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‘When you’re wounded and left on Afghan plains…’
By M K Bhadrakumar – February 25, 2012
No matter the convoluted political and strategic calculations behind Pakistan prime minister Yousaf Gilani’s unprecedented appeal to the Taliban to enter into peace talks with the United States, the timing of it was appalling.
Gilani’s appeal followed hectic consultations with army chief Ashfaq Kayani and ISI chief Ahmed Pasha. Can it be that the ISI has lost touch with the ground realities inside Afghanistan? Can it be that Islamabad didn’t know about the Taliban’s latest appeal to the Afghan people to kill and beat up any American they ever came across in the Hindu Kush as retribution for the burning of the Korans? What one can surmise is that via its high-profile ‘appeal’, Pakistan hoped to draw political mileage in the western opinion. Indeed, Afghan people — Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns alike — seem to be rallying to the Taliban call to harm the Americans wherever they could. The news has just come in that two more US ’servicemen’ have been shot while they were inside the Afghan interior ministry. Apparently, they are high-ranking officers of the rank of colonel and major. This becomes a very serious crisis for Washington.
Earlier in Nangarhar, an Afghan soldier shot up two Americans inside the US base. The US consulate in Herat was attacked. The Germans are sensing trouble in northern Afghanistan and took abundant precaution by shutting down their base in Taloqan. Yes, Taloqan, which is a stronghold of the Tajiks. Yet another report says the protestors have stormed the United Nations compound in Kunduz, which is also a northern town with mixed population of Tajiks, Pashtuns and Uzbeks.
On Friday, the top US commander Gen John Allen had to personally visit the base in Nangarhar to calm the Americans troops. He appealed to them not to resort to revenge killings of Afghan troops. The equations between the ordinary Afghan soldier and the US soldier have never been good and the Koran burning incident exacerbates the mutual antipathies.
What happens now to the US drive to establish permanent military bases in Afghanistan? The public mood has become so ugly and anti-American. Even an orderly retreat of the 100000 US troops from Afghanistan seems to be increasingly problematic. It’s straight out of Rudyard Kipling.
Posted in Military, Politics.
Tagged with Pakistan Taliban, Taliban reconciliation, Yousaf Gilani.
By M K Bhadrakumar – February 25, 2012
No matter the convoluted political and strategic calculations behind Pakistan prime minister Yousaf Gilani’s unprecedented appeal to the Taliban to enter into peace talks with the United States, the timing of it was appalling.
Gilani’s appeal followed hectic consultations with army chief Ashfaq Kayani and ISI chief Ahmed Pasha. Can it be that the ISI has lost touch with the ground realities inside Afghanistan? Can it be that Islamabad didn’t know about the Taliban’s latest appeal to the Afghan people to kill and beat up any American they ever came across in the Hindu Kush as retribution for the burning of the Korans? What one can surmise is that via its high-profile ‘appeal’, Pakistan hoped to draw political mileage in the western opinion. Indeed, Afghan people — Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns alike — seem to be rallying to the Taliban call to harm the Americans wherever they could. The news has just come in that two more US ’servicemen’ have been shot while they were inside the Afghan interior ministry. Apparently, they are high-ranking officers of the rank of colonel and major. This becomes a very serious crisis for Washington.
Earlier in Nangarhar, an Afghan soldier shot up two Americans inside the US base. The US consulate in Herat was attacked. The Germans are sensing trouble in northern Afghanistan and took abundant precaution by shutting down their base in Taloqan. Yes, Taloqan, which is a stronghold of the Tajiks. Yet another report says the protestors have stormed the United Nations compound in Kunduz, which is also a northern town with mixed population of Tajiks, Pashtuns and Uzbeks.
On Friday, the top US commander Gen John Allen had to personally visit the base in Nangarhar to calm the Americans troops. He appealed to them not to resort to revenge killings of Afghan troops. The equations between the ordinary Afghan soldier and the US soldier have never been good and the Koran burning incident exacerbates the mutual antipathies.
What happens now to the US drive to establish permanent military bases in Afghanistan? The public mood has become so ugly and anti-American. Even an orderly retreat of the 100000 US troops from Afghanistan seems to be increasingly problematic. It’s straight out of Rudyard Kipling.
Posted in Military, Politics.
Tagged with Pakistan Taliban, Taliban reconciliation, Yousaf Gilani.
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