Many incidents go unreported and undiscussed. Those, if written up properly, can change the known history of the World easily. When the Taliban was being thrashed in Afghanistan, 3050 Km away, a new Jihadi organisation named ISIS was being created. When the Taliban vanished from the face of the earth, ISIS was flourishing. And now, when ISIS has lost its power, the Taliban has gained power and grabbed a whole country. What should we call it? The cycle of Time ? or America and other European country’s politics? Let’s discuss.
In this article, we’ll try and understand what is happening in Afghanistan, why did the US and NATO forces leave Afghanistan, who are the Taliban, how did they emerge. We will also try and understand what is China’s Pakistan’s and India strategy concerning Afghanistan and many more such types of questions that you may have regarding Afghanistan.
The first thing that you know is that the United States and NATO forces have decided to leave Afghanistan United States President Joe Biden has set a deadline of 11 September 2021. Why 11th September because it will mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the US. That means by 11 September 2021 all American and NATO troops will end their operations in Afghanistan. Now the question is, why are they leaving Afghanistan all of a sudden? Do you think it is because 20 years have passed, so, as a mark of respect, they have decided to leave Afghanistan? Do you believe this is the reason? Or do you believe that they have accomplished their objectives and made Afghanistan free from terrorism? Even that is not the case, the Taliban is still there, Al-Qaeda is still there. Though Al-Qaeda is not very active in Afghanistan, its routes and networks are still there in Afghanistan. Many Pakistani-based affiliate terror groups are also operating in Afghanistan. So, the point is, America has not accomplished its objective of fighting terrorism. Of course, they have killed Osama Bin Laden, but they killed him in 2011. If that was the goal then they should have left one or two years after that. And if, at all, their goal was to finish terrorism from the root, then why are they leaving without completing their task? Isn’t that weird? I can think of three possibilities.
- Case1: Either they have finished their objective (finished the Taliban and Al-Qaeda from the root) which we know they have not.
- Case2: America has lost their battle against terrorism. Even that is not the case. They have enough technology and weapons. They could have easily continued for more years.
- Case3: Maybe ending terrorism from the root was never their goal in the first place.
I want to bring your attention to this third statement.
Ending terrorism in Afghanistan was never the ultimate goal of the United States. You must have heard that US forces have left Bagram Air Base at Night and that too without informing the Afghan Commander. No one expects this kind of behaviour from the American forces. This is unprofessional. Bagram is United States Military’s biggest Airfield in Afghanistan. Bagram Air Base was the epicentre of America’s war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks. There has to be a proper handover ceremony. Shutting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the commander of the local forces. It is funny, unprofessional and ironic!! After nearly 20 years of living here, they cannot leave abruptly without informing. That too in the night. After the US forces slipped away in the night, that military base was looted and ransacked. Thousands of vehicles, weapons and other military items of the US military from Afghanistan has fallen into the hands of the Taliban. The United States is indirectly arming the Taliban, as they did in 1979.
I’m not a big fan of the US military. In movies they always glorify them. It is an illusion, it is purely a marketing tactic. They rely on narrative-building. After all, they have to live up to their self-made global image of being a Saviour. That is why they rely heavily on narrative-building. America has been doing information warfare since WW II. The US has control of global media as well as the internet. I have written a separate article on how the US has managed world media and how it was a prime project of the CIA.
Since the beginning of the Cold War in 1947, Afghanistan had been under the influence of the Soviet Government. It received economic assistance, military equipment training and military hardware from the Soviet Union. In 1978, there was a lot of internal political instability in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union had a friendly relationship with some of its leaders in Afghanistan till 1978 and wanted to strengthen their hands at the invitation of the then President Noor Mohammed Taraki. USSR entered Afghanistan in an advisory role. Nur Mohammad was assassinated in 1979. The Afghan internal politics turned worse and that is when Soviet forces changed their role to active combat mode. USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Anti-Communist orthodox Islamic Afghans began to dislike Soviet intervention. But they did not have the required weapons training or any kind of support from other countries. The United States was carefully observing this entire political scenario. They wanted to make a strategic entry. Like they did in Vietnam in 1954.
