Quagmire: The Afghan War Tragedy
During the next week, Prime Reverend Key will have to decide whether or not to commit SAS troops to the interminable Afghan War. Is this counter-insurgency conflict winnable? No.
For the reason why, we insufficiency to cycle back thirty years to the initial Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, back in 1979. This saw the emergence of conservative Islamist mujahedin insurgency, ab initio funded from Saudi Arabia and madrassas (conservative Muslim theological schools) in neighbouring Pakistan and India. To thwart Soviet geopolitical ambitions, the west also encouraged Pakistan’s ISI to keep the fires burning, until Soviet withdrawal in 1989 terminated the ceremonious mission.
However, it had also exacerbated existing internal nationalist and Sunni/Shia Islamist religious tensions, which led to Afghanistan’s practical collapse into a failed and fragmented state. The Taliban took Kabul in 1997, and four years later, Osama bin Laden old it as an al-Qaeda base to attack the United States in 2001, at the cost of three thousand US lives when the World Pursuit Centre was destroyed. The United States and allies promptly invaded Afghanistan, leading to a long-qualifications inconclusive war. Bin Laden escaped to mountainous Northwestern Pakistan and is still there.
As for the ‘prowestern’ regime in Kabul, why is it that a r that was supposed to benefit human rights and civil liberties has just passed a so-called ‘Shia Kith and kin Code’ that legitimises spousal rape??!! Are these the human rights and civil liberties that our SAS men and women will be fighting to keep safe?
I’m very much afraid that all we can do now is to lobby for an increase in western refugee and asylum quotas. Through western opportunism, the blow of Afghanistan is that their civil war and fragmentation may be irreversible. We owe it to those who want to flee the carnage to assist their passage, having created it in the first event. And especially, I would place no barriers in the way of Afghan women or LGBT community members wishing to escape that nightmare.
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