Excerpt from my website: Opinions!
"A Somali adage says…
"Me and Somalia against the world. Me and my clan against Somalia. Me and my family against my clan. Me and my brother against my family. Me against my brother."
An Afghan adage could have said the exact same thing and here we are at it again, trying to deliver our democratic model to a country that has a European middle age like social fabric.
(...)
It took 2800 deaths in New York to bring Afghanistan back to the foreground. The culprit, Bin Laden, the American creation of the 80s (Bin Laden and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar got their weapons from the US), was running its terror network from that country ruled by religious tyrants. It was time for the US to avenge its dead and money and weapons, again, bought the temporary alliance of some disgruntled ethnic groups left behind by the religious revolution.
And here we are again, backing up an imported friendly and corrupted government, dug in behind minefields and barbed wires in a few key fortified cities and chasing our creatures all the way to Pakistan, officially an ally but traditionally a safe heaven for the Mujahedeens. Bin Laden, and Hekmatyar, Harkat ul Mujahedeen, Hizbul mujahedeen, Al Badr and the Patchuns from the South, are raiding Afghan forces and killing Afghan officials that represent the “infidels”. In their “Madrassahs” (Quranic school), the Imans are issuing “fatwas” for another “Jihad” against another invader. Rejuvenated Talibans forces under the new leadership of Mullah Mohammed Assan and Qadir, reinforced by Al Queida members and Mujahadeens from all over are escalating guerilla war against American and Nato forces in the Eastern and Southern provinces.
“Me and Afghanistan against the Americans!”.
Exit the US and NATO, enter…
“One cannot buy Afghanistan. One can only buy it from somebody else!”
Once again, Afghanis are united against what they perceive as the bigger evil and as history unravels, their attacks are hitting the cities held by the occupying forces.
During their war against the Russian forces, the Mujahedeens excelled at keeping the cities insecure. Ambushes, limited hit and run operations against military or civilian targets, bombings, kidnapping and “hits” on military and political figures were regular occurrences that the Red Army could not prevent, especially in the major cities of Kandahar and Herat that the soviet finally bombed into rubbles, still failing to stop the urban guerrillas.
The future for Afghanistan might not be the one our forces and governments are planning. Fiercely independent and nationalists, Afghanis have shown through their most recent history that they only tolerate others to interfere with their domestic political chaos for a limited time. The Talibans have been ousted. To the Afghan eyes, they were just a little too extremists but the new Talibans under new leadership seem more adequate than foreign powers or corrupted “puppet regimes”.
Is it time for the US led forces to let the traditional power players resume their role of balance in the Afghan political anarchy?
Like Somalia, Afghanis know that westerners will leave, one way or another. When this day comes, Inch Allah, everything will return to normal, to a world they understand.
Afghanis are easy going, fatalist people. They also love to joke.
In Kabul, one of them told a French soldier that they really liked the French and that they would kill them last when the time to get rid of the foreign forces will come.
How touching!