Afghanistan,the Taliban, Biden and, yes, Imram Khan

For a start, perhaps we should be looking more closely at Imran Khan — a westernized, Pashtun, British improved Cricket star — who became PM of Pakistan. He was going to be the great fixer of Pakistan and the trouble next door in Afghanistan. I believed it. And enough others appeared to as well — a belief that put him in office. Wasn’t the idea to fix the issues in Pakistan and by doing so, creating an atmosphere that would spill into Afghanistan. Afghanistan has been ‘occupied” for DECADES. And each ‘fix” has failed. Laying the blame at the doorstep of the Biden White House — after just 8 months in office is too easy. And for the last twenty years the Taliban has been planning their return while Americans troops died, fighting a losing battle. How and who helped the Taliban to create a game plan? Saudi?, Pakistan?…the list probably is a scroll by now. I find the ‘j’accuse position of the GOP and their ilk to be hypocritical; George Bush was GOP as well. And I do think putting the cart before the horse in terms of evacuation of Aghanis was a sickening way to ‘withdraw” the USA from the country. For all these years, the Afghans are owed at least the decency of a plan to allow anti-Taliban citizens and dissenters to relocate, flee, seek asylum — not to be left trying to climb into wheel wells to escape the oppression that is inevitable. And in reflecting on the history of the area, it may be wise to recall the Partition of India in 1947 — the plans made by the Quaid-e-Assam; (Jinnah) and his Muslim League and the millions who died in the subsequent bloodbath. Westernized leaders and Western governments fail to learn, repeatedly, that being the peace keepers with or without weapons, does not keep the peace at all. To assume success is foolhardy. To assign blame is futile.