TALIBAN NOW RULE AFGHANISTAN BUT WILL THE COUNTRY FINALLY ENJOY PEACE?
How an army of THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND, trained and appropriately armed by the most powerful country in the world collapsed in NINE days like a pack of cards as the Taliban swept across the countryside heading for the Afghan capital Kabul is something people will be writing and talking about for a long time to come. For now countries that can, are busy taking their citizens out of Kabul because of the uncertainty of Taliban rule. Despite all assurances of calm, peace and collaboration promised by the new rulers of that notoriously unstable country, people are fleeing in droves and by all available means. Trusting the Taliban is a dangerous leap of faith. They were on the table in Qatar talking peace while taking one city after the other. How can anybody trust them?
Joe Biden is being criticized for pushing through the withdrawal of US troops and opening up gaps scrupulously exploited by the Taliban as they fought their way to Kabul. We listened to him carefully as he addressed his people and absolutely stood by his decision to pull his troops despite all the chaos. So let’s make some points.
1. It is a fact that no military strategist envisaged the Taliban taking power within TEN days of launching their offensive in full scale. We believe that even Taliban commanders and foot soldiers were surprised at what little or zero resistance they met. We believe that some of them thought they were being drawn into a trap but were even more surprised when they arrived at the gates of Kabul to be greeted by news that Ashraf Ghani was gone. The Taliban are now so confident of their victory that they are consolidating and setting up a government.
2. Afghan soldiers packed some of their equipment in their planes, leaving their families behind and flew to neighboring countries. We agree with Joe Biden that the Afghan government and people should NEVER look forward to other countries to fight and die for them while they flee to neighboring countries.
3. Ashraf Ghani also packed his ministers in a plane and left the country. A few days before that he sacked his defence minister and stuffed his plane with cash bound for a foreign country. The Taliban will not find any money in the central bank. The vault is with Ashraf Ghani in Qatar.
4. It is regrettable that people lost their lives trying to hang on planes but like Biden said it could have taken another TWENTY years and FOUR other US presidents but US troops would surely leave Afghanistan someday and the same chaos would take place. It would make no difference.
5. Sadly we don’t think this war is over. The Taliban will eventually face a challenge from forces from the old regime and indeed from within. Some hardliners would begin to complain about the openness the new regime is promising. They will call it an attempt to appease the west and find a way of expressing that with fire.
WHAT IS SOCFIN REALLY SAYING ABOUT THE DEATH OF ISHMAEL BARBA RONALD?
We have just been reading a statement from SOCFIN Agricultural Company attempting to explain how a junior worker met his death at their oil mill. There are aspects of the statement that we will ignore and concentrate on the way they want to explain this death and return to business as usual. We are not coming at this thinking about all that is happening between SOCFIN and a local land rights group called MALOA. That matter has rumbled on for years with MALOA people and their local MP being locked up a few times for the consequences of their agitation against SOCFIN. Today MALOA has splintered with SOCFIN smiling in the corner.
We want to tell SOCFIN that they should allow investigators from the police and Ministry of Labor to go into their factory and investigate the death of this young man. All the explanations we saw on social media should be put to the investigators who will test that against what they find on the ground and put the information up against their own rules and guidelines and produce a report for the whole world to read. We know that accidents happen in places of work but we need to get the facts of what actually happened inside that mill.
We will not accept any explanation we get from SOCFIN. We want to hear from the police and the Minister of Labor. What we are hearing from the ground tells us that there are very difficult questions still to be answered.
CYNICISM WILL KILL LEONE STARS IN AfCON
We will be in Cameroon in January defending the GREEN WHITE and BLUE in a group with our MRU neighbors Ivory Coast, Algeria and Equatorial Guinea. We noted in Wednesday’s edition that in football there are no small countries and we will not underestimate any country.
Now a typical Sierra Leonean disease has emerged. Our people are all over social media talking up the chances of our opponents while telling the world we need a MIRACLE to make any good showing. We like people who make critical comments about things; some are so well established that the whole society now accepts them as people who are always bringing critical opinion to the debate. As we prepare for AfCON we should really avoid constant criticism and lack of courage coming from those guys in the despondency club in social media. For them nothing good can come out of Sierra Leone so they are already saying we will be the whipping boys in Cameroon. We’ll see.
We saw what happened on the streets of this country when our team - Leone Stars returned home after defeating Benin in Guinea. Why can’t we maintain that posture until the end of the tournament in the best interest of our team? Let’s say this, the fact that our flag is flying among the others is itself a major achievement but we want to go one step beyond that and show the world we can play football. Let’s drop all political undertones and this know-it-all nonsense and support Leone Stars. Cameroon, here we come!
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