Afghanistan: The Taliban Deal the Cards

The images and magnitude of the Taliban’s attack on the Afghan government’s heart in Kabul are striking. Seeing the scenes and the situation itself, we can compare it to the Tet Offensive in 1968, when the Viet Minh infiltrated the capital of South Vietnam, Saigon with hundreds of men for a surprise attack. Even if the books say that the military objectives were not achieved by the Vietcongs, i.e. no important position was occupied, the simple fact that the enemies got there in common cars and invaded the United States’ embassy was an important victory in itself.

The attackers were all killed or captured – it is true – but to the pages of history that count, it is not so, especially after so many years. The operation revealed a degree of vulnerability in the South Vietnamese regime that, until then, the West was not able to foresee. U.S. allies at the time thought of the massive military presence as a kind of wall. The Tet Offensive showed that the wall, close-up, was full of holes and passages.

What happened in Kabul reinforces the feeling that the war in Afghanistan, the real war on Islamic terror, is not going as strategists planned. The fact that the Taliban have managed to deal a heavy and direct attack in the capital against President Hamid Karzai made it clear that the nightmare of Southeast Asia, in terms of history, may have a parallel in the 21st century.

Even if we thought the combat operations against the fundamentalist militia were effective in dominating the countryside before these attacks, leaving the capital under control of NATO, we are now sure that NATO is surrounded by an invisible enemy on all sides. The size of the infiltration in Kabul still cannot be measured, but clearly it is too difficult for Western troops to use their technological means to reduce it. A soldier of the coalition must now look at the Afghan police officer by his side without knowing whether he is an ally or enemy, just as happened with the South Vietnamese.