Return of the Taliban -- A new danger for the world (2021)

Hi and welcome back to the Snapshot Channel. I'm Sonia Briski. Like and subscribe our channel if you haven't done so already. Today's news, look we've all been absolutely shocked really and dismayed at the images that have come out of Afghanistan in the last week. Absolutely heartbreaking to see what's going on. Let's have a look at exactly what occurred in the last week and also what has led up to these tragic events. Newslines and headlines have been absolutely flooded with the news of Kabul and the Taliban and of course with the withdrawal of the American troops after more than 20 years of war has been all over our media. The presidential palace in fact fell on the 15th of August and it took only weeks for the Taliban to overrun the capital after the withdrawal of the western troops. The speed at which the Afghan government toppled was absolutely astonishing. This was a 20-year war that cost western countries trillions and trillions of dollars and the lives of thousands of their military personnel. Of course absolutely tragic and so heartbreaking and all this was just gone in a matter of weeks. So what does this all mean for the rest of us like you and me and let's have a look at the events of the evacuation last weekend. So the scenes of the airport were absolutely chaotic and in fact interestingly US President Biden reassured the public that the takeover by the Taliban was highly unlikely but look it did happen and only took just a short few days for the whole country to crumble and the next minute the US were desperately trying to evacuate their embassy staff and other foreign nationals. In fact 6,000 US troops were sent to the Kabul airport to secure it to allow for the evacuation of foreign nationals and also the Afghanis who were trying to flee the regime and in those heartbreaking images. Australia also did join 60 other countries in the joint statement urging the Taliban to allow the evacuation of foreigners and to not block the airport. So the situation at the airport was total chaos. We've all seen the images of thousands of people literally flooding and running onto the tarmac and clinging onto US military aeroplanes in their last desperate efforts to escape the Taliban regime and in fact the US were even forced to fire into the air just to disperse the crowds and to get them off the tarmac. Some people did try to cling onto the outside of the plane and we did see those images absolutely tragic where people fell hundreds of meters to the ground to their deaths in their last desperate attempts to escape. The disastrous execution of US Afghan withdrawal has been compared to the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 when US-backed Cuban forces tried to land in Cuba but were rebuffed by the communist regime. Other commentators have said it is like Saigon all over again when in 1975 communist forces in Vietnam overran the capital city. So how did the US lose Afghanistan so quickly? Look well in reality the militants never really went away despite the 20-year presence of the foreign forces in the country. Look they simply withdrew but they did maintain their leadership structure and their strong presence and the fact that they had an underlying cause, so-called cause, they meant they were out of play for a long time. However the US-backed Afghani government simply did not have the will or the determination or the resources to put up a fight. So the Afghan security forces were full of corruption, their morale was severely affected by the US announcing their intention to withdraw and furthermore despite the 20-year Western influence and an attempt to nurture a younger generation and have them be more open to new ideas and freedoms, there was still a very strong extreme religious hold within the country that really gave the Taliban a big support base. And so where did the Taliban come from? Initially the Taliban emerged between the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan as one of the prominent factions in the Afghan civil war. So they largely consisted of students from the Pashtun areas of the eastern and southern Afghanistan who had been educated in traditional Islamic schools and they fought during the Soviet-Afghan war. Initially the first seized power in the 90s and they were greater saviours really who rescued the weak from the warlords and tyranny and brought law and order to society. However as reality set in people learned that wherever the Taliban went they left an absolute trail of human wreckage. Their brutal rule included public whippings, orders for men to grow beards to a certain length under punishment of death, locking women inside, banning girls from school, imposing curfews. The war had left a generation of traumatised people and Stan Grant from the ABC reported witnessing men with amputated legs hobbling on homemade crutches at the mosques and young boys who were so abused and so full of hate that they are absolutely beyond psychological help and can never be reunited with their families. So where did the Taliban get their funding from? Despite being toppled by the Americans and allies after the 2001 invasion, the Taliban had always maintained a shadow government armed and funded in the billions by various countries. According to a most of the money comes from criminal activities such as opium production, drug trafficking, extortion and kidnappings for ransom. They have also generated additional money from natural resources under their areas of control such as through mining. Separately US officials have said for years the Taliban have gotten money, weapons and training from Russia. Other analysts say the Taliban also continue to get money from Pakistan and Pakistan was also accused of harbouring the Taliban and inaction against the