The war in Afghanistan is nearly finished- what now? (The War Against Terrorism)

Member Name: Irene21

Product:	The War Against Terrorism
Date:	09/12/01 (52 review reads)
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INTRODUCTION

About half an hour ago, I read in a news' site that Mullah Omar was helped to escape Afghanistan and that Northern Alliance has seized the cave of Osama Bin Laden, with the latter however being still at large. This together with the fact that the Taliban have lost control of the majority of the land and a new government has been formed for the troubled country, means that the war is nearly over, and a new era has started.
But is that the case?

Let me doubt that very seriously. My pessimism isn't only based on the fact that one of the major warlords in the north (the one who is ruling the area of Kunduz) announced that he will boycott the government. My pessimism is based on my belief that no real change will occur, and the reasons for that will be explained in the following paragraphs.

THE REASONS

The first reason for my belief is related to the people consisting the Northern Alliance. Let's start by going back in time, in the recent past, just before the 11th of September. Northern Alliance still existed but ruled only a 10% of the country (in the north) having problems in recruiting troops and had to fight with out-of-date armour. The situation changed dramatically with the help of the U.S.A., which not only provided guns, and did air raids but also supplied them with another powerful means of negotiation: Money. This allowed them to "buy" a large number of warlords, which up to that day supported (very ferociously) the Talibans. This allowed them to get under their control a large part of the country without fighting and helped them concentrate themselves against the "core" areas ruled by the Talibans. Amongst the people now supporting the Northern Alliance (and are part of the government) are ones who changed sides a dozen of times during the last decade, and people who had active roles during the "Taliban era" of the country. For example the minister of Education in
the Taliban government has an active role in the new situation. Therefore, the same people who caused all the problems all those years, are presenting themselves as saviours-as crazy as this sounds.

The other reason has to do with the fact that the recent fights together with the civil war that ravages the country the last 20 years (and started just before the Soviet presence in the country) has caused a great damage in the country. Hundreds of thousands of refugees and homeless people, destroyed cultivations and large parts of the land infested - maybe forever. The problem It's not only the fact that poverty causes devastation and anger. It's also that when someone doesn't have anything to eat, will not have education as a priority. As a result, the lack of educated people results in the absence of real progress: Therefore, the country will, again, be a prey to the disposal of the rich countries (as it is now).

A final reason why I don't think that the conditions will change in Afghanistan has to do with the fact that no matter what the UN and the USA say and do, the position of the woman in the afghan society will not change. Being a society where the woman has no rights and is restricted to a small number of activities, makes quite difficult for anybody to interfere to change the condition in favour of the women. Only time can change radically the country ethics and allow the women to play a more active role to the country functions-this things cannot and will not change from the one day to the other. However, in my opinion a country like Afghanistan doesn't have the luxury to exclude half of the population, since this will limit the possibilities of the country to prosper. Hence, this change has to happen?

TO SUMMARISE...

The condition in Afghanistan isn't as nice as it shows in the news.More than 1,000,000 people face the problem of hunger, will a similar number being situated in refugee camps und
er very bad conditions with a heavy winter approaching.
The new government is a very serious step.However, there are many things to be done and change before the future looks bright for the country.
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Comments and views on the subject are most welcome-I promise to update the opinion as soon as something changes: I won?t forget Afghanistan as the UN will do (and as they did with Yugoslavia, Iraq, Cyprus etc).

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