Nederland en Afghanistan 60

Nederlandse militairen zijn volgens het kabinet Balkenende bezig in Afghanistan de democratie van president Hamid Karzai, de voormalige adviseur van de Amerikaanse oliemaatschappij Unocal, op te bouwen. Al op 19 september 2002 schreef Scott Baldauf van de Christian Science Monitor dat een 'significant number of Afghans - especially the conservative Pashtun majority - are finding that they have more in common with the radical Islamic message of al Qaeda and the Taliban than they do with the pro-Western statements of new Afghan President Hamid Karzai.' Een jaar eerder, op 20 september 2001, waarschuwde 1 van 's werelds grootste militaire historici, Sir John Keegan: 'Efforts to occupy and rule [Afghanistan] usually ended in disaster. But straightforward punitive expeditions, for limited objectives or to bring about a change in Afghan government policy, were succesful on more than one occasion... The succes achieved by Indian and British troops in the last days of the Raj depended on the avoidance of general war and of policies designed to change society or government in Afghanistan. The Raj accepted that Afghanistan was unstable, fractious, and ultimately ungovernable and thought merely to check its mountains warriors' irrepressible love of raiding and fighting... Russia, in 1979, made the mistake the East India Company had made in 1839. It tried to impose a government in Kabul. Putting its own man in place was easy. Keeping him there proved the difficulty... Limited campagins aimed at penetration, aimed simply at inflicting punishment, can succeed, as long as the punitive forces remain mobile, keep control on the high ground and are skillful at tactical disengagement.'