The US supported South Vietnam with all things they supported Afghanistan. The US abandoned Vietnam in 1971 as they did in Afghanistan in 2021.
Pakistan’s Role
India and Pakistan went to war which resulted in Pakistan’s defeat and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. Pakistan was not at all happy with India. So, to take revenge against India, Pakistan launched the Khalistani Movement which is part of its K2 mission. K1 is Kashmir and K2 is Khalistan. It started in the early 70s but only gained momentum in the latter part of that decade. General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq executed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, father of Benazir Bhutto. He then took control of Pakistan and made himself the President of Pakistan in 1978. Pakistan was worried about the Soviets taking over Afghanistan but Pakistan’s main concern was to take revenge from India and get Americans involved in the Soviet-Afghan war so that they can get money from the US. Zia-ul-Haq was a clever man, he came up with a plan he met the then US President Jimmy Carter and offered to help Americans taking revenge on the Soviet Union for Vietnam’s loss. That is how Operation Cyclone started. Jimmy Carter told NSA Zbigniew Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance that it was vital to “repair our relationships with Pakistan”.
NSA Zbigniew Brzezinski reached Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Afghanistan in 1979. There, Brzezinski addressed a big gathering of Mujaheedins and told them that the whole of Afghanistan is their land and their fight is for the good of their future. They must fight it and grab the power of Afghanistan. The US allotted a huge recurring fund for them and started supplying Arms, Ammunition and other required logistics for them to fight the Soviets. Pakistan and UAE helped the US in this. The money was routed through Pakistan. Later on, Afghanistan went into a Civil War and the Taliban was born among the Mujaheedins who were fighting with the help of the US. Pakistan used this money and weapons to train militants against India for its K2 mission. That is why militancy and insurgency in Punjab, India increased in the 1980s. Pakistan made use of American funds to train militants to fight the Soviets and India in the PoK region. they wanted to kill two birds with one stone. The Americans couldn’t fly directly into Afghanistan. Pakistan provided the land route. The US shipments used to arrive at Pakistan’s ports and then they used to be supplied to the mujahideen through Pakistan’s lands. Pakistani Army and ISI even created many rebel groups in Afghanistan. They recruited many mujahids from all over the world, especially from Islamic countries. This is when militancy, terror turned into a business. Basically, Pakistan became a broker of the US during the Afghan-Soviet war. This went on for almost 10 years. The Soviet-Afghan war ended in 1989. The Soviet Union pulled back its troops and abandoned the mission in Afghanistan. The mujahideen fighters had no Soviet forces to fight with. They were fighting their own people with a different ideology. That also meant Pakistan’s terror business was coming to an end. Since the Soviet-Afghan war came to an end, the United States would stop funding Pakistan. If there is no conflict how will Pakistan get funding from the United States? After all, Pakistan succeeded in turning militancy terror into a business. That is when Al-Qaeda emerged in 1988. so it was, basically, a creation of the Pakistani Army. Pakistani Army and ISI trained Al-Qaeda which consisted of mujahideen fighters who fought in the Soviet-Afghan war, making Osama Bin Laden their head. Pakistani Army had brainwashed these mujahideen fighters into believing that now they have to fight the corrupt Islamic leaders and the United States presence in an Islamic land. Pakistani army created the Taliban also in 1994.
Al-Qaeda started expanding in African countries. 1998 US Embassy Attacks in Kenya and Tanzania was done by them. Finally, when the 9/11 attack happened, the United States declared war on terror by attacking the Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. Thus, Pakistan succeeded again to bring the Americans back to Afghanistan after 1989. It was way better this time. Last time America indirectly entered Afghanistan but this time they sent Boots on the Ground. More money started flowing through Pakistan.
Parvez Musharaf has openly admitted that the Pakistani Army and ISI have trained the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. He has also admitted that Haqqani and Osama Bin Laden were heroes of Pakistan and the CIA. CIA, because they fought against the Soviets on behalf of the Americans funded by the CIA. After the late 90s, these same heroes became villains for the CIA.
Pakistan even took Saddam Hussain’s fall in Iraq as an opportunity and created Al-Qaeda of Iraq which later went on to become the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) and then it formed a group named ISIS.
