Gravitas Plus: Are Taliban America's Frankenstein's monster?

New Delhi: Last week, the entire world witnessed one of the major humanitarian crises as the Taliban insurgents captured Afghanistan's capital Kabul. The fear of a brutal Taliban regime led to desperation among Afghan citizens and foreigners residing in the war-torn country, who have been either fleeing or trying to leave the country ever since the insurgents made a rapid advance across Afghanistan. 

There have been gut-wrenching images and videos of people trying to escape, with some even falling to death from a plane while trying to flee. Pictures have also gone viral that show parents handing over their baby to the US troops over the perimeter wall of the airport in Kabul. 

However, as the world hung its head in shame, there was no sign of remorse in the US, which, in a way, was a coldhearted betrayal by Washington that should have weighed heavily on its conscience. 

Here is WION Executive Editor Palki Sharma Upadhyay giving more details about what happened in Afghanistan was a collective failure of generations of US Presidents, policy-makers, and military commanders that helped create this monster called the Taliban. 

Role of America in supporting Afghan warlords 

The role of the US in supporting the Afghan warlords or the Mujahideens who went on to form the Taliban has been a closely guarded secret. In December 1979 when the Cold War was at its peak, the Soviet Union had decided to invade Afghanistan under the pretext of upholding the 1978 Soviet-Afghan Friendship Treaty. The America couldn't help and flung itself into the conflict and supported the Afghan Mujahideen to safeguard its interests, which is the story that is being told officially.

However, at that time, the Americans didn't not that their government along with the British Secret Service - the MI-6, has begun training and funding the Islamic extremists, including the 9/11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden. Many people dismiss this as a conspiracy theory, but, it's not. 

Osama Bin Laden was a product of a monumental miscalculation

In 2005, a British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, had admitted in writing that Osama Bin Laden was a product of a monumental miscalculation by Western security forces. Cook also claimed that Osama was funded by the CIA and armed by America's western allies to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

These claims were then reiterated by slain Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who had publically acknowledged that Osama Bin Laden was a product of American spy agencies. The US helped Osama and his fighters and the western media then sang praises of his operations. It, notably, was around the same time when the concept of Jihad or holy wars had found its way into the global world.

ALSO READ | The Afghanistan crisis: Children at the centre of the disaster - in pics

The media reports at the time had backed the Mujahideens and had portrayed the Soviets as Christians who were trying to defile Islam. The term 'Mujahideen' itself translates into an 'Islamic struggle', a struggle that was supported by the US which wanted to turn Afghanistan into Soviet Union's Vietnam. 

Operation Cyclone

If we talk about the Soviet Union, their occupation in Afghanistan had lasted for over ten years and throughout this period, the CIA kept expanding its program under the code name - 'Operation Cyclone'. The US helped the mujahideen with millions of dollars with the help of Pakistan. By 1987, the annual aid by the US to mujahideen had reportedly reached $ 630 million. Talking about weapons, this is to be noted that initially, America was against supplying weapons, however, in March 1985, US President Ronald Reagan's national security team decided to switch its strategy and started providing mujahideen with the stringer anti-aircraft missile. Pakistan helped the US and used to look after the distribution of these weapons. 

By 1989 when the Soviet Union had lost its control over Afghanistan, American had given the aid of $ 20 billion to Afghanistan in arms and ammunition. Subsequently, the Soviet Union disintegrated and with it, America's appetite for funding the mujahideen also ended.

Emergence of Taliban

Following the US' departure, Afghanistan became the very picture of chaos as the mujahideen started fighting each other. It resulted in civil wars and destroyed most of Kabul. With this, a young group of the mujahideen emerged in Kandahar who portrayed themselves as an army of Robin Hood and said that their purpose is to restore peace and justice. They called themselves the 'Talibans' which also meant 'students' in the Pashto language. They then moved to Pakistan to study in seminaries.

The US played no direct role in the formation of the Taliban, but the Taliban flourished mainly due to the environment created by the Americans, an environment that justified the cause of Islamist extremists, of picking up arms to protect their faith and country. 

ALSO READ | Conflict, displacement, drought and COVID-19 contributing to desperate situation in Afghanistan, say UN agencies

Why Afghans embraced Taliban?

The Afghans were tired of mujahideen fighting and embraced the Taliban when they first came to the limelight. The Afghani people relied on the Taliban to restore peace and wipe out corruption. This eventually allowed the Taliban to gain power and implement the Sharia law and from here, things went downhill as they took Afghanistan to the stone age.

US wakes up 

The US which had helped create this monster simply watched on and only woke up when it struck home. Osama Bin Laden, with the protection of the Taliban, carried out one of the biggest and the most horrific terrorist strikes - the 9/11 attacks in 2001, which took over 2,900 lives. America then asked the Taliban to hand over Osama and when the terror group refused to do so, Washington invaded Afghanistan with the then US President George W Bush giving an open warning "Now, the Taliban will pay a price."

The US dethroned the Taliban to eventually replace it with the Taliban after 20 years of war and spending $ 3 trillion and losing 2,300 US soldiers. Even after all this, the US could not root out the Taliban, could not dismantle the terror network and could not even rebuild Afghanistan. 

ALSO READ | Troops withdrawal from Afghanistan was a 'logical, rational and right decision', says US President Joe Biden