Aside from the Western presumption and arrogance that “we” have the right to control Afghanistan - despite spending decades funding an insurgency or supporting the Taliban - it now looks like our supposed concern has been futile:
The Taliban has a permanent presence in 54% of Afghanistan and the country is in serious danger of falling into Taliban hands, according to a report by an independent thinktank with long experience in the area.
Despite tens of thousands of Nato-led troops and billions of dollars in aid poured into the country, the insurgents, driven out by the American invasion in 2001, now control “vast swaths of unchallenged territory, including rural areas, some district centres, and important road arteries”, the Senlis Council says in a report released yesterday.
On the basis of what it calls exclusive research, it warns that the insurgency is also exercising a “significant amount of psychological control, gaining more and more political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people who have a long history of shifting alliances and regime change”.
The likely Western answer to these problems will be a steadily-increasing bombing campaign, deliberately designed to cause maximum carnage on the people, just like in Iraq. The result? Greater support for the Taliban.
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