LETTER: The only winners in the Afghanistan mess are Pakistan and Islamic fundamentalists

We cannot talk about Afghanistan without first paying tribute to the brave men and women with a pen in their hands and microphones to their mouths. I have to salute Clarissa Ward, CNN's chief international correspondent. She is white, a woman and a journalist. Everything the Taliban hates. Yet there she is in the middle of Kabul interviewing the local Taliban commander, surrounded by his fighters and questioning his understanding of Islam. This is journalism of the highest order.

It is easy for analysts and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to shout from the sidelines without offering a practical  solution. Britain failed to save the country. The only winners in this mess are Pakistan and Islamic fundamentalists. US president Joe Biden didn't start the downfall. Afghanistan was a disaster waiting to happen since the days of the corrupt and dysfunctional government of president Hamid Karzai.

America had no business being there. I am sure Islamabad  is happy to now run Afghanistan via its sponsored Taliban ragtags.   It is an open secret that Pakistan intelligence services offered sanctuary to Taliban of the Pashtun tribe in Quetta. Only a fool would believe the new Taliban leaders' promises of respecting human rights.

Talibanism is about cruelty and revenge. I am sorry for ordinary  Afghans who have been betrayed and neglected by all. Afghanistan was destroyed by its leaders, drug trafficking, violent crime, unemployment and ethnic factionalism. It is not America's role to save Afghanistan. Where are its neighbours?  Nation-building is the sole responsibility of the Afghan people, not outsiders who want to own the country.

The British and Russians failed. I wish American leaders had listened to the warnings of Barnett R Rubin, author of Fragmentation of Afghanistan. He said: “If Washington wants to succeed in Afghanistan it must invest in creating livelihoods for the rural poor while attacking the main drug traffickers and the corrupt officials who protect them.”

Dr Lucas Ntyintyane, Via email

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