Afghan War to Continue

The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have always been very different wars. Immediately following 9/11 the US and UK (later joined by NATO and other allies) invaded Afghanistan to drive out the Al-Qaeda supporting Taliban. The war had strong international support, even amongst those countries who did not participate. Fast forward two years and the Iraq War is underway, but unlike Afghanistan it is much more contentious. The reason Britain and American want to go to war in Iraq is based on evidence that the country is trying to get weapons of mass destruction. That evidence was called into question by the international community which is unsure as to the authenticity of the evidence. Soon after the invasion, it is discovered that Iraq didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction and that most of the ‘evidence’ was simply false.

Needless to say the war based on a lie rapidly became unpopular and eventually all allied troops left Iraq by 2012. On the other hand Afghanistan is still ongoing and it looks like there will be a Western presence in Afghanistan for at least another decade. NBC News managed to get hold of a draft document of an agreement between the American and Afghan governments whereby troops would continue to reside inside the country until at least 2024! Although the war will officially end next year it will not be the end of a Western presence in Afghanistan. 

Change is Coming to Afghanistan

Afghanistan is changing, and hopefully for the better. Yesterday two rather important events happened, the ceremonial hanging over of the control of Afghanistan's security from NATO to Afghan forces and the revelation that the US will have direct talks with the Taliban. I am delighted with this news, I feel that it's only negotiations that will bring about peace. If the British government had never negotiated with the IRA, where would Northern Ireland be? It may not seem right to negotiate with terrorists but it saves lives. You also have to remember that this is a big step for the Taliban too, they hate us as much as we hate them. Unfortunately the Afghan government is not too happy as they have not been invited to the talks. Understandably angry the Afghan government has halted current security negotiations with America. Nonetheless, control of Afghan security has already been handed over from NATO.

The statements made by both sides gave me some hope, the White House said that the talks are the "first step on a long road to peace." In a press conference, Mohammad Sohail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesperson said the following:

"We must have good relations with all countries of the world."

I fear that talks may not work but we must hope that they will. If Afghanistan can move forward then there's hope for every troubled spot in the world.

Terrorism

Terrorism did not slow down in 2012 unfortunately, thousands of people were killed across the globe in terrorist atrocities. Yet most of those attacks took place in just a handful of countries:

Country	Attacks*	Dead
Iraq	55	1,676
Afghanistan	35	543
Nigeria	21	511
Pakistan	30	425
Yemen	14	328
Somalia	11	78
Russia	9	51
Kenya	8	47
Colombia	5	31
China	2	26

*Co-ordinated attacks that take place on one day are counted as one attack.

Looking at this rather horrifying table you can see that Iraq had the worst year of any country. Terrorists killed over three times as many people as in Afghanistan, the second worst affected country. One of the most prominent terrorist attacks of the year was not in Iraq or Afghanistan, but Pakistan; the shooting of 15 year old Malala Yousafzai. Thankfully Malala survived and is recovering well in a British hospital. There were protests all across Pakistan against the assassination attempt and 50 Islamic clerics issued a fatwā against the perpetrators. Despite this the Taliban claim they still want to kill her and her father. So what was her ‘crime’? Trying to get young girls into education in Pakistan, this infuriated the Taliban who are anti-education especially when it comes to women. As Malala rose to fame in Pakistan, the Taliban increasingly sent death threats to her home and on the internet. But she continued in her struggle, in 2011 Desmond Tutu nominated her for the International Children’s Peace Prize and later won Pakistan’s first National Youth Prize. Time magazine recently selected her as the runner up of Time Magazine’s person of the year.

There was some pleasant news on the terrorist front, Anders Breivik, was finally sentenced to Prison for this mass shooting and bombing in July 2011.  There is finally closure for the families of the 77 killed and those that were on the island of Utøya on that fateful day.

Up until November 2012, Northern Ireland was relatively quiet on the terrorism front, apart from the odd bomb scare. Then on the 1^st of November a prison officer was shot dead. Then trouble began after Belfast City Council voted to fly the Union flag on certain days of the year. That seriously upset some unionists who for the past few weeks have been causing chaos across Northern Ireland, but particularly in Belfast.

