Screenshot: AP/Zabi Karimi
To say that the collapse of democracy in Afghanistan has captured headlines would be a slight understatement. Since the Trump administration announced it would pull all of its troops out of the country by May 2021 in Feb. 2020, the re-emergence of the Taliban rule has slowly been forthcoming.
Mix that with the Biden administration’s decision to follow through with President Trump’s plan, albeit a few months later than what was agreed upon, and quickly the Afghan government collapsed.
In the United States’ peace agreement with the Taliban that the Trump administration negotiated in Feb. 2020, which didn’t include the Afghan government, Trump states that the troop withdrawal is contingent on the “Taliban’s action against al-Qaeda and other terrorists who could threaten us,” during a speech at the Conservative Political Active Conference.
Meanwhile, in the same agreement, the Taliban ordered the U.S. to release 5,000 Taliban fighters, which Afghan President Ashraf Ghani suggested that releasing the fighters “isn’t under U.S. authority, but rather Afghanistan's authority” two days after the agreement was signed between the U.S. and the Taliban.
After the last Taliban fighter was released in Sep. 2020, the Trump administration began to lower the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan from over 14,000 to 2,500 by Jan. 15, 2021, which according to then-acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller brought American forces to their “lowest levels since 2001”.
Flash forward to Aug. 6, 2021 with the Biden administration in charge of the withdrawal, the Taliban takes control of its first province — the capital of Nimroz province — despite the agreement that the Taliban wouldn’t attack any Afghan-controlled land.
One week later, Taliban fighters enter and take control of Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, while the Afghan president flees the country, and the U.S. embassy is evacuated and diplomats are taken out of the country by helicopter.
Now, the U.S. has fully withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan and the country is now under Taliban rule, which will include fewer rights for women, a non-democratic government and an increasing threat for terror attacks.
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