On the Iraq war there have always been great suspicion that the main reason of the Bush administration, rather than the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, was Iraq's oil. In the case of Afghanistan, however, natural gas, which also exist in the country, was not the first motivation.The goal was to eliminate a sanctuary of terrorism after September 11.
The Taliban government quickly fallen under the attack of its historical opponents, the Northern Alliance, aided by Western bombing. It's been 8 years and in that time the international coalition was unable to create a strategy in Afghanistan. Not only Nato hasn't yet an effective strategy to defeat the Taliban and finally bring stability and control of the territory to the Afghan government, but hasn't even the slightest strategy. Since 2001 all they did was to establish bases, control some cities and some roads and throwing bombs everywhere. These bombs killed an uncertain number of people, probably between 10,000 and 15,000, the vast majority of them innocent civilians. Even the talibans' "dirty" bombs have killed more or less the same number of civilians. So right now the outcome of the war is that many Afghans consider Taliban terrorists and Nato just another group of terrorists. From early July, NATO is striving to change strategy and reduce the bombings, but today a bomb on a tanker stolen by the Talibans has left 90 dead and many of them were probably innocent civilians who were trying desperately to have a bit of fuel, in a country that lacks everything.
The war so far has been very costly for the Western coalition in economic terms and human lives. Only for the U.S., 440 billion dollars. For the United Kingdom, about 20 billion. Italy has spent at least 3. Money used to pay weapons, bombs and bombings, which could have been much better used for the development of Afghanistan, with infinitely better long-term results for the country's stability. Gross Domestic Product of Afghanistan is only 31 billion dollars a year. With the amount spent on war we could have donate 15.000 U.S. $ to every Afghan, including children in diapers. The equivalent of a 10 years' salary for the average Afghan. Or we could have build hundreds of thousands of schools, hospitals, clinics and orphanages in operation, giving the country infrastructure comparable to those of the developed world. Instead, the aid granted by the West to Afghanistan in recent years, largely disappeared among widespread corruption, have been only 15 billion, so less than one thirtieth of the military expenditures of NATO.
The bombings are used to fill in for a military presence on the territory that is systematically too low. But when the bombs kill innocent civilians create continually new recruits for the talibans, new mutilated, new tragedies. We should do properly a peace mission or do properly a war.
To do properly a peacekeeping mission we should really fund Afghan civil society to create a real economic development, stop completely bombardment, set a date for withdrawal, start a dialogue with the Talibans or at least with a part of them. To do properly the war would be necessary to send a higher number of ground troops in the country, seize the talibans' weapons and searching for them in every house and every field. Now in Afghanistan, the coalition has 60,000 troops, but to do this they would need 5 times as much.
To do properly a peacekeeping mission we should really fund Afghan civil society to create a real economic development, stop completely bombardment, set a date for withdrawal, start a dialogue with the Talibans or at least with a part of them. To do properly the war would be necessary to send a higher number of ground troops in the country, seize the talibans' weapons and searching for them in every house and every field. Now in Afghanistan, the coalition has 60,000 troops, but to do this they would need 5 times as much.
If Nato doesn't do properly either of those things and doesn't choose either of the two roads then the international coalition will continue for years to drag this endless stream of civilian casualties, bombings, military casualties, useless small victories. And then Nato will escape from Afghanistan, defeated.
Francesco Defferrari
Francesco Defferrari
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