Instead of commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on an upbeat note by completing the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden now must absorb the ultimate humiliation of watching America's arch foes, the Taliban, seize full control of the country at lightning speed. Taliban forces were on a march to complete their takeover — and declare victory over yet another superpower — in time for the anniversary of the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. They returned to their previous seat of power in Afghanistan's second city, Kandahar, on Friday and seized Kabul, the capital, on Sunday.

The years of negotiations between Taliban leaders and the United States clearly were a sham. America got played. While Taliban negotiators talked peace, their fighters were maneuvering across the countryside for this final assault. The collapse of the U.S.-trained Afghan army has added yet another humiliation considering the billions upon billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars spent on training them. Lots of U.S. military contractors got rich in the process, but it's doubtful they will be held accountable for their role in this catastrophic failure.

Not since the 2014 collapse of the U.S.-trained Iraqi army and turn-tail retreat against a ragtag band of Islamic State fighters has an American ally handed over such a wide expanse of territory so quickly to America's arch foes.

Taliban fighters have made clear they will be just as brutal as Islamic State terrorists with any prisoners who are deemed to have collaborated with the American occupation or with the U.S.-backed central government under siege in Kabul. It's just a matter of time before there's a resumption of public beheadings, chopping off of hands, trials of women for being raped and other atrocities wrought by the Taliban when it ruled before the 2001 invasion. Taliban leaders might not go so far as to lock a prisoner in a cage, douse the cage with gasoline and set it ablaze, as Islamic State torturers did with a Jordanian pilot, but their capacity for innovation remains limitless when it comes to terrorizing Afghans into submission.

The only thing that kept the U.S.-backed central government in power until Sunday was the emergency deployment of more than 3,000 U.S. troops assigned to help evacuate U.S. Embassy personnel in Kabul. But not even that U.S. military presence was enough to forestall a Taliban final offensive on the capital.

This fiasco is as much an embarrassment for Biden as it is for his three predecessors — Donald Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bush — for disastrous strategic decisions that set the course for this defeat. Instead of honoring the dead from the 2001 attacks and troops who fell in the war, incompetent American leadership has empowered the very Islamist radicals who made 9/11 happen.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Photo credit: Defence-Imagery at Pixabay