The ignoble end to America’s longest war in history: Graveyard of superpowers: Joy in Taliban heartland over US exit

KANDAHAR / Washington: Thousands of Taliban supporters on Tuesday poured on to the streets of Kandahar, the spiritual birthplace of the Islamist movement, waving flags and shouting "Allah is greatest", celebrating the momentous US exit from Afghanistan.

A chorus of car horns filled the main square of Afghanistan’s second-biggest city as a joyous crowd hailed the withdrawal of the last American troops after a 20-year war. Volleys of "Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar" (God is greatest) rang out across Shaheedan Square, which was awash with men and boys in traditional clothing, many waving the black-and-white Taliban standard.

Kandahar is in the ethnic Pashtun heartland of the Taliban, where the hardline group was founded and from where it rose to power in 1996. By 2001, when US-led forces invaded, the Taliban had seized control of most of the country. It is here that the Taliban’s secretive supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada is living, the group said on Sunday, after years in the shadows.

In a video clip from Shaheedan Square, posted on social media, a man named Abdullah said: "Today is the independence day of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. We congratulate all the Muslim brothers and the entire Afghan nation.

"We have raised the flag of Holy Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) and we will raise this flag over the entire world." An AFP reporter saw crowds of supporters from surrounding villages pour into the southern city after news broke of the US departure.

"We have defeated the superpower! Afghanistan is the graveyard of superpowers!" they shouted from pick-up trucks and motorbikes as they drove around the city in the sunshine brandishing automatic weapons.

At least a dozen men and boys were squeezed into the back of one green pick-up truck bearing the crest of the defeated National Afghan Police force. One of those celebrating on the streets was Taliban commando Maulvi Zakerullah, who railed against the Americans.

"Whatever booty and weapons are left from the infidels in the future, we will use that against them and defend our country," he told AFP. "In the future, the infidels do not need to come and destroy our land."

The fighter added: "The Islamic Emirate has now been established in Afghanistan, and there will be no chaos at all after that."America’s longest war ended ignobly, in the dead of night in Afghanistan. A giant C-17 transport laden with troops and the US ambassador flew out of Kabul airport a minute before midnight local time on August 31, the deadline set by President Joe Biden.

That brought to an end a helter-skelter airlift that evacuated more than 120,000 people fleeing the rule of the Islamist Taliban, who seized power a fortnight earlier -- two decades after US-led forces drove them from power and invaded Afghanistan.

The land that had brutally rebuffed the British empire and the Soviet Union delivered the same result to the modern world’s superpower. The distant war had plodded along in the background for most Americans.

But they were jolted back to it in the final days with the massive evacuation and the death of 13 US troops from an Islamic State suicide bomber who blew himself up at an airport gate. The image of President Joe Biden attending a ceremony for their flag-draped caskets Sunday at the air force base in Dover, Delaware, could well be the lasting one of America’s war.

"The Taliban have been very pragmatic and very businesslike," said General Kenneth McKenzie, head of the US Central command. The primary front of the "War on Terror" declared after the 9/11 attacks, Afghanistan became almost an afterthought as the administration of George W. Bush decided in 2003 to invade Iraq as well to oust then-leader Saddam Hussein.

Meanwhile, as the US-backed government in Kabul proved corrupt and ineffective at consolidating its power, the Taliban persisted as a potent insurgency. But the costs to Washington were immense: 2,356 US military deaths, and an overall financial cost of $2.3 trillion, according to Brown University’s Watson Institute. The end began under president Donald Trump, who came to office in 2016 promising to end the "Forever Wars."

After initially increasing troops to 16,000, with no lasting impact on the Taliban, he entered negotiations with the insurgents. In a February 2020 agreement Washington committed to withdrawing by May 1 this year. The Taliban agreed to enter peace negotiations with Kabul, and to not attack American troops in the meantime.

But they then stepped up their campaign against Afghan government forces, who were immensely dependent on the United States. By the time Biden replaced Trump on January 20, the official US troop presence was down to a bare-bones 2,500.

He conducted a review and opted to proceed with the drawdown, though buying four months extra, to August 31, for what he hoped would be an orderly pullout. Behind the scenes, he and his advisors concluded that the Afghans could not or would not wage the fight themselves. "We went to Afghanistan because of a horrific attack that happened 20 years ago. That cannot explain why we should remain there in 2021," Biden said. "It’s time to end the forever war." The end came faster than Washington expected.

The war began before smartphones and social media existed and ended with the viral video posted last week by a Marine lieutenant colonel, Stuart Scheller, calling for honesty over the war itself.

"People are upset because their senior leaders let them down. And none of them are raising their hands and accepting accountability or saying, ‘We messed this up.’" Scheller was removed from his duty, and no one offered to take the blame.