The Afghan absurdity

In those days when we practised as journalists, one of the havens or digressions from the domestic front was Afghanistan. Today, Afghans are on television fighting to enter American cargo planes to America. This is after 20 years of American “presence” in their country; a presence that they did not like and which made Americans and their Kabul governments target. Nothing demonstrates the popularity of the Taliban than the collapse of the “Afghan army” and the “Afghan government” within seconds of American departure. So, I remain firm that the American President, Joe Biden, made the right decision to quit NOT at the time the Kabul government planned to escort him.

Please listen to Biden and read him on his decision to quit Afghanistan and show me his fault lines: “We talked about how Afghanistan should prepare to fight their civil wars after the US military departed, to clean up the corruption in government, so the government could function for the Afghan people. We talked extensively about the need for Afghan leaders to unite politically. They failed to do any of that. I also urged them to engage in diplomacy, to seek a political settlement with the Taliban. This advice was flatly refused…Mr. Ghani (the exiled President of Afghanistan) insisted that the Afghan forces would fight. And obviously he was wrong.”

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After all, Afghans did not invite America. America invited itself to Afghanistan to defend its interest. Who can defend Afghanistan better than the Afghans? The Taliban has greater control over the population than the elite that purported to have the interest of Afghanistan at heart. Americans should have since realised that Washington had been heavily subsidising the governments of foreign countries and it is time to end it. On one hand, keeping such governments in power against domestic forces is more costly. On the other hand, if you give refuge to hundreds of people in America and many of them turn out to be more sympathetic to their country than they are grateful to America, would you just simply turn around and apologise to the American people?

The world should better recognise the Taliban and engage them constructively than to fight them frontally or undermine their authority by imposing economic sanctions. It was President Bush II that removed them from power; not an Afghan popular front. THEY ARE BACK IN POWER!

Bello Basiru Gwarzo – [email protected]