US President Donald Trump has renewed his pledge to bring back US troops from Afghanistan as his administration aims to end the United States’ longest war. In his latest State of the Union address to US Congress, Trump said he was not looking to kill hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan, many of them totally innocent and that it was also not our function to serve other nations as a law enforcement agency.
The commitment to withdraw troops from Afghanistan is welcome as occupation and continued presence of the country are the real bottlenecks to return of genuine and durable peace to war-torn Afghanistan. But it is pertinent to point out that this has been the pledge of Trump even before assumption of the prestigious office as on April 27, 2016 (as Republican presidential candidate) he promised to stay out of foreign wars. However, contrary to this there is still active involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and even Syria and there is no fundamental change in the ground situation. Of course, there are quarters that counsel Washington not to leave Afghanistan in a hurry and instead properly wind up the crisis there. They believe that sudden departure might encourage resurrection of Taliban and other militant groups and even return of Taliban rule. Neighbouring countries including Pakistan also apprehend that such an eventuality and instability in Afghanistan would badly affect their own security, with spill over impact on their economy. However, all this cannot and should not justify aggression against and occupation of a sovereign country or meddling into its internal affairs by others. It is also a fact that the United States has spent almost two decades and over a trillion dollars on the war in Afghanistan but it is far from defeating Taliban and instead they are gaining foothold on more and more areas, which is also an indication of frustration of Afghans with the unending presence of foreign troops. There are reasons to believe that Taliban would shun, what the US considers ‘violence’ once the core justification for resistance disappears and they can become part of the peace movement if given due share in power, which they surely deserve. We hope that instead of repeated addition to the presence of troops, the US would seriously consider total withdrawal and confine its presence to cooperation for economic development and rebuilding, which is also responsibility of Washington as it has inflicted unimaginable damage to the infrastructure of the country during its military operations. Trump should better focus on peace talks than planning to maintain permanent military bases, which would be nothing but affront to Afghan people.
