Faces Of Those America Is Leaving Behind In Afghanistan By Brian Glyn Williams
05/10/21 AT 1:52 AM
U.S. troops are already heading home from Afghanistan, ending a two-decade-long war that saw as many as 100,000 American troops there. The withdrawal of the remaining few thousand is slated to be complete by the symbolic date of Sept. 11, 2021.
I know this land well from my journeys across more than half of its provinces as a professor of Afghan history and as a former employee of the CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Center tracking the movement of Taliban and al-Qaida suicide bombers. I also advised the military on Afghan terrain, tribes, politics and history.
<p>A historian who advised the US military in Afghanistan and traveled extensively in the country warns that America's Afghan allies may pay a terrible price from Biden's proposed troop withdrawal. </p>
U.S. troops are already heading home from Afghanistan, ending a two-decade-long war that saw as many as 100,000 American troops there. The withdrawal of the remaining few thousand is slated to be complete by the symbolic date of Sept. 11, 2021.
I know this land well from my journeys across more than half of its provinces as a professor of Afghan history and as a former employee of the CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Centertracking the movement of Taliban and al-Qaida suicide bombers. I also advised the military on Afghan terrain, tribes, politics and history.
While on my solo missions for the CIA and U.S. Army beyond the safety of our base’s walls, in what my team described as the “red zone,” I also did something that none of my U.S. Army comrades – who traveled in convoys and were restricted by formal rules of engagement – could do. I freely photographed the fascinating Afghan people around me as they went about their lives in an active war zone.
Afghan solidiers patrol in Khost Province, 2010
Before his ouster as Secretary of Defense on November 9th, Mark Esper sent a worried memo to Donald Trump stating that it was the “unanimous” recommendation of the chain of command for the war in Afghanistan that conditions were not ready for the president’s proposed US troop withdrawal. The generals charged with prosecuting the war in Afghanistan saw Trump’s recent troop drawdown order as counter-strategic folly driven purely by the president’s optics-driven desire to proclaim to his neo-isolationist followers that he ended “endless wars.” According to the Pentagon, none of the conditions required for a troop withdrawal, including the Taliban’s breaking its ongoing and close relationship with Al-Qaeda and negotiating a peace agreement with our Afghan government allies had been met. �
the taliban s army is some 30,000 fighters. born from the crucible of war. captured kabul in 1996 and imposed draconian laws. indiscriminate and brutal. whipped in public for adultery in front of an all-male audience. osama bin laden called for money and his fighters. [ chanting ] the northern alliance came together in mutual opposition to the taliban. general dustin and his advanced security party come riding up. gent dostum who has a fierce reputation for his treatment of prisoners. he jumps down off of the