Editorial: No military solution to Afghan conflict

Erik Prince, founder of the controversial security firm Blackwater, is trying to convince President Donald Trump to privatize America’s war in Afghanistan. His pitch rejected by senior US administration officials, most notably Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, but he is not giving up with pursing his pitch for the people to decide on. He very directly said that situation in Afghanistan can be resolved with a few thousands men and around $3.5 billion expense. In a recent interview with a local media in Afghanistan, Prince said his plan would change situation in Afghanistan within six months, and he assured to bring change in persisting gloomy picture where insecurity has been grown with intensification of war across the country. 3,600 contracted veteran mentors from Blackwater will be deployed to Afghanistan – 36 for each Afghan unit and for two to four years at a time. It is crystal fact that Afghan masses are fed up with war and desperately waiting for peace to be restored through any ways and channels. Today, like past years, peace talks and military operations are going side by side. Afghan government calls on Taliban to join Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace and reconciliation process, while military crackdowns are underway nationwide. In such situation when peace door is open for militants, the coming up of billionaire Blackwater founder Prince to end Afghan conflict via military approach, does not seems rational. It is better to rule out a military solution to the war, especially in such time when some elements within the Taliban guerrillas, might be open to talks. Nevertheless, there is no win by war as it brings nothing but devastation—if that narrative realistic and functional, Afghanistan could be safest place across the world. Afghanistan has been caught in conflict for years, only peace dialogue is visible option to end the ongoing war. A wise mind understands that war brings destruction one of the most obvious kinds of destruction is the terrain, but there is also the destruction of a society, and destruction of families. No one can ever fully recover from the different forms of destruction war causes. To that end Prince must bear in mind that Afghanistan’s conflict has nothing to do with war as it is an imposed one—what is the need of the hour is regional and world’s consensus to stop financial supports to militant outfits—something that automatically ends complicated and longest-US war in the country.