By Ron Paul
Ronald Ernest Paul is an American author, physician, and retired politician who served as the U.S. Representative for Texas’s 22nd congressional district from 1976 to 1977 and again from 1979 to 1985, and then for Texas’s 14th congressional district from 1997 to 2013. Wikipedia

The end of the 20-year US war on Afghanistan was predictable: no one has conquered Afghanistan, and Washington was as foolish as Moscow in the 1970s for trying. Now, US troops are rushing out of the country as fast as they can, having just evacuated the symbol of the US occupation of Afghanistan, Bagram Air Base.
While perhaps not as dramatic as the “Fall of Saigon” in 1975, where US military helicopters scrambled to evacuate personnel from the roof of the US Embassy, the lesson remains the same and remains unlearned: attempting to occupy, control, and remake a foreign country into Washington’s image of the United States will never work. This is true no matter how much money is spent and how many lives are snuffed out.
In Afghanistan, no sooner are US troops vacating an area than Taliban fighters swoop in and take over. The Afghan army seems to be more or less melting away. This weekend the Taliban took control of a key district in the Kandahar Province, as Afghan soldiers disappeared after some fighting.
The US is estimated to have spent nearly 100 billion dollars training the Afghan army and police force. The real number is likely several times higher. For all that money and 20 years of training, the Afghan army cannot do its job. That’s either quite a statement about the quality of the training, the quality of the Afghan army, or some combination of the two.
Whatever the case, I am sure I am not the only American wondering whether we can get a refund. The product is clearly faulty.
Speaking of money wasted, in April, Brown University’s Cost of War Project calculated the total cost of the Afghanistan war at more than two trillion dollars. That means millions of Americans have been made poorer for a predictably failed project. It also means that thousands of the well-connected contractors and companies that lurk around the US Capitol Beltway pushing war have become much, much richer.
That’s US foreign policy in a nutshell: taking money from middle-class Americans and transferring it to the elites of the US military and foreign policy establishment. It’s welfare for the rich.
Meanwhile, the Costs of War Project also estimated that the war took more than a quarter of a million lives.
The Biden Administration may believe it is saving face by installing a military command of nearly 1,000 troops inside the US Embassy in Kabul, but this is foolish and dangerous. Such a move establishes the US Embassy as a legitimate military target rather than a diplomatic outpost. Has anyone at the Pentagon or the State Department thought this through?
Plans to occupy the airport in Kabul are also unlikely to work. Does anyone think that, having come this far, an emboldened and victorious Taliban are going to sit by as US or allied military occupy the Kabul airport?
Trillions of dollars wasted and millions either killed or displaced from their homes, for nothing. The lessons of Afghanistan are simple: bring all US troops home, defend the United States as necessary, and leave the rest of the world to its own business. We’ve tried it the other way and it clearly doesn’t work.
Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.
(End of Ron Paul’s article)

OUR HONOUR IS IN ISLAM
Allah Ta’ala says in the Qur’aan Majeed:
“If you aid (the Deen of) Allah, He will aid you. And, if He abandons you, then who is there besides Him to help you?”

Despite their deficiencies, it is clear that Allah’s Nusrat (Help) was and is with the Taliban. Their resilience against the world’s brutal superpowers and the heavy losses they have inflicted on these savage aggressors whose primary prey was unarmed civilians – men, women and children in remote villages – are surely the sign of Allah’s aid. It is only Allah Azza Wa Jal Who has sustained the Taliban.
That it took more than two decades to rout and expel the kuffaar invaders is the sign of Roohaani (spiritual and moral) deficiency. It is therefore imperative for the Taliban to focus on the cultivation of Roohaani stamina. While the kuffaar army marches on its stomach, the Mujahideen – the Armies of Allah – march on their Imaan.
In less than the more than two decades it took the Taliban to rout and kick out the kuffaar, Ameerul Mu’mineen, Umar Bin Khattaab (Radhiyallahu anhu) conquered and established for Islam a vast Empire stretching from the shores of the Atlantic in the West to the walls of China in the East. That wonderful victory was based on Roohaaniyat, not on military equipment and prowess. Stating this fact, Hadhrat Umar (Radhiyallahu anhu) said on the occasion when taking possession of Jerusalem:
“We are a Nation whom Allah granted honour with ISLAM.”

al-haq #63