Last helicopter out of Kabul

In the morning of April 30th, 1975, the last helicopter lifted off from the rooftop of the US embassy in Saigon. The images from that withdrawal are still etched in the collective memories of those old enough to have seen the photographs of the helicopter perched on top the US embassy with its sorry and frightened human cargo. A line of desperate men and women trying to ladder up to the roof to escape the advancing Vietcong army makes the last bid to escape it an extremely frightening sight to behold. The end story of a defeat foretold. A worse fate befell the US embassy in Tehran when the Shah fled Iran in 1979. University students forcibly occupied the embassy as the staffers frantically shredded secret documents. Over 50 embassy officials spent more than 400 days in captivity, while the Carter administration mounted a desperate of plan to retrieve them through an ambitious special forces action. The plans went up in smoke as C130s collided in Desert one and helicopters caught fire.  

The American withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of wasted effort and nearly a trillion dollar in expenses and thousands of innocent lives lost is expected to be complete by the 11^th of September. The bulk of the forces would be gone before that time. The Americans would be leaving behind a large embassy with at least 600 marines to guard it. The government in Kabul is intact but is fast losing ground to the Taliban forces around Afghanistan. The Taliban know that they are winning, and they are in mood to negotiate. The Doha process is stalled, and the Ankara process never got off the ground but there are a number of other forums that are very keen to help Afghanistan stabilize in the post withdrawal phase.

What happens after the Americans are gone may be a repeat of what happened after the Soviets withdrew in 1989. The Afghan security forces collapsed, and President Najeebullah was forced to take refuge in the UN compound in Kabul.   When he was finally captured, he was hanged in the public square in Kabul. The commanding general of the American forces in Afghanistan has predicted a descent in chaos and a civil war. In any case there is a likelihood of a largescale displacement of people and there may yet be another influx of refugees into Pakistan. The border fence will only partially stem the flow. When it comes to a deluge, it would not be an effective barrier.

The Americans have been looking for bases in the region for the armed drones to support the Afghan security forces. Pakistan has refused but there would be others willing to help. The most likely candidates are bordering Central Asian states and even India. Drones or even air strikes will be of little help if the Afghan national security forces loses the stomach to fight. In 1842, at the end of the first Afghan war, the British Army under General Elphinstone were killed to a man (4500 British and Indian soldiers and nearly 12000 camp followers) before they could reach Jalalabad, the last major border town before India. The sole survivor was surgeon Major Brydon, who was deliberately allowed to escape so he could tell the sad tale of an Army butchered in retreat. Another empire has bitten the dust in the wilds of Afghanistan. Are we going to see to more bloodshed in a broken Afghanistan? or the common Afghan will for once take his destiny into his own hand and work for a better future.

For Pakistan its an opportunity of a lifetime to help their neighbors in the West in their reconstruction effort.