Edited by: Fern Sidman
Now that the Taliban has taken full control of Afghanistan, speculation has grown about the motivation of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani leaving his country so quickly only days ago.
Reports have been circulating that Ghani, 72, had left Afghanistan to the UAE with $169 million in cash that was stuffed in suitcases. Afghanistan’s ambassador to Tajikistan, Mohammad Zahir Aghbar accused Ghani of stealing the money from the government, according to a report in the New York Post.
The paper also reported that the Russian embassy in Kabul said that Ghani departed his native country when the Taliban approached Kabul and took four vehicles and a helicopter that was filled with cash.
Wednesday marked the first time that Ghani issued a public statement since leaving his country. According to the Post report, he denied the reports that he fled with millions of dollars inside stuffed suitcases.
In a video address that Ghani made from the UAE, where he was allowed to arrive on humanitarian grounds, he claimed that he left Kabul with only the clothes on his back.
The Post reported that in a Facebook clip, Ghani said: “I was forced to leave Afghanistan with one set of traditional clothes, a vest and the sandals I was wearing.”
Ghani also said in his video address that the claims of him leaving his country with tons of money were “completely baseless,” adding it was a “political and personality assassination.”
“You can find out from custom officials and other authorities that they were baseless,” he said of the allegations, as was reported by the NY Post.
Ghani said that his decision to flee Afghanistan was made in order to prevent his people from being murdered by the Taliban.
The Post reported that in a previous post on social media, Ghani wrote: “If I had stayed, countless of my countrymen would be martyred and Kabul would face destruction and turn into ruins that could result to a human catastrophe for its six million residents.”
Others, however, such as Middle East experts and government officials have said that Ghani’s abrupt departure ruined chances for negotiations that would lead to a smooth transition of power with the Taliban. Thusly, they concluded that Ghani’s decision to leave has left the people he ruled in a dangerous position, as they now faced dread about what could possibly happen to them under this new and brutal Taliban regime.
Those critical of US involvement in Afghanistan that began decades ago also weighed in on the escalation of violence from the Taliban in this crisis situation.
Noted historian, long time feminist activist, author and poet, Martha Shelley said: “It is important to note that the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, they did not intend for the war to last 10 years. In February 1980, Senior US Foreign Ministry Official Eric Gonsalves said, “What the Soviets want in Kabul is a government which would not threaten it, not necessarily a Marxist one.”
She added that, “U.S. policy was to keep this war going as long as possible. Eugene V. Rostow, a former Under Secretary of State, argued that it was “important to do everything reasonable to prolong and intensify the battle in Afghanistan” in order to weaken the Soviet Union.”
Addressing the issue of the future of women and girls under the brutal Taliban regime, Ms. Shelley said, “Once we did invade Afghanistan, we enabled many women to receive an education and obtain decent jobs. Now we are abandoning them and most of the Afghans, male and female, who worked with us. Canada is taking in four times as many Afghan refugees as we are.”
She added that, “We also installed a corrupt government. U.S. taxpayer dollars meant for the Afghan military were siphoned off—higher level officers sold military equipment for cash and pocketed money that was meant to feed their soldiers, who often went hungry. It should be no surprise that their army collapsed.”
In a recent article that appeared on the FrontPageMag.com web site, Bruce Thornton, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center castigated the US for leaving Afghanistan at this critical juncture. He wrote: “Running away will further damage our prestige, not to mention immiserating the Afghan people. In the 90s Osama bin Laden’s sermons to his recruits highlighted our retreat from Saigon, from Beirut, from Mogadishu as proof that we were a “weak horse” whose military and economic power were pointless without moral certainty and national self-confidence. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 followed. It shouldn’t take a nuclear-armed Iran and a more aggressive China to teach us that lesson again.”
