Of the numerous qualities that children have, one good quality is to forget a disagreement or a quarrel in the shortest period of time. Once you see that two children are fighting with each other and after an hour or so, they are found to be playing together and befriended to each other so well as if they never had any fight among them. Similarly, they are not in habit of concealing their inner feelings and whatever is there is their heart or mind, comes to their tongues. It is the reason why, they directly say the other person his mistake or problem. Because of this quality of children, they are taken to be true witnesses of an event or incident.
But this habit has another problem. When they say whatever they have in their mind or heart, they get into trouble too often because they say something unpleasant to a person and then they repent on it. But as mentioned before, children soon forget the things and this habit doesn’t become so much problematic.
In last few weeks, we saw similar kind of game being played between the government of Afghanistan and US-NATO led coalition functioning in the country. The problem started with the reports that ALP (which was subordinate to the US forces in the province of Maidan Wardak) was involved in the abuse and torture of innocent civilians in Maidan Wardak province and there was great hue and cry in the national media. It was a brave act of President Karzai to order the US forces to vacate the province in two weeks time.
This order came as a shock to the US forces because they were undertaking many operations aimed for long-term achievements and security stability in the province. To solve this problem, US foreign secretary visited Kabul and held meetings with the president and other important government officials. After these efforts, Afghan government and US forces reached to an agreement this week according to which US forces will stay in most parts of the province. Gen. Joseph Dunford, the top US and ISAF commander in Afghanistan met the president on Wednesday in the palace and finalized the details of the accord. According to this agreement, the control of the controversial district of province will be taken by Afghan security forces while the security control of the rest of the province will be handed over to the Afghan forces in different stages for which a clear time frame has not been given.
It is worth-mentioning here that Afghan government was able to solve the problem of the province and the points regarding the uplifting of rights of citizens were considered in the agreement, according to the informed sources. This can be called the indirect success of the government when it was able to make its sound heard and noticed.
Similar condition came when President Karzai gave his comment that Taliban are killing the innocent people of Afghanistan and indirectly helping the NATO and US forces to extend their stay in Afghanistan. This statement was very seriously taken in both local and international media and there started a great controversy over the impact of this statement. American newspapers of Washington Post and New York Times questioned the statement and asked the US government to come up with a clear explanation about it. The statement was made more controversial after it was narrated by the media that in a way, President Karzai had blamed Taliban of supporting US and NATO forces in their stay in the war-torn country.
To add more oil on the burning flame, NATO’s Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen described Karzai’s anti-Western remarks to be ‘absolutely ridiculous’.
This media war brought the relations between Afghan government and NATO to the lowest in months and started a series of controversial remarks on the media.
The latest addition to this controversy came last Tuesday when the spokesman of president, Mr. Aimal Faizi said that, ‘NATO mission in Afghanistan is illogical and aimless’.
Talking to the state news agency, Mr. Faizi said, ‘The so-called ‘war on terror’ did not bring up any result except killing innocent Afghans and destroying their houses’.
The statement released also quoted Mr. Faizi saying that, ‘Since the sanctuaries of terrorists are not in Afghanistan then Afghan people reserve right to ask NATO’s Secretary General that why this war is being fought on their land.’
This war of words is not going to end here and let’s see which shape it takes in the days to follow.
This is not the first time that the war of words worsened the relations between Afghan government and US led ISAF forces and NATO. But such irresponsible comments have never given up any constructive result and in the end, both the sides agreed to be careful in future while talking against each other.
US and NATO are of the view that they are in Afghanistan to curb the terror elements and Taliban. In their more than a decade long stay in Afghanistan, they have sacrificed hundreds of their forces and their governments have spent billions to support this war against terror.
On the other hand, Afghan government gets under pressure from the national media and its public when innocent civilians are killed in the military operations of foreign troops. In order to assert the rule of law and uphold the sovereignty of the country, Afghan government criticizes any such act resulting in the abuse and killings of innocent Afghan citizens. Such a criticism sparks the war of words between the two factions and the relations start deteriorating. The stalemate is ended with a round of talks between the top officials of the sides and then comes absolute silence. But after some time, another such incident gives birth to another such controversy.
But it must be remembered that such war of words should not made a game of children because children are in habit of forgetting the things very soon but when these comments are going to worsen and jeopardize the relationships of two countries or allies, both the sides need to be careful because brining the relations to normalcy will not be easy and would take months to be recovered. Similarly, it takes a great deal of efforts and time in negotiations and dialogue and this time could have been used in other important issues.
Anyhow, the positive factor in this regard comes when both the sides reach to an agreement and just like the two unhappy children, try to forget the bitter comments of each other and agree to sit and talk together. In a way, the ice of disagreement is not let to harden and soon it melts down, giving way to the flow of cooperation and coordination.
It is hoped that in future, both the sides would be careful before issuing a statement or comment about each other because both the sides are in need of each other and the objective to bring peace and stability in the country would not be achieved without the coordinated effort of both the sides. This is the reality that both the sides realize and this is what they should duly consider in future.