The audacity of recent attacks by the Taleban and their Al-Qaeda allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan has caused alarm in the region and beyond. The bombings of the Indian embassy in Kabul in June 2008 and the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad last month have been devastating. Large swathes of Pakistanโs frontier provide militant groups with sanctuaries, from where they launch attacks in both countries. The targets are chosen with precision and the campaign of violence has spread to India. A few days before the Islamabad bombing, a series of explosions in the Indian capital, Delhi, killed and maimed scores of shoppers at several locations. There have also been attacks in other Indian cities in recent months.
These events have caused tensions between the Bush administration and Pakistan, Americaโs main ally in the "war on terror." On more than one occasion, U.S. helicopters carrying troops have attempted to land inside Pakistani territory, without authorization. Pakistani troops have fired on them and the helicopters have had to retreat. The anti-U.S. sentiment has rarely been so strong in the region. The authorities in Pakistan cannot afford to allow American troops on their countryโs soil. The authorities in India, with a Muslim minority nearly as large as the entire population of Pakistan, struggle to decide how far to move towards imposing draconian measures. How have things come to such a pass?
Oeconomia Americana annos declinationis passus fuerat, ad quas ingens impensa militaris in externis bellis contulerat. Novae occasiones erant domi renatae oeconomicae consequendae et foris ordinem internationalem reformandi. Bill Clinton, qui praesidentiam mense Novembri 1992 vicit, has occasiones arripere studebat.
Sed consequat erat. Post dissolutionem civitatis Sovieticae, Ucraina, Kazakhstan et Belarus cum omnibus fere armis nuclearibus longis se invenerunt. Minora militaria arma per totum ager defuncti res publica dispersa sunt. Omnis res publica praeter Kyrgyzstanum ea hereditaria habuit. Subito unus status nuclearis multi facti sunt. Nisi haec arma deponantur et Russia adiuta sit ut se in democratiam in potestate armamentarium nuclei Sovieticae ex- prehendendum convertat, mundus locus periculosus erit.
Cum Clinton praesidentiam mense Ianuario 1993 suscepisset, America iam Kuwait post breves occupationes Iraq liberavit. Clinton ad propositum suum movit ad stabiliendum pristinum USSR et oeconomiam Americanam reficere. Sciebat enim susceptorem conservativum in Russia novum genus armorum incipere posse et consilium de recreatione Americanorum mergere. Clinton suis consiliariis nuntiavit Boris Yeltsin, praesidem Russiae, in transformatione rei publicae adiuvare. Focus consilium Clinton erat in Russia obsideri.
One of its consequences was a move from Afghanistan, left in a Hobbesian "state of nature" โ war of all against all. The policy to rescue Russia continued until the end of the Clinton presidency. In the darkest period of Russiaโs economic crisis, Yeltsin was forced to default on repayment of foreign debt and devalue the Russian currency in 1998. Clinton pushed the International Monetary Fund to support a recovery program. Within two years, Russiaโs income from oil sales had risen substantially, helped by an increase in the world prices. The crisis had subsided.
It was in late 1994 that a little-known Islamic militia, described as the Taleban, came to prominence in southern Afghanistan, amid the destruction of what was left of the Afghan state. The country was split into numerous fiefdoms run by rival warlords. Afghan and foreign Mujahideen had spent years fighting the Soviet Union and its client regime in Kabul. Now, they had nothing to do. Foreign money had dried up. Weapons were plentiful and America had walked away.
Caedes, raptus, praedae et rapinae his pugnatoribus via vitae facta est, ut instituta aemula Pakistania cum Taleban tolerata vel collaborata ut regimen truculentum in Afghanistan imponeret. Gubernium civilianum Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan et Arabiae Saudianae, maximae sociae in regione Americae, firmissimi fautores regiminis Taleban fuerunt, quod Al-Qaeda asylum dedit. America re vera tradita Afghanistan Arabiae Saudianae, quae maxime notam totalitariam Sunni Islam repraesentat. Junior particeps eius Pakistan fuit.
Impetus IX / XI hortati sunt Civitates Foederatae ut Afghanistan redirent ad regimen Taleban evertendum et ad delendum Al-Qaeda. Taleban regimen evertendi facili negotio fuit. Sed confirmatio et instauratio conatus calamitosam defectum perpessus est. Taleban et Al-Qaeda coniunguntur et confirmantur. Capite suo duces capiendo pergunt decipere. Afgani primo ab Taleban liberationem acceperunt. Americanos nunc valde irati sunt eorumque usum vim praevalentis, ex frequentibus togatorum casuum.
Afghanistan in medio magnae virtutis ludos saecula fuit. Sed extranei semper non defecerunt animi sui populum domare. In summo suae dominationis imperium magnum Ludum Britannicum et Russicum gerebant. In bello frigido inter Americam et Unionem Sovieticam fuit. Hodie, ut Americae Foederatae, sola hyperpower in mundo, statum Afghan reformare conatur, novum ludum tam difficile quam semper invenit.
Deepak Tripathi, former BBC Afghanistan correspondent, is an author and a researcher. This article was published in slightly different versions in History News Network (George Mason University, Virginia) and CounterPunch.
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