The International Donors’ meeting in Japan pledged $16 billion in development aid for Afghanistan over the next four years. It is however, not clear that at the time, when Europe and US are passing through the worst financial crises, and the sixth euro zone country, Spain had just been bailed out, who would provide such a huge amount of money for Afghanistan. The true reality is that after 10 years of war and several conferences, the fortunes of poor Afghan people have not changed a bit. Afghanistan is still considered one of the poorest countries of the world. After 10 years of continuous war, $ 432 billion incurred as the cost and losing 7,000 Nato and American soldiers, the US should get to this truth. Nato has finally accepted that they have not been able to control even 30 percent area of Afghanistan, even after a decade-long war. High-level security zones and government installations has become easy targets for militants.
A decade of the Afghan war presents a miserable picture of any kind of success of which the invaders may want to boast. Despite heavy expenditures, the recent plan to shift the burden of security of different Afghan cities to Afghan security forces has failed to provide desire results. Truth is that most Afghan soldiers trained by the US and ISAF forces are not reliable and they have secret relations with resistance forces. These secret relations and firing incidents have claimed lives of several US soldiers this year. Afghanistan is also facing the worst wave of suicide attacks in years and even high security zones are not saved from these types of attacks. Recently, several top aides of President Karzai, including his own brother, Wali Karzai, former president and peace negotiator, Burhan Uddin Rabbani, powerful warlord and general, and Dawood, Kandahar police chief, lost their lives in a heavy security zone. UNO installations and foreign embassies are not safe from recent attacks of militants. Recently, militants attacked and held hostage the heart of Kabul, a high security green zone for several hours. Amidst all this, the civilians are paying a high price and are caught between militants and foreign forces. Only this year, a record number of innocent civilians lost their lives in Nato air strikes, and according to the UNO recent estimates, opium cultivation has increased 61 percent this year. US public has opposed Afghan war on several occasions, which has provided nothing except death and destruction, eating into the US economy slowly and steadily. This is one of the reasons that US is facing one of the worst agitations of its history against increasing unemployment, hunger and raising prices of basic commodities.
KHAWAJA UMER FAROOQ,
Jeddah, July 16.