RASC News Agency: As the United States once again observes Memorial Day a moment reserved for solemn reflection on those who gave their lives defending the ideals of liberty there remains a festering wound that time refuses to heal: Afghanistan. Beneath the ceremonial flags and patriotic hymns lies the echo of unanswered cries from women imprisoned in their homes, from children denied education, and from an entire nation abandoned to the darkness of religious tyranny. This wound is not simply geopolitical it is moral, human, and tragically unresolved. In August 2021, the U.S. government orchestrated what will be remembered as one of the most abrupt and ill-considered military withdrawals in modern history. Under the guise of ending “forever wars,” Washington disengaged from Afghanistan with alarming haste, leaving behind a nation on the brink and then over the edge of collapse. Thousands of local allies who had stood shoulder to shoulder with American forces were suddenly exposed to Taliban vengeance. The Republican government crumbled in days, and with it, the already fragile hopes of millions of Afghanistanis for a democratic, pluralistic future.
The withdrawal was not only a strategic blunder; it was a profound ethical failure. Thirteen American service members were killed in a suicide bombing at Kabul International Airport, and billions of dollars’ worth of advanced military hardware were effectively gifted to a group long designated as a terrorist organization by the very nation that armed them. But perhaps more devastating than the military consequences was the psychological blow to the Afghanistanis who had dared to believe in freedom. Their belief was betrayed not by their own making, but by an international community that vanished overnight. In the wake of the withdrawal, the Taliban reclaimed power not as a reformed political force but as an even more draconian and vengeful regime. Women were erased from public life. Minority groups especially the Hazaras, Tajiks, and Shia communities faced systemic persecution. The press was muzzled, civil society dismantled, and dissent criminalized. Schools became ideological battlegrounds, where the Taliban replaced curricula with dogma, science with superstition, and education with indoctrination. Girls were banned outright from secondary and higher education. Boys were subjected to a pedagogy of hate and militant obedience. The dream of an enlightened, tolerant Afghanistan was annihilated.
What followed this descent was not global outrage, but eerie indifference. Western governments moved on. Human rights institutions issued statements but took no action. The very architects of the withdrawal, military generals and high-ranking officials, evaded accountability. Rather than resign or apologize, many called the exit a “success,” shamelessly attempting to recast one of America’s greatest moral collapses as a strategic victory. In doing so, they insulted not only their own fallen, but also the countless Afghanistanis who died believing in the promises of the West. Meanwhile, Afghanistani and American families grieve in parallel solitude. For Americans, it is the loss of their sons and daughters in a war that ended in betrayal. For Afghanistanis, it is the daily horror of life under an extremist theocracy, where human dignity is trampled under the banner of a twisted ideology. For both, it is the torment of knowing that those in power have refused to answer the simplest question: Why?
The final American plane may have taken off from Kabul, but for Afghanistan, the nightmare never ended. The Taliban’s return was not an accident of history it was the direct consequence of a decision that prioritized political optics over human responsibility. Their rule today is not merely oppressive it is genocidal in its erasure of women, its silencing of ethnic voices, and its weaponization of religion to justify totalitarian control. And yet, the world remains largely passive. The Taliban are left to rewrite society while the international community watches, silent and complicit. As Memorial Day is commemorated once more, the world must confront a haunting truth: remembrance without responsibility is hollow. If this day is to carry meaning beyond nationalist rituals, it must honor not just the uniformed dead, but also the abandoned living. The girls who were pulled from school. The journalists tortured into silence. The dreamers forced into exile. Their memory demands justice not just remembrance.
This wound called Afghanistan is not merely America’s to bear. It is a scar on the conscience of the entire international order. And until that conscience awakens, the bleeding will not stop.
