Outsourcing the America’s difficult war to Afghans

US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, has asserted that the ongoing war in Afghanistan is not “America’s war”, but is “an Afghan war”.

"We would be making a terrible mistake if this ends up being called America's war,” Gates was quoted by the AFP on 1 November.

I think Gates’ assertion marks a watershed in the post-9/11 so called “War on Terror”. It also seems to me that the outgoing Bush Administration has decided to inherit its “War on Terror” to its Afghan ally, Mr. Karzai.

Mr. Gates might have forgotten the fact that the very post-Taliban Afghanistan has been a product of US adventurism, blunders and the cheap state-building.

Not only is the current war in Afghanistan a purely US manufacture, but the country has been a playground for US interventionism since 1978. The Taliban, the Mujahideen, the warlords, the narco-industry, the ineptitude Karzai and many other scourges in today’s Afghanistan are made-in-USA.

In 2002-2003 Afghanistan was widely labeled a “good war” which tempted the Europeans to step in. The easy-and-good war in Afghanistan also prompted George W. Bush to initiate the Iraq catastrophe.

Now as the war has become tough and the Europeans and Canadians have begun doubting the very rationale of their engagement, the Americans want to sell it to the Afghans. The Americans think they won the good war in 2002 and the current bad war, the bloodier one, is of Afghans.

Mr. Gates! The real war has just broke out in Afghanistan with over 10 million food-insecure population, thousands of civilian casualties, numerous warlords, endemic corruption, dozens of ineptitude puppets, skyrocketing organized crimes and millions of destitute and desperate people.

Does America have the guts to win this war?

It would be easy and cheap to scapegoat Afghans in this war, again as in 1980s.

It requires much more than the B52s, the Special Forces, the Guantanamo and the aerial strikes. It requires humanity, sympathy, responsibility, commitment, honesty and many other little things which the Pentagon may consider petty.