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Saturday, October 07 2006 @ 08:48 AM Central Daylight Time
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KABUL — Five years after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan to topple the Taliban movement, the West's strategy has proved failure in putting the country on the "path of progress" as promised by the West, officials and rights activists have said.
"In Afghanistan there is now less security today than one year ago, there are a lot of people without jobs," Afghan MP Ramazan Bashardost told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Friday, October 6.
Days after the 9/11 attacks, the United States invaded Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime and its ally al-Qaeda group.
US and British war planes took to the skies over the country on October 7, 2001, and unleashed the first of a wave of bombs to oust the Taliban government.
The strikes began on Taliban and Al-Qaeda positions in the cities of Kabul, Kandahar and Jalalabad -- breaking a long wait for what Afghans knew was coming after the September attacks.
"Everybody was expecting it," said Kabul resident Mohammad Yahyah as he recalled the US strikes.
But five years after the US invasion, the US-led strategy in the Muslim country is seen a failure.
"There is freedom for the people ... but in the economy, politics and military it is a disaster," said Bashardost.
The ousted Taliban movement is now regrouping and leading a revived resistance against the US-led forces.
On Friday, October 6, an Afghan policeman was killed and 15 people were wounded, including eight civilians, when a self-bomber blew himself up outside a police headquarters in eastern Afghanistan. The attack was claimed by the Taliban movement.
More than 130 foreign troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year, most of them Americans, British and Canadians, raising questions about NATO's ability to successfully complete the mission.
NATO took command of the foreign troops across Afghanistan from a US-led coalition on Thursday, October 5.
Mafia
The drug trade has been soaring in the occupied country. (Reuters)
Bashardost also lashed out at the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai installed by the West, describing it as a "mafia".
He said the government was using international aid for its own benefit to the detriment of reconstruction.
"Look at Kabul for example. The only reconstruction you see is of private houses built with drugs money. We don't even have electricity after five years," he said.
Separate reports by two international think tanks have said that five years after invasion, the strategy of the US-led forces was inflicting more misery and starvation on the Afghan people, especially with the West's failure to carry out adequate reconstruction work.
The opium trade has also been soaring five years after the US occupation.
The country's opium production jumped by nearly 50 percent this year on the previous year.
The 2006 Afghan Opium Survey, published by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, found production of the raw material for heroin hit a record 6,100 tonnes, almost 50 percent higher than last year.
This accounted for more than 90 percent of the world's supply.
Afghanistan, the world's biggest producer, produces 92 percent of the world's opium, most of which is used in Europe, Russia, China, Iran and Central Asia often as heroin.
Worthless
The Western promises of establishing democracy and promoting women's rights in Afghanistan have also proved failure.
"We are asking the question whether our effort of five years were worthless?" asked an open letter signed by government officials, parliamentarians and rights activists.
The letter followed the killing of top Afghan female official Safia Amajan in the southern province of Kandahar last month.
Female activist Wazhma Frogh lashed out at the Western claims in the occupied country.
She said the quota system that reserved 25 percent of seats in the national assembly for women and establishment of a women's ministry were just "tokenism" designed to appease international donors.
"We have one women among 26 cabinet members -- who will listen to her?" she asked. |
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