The endless war

One hundred hours before the ultimatum for Westerners to leave Afghanistan, the airport and the streets of Kabul have been drenched in blood. More than 170 dead, including 12 US Marines and 150 wounded. It is the beginning of an endless war without borders, the blood of the new and eternal alliance in which the goal is clear: the holy war initiated by the prophet in 622. Bin Laden has already written to his disciples: "Al Andalus must be recovered and if necessary all non-believers must be put to the sword". The Muslim holy terror (this time in its Taliban version as the new Al Qaeda) will be the great protagonist of the next decade.

Operation Enduring Freedom was the proportional response to the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001. The 18 countries of the Atlantic Alliance came to the aid of the United States after President George Bush requested the activation of the NATO Treaty. The offensive began on 7 October at 18.30 Spanish time. There we have left thousands dead and trillions of dollars. Spain, in an admirable humanitarian effort up to the last minute, sent 27,100 soldiers, gave the lives of 102 and "invested" more than 4 billion euros. 

The Doha (Qatar) agreements between Trump and the Taliban have led to the greatest military and political humiliation in history. Joe Biden announced the withdrawal on 31 August and turned the exodus into hell, especially for those who remain. Did no one foresee the Taliban advancing to reach the capital in just one week? The Americans occupied the airport but not the surrounding area. And the scenes of the evacuation have been Dantesque. The two passengers falling out of the landing gear and crashing on the runway will be the enduring image of tragedy and unprecedented incompetence.

85,000 Taliban have recaptured, twenty-five years later without firing a shot, a rugged country of 655,230 square kilometres, with 36 million inhabitants (19 million women). The army of former president Ashraf Gahnihad cowardly fled while the corrupt leader "emigrated" by helicopter to the Middle East with 185 million dollars, according to Moscow.  This gave the US president an opportunity to justify the dishonourable withdrawal: "the US could not and should not continue to fight a war that the Afghans are not willing to fight". It is a good argument for domestic consumption.

We have run out of Zumosol's cousin. The Americans are tired of putting up the dead and the money to save the world, when the world does not want to be saved and they are accused of being imperialists by the progressives on the left.  It is surprising, however, that this political and military defeat has been accompanied by such generous gifts: a war arsenal abandoned by the regular Afghan army: more than 2,000 armoured vehicles, 400 operational tanks, 40 aircraft, dozens of UH-60 Black Hawks helicopters, ScanEagle military drones, night vision goggles and thousands of AK-74 rifles with their corresponding ammunition. All a war machine to destroy the other opposition groups - there is really only one major one - the 10,000 followers of the Tajik-majority guerrilla Ahmad Shah Masud, known as the Lion of Panshir, whose mountain valley has never been conquered even by the Russian army. The question is: are the US and the EU willing to help them reconquer the republic that has known at least two decades of a glimmer of freedom? The answer is no. Women and girls must be protected from the jihadist sharia that denies all rights to the female sex. No school, no work, no hospital, no university. We are back to the Middle Ages: the burqa.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan - "we will never be a democracy" - has already approached partners who can whitewash its recognition at the United Nations: Russia and China, veto-wielding members of the Security Council. Pakistan, Iran and Turkey - Turkish technicians will take over Kabul airport in the coming hours - are the countries most likely to benefit from the fact that once the invader is expelled, the internal battle will intensify, media silence will be enshrined, social networks will pass into military hands and terror and fear will end up burying the truth and repression. In exchange for what? For their immense resources of gold, copper, lithium - strategic for making car batteries - and a monopoly on opium smuggling, the basis for heroin to destroy Europe and the United States. This is the War of Civilisations, so advocated by Zapatero and Erdogan. Fear and terror have taken hold in an inhospitable land with not a single kilometre of access to the sea. A geostrategic powder keg. 

This is the most important strategic and global change of the 21st century. Because the abandonment of Operation Enduring Freedom weakens NATO, opens a gulf of mistrust between the two sides of the Atlantic and, beyond the thousands of Afghans who collaborate with the West, who must be protected, the problem begins with a mass exodus of Afghans - with embedded jihadists - via Ankara, who want to reach the European Union at any price. How much will their controlled passage, their detention, their toll through Turkey cost us? 10 billion euros? Another blackmail to a disarmed Brussels. The 40-kilometre wall erected by Greece will not be enough to stop the flood of easterners pursued by the Taliban and Afghans who have already emigrated to neighbouring countries yearning to reach Europe.

