CHANDIGARH:The United States of America (USA) is on the verge of defeat in the 18 year long war with the Taliban in Afghanistan. During one of the sessions held on 'The ISI, Taliban and Afghanistan' on the inaugural day of the three day Military Literature Festival, the panellists said that the US entered Afghanistan with the basic objective to prevent any terrorist group to rise against America after 9/11 in which they succeeded, but after declaring open war against Taliban the Americans failed to achieve second target. That is the unending tragedy of Afghanistan, with seemingly no light at the end of the tunnel. Despite the U.S. spending over a trillion dollars on military operations and on a multitude of civil initiatives, in much of Afghanistan, life has never been more precarious.
The experts also said that Pakistan is no more an asset for US in fight against terrorism therefore US has cut down financial support to Pakistan. Pakistan instead of using the financial aid to fight against terrorism used it as a tool to create own arsenal of weapons. This has changed the behaviour of Pakistan and it has started supporting Taliban through ISI.
The panellists also said that Taliban is more organised and well structured these days and has upper hand in Afghan war. The Taliban have changed especially their attitude and it has become more sophisticated towards use of new technology for connecting with the people and using various platforms of media to spread their messages.The present day taliban is seen as a different organization from the one that ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, when they enforced a Draconian form of Sharia that incorporated flogging and public executions. The experts feels that Islamic State is mainly considered as the brain child of ISI which have strong ideological differences with the Taliban.
Expressing their views, the experts said that keeping mind the interest of India, channels should be opened for dialogue with taliban in Afghanistan as many other countries including US have started.They said that the backdoor channels should be created and after reaching any agreement, open dialogue should be started.
One of the panellists Carol Christine Fair, an American political scientis, said that Trump led US Government is no more interested to continue military operations or retaining US troops in Afghanistan. She said that US does not have any interest in investing for resurgence of Afghanistan. She further said that due to presidential elections in US, President Trump wants to call back the American troops back at the earliest.
Mr. Vivek Katju former diplomat presenting his views said that despite 18 years war, peace could not be established in Afghanistan.The political class of Afghanistan is not able to come together or reach any consensus and due to this the system could not be stabilised. He said that the present scenario is that the taliban has the upper hand in Afghanistan and they don't want to relent.
Major General BK Sharma said that despite investment of 1 trillion US Dollars, most Afghans still live in poverty.