(This was originally published on RT.com on August 16, 2021, under the title: America’s NARRATIVE failure in Afghanistan is worse than its military one – Now the entire world knows the emperor has no clothes. Reposting here for those in "free" countries where non-official viewpoints are censored)
Afghanistan may not be the actual ‘graveyard of empires,’ but it looks set to bury at least the American one, by imploding the major narratives on which it has rested: invincibility, inevitability, prosperity and competence.2 Afghan fall from C-17 plane in Kabul, as they were clinging upon the wing of the airplane.#KabulHasFallen #kabulairport #Kabulfall #Afghanistan #Talibans pic.twitter.com/kfzwj2wwhQ
— Bikas Gurung (@bikas_gurung) August 16, 2021
It has to be an irony above all ironies that the same man who, back in 1992, celebrated the demise of the Soviet “puppet regime” in Kabul ended up leading a US puppet regime there. Except, whereas Dr. Najibullah ruled for three years after the last Soviet soldier crossed the Friendship Bridge into Uzbekistan, Ashraf Ghani resigned and fled even before the last American boot left Afghan soil – reportedly forgetting bags of cash on the tarmac, no less.
What made the sudden and total collapse of the Afghan National Army (ANA) so devastating, however, is the explicit insistence of US leadership – from President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley – as late as two weeks ago, that it would never happen.
“There's going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the – of the United States from Afghanistan,” Biden told reporters on July 8. Except that’s exactly what happened, and then some.
‘Saigon 1975’ is forever associated with the photo of desperate South Vietnamese mobbing a ‘Huey’ on the rooftop of the US embassy. There are several contenders for “Kabul 2021,” but so far the desperate Afghans clinging onto a US cargo plane – only to plummet to their deaths – seems a strong favorite.
“A thousand narratives collapsed in real-time,” as journalist and US Navy veteran Jack Posobiec put it. “DC theater gave way to reality.”