The war in Syria, the war in Libya, the crises in Lebanon and the Sahel, Morocco's avalanches on Ceuta, Melilla and the Canary Islands and the breakdown of diplomatic relations between Algiers and Rabat will be a bad dream before the nightmare that is looming in the Old Continent with the lack of solidarity of the Nordic countries, the Netherlands and the anti-Muslim policies of Hungary and Poland.
 
Borrell has suggested the creation of a European army and Madrid, Berlin and Paris have joined in. The question is: who is paying for the party? The United States spends 7.2 per cent of GDP on maintaining its security; Europe spends less than 2 per cent. Spain barely scrapes 1.5 per cent after former president Trump's reprimands to Cospedal. 

European citizens enjoy free health care, education, pensions, unemployment insurance and dependency benefits. Americans have to pay for their own welfare state, although it is true that they pay less tax as taxpayers. To have an operational European army, even for the defence of our common territory, would cost so much that our quality of life would suffer a greenhouse effect. 

Afghanistan is the end of an era and of the American empire that has not even lasted a hundred years. Today, we are economically dependent on Chinese tyranny. (No chips for our cars or appliances); it has already colonised Africa, is investing in Latin America, has gobbled up Hong Kong and is now going after Vietnam and Taiwan. Beijing, with its communist capitalism, is dominating the world without complying with the rules of free trade and respect for the environment and human rights. The return of the Taliban to Afghanistan will accelerate Chinese progress and hegemony. As I wrote a couple of years ago, the EU must expand eastwards - incorporating Israel - and accept Russia as a preferential partner so that in exchange for peace and a larger middle class, we do not lack the gas and electricity supply we need after having renounced - with exceptions such as France and the UK - nuclear energy. 

The 2030 and 2050 agendas - how long you trust me - will not be able to support the current consumption nor the ecologist and lemon-green proposals. Is there an alternative with a gender perspective to shake off so much suicidal goodwill?  There is not. The snake of Daesh is still there camouflaged as messianism when it has already terrorised Africa, the Far East and now it is coming for us, especially Christians. Islam is incompatible with any religion. It is not tolerant and abuses our compromise. The day Saudi Arabia can build churches and cathedrals, that is the day we should allow them to build mosques. In the UK there are 3,000, in Spain 700. 

There is no conflict between Christians and Buddhists, between Hindus and Jews. Everything becomes complicated when Muslims live side by side with other religions. It is all impositions and threats, as with the Egyptian Copts. Murder is the answer. And almost worse is the coexistence among themselves, whether Sunni or Shiite. Terror is their common denominator and the killing of infidels their philosophy of life. Of course not all Muslims are terrorists but all terrorists who have struck from Buenos Aires to New York, from London to Moscow, from Brussels to Rome, from Berlin to Madrid, all are Muslims. Radicals? Radicals with the complicit silence of the moderates.

Moral rearmament after these attacks in Kabul must begin today under the auspices of the United Nations. The Taliban Islamic Emirate must not be recognised by any democratic country. Let us help the people but not a criminal government that does not respect human rights. If we start with dialogue, we will end up defeated militarily and politically. And let us demand that the countries of the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia in the lead, take care of the exiled Afghans. We expect a united response from the whole of Europe, not just from the countries of the Union. 

This Bay of Ithaca has undoubtedly been overwhelmed by the news of the carnage in Kabul. World War III has begun there. And it will be a never-ending war from the first of September. Spain was late to repatriate but has done well. Unfortunately, Margarita Robles has just told us that "many of the collaborators have been left behind". The actions of the Armed Forces, the Geos, the Green Berets and the diplomatic personnel have been exemplary. The decision of Ambassador Gabriel Ferrán Carrión - oh, captain, my captain - to stay there until the last minute in order to be able to give visas to our friends after having been dismissed by Sánchez a day before leaving on holiday to the palace of La Mareta, confirms that some public servants believe in Spain. Along with his second in command at the Embassy, the young Paula Sánchez and 17 other national police officers, all civil servants, have demonstrated their commitment to peace, democracy and freedom with their lives.

Pedro Sánchez drained the holiday chalice in his slippers while the Taliban surrounded the airport and invaded the presidential palace. While Merkel, Macron, Draghi, Johnson, Trudeau and Biden explained to the public the serious situation of a dangerous surrender, our president left the dirty work to the presidency and foreign ministers. The teleworking coordination meeting, with the presidential portfolio in the middle of the table, smelled only of Monclovite propaganda. 

