Our country has long been the horse race ground of political game being shot in the region and our leaders and ruling parties instead of taking intelligent initiatives for solutions of the dilemmas have been blaming the enemies of religion, foreigners and neighboring countries for the phenomenon being experienced throughout the history.
The drama of great game of politics being filmed in Afghanistan for decades is mystifying for most of the viewers. In fact, politics itself is a scene with blurred quality on the screen that no one can easily figure out the main point behind the scene.
Political game is the same as a business and film industry game that before getting on the truck, the entrepreneur of a business defines the target markets and film industry before heading to invest for shooting the scenes defines its target recipients of the movie that whom for the movie should be filmed and in which markets should it be released. Simultaneously, politics is a type of business that some very main figures and masterminds behind the screens make billions by regulating the business. The same as manual business, political businesses require target markets in order to remain on the truck. Ending the political game means to put an end to a fast growing business with billions of net profits.
It is for decades that poor Afghan people have been living in detention. Every minute of life in Afghanistan is being passed with fear of death and hope for change. Since the Soviet invasion in the region, there have been mainly three political types of business targeting to victimize Afghan society: Islamic Radicalism, Socialism and Nationalism.
Today's human tragedy in Afghanistan is the result of imposing these three political ideologies in the society. The nationalists have long been challenging to fashion a Western nation state in a country consisting of various ethnics groups distinct from each other by their linguistic and cultural features.
The socialists have been struggling to enforce a secular ideology in society where its citizens are well known of their strong commitment to Islam, the constitution which is much different than that of secular believes and ideologies; the Muslim radicals including Mujahidin and Taliban who have been trying to shape a pure Islamic society. But the poor people of Afghanistan are lost in ideological conflicts and have gotten puzzled that whose music to dance with, the ideological war instead of gifting the society with a better condition has led the country to the worst destruction.
The invasion of US led army in the region and disappearance of Taliban from the screen for a period of time had created hope and life expectancy for the people of Afghanistan. The country was evacuated during the Taliban regime, but the US coalition army invasion encouraged many people to return back to country and develop different sorts of business firms. Since the establishment of transitional government in early 2002 up to now that we are enjoying the second phase of a rational democratic government; there have been huge development initiations.
Afghan government with cooperation of its international alliances has put forward dozens of large infrastructure projects along challenging the security issues. But after a decade of war costing billions of dollars and thousands of lives including civilians and army men, US government declares the possibility of failure in successful accomplishment of ongoing infrastructure projects. The statement indicates a war with no consequences of admirable achievements.
US led army launched attacks on Afghanistan under Bush's administration as a justification of war against terrorism in early 2002. US army along with the cooperation of Northern Alliance coped to take over the country within a month and threw out the regime of Taliban. But the story did not end here, in order to expand war against terrorists, Bush administration launched attacks on Iraq either at the same time so as to target Al-Qaeda network based in there. It was believed that Saddam Hussain heading a Sunni extremist government in Iraq has sheltered the leading mastermind of international terrorists.
It was actually difficult for US government and international community to finance and properly manage the war properly that paved the way for Taliban to reemerge on the screen in early 2004. They appeared even more powerful than ever before and kept on challenging Afghan national and international combat troops in the region.
Financing the motto of "war against terrorism" was getting too expensive and over toleration for the people of America. As a result in 2008 presidential election Barrack Obama with slogan of "CHANGE" and promising the nation to end up the war in Afghanistan and Iraq led him the winner of election. As Obama took over the administration of US government, he abandoned the "war on terror" rhetoric focusing more on reanalyzing the war strategies of Bush administration and narrowing it down to the war on Iraq and Afghanistan only. Finally he declared the "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq and now it is time to call troops back home and add more troops in Afghanistan for better consequences of a decade war on terror. He announced the good news of full military withdrawal from Iraq in October 2011.
Since the withdrawal of military from Iraq, America and the international community got more focused on Afghanistan. They promised Afghan government of providing exhaustive capacity building trainings to Afghan National Security Forces so as to get them prepared for handling the security issues by post 2014. Right now, the Afghan National Army is already taking the lead in the regions with around 75% of the population with U.S. and NATO troops acting as a support.
However, this does not include most of the insecure and challenging southern and eastern zones where most of the militants are homed and the Afghan forces are supposed to take over the responsibilities by the next summer. But the nation is still doubtful on their capabilities of being able to face the security challenges in these zones.
Despite significant efforts, the ANSF's level of competence remains in question. It lacks many of the support functions needed for war fighting. They will tactically and financially remain dependent on international forces and international community aids. Though Washington has promised a residual of U.S. troops that will stay in Afghanistan to train and advise Afghan security forces in the next ten years of strategic agreement duration.
But how long should our economy and national forces be dependent on international community pledges? Lack of assurance and current reemergence of insurgent extremists add question marks on a decade of war strategy of U.S.A and International Community. Despite being and reporting so positively of their achievements during the last decade of war, Afghanistan is still considered to be vulnerable. There are possibilities of slipping back to a civil war and save haven for international terrorists.
As President Obama had promised to his nation during his campaign of 2008 election, America has scheduled to get its army out of the battle ground by the end of 2014. But the challenges in Afghanistan still remain the same. Taliban and Al-Qaeda are still considered a great warning for Afghanistan and poor Afghan civilians are supposed to host another era of war and keep on waiting for a change, dream for peace and live in fear.