President Joe Biden openly admitted this week that
Afghanistan is a graveyard of the Empires. The British Empire was the first to
be humiliated in Afghanistan. This is how the historian William Dalrymple
describes how U. K’s first incursion ended in Afghanistan. ‘The First
Anglo-Afghan War was arguably the greatest military humiliation ever suffered
by the West in the East. On the infamous retreat from Kabul, which began on the
6 Jan 1842, of the 18,500 who left the British cantonment, only one British
citizen, the surgeon Dr. Brydon, made it through to Jalalabad six days later. An
entire army of what was then the most powerful military nation in the world
utterly destroyed by poorly-equipped tribesmen’. So, 18,499 British soldiers
were slaughtered by the Afghans and the only surviving soldier, being a doctor
was let go so he could narrate to his masters as to what happened.
A couple more attempts by the British to invade Afghanistan
also failed and their grip on India loosened sufficiently for it to become independent
bringing with it the breakup of the British Empire. Some British politicians
had learned their lesson and as reported by William Dalrymple ‘Even as late as
October 1963, when Harold Macmillan was handing over the prime ministership to
Alec Douglas-Home, he is supposed to have called the younger man to his office
and passed on some reassuring advice, “My dear boy,” he said, looking down from
his paper, “as long as you don’t invade Afghanistan you’ll be absolutely fine.”
Sadly, John Major appears to have neglected to give the same advice to Tony
Blair. In 2001, soon after the catastrophe of 9/11 Blair signed up with Bush to
invade Afghanistan yet again. Thus, racking up the fourth defeat for the
British in Afghanistan.
In 1979 the Soviet Union repeated the folly of invading
Afghanistan. It took them ten years to realize that they were in an unwinnable
war and after losing thousands of soldiers, arms and equipment retreated from
Afghanistan in 1989. The impact and cost of the Afghan war was so great that The Soviet Union broke up into several states, leaving Russia on its own
devoid of all the European and Central Asian states that at one time comprised The Soviet Union.
The spectacular defeat of the United States and its allies after twenty years of occupation, loss of thousands of soldiers and nearly two trillion dollars of American taxpayer money wasted with nothing to show for it plus the 100,000 innocent Afghans killed by their reckless bombing, drone attacks and daisy cutters, is not altogether surprising. The writing has been on the wall for a long time, only the U.S’ arrogance and foolish belief in their superiority did not allow them to see the impending defeat. They came to defeat Al-Qaeda, which they managed to do within three months but then expanded the war ‘to kill or capture the Taliban’ as President George W. Bush defined it. Twenty years later, they asked the Taliban to let them leave in peace and handed back the country to them once again.
The loss of war does not by itself mean the breakup of The United States is imminent, but the massive humiliation will have far-reaching
consequences on its Military and politics. There is a storm brewing within The United States and the undercurrent is so strong that it could wreak havoc on
the country. A sample of it was seen on January 6, 2021, when a pro-Trump mob
attacked the Congress building killing several policemen. The Senators and
Congress members had to run for their lives, some of whom escaped just seconds
before the attack. President Trump who lost the election in November 2020 is
aggressively attacking President Joe Biden as he aspires to run for office again
in 2024. The defeat in Afghanistan will provide him an impetus to attack the
pro-war establishment and the military-industrial complex that has been pushing
wars in the Middle East. He has come out of the woodworks and is already
attacking the past Presidents for launching wars on Iraq, Libya, Syria &
Afghanistan, calling them a great mistake. To his credit, he made a deal with
the Taliban to bring this war to an end. His attacks are likely to grow louder
and become more frequent to build up momentum.
President Trump’s supporters are extreme right-wing
fundamentalists who do not want to see African Americans take part in voting and
in various states have already passed laws to deny them voting rights. The
defeat in Afghanistan and the Presidential election campaign that will start in
2022, is likely to rip the country apart and the political scene could get a
great deal uglier than what we saw on January 6, 2021. Trump’s followers
(including many Senators and Congress members) support the theory that the 2020 election was stolen from him and in 2024, they want the Presidential office
back for him by hook or by crook.
The divide between the Northern and Southern States could
crystallize and the less educated working-class blue-collar white voters in The Southern States could be pitted against the better-educated voters in The North-Eastern States and California, which are traditionally Democratic States.
Encouraged by Donald Trump the election campaign could become violent just as it
did on January 6 and this could lead to chaos and mayhem ripping apart the
fishers that already exist in the American Society, ultimately resulting in the breakup of the United States.
