Afghanistan: The USA withdraws and the war continues

Dr Firoz Mahboob Kamal

The never-ending war

The USA has declared that it will withdraw all of its troops from Afghanistan by 31 August 2021. Does it mean that the USA’s war has ended? The answer is no. It is a stern reality that if anyone stands for Islam, he instantly faces an imposed war. If a true Muslim stands alone on a mountain, Satan still has a plan against him. As long as Taliban people stand for Islam that entails Islamic state, sharia, hudud, shura, jihad and trans-ethnic brotherhood, they will never have a war-free day. Their enemies will never end their hostility. Even the prophet of Islam (peace be upon him) –the most peaceful man on the earth in the whole of human history was not given a chance to carry out his mission peacefully. War after the war was imposed on him. Pakistan had only two wars in its more than 73 years of existence, but Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) had more than 20 wars in his 10 years of rule.

Instead of ending the war, the enemies change their strategy, war fronts and weapons. This is exactly true for the USA. Therefore, those who think that the war in Afghanistan has ended with the US withdrawal and a new era of peace will overwhelm them are living in fools’ paradise. There are millions of people inside and outside Afghanistan who vehemently oppose Islam’s victory in that strategic country. The neighbouring states of Afghanistan like Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and China will never like the full Islamisation of Afghanistan. All these states are under the occupation of radical secularists. Full Islamisation of Afghanistan will help it emerge as the Islamic civilisation state and will initiate a tide of Islamisation in the whole area. Hence there prevails a consensus among the rulers of the neighbouring countries to restrict the Islamisation of Afghanistan at any cost. And the USA-led coalition will be an ever-ready partner in that combined effort.

However, there is good news for the Islamists. The USA has ceased to win any war since its humiliating defeat in Vietnam in the seventies. Former US President Barak Obama once boastfully proclaimed that the American soldiers are invincible. The ragtag Afghan mujahids have solidly proven how futile was that claim. They can only occupy a land, flatten its hills, kill its people, destroy its cities, and torture its men and women, but can’t win a war. Moreover, a country can be occupied and its soldiers can be killed, but bombs, drones and missiles can’t kill an ideology. So, Islam proves to invincible and not the USA.

The USA did its war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. All these wars are indeed parts of the same war and had the same objective. It is to kill and terrorise Muslims, destroy Muslim cities and dismantle the backbone of the Muslim states. To create a climate of awe and terror in the Muslim World, the historic cities like Mosul, Ramadi, Falluja, Raqqa, Kobani, Aleppo, Dera’jur and many others are razed to the ground. Georg W. Bush declared his war as a crusade. And crusade has a special historical and ideological connotation. It is a Christians’ religious war against Islam and the Muslims. They used the war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria genocidal to take revenge for the 9/11 deaths of 2996 people. In revenge, they killed more than a million and maimed many more. On 9/11, only 2 buildings were destroyed, but the US Army destroyed hundreds of thousands.

The western media do not publish the crimes of the USA and NATO Armies committed in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. But they portray Taleban and other Islamists as the worst savage people on earth. If the US Army destroy a whole village or a market doesn’t become a headline. But if Islamists kill any enemy man becomes big news. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, they discovered Islam and Islamists as the new enemy of the west. So the western media are constantly demonising the Islamists. They show no love for democracy. Hence the military coup against President Dr Mohammad Morsi of Egypt gets applauded in the west. The same media showed displeasure for a failed coup against President Erdogan of Turkey. They portray Mr Erdogan as an autocrat. But their love for killer autocrats like the king of Saudi Arabia and General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi knows no bound.    

The war in a new phase

The USA will never end its war against the Islamists in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has enormous geopolitical importance. It is the gateway to South Asia, Central Asia, China, and Iran. Hence whoever controls Afghanistan, gets the privilege to influence a very huge and significant part of the world. This is why the USA’s invasion of Afghanistan didn’t aim not only to dismantle Taliban rule but also to politically dominate the whole area. Moreover, the chances of Afghanistan rising up as an Islamic civilizational force is huge. It has the treasure of rich history, ideology, culture, geopolitical potential and the fighting spirit. This is the only country in the world that has the highest number of people who stay out of secularists’ influence and stay firmly adherent to Prophet’s Islam that entails Islamic emirate, sharia, hudud, shura, trans-ethnic unity. Here, jihad is an indispensable part of people’s culture. The per capita weapons in Afghanistan is the highest in the world. Moreover, Afghanistan is the only country in the world that could defeat three World Powers –the British, Soviet Russia and the USA -while these countries were at the peak of their military might. Taleban is the people who never surrendered to any of these World Powers. They have already earned the skills to survive air attacks, drone attacks and heavy artillery shelling for the last 20 years. Such enemy attacks could only breed a new generation of diehard fighters. Hence Taleban has nothing to lose, in fact, they have every chance to win.      

