US ends in resounding failure after 20 years in Afghanistan: Spanish media

MADRID - Almost 20 years after invading Afghanistan, the United States and its allies had to stampede out of the Asian country, representing a resounding military, economic and political failure, the Spanish media Rebelion said in a recent opinion article.

The chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan became a new Saigon moment for the United States, demonstrating another embarrassing failure, the article said.

Instead of fighting terrorism, the endless war started by the United States has only fueled it, the article said.

The military failure lies in the fact that thousands of young Americans died in bombings and on battlefields and thousands more returned seriously injured or with psychiatric problems, it added.

In addition, the economic cost of the invasion has been catastrophic as Washington squandered more than a trillion and a half dollars. American taxpayer money kept flowing to keep the Afghan government afloat with the help of Pentagon troops, the article said.

The United States sent nearly 600,000 small arms, 76,000 vehicles and 208 airplanes to Afghanistan from 2003 to 2016, according to a 2017 US Government Accountability Office report.

The failure of the United States is also reflected in politics.

With the withdrawal, the United States was unable to fulfill its geopolitical yearnings in the region, and will try to pursue those objectives by other means by leaving that vast area destabilized, the article said.

"But after these 20 years, the one who has suffered the most is the Afghan people," the article added.

It is estimated that more than 100,000 civilians were killed or injured in the US military operations over the past 20 years. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Global Trends report, three out of ten refugees in the world are from Afghanistan, with 96 percent of them located in Pakistan and Iran.