Afghanistan .... Talibanistan....Kabrastan........

After watching the events unfolding from Taliban taking over Kabul to Government formation by the Afghan war lords on the same day of the 20th Anniversary of 9/11, ironically, clock has gone back full circle to the same position as on 9th Sep 2001 with the Taliban Terrorists ruling Afghanistan and US Forces back in the barracks remembering the loss of nearly 3000 US citizens.

Trying to understand this gigantic event in the middle east affecting entire Asia has made me to revisit the events of the past two decades after the 9/11 attack on the US soil, which was the only such event after the Pearl Harbor bombing. Since then, we have four US presidents taking the "Global war on Terror" narrative to the entire world, bombing the Tora Bora caves, killing many Afghan citizens, funding the governments in Kabul, all in the name of bringing democracy to Afghanistan, has yielded less than anticipated. Today we neither have a democratically elected government leading Afghanistan nor Terrorism fully decimated as was promised to the world for two decades.

According to Joe Biden, who is in charge of things from Jan 2021, there was no other way for the US to exit from Afghanistan, without having trouble and made clear, this was inevitable as per his understanding and blamed his predecessor for the failures of his chaotic withdrawal process. President Obama could have claimed the US victory and left Afghanistan after elimination of Osama Bin Laden, the key master mind of the 9/11 attacks, in a military operation executed in Pakistan, that did not happen, but US continued supporting Pakistan as part of war on global terror operations, this has resulted in Pakistan taking advantage of global support far too long and allowed the Taliban leaders to regroup and trained them with military warfare in various cities in Pakistan. Both UN and global powers had a blind spot for such nefarious activities, even though India has raised these issues in various forums for Global action against Pakistan.

It is very clear now that the US thinktanks did not clearly understand the ground situation and believed the partners in crime, the Pakistan military leaders. During the two decades followed after 9/11, Pakistan not only supported Al-Qaeda, Taliban and Mujahedeen groups by giving them training, funding and providing arms, all taken from the US and EU countries in the name of humanitarian support. US leadership was and is never serious about tackling the real issue of Global terrorism by controlling the clandestine support of Pakistani ISI to these terrorist elements, instead ignored any proof of such involvement. With UN and International organizations not caring for the reality, Pakistan was given a free pass for creating and supporting the radical extremists who are brainwashed with religious identity.

Even now, when Taliban has taken over Afghanistan, it is the Pakistan's ISI chief, Faiz Hameed, who landed in Kabul before the government formation and ensured the Haqqani group leaders were at the helm of the affairs of the new ruling establishment, sidelining the earlier names prominent in the intel reports and media discussions. Pakistan's military involvement in attacking the Panjshir resistance movement led by Ahmed Massoud and Amrullah Saleh is very much evident with more and more details of the Pakistan soldiers are out in the news media across the world, this not only proves the point that US is not interested or effective in handling the situation again and left it to the rouge elements of Pakistan to trample the rights of the religious minorities and women. The new ruling team of Taliban has only men with no women representation in any form, also did not give any or enough representation of the minorities from Afghanistan, the lone Tajik and Uzbek representatives are who lived their entire life in Pakistan and got trained by the ISI and will only serve their masters in Rawalpindi GHQ.

Post US and NATO forces withdrawal from Afghanistan in such haste and chaotic manner, the middle east region which also has a critical geo-strategic location has again become the playground for these extremist and terrorist groups and turned a country with majority of the population born post 9/11, seen a western lifestyle and some level of peace and democracy it into Talibanistan. Having proposed BELT and Road initiative planned route from Afghanistan to middle east to Europe and also eyeing the rate earth minerals in the region, China is the second nation after Pakistan who have started diplomatic engagement by recognizing the Taliban regime and also had senior leader level talks in Beijing and offered humanitarian support to Talibanistan.  

With a looming drought condition and no real economic activity happening in the new Talibanistan an Islamic emirate, the citizens are left high and dry with choices of either to become refugees in other countries willing to take them or join the ranks and spread the radical extremism. In both cases, I do not see any progress in the living conditions, which only means the land will soon become a Kabrastan (place for the dead). With no big/rich nations taking any interest in such a catastrophic event which may impact all the continents with the refugee population at their borders are making a blunder again. Hope for some sane voices take some serious actions and make things right again.