The dominant world powers like the USA, Russia and China will not allow Afghanistan to fall in the hands of the Islamists. They find their own danger in it. Thousands of Chechens, Uzbeks, and Uighurs from Russia and China fought shoulder to shoulder with the Taliban against the occupying forces. During the long negotiation in Doha, the USA tried to persuade Taleban to be accommodating with the current government. But it didn’t happen. During 20 years of occupation, the USA did a lot of political, educational and cultural engineering. They could create a class of pro-western secularised people who now rule Afghanistan. Although these people are fully subservient and ideologically compatible with the west, they are fully incompatible with Taleban fighters and the common people. So it is unthinkable that these two incompatibles can work together. The Islamists call them the US puppets. They are raised by them. They work for them. Therefore there exist only one option: either the US-stooges will stay in power or the Taliban will take over. So the ongoing war will decide the fate and not the negotiation. The USA realised this harsh reality. Since there is no chance of winning the war, they have no other option but to leave.

Afghanistan is the strongest epicentre of political earthquakes in the area. Only those who can give blood can shake people and make a revolution. The Afghan Islamists have made a new history in that. The early Muslims did the same. More than half of the Prophet (peace be upon him)’s companions became shaheed (martyr) to make Islam victorious. Hence they could bring huge ideological, political and cultural revolution in large parts of Asia, Africa and Europe. So the Afghan Islamists will surely shake the geopolitics of neighbouring Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Xin Xian and Kashmir. So the countries like the USA, Russia, China, Pakistan and even India are desperate to contain the fallout.

Taleban’s war is a civilizational war that never ends. The enemies of Islam will surely deploy new strategies, new weapons and new actors. The war will have two war fronts: the cold war and the war with arms and ammunitions. Afghanistan and the neighbouring countries have no shortage of mercenaries. And those mercenaries are ready for sale if get a lucrative price. Most likely, the USA, Russia and other anti-Islamic countries will follow the Libyan model. They will recruit warlords like Khalifa Haftar and thousands of native and foreign mercenaries to fight their wars. They will support them by money, missiles, drone and airstrikes. This way they will try their best to resist the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. That would be plan A for the ant-Taliban forces. If Taleban succeeds to take over, they will deploy plan B. It is the same strategy that the USA executed against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. They will not send any land troops but will send bombers to flatten the major cities like Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, Lashkergah and others. This way they will protect the lives of the American soldiers at the cost of heavy human loss of the Afghan people and the infrastructure. The country that could ethnically cleanse the Red Indians and drop nuclear bombs in the past, will face no moral inhibition to commit massive destruction of cities and genocidal massacre of the Afghan people. The western media stand ever-ready to call such a project of mass destruction and massacres as the US-led restoration of humanity -as they did during the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.         

The captive media

The USA is built on a culture of military occupation, genocide, ethnic cleansing, settlement colonisation, slave labour and exploitation. Such a culture always influences its ethics, politics and warfare.  So it could drop nuclear bombs, barrel bombs, chemical bombs, and mother of all bombs on the civilian population without an iota of remorse. The US Army and its allies have killed millions of people in recent years all over the world. They have razed hundreds of cities and villages to dust in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. This is American values. The USA repeatedly shows that it has no love for human lives and democracy. It only wants worldwide political and economic dominance. For that, it has more than 800 military bases outside its border. It takes brutal autocrats as subservient partners to keep such dominance. It has its naval and air bases in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and other countries to protect the killer autocrats of the Middle East. But the captive media of the west and also of the Muslim World project the USA as the leader of the free world and depict Islamists as the forces of the dark ages. As if the cities of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria were destroyed by the Islamists!

What a shame that the worst criminals on the earth like the rulers in the USA, Israel, Russia, China and India enjoy impunity. They enjoy unlimited licences to commit the worst crimes. The UN Security Council shows its readiness only to ratify those crimes, let alone condemn them. No power on the earth could prosecute and punish these criminals. The International Criminal Court could catch only some small fishes, but the big fishes always stay out of their net. So the crimes in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Xin Xian, and Kashmir go unabated. So, the world has turned terribly unsafe for the defenceless weak. Now the non-aligned media of the world and the people with moral conscience have a duty. They can at least make the crimes and the name of the criminals known to the world. At least these criminals must be shamed by the people of the world. Immense credit goes to the Islamists of Afghanistan that they could successfully oust the criminals from their country. It was the longest war of the USA and it badly lost. Thus the Afghan Islamists of Afghanistan did a great service to the defenceless people of the whole world. The arrogant wolf has been given a good slap on the face. They are the real heroes on earth. Their heroic bravery will be remembered in the annals of mankind through the millennium. However, since the enemies still exist, the war also persists. Still, the peace-loving people of Afghanistan need to show their talent, valour, iman, perseverance and unity in the fight.     

