And so it happened. We all knew it would, it was only a matter of time. And yes, more violence is sure to follow.
A suicide bomb at the airport, followed by gunmen opening fire, and then another bomb at a hotel just outside the airport. 90 Afghans and 13 US servicemen are dead. These are the first American soldiers to be killed in combat since March 2020, and the most killed in one day since 2011. ISIS-K, a competitor to the Taliban, claimed responsibility. President Biden vowed to retaliate.
This is not how wars end. It’s how they begin.
The Taliban leadership, some of whom were released by President Obama in exchange for the captured American soldier Bowe Bergdahl, are fully aware of the leverage they’ve been gifted by the Biden Administration.
We have fully passed the Saigon 1975 moment and are now rapidly approaching the Iran 1979 moment when the Islamic revolution came for the 52 Americans who would be held hostage for 444 days.
Unfortunately, we are not talking about 52 hostages, but somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 Americans, and possibly 80,000 Afghans, whose lives are now threatened. Some are already calling it the largest hostage crisis in American history, as it is all but guaranteed that we will not meet the August 31 deadline set by President Biden, and now enforced by the Taliban. The militants have already stated that an extension beyond that date would be a “red line” and promised “there would be consequences.”
Even if the Taliban leadership are genuine in their magnanimity, they cannot control every radical faction in their midst. Al Qaeda and ISIS-K don’t take orders from the Taliban leadership, not to mention the untold number of ransom-hungry criminal gangs.
The Kabul airport is small. At their discretion, the Taliban could launch a few mortars and put holes in the runway, rendering it inoperable for takeoffs or landings. At that moment the jihadists could reengage combat with American troops and the civilians under their protection. Everyone is wondering what happens on September 1.
So, the only option available to the administration is to pay a ransom, and so a ransom shall be paid. Most of the “diplomatic” talk emanating from the White House involves lecturing the Taliban on how they will “need everything from additional help in terms of economic assistance, trade, and whole range of things.” One does not have to speculate much on what CIA Director William Burns offered in his secret talks with the Taliban yesterday.
And now we find out, as inexplicable as it seems, that US officials provided the Taliban with a list of names of Americans and their Afghan allies, presumably out of some desperate hope that the jihadists can help “expedite the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan.” Said one Defense Department official, “Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list.”
Everything outside the airport gates is Taliban territory, they man all checkpoints, and their special forces unit is “providing security” for the Afghans and Americans in the vicinity. “They had to do that [hand over the list] because of the security situation the White House created by allowing the Taliban to control everything outside the airport,” one US official said.
Even before yesterday’s bombing, Americans and Afghans attempting the dangerous journey to the airport had been met with violent mobs of Taliban fighters who blocked their access. Rather than attempt another chance at getting to the airport, one staff member reportedly said in a cable, “It would be better to die under the Taliban’s bullet.”
When ISIS took advantage of the Obama administration's withdraw from Iraq in 2011, it wasn’t until social media lit up with images of the atrocities being committed—the beheadings, the rapes, the burning of people alive—that public opinion shifted from withdrawal to reengage, forcing then-President Obama to act. Replications of those very images are coming, and in all likelihood they’re coming soon.