Monday, June 26, 2006

Afghan Meltdown

There is an awful feeling that everything is lurching downward," said a Western diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "Nearly five years on, there is no rule of law, no accountability. The Afghans know it is all a charade, and they see us as not only complicit but actively involved. You cannot fight a terror war and build a weak state at the same time, and it was a terrible mistake to think we could." (Washington Post)

The Afghans know it is all a charade.

What was the West thinking? That a country that had been in a civil war for 25 years was going to be easy to fix.

Just because people are illiterate doesn’t mean they are stupid.

The Americans got their revenge for 9/11 by bombing the hell out of the place. And once they got that out of their systems, they went on to other, even greater, more exciting adventures, leaving NATO to clean up, and we seem to be doing a really crappy job of that.

Did it not become obvious within months, or even weeks, that this was not a culture like ours and that you couldn’t transform this country into anything resembling a Western democracy. And why would you? Why exactly do we feel we need to transform Afghanistan?

When the national sport is batting around a headless goat, well, that should’ve been our first clue.

And now the West’s best boy, Karzai, is yipping and snarling at us. We know that he is all we’ve got, but I’m sure Washington is starting to groom someone less troublesome now. After all, there is a pipeline to be built and maintained. If Karzai, the oil company favorite, is going to start making "demands" of us, he can no longer be relied on to keep the faith. He has to be replaced by someone more interested in commerce and less interested in Afghanistan. The nerve of Karzai to talk back. He had been so obedient for so long. I guess he needed five years too, to see us as we are.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whats tragic is that, as you said, the same mistake is being repeated elsewhere. Are we surprised? When will the Americans realise that not everyone wants to run their country the same way they do? Really, is America really a country to model any other one on? Hardly

Nanuk of the North, older but no wiser said...

You are grouchy, must be lack of sleep.

I don't have that excuse. I'm just an old crank.

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm older than you (I think), and Im tired and I still have a cold! But apart from that, I'm not grouchy at all!!!!

Nanuk of the North, older but no wiser said...

Today when Condi Rice said to Karzai, We will continue to support you, my first thought was, you are screwed, Hamid my boy.

I'm at the point where I know everything the Bush administration says is a lie and they always do the opposite of what they assure everyone they are going to do. It disgusts me.