Scapegoating others for own failures
GOING by the behaviour and conduct of the principal spoilers prospering over high-flown but dubiously suspect narratives in their quest to tame the world, both the US and its surrogate India still look rattled by their humiliation in Afghanistan as they desperately look to scapegoat countries like Pakistan for their ignominious reversal rather than look themselves in the mirror.
A whole array of opinions, have blamed the US and its declared and undeclared allies for the instability, turmoil and disaster in this region.
What started pompously as ‘Operation Enduring Freedom, ended up in an embarrassing retreat by its protagonists.
One only wishes the American people and those in the West whose monies were squandered in the awfully flawed campaign by its leadership for 20 years, had asked questions of its civil and military leadership through a people’s inquest before taking the plunge, such as ‘what was the justification for invading Afghanistan; was the US invasion of Afghanistan legal; why did the US actually invade Afghanistan and what if we fail in Afghanistan etc.
Putting aside opinions which may be termed biased, this scribe refers the reader, to just a few Articles in the International Press.
Arie Perliger, Director Security Studies and Professor of Criminology and Justice at the University of Massachusetts concludes “there are more fundamental problems with the US strategy in the 20-year War of which the current chaos is only the latest manifestation… It may be attractive to think that promoting democracy in occupied foreign countries is morally justified and an effective path for restoring security and stability, but political reforms should not be sought through political and social engineering, as they are successful only when they originate from local culture and the societies.
External approach in Afghanistan based on military occupation was doomed to fail. When local leaders are dependent on foreign military forces to maintain power, it is hard to build popular legitimacy, govern effectively and build a shared national identity” he said.
The Economist makes a stark comparison of the US debacles in Vietnam and Afghanistan titled ‘From Saigon to Kabul’ propounding the theory that the defeat in Afghanistan was like that in Vietnam; a turning point whereby many fear that America’s foes would be emboldened while others hope it will now be more able to confront them.
And while Greg Jaffe’s ‘National Security-from Hubris to humiliation’ appearing in the ‘Washington Post’ says that America’s warrior and diplomatic community contends with the abject failure of its Afghanistan project, Christopher Alexander makes his presumptuous assertion that the failure in Afghanistan has a global fall out and in scapegoating Pakistan which seems to be the order of the day, sarcastically one conjours, infers as if every day that Pakistan escapes accountability for re-imposing Taliban on Afghanistan, the authority of the UN Charter, NATO credibility and US influence will fade; a rather thin veneer over which the Body rests its credibility.
Notwithstanding scapegoating Pakistan by all and sundry, if for argument’s sake Pakistan’s alleged involvement in a proxy war from 2003 to 2021 against the Afghan Govt.,
the US, NATO and other States supporting the UN-mandated Allied invasion of Afghanistan were to be accepted as true, how come CIA, Pentagon and the State Department kept sleeping over this indiscretion by Pakistan for 18 long years, besides the fact that they were giving too much credit to Pakistan for out-manoeuvring the mightiest.
Craig Whitlock in his piece ‘At war with the truth’ in the Washington Post issue of 09 Dec 2019, in saying that “ US constantly said they were making progress. They were not and they knew it,” says it all.
My advice to the US and its allies would be to descend to earth and dispassionately introspect over their flawed policies; about turning from surge to retreat, and offering to reconstruct after brazenly destroying peaceful countries; which is hypocritical and criminal; to say the least.
While the Afghan tragedy was unfolding, the Indian chess board it had laid through its several Consulates against Pakistan had to hastily wrap up as their space with the departure of the US had dramatically not just shrunk but evaporated.
No wonder that it had to cry wolf at the UNGA in an effort to belittle Pakistan’s globally acknowledged role for peace in Afghanistan and smokescreen its own true spoiler face.
Refusing to look himself in the mirror, pokerfaced Modi’s hypocrisy was writ large in his showcasing India’s self-professed title of ‘mother of all Democracies’ at the UN, which was belied by the current Indian extremist Hinduvta order, revealing India’s true face oblivious of EU Disinfolab revelations on India’s use of fake world media journalists and platforms it employed in disinformation campaign of supposed terrorism, terror financing and human rights abuses against China and Pakistan.
Documented Dossiers submitted by Pakistan to the United Nations and nations of the world, have truly exposed Indian training and sponsorship of IS mercenaries and its unmatched atrocities against the majority Muslim population of India-occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir, which it was trying to forcibly reduce to a minority in the footsteps of Israeli demographic changes in Occupied Palestinian lands.
But the following is the centrepiece of all for the consumption of Americans and their supporters:
“Twenty years ago, when the twin towers and the Pentagon were still smoldering, there was a sense among America’s warrior and diplomatic class that history was starting anew for the people of Afghanistan and much of the Muslim world.”
“Every nation has a choice to make,” President George W Bush said on the day that bombs began falling on 07 Oct 2001.
In private, senior US diplomats were even more explicit. “For you and us, history starts today,” then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told his Pakistani counterparts.
Earlier this month, as the Taliban raced across Afghanistan, retired Lt Col Jason Dempsey, a two-time veteran of the war, stumbled across Armitage’s words.
To Dempsey, the sentiment was “the most American thing I’ve ever heard” and emblematic of the hubris and ignorance that he and so many others brought to the losing war.
—The writer is a media professional, member of Pioneering team of PTV and a veteran ex Director Programmes.
