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Thursday, June 14, 2012

Afghanistan: Flawed occupation, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror
Afghanistan: Flawed occupation
By Andrew Small
September 2009

The West is bent on replicating the model of democracy in Afghanistan that it has already tried to apply in both Pakistan and Iraq — find a moderate figure to act as leader and attempt to wrap a unified nation around their chosen one before taking the fight to the perceived foe. The problem is that once the chosen figure establishes some sort of a following in said state, with or without Western help, then that leader tends to pursue a nationalist agenda — not surprisingly — that is not necessarily in accord with the original game plan. That has already happened to some degree with the Maliki government in Baghdad. In Pakistan there remains a good deal of doubt over whether the Americans are really in control of what is happening in the northern reaches of the country where the fight is being taken to the Taliban and Al Qaeda elements there.

The same two bogey organisations hang over the elections in Afghanistan. But here the West's chosen instrument, Karzai, seems to be out of control even before he has been 'anointed' electorally. Reports have it that some Western diplomats would like the polling to go to an October runoff to try and establish a broad base of support for their man who has been playing politics the only way he knows how, through deal-making across the country with characters who would have to look up the word democracy in a dictionary.

But, much like the Viet Cong, it is surely difficult to tell apart Taliban and ordinary, disaffected Afghans who are just sick and tired of having their country rent asunder by Western armies. Remember, the Afghans have been here before. This is Britain's fourth Afghan war, the others being in 1839-42, 1878-80 and 1919 and none was a victory for the Britons.

http://newageislam.com/afghanistan--flawed-occupation/war-on-terror/d/1777


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