US deluded itself into believing Taliban would honour its all pledges, says expert
Kabul [Afghanistan], September 18 (ANI): The West, in particular the US, had deluded itself into believing that the Taliban would honour all the pledges made and assurances given by them. They promised to have an inclusive government and not to allow Afghan soil to be used for attacks against any other country.
Sergio Restelli, in a blog post in The Times of Israel, said that they took everything the Taliban said at face value.
On September 7, 2021, the Taliban announced the names of people who would run its "interim government". The elected members were the hardliners, who's who of some of the most wanted terrorists in the world.
17 of the 33 members of the new cabinet are on the UN Sanctions list, and a larger number are designated terrorists by the US.
90 per cent of the cabinet seats, 30 out of 33 cabinet members are Pashtuns who constitute 48 per cent of the Afghan population and only three nominees are Tajiks and Uzbeks (45 per cent of the population).
The Shias (around 10 per cent), women (48 per cent), Turkmen and Baluch (together about 5-6 per cent) have all been denied any representation, said Restelli.
The entire cabinet comprises only the Taliban and all other stakeholders have been excluded. Significantly, the Haqqani Network has also been given a major stake in the new Government and holds five key positions.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, who has a USD10 million bounty on his head is the Minister of Interior; Abul Baqi Haqqani the Minister for Higher Education; Maulvi Najibulla Haqqani, Minister for Telecommunications; Khalil-ur-Rehman Haqqani, Minister for Refugees; and Abdul Haq Waseq, as Chief of Intelligence. In fact, the Deputy Head of Intelligence Mullah Taj Mir Jawad is a key member of the Haqqani Network.
It was bizarre that the "Great Powers" and the so-called emancipated West was not troubled by the Taliban forming a government in Afghanistan, said Restelli.
They kept saying everything that the US wanted to hear - we do not want to monopolise power, we will share power with other stakeholders.
This was exactly what the Pakistanis have done over the last two decades, during which they pretended to be 'partners and allies' of the US in the War on Terror and a strategy now Turkey excels in at the NATO.
Anyone who had studied the Taliban, their ideology, worldview, knew that they there was a wide chasm between their words and deeds, said Restelli.
Desperate to exit Afghanistan, the US spin machine amplified the Taliban dissemble to give an impression that the world was dealing with a Taliban 2.0, reformed, which would want to walk in step with the rest of the world.
Now that the Taliban are in power, they have shed all pretence of being ready to accommodate other stakeholders in the government, reported The Times of Israel.
The world needs to come to terms with the fact that the concept of a reformed Taliban is an oxymoron. Anyone who expected them to behave like some kind of enlightened nation builders who are magnanimous enough to include their opponents in government as part of national reconciliation, is living in an alternate reality, said Restelli.
The Taliban's Islamic Emirate is not a democracy that seeks to agglomerate diverse ethnicities, aspirations and interests; it is a theocracy that seeks to enforce and spread its toxic ideology, added Restelli. (ANI)
