Business Recorder editorial Aug 16, 2017

Afghan Taliban’s open letter The Afghan Taliban have taken opportunistic advantage of the Trump administration’s reported struggling with future policy in Afghanistan by addressing an unprecedented open letter to the US President, warning him that the military situation on the ground is “far worse than you realise”. Sending in more troops, the letter goes on, will only result in more self-destruction of men and material. It castigates the Afghan government as “stooges”, “lying, corrupt leaders”, repulsive sell-outs” who care neither for US interests nor those of their own country and are providing “rosy pictures” of the military position. The Taliban boasted that the only reason they were not seizing cities was for fear of civilian casualties. If this last statement is to be believed, it reflects a rare sensitivity on the Taliban’s part regarding innocent lives, something they are not famous for. US troops currently number 8,400, a steep drop from the 100,000 six years ago. The remaining contingent is mainly in a training and advisory role to the Afghan security forces who are struggling to contain the Taliban advance in many rural areas, let alone defeat them. The senior US commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, has requested several thousand additional troops. Influential voices, including Republican Senator John McCain, have urged an “enduring” US military presence. But they are up against scepticism in the White House. US President Donald Trump and several top aides have criticised the years of military intervention in Afghanistan and the high cost of aid to that benighted country. US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has told reporters the administration is “very, very close” to a decision and all options are on the table. US officials though caution that it will likely take several weeks for a South Asia strategy to be approved. The Taliban have twisted the knife in the administration’s wounds by stating in the open letter that they have noted Trump has “understood the errors of (his) predecessors” and “resolved to thoroughly rethink a new strategy”. It cautioned the US President against a number of warmongering Congressmen and Generals in Afghanistan who were pressing him to keep the war going in order to preserve their military privileges. Foreign occupation, the Taliban went on, is the “main driver of the war” and the private contractors (like Blackwater) option that has been in the news of late is hardly a better choice than the unsuccessful trained and disciplined US and NATO troops. The Taliban may be taking advantage of the US administration’s difficulties in Afghanistan but they are enabled to do so by the disastrous results of the US invasion and occupation of that country in the wake of 9/11. Then US President George Bush used a sledgehammer to swat the al Qaeda fly after it attacked the US mainland in a first, Americans having perhaps been lulled into complacency because of two oceans on either side of the country, which they may have believed would protect them. The shock of 9/11 aroused a revengeful anger in the US, which Bush responded to by an invasion that arguably helped spread fundamentalist terrorism throughout the region and further abroad. His successor Barack Obama, elected on a platform of ending Bush’s two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, blundered in announcing withdrawal deadlines from both Afghanistan and Iraq. All his opponents on these battlefields had to do then was wait him out. It is another matter that the ‘peace’ President Obama triggered two more wars on his watch in Libya and Syria. For the US now, the best option remains leveraging their much reduced presence in Afghanistan for talks and a negotiated political solution with the Taliban. However, learning from past mistakes, this is perhaps only possible if the Taliban are convinced that reduced presence or no, the US is in Afghanistan to stay until an acceptable political solution is hammered out. There is no more need to issue any further withdrawal deadlines or loud announcements of troops’ enhancement. In any case the former option should be contingent on the Afghan security forces’ incremental capability in denying the Taliban insurgents a victory.