The foreign troops may have defeated Taliban, ousted them from power in Afghanistan and striving to bring peace and normalcy in the militancy hit region, they just failed to win the heart and the confidence of the people.
Kathy Gannon, an esteemed journalist who has worked in Afghanistan for over 20 years, said,
What they [foreign troops] have failed to do is make allies of Afghans. Instead they have made enemies of ordinary Afghans.
That to me is the biggest error that has occurred, (and) it has occurred because they’ve gone in with a mixed mandate to reconstruct and rebuild as well as go on the offensive. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to do both.
Unjustified deaths and sufferings of common people amidst the war between the foreign troops and Taliban fighters have shattered the vision of the people of a prosperous and peaceful Afghanistan. Haji Pasha, Ghowrak’s headman, asserted,
You do not need to be here in town. With your soldiers standing looking over us, watching our women and driving their vehicles destroying our land. Go into the hills to find the Taliban, don’t disturb us.
People may have gone through many atrocities by Taliban and al-Qaeda, they still don’t want to support or co-operate neither the foreign troops nor Afghan government. The Afghan government has lost credibility, for most of the warlords who killed, raped and plundered under the Taliban once again come to power in the new government. A villager asked to the troops,
Why are we not with you? Why are we not thanking you for our security? Why should we do anything at all for our government when it does nothing to help us? Please do something for us but do it in Kandahar to make our government give to us not to themselves.
The Afghan government has lost credibility, for most of the warlords who killed, raped and plundered, under the Taliban, are given amnesty to come into power once again in the new government. Foreign troops have to face the opposition of not only the Islamic militants, but the common natives they are there to protract. And I doubt that the foreign troops can win the eventual battle against Taliban until they receive the support of natives.
