 13 American service members died in a suicide bombing at the airport four days before the last U.S. soldier departed on August 30. Two decades of heroic effort had ended in shame.
Recriminations followed—some justified, some not. The same group that had harbored al-Qaeda while it planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks had triumphantly returned to power, and fears of a resurgent terrorist threat mounted. After all, the main reason that successive American presidents had decided to keep U.S. forces in the country for so long was the belief that without them, Afghanistan would once again become a safe haven for terrorists even if the Taliban did not manage to take full control.