Dreams shattered

The American war in Afghanistan was long drawn. Did America or Afghanis make any gains? The answer to that may be as laboured as the war itself.  America will be justifying the presence of its troops after the Sept. 11 attack. But a deeper look and America someday could accept that it faced its second Vietnam (“Women entrepreneurs fear return of ‘dark era’”, July 25, Gulf Today).

Was the withdrawal premature? No one knows for sure, or better still even if the answer is known to the American thinktank, will we ever know. I doubt, but what we know as of now, is that the plight of the people in Afghanistan could get very traumatic. Taliban have made huge advances and claim that they control more than 80 percent of the territory in Afghanistan. It is only a matter of time before the world is forced to negotiate with the new rulers to be.

Hundreds like designer Marzia Hafizi and Massoma Jafari are now left to face the music of a failed American experiment. In reality the Afghanis were living on borrowed time. Sadly the hour of reckoning has arrived.

I am not a defence analyst or knowledgeable on such matter. But my heart reaches out to the Hafizis and Jafaris. They could end up paying a dear price for daring to dream. A dream which could get scuttled by the premature withdrawal of troops.

Zora Hussain — By email