The Enduring Assault

The United States and its NATO partners are understandably anxious to be out of Afghanistan. The country, with its long history of foreign invasions simply ends up spewing its invaders into the oblivion of unkind history. Afghanistan, with its time-honoured heritage of tribal factions, split loyalties and fractious population beset by greed and corruption, has proven time and again to be ungovernable in the sense of an ordered state.

While some of the trappings of western-style democracy are proudly arrayed by a western-installed government anxious for international investment to continue, and for ongoing assistance in training and equipping its police, army, justice system, and civil infrastructure, they will take what they find suitable for their needs and reject what is obviously extraneous; anything reflecting Western culture as degraded and insulting to Islamic values.

But the current government hangs on to power with a thin thread of legitimacy in the view of the population who detest it for its engrained corruption and ineptitude, incapable of providing the most basic of civil services, let alone security. Without security, as has been noted time and again, there will be no accountable state, there will be no opportunity to move toward prosperity; women and girls will be restored to their original state of servitude.

How thin that thread is has been amply and repeatedly demonstrated even as the Western agents of change anxiously contemplate their final withdrawal, emphasizing their (self-serving) trusting belief that Afghanistan's own security provided by its national police and armed services will succeed in triumphing against the ever-resurgent Taliban. The Taliban sneer otherwise.

And through a series of attacks, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles, wearing suicide vests, jihadists enter the very confines of safety within the capital city of the country. Using sacred symbols such as turbans to convey explosives, wearing burqas to conceal weapons, members of the Taliban suicide squad easily make their way through 'restricted' and 'protected' areas.

Was it insanely clever or just common sense to realize that a half-built tower block would represent an excellent opportunity from which to attack foreign embassies and government ministries located opposite? And then demonstrating that a handful of determined Taliban are capable of standing off an army of well-armed and ostensibly well-trained Afghan security agents for almost a full day.

Admittedly neither the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters, both of which were the primary targets, lost any of their personnel. Nor were any of the other many foreign embassies located nearby. But the attack did illustrate how vulnerable all are to well-planned infiltration and attack by Taliban fighters who don't mind viewing themselves as blessed martyrs to the cause of Islamism's ideological politics of resistance and conquest.

It would simply not do for the foreign diplomats and top echelon military personnel to castigate the Afghan police and military for their inability to maintain security, particularly within areas already believed to be highly secure. That scathing doubt is left to the Afghan residents of Kabul, where hundreds of schoolchildren were panicked at the attacked site, their parents desperately trying to reach them in another kind of pandemonium.

Instead, like devoted teachers attempting to instill confidence in insecure schoolchildren, the Afghan security forces must be praised:

"We commend the response of Afghan National Security Forces, who today led with bravery and courage. Our thoughts are with the families of those who were killed or injured in today's attack. This attack will not deter us in our support for the Afghan people and it will not stop efforts to transition the security responsibility to Afghans."

Canada's embassy too, was in the line of fire, where a school minibus was hit, wounding several children. Where the security apparatus of the Afghan national security forces were hard put for 20 hours to finally put an end to the attacks by a handful of ferociously-armed Taliban.