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Afghanistan is known as the ‘Graveyard of Empires’

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afghan conflict, afghan war, war, conflict, afghanistan, war conflict, afghan, taliban

Tens of thousands of people have tried to flee Afghanistan to escape the hardline Islamist rule expected under the Taliban or fearing direct retribution for siding with the US-backed government that ruled for the past two decades. The Taliban led a pariah regime from 1996-2001, infamous for a brutal rule in which girls could not go to school and people were stoned to death.

Afghanistan suffers from one of the most prolonged humanitarian crises in the world. 2016, also witnessed some of the worst fightings since the US-led intervention in October 2001, 646,698 persons were internally displaced due to conflict, compared to 70,000 in 2010; this added to the roughly one million conflict-displaced in previous years. 2016 also saw one million Afghan refugees and migrants forced to return home from Pakistan and Iran.

More broadly, both Kabul and the humanitarian community, including UN agencies, estimate that millions of people, or almost one-third of Afghanistan’s population will be in need of humanitarian assistance. The overall humanitarian crisis is putting enormous pressure on Afghanistan’s already stretched public services and infrastructure, especially in urban centres, where 70-80 per cent of internally displaced and returning refugees tend to settle; most are jobless or under-employed, with little or no access to health care or education.

Overnight the Afghan government is overthrown by the Taliban. It is a huge crisis whose effects are felt all over the world. Many superpower countries enter Afghanistan but return after humiliating themselves. The Britishers came in the 19th century. They had to bear a very humiliating defeat. In the 20th century, the Soviet Union came to Afghanistan returned after 9 years with a lot of embarrassment. In the 21st century, the USA came to Afghanistan and is now returning in shame.

The Afghan people are brave and talented; it is just unfortunate that they have been caught up in conflicts for the last 40 years. The Taliban are Afghanistan’s deteriorate. They are the bottom-of-the-barrel, lowest-low of Afghan society who took over control after most of the sensible/ educated/ wealthy Afghans fled the war-torn nation. The Taliban are uneducated, deeply religious, and regressive in thinking.

What makes this interesting is the fact that the US military recruits most of their enlisted personnel from small-town America where lots of desperate/poor/white trash type of people live and they get shipped to war zones such as Afghanistan where they engage in combat. It’s a war fought basically by the Taliban of one nation versus the Taliban of another.

‘Talib’ in the Pashto language means ‘student’. So, Taliban literally means ‘students’ or a group of students. Taliban are a Tribal Muslim student’s organisation with rational militancy for freedom/self-determination, based on Islamic freedom of choice, are not at all nation of passionate exterminators’ colonial cowboys murdering Asian population. They are educated in madrasa.

It was initially a movement started by Mullar Omar, a jihadi during the Mujahideen war against the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. Afghanistan, after the Soviet troops left, was in a pathetic situation. There was no stable Government and so many warlords rose during the Mujahideen because of the ISI and the CIA’s support.

After the war, no one cared for Afghanistan. US’s only goal was to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan, so used the ISI and armed the anti-Soviet people & revolutionists of Afghan. Mullah Omar was one such guy who fought against the Soviets.

Omar started this movement named ‘Taliban’ soon after he became famous, and he utilized this fame to capture more and more provinces and someday entire Afghanistan. Their ultimate goal was to give Afghanistan a stable Government. But as they gained more power, Islamic extremism haunted them and their aim now became to implement radical Islam in the whole country.

Osama’s and Omar’s views of Islam and both their goals and interests were similar. That is why they became very close friends and the Taliban got connected to Al-Qaeda. After the 9/11 attacks, Osama was under the Taliban’s protection and they never agreed to hand him over to the US despite the entire world’s and the ISI’s pressure as well.

The US coalition lost because while they were welcomed as liberators in 2001, they stayed too long and became perceived as occupiers. The only reason young Afghan men had for joining the Afghan army was that they had no jobs, and they would get food, room and board and a small salary which they could share with their family by joining the Afghan army.

The US government spent billions in Afghanistan, but most of that money was likely siphoned off to private bank accounts and did not make it is way too ordinary Afghans. I am sure that there will be more than a few pro-American Afghans who will retire to very nice homes in Qatar with their families after the fall of Kabul.

One more reason it is difficult to defeat the Taliban is that they do not have a dread of funds. Billions of dollars of aid money flowing into Afghanistan for developmental projects. The contractors have to pay a portion of their profit as a ransom to the Taliban for not blowing up their project halfway, the second source of income is Opium. Afghanistan is the biggest exporter of opium.

The majority of their commanders, militants are present in Afghanistan, 90% control the entire Afghanistan. From crimes like denying women their basic rights and education, blowing up ancient artefacts, killing dozens of innocent men, women and children, destabilizing entire nations and robbing millions of their right to live peacefully, the Taliban have shown the world that they are not the type of people that we should show any mercy upon, regardless of the circumstances.


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Vaidehi Taman
Vaidehi Tamanhttps://authorvaidehi.com
Vaidehi Taman an Accredited Journalist from Maharashtra is bestowed with three Honourary Doctorate in Journalism. Vaidehi has been an active journalist for the past 21 years, and is also the founding editor of an English daily tabloid – Afternoon Voice, a Marathi web portal – Mumbai Manoos, and The Democracy digital video news portal is her brain child. Vaidehi has three books in her name, "Sikhism vs Sickism", "Life Beyond Complications" and "Vedanti". She is an EC Council Certified Ethical Hacker, OSCP offensive securities, Certified Security Analyst and Licensed Penetration Tester that caters to her freelance jobs.
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