Peace talks an exercise in futility

A new report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) detailing a rise in school attacks in Afghanistan comes as violence surges across the troubled nation.

More than 40 people were killed in one day, making a mockery of so-called peace talks between the Afghan Government representatives and Taliban insurgents taking place in Moscow.

The attacks follow a wearying pattern — the Taliban seize control of an area, launching reprisals against anyone in the civilian population suspected of collaborating with the Government.

Government troops launch a counter-attack and after often days of bitter fighting with heavy casualties on both sides, reclaim the lost ground, but they don’t have the ability to hold it; the soldiers are needed elsewhere and the civilians know the Taliban will be back.  

In the UNICEF report, Executive Director Henrietta Fore said “education is under fire”.

“The senseless attacks on schools; the killing, injury and abduction of teachers and the threats against education are destroying the hopes and dreams of an entire generation of children,” Fore said.

“Nearly half of all school-age children in the country are not getting an education.”  

From the viewpoint of the Taliban there is very good sense in attacking schools. The radical Islamic group seeks education to be restricted to the teachings of the Quran, or rather its perverted interpretation of the Holy Book.

For girls there should be no education at all beyond their duties as baby machines and domestic slaves.

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called for a “total pull-out” of foreign forces from Afghanistan, meaning the United States and other NATO countries that have troops there.

Such a move would be tantamount to handing the country over to the Taliban, which probably suits Moscow’s aims, at least in the short term.

Perhaps the most laughable statement came from Taliban Deputy Leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar who said his group was “committed for peace”.

The United States invaded Afghanistan amid a wave of anger and revulsion over the 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. It had no real plan other than to ‘get’ the author of the attacks, al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

The country was occupied, but never pacified, and became a sideshow to the invasion of Iraq. In later years, US attention switched again to North Korea and now, with dizzying speed, to Iran.

Washington is leaving behind a trail of unfinished business, a legacy of successive Administrations which relied on the military to do their business and ignored the anguished advice of their diplomats.

Nothing is likely to change while warmongers like National Security Adviser John Bolton have the ear of President Donald Trump. Meanwhile collateral damage from the militaristic US foreign policy continues to mount.