Tag: Taliban

No Good Men Among The Living-3

Author -Anand Gopal

In my last two blogs , we waded through the muddy terrains of Afghanistan with Author Anand Gopal trying to make sense of the two decades long war and finally an abrupt ,shocking anticlimax with American Troop withdrawl

Author invested four years of his life and lived in Afghanistan as local and interviewed thousands of Afghans .Hence the book is an authentic collection of first hand accounts of those people whose every day life became nightmare , as their destiny changed with change of power at the “Power Nodes “

After Taliban was decimated and Al -Qaeda flew out of Afghanistan in late 2001 and early 2002 ,Author often wondered in hindsight ,that may be that was the right time for Troop withdrawl for the USA but then again , Who should have been the power transferred to ?

“The Talibans “- who were Afghan centric and did not mind , minding their own business and had a strong hold in Southern Afghanistan but at an insurmountable cost of pushing the country to the back gear .

OR

The forward centric , prowestern ,representing a tiny slice of the population , totally dependant on foreign powers ,easy to topple governments

The ” MIDDLE MEN “, another wrought in the system ,who had amassed wealth and power at the USA’s expense , the only liason between the Afghan people and the USA also played a strategic role in catalyzing the war to go wrong .Anybody from any faction could be branded as Taliban or Terrorist by these middle men, even to settle their own personnel rivalry and that person could be targeted ,tortured ,imprisoned or sent to Guantanamo prison

In the process ,as early as 2005 ,people of the country were weary and hopeless and Taliban resurgency started .They regrouped themselves by tacit support of ISI , Pakistan and Al-Qaeda and by 2007 they had regained control of half of rural Pashtun territory and interestingly author found out that people lived in peace in those areas .Crime had vanished but islamic justices were met with no jobs or development .

Author reported that as a nation ,Afghanistan always had to piggy back on foreign powers for its development and which further divided the nation into an unsolvable jigsaw puzzle .

US’s intent was always well meaning and Afghanistan toking its baby steps towards development , women empowerment and hence Nation Building

BUT

Intelligence failure ,language barriers , rampant corruption , betrayals led the USA towards one misstep to another and some where lost the holding power of the Nation

Author revisited his protagonists in Afghanistan in 2010 and found out the “Ex- Taliban commander , had landed in Bagram prison ; The Pro Karzai commander was shot dead and Heela , the urban turned rural housewife ,became a senator

Author gave us an authentic account of the state of Afgahnistan and it felt after reading the book that not only the country but the US had also exhausted all its options and troop withdrawl was a foregone conclusion

In Today’s Afghanistan ,there is a humanitarian crisis going on and calls for help are intense and we only hope that we as “Humans Of The World “could figure out some solution and do not discard the Country as “Basket Case”

Wishing you all a very safe week ahead

Hoping to be with you all soon

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NO GOOD MEN AMONG THE LIVING -2

Author – Anand Gopal

In our last blog ,in the book review of “NO GOOD MEN AMONG THE LIVING” ,BY AUTHOR ANAND GOPAL , we talked about how interestingly ,Taliban, a group of fanatical students came together to bring law and order to the Afghan society and they were a success to a certain extent except for pushing the country back to medevial times

AL -QAEDA

As per protagonist , Mullah Cable ,the Taliban commander , a bad stroke of luck , brought the Arabs of Al-Qaeda to Afghanistan . They had a distinctly different culture , spoke a different language and their goals were entirely different .Al -Qaeda wanted to displace US supremacy but Talibans were Afghan centric .They wanted diplomatic recognition as long as they wer left to their own ways .But at the time of World Trade Center attack in 2001 ,unfortunately ,Al-Qaeda was operating from the soils of Afghanistan.

The U-TURN

After the October , 7 2001 American attack on Afghanistan ,author reported ,Talibans were decimated and Al-qaeda retreated unconditionally .Talibans even agreed to support the US backed Afghan government and Hamid Karzai.This REBRANDING , was nothing new in Afghan politics .This was survival .The losing party either fled ,retired or submitted to the victorious .

But for Americans ,this was all alien

Allegiance is supposed to be for life .Changing colors like a chameleon was unacceptable and the” Foe ” even if packaged differently ,continues to be an enemy

So America continued its war against it’s “Invisible Enemy” and they were never offered a seat on the table in any of the reconciliatory efforts in the initial years .

HAMID KARZAI

Why Hamid Karzai?Author pondered !

Karzai was no different than any other Afghan leader, who survived on foreign power .He was a former humanitarian worker ,Scion of an elite Kandhar Family and with Tribal elders and former antisoviet commanders formed SOUTHERN ALLIANCE with headquarters in a Pakistan CIty

But he was smart enough to be at the right time and at the right place and Americans’plans aligned with his .

Karzai hated Taliban and Americans wanted a man who was from Pashtun ,Background[Tribal background] to head the government .

The Ghost Enemy

At the end of 2001 and early 2002 ,Talibans were dismanteled and Al-Qaeda had fled to the safe Havens . So author wondered who were the Americans fighting the war against?

Entered the Middle men and the frst missteps were taken , when the war started going wrong These” Middle men “understood the meaning of “American power and Money ” and enemies were recreated .

Author named Sherzai as one of them ,who ran the intelligence network for the Americans and reaped enormous rewards .Villas ,Business empires and power in Southern Afghanisatn ,to name a few

Unless you were a part of these PRO MIDDLE MEN OR PRO KARZAI groups .you were targeted by e ither taken into custody ,tortured or sent to Guantanamo prison

No amount of assurances from the rest of Afghans ,who at different times of their lives had belonged to different groups ,either Mujahideens ,Talibans or regular Afghans could convince Americans that like Americans they wanted to build their nation and aimed for peace

So the war , took a new turn and it was called “Counter -terrorism” and the peace efforts were called “Nation building “ but all within the precints of these “Middle Men” and the Victors ,The Americans ,themselves became victims of Afghan Strongmen

We will take forward this review in the concluding blog .

Till then ,

Wishing you all a safe and a Happy New Year , 2022 , in advance

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