Victory in Afghanistan
By Syed Kamran Hashmi
Westfield, IN
History always repeats itself. For winners, it begets victories and for losers it frequently generates more failures. The United States of America, a loser, therefore is doomed to be trampled down in Afghanistan. Its army will be trounced in the deserts and mountains of the Hindukush just as it was defeated in the forests of Vietnam. Its F-22 Raptors would kneel before the mysterious soldiers and its F-15 Eagles would prostrate before the suicide missions of the guerrilla Afghan warriors. On the other hand, victory would adorn the freedom fighters of south Kandahar as it did earlier against the invading forces of the Soviet Union. In 2014, when the US would eventually concede and begin retreating from Afghanistan, the good old times would return in favor of the Taliban at breakneck speed and in this manner, the cycle of history would be completed.
More or less, this is the Pakistani version of the Afghan war(s). We have been led to believe that the landlocked country has never been ruled by invaders. Publicly in Pakistan, their tribal culture is unequivocally venerated and the people of Afghanistan are revered as fiercely independent. We respect their exceptional courage and venerate their profound religiosity. We think that these inherent qualities have led the Afghans to triumph over two superpowers in the last three decades. First, they defeated the Soviet Union with the comprehensive and uninterrupted help of the West, spiritually, monetarily and physically. At that time, Moscow was beaten so badly that it could not maintain its existence as the USSR after the war. And today, after a decade of tiresome insurgency, the invincible Taliban are going to declare another victory against the invading armies of the whole Western world led by the United States of America.
If we genuinely mull over the traits attributed to the Afghans by the Pakistani think tanks — the lionization of their courage and admiration for their struggle for independence — we find that the undertones of these praises are overwhelmingly condescending.
We can easily discern that the word ‘tribal’ would mean uncultured, uncivilized, unsophisticated and oafish because of the lack of education, absence of industrialization and dearth of basic life facilities. ‘Tribal’ would also translate as a nation with one of the lowest literacy rates in the world and an alarmingly high gender disparity in education. For Afghan women, the literacy rate is 10 percent or less and is exaggerated to be 40 percent in men; however, the true numbers would be far below the projected figures. The data about their education alone is sufficient to describe the whole story; it predicts their gloomy future and illustrates a bloody past. It also explains why society would not flourish for a long time even after the invading armies are long gone, and Afghanistan would ultimately be taken over by the hyper-religious, under-educated and morally corrupt elements just as before. In this way, history would again repeat itself for the ‘Tribal Afghans’.
Furthermore, ‘independence’ would be decoded as lawlessness, chaos and anarchy, as it is evident in the current circumstances prevailing in most of the country. ‘Bravery’ should be interpreted as imprudence, thoughtlessness and endangerment of one’s lives without a clear and uniform objective. The term ‘victory’ would also be deciphered and understood differently. It would mean a collective and colossal suffering of the people. It includes poverty at its highest level, crime rate at its peak, absence of any form of federal institution, rule of the warlords, collaboration of the drug cartels with the tribal leadership and on top of everything else, ‘victory’ would also indicate that the country is being promoted as the sidekick of another nation. Today the triumphant sidekick, Afghanistan has an unemployment rate of a staggering 35 percent; almost 40 percent of its people live below the poverty line and the per capita income falls under $ 1,000 per year, which is equal to $ 3 per day.
The prime victim of these ‘victories’ are the Afghan children and their tormented parents. Besides being used as human shields and suicide bombers, the health of the children, their nutrition, education, safety and upbringing, in short everything related to a normal childhood, has been compromised for decades. Clearly, we do not care about these trivial issues. Our indifference is appalling, even when the infant mortality rate in Afghanistan is highest at 128 deaths per 1,000 live births in the first year of their lives and one out of every five children would not survive beyond the age of five years. Widespread malnutrition of 40 percent of the population, growth retardation at 39 percent and growth stunting at 54 percent are not the major indices for us to be concerned about; our problems are more celestial, spiritual and ideological where the war against terrorism has been deliberately confused with an attack on the religion itself.
As the ‘glamorization’ of the suffering of Afghans continues in Pakistan, the US has accomplished both the objectives in Afghanistan it had laid down for itself immediately after 9/11: capture or kill Osama bin Laden and bring to an end the state sponsorship of terrorism. Nevertheless, we insist on its failure in Afghanistan and have lost thousands of Pakistani lives in the process, destroyed the economy and have intensified terrorism in our own country. In this regard, after the US leaves in 2014, we can also claim ‘victory’ for ourselves along with Afghanistan.
(The writer is a US-based freelance columnist and can be reached at skamranhashmi@gmail.com )
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