The West Afghan nightmare

By Ali Ashraf Khan

When in autumn 2001 the possibility of a military campaign was discussed as a reaction to the events of 9/11 despite the fact that not a single Afghan was even accused of being involved in it - people knowing the country and it history were cautioning the West not to go into this adventure which had broken the neck of the British Empire and the USSR and this might turn out to be another Vietnam. The will and the capacity of the Afghan people to fight for freedom and to clear their home land from foreign troops and their Afghan stooges can not be broken neither by napalm bomb, daisy cutters or chemical weapons nor air raids with cluster bombs, drone attacks and the like. Bob Woodward has written in his book Bush at War that when power drunken George W. Bush informed the high powered committee meeting that let us attack on Afghanistan it was General ® Colin Powel who told that it was to early to attack Afghanistan as by then we have no reason or justification to attack Afghanistan and any such move may be counter productive for US, so it was decided to attack on Iraq. This is nothing more then that power has gone to the heads of CIA & its establishment and President Obama is another tool in there hands.

The US for their own reasons which preceded 9/11 by more than a year insisted on waging war at Afghanistan and its Taliban regime. US decided to push Pakistan on the front line and seven things were asked to spineless Musharraf to do in this war, he replied to Colin Powel who was calling on behalf of President Bush that he accepts all seven dictates, President Bush and his team was surprised to learn that Pakistan has agreed to become front line ally, which has coasted Pakistan adversely and estimated economic and financial loss comes to around $ 100 Billion against which Kerry-Lugar-Bremen bill promises to re-imburse $ 2 Billion annually for next 5 years provided we improve or Human Rights record, which is questionable today, according to Ms. Clinton. The result was that within a few weeks the Taliban government was toppled and the Taliban had melted away and President Bush proclaimed victory for US and Pakistan has been landed in yet another mess with entire socio-economic infra-structure gone with the wind.

Almost ten years later the difficult fact dawns upon the US and its Western allies that victory in Afghanistan is a Pyrrhic victory, after every successful battle, attack or operation the US army is back to square one and colossal sum of $ 100 Billion dollars per annum the cost of war in Afghanistan is gone in this misadventure. Even the massive surge of soldiers during this year has achieved remarkably small inroads into Taliban controlled territory. On the other hand the slain Taliban commanders are replaced quickly and the reorganization of the fighters is taking place within a short period of time. Only temporary set-backs are inflicted in most of the cases. Even the accusation that the safe havens across the porous border in Pakistan were the reason for this do not seem very plausible because the Pashtuns of North Waziristan have now announced that in case of an operation in their region they would just cross over into Afghanistan, an option which is not at all liked over here and which would be an embarrassment for Afghans because that would demonstrate their lacking presence at the Afghan side of the border.

By the end of this year President Obama who is under severe pressure at the home front because of the vanishing popularity of his Afghan war and economic down turn leading to large scale unemployment at home American youth who were fountain of power for Obama in 2008 appears to have changed hearts. If President Obama does not understand the under current of his swift unpopularity in just two year in White House, he may not be re-elected for the second term, as such with this bleak prospects of his party struggling to retain majority in Congress & Senate in the forthcoming elections will have to decide what to do with the unpopular war as his main cadre of support the young Americans are not happy with economic down turn, which is the direct result of Afghan war and poor economic management at home leading to bankruptcy. Given the limited success of his surge policy he will have to speed up exit plans from Afghanistan before it is too late. For that he had hoped to get into negotiations with the Taliban and reportedly some talks with some people who can not be named have taken place. But the spokesman of the Taliban movement is clearly denying any will to negotiate with the foreign aggressors. Why should we do that when the US will be leaving soon and any long protraction of the war will be impossible politically? One can hear even comments that say that the Taliban are keeping back their forces for the time being so as not to endanger the troop withdrawal in July next year and will then deal with the rest and with Karzai accordingly.

A few days back NATO forces launched operation against drug peddlers in Ningahaar are adjoining Pakistani border and during that perhaps crossed into Pakistani territory fighting against locals on both side of border, Pakistan is tied lip till today while Afghan President has taken a serious view and called it a direct challenge to Afghan Sovereignty because he has alleged NATO to have used some kind of mercenary troops in this operation belonging to some Central Asian Republic in the region, which is highly alarming for future peace and harmony in the region, this outburst of President Karazai was broadcast on Sunday morning in BBC Urdu service programme.

President Obama and his administration had also tried to implicate the Russians into this lost war by trying to get access to the railway lines from the Baltic Sea through Russia to Afghanistan which Russians had created at that time as a supply line for their war efforts; but lo and behold Russians declined access to that. Given the US reaction to the Russian campaign in Georgia last year this is only just and appropriate reply. And Russians seem to have learned their lesson. In a talk with BBC former President of Russia Mikhail Gorbaechov, who at that time had been bringing Russian troops home declared very clearly that US and NATO can not win this war. Any news about Russian troops returning to Afghanistan to replace the West at the request of the same countries which had been helping to remove Russia from there in 1988 should, therefore, be taken with a pinch of salt. Russians might sell some helicopter or other equipment to NATO, but being a neighbour of Afghanistan as much as Pakistan and Iran they will have to safeguard their national interests in an Afghanistan after Western withdrawal.

The same caution is required with regard to the much-talked-about peace talks. From the way the peace talks are referred to it is quite clear that neither the US nor the West is interested in peace for Afghans, if they would be they would not have broken their peace in the first place. All they are interested in is a face-saving exist, which allows them to retain their grip and influence in the country afterwards. This is understood by both the Taliban and the Afghan government. They know that the struggle for power will continue or even surge after the withdrawal of the foreign troops. The Karzai government with its record of corruption and western leanings will not be acceptable to the Afghan people.