It was the Pakistani Army and ISI who created Lashkar-e-Tayaba, Jaish-e- Muhammad. These organizations are nothing but affiliates of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, all their leaders have Soviet-Afghan war experience. Pakistan is the creator and founding father of all this but even the United States also are to be blamed for all this mess. Terrorism is a creation of both Pakistan as well as the indirect involvement of the West. No one says and admits it openly but ultimately this is the truth.
The Americans did not come to Afghanistan to finish terrorism. They did kill Osama Bin Laden but they did not finish terrorism. They had some other agenda. The CIA know who trained and created the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Americans very well know it’s Pakistan and they were still taking Pakistan’s help giving them aid technology arms and ammunition. Bill Clinton, George Bush, Obama during their presidency have signed deals and given aid to Pakistan. Only Trump was different. Trump was better for America as well as for India.
The idea of withdrawing from Afghanistan started during the time of Barack Obama in 2015. The Obama administration was the first to send a representative to meet with the Taliban leaders and the Afghan government. That meeting was held in Merrie in Pakistan. The meeting was not successful. Later president Donald Trump also appointed a special envoy for Afghanistan to directly negotiate with the Taliban.
The 2020 US and the Taliban peace deal during Trump’s presidency includes these points :
- Stop the violence and reduce hostilities against foreign troops
- To join intra-afghan peace talks
- Cut all ties with foreign terrorist groups
The US pledged to
- Withdraw all its troops
- Ask the Afghan Government to release thousands of Taliban prisoners.
Though the US was talking to the Taliban like an elder brother, the US knows, we all know, that the Taliban will not follow the American instructions. Now that the US is leaving and the Taliban is advancing Pakistan is again in the spotlight. Pakistan thinks that 20-30 years back they had trained and created Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. So somehow, if the Taliban takes over Afghanistan then it will serve Pakistan’s interest. The Taliban is aware of Pakistan’s double standards. After the 9/11 attacks, Pakistan played a double game. On one hand, Pakistan gave shelter to the Taliban leaders and on the other hand, they were also taking money from the Americans to facilitate them kill the Taliban. So, TTP will continue to hit Pakistani forces in future. Moreover, the Taliban does not recognize the Durand Line, not just the Talibanis, the entire Afghan population and even the Afghan Government does not recognize the Durand Line.
Khaibar Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan consists of Pashtuns. Pashtuns are afghan people. The Talibans are all Pashtuns, they speak Pashto. Pashtun nationalism is very much deep-rooted in them. The whole border issue between Pakistan and Afghanistan regarding Durand Line is based on Pashtun nationalism. Pakistani Armed Forces and bureaucracies are filled with Pashtuns. Taliban will not serve Pakistan’s interests. Today’s Taliban is no longer the same as in 1994. If the Taliban stays in Afghanistan, they will also target border areas in Pakistan’s Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. There will be a massive payback to the Pakistani establishments by the Taliban or whosoever gains final power in Afghanistan.
China has a very small border lying with Afghanistan. China is not interested in making an enemy out of the Taliban. China doesn’t need Pakistan’s help, they have direct access to Afghanistan. China can use Pakistan as a broker for initial contact but no dealing will be made through them. China needs to be at par with the Taliban because of its Uyghur Muslims and their fight with the Chinese. The ETIM can only be suppressed easily by the Taliban. China’s Belt and Road initiative is also a very vital thought point for China regarding the Taliban.
India dealt with the Taliban during the 80s and 90s. Few mujahideen commanders maintained covert ties with the Indian intelligence agency even during the Soviet era. Under Narasimha Rao’s leadership, India started building a strong relationship with the mujahideen leaders and other Afghan War Lords. But this time, it will be focused on Kashmir and drugs. India would want that the Taliban does not interfere in these areas.
The US desperately want to get out of this blunder. They would want to keep unrest and chaos in this region. They know that China India Pakistan and the Taliban will fight and conspire against each other.
But one thing the World should keep in mind is that Pakistan has some Nuclear Weapons. If those fall into the hands of the Taliban then no politics or diplomacy will work. The Sharia wanting barbarians will try to start from scratch with those weapons. They must be stopped at any cost by the World Community without being nearsighted.
