Heres why the Allies did not save Afghanistan

Some people won't get back, says the Defence Secretary. Why not?

Because some people will be thrown from rooftops. Some people will be dismembered. Some will be decapitated, raped, shot, or terrorised, after the Taliban takes back control.. Difficult to catch a plane, if you're short a head, or basic human rights.

It's because Joe Biden pulled out, says the Right. It's all Donald Trump's fault, says the Left. How could we do this, asks just about everyone else.

Any journalist will tell you the most important question is not how, or who, or when. It's why. The real story only ever comes out after you ask that, and what's most telling about the international response to the foreign policy disaster unfolding in Afghanistan is that no politician wants to tell us why this happened

"Can you remember? Me either" ( REUTERS) Afghans fall to their deaths after clinging to plane in desperate bid to escape Taliban UK to let Afghans flee Taliban without passport as flights run for 'as long as we can'

An international NATO alliance went into Afghanistan 20 years ago after the USA triggered a clause calling on member states to take military action in their common interests. Why?

Because the Twin Towers had fallen, the West was under attack, and the terror was coming from jihadists hiding in lawless Afghanistan. We did not go in to save the women and children.

Operation Enduring Freedom morphed into a nation-building exercise, sending girls to school, ensuring democratic elections, building infrastructure, digging wells. Why? Because we hadn't won.

We hadn't caught Osama bin Laden, and now he wasn't the only bad guy. To get rid of the rest, the thinking went, and to prove we're not warring for the sake of it, the West will save Afghanistan from the extremists, and thereby save itself from their terror. It had public support, boosted leaders in the polls, and was politically necessary.

So why didn't it work?

We weren't in it for them ( AFP) Taliban commander declaring victory in Afghanistan says he spent 8 years in Guantanamo Bay GMB's Kate Garraway hits out at Boris Johnson for Afghanistan 'terror' comments

Well, it sort of did. For 20 years, women went to school. Afghanistan held 6 democratic elections in two decades, compared to 8 fairly scrappy ones over the previous half-century. Electricity, the internet, pop music, make-up, clean water and healthcare were provided to millions of people for the first time in their lives.

What the West failed to do was quash the Islamist nutbags. Al Qaeda continued its attacks, in Tunisia, Bali, Riyadh, Casablanca, Baghdad, Jordan, Niger. They took responsibility for 7/7, in which 52 innocents were murdered in London. They shot Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan in 2012.

When the West went on to launch the Iraq War in 2003, and the 'axis of evil' opened up the possibility of multiple frontlines, the radicals were radicalised further. ISIS was born.

The Arab Spring spread hope, and then failed states, warlords, criminals and tyranny. Public support disappeared. Why? Because ISIS killed it with every beheaded hostage. Because Libya and Syria fell to pieces. There was no point saving those determined to live in hell. Blow them up and keep Our Boys away from it, said the people, and so that's what their governments did.

A girl from the minority Yazidi sect ( Reuters)

The Yazidi paid the price. So did the YPG in Kurdistan. Why? Because we didn't go in to save them. We went in to save ourselves. And now we're withdrawing for the same reason.

America wanted out of its latest land war in Asia. Barack Obama called an end to it, then Donald Trump made a dog whistle out of it. He used Libya as a reason not to vote for a woman, and in one of his final acts as the USA's dumbest president he signed a peace deal with the child-raping, gay-killing, murderous madmen of the Taliban.

So determined was he to say he'd brought the troops home, he ordered the baby Afghan government to back the deal or overnight it would lose $1billion in aid AND the troops. He wanted a Nobel Peace Prize so bad that in order to say he had won, he released Taliban prisoners, ended sanctions, and announced troops would leave in May this year.

Why did it go wrong?

Anguished mums of Afghanistan heroes demand to know: 'Did our sons die in vain?' Brit student, 22, stuck in Afghanistan says it could take 'weeks' before he returns home Fleet Street Fox

The US spent $83billion on the latest kit for the Afghan police and army. But hi-tech drones, helicopters, and night vision goggles are of little use when only a third of the country has electricity, 57 per cent of people are illiterate, and corruption was so endemic that senior officers were taking the wages of their subordinates.

While the Allies boasted of its training hundreds of thousands of Afghan troops, only 60% of 96,000 soldiers knew how to use the equipment, and 25% of them deserted every year. With US withdrawal, their Pentagon-backed salaries were also at risk.

Analysts believe that last year the Taliban made $1.6bn from opium, mining, crime, extortion, and foreign donations from sympathisers. As US departure neared, they greased the palms of every regional warlord and army commander they could. Biden pushed the date for troop withdrawal back to September, then shortened it to August, to give the exit more time. But he also pulled out the US contractors maintaining the military equipment left behind. When they needed to, the Taliban rolled into Kabul with ease.

It didn't take two weeks. It took more than a year, and a lot of politics. That's why the Taliban are now in the presidential palace, magnanimously saying they'll let girls go to primary school, and not mentioning that secondary education, university, work, and sexual consent are all out the window.

"It was his fault!" ( REUTERS)

So if everyone knew it was coming, why are they acting surprised?

Why did Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab book a foreign holiday in the days after he knew UK troops were going to leave a country to the terrorists? Why did Boris Johnson think it was a good look to party with Olympians while women were putting back on the burqas they never had the confidence to throw away? Why are NATO countries blaming Biden for pulling troops out, when NATO countries refuse to replace them? Why aren't we offering air support to those Afghan troops we spent so long training and paying?

Because some people don't matter. Because Bin Laden's dead, and the war on terror now has drones. Because the public hasn't supported foreign intervention for a decade. Because our army is so small that the Taliban outnumbers our regular forces.. And because if we offered air support, we'd be doing it forever, propping up a government barely worthy of the name.

Taliban fighters lounge around in warlord's lavish gold palace after he flees Tot wakes with 'legs on fire' and blanket melting after evil Taliban shrapnel blast

Some people matter only when we hate them. The Afghanis will matter only when they turn up on dinghies, or terrorists strike on the mainland, or a charity worker is beheaded. They'll matter when ISIS is reborn, or mutates into a horrifying new variant of lunacy.

Why did this all happen? Because politicians and their voters failed to be as moral as they felt. Because the Taliban was more consistent, and prepared to wait, and spend, to get results.

Because, when it boils right down to it, we are prepared to accept that some people won't get back, and not think too hard about why.

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