The Taliban, in a shocking blitzkrieg, have swept Afghanistan in less than a month, and the 300,000-strong Afghan army nearly vanished in their path. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, while fleeing to Tajikistan over the weekend, admitted in a statement that the Taliban had won, “with the judgment of their swords and weapons, and are now responsible for the honor, property and self-preservation of their compatriots.”
And what about the honor and property of the former occupiers of Afghanistan, the United States of America? Missing. Today, thousands of performers and their families await visas for the United States, as Taliban fighters parade triumphantly in captured tanks and SUVs paid for by Uncle Sam.
In the 20 years since September 11, 2001, the United States has spent more than $ 2 trillion on the war in Afghanistan. That’s $ 300 million a day, every day, for two decades. Or $ 50,000 for each of Afghanistan’s 40 million people. In more basic terms, Uncle Sam has spent more on keeping the Taliban at bay than the net worth of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and America’s 30 richest billionaires combined.
Follow the information about the world in our international section
Those figures include $ 800 billion in direct war costs and $ 85 billion to train the vanquished Afghan army, which withdrew in the weeks since the sudden closure of Bagram Air Force Base by the Pentagon to early July removed the promise of air support against the advance of the Taliban. American taxpayers have been giving Afghan soldiers $ 750 million a year in payroll. In all, the Costs of War Project at Brown University estimates the total spending at $ 2.26 trillion.
And the costs are even higher in terms of lives lost. There have been 2,500 US military deaths in Afghanistan and nearly 4,000 more US civilian contractors killed. That pales in the face of an estimated 69,000 Afghan military police, 47,000 civilians killed and 51,000 opposition fighters killed. So far, the cost of caring for 20,000 American victims has been $ 300 billion, with another half a billion or so expected to come.
We will continue to incur costs long after President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan is complete. Naturally, the United States has financed the war in Afghanistan with borrowed money. Researchers at Brown University estimate that more than $ 500 billion in interest has already been paid (included in the total sum of $ 2.26 trillion), and they estimate that by 2050 the cost of interest alone on our war debt Afghan could reach $ 6.5 trillion. That works out to $ 20,000 for every American citizen.
Videos taken from the Kabul airport runway indicate that the 6,000 US troops sent there have been unable to establish a perimeter even around the runways, where Afghans are shown crawling over each other to get on planes. One flight is reported to have carried 800 people, and more than 10,000 US citizens are said to be still awaiting evacuation and thousands more sheltering at the scene. Some were so desperate to flee the Taliban government that they clung to the landing gear of transports leaving Kabul airport, only to fall and die as the plane began its climb.
Follow us on Google News to keep you always informed
There is even less hope of escape for the generation of Afghan women and girls who grew up in somewhat more liberalized times but now face mandatory burqas and evaporated prospects for education and employment (a continuation of the Taliban’s “War on Women”) . There are an estimated 1.6 million more women employed in Afghanistan’s workforce than 20 years ago. The Taliban promise to reverse all of that, at incalculable human cost.