Alwaght- The NATO chiefs in their recent meeting in Warsaw that in the second day was meant to discuss the activities of this military organization in Afghanistan have talked about the decision to continue occupation of Afghanistan. At the same time, the US President Barack Obama justified NATO and the US continuing to have forces in Afghanistan by arguing that the security conditions were fragile in the central Asian country. Obama added that the international community will never allow Afghanistan to once again be safe haven for the terrorists.
Following Obama’s remarks, the NATO leaders in the second day of the conference agreed to keep fixed the current number of their troops in Afghanistan up to 2020. They also pledged annual $4.5 billion in aid to the Afghan security forces.
Currently, there are 13,000 NATO troops, a majority of them Americans, stationed in Afghanistan as part of Resolute Support Mission. Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of NATO has said yesterday that the military organization will keep forces in Afghanistan as long as required. He continued that there was no reason to speculate on date of end of the mission. He called the agreement to keep forces in Afghanistan as a commitment for supporting the Afghan government.
NATO Afghanistan mission has an annual cost of $5 billion. According to the outcoming terms of the NATO agreement, the $3.5 billion will paid by the US, $1 billion by other members of the military bloc, and the remaining $500 million will be paid by Afghanistan government.
The NATO’s scheduled mission ended in 2014, however, the US kept part of its forces in the country under the excuse of need to continue fighting Al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorist groups as well as other global terror networks active in Afghanistan. Over the past year, the clashes between the Afghan security forces and the Taliban militant group have seen an unprecedented surge. Also, the fatalities of the Afghan security forces following taking over security duties from the NATO forces have proven worrisome. Some areas of Afghanistan easily fell to Taliban fighters. Backed by the US forces, the Afghans launch attack to retake the captured areas while receiving considerable losses.
The clear fact is that the West needs such radical groups as Taliban and ISIS in Afghanistan to justify occupation of the country. The West actually strategically views Taliban and the rest of terrorist groups. While supporting the Afghan government on the one hand, it indirectly backs the Taliban on the other hand. The Afghan secret police (KHAD) in a report suggested that documents achieved from a memory card proved that Britain was trying to set up training camps for Taliban in south of Afghanistan.
The Daily Telegraph also in a similar report has published documents about secret meetings held by the Britain intelligence service, MI6, with Taliban leaders several times in an array of Afghanistan regions. The daily maintained that the links between the two were not limited to meetings and talks, rather, they included bilateral cooperation. The report suggested that MI6 sent British military trainers to Taliban camps to teach the terrorists the necessary skills.
On the other side, the BBC has contributed to this NATO strategy. The intensified activities of Taliban and capturing some parts of the county by the militant group, and fierce clashes in Takhar, Baghlan, and parts of Badakhshan have been points of focus of the BBC reports. The BBC broadcast these news stories more than any other media. This wide coverage is in turn helpful in providing support for the militant group. By expressing concerns over Taliban’s advances in Afghanistan and its possible influences on the future of the country and also other neighboring countries the BBC highlights the West and its military forces' role in providing security of Afghanistan and the need for Western intervention in this war-torn country. The British broadcaster maintains that now Taliban’s intensified presence in Kunduz is a source of worry for both the neighboring provinces as well as the Central Asian countries because the militant group’s activity in Kunduz will fuel insecurity in the surrounding provinces.
Therefore, the US, Britain and their media play the crucial role in backing the Taliban group. Actually, it is impossible for them to continue to occupy Afghanistan without such justifications as Taliban. Anyway, highlighting possible fall of Kunduz to Taliban by the Western media like the BBC, CNN, and The Guardian comes with the aim of convincing the Afghan government and public opinion to accept that it is impossible to save the government and establish security in the county without presence of the foreign forces. That is why the countries in action in Afghanistan in NATO conference in Warsaw spoke about staying in Afghanistan until 2020.
It is still not clear based on what kind of assessment the NATO has concluded that its strategy in Afghanistan has been successful. The concrete fact is that the military deployment of the US and NATO to Afghanistan not only did not work for security provision in this country but also expanded the war range to include other areas and thus insecurity ensued.
It is noteworthy that since invasion of Afghanistan by NATO in 2001 over 23,000 Afghan civilians were killed by NATO forces, as thousands of others were injured. Tough living conditions and drugs production and smuggling are still in place in the country. The economic infrastructures were not rebuild after NATO presence and the political status is very critical. Therefore, NATO’s decision to keep forces for a longer time in Afghanistan is not for the sake of security and peace in Afghanistan but for continuation of occupation of the country for strategic, political, economic, cultural, regional, and international objectives.