terrorists. Pakistan has also helped to facilitate ties between China and the Taliban. While the Taliban was in power, China established economic ties with it and launched flights between Kabul and Xinjiang's capital Ramchi. China has also been busy courting the Taliban and furthering its belt and road initiatives, a series of deals with developing countries to build infrastructure and trade. A strong relationship with the Taliban has helped China avert any major terrorist strike on its projects in Afghanistan including the large ANET copper mine it secured in 2007. By contrast Indian infrastructure projects and diplomatic missions in Afghanistan have repeatedly come under terrorist attack. Analysts also note that in the early days during the Afghan-Soviet war it was actually the US that also provided a lot of funding to the Taliban as a counterforce against the Soviet presence in the Cold War rivalry. So really interesting to see how so many different countries over the years and different powers have actually in fact contributed to the presence and rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan and now we're seeing the current events unfolding and all the tragedy that's already occurring in the country. So why is Biden being blamed for this absolutely disastrous execution of withdrawal and the key there is really the way that Biden executed this operation. Most analysts agree it was too hasty. Initially the Obama administration announced the US would withdraw their troops by the end of 2014. In February 2020 however under the Trump government the US and Taliban did sign a peace treaty and the agreement was that US would withdraw their troops, American troops and NATO troops, from Afghanistan by May 2021. The Taliban also made a pledge to prevent terrorist group Al-Qaeda from operating in areas under the Taliban control. This deal was supported at the time by China, Pakistan and Russia and Trump did leave an open possibility of renewed war effort if the Taliban were to violate the terms of the agreement promising that if terms were broken he was reported to have said we'll go back with the force like no one's ever seen. The deal set in place by Trump was a step-by-step process where there would be a gradual withdrawal of US troops during which the Taliban and Afghan government must work out a power-sharing settlement and so the terms that were set out in the Trump-Pioneer deal was that the withdrawal was to be very gradual. The US troops were meant to remain and control and oversee that the handover back to the Afghanis was to be within the terms of the agreement and then to ensure that the Taliban lived up to its promises. If the fulfills its commitment then the US agreed to come for a complete withdrawal of all remaining American troops within a 10-month period. Unfortunately what we saw in the last week and the way that the withdrawal was handled was certainly not in accordance with the previously drafted terms and the Biden administration carried out the withdrawal very very quickly with no power-sharing settlement breached and then misjudging how quickly the US-backed Afghan government collapsed. Biden was harshly criticised for deviating from the original plan and rightly so. So where to from now? What will actually be happening and what does this all mean for the rest of the world? James Morrow from the Daily Telegraph summed up the situation quite neatly by calling the US a paper tiger. The US withdrawal had been nothing but humiliating for the superpower and the vacuum left by the US and its western allies had provided an excellent opportunity for countries like China to strengthen its relationship with the Taliban. Though it's also provided a strategic threat to neighbouring countries like India who would then have to be very watchful of the unfolding situation in the nearby Afghanistan and what it all means for their national security. Interestingly though some have commented that the rise of the Taliban has posed a threat to China if China doesn't play the game right. The ethnic cleansing that has ravaged the Xinjiang northern province of China is certainly a point of contention. The Taliban are not happy about it but perhaps for the time being Taliban need to gather as much international support so they may be willing to turn a blind eye to China's actions towards the Uyghurs but that may just be a matter of time. Furthermore the loss of Afghanistan to the Taliban has really put doubt into people's minds as to what and how US would react should China attack Taiwan and attempt to take over by force. In fact the Chinese-run state mouthpieces and media have been revelling in the US withdrawal of Afghanistan saying that this proves that US won't help if war was to break out between China and Taiwan. And of course the whole world is incredibly concerned at the moment for the future and the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan and we've already seen and heard reports of a woman being shot on the street for not wearing a burqa and girls not being able to go to school saying their final goodbyes to the teachers. Absolutely tragic and so heartbreaking to see and witness this country plunge into absolute chaos. But what will happen going forward and what does this all mean for the rest of the world? The ramifications will certainly be experienced for many years to come and the fact that the Taliban took over Afghanistan without a joint government formed by US-backed forces and was so done hastily and quickly certainly means that the worsening of a terrorist threat will occur and the return of the Taliban to power will have a very long-term impact on the international society. Look, thank you for watching. Like and subscribe our channel. We look forward to bringing you more news in the future. Take care and we'll talk to you soon.