generalspeaking

Afghanistan, the Failure of Hope

Sometimes, even when viewing what appear to be bad situations, leaving well enough alone can be the correct judgement call. In 2001 the government of the United States of America, reeling from the grisly reality that their territory would no longer be immune from retaliatory attacks by determined and dedicated jihadists, decided to invade Afghanistan. They had the support and understanding of their allies and of the United Nations which gave its imprimatur to the plan to confront the Taliban because they refused to surrender al-Qaeda's Osama bin Laden.

The rest is history. A country roiled by ongoing occupation and civil war with a population held in the clutch of a misogynistic, quasi-religious theocracy with no idea how to govern but fixated on curtailing anything resembling freedom, access to health care, education, the personal aspirations of business success and fending for one's family in the name of upholding the purity of Islamic Sharia demands was slated to be the recipient of yet another series of bombing attacks.

But the mercilessly brutal Taliban were routed, and with them their honoured al-Qaeda guests. An unsuccessful search in the mountains of Afghanistan ensued, with no sign of Osama bin Laden. Of course there were casualties of the bombing missions, there always are. "UNICEF'S Jeremy Hartley, the emergency communications coordinator in Islamabad had predicted that more than 100,000 children would die in the coming months if aid didn't get to them immediately."

"The children didn't wail their way to death, they just quietly slipped away in their sleep or while sitting in the back of a truck, waiting for the kindness of strangers. 'It's a very anonymous process, this business of children dying in war zones', said Hartley. Like Sharifa, they had nothing left to fight with. They were malnourished, underweight and suffering from exposure. They had respiratory illnesses and diarrhea. In the refugee camps, they were sleeping on the cold desert ground. They died from preventable diseases..."  Afghanistan, 2002
Veiled Threat, Sally Armstrong

Now, Afghanistan has been reconstituted. Foreign aid funding, the presence of foreign troops reestablishing order, helping to build primary infrastructure, humanitarian aid groups and foreign diplomats tutoring civil servants, helping to build schools and health clinics, and providing food and medical supplies and encouraging Afghan women to think of careers for themselves. Now, the Taliban has returned, stronger than ever, simply biding time until the last of the foreign interferers have departed.

There are bombs being set off regularly, even in the safe strongholds of the capital. The poppy harvest in Afghanistan has seen a bumper crop in 2013 and another slated for the following year as farmers enthusiastically sprinkle minuscule black seeds over the welcoming soil in preparation for 2014's crop. The Taliban benefit hugely from their extorted portion of the harvest, as do government authorities at every level, particularly the war lords sitting in parliament. And the women of Afghanistan shudder at the prospect of the Taliban return.

So that was an interventionist success story without parallel. Oh, wait, it does have its parallels. Not very far from Afghanistan, as it happens.

Pakistan whose secret intelligence service and military worked alongside the CIA to train the mujahideen and to arm them on their way to becoming the Taliban and al-Qaeda, in a proxy war the U.S. conducted against the Soviet Union, is now rife with Taliban of its own among the ungoverned  tribal leaders in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

And while the U.S. Navy SEALS did get their man, it was with the knowledge that 'their man' was given haven by the very government military and intelligence that was supposedly in an anti-terror alliance with the United States, which in its gratitude to Pakistan dispensed billions in support of the military to enable it to fund its war with India over disputed Kashmir.

But not to worry; America has a very useful new weapon operated from across the world, which is capable of dispatching unmanned drones to targets in the Hindu Kush mountains to destroy the lives of the terrorists who despise anything remotely connected to the West, and the United States and all it stands for, in particular. As for the parallel, there's a matched-pair of experiences in Iraq, is there not?
And Pakistan, a nuclear-armed Islamist country totters with the weight of its own insurgency.

Pakistani Islamic students gather at a destroyed religious seminary belonging to the Haqqani network on November 21, 2013 after a US drone strike in Hangu district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (AFP photo, SB Shah)

Labels: Afghanistan, Conflict, Pakistan, Taliban, United States

posted by Pieface @ Thursday, November 21, 2013