Posted By Ramzy Baroud
In a statement made available through
the country’s Foreign Office,
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister
Khursheed Mahmood Kasuri chastised the
“international community” for the
“abandonment” of Afghanistan
following the withdrawal of Soviet
forces in 1989. In his estimation, it
was this attitude that created the
conditions which eventually culminated
in the rise of the Taliban, the hosts
of al-Qaeda.
The statement was reportedly made at
the G-8 Foreign Ministers’ recent
conference in Potsdam, Germany,
according to Pakistan’s Daily Times.
Kasuri was, expectedly, packaging his
critique within a context specific to
Pakistan’s own concerns: namely the
2.4 million Afghani refugees -
according to UNHCR figures – and who
have crossed the border into Pakistan
seeking shelter and relative safety.
Moreover, Pakistan, under consistent
censure for allegedly failing to hunt
down Taliban and al-Qaeda militants
operating around its Western border,
deployed 90,000 soldiers into those
regions; border skirmishes, sporadic
gun battles but increasingly sustained
bombardment campaigns of tribal areas
– suspected of being safe haven for
al-Qaeda militants – have left
thousands dead and wounded since the
American war on Afghanistan in October
2001.
The tension created by Pakistan’s
somewhat proxy role in reining in US
foes is complicating the
government’s mission in asserting
itself as an independent entity whose
main concern is the welfare of its own
people. But tension in Pakistan, which
runs through tribal and political
lines, is hardly comparable to the
simmering situation in Afghanistan
itself, where anger directed at the
Kabul government and its Coalition
benefactors is boiling to the point
that another violent upsurge is
imminent.
Hamid Karazi, crown president of
Afghanistan in charade elections to
rule over a disjointed country and
discontented population is still
incapable of exercising his power
beyond the municipal borders of the
capital; but even that level of
control is gradually more difficult to
maintain as a spate of suicide bombers
is promising to turn Kabul into
another Baghdad. But since his ascent
to power in October 2004, Karzai has
little to show for, save endless
pledges of financial support he
solicited, 40 billion USD to be exact,
out of which little arrived, and the
money that was made available is
hardly improving people’s lives –
corruption in Afghanistan is,
unsurprisingly, rife. Billions have
been spent in Afghanistan nonetheless,
by NATO/US forces on military
equipment, whose firepower
effectiveness is anything but
debatable among Afghani civilians.
The BBC’s Alastair Leithead reported
on May 31, “Afghans’ Anger over US
Bombing” merely details one of many
such incidents in which scores of
innocent civilians are killed; such
reports are ever more rare since they
are simply not newsworthy – the
worth of a news story from Afghanistan
is measured by whether Coalition
forces incurred causalities or not.
The recent killings in the village of
Shindand in the Zerkoh Valley, Western
Afghanistan was harrowing by any
standards. 57 were reportedly killed
by American bombardment; half of the
dead were women and children,
according to Leithead; the bombardment
also destroyed 100 homes, humble
dwellings that are unlikely to be
rebuilt soon.
"The bombardments were going on
day and night. Those who tried to get
out somewhere safe were being bombed.
They didn't care if it was women,
children or old men," said one of
the survivors. But who would believe
Mohammad Zarif Achakzai, who fled his
mud house with his family under the
relentless bombardment? Brig Gen
Joseph Votel has simply dismissed the
reports of civilian causalities. “We
have no reports that confirm to us
that non-combatants were injured or
killed out in Shindand,” he said.
And that is that.
Shindand is not under Taliban control,
at least not yet. Much of the country,
mostly in the south but increasingly
elsewhere is falling under the control
of Taliban extremists. The Taliban
offers job security to the men and an
opportunity for revenge and even
martyrdom; in many parts of
Afghanistan, such offers are
exceedingly appealing.
Fearless British journalist Chris
Sands of the Independent, one of very
few journalists reporting from Taliban
controlled areas, tells me that it’s
only a matter of time before
Afghanistan turns into an Iraq-like
inferno. Indeed, Taliban’s
regrouping efforts have been
astonishingly successful as of late.
Taliban militants have managed to
ambush and kill 16 government police
officers just hours after killing
seven Coalition soldiers – including
five Americans – by shooting down
their chopper over the Helmand
province on May 30. These confirmed
numbers are often balanced out with
unconfirmed government report of many
Taliban’s militants killed by
government forces; it’s often the
case that these reports overlook the
much higher number of civilian
casualties.
Foreign powers are clearly failing in
Afghanistan; they neither won hearts
and minds nor contributed to the
stability and rebuilding of the
country in any meaningful way – 60
percent of the country’s economy is
now dependent on narcotics exports. In
fact, Afghanistan represents a perfect
case of the proverbial “cut and
run” that President George Bush
avows not to commit in Iraq. Needless
to say, the only assignment that the
US and its allies seem seriously
committed to is that of maintaining
its military regime, predicated on the
utter reliance of firepower regardless
of the outcome.
Afghanistan’s two foreign military
missions: Nato's International
Security Assistance Force (Isaf), with
its 37,000 troops and the US-led
Coalition: Operation Enduring Freedom
are affectively losing their pseudo
control over the country. Taliban is
gaining strength and is regenerating,
not because of their remarkable
theological alternative to democracy,
but precisely because all of the rosy
promises made late 2001 and early 2002
yielded a most repressive regime,
marred with corruption, insecurity,
warlords, and incessant Coalition
attacks on civilian localities
throughout the country. When Afghans
turn back into supporting the Taliban,
one can only imagine how desperate
they’ve become.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Kasuri
is obviously right, though his
intentions might be self-serving;
“abandonment” is a befitting term
to describe the so-called
international community’s attitude
towards Afghanistan; that abandonment
brought the Taliban to power following
the chaos resulting from the ousting
of the Soviets and their puppet regime
in 1989 – subsequent civil war in
Afghanistan then killed more than
50,000 people in Kabul alone – is
shaping a bizarrely similar scenario
that is giving rise to the same
loathed grouping; The Taliban could
soon find itself in a strong
bargaining position, that even the
Americans themselves cannot ignore;
the Taliban’s “Spring Offensive”
might’ve been delayed, but the
balance is clearly tipping in favor of
the Taliban, in a war that promises
more of the same sorrows.
* Ramzy Baroud is a Palestinian
American author and editor of
PalestineChronicle.com; his latest
book is The Second Palestinian
Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s
Struggle (Pluto Press, London)
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