Inescapable withdrawal: the agreement between the United States and the Taliban

Communication experts have subtly described this as withdrawal. Washington and the Taliban have reached an agreement that provides for the departure of US soldiers from Afghanistan after 18 years of war. Can the Central Asian country hope to find peace again? Nothing is less sure. But we will not have to rely on the United States to support good governance, no offense to some US think tanks and hawks. (IGA)

It took barrels and buckets of blood, but it ended, a contraction of history in a parchment of possibilities: the Taliban finally pushed the unique and agonizing superpower of this land to a fairly consistent agreement. (The emphasis is on "enough", the consequence is almost always unknown.) " In principle, on paper, yes, we reached an agreement Said US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad on the Afghan TV channel ToloNews. "But it's not final until the President of the United States approves it. "

The agreement provides for the withdrawal – the public relations component of the exercise ironically calls this a "withdrawal" – of 5,400 military out of the current workforce of 14,000 men within 135 days of signing. Five military bases will be closed or transferred to the Afghan government. In return, the Taliban pledged never to host forces with the intention of attacking the United States and their interests.

Accuracy, however, escapes the press and those who want to know the substance of the case. Rumor has it that this is part of an inexorable process that will see a complete evacuation within sixteen months, although that remains gossip.

The whole process has its exclusions, its qualifications and these mutual deceptions. There is the concession, reluctant but ultimately accepted, that the Taliban was a credible power that could never have been ignored. So far, the United States has participated in nine rounds of negotiations, a process that seems to have dragged on for only one end result: the reduction and final departure of the fighting forces.

The Taliban were not, it's the thesis of some American strategists, a foreign bacterium making its way into the Afghan political body, the imposition of a global fundamentalist enterprise. No matter how, second-tier local officials have been very much involved in this effort, making any containment strategy useless.

A popular and equally fallacious story was that the Taliban had been defeated and miraculously turned back in the last pages of history. Similar views were expressed during the US's futile effort to fight the Viet Cong in South Vietnam. A scholarly calculation has been released, a mirage facilitated by language: the counting of bodies has become a means of confusing figures with political impact.

The Taliban have repeatedly demonstrated that B52s, well-equipped foreign forces and cruise missiles can not take them out of the country that has defeated so many empires. Politics can only be the action of tribes, collectives, peoples; weapons and equipment are unpleasant and useful companions, but never viable voters or officials.

Even today, the desire to stay away from over-funded think tanks and well-furnished conference rooms – former diplomats involved in the Afghan project – is stubborn and illusory. If the withdrawal is to take place, if it is done, it should be based on a pre-existing peace agreement. The open letter issued by the Atlantic Council by nine former US State Department officials who previously had ties to the country is just gossip. " If a peace agreement succeeds, we and others must commit to continuing to support peacebuilding. This will require monitoring compliance with commitments made, suppressing extremists opposed to peace, and supporting good governance and economic growth through international assistance. "

The presumptuous tone is extraordinary, heavy jargon planner and strewn with total absurdities. There is no peace to maintain nor governance to preserve. The authors of the note, including failed bureaucrats like John Negroponte, Robert P. Finn and Ronald E. Neumann, opt for the imperial line: the United States can afford to stay in Afghanistan because it is the Afghans who fight and die. (Again, it's a re-culture of Vietnam, an Afghan equivalent of Vietnamization.) According to them, " the American deaths are tragic, but the number of those killed in combat represents less than 20% of US soldiers killed in incidents during non-combat training. Everything is fine, then.

As a sign of uncompromising bargaining, the Taliban continued to bleed even after some wrinkles of the agreement had been ironed. This movement knows nothing of peace, but of the life of war: death is its master, corpses its harvest. On Monday, the "green zone" of Kabul was the target of a truck bomb attack, which left 16 dead (a number that can only increase). It was a reminder that the Taliban, masters of whole areas of the countryside, can also strike deeply in the capital itself. The assassinations also provided the Afghan government with a salutary reminder of its powerlessness, underscored by the fact that President Ashraf Ghani played no role in the talks in Qatar.

This makes us realize that a lot of cruelty is looming on the horizon. The victory of the Taliban is an opportunity to salute the bleeding nose of imperialism. But they will not leave illuminated notes or inspirational speeches. This agreement will offer little comfort to those who want to read a text without being abused or seeking free training of paralyzing dogmas. Inner cannibalization is assured, and civil war is a possibility. Tribal war is bound to continue.

As this happens, the hope for Donald Trump and his associates will no doubt be similar to that of the British when they finally hit the instruction of their Prime Minister David Cameron: forget that this whole affair took place.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College in Cambridge. He teaches at RMIT University in Melbourne and can be contacted at: (Email protected). Read other articles from Binoy.

Original source: Dissident Voice

Translated from English by Diane Gilliard for Investig'Action

Source: Investig'Action