It seems Nato’s latest plan to save Afghanistan is more bombing. The current offensive must have been planned months in advance, as the US and its allies sent thousands more troops to the country. This was expected as soon as troops were pulled out of Iraq.
Before the offensive, there was one final attempt to bribe the Taliban. This came about during the conference on Afghanistan in London on 28 January. The fact that the conference took place more than eight years after occupying Afghanistan indicates that, same as in Iraq, they had no plans before the invasion.
The main outcome was paying the Taliban fighters in order to convince them to leave the battlefield, with the more hard-line among them to be invited to reconciliation talks. There is nothing new with these proposals, as western imperial powers always made alliances with fundamentalists – including Bin Laden himself – during the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
This is hardly surprising. Historically, the US and Britain have always been happy to support dictators who were loyal to them, including Saddam Hussein. The western style of democracy in Afghanistan has produced a new pro-west dictator who has failed to deliver any change. Now, he is required to work with fundamentalists.
The Afghanistan conference ignored compensating the families of those killed as a result of the invasion. In fact, much like the media that only mention the loss of western soldiers and rarely the deaths of ordinary Afghans, the politicians ignored them altogether.
It is even less likely that we will know the suffering of Afghan civilians during this offensive. However, two sources of information have given me a glimpse of what is actually happening. One is a report by the UK’s Channel 4 News during the summer of 2009, which revealed that the British Army paid just US$210 in compensation for killing an Afghan woman. The other was a report from a human rights organisation which revealed that US forces consider any male Afghan of fighting age as an enemy combatant.
One of the most terrible consequences of the invasion is the way the image of the Taliban is changing. When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan during the 1990s, they were condemned by the vast majority of Muslims as backward oppressors. Following the invasion of Afghanistan, and the way the Taliban has been seen as the main force fighting against foreign occupation and defending Muslims, their image is now one of freedom fighters.
Their image might change again if they accept the new offer. However, the Afghan government’s corruption is likely to lessen its chances of success. Some of the Taliban who put their guns down have said that they never got what they were promised. In a recent documentary, some Afghan fighters said that they would only surrender their guns when the occupation is over.
The continuous rise in fatalities amongst civilians will only create more enemies for Nato, and will make the battle for hearts and minds more difficult. The withdrawal of Dutch troops from the region later this year following the collapse of the Netherlands government last week certainly won’t help matters.
The Taliban’s wicked ideology, which is alien to Islam, does not make them a better alternative. But American and British leaders seem to be happy to bring them into the government as long as they are part of a regime loyal to western imperialism.
Mohammed Samaana is a freelance writer based in Belfast