Spain was on fire on all four sides, but our charismatic leader stopped by the photocall in Torrejón de Ardóz to receive the praise of Doña Úrsula von del Leyen and Don Charles Michel, heads of the EU Commission and Council, respectively. All his holiday pachorra aroused the EU's solidarity and forgave him his sins of laziness. The US president's call - it was about time - for Spain to make the Rota and Morón bases available for troops and Afghans in transit to North America was a "rush" of prominence that made him forget all the rest he had accumulated in his hammock in Lanzarote. Pérez-Castejón reached the summit.

Forty-eight hours later, Moncloa built a pension revaluation on the battered bridge of the Toledo Pact and approved urgent aid for catastrophic areas in all the fires caused by a few days of infernal heat. The visit to Navalacruz (Ávila), with 22,000 hectares burnt, and the signature on the plaster of Paquita in Sotalbo, gave back to the tenant of La Moncloa all the splendour of three weeks summarised in two tweets. The truth is that despite everything, he had won the battle of image over the opposition. Where were Pablo Casado -deputy for Ávila in several legislatures- and Santiago Abascal, leader of VOX? In limbo.

Days later, the head of the Popular Party was photographed in front of the burnt mountain in Avila thanking the executive for the aid allocated to farmers and stockbreeders while his deputy, García Egea, encouraged him to bathe in the Dead Sea (of fish) - I mean in the Mar Menor, in Murcia, like Manuel Fraga in Palomares (Almería) with the US ambassador Angier Biddle Duke on 8 March 1966, after the fall of the bombs. Casado did not accept his Secretary General's invitation. 

Just when it seemed that the president's image was being restored with the new repatriation of minors from Ceuta to Morocco, two judges and the Public Prosecutor's Office forced Marlasca to halt the transfers of minors who entered illegally in May because the law on aliens was not being complied with. Marlasca, as cowardly as ever, blamed the president of the Autonomous City, Juan Jesús Vivas Lara.  Sánchez called him to the Palace and promised to do everything possible to return the children to their parents. The Interior Minister went so far as to declare publicly that this was not within the competence of his department and accused the popular Vivas of being responsible for the failure to comply with the law, even denounced by his colleague Belarra. 

To make matters worse, Grande Marlasca has refrained from paying tribute to ETA members in the Basque Country, and is especially silent about the reception that will be given to the murderer Henry Parrot in mid-September in Amorabieta. This bloodthirsty terrorist is accused of 33 murders and sentenced to 4,800 years in prison. The FSE and the victims of terrorism have called for the resignation of this incompetent, miserable and deceitful minister. 

All the president's credibility collapsed after the success of the Afghan evacuation because in his 100 days of vaccination, 70% herd immunity was not achieved. We have gone from vaccination to evacuation with lightning speed. And above all, because Sánchez has refused to come to Congress to talk about Afghanistan, the rise in electricity prices, the fires and the Mesa de la Vergüenza that he plans to hold on 12 September with Aragonés, in a meeting for which Salvador Illa has already paid him a toll in advance: unconditional support for the Generalitat's 2022 Budget. ERC spokesman Gabriel Rufián has already announced that they don't give a damn what the PSC does. What they want is to "negotiate, negotiate and negotiate" at the bilateral table. Including the referendum for independence.

Dr. Pedro Sánchez is taking on the second half of the Legislature without going to Parliament, showing himself to be a politician who does not believe in democracy, as if the state of siege were still in force after the TC's ruling; in short, as if he were a president of a banana republic. The support of the Frankenstein majority in the Permanent Deputation of Congress will not prevent him from being booed by the common people when he goes on his electoral tour (Salamanca, Lanzarote, Navalmoral de la Mata (Cáceres) or Madrid). The street does not believe in a guy who thanks the press for accompanying him and is incapable of answering a single question.

We need concrete answers to the rise in electricity prices, to the new alternatives with Morocco, to the break in relations between Algiers and Rabat, to the situation in Cuba, Haiti and Peru; to the consequences of the fall of Afghanistan, unemployment, debt, the deficit, European funds, the rise in the CPI, the new minimum wage... To moral, economic and social recovery.  Their haughty silences are going to be their political grave. So far we can only see a veil of tar in his eyes. We want to know the truth. We want him to show his face. Times are changing. We already know all your lies. Leave the propaganda, Mr President, for your socialist faithful at the 40th Congress at the end of October. We are in a holy and endless war. The world is worse from today and it will be even worse from 1 September. It is time for responsibility. We need leaders who will not surrender preemptively.  

Antonio Regalado runs BAHÍA DE ÍTACA at: aregaladorodriguez.blogspot.com