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Writers Articles And Opinions |
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26 November 2009 By
Reason Wafawarova
THE US-led Western
Alliance faces a daunting political and military
quagmire in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the odious
reality is now dawning that the imperial misadventure
has turned out to be a disastrous start to the
millennium.
The undeniable reality
is that the Taliban will not be defeated, and must now
be included in shaping the face-saving package that
the West wants as a veil to sanitise this unavoidable
pending defeat.
The unpalatable fact
of a defeat at the hands of the Taliban is leading to
a ferocious debate in the West on a number of
questions. Western governments do not know whether to
escalate the war in Afghanistan or to scale it down.
The most visibly
confused of the lot is US President Barack Obama. He
is as indecisive as a village girl dabbling with two
marriage proposals.
Others in the West are
asking if the Taliban should be invited to the
negotiating table. This is despite George W. Bush’s
repeated rant that "we do not negotiate with
terrorists". Yet others wonder if it is possible to
declare a truce with the Afghan militants without
providing a new launch pad for Al-Qaeda’s war on the
imperial West, the so-called war on terror.
It is now eight years
into the conflict and the resolute band of resistance
groups that are collectively known as the Taliban is
undeniably winning the war.
According to the
London-based International Council on Security and
Development, the Taliban now has a permanent presence
in 80 percent of Afghanistan, and they have their own
civilian administration, courts, economy and even a
taxation system in place.
An Afghan-born and
Australian-based director of the Centre for Arab and
Islamic Studies at the Australian National University
recently said the Taliban are now "a de facto
alternative government".
Amin Saikal must be in
the know of what he is talking about because he has
strong ties with the Western-backed Karzai government,
his own brother being a former cabinet minister under
Karzai.
The West prematurely
celebrated the "wiping out" of the Mullah Mohammed
Omar-led Taliban regime after the 2001 US-led
invasion, and George W. Bush promised to go after
"everyone of them" that was remotely linked to "the
terrorists".
The gallant resistance
cadres in the Taliban have clearly regrouped to lead a
broad-based uprising against the presence of foreign
occupiers and the Western-created Karzai government in
Kabul.
In an almost stupid
attempt at identifying with public opinion, Karzai
recently began his second five-year term as president
by sheepishly saying he also wanted a decrease in
foreign troops; stating that security must be in
Afghan hands "within five years".
Amin Sakail explained
Karzai’s latest position saying: "The people following
Mullah Omar have one line of thinking: ‘We are
fighting for our country, we are fighting for our
honour, we are fighting for our religion. We see these
foreign forces as invaders, and we see the Karzai
government as a puppet’."
This philosophy is
largely the key line followed by Zanu-PF supporters in
Zimbabwe.
They take great
exception to British-co-ordinated and US-led Western
interference in the internal affairs of the country
and they view the MDC-T as a puppet outfit that has
been treacherously spoilt with Western moneybags. They
view the honour, dignity and national interest of
Zimbabwe as under threat. Theirs is the fight for the
liberation legacy and the resolve to defend this
legacy is undoubtable, as led by veterans of the
liberation war.
The Taliban have an
inspiration. Their renaissance is a product of their
own liberation legacy — that undying resolve to thwart
foreign invaders, as was achieved when they defeated
the British colonialists in the 19th century, and as
they ended a decade of Soviet occupation in 1989.
The inspiring message
from Omar rests in the mind and soul of every Taliban
fighter. It says: "Your country is occupied by
infidels. Your forefathers drove them out, now they
are coming back and occupying your land, and you as an
Afghan and a Muslim have an obligation to stand up
against these people."
This is the resolve
that has pumped up the fight in the heart and minds of
Afghans, and the result has been a sharp increase in
American soldiers returning home in body bags. The
West can no longer convince their home population that
the "war on terror" is still a credible cause for
which so many of their fellow citizens should be
dying.
With George W. Bush,
John Howard and Tony Blair gone into political
oblivion there has not been any Western politician too
keen to mislead the people about the credibility of
the "war on terror" and as it is such a pretext is now
laughable if said publicly.
Obama still thinks
Afghanistan is a "war of necessity", perhaps because
it is necessary to avoid a humiliating defeat for the
world’s number one terrorist state.
Obama wants to send
about 40 000 more troops, otherwise the US operation
will "result in failure", according to the US
Commander in Afghanistan, Stanley McChristal.
This move may prolong
the occupation but will not help win the war.
In fact, the surge
will be met by a higher surge in moral outrage by
young Muslims across the world. Marc Sageman is a
former CIA operative and now a counter-terrorism
analyst.
