Ayoon Wa Azan (They Are More Credible Than the President and Me)
Jihad el-Khazen Al-Hayat - 08/10/08//
Afghanistan began this week registering millions of voters for next year's presidential polls. This takes us back to George Bush's speech to the UN General Assembly, whereby he stated two weeks ago that Afghanistan had turned from a country supporting terror to a democratic state fighting terror.
Is this true? Of course not, like most of the words uttered by the American president who reads and believes what is written for him.
I do not want the readers to believe me. In today's column, I will report views expressed by other people who are more credible than the president and me.
- Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, Commander of the British forces in Afghanistan, admitted that the war on Taliban would not end in a decisive military victory. However, he said last June that the British forces had reached a turning point in their war against Taliban, a movement turned "headless," as he said, with six of its leaders murdered by his forces. Now the brigadier calls for lower expectations; his sole aim is to bring violence to a tolerable level. This may be due to the casualties suffered by the British forces in the face of a relentless army, with the death of 32 soldiers in 6 months and the injury of 172 others.
- General David Petraeus, who currently heads the American Central Command after his successful endeavors to reduce violence in Iraq, has now shifted focus to Afghanistan. In his first interview, he expected the war to worsen tremendously before it got better. Though he spoke of troop "surge" there, he underlined a non-military solution through national reconciliation. Petraeus admitted that wresting control of certain areas from the Taliban would be very difficult. As I understood, he might replicate in Afghanistan the Iraqi experience of Awakening Councils.
- French diplomat Jean-François Fitou quoted the British ambassador to Kabul Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles as saying in a private meeting held last month that a military victory in Afghanistan was impossible, and that the presence, especially the military presence of the coalition, was part of the problem, not the solution. For him, what is needed is "an acceptable dictator," i.e. a "Saddam-lite" for Afghanistan.
The French diplomat sent a memo to his government reporting the words of the British ambassador. This memo was leaked out and published in a French magazine.
The above opinions were expressed after George Bush made his speech. Those who expressed them are eyewitnesses, experts, and informed people, attributes that do not apply to the American president.
If I were to explain the situation in Afghanistan in words understood by the readers, I would say that the NATO-led western coalition has lost the war in Afghanistan. Taliban men are at the doors of Kabul, while President Hamid Karzai is urging Pakistan and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to broker his government's negotiations with Taliban - an appeal rejected by the Taliban leaders so long as the foreign military presence persists in their country. The rejecting party is usually the stronger.
This year has witnessed the highest levels of violence in Afghanistan since 2001. So far, 3,000 people have been killed, mostly civilians as usual. Even President Karzai himself objected to the American raids that claim civilians.
The raids infuriated Pakistan's government and military establishment alike. Special American forces launched cross-border attacks against Al-Qaeda positions in Waziristan. A Pakistani military spokesman threatened to resist American aircraft and ground incursions.
After each raid, the Americans speak of murdering "terrorists," but as we hear from the local population, civilians equally fall victims. The only certainty is that the raids, rather than weakening Taliban or Al-Qaeda, have provoked Muslims in the region and elsewhere. According to Western information, fighters from Chechnya, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan are assisting Taliban, while Al-Qaeda is still attracting fighters from the majority of Islamic countries.
How can a backward group like Taliban and a terrorist one like Al-Qaeda defeat NATO and its other allies? When the Bush administration attacked Afghanistan following the 9/11 terror, it won the support of the whole world. But it has fought half a war there then deliberately waged an unjustified war in Iraq based on fabricated reasons. In that war, it has murdered a million innocent people and has made every possible mistake to the extent that the locals prefer backward Taliban and terrorist Al-Qaeda to the promised democracy.
http://www.j-khazen.blogspot.com/
|
