Even the crisis in Afghanistan can’t break the spell of Britain’s delusional foreign policy | Owen Jones

If Historians of the future want to understand ignorance and The hubris that accompanied the loss of power in the West will provide an illuminating case study in this week’s parliamentary emergency debate on Afghanistan. The delusions that have long characterized British foreign policy remained intact when Iraq was destroyed for lack of weapons of mass destruction; when British soldiers were forced into a humiliating retreat from the southern Iraqi city of Basra by Iran-backed Shiite militias; and when Libya was left as a failed state. It seemed unlikely that the Taliban, who casually walked into Kabul, would finally break the spell.

Take the much-acclaimed post by Theresa May, who asked, “Where is global Britain on the streets of Kabul?” and regretted the impact of Britain, which “depended on a unilateral decision by the United States”. The former prime minister is awesome: Britain has not had a foreign policy independent of the US since the 1950s, and the perpetual occupation of Afghanistan proposed as an alternative to withdrawal is in fact the transformation of the country into a colony.

Perhaps May does not know the Afghan province of Helmand where the government is going from 2006 – at a cost of 40 billion, commanders had no sympathy for local divisions or the historical resentments that go back to the British invasion of the Afghan province in the 19th century. British forces mercilessly destroyed opium cultivation – the fulcrum of Helmand’s economy – and alienated the local population in general for the benefit of the Taliban. Hundreds of soldiers were killed or maimed before US Marines could finally rescue British forces. The humiliation, defeat and eventual withdrawal of our own country from Afghanistan precede that of our US colleagues by many years.

Western support for mujahideen fighters against the Soviets in the 1980s, when aid was often directed to the most extreme groups via the Pakistani secret services, was also not expected. That could ultimately lead to a reassessment of the West’s enduring alliance with Saudi Arabia, whose regime has long allowed its wealthy citizens to fund the Taliban while subjugating its own women and forcibly suppressing dissidents while our government looks the other way.

While the atrocities committed by the Taliban are well known, those perpetrated by Western forces and their allies have been deliberately ignored. As the writer and Afghanistan expert Anand Gopal told me, the Taliban all but disappeared in 2001. But Afghan politicians in the new administration took advantage of the US desire to eliminate “bad guys” by falsely claiming that their opponents were Taliban supporters. Massacres, mass arrests, house searches and torture followed. Pro-government forces recruited children as soldiers, while the Afghan local police – a 30,000-strong pro-government militia mobilized by the US – murdered civilians, committed fraud and participated in theft, rape, kidnapping, drug trafficking and extortion.

The CIA-backed Khost Protection Force monitored similar human rights violations: Their victims ranged from 14-year-old boys to 60-year-old tribal elders. As Human Rights Watch puts it, a central myth was that the strong Afghan warlords, warlords and commanders who chose the US as allies to oust the Taliban “could contribute to security and stability despite their abuse reports.” The opposite turned out to be the case. From the beginning, anti-Taliban forces attacked villages, raped women, executed civilians and stole cattle and land.

Afghan detention centers were overcrowded with prisoners who had been beaten, suffocated and shocked with electric batons. According to the International Criminal Court, the US armed forces and the CIA may have committed war crimes by torturing prisoners. Gopal tells me that there were “dozens of Abu Ghraibs” in Afghanistan that were not reported. Air strikes killed thousands of civilians, followed by what Human Rights Watch calls “poor investigations and rare condolences.” According to the UN, over the past five years 40% of all civilian casualties in air strikes have been children. Between 2017 and 2020, the civilian death toll from Western bombs rose by more than 300%.

These victims are ignored because their deaths undermine the selfish narrative that enabled the West and its allies to present themselves as the “good guys” to their domestic audiences. For Western foreign policy, the lives of brown-skinned civilians are only relevant if they can be used to mobilize public opinion to fire more bombs and bullets. But the atrocities committed by the West and its allies helped revive the fate of the Taliban. This also applies to the mass corruption of government officials and warlords in Afghanistan, which the West not only carefully ignored, but also fueled in order to “buy loyalty and information,” according to a study by the Washington Post.

For years, the US military has pressured presidents to put “endless rows of headstones in Arlington National Cemetery,” as Joe Biden puts it. After two decades of war who killed a quarter of a million people, the Taliban are more dominant today than they were before September 11th. Even so, like their equally delusional counterparts, following the fall of Saigon, politicians are applauded for believing that if only there had been more determination, ruthlessness and power, victory could have been secured.

In a rational world, the politicians and commentators who fueled this war would be held accountable. Instead, they are hailed as statesmen, wise men, and patriots. And so again, like Iraq, like Libya and like the “war on terror” in general, any hope of learning from the recent catastrophe, dissenting voices are ostracized, and we are doomed to an equally bloody future – our past.