Afghanistan and Iraq offer salutary lessons in America’s nation-building enterprise. Both countries are worse off today than they were before the Americans invaded.
The 13-year US-led Western war on Afghanistan has not only devastated that poor country but also caused great damage to Pakistan. Neighboring Iran has also suffered greatly as a consequence.
The April 5 presidential elections are not likely to change conditions for the long-suffering Afghan people much as long as there is foreign manipulation through money and troops presence in the country.
With the death of warlord, 'Marshal' Mohammad Qasim Fahim (of natural causes, mind you), Afghanistan's stock of warlords is dwindling. President Hamid Karzai expressed grief at losing his 'first” vice president. Three days of mourning have been declared. Who will mourn the butcher from the north?
The Americans are faced with fighting on two fronts in Afghanistan now: against the Taliban and Hamid Karzai's government. They have intensified their campaign of destabilization in Pakistan.
Robert Gates, the former US Defence Secretary has confirmed in writing what Afghan President Hamid Karzai had said all along: that the US wants to manipulate the 2014 presidential election in Afghanistan the way it tried in 2009. In his about to be published memoirs, Gates says the late US diplomat for Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke was actively involved in undermining Karzai.
Will Karzai sign the deal or won't he is the question giving sleepless nights to the Washington warlords. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is playing coy about signing the deal that would allow US forces to remain in Afghanistan indefinitely under the erroneously labeled Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA). Will Afghanistan come to America's rescue if the latter were attacked? The US wants a free hand in Afghanistan after 2014.
Droning innocents to death in Pakistan is official US policy. This is implemented by US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel on behalf of Barack Obama who has escalated drone strikes alarmingly since becoming president. Hagel was in Islamabad today to insist the drone attacks would continue while the people of Pakistan are adamantly opposed to them. There have been protests for several weeks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to get such attacks stopped.
he Americans find themselves at their wits end with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Even as lame duck president, he has put his spanner in the Bilateral Security Agreement that the Americans desperately want signed immediately. They have threatened to withdraw all their forces and leave Afghanistan to its fate unless it is signed immediately but Karzai remains unfazed. He seems to dare them to walk away.
There are scores of groups operating under the name “Taliban.” True, there are genuine Taliban but there are also many that are on the payroll of the US, India and other unsavoury players. Even common criminals have take on the name of Taliban and are terrorising ordinary people, especially in Pakistan.
Afghanistan does not need Western-style democracy but a return to its traditional method of solving disputes in the country. Twelve years of stuffing democracy down the throats of Afghans has created more chaos and mayhem with no end in sight to this tragedy for the people.
President Hamid Karzai wants American troops to stay in Afghanistan beyond the 2014 deadline and he has agreed to all their terms but he does not want to take responsibility for the deal. He is trying to be clever by asking the Loya Jirga to take responsibility while at the same time he has said its signing should be postponed until after the presidential elections next April.
Afghans are adamant that they are completely against the presence of US troops in their country. This was confirmed again today when thousands of angry Afghans protested in the eastern city of Jalalabad. They are also totally opposed to the immunity clause the Americans are demanded for their troops if they stay in Afghanistan past the 2014 deadline.
As the US has been defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has shifted its focus to the Pacific region to contain the rising power of China. General Mirza Aslam Beg, former chief of the Pakistan Army, argues that countries like Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan are well-placed to assert their rights in this new architecture.
Resistance to the US occupation continues in Afghanistan.
The endgame is causing panic in official circles in Kabul.
The US should get out of Afghanistan—not tomorrow, but today. America has lost the war. There should be no American troops left over in Afghanistan, says a reader.
Americans have lost the war in Afghanistan but Washington warriors are still looking for ways to maintain troops there after the 2014 deadline.
China is gearing up to fill the vacuum.
The December 20 and 21 meeting in a hotel outside Paris between representatives of the Taliban, the Karzai government and members of the Northern Alliance as well as Gulbuddin Hikmatyar’s Hizb-e Islami shows that the Taliban are now firmly in control of the future agenda in Afghanistan.
