Does
The American Withdrawal Date Matter? Regarding Petraeus’s
Latest Remarks
02 September 2010
By Al-Ikhwah Al-Mujahidun
Ever since Barack Obama announced July 2011 as the
date U.S. troops will start withdrawing from
Afghanistan, western politicians, military personnel,
and media figures have been ceaselessly discussing the
pros and cons of the expected withdrawal. Recently the
military has also joined in the fray, supporting
Republican calls for a possible extension of the U.S.
presence in Afghanistan.
The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, David Petraeus, has
said on a number of occasions, that depending on the
circumstances, he will be willing to suggest Barack
Obama, to extend the U.S. withdrawal date to a later
point in time. Other generals have been even more
obtuse, stating that the withdrawal date was giving
“the Taliban sustenance” (Comments by the head of US
Marine Corps, General James Conway).
The U.S. military believes, or purports to believe,
that the announced withdrawal date by Obama is
fuelling the Taliban’s resistance, and somehow winning
it new recruits. Supposedly, the reason behind this is
that everybody believes that the invaders will
withdraw in a few months. There is no denying that the
Mujahideen are in fact winning the war, nor that more
and more people are joining the ranks of the Taliban.
However, to suggest that an announced withdrawal date
is the main driving force behind these two phenomena
is an untenable premise.
The Mujahideen are winning the war because of their
devotion to their Islamic duties, and because of the
brave Afghan people’s historical contempt for foreign
presence in its home land. If, instead of dwelling on
philosophical speculation, the U.S. politicians and
military generals, had actually studied the history of
Afghanistan, they would have come to the conclusion,
that the Afghan people have seen enough foreign
invasions to know, that no army has ever entered its
lands to bring peace and prosperity to Afghanistan,
and nor have they ever withdrawn due to some
benevolent feeling of committing to an arbitrary
timeline.
Foreign armies have always invaded our lands, driven
by their greed to plunder our resources and utilize
our strategic geographical location to further their
expansionist plans. And these armies have only left
once they were bled to death by the brave Mujahideen
of Afghanistan, whose bravery and steadfastness in
battle has become proverbial.
The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan declared the war
against the invading armies because it was their
religious duty to do so. The brave warriors of
Afghanistan enthusiastically responded to this call,
fuelled by their devotion to their religious duty and
their intrinsic hatred of the foreigners. The invading
army, through its indignant violations of all
religious norms, and their incessant brutality against
the innocent Afghan civilians has alienated the entire
Afghan populace against it. Today, it is hard to find
any Afghan civilians who have not suffered at the
hands of the invading infidels. The brave Afghan
people have sworn to continue fighting in defense of
their religious duties and their home country.
To the Mujahideen, it doesn’t matter whether the
invading forces stay for another 1 year or for the
next 50 years, they will continue to harass the enemy,
giving it no respite, until either it decides to leave
our country, or it is bled to death by a thousand
cuts. The longer the invading forces stay in
Afghanistan, the more traumatic would be their
experience and the more painful its torment.
The invading army thinks that increasing its troop
numbers to 150,000 would somehow miraculously destroy
the morale of the Mujahideen. If only they knew that
the Soviets had over 500,000 troops in Afghanistan but
to no avail. As the Afghan proverb says: “These are
our mountains and we are its dwellers”. Whether the
invading enemy forces leave in 1 year or in 10 years,
we will continue to fight them until they exit our
lands, because long after these invaders have left, we
would still be here, free and independent.
Regarding Petraeus’s Latest
Remarks
The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan David
Patraeus, in an interview with BBC radio said that the
momentum of the Taliban has been reversed in the south
of the country and capital Kabul and that if his
strategy were be implemented more forcefully, they
would see a much bigger chance of success in
Afghanistan.
We believe due to pressure from Washington, the heavy
workload that he inherited from previous generals and
his strategy’s complete failure have forced him to
turn to the media to try and portray his defeat into a
success story.
It is absolutely baffling to believe that a general
could ridicule the intellect of the masses by making
such preposterous claims about his forces complete and
utter failure to reverse the Mujahideen’s gains in
Kabul and especially in the south of the country.
But in reality if we look at Afghanistan’s security
situation, Mujahideen operations have intensified more
than ever especially in the provinces surrounding
Kabul. A day doesn’t pass by but that the invaders and
their stooges face immense losses in Logar, Kapisa,
Maidan Wardag and Laghman. Examples of these
successful operations are the capture of American
soldiers in Logar, the NATO operation that went
terribly wrong in Laghman, the scorched NATO
logistical vehicles lying on side of the roads in
Maidan Wardag and the humiliating defeat of French
invaders in Kapisa which even the biased western media
had to acknowledge.
As for the southern provinces especially Kandahar and
Helmand, Mujahideen operations have not only increased
but they are at the brink of taking over the provinces
as a whole. Patraeus’s strategy has failed miserably
there, like in Kandahar, their planned operation was
halted to a stop by constant attacks of Mujahideen,
who not only control the surrounding districts but now
are on the verge of taking over the city center.
Helmand is another great example of the defeat of the
enemy. An example of this is the Marjah operation, in
which thousands of ISAF and Afghan soldiers took part
and they made sound like a third world war had started
but are now ashamed to even mention the name of Marjah
due to their disgraceful defeat at the hands of
Mujahideen.
It is incredible how Patraeus could claim such a
sizeable victory at a stage where his soldiers in
Sangin out of fear cannot abandon their bases by road
out of fear and are forced to leave by helicopters at
night.
We say to David Patraeus, if you really want to full
fill your duties to the American people, you should
start by withdrawing you soldiers and stop sacrificing
your sons and daughters for a war which is unwinnable.
We once again say that Afghanistan is the land of
Afghans which has been usurped and its brave Mujahid
people will carry on their Jihad against you so long
as you are here and with the help of Allah the final
victory will be ours.
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