Editorial

Fleeing the sinking ship?

Skeddadle' is a good word to describe how US policy is evolving in Afghanistan. It means hasty or precipitate flight, to retreat or retire hastily, to run away. And that is precisely what President Barack Obama seems to have set in motion as US military commanders in that country start to implement the predictable but regrettable drawdown of their forces. It is impossible not to suspect that this is the thin end of the wedge and that the combined pressures of a faltering economy and fears of the outcome of the next US presidential election will persuade Obama to up the tempo of withdrawal, hastening the end of the current Afghan regime and paving the way for the return to power of primitive barbarian groups in the shape of the Taliban.

One of the worst kept secrets of the Afghan war is how the US (and the British) have maintained contact with leaders of the former Taliban regime, safely and comfortably housed in the Pakistani city of Quetta. As the US plans its withdrawal, those contacts — and now all but formal negotiations — have been allowed to emerge into the open.
This may not be the place to comment on what brought the Americans to Afghanistan a decade ago. Suffice to say that after the atrocities of 9/11 perpetrated in US cities by al-Qa'eda, some form of retribution to make al-Qa'eda pay for its crimes was inevitable. When Afghanistan's Taliban government, headed by Mullah Omar, refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, an American-led invasion of the country became a racing certainty.

But with war comes responsibility. So, although bin Laden himself has been killed — along with many of his senior commanders — that does not mean the Americans should inevitably pull back their troops without so much as a backward glance at the smouldering mess that is today's Afghanistan.

Many Americans would argue that the Afghans themselves are responsible for the mess because they tolerated the extremist policies of the Taliban, including their decision to host the likes of bin Laden and his murderous henchmen. That, however, is too facile an argument. The Taliban are nothing less than a by-product of the US decision in 1979 to covertly challenge the Soviet forces that were sent to Afghanistan to prop up the regime of Babrak Karmal. Hundreds of billions of US government dollars were subsequently poured into neighbouring Pakistan to build up an opposition force made up of tribal chiefs, Islamic leaders and resistance fighters (including bin Laden) from every corner of the Muslim world.

The vacuum that followed after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the withdrawal of Moscow's troops created a fertile breeding ground for the likes of the Taliban to take over. Backed by the Pakistani military establishment, which had long supported him with the active encouragement of Washington, Mullah Omar and the rest of the Taliban mafia installed themselves in Kabul as the new government of Afghanistan.

Public memories are often all too short when it comes to past horrors. But it is worth recalling the nature of Taliban rule during Mullah Omar's reign of terror, including officially sanctioned beatings, torture, rape and executions of anyone who challenged the Taliban and their notion of public good.

The closure of girls' schools was the least of the horrors the Afghans had to endure during those dark days. A disproportionate number of women also died needlessly, simply because of Taliban rules that male doctors should avoid treating female patients. Where that was unavoidable, male doctors had to observe Taliban rules of conduct by examining their female patients without touching them in their fully clothed 'Islamic' apparel.

Likewise the treatment of so-called 'sexual deviants'. In 2001, just before the US sent in their forces, Taliban-backed mullahs argued for months about whether gay men should be pushed off a cliff top, forced to jump from a high building, or else compelled to lie in a hole in the ground while a wall was knocked down on them.  Mullah Omar finally decreed that a bulldozer should be used to crush their bodies as well.

As the US and its allies embark on their secret negotiations with the Taliban, they should ask themselves how long before the return of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice? How long before the return of Taliban-sanctioned concentration camps? How long before the onset of another humanitarian disaster brought about by the disastrous polices of the West?

As Tomasek Valasek of the Centre for European Reform in London recently commented, 'I don't see how this ends in anything other than a run to the exit. What will be important is what happens in two or three years from now. If Obama gets re-elected, and it all goes wrong, and Kabul has turned into another Mogadishu — then he would clearly have some explaining to do.'

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