Afghanistan, after Osama

No Afghan showed up in front of the presidential palace in Kabul to shout “Afghanistan, Afghanistan” as hundreds of Americans did outside the White House on 2 May as news of Osama’s assassination was officially confirmed.

My Afghan Facebook friends, who work in various gov. and private jobs, quickly spread the news with exclamation marks but comments were unusually rare and varied from expressing surprise to a sense of confusion.

So what about Afghanistan and the so-called “war on terror” after Osama? This was a predominant question raised by many.

Finally, the Americans revenged the 9/11 attacks by assassinating the main mastermind. As Americans rejoice and feel the post-Osama world safer some Afghans feel scared of re-abandonment by the U.S.

While former U.S. President George Bush announced the end of combat operations Enduring Freedom in 2002, his declared war on terror’s last and ultimate chapter was read by President Obama on 2 May 2011.

This sounds like a déjà vu for some Afghans who have been through the tragedies of past three decades. In 1989, when its arch enemy – the so-called Evil Empire – left Afghanistan in ashes after a decade of brutal invasion the U.S. handed the country to the ISI and its psycho-criminal and armed-to-the-teeth proxies.

Yes, al-Qaeda still remains a ghost enemy despite the loss of its founding leader but that alone cannot justify the continuation of an expensive war let alone stat-building, democratization and development in order to deter extremism and terrorism in Afghanistan. Pressed by economic hardships U.S. policymakers would like to revert to the pre-9/11 world and ‘leave Afghans to sort out their internal differences’.

Another great war fought in our defenseless territory and with more of our lives lost than both of the warring sides – the U.S. and al-Qaeda – and yet again our war is looming and our peace remains elusive.

Did Washington trade off Osama and Afghanistan with Pakistan’s ISI/military? Mr. Bin-laden was killed at his ISI guesthouse near its headquarters in Rawalpindi. I smell a rat here.