Kambojaric
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I honestly thought more highly of Ghani. He is proving to be even more of a dimwit than his predecessor. The Taliban are an internal movement and the day the political establishment sitting in Kabul understand this, they will have a chance of defeating the movement. Kunduz is 540 KM from the Khyber Pass and 65 KM from Panj (Tajikistan). This geographic positioning itself gives away the fact that the Taliban are not relying on cross border support from Pakistan to launch such bold attacks hundreds of kilometers away. Districts in red on the map below (from 2015) can be seen bordering countries like Uzbekistan and in close proximity to Iran and Turkmenistan. As per the Kabul governments logic, Pakistan must be supporting the Taliban in these districts by providing aid to them through Uzbekistan and Iran!
The reality is that the Afghan political establishment is beset by corrupt and nepotist officials who are sucking away the aid being thrown at them from Washington. The sad state of affairs of the Afghanistan army gives the whole situation away. As per a NATO report published this year:
"the Afghan military’s uniformed forces declined by 2,199 in the third quarter of 2016, leaving the army at 87 percent of its authorized military strength of about 170,000. Attrition in the military, caused by rising casualties, declining re-enlistments and desertions, was about 33 percent annually as of August, the report said — an increase from 28 percent a year earlier.
The American inspector general’s report also cited data showing that 33 of Afghanistan’s 400 districts were under Taliban control or influence, while 116 districts were contested, one of many indications of how much the conflict has spread."
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/world/asia/taliban-afghanistan-army.html
Of course blaming everything on the outsider is the easy way out, and I am afraid that is why Afghanistan is doomed to be the disaster that it is for the near future as well, unless the people rise up and say enough is enough. The establishment lack the will to to set their house in order, and instead fool their people into blaming everything on the outsider, further cementing their own positions in Kabul. Meanwhile ordinary Afghans starve and freeze in the cold.
A simple example of how little the political establishment sitting in Kabul care about the lives of citizens of their country is how they have thrown into jeopardy the well being of millions of Afghan refugees living in Pakistan. Afghan nationalism states that half of Pakistan belongs to Afghanistan and therefore the border between the two countries is illegitimate. Rather than trying to diffuse the situation due to domestic instability, Kabul has actively sought to inflame the issue, for example by allowing mobs to burn Pakistani flags on the border (http://www.dawn.com/news/1278788), clearly trying to provoke Pakistani soldier into firing onto Afghans. A sane Kabul would have realized the immense seriousness of the situation and what a negative impact hostility with Pakistan will have on millions of Afghans who earn their bread and butter in Pakistan. But no the political establishment could not give a rats a'ss about these refugees and care little whether they are deported and freeze to death in Afghanistan. All they care about is that their and their families positions are well entrenched in Kabul. As Afghan journalist Ahmad Reshad Jalali said "Corruption and Nepotism" are the biggest threats to Afghanistan. Unfortunately their seems to be little incentive for the Kabul government to do anything about these issues. Why would they, when everything can be blamed on Pakistan?
http://www.pajhwok.com/en/opinions/corruption-and-nepotism-biggest-threats-afghanistan
The reality is that the Afghan political establishment is beset by corrupt and nepotist officials who are sucking away the aid being thrown at them from Washington. The sad state of affairs of the Afghanistan army gives the whole situation away. As per a NATO report published this year:
"the Afghan military’s uniformed forces declined by 2,199 in the third quarter of 2016, leaving the army at 87 percent of its authorized military strength of about 170,000. Attrition in the military, caused by rising casualties, declining re-enlistments and desertions, was about 33 percent annually as of August, the report said — an increase from 28 percent a year earlier.
The American inspector general’s report also cited data showing that 33 of Afghanistan’s 400 districts were under Taliban control or influence, while 116 districts were contested, one of many indications of how much the conflict has spread."
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/world/asia/taliban-afghanistan-army.html
Of course blaming everything on the outsider is the easy way out, and I am afraid that is why Afghanistan is doomed to be the disaster that it is for the near future as well, unless the people rise up and say enough is enough. The establishment lack the will to to set their house in order, and instead fool their people into blaming everything on the outsider, further cementing their own positions in Kabul. Meanwhile ordinary Afghans starve and freeze in the cold.
A simple example of how little the political establishment sitting in Kabul care about the lives of citizens of their country is how they have thrown into jeopardy the well being of millions of Afghan refugees living in Pakistan. Afghan nationalism states that half of Pakistan belongs to Afghanistan and therefore the border between the two countries is illegitimate. Rather than trying to diffuse the situation due to domestic instability, Kabul has actively sought to inflame the issue, for example by allowing mobs to burn Pakistani flags on the border (http://www.dawn.com/news/1278788), clearly trying to provoke Pakistani soldier into firing onto Afghans. A sane Kabul would have realized the immense seriousness of the situation and what a negative impact hostility with Pakistan will have on millions of Afghans who earn their bread and butter in Pakistan. But no the political establishment could not give a rats a'ss about these refugees and care little whether they are deported and freeze to death in Afghanistan. All they care about is that their and their families positions are well entrenched in Kabul. As Afghan journalist Ahmad Reshad Jalali said "Corruption and Nepotism" are the biggest threats to Afghanistan. Unfortunately their seems to be little incentive for the Kabul government to do anything about these issues. Why would they, when everything can be blamed on Pakistan?
http://www.pajhwok.com/en/opinions/corruption-and-nepotism-biggest-threats-afghanistan