Terrorism is something that will likely always exist, it will never go away but certain places such as the Basque region, Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka all prove that things can be done to improve the situation, to show the terrorists that talking produces better results. The West should learn from these if it ever wants to truly ‘defeat the Taliban’.

Malala Yousafzai's page in Time Magazine

2000th American Serviceman Dies

Today marks a new milestone in the war in Afghanistan.  Following an attack on a remote army base, the number of American causalities rises to 2000. If Obama wins re-election in November the war will finally come to a close in 2014. Ending the war in Afghanistan is a popular one, with the majority of Americans believing that the war should end on or before the 2014 deadline. This is a view held by every section of society, even by the Republicans! Unfortunately if Mitt Romney wins, then the war has no end; he has already declared his opposition to the 2014 deadline and even says that it was a ‘shame’ that Obama ended the war in Iraq.

If you’ve been paying attention to American politics you will notice a refusal to talk about foreign policy on the Republican side. Particularly when it comes to the war in Afghanistan, Romney was blasted for failing to mention the war when he accepted the Republican nomination for president in Tampa, Florida. Gallup also notes that the Democrats are now more trusted on foreign policy than the Republicans, it’s ironic that four years ago Obama was seen as the weaker candidate on foreign policy. Yet as he presided over the killing of Bin Laden, the end of the Iraq war, the decimation of Al-Qaeda and the Arab Spring it is now viewed as a strong point.

The war will not end for two more years. Minimum. There will be more deaths and more sacrifice, for many Americans, the sooner the war ends, the better. 

More Taliban Attacks

The Taliban have struck across Afghanistan today in co-ordinated attacks. The majority of the fighting took place in Kabul, here the Taliban targeted embassies, including the British and German embassies as well as NATO headquarters and the Afghan parliament. The Taliban claim that this is the beginning of their 'Spring Offensive', if so then maybe they should call off the rest of any planned attacks. The attacks were largely unsuccessful as there were few casualties on the defending side. Also important is the fact that it wasn't NATO soldiers who primarily fought off the Taliban, but Afghan soldiers and police. After many stories of Afghan soldiers turning on the people who were training them and killed NATO officers, it is a welcome relief. It gives us some hope that the lives of allied servicemen were not wasted and that Afghanistan will not return to the failed state it once was.

Anger over Afghan Civilian Shooting

Anger is mounting in Afghanistan over the shooting dead of 16 innocent civilians by an American soldier. The attack was completely unprovoked, the soldier was not in a hostile situation and did not have any reason to commit the crimes, it was a barbaric attack and has damaged US-Afghan relations terribly. The US is still trying to recover from the leaked footage of American soldiers peeing on corpses and the (accidental) burning of copies of the Koran. It is sad when any human being dies, but this could have very bad implications for the West. I suspect that over the next few days there will be huge protests in Afghanistan and there will be people killed as a result of the murders, including Americans.

If America wants to try and redeem itself in the eyes of the Afghans they should hand him over the Afghans to be tried under their laws. If they decide not to hand him to the Afghans, they should give him the maximum sentence he can receive and make sure he never returns to the US army.

Yet the ramifications of the attack will be longer than the protests that will ensue over the next few days. This type of attack is great for Al Qaeda, many people who were on the borderline of joining/supporting them could be pushed into siding with Al Qaeda, more insurgents means more troops killed in Afghanistan and the higher chance of an attack on civilians back in the west.

I don’t know why this soldier did what he did, but it was insanely stupid if it was some “revenge attack” for crimes committed by an Afghan or Al Qaeda as it will simply result in more western deaths. People need to learn that the only way to fight hate, war and insurgency successfully is through kindness and investment. After many years of fighting in Northern Ireland, it was only when the government reached out the hand of friendship to the IRA and later invested in Northern Ireland did the Troubles end. The same can happen in Afghanistan too, the West must invest in peaceful areas to show that the West is not there to destroy but to re-build a once great nation.