The Afghanis had a presidential election last weekend. The result is not known yet but it seems to be agreed that whilst the election was to be welcomed, there are so many issues surrounding it - and probably consequences - that most likely, in the end, it wasn't really worth much.
In a op-ed piece "Thirteen years on, Afghanistan is a bloody failure – and it is ordinary Syrians who are paying the price" in The Independent, Yasmin Alibhai Brown, reflects on the Afghan war and the knock-on effect on Syria.
"On the day before the twin towers fell in 2001, I wrote in this newspaper that Afghans needed the West to save them from the vicious, reactionary, anti-female Taliban. Last week, as British troops finally withdrew, two women, both journalists, well-known and well-liked in Afghanistan, were shot. Anja Niedringhaus, an extraordinary photographer, was killed and Kathy Gannon badly injured by a local police officer. Election fever is high and people will not let the Taliban keep them from polling booths, but the hardline Islamists, too, seem unstoppable, determined to wreck the process and assert their dominance. How long now before they return and make this Western venture futile, and utterly hopeless? We know that around 3,400 coalition personnel have died and that many other foreigners have perished. And then as ever there are the uncounted (because they don’t count) lives of the Afghan people, some guerrillas and terrorists, most innocents. They have been slaughtered by the Taliban and its associates, and massacred by our sophisticated weaponry, including drones. 2013 was the most violent year in that country since 2001."
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"The only real winners of this long conflict have been the international arms industry. By 2012, most Afghans wanted the foreigners out but were also terrified of what would happen after that. The mood now is febrile, the local people hate not only soldiers, but aid workers, journalists and diplomats. Millions also detest President Hamid Karzai and co and the corruption that never ends. The US, too, now accepts that the Taliban are strong and powerful and getting increasing numbers of recruits, as the last annual report of The Worldwide Threat assessment of the US Intelligence Community makes frighteningly clear. Most Americans do not think any of this was worth the money and lives spent. I agree with them, even though it is heartening to see the enthusiasm for democracy, to see some women emerging from the shadows, to see life expectancy up and the economy growing.
But then I think of Syria and how non-intervention has led to the biggest humanitarian disaster of this century, to bloodletting and millions displaced, and to a murderous dictator still in place because he is backed by Iran, Russia and other geopolitical players. Outside the BBC in London on Saturday morning, a small group of protesters were asking us not to forget Syria. Recently, at Names not Numbers, a gathering of experts and others debating ideas, I heard the British-Iranian CNN anchor, Christiane Amanpour, describing the pain of Syria as the “West stands by and wrings its hands. If some kind of military action had been launched early enough, this might have been avoided. Too late now.”
You see the problem? Now the West is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t. People in crisis situations want our help, and then don’t. I, too, am now against interventions and still support them when nothing else works. This is the conundrum and it is leading to foreign policy paralysis in Western nations. Iraq and Afghanistan have created an uncertain and nervous age. Whatever happens to the pitiable Syrians, the West will do nothing. How tragic is that? Or is it?"
In a op-ed piece "Thirteen years on, Afghanistan is a bloody failure – and it is ordinary Syrians who are paying the price" in The Independent, Yasmin Alibhai Brown, reflects on the Afghan war and the knock-on effect on Syria.
"On the day before the twin towers fell in 2001, I wrote in this newspaper that Afghans needed the West to save them from the vicious, reactionary, anti-female Taliban. Last week, as British troops finally withdrew, two women, both journalists, well-known and well-liked in Afghanistan, were shot. Anja Niedringhaus, an extraordinary photographer, was killed and Kathy Gannon badly injured by a local police officer. Election fever is high and people will not let the Taliban keep them from polling booths, but the hardline Islamists, too, seem unstoppable, determined to wreck the process and assert their dominance. How long now before they return and make this Western venture futile, and utterly hopeless? We know that around 3,400 coalition personnel have died and that many other foreigners have perished. And then as ever there are the uncounted (because they don’t count) lives of the Afghan people, some guerrillas and terrorists, most innocents. They have been slaughtered by the Taliban and its associates, and massacred by our sophisticated weaponry, including drones. 2013 was the most violent year in that country since 2001."
****
"The only real winners of this long conflict have been the international arms industry. By 2012, most Afghans wanted the foreigners out but were also terrified of what would happen after that. The mood now is febrile, the local people hate not only soldiers, but aid workers, journalists and diplomats. Millions also detest President Hamid Karzai and co and the corruption that never ends. The US, too, now accepts that the Taliban are strong and powerful and getting increasing numbers of recruits, as the last annual report of The Worldwide Threat assessment of the US Intelligence Community makes frighteningly clear. Most Americans do not think any of this was worth the money and lives spent. I agree with them, even though it is heartening to see the enthusiasm for democracy, to see some women emerging from the shadows, to see life expectancy up and the economy growing.
But then I think of Syria and how non-intervention has led to the biggest humanitarian disaster of this century, to bloodletting and millions displaced, and to a murderous dictator still in place because he is backed by Iran, Russia and other geopolitical players. Outside the BBC in London on Saturday morning, a small group of protesters were asking us not to forget Syria. Recently, at Names not Numbers, a gathering of experts and others debating ideas, I heard the British-Iranian CNN anchor, Christiane Amanpour, describing the pain of Syria as the “West stands by and wrings its hands. If some kind of military action had been launched early enough, this might have been avoided. Too late now.”
You see the problem? Now the West is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t. People in crisis situations want our help, and then don’t. I, too, am now against interventions and still support them when nothing else works. This is the conundrum and it is leading to foreign policy paralysis in Western nations. Iraq and Afghanistan have created an uncertain and nervous age. Whatever happens to the pitiable Syrians, the West will do nothing. How tragic is that? Or is it?"
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