It is to be believed that the Kabul airfield would have had some qualified military personnel to alert the pilot about trespassers in the wheel bay or on the runway. Then how could such an unsafe takeoff be allowed by the authorities? It is providential that the surge of people in the vicinity of a plane on its takeoff did not cause an even more catastrophic incident on the runway.
Pretext: Blind anger to avenge 9/11 led the US to wreak havoc on innocents in Afghanistan. AP
The scenes of scary air evacuation of the hapless people from Kabul after the Taliban takeover should put any professional airman to shame. The reported clinging on to the aircraft fixtures and scores of aspiring evacuees running behind a C-5A Galaxy transporter was unbelievable indeed.
American President Joe Biden has gone on record to say that a chaotic exodus from Afghanistan was inevitable. But surely, any professional military would ensure flight safety and ethics of airmanship, however unplanned the airlift turned out to be?
Other clips showing a couple of people falling to their deaths from an airborne transport plane, and reportage of a 19-year-old Afghan national footballer apparently being one of them, was heartrending indeed.
These happenings only go to show the utter indifference and ensuing panic at the Kabul runway whilst the evacuation from Kabul was underway. Around 20 lives have been lost in the stampede and melee that took place.
Talking of holding an inquiry by the US authorities now is infructuous as the damage has already been done.
The buck, of course, stops with the captain of the plane or the planes involved. No pilot in his senses would leap off into the air with an uncontrolled mob of locals running alongside on the tarmac.
The manner in which the fiasco played out, it would not be unthinkable that some of the intruders could have got ingested into the huge engine intakes of the aeroplanes, besides other plausible injuries from being trampled upon by its huge undercarriage and fuselage.
Besides, where even a hovering bird on the takeoff path could cause catastrophic damage, how can the desire to evacuate from a trouble-torn locality make the operators throw caution to the wind, literally?
Quite clearly, the people controlling the evacuation military flights out of Kabul had no idea of the mob frenzy that would ensue. But then, the rustic Afghans, with little education or other worldly awareness, could not be expected to look out for danger to their lives from such inane actions of clambering on to accelerating aeroplanes on a runway. Some of them are reported to have tied themselves onto the undercarriage with the hope of staying airborne somehow. These, apparently, were the poor souls who got dislodged and fell to their deaths as the plane got airborne.
It is to be believed that the Kabul airfield would surely have had some qualified military personnel to alert the pilot about trespassers in the wheel bay or on the runway. Then how could such an unsafe takeoff be allowed by the authorities?
It is providential that the surge of humans in the vicinity of a large plane on its takeoff did not cause an even more catastrophic incident on the Kabul runway, leading to some horrendous damage to the aircraft and its occupants.
The IAF has since been able to evacuate around 390 Indians and some Afghans from Kabul to Hindon via its C-17 airlifters, an exercise bound to generate considerable goodwill all around.
More than the poor airmanship displayed by the Americans, there are larger issues about how they have caused unspeakable harm and inhuman treatment to scores of innocents, from Vietnam to Cambodia to Iraq and now Afghanistan.
From the travails of the Cold War to the blind anger to avenge the 9/11 attacks, there have been no dearth of excuses for the world’s only superpower to wreak havoc on innocents all over the weak world. Biden’s popularity rating is stated to have declined by 7.5 per cent post the Afghan fiasco.
The terrible reportage about young children being flung across barbed wire fencings by helpless Afghan mothers to the British and other soldiers on the safe side of Kabul’s airport and likewise treatment of women and minorities by the rampaging Taliban are other sights and happenings that will not be forgotten in a hurry.
Another aspect is the grossly inadequate training imparted by the Americans and NATO to the Afghan National Army, leading to their total capitulation to the opportunistic Taliban. Biden is on record as having said that they went into Afghanistan to neutralise the al-Qaeda, and not to impart democratic values to the Afghans.
Surely, India will have some soul-searching to do too in this regard as some of our arms and military training have gone to the Afghan establishment, albeit with good intent under the overhang of a Pakistan-sponsored Taliban.
In this context, whatever be the compulsions for our country to provide succour to our Afghan brethren in their days of anguish, military involvement will have to be thought through very carefully, not for the fear of getting embroiled in an avoidable war alone, but also to not have blood on our hands in the unpredictable ill-treatment that is bound to be meted out by the extremist jihadi Talibs to the war-torn populace of a well-meaning friendly nation in our neighbourhood, something we ought to cherish, considering the other ill-intentioned jackals awaiting their prey.
And, as for the Americans, their government and intelligence agencies will need to recalibrate their worldview, especially in light of their poor record with the handling of the Covid pandemic and the beating that it has caused to the world economy and US coffers overall.
Clearly, the US cannot afford to fight other peoples’ wars any more, concentrating instead, on their own nation-building and strengthening of their social fabric, torn asunder by irritants such as racism and gun lobbyists.
Taliban 2.0 is bound to take its toll in more ways than one and the Ahmad Massoud-led resistance movement in the Panjshir Valley would not cut much ice.