The U.S. continues to pull out of Afghanistan and fast.

A military commander advised me that once I made the decision and the war, we needed to move swiftly to conduct the main elements of the drawdown.

And in this context, speed is safety.

Speed is safety. President Biden said that last week when he announced the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan will end on August 31st.

Troops are departing so quickly that earlier this month, some members of the Afghan military accused the U.S. of leaving its center of operations,

Bagram Airfield, secretly in the middle of the night.

The Pentagon disputed that and said high-level Afghan officials were looped in.

One thing no one disputes, not even the president, is that the Afghan military is about to be left on its own, to face a Taliban force that is stronger than at any point since 2001.

Do I trust the Taliban? No. But I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more competent in terms of conducting more.

It is a fact, though, that in some areas, U.S. trained Afghan forces are surrendering or fleeing the country, and the Taliban is sweeping in faster than anybody expected.

I think the pace of these mass surrenders, as well as the fall of major districts, is not only surprising, it's quite shocking, because much of it is without a fight.

Belal Sarwari, a journalist and analyst who's been closely following the fighting, told NPR that the Taliban has been systematically recruiting fighters from different ethnic groups, especially in the northern part of the country.

In some places, that means Afghan's aren't surrendering to invaders, but to family members and community elders.

People at the district village level said, well, why should we be fighting? At the end of the day, we are the ones living with the Taliban, living in villages with our own families. So why should we fight?

Consider this, after 20 years, U.S. military operations in Afghanistan are all but over, and a new phase in the battle for control of the country is just beginning.

From NPR, I'm Adi Kornish, it's Tuesday, July 13th.

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