AG

When the US invaded, the Taliban surrendered because they were thoroughly defeated. This is not surprising, it happens often in conflicts everywhere. After the Taliban were defeated, they went back to their homes and effectively ceased to exist as an organization. Al Qaeda, meanwhile, had fled the country.

So there were thousands of US troops on the ground to fight a “war on terror” — but there was no enemy to fight. But to justify their presence, and to lay the ground for future invasions of Iraq and (it was hoped) Iran, they inadvertently created enemies where there were none. They did this by paying huge sums of money to Afghan warlords and strongmen to catch “terrorists.” These strongmen simply turned over their enemies and rivals — who were almost always innocent. Yet US forces repeatedly arrested, tortured, or killed such individuals. In fact, in this way the majority of Afghans sent to Guantanamo had never been members of the Taliban or al Qaeda — many were actually enemies of the Taliban.

The incentive mechanism was perverse, and had unintentional and self-defeating consequences. Eventually, so many communities were affected by this, so many people were on the wrong end of night raids and torture and abuse, that the Taliban — previously reviled by most of the Afghan population — began to be seen as a credible alternative to the venal and rapacious Afghan government and deadly US forces.

This process not only created an insurgency, but also ensured that there would be perpetual insurgency. The Afghan state, such as it is, relies on foreign aid for its existence. That aid will only come if there is a war, which means there is every incentive to keep producing enemies and keep fighting. More generally, the result is one of the most spectacular failures in American foreign policy history — a result of the fact that the US designed the Afghan state to meet its perceived national security interests, not the interests of the Afghan people. While the state survives on foreign aid, it collects almost no direct taxes and provides almost no social services (all of which are provided by aid organizations and charities). Large parts of the Afghan state’s security sector are privatized, in the form of militias that effectively operate as private security companies. Under US intervention Afghanistan is, in fact, one of the world’s most fully realized neoliberal states.