"Taliban should know, it's not 'Afghanistan of 1996'" says ex Afghan Minister ::: Who said, Osama laughing in his 'watery grave'"

Taliban should know, it's not 'Afghanistan of 1996', says a former Minister under Ghani

New Delhi: Miracle seems to happen, and there is a 'renewed' fighting instinct ofthe common Afghan people including women who want to take the Taliban by their horns. 

Protests foot march was carried out in parts of Kabul and in some other pockets also.

Close on the heels of assertion by Afghan Vice President, Amrullah Saleh that 'war' is not over and that Pakistan cannot 'swallow' Afghanistan, a former Minister in Ghani government, Masoud Andarabi said Pakistanis also would have to be convinced to 'accept' the new way of life.

"This is not the 'Afghanistan of 1996' when the Taliban came to Kabul and (people's)

voices were very limited and stopped. The new development in technology and social media will carry on," Andarabi told Republic TV in an interview on Thursday evening.

He said for years, the Taliban have been 'instruments' of Pakistan and that is why 

pressure only on the Taliban will "not be enough".

"....at the same time we must make sure that Pakistanis who have been harbouring them (Talibans) will have to comply with the new Afghanistan and new international laws and new values.

He said on ground a lot has changed in Afghanistan in comparison to what it was in 1996 when the Taliban first seized power in that country and ruled with iron first.

"People in the last 20 years have chosen a new way of life.

The people and particularly the new generation was very much in favour of a 

democratic Afghanistan and the rule of law and also the new values," he said.

He admitted it is true the elected government under President Ashraf Ghani has 'collapsed', yet

"...it does not mean the mentality of the people have changed".

In this context, he said he is "not surprised to see the people taking to the streets with

the national flag".

The Afghan people want to "continue" with the accomplishments of the last 20 years, the former Minister asserted.

Andarabi had developed differences and thus had to resign earlier this year.

To a question on the 'ousted' president Ghani, Andarabi said

the president did not understand the "depth of the issue" when the US forces were leaving

and also that he (Ghani) was circled by a very small group of advisors who were just advising 

him "based on his mood".

Asked whether the Taliban could use 'brute force' to curb protest and dissent,

Andarabi said, at this stage the Taliban know that the "world is watching them".

"So certainly they will not be very brutal and they will allow some sort of openness"

However, he said such a thing of co-existence and peace are "not in the roots of Taliban".

Instead, he said violence and destruction are in their roots.

"So I don't think they will be able to continue with their promise (of peace and amity)

and take 'harsh' measures," he said.

Lately, Saleh has blasted the “Pak backed oppression and brutal dictatorship”

“I can never be under one ceiling with Taliban,"he has said from 

Saleh is in Panjshir Valley, the only well known locality which has still not fallen to the Taliban.

ends 

We did not have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking".

"We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan - we did not know what we were doing," a top ranking three-star US army general Douglas Lute has been quoted in the latest 'Washington Post' report .

The General has further said: "We did not have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking".

A former US diplomat, James Dobbins, has been quoted: "We don't invade poor countries to make them rich. We don't invade authoritarian countries to make them democratic. We invade violent countries to make them peaceful and we clearly failed in Afghanistan".  

The report says since October 2001, more than 7,75,000 US troops have been deployed in Afghanistan and of those 2,300 died. 

The report, it is said is part of a forthcoming book. 'The Afghanistan Papers : A Secret History of the War". 

The report says the new findings underscore how three US Presidents - George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump - and their military commanders have been "unable to deliver on their promises to prevail in Afghanistan". 

It claimed the officials (in about 2000 pages of interviews) say that the "war-fighting strategies were fatally flawed and that Washington wasted enormous sums of money trying to remake Afghanistan into a modern nation".

"The US government has not carried out a comprehensive accounting of how much it has spent on the war in Afghanistan, but the costs are staggering".

The 'interviews' mention about 'runaway corruption' in Afghanistan and how all attempts to stop the same were 'botched'

up. 

One estimate is perhaps around $978 was spent by the United States, but the figure does not include the amount

spent by other agencies such as the CIA and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Jeffrey Eggers. a retired Naval officer, has been interestingly quoted in the report: "After the killing of Osama bin Laden, I said that Osama was probably laughing in his watery grave considering how much we have spent on Afghanistan. 

It could be surprising, at one point the report says - it was "common" at military headquarters in Kabul and at the

White House to 'distort' statistics to make it appear that the United States was 'winning the war' when that was not the

case. 

These only make it crystal clear that the US governments under different Presidents only 'misled' the public.

One para of the report says - "We found the stabilisation strategy and the programmes used to achieve it were not properly tailored to the Afghan context, and success in stabilizing Afghanistan districts rarely lasted than the

physical presence of coalition troops and civilians".