All Right, They're Your Friends
If they're your friends as you claim them to be, and helpful to boot, how is it that you've called upon NATO and its Western allies to aid and assist your country? President Hamid Karzai, I'm certain you're a reasonable man; I'm reasonably certain you know of what you speak, that you do indeed consider Iran and its irascibly-lunatic Ahmadinejad to have the best interests of Afghanistan in mind, but they're not fighting your battles, are they?They are, in fact, appearing to be very busy indeed in arming your country's enemies, that very same Taliban whose rule in Afghanistan caused so much anguish to her people. The Taliban who preyed on your countrymen, permitting no deviation from strict shariah law, a law which the mullahs took great pleasure in interpreting as they would. No music, no dance, no celebration, no female public appearance without full burka and male relative protection.
Starving widows not permitted work to furnish a life for their children, female children not permitted an education. Public flogging for men who shave their beards. Flogging and worse for women stubborn enough to flout the rules and regulations of interpreted shariah, including refusal of young girls to become affianced and married off to pious elderly men already in possession of several wives.
Permit me to remind you, President Karzai, it is British, American, Dutch, Canadian, German and some other nations' troops stationed in your war-ravaged country, and these are all Western nations. Nowhere do we find notice that any of your close neighbours have allied themselves with your country's future to make it free of the Taliban and relieve your people of their starkly fundamentalist rule.
With the possible exception, that is, of your near neighbour, Pakistan. Which itself is problematical, since you don't consider Pakistan to be helpful, and a friend to Afghanistan. The Taliban and al-Qaeda, it is true, have found sanctuary along the border of your two countries, and it is also true that Pakistan has been slow coming to the realization that their presence in the tribal outposts is inimical to it, as well as to you, but they've been an ally to NATO, however reluctantly.
Iran, for her part, is as fundamentally jihadist and hostile to the West and Western interests as is the Taliban and al-Qaeda; just as determined, just as potentially deadly. It's merely a question of Islamic sects and their very particular detestation of all things Western, making a devil's pact with one another. Iran, permit us to remind you, is actively engaged in encouraging and arming viciously anti-Western jihadist militias, including the Taliban.
And lest you require a further nudge in the direction of realpolitik, it is the resurgent, Iranian-armed Taliban that has been successful in making widows of NATO's combined forces with their more sophisticated borrowed weaponry, including IEDs sufficiently advanced to completely demolish the hitherto-assured protection of high-impact-resistant armoured vehicles.
You've gone on a nicey-nicey visit to the United States, you've visited Canada too, thanking both countries most effusively, like the very nice man you are, for their efforts on behalf of your country, and for the badly-needed infrastructure funding and assistance. These and other NATO countries have lost many of their soldiers pursuing their dedicated duty. Your helpful friends in Iran have aided and abetted the enemy.
Oh, an enemy that you now appear to consider properly de-fanged, no longer a real threat to your government, remaining now a spent force, and as such an irritant, a harassing menace now only to your people in the far reaches of Kandahar province and beyond. Where Canada's troops are stationed. If they're no longer a perceived threat to your government, why then, should Canada and other involved countries remain on the ground?
Oh, forgot: to train your nascent army of raw conscripts, to assist in building badly needed schools, hospitals, civil administration. To teach proper policing techniques to your notoriously corrupt police. To instruct your judiciary in adequate justice and the administration of civil law.
It might be useful to set out in some detail exactly how it is perceived, under these circumstances, that Iran has been playing a helpful role in your country.
Just curious. You understand.
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, August 07, 2007
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