Rory Stewart on Afghanistan: “We Should Feel Deeply Ashamed”

RORY STEWART, FORMER U.K. SECRETARY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Well, it’s heartbreaking. As you can see, this is not just a military catastrophe now. It’s a humanitarian catastrophe. And we really need to focus on the suffering now of tens of millions of Afghans, who have been plunged by a very reckless and unnecessary decision, I’m afraid, by President Biden into misery. And we should not — I think one of the things that’s been very sad over the last few days is, in Europe in the United States, people putting blame on the Afghans, somehow suggesting this is their fault. But there is literally no coincidence between the fact that we removed the airpower and the command mechanisms behind the Afghan National Army a few weeks ago, and it’s allowed the Taliban to capture most of the country in a matter of days.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: But yet you heard Pashtana there levy quite a bit of blame towards the Afghan government and the military itself. And she talked about corruption. This is an argument and a response that we’re hearing from many who support the president’s decision to leave and, quite frankly, those that don’t even support it, that would like a bit of a presence to continue to remain on the ground, that there’s blame to go around as well, specifically to the Afghan government. What is your response to that?

STEWART: It’s extremely unfair. Yes, there;s corruption in Afghanistan. Yes, Afghanistan is a very poor, fragile country, in many ways, like many wealthier countries like Nigeria and Pakistan. It’s got many similar problems. But what was different about Afghanistan is that we were able to contain the Taliban. For 20 years, we were able to allow improvements in millions of lives, girls going to school, extraordinary transformations. I run a nonprofit in Afghanistan, and we have seen incredible changes in people’s lives. Kabul is unrecognizable from the city I saw 20 years ago. It’s 10 times the size. It’s full of vigorous, educated Afghan people who want to connect with the world. And we were doing it with a tiny presence. President Biden is somehow pretending this is another Vietnam. But the truth is that in the early part of this year, cumulatively, there were only 2, 500 troops being kept in Afghanistan. There were no casualties being suffered by the U.S., the U.K. or others. We were in a situation where we were providing very light air support. We could have kept doing that indefinitely, the status we did in Germany in Japan, instead of which we have recklessly pulled the rug out from under the Afghan National Army, and we have created this chaos, and we should feel deeply ashamed.