Diminished Presence; Take Heart

"The good news that Americans should feel at least good about in Afghanistan is that the al-Qaeda presence is very diminished" soothed General James Jones, American National Security Adviser. Pretty high-ranking fella in the Obama administration. If he doesn't know whereof he speaks, who does? "But I don't foresee the return of the Taliban and I want to be very clear that Afghanistan is not in imminent danger of falling."

Whew! That's a relief. Much depends upon the success of NATO forces in that rather spectacularly-undeveloped country of historical serial invasions. None of which ever seemed to come close to 'taming' the wilderness of landscape into anything closely resembling civilization, nor the population into an awareness of the possibilities of leading lives considered normal anywhere else in the world.

Afghanistan rates second-last in international quality-of-life rankings; scoring 181 out of 182. It represents a repressive, religion-dominated,patriarchal society where girl children are married off to male relatives or any male of any age to swiftly accustom them to their place in life. And where only male children - and not all at that - are deemed educable. The country has a life expectancy of 43.5 years; only Niger rankslower.

Corruption in every facet of life, from the government to the civil service, the army, the national police, and other governmental agencies, is rife, customary and a tradition resistant to anynamby-pamby ideas of civic ethics or morality. The country and its government are at odds with one another; the former declaring no confidence in the latter, the latter finagling its democratically-voted right to continue its malfeasance.

A few days ago a dawn raid on two soon-to-be dismantled U.S. mountain-border posts by Taliban fighters resulted in the deaths of 8 more U.S. soldiers and several Afghan military.
Not to worry; the U.S. forces had back up, air strikes that helped to repel the attack, though it lasted well into the night. There is some mystery surrounding the whereabouts of dozens of Afghan National Security Force service members, seemingly abducted by the insurgents.

And oddly enough, the head of intelligence of the region was quoted as saying: "About 700 Taliban participated in the attack, who came from Swat and Dir [in Pakistan]. Al-Qaeda were also among them." This would be the Taliban that Pakistan isn't quite certain they want to commit to eradicating from their territory.

The same Taliban, of course, busy slaughtering children who dare attend school, while destroying the schools as soon as international agencies manage to get them up and going. In Afghanistan and in Pakistan. Where suicide bombers target UN offices, right in the centre of Islamabad to kill locals working for the UN food agency.