Usually, when a scandal happens, there should be new measures taken to compensate for that. The recent incidents in Kabul and Kandahar and the ongoing insurgent activities in many other provinces of the country remain a food for thought. These do convince Afghan people to believe that something is going wrong and needs to be fixed before the situation runs completely out of control. These occurrences in the tenth year of the campaign against the terrorists and Taliban insurgents are really thought-provoking. The trend is evidently negative and needs to be reversed.

The Kandahar prison break and assault on Ministry of Defense in the capital have raised doubts about the capacity of the Afghan national security forces and control system within these forces. They also have given rise to concern about the government's ongoing reconciliation efforts, which are tantamount to flogging a dead horse. The embarrassing brazen attacks and release operations by the militants in the presence of international forces also cast doubt on the effectiveness of the ongoing trumpeted ratcheted-up campaign against the militants and insurgents in the country.

These ongoing scandals require the government and international forces to take a stock and reconsider the counter-insurgency efforts and the reconciliation plan, which has just emboldened the lunatic fringes to resume their attempts for a real comeback. More importantly, the surprising incidents have led to Afghan people losing their trust in government and security forces and their ability to protect the citizens. So it must be unbearable for the government and international community to lose both the control over situation and the capital, which is Afghan trust. If they do not work out to regain the public trust and restore their control over the situation, they would be pursuing a self-defeating effort, something that will go up in smoke.

Afghan people are witness to a stubborn enemy, a situation that is running out of control, an ineffective government plagued with corruption and a hasty international partner that pursues an ineffective counter-insurgency strategy. All these make a terrible situation facing Afghan people and their country. In order to turn around the situation, all those above-mentioned factors need to be reconsidered.