In the war between most of the world and the Taliban in Afghanistan, there may be no winner, but it seems the world definitely is a loser.
This is not because not enough weapons are sent in. This is not because the world does not have enough soldiers. It is not because the Taliban have highly skilled huge armies. Most people seem to agree on this.
However, no one has come up with any convincing explanation for why the world is losing. The people who are supposed to come with explanations are journalists, people who are there, who have contacts, who know the place. And yet we hear nothing much of actual value. We get informations that are easy to collect: the number of troops, the statements of political leaders. But do we get information that matters?
Among the Taliban, how many of them have chosen to fight for the Taliban, and how many have been forced to join them? No one seems to know. Of the ones who chose to join them, what were there reasons for doing so? There must be thousands of different reasons, but I can hardly mention any, and even less do I see any concrete measures taken to remove those reasons.
How much of the country is "safe", be it in the hands of the Talibans or in the hands of the allied troops and the Afghan government? How much is unstable? How many people fear for their lives? How many fear without reason? How many do not fear, even though they should be afraid? In the safe areas, what do people think of the foreign involvement in the country? How many of the women think the burqas are horrible and how many of them actually like the protection it gives? How many of the anti-allied anti-government forces would happily give up weapons, if they were just given... something? And what would that be?
It seems no one can answer those questions. No one knows. No one knows how to handle the questions, how to handle the peoples of Afghanistan, what their needs and desires are.
That's where the journalists fail. Without this information, we, citizens of democratic countries, cannot give any rational opinions on what should be done. Without this information, we cannot pressure our leaders to rational decisions.
And the result is a prolonged and irrational war. And we are in it.
