American goal perfected by the Taliban

The fighters used their numbers and arms to throw out the democratically elected government and gain control over the country forcefully. Then they have used harsh methods to go after the supporters of the elected party. Many supporters and members of the democratically elected party were pursued and killed.

You are forgiven if you understood the above to be about the Taliban and Afghanistan. It is rather the story of Egypt. Mohammad Morsi, the first ever democratically elected leader of the country, was thrown out in a military coup led by the military dictator Abdul Fatah el Sisi. Morsi’s supporters were thrown in prisons after sham trials and many were even killed in cold blood. The United States is legally forbidden to give aid to any country where a military coup happens but the Obama administration and those that followed basically just didn’t call it a coup in order to continue giving aid to the Egyptian dictator.

But the situation in Egypt is not much different from the one in Afghanistan except that the former had the wrong man in charge and the latter had the right puppet. The wording of the first paragraph of this article could be rightfully used for Egypt but the western media, which is an epitome of the so-called disciplined journalism, will never venture into that sort of behaviour, which by the way would be real journalism.

There is, however, good news in Afghanistan for those who can read between the lines of the reporting that is emerging out of there. Yesterday, many women marched in Kabul protesting against the Taliban for their alleged killing of former soldiers from the previous regime’s army. While that may or may not be true, the story here really is that the women marched in protest right in front of the Taliban, denouncing them and raising slogans against them.

That sort of power to protest against the men in charge of Afghanistan had been unheard of since the days before the Soviet invasion. If we can recall the changing war aims of the United States in Afghanistan, then we just might be able to remember that one of the evolving American aims was to liberate the Afghan women. The Taliban may have perfected what the Americans claimed to have started.

While I am quite regular in newspaper reading, I have not come across any news reporting where I heard of women marching in protest against the American occupation of their country right outside the Green Zone or any other US base. Try typing that in Google and reach out to me if you come across so much as even a phrase where Afghan women were able to march against the American occupation of their country. I did, however, heard about people forming a crowd being an American favourite activity not because it was a symbol of the people’s protest or assembly rights but rather that the crowd presented a juicy target for a drone strike.

If you pay attention to the western media, they are stuck with the same time-tested boring narrative that they are good and the Taliban are bad. It is as if the reporters are typing using a template of reporting that is “fit to print”.

Make no mistake. It is the same pattern the world has seen for decades. Had the regime in Kabul been a US favourite, then a woman wearing jeans would have been equated with her freedom rights allowed under a great democracy. When the regime is not liked in Washington, then the story of freedom such as the one enjoyed and practised by the Afghan women yesterday is spun around and the issue of protest becomes the story. For the dissidents around the world, I have a simple advice: don’t waste your time if the regime in your country is a US ally. And those with noise skills have hit a jackpot if the regime is hated in Washington.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 30^th, 2021.

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