The sudden and dramatic takeover of Kabul by the Taliban shocked some and exposed many. Rather than the Taliban takeover, the surrender by the Afghanistan Government and the US-trained forces surprised the world. The Afghan people are abandoned and left to their fate under a terrorist organisation is a fact. The unprecedented scenes of people trying to get out of the troubled region came out, putting entire humanity to shame. In the process, this terror coup has exposed many faces. To tackle the future scenario, we need to address the deal with different shades of terror.
Besides the Afghan people, the United States is the biggest loser in this great game, and there are obvious reasons for it. From the Soviet intervention in 1979 itself, the US handling of Afghanistan has been disastrous. Building the entire force of Mujahiddins, which has taken the shape of Al-Qaida and Taliban to defeat Communism, has fuelled the Frankenstein monster in the form of Islamic Jihadism. After the Soviet collapse, the same guns and Mujahiddins turned towards the US. After 9/11, the so-called war on terror was focused on Afghanistan while neglecting the actual terror ground of Pakistan. Despite finding Osama bin Laden in Pakistani territory, the US forces continued to remain in Kabul. The approach of using Pakistan as a frontline state against the war on terror was a fundamentally flawed proposition. The American pull-out and Pakistan supported Taliban taking over significant parts of Afghanistan has exposed the United States’ sham called war on terror, yet again.
Pakistan has been unmasked on the terror issue multiple times; now, the notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is flaunting its position on Jihadi terror openly. China and Russia are the other two players who proudly continue their missions in Kabul, giving sanctity to the still unsettled terror regime. Are they repeating the same mistake of aligning with the terror groups to gain brownie points in the great power game?
What is going to happen to the United Nations and its human rights mechanism is another big question. The efficacy of this post-Cold-War mechanism has been under the scanner for a long time; the hopeless situation in which the international organisations are finding themselves is a matter of concern. Will United Nations be in a position to execute the sanctions articulated against the Taliban in earlier resolutions? The answer to this will decide the fate of the Afghan people and the future of the United Nations.
The celebratory mood of global Islamists after the Taliban takeover was tough to hide, and they are never apologetic about it. The so-called liberals and communists, who are in the business of white-washing the Taliban mindset with the false equivalences, are busy with the changed Taliban narrative, claiming inevitability and invincibility of terror groups. Now, ‘the Taliban has also done a press conference’, is their cliché. Rapes, slavery and killings of women happening on the ground do not matter to them. Even in Bharat, celebrities who are always ready to demean and desecrate Bharat and Bharatiya traditions are observing a tactical silence or bashing Hindutva in the name of Taliban takeover, as per their usual obsession. The tactical connivance of various forces vis-à-vis Taliban mindset is the root cause of Jihadi terrorism.
Of course, what will happen to the people of Afghanistan and the implications for Bharat, especially from the cross-border terrorism point of view, are the primary concerns for us. This uncertainty or instability is not new to Afghan people, and they will find a way to deal with it. But at the global level, the ideology of terror is the core issue. The global menace of terrorism cannot be dismantled without calling out the roots of the Taliban mindset and unmasking the forces that are directly or indirectly nurturing it.
@PrafullaKetkar
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