Afghanistan: A failed mission!

The US occupation of Afghanistan had three primary objectives:

1. Dismantle the Al-Qaeda network
2. Oust the Taliban regime
3. Establish modern-day democratic regime in Afghanistan

A year ahead of partial and two years ahead of complete withdrawal from Afghanistan, has the decade plus Occupation achieved its objectives?

The Al-Qaeda as an organization is still alive and is expanding into hither-to-virgin territories including Africa. This is primarily because Al-Qaeda is an ideology rather than an organization. It has a decentralized and distributed structure whose existence could easily be hidden behind a fake smile by a torch bearer, who can light the deadly cannon (or himself) with dexterity at appropriate time. Wrapped in religious diktats, the al-Qaeda ideology is like a Fast Moving Consumer Good: cheap and instantly consumable.

The point is, when you are fighting an idea and you kill a personification of idea--its bearer--chances are more that the idea assumes a hydra-headed existence. It refuses to die down and develops new sparks, fumes and fires. History is a testimony to this phenomenon.

Thus, dumping Osama’s body in the sea spawns thousand other Osamas.

The Taliban has been ousted and if reports are anything to go by, is being brought back to the throne by those who ousted it in the first place. It is branded political solution to Afghan problem. This mutation is puzzling; and possibly lethal. It is like going back in time and killing your own grandfather. It is identical to providing a nursery for future 9/11 terrorist-trainees on a silver platter.

Just imagine; can you ever expect Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban supremo and the al-Qaeda ideologue, or for that matter any of his clones, to comply with modern-day democracy? Will he support stringent Shariah law or will he be supporting a secular Afghanistan? Will he thank America for having brought Talban back into the government or will he curse America for ousting Taliban in the first place?

If one can answer these questions truthfully and with justice, it would effectively kill the notion that the second objective has been achieved.

If Taliban ever becomes a part of the Afghan political solution, I would think that the third objective too would fail.

Now, can the Occupation retreat with heads held high and resounding boots thumping the earthen land in assurance?

Iraq!