He recently warned the
US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that a troop
boost "may result in moral outrage in young Muslims in
the West, who would take it upon themselves to carry
out terrorist operations at home in response. So far
from protecting the homeland, the surge may actually
endanger it in the short term".
Sageman argued that
his studies had shown that the majority of the 60
sampled Al-Qaeda-related plots were homegrown and had
nothing to do with either the Afghan or Iraq
insurgencies.
He lamented the
reigning confusion in the West that says trying to
thwart insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan is
synonymous with destroying Al-Qaeda. Sageman called
such confusion "insidious".
He argued that Afghan
fighters were "parochial" and were "happy to kill
Westerners in Afghanistan, but they are not a threat
to Western homelands". Not too many rational people
would quarrel with this assertion — largely treated as
common sense outside Western circles.
Obama may add 40 000
more troops and all he will get in return are more
body bags back to American families. The reality is
that he is sending 40 000 invaders to a people that,
in Omar’s own words, "fought against the British for
80 years from 1839 to 1919 and ultimately got
independence by defeating them".
That means resilience
is a natural calling for the Afghans. To reiterate
this, Omar said: " If you want to turn the country of
the proud and pious Afghans into a colony, then know
that we have an unwavering determination and are
braced for a long war."
The reports on the
ground are that Karzai has been tasked by the United
States to talk to the Taliban and such talks have been
happening in secret. The Taliban pulled out of such
talks recently demanding that talks could only resume
after "the Americans leave our country".
Omar is comfortably
confident because he knows that inevitably the foreign
forces will have to leave Afghanistan eventually. The
Taliban can wait, and they have all the time in the
world. All they need to do is to keep the battle fires
burning.
The US-led Western
invaders know very well that if they left now Karzai
will be following them to some Western capital within
a couple of days if he is lucky to be alive.
They also know that if
they left in three years’ time or in five years’ time,
there is no chance whatsoever that Karzai would last
longer than a week in office.
The Taliban is a name
widely and loosely used in describing any group of
people opposed to the Western-backed governments of
both Afghanistan and Pakistan and this opposition is
broad-based and very popular among ordinary Afghans
and Pakistanis.
The West will rely on
the doctrine of Taliban demonology where they insist
that both the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Tehrik-e-Taliban-e
Pakistan (TTP) are inherently and intractably twinned
to Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.
This has not been
proven at any time although it is the only way the
West can manufacture consent among Westerners if the
certain defeat at the hands of the Taliban can be
delayed by prolonging the losing war as much as can
happen.
The war has to be
supported by public opinion and the public need to be
scared for them to support a war. So why not scare
them stiff?
So we are told that
the TTP has become one with Al-Qaeda after the killing
of its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed
through a US dawn strike in August.
Despite the
statesmanlike and reconciliatory tone of Omar, the
West will insist on labelling the Taliban a band of
"terrorists" because such a label will alienate the
Taliban from public opinion in the West.
Some in the West have
argued that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are inseparable
and will have to be destroyed together. This is the
propagandist approach that George W. Bush established
but reality is beginning to dawn on many people that
the Taliban are no more than a nationalist movement
solely after the sovereignty of their invaded
homeland.
Now the West might be
forced to avoid further humiliation by negotiating
peace with the Taliban. It is absolutely hopeless to
hope that Karzai will one day run Afghanistan without
being guarded by American soldiers for the execution
of his duties.
No manner of weapon
sophistry can defeat the national resolve by the
Taliban.
There is no weapon
formed against a national resolve to defend one’s
homeland that will ever prosper.
It is very important
for those Zimbabweans who might be thinking highly of
Western political backing and those who might be
thinking that the resolve in the war veterans that
liberated the country will die with the cadres as we
keep losing them one by one to natural ending — it is
important that they realise that the resolve to defend
one’s own country cannot be defeated.
This resolve was not
formed by Zanu-PF. It is Zanu-PF that was formed by
this resolve, and that is why the hope that if Zanu-PF
collapsed as a political party then all is over is
just an absolutely baseless sense of misguided
optimism.
The MDC-T leadership
must learn attentively and fast that doing a Karzai is
a thankless ambition that would never work in a nation
where people know what it is to liberate a country.
It is impossible to
become a successful puppet.
You can be
Nouri-al-Maliki of Iraq, or Saddam Hussein, you can be
Idi Amin of Uganda or Joseph Mobutu of Congo, you can
be Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan or Morgan Tsvangirai of
Zimbabwe; but the result will always be the same —
shame, humiliation and defeat. That is inescapable.
EsinIslam.Com
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