The only choice

The enemies’ ongoing war on Islam will never stop. This is indeed the testing ground for the believers that function all the time in all places. Muslims all over the world has only one option. They can stand either with the Islamists or with the enemies. They have no third option. For standing with the right people, they must possess the minimum skills to know the friends as well the foes of Islam. Both sets of people have eye-catching markers. Therefore anyone with common sense can easily figure them out. Every man or woman faces a crucial moral test here. On the Day of Judgement, Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la will not ask about the skills in business, medicine or engineering, but about the ability in identifying the friends and enemies of Islam.

The enemies of Islam are known for their utter deprivation of love for Islam and the Islamists. No do they have any love for human lives, human values and democratic rights. In most Muslim countries, the enemies have robbed human rights and effectively blocked the path of democratic participation for the Islamists. Civil and military fascism dominate in almost all of the Muslim countries. The countries that are run by monarchs –like kingdoms and sheikhdoms in the Arab World get full protection from the USA. And the countries that stand brutally against the Islamists get economic and military aid and political support from the USA and its western ally. An example is Egypt. The military junta of Egypt is known for murderous brutality against the Islamists. General Abdel Fatah al-Sissi deposed the elected Islamist President Dr. Mohammad Morsi and killed more than one thousand peaceful protestors on one evening in the street of Cairo in 2012. He used tanks on the street against the unarmed civilians. For that brutality, the Egyptian regime is being awarded 1.3 billion US dollars annually from the USA. And the military coup of al-Sissi was described by former US President Barak Obama as a restoration of democracy by the Army.  

Those who are the enemy of Islam, love the US policy of invasion, destruction, genocide, and Guantanamo Bay-like confinement and torture. They also love the Israeli policy of occupation, ethnic cleansing, land grabbing, settlement expansion and apartheidism. Their war on Islam, Islamic state, shariah, hudud, jihad, and Muslim unity no more stays hidden. Former USA President Donald Trump boastfully told that the USA will not tolerate any Islamic State on earth. President Biden’s policy is no different either. They want to see Islam strictly confined within the rituals like five-time prayer, month-longing fasting, hajj and zakat. They do not offer Islam any role in politics, economics, judiciary, education, culture and warfare. Whereas Prophet Muhammad was the head of the state for ten years. He left behind the huge wealth of legacies in politics, state-building, social and economic policies and other spheres of practical life. It is a binding obligation that Muslims must put in practice those legacies. But those who want to practise those legacies are labelled as political Islamists cum terrorists and face imposed war of annihilation. This is why the Taleban people also face an imposed war. More than 40 countries were brought into that bloody war in Afghanistan.

The time for the Taliban 

Most people will go to hellfire not for killing someone or committing adultery, theft or robbery. They will go to the hellfire for standing with the known enemies of Islam. Nobody is perfect in this world. Perfection is an attribute reserved only for Allah Sub’hana wa Ta’la. So the Islamists may not be perfect either. They may have errors and failures. But everyone needs to decide on some crucial matters. Most of the Muslims in the Muslim World are standing for secularism, nationalism, fascism, monarchism, and military fascism. But Islamists are the only people who are standing for Islam and sacrificing their lives to end kuffar occupation and to implement Islamic education, sharia, hudud, and jihad. In Afghanistan, they are the Taliban. These facts are not obscure from the public eyes.

It is also true that so far all the chances of ruling Muslim countries have been usurped by the monarchists, the military and civil fascists, the secularists, and the nationalists. Now it is the time to give a fair chance to the Islamists. Taleban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. Although most parts of their time were spent on encountering enemies, stability, peace and rule of law could return only during their rule. And that opportunity was dismantled by the US invasion. The Taleban rule could eradicate poppy cultivation and drug trade almost completely. Law and order situation also improved. These were big achievements. This is why they enjoy popular support among the people. But the hostile media don’t appreciate that. They consider Islam worse than the American and Israeli occupation, killing and barbarity. Hence they stand so inimical to Islamists. So their war against the Taliban is perpetual. Taleban have no other option but to fight the enemies. The Armies of more than forty countries couldn’t defeat them in 20 years. Therefore, how do they dare to defeat them now? 10/07/2021