THE Trump administration is expected to send additional 4000 troops to Afghanistan to help win the war on terror. However, even with a few thousand extra US soldiers in Afghanistan, deployment levels would remain far lower than the peak in 2010/11 when there were around 100,000 US personnel in the country.

Before his presidency, Donald Trump was not shy about criticising his predecessors on their Afghanistan policy. He previously supported pulling US troops out of the conflict, which began under President George W. Bush in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks.

President Trump has also put pressure on Pakistan urging Islamabad to “do more”. The US has warned that it will not tolerate Pakistan offering ‘safe havens’ to extremists.

Such an attitude is an insult to the thousands of Pakistani soldiers who have laid down their lives fighting terrorism. It is ironic that Mr Trump says that Pakistan and Afghanistan pose the worst terrorist threat to the US, yet his controversial Muslim travel ban applies to neither country.

The bottomline is that the new US strategy regarding Afghanistan is not new at all; it is exactly what the US has been doing in Afghanistan for the last 16 years, while thousands of civilians have died.

American news anchor Dan Rather has nailed down President Trump’s Afghan strategy in just a few words: ‘We will continue to spend and bleed: no end in sight.’

Muneeb Faisal

Lahore

(2)

IN his Aug 21 speech, President Donald Trump made baseless allegations against Pakistan. This means there is little hope for peace and stability in Afghanistan.

Pakistan soldiers and people have sacrificed more lives than the US forces occupying Afghanistan. Suicide attacks against Pakistani troops and civilians became routine since Pakistan allied itself with the US.

Sixteen years of war has badly affected our economy while Pakistan still hosts more than three million Afghan refugees. Trump’s announcement of a troop surge in Afghanistan means more war and more mayhem in that unfortunate land with its revibrations in Pakistan.

The US president’s strategy defies logic as barely a month ago US Defense Secretary James Mattis openly admitted that the US was not winning in Afghanistan and things were going from bad to worse for them in that country. The US and its Afghan forces trained by America and India are barely able to control 10 per cent of the country.

A survey states almost 65 per cent of the US public opposes its involvement in the Afghan war as it has affected its economy, leading to increased unemployment.

Khawaja Umer Farooq

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

(3)

THE path President Trump has chosen will bring the US more grief and no peace in Afghanistan.

Looking for terrorist safe havens inside Pakistan while ignoring their own failures inside Afghanistan will bring America no respite. The Afghan administration and the US forces still do not control a greater part of the country. Washington cannot cure the disease without the right diagnosis.

Pakistan has dismantled all major centres and terror groups that supported such groups in Afghanistan. There may be some individual clusters still able to operate inside Pakistan but this doesn’t impact the overall security situation in Afghanistan.

The main problem is the US and Afghan governments’ inability to control and govern its own territory. Unless the Americans tackle this problem as well as give political space to all stakeholders in Afghanistan, the problem will remain unresolved.

Many quarters, including big powers, suspect the US is doing so deliberately and doesn’t want peace in the region until it forcefully fits India into the jigsaw puzzle to look after its interests.

The US will never say so but they have lost the war in Afghanistan and pursuing the same objectives with more of the same old medicine.

At the same time it shows Pakistan’s failure to address the Afghan imbroglio, a grave problem knocking at its doors.

This is a complete failure of our Foreign Office and other quarters.

Faizan Tayyab

Lahore

(4)

I WOULD like to remind the American President that Pakistan has suffered the most in the US occupation of Afghanistan. More than 60,000 Pakistanis have sacrificed their lives — 6,000 of them soldiers — while the country has incurred losses worth billions of dollars owing to the war on terror. But Trump thinks Islamabad is not doing enough.

This nation of 200 million souls thinks we have done more than enough and we have had enough — from Washington — of perennial nagging. Pakistan has extremely limited resources compared to the mighty United States.

If Washington has failed to do anything, how can a nation with limited resources and a larger eastern neighbour instigating and funding terrorism in our land do enough for the white man?

America should work with Pakistan to find a solution to the troubles of its own making. A start can be made by Trump having a double helping of humble pie.

Kalim Shahab

Swat, Khyber Pakhtukhwa

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2017

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