Editor's Note: The US launched Afghanistan war in 2001 to prevent terrorists operating there from launching 9/11-like attacks on Western countries, but its military operations there have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians and made many more of them refugees. Now that the US has pulled out of Afghanistan after almost 20 years, what lies ahead for the country? Three experts share their views on the issue with China Daily:
(MA XUEJING / CHINA DAILY)
It appears the US media have finally gotten over their love affair with President Joe Biden for not being Donald Trump.
Are they criticizing him for his many shortcomings on domestic policy? Of course not. They're outraged because he's ending a war.
After two decades and more than US$2 trillion spent, Biden finalized the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan earlier last month. This was sooner than initially planned, as he had set Sept 11 as the deadline for extraction－the 20-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks which were the rationale for the invasion of Afghanistan in the first place. Almost immediately, the Taliban intensified their incursions into the last strongholds of the US-backed government, taking Kabul in a matter of days.
The media response has been as strident as it is unanimous. Their chief objection is not the tens of thousands of Afghans killed in the nearly 20 years of US occupation. Nor are they concerned about the millions more whose lives have been upended by their country's military.
Instead, what they're worried about, what really keeps them up at night, is the loss of the US' credibility on the world stage. The evisceration of an entire nation is a footnote, at most, to the abject humiliation of a public retreat. Priorities firmly in order, I suppose.
This oblivious attitude was most recently exemplified in the response to the terrorist attack at the Kabul airport. After the deadly bombing, headlines blared with the number 13－the number of US troops killed－but carried nary a mention of the number of Afghan civilians who lost their lives, which was, of course, far higher than the figure plastered across every US newsstand, at least 170 dead at the last count. Perhaps they thought it wasn't worth mentioning because eyewitness accounts said some of those civilians were killed when surviving US soldiers opened fire.
Biden swore retribution for those 13 soldiers, and delivered it in typical American fashion: A drone strike that killed 10 Afghan civilians, seven of them children. At a time when many in the media are crying out in disbelief over why so many countries seem to despise the US, the military they revere so much have given them an answer.
But their efforts to justify continued US presence have not ceased. The media have used all manner of tactics in this campaign, and it should come as no surprise that they include fear-mongering about China. In the absence of the US, they claim, China will move into Afghanistan and run roughshod over the Afghan population. They invoke the Belt and Road Initiative to lend credence to this wild fantasy, as the myth of a supposed "debt trap" has become an unchallengeable shibboleth in the parlance of the Western elite.
I'm not sure what delusions they're entertaining. China hasn't been at war in four decades. Any pearl-clutching over China stepping into a supposed "power vacuum" is window dressing for recommitting US forces to wholesale slaughter.
Besides, what do they expect from the Belt and Road Initiative in Afghanistan? Unlike the US, China doesn't build military bases abroad. It builds roads, bridges, ports and railways.
The only conclusion that can be drawn from these allegations is that those commentators must believe all countries are, underneath their rhetoric, as bloodthirsty as themselves. Without a frame of reference for alternative forms of engagement－where others are treated as equal partners rather than dutiful subjects－you could see how someone could think this way. As the saying goes, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
But that glib expression has a far more sinister meaning when the nails in question are human beings. And paid political commentators are hardly naïve babes in the woods; their job is to sell the policy objectives of the US security state.
So I have little sympathy for their caterwauling. They're not on the side of the people of Afghanistan, never have been.
What are we left with then? Well, thanks to the US, we've seen what US$2 trillion can buy. Bombs, warplanes, tanks, drones－any implement of destruction you can dream of, it's been bought and shipped overseas to menace countless sovereign nations.
We've also seen what it can't. Two trillion dollars can't bring back the tens of thousands of Afghans senselessly killed in pursuit of a megalomaniacal foreign policy. There's no amount of money that can put back together a family ripped apart by the loss of a mother, a father, a daughter or a son.
Those responsible for this heinous crime will see no consequences. The mild drubbing the incumbent US administration is receiving from the war-hawk media pales in comparison to what the people who perpetuated this catastrophe deserve.
But the US operates on a perverse definition of justice, a twisted logic unrecognizable to any thinking, feeling human being. For those in charge, the disaster isn't the two decades of massacres and pillaging; it's the two weeks of evacuation. In their minds, leaving Afghanistan means passing up further exploitation, an end to one of the US' many avenues of plunder it camouflages in high-minded rhetoric about "human rights" and "democracy".
And 20 years of occupation means a lot of weapons to be sold, at ludicrously high markup. From oil magnates to arms manufacturers to the personalities on the news running PR for both, everyone gets paid when the war drums start beating.
But even with the loss of its puppet regime, the US has ensured perpetual instability in large swathes of the Middle East for years to come. If direct control is no longer feasible or palatable, a state of chaos is the next best thing. Keeping geopolitical rivals occupied with a powder keg on their borders－far from the US' own shores－is an acceptable alternative, no matter the human cost.
That's why those in charge will have considered the US$2 trillion thrown into Afghanistan money well spent. It's also why they'll never contemplate such a princely sum for a project that helps people or promotes peace.
The author is an American writer with China Daily.
The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.