Remembering 9/11: Afghanistan Is ‘Fully Under Taliban Control With Help From al-Qaeda’

The media has almost succeeded in scrubbing President Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal down the memory hole.

There are a couple of reasons for that. The first may be that the public generally agreed with the idea of exiting the Afghan war, so people are inclined to agree with the outcome but disagree with the way it happened.

On the other hand, there are valid reasons for concern and it can’t be overstated on this 9/11 anniversary, 21 years since the towers fell in 2001, that the world is in a period of great upheaval and Biden’s Afghanistan decision will continue having lasting consequences:

According to Bill Roggio, Managing Editor for Long War Journal, Afghanistan is in a more precarious situation in 2022 than it was in 2001 due to its own domestic situation:

America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of war, which resulted in a return to Taliban rule, may justify that pessimism. Roggio said the situation on the ground now may be worse than before 9/11.

“Today, Afghanistan is fully under Taliban control with the help of al Qaeda,” Roggio said, noting that in 2022 a significant resistance to the Taliban, such as the North Alliance pre-2001, does not exist.

The foothold al Qeada has in Afghanistan provides the organization with two important strategic advantages, safe haven and state sponsorship. Like before September 11, 2001, the terrorist organization can use Afghanistan as a base of operations with little fear, providing safe haven for it to recruit, train, and possibly carry out attacks. However, unlike in 2001, the Taliban completely controlling the country means the organization will have a powerful ally and plenty of protection.

Given the way the United States simply turned tail and left, much of the country quickly fell unprotected and the resulting vacuum left a massive void for the Taliban to march straight in. The Taliban aside, reports also indicate that watching Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal provided the catalyst for Russia’s Ukraine invasion as well.

Writing in Foreign Policy magazine, former Trump U.S. national security advisor H.R. McMaster wrote some somber words for those cheering Biden’s policy of withdrawal as if it will have no lasting consequences:

Some may dismiss the tragic outcome in Afghanistan as a sad episode the United States can safely relegate to the history books as Washington focuses on important challenges elsewhere. But nothing could be further from the truth. Threats remain in Afghanistan, and the failure to address the self-delusion in Washington that led to the disastrous withdrawal in the first place will invite future disasters in U.S. policy toward other adversaries.

To understand the persistent malady of self-delusion in Washington, consider U.S. President Joe Biden’s comments in August 2021. “What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point with al Qaeda gone?” he asked in an effort to justify his decision to withdraw every U.S. service member from Afghanistan. “We went to Afghanistan for the express purpose of getting rid of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. … And we did.”

The problem with such statements is that they were clearly not accurate, as many warned early last year and as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal has documented for many years.

McMaster calls it a “self-delusion” among the White House to believe that small drone strike attacks can make up for a year of being out of the country and letting our adversaries take over.

The end warning is rather grim. If the United States does not, according to McMaster, keep the pressure on terrorist groups around the world, we should expect more attacks in the homeland and abroad. Furthermore, advances toward a new nuclear deal with Iran are yet another signal that the American footing toward fighting terrorism is not what it was even just a few years ago.

One has to look no further than Iraq where the Islamic State moved in to fill a void and quickly seize control of vast amounts of territory. What will happen in Afghanistan with a total lack of U.S. intelligence on the ground? That’s hard to say but with history as a guide, it won’t be anything good.

We should mourn the dead from 9/11 and never forget what happened that day.

We should also be pledging to ensure it does not happen again in the future. One way to do that is to avoid making mistakes of the past, something this administration seems intent to do.

Never forget.