Canadian soldiers accompanied by Afghan National Army soldiers secure the area near Howz-e-Madad ahead of a 'shura' Dec. 23, 2006 in the Panjwaii District of southern Afghanistan as Chinook helicopters hover overhead.Kevin Van Paassen
The war in Afghanistan passed its 10-year mark on Friday, a marathon that has exhausted the NATO countries that started it and the Afghans who believed it would bring lasting stability.
"We all had high hopes," said Ali Seraj, the grandson of one of the country's last kings and one of the many optimistic Afghan exiles who returned after the American invasion in 2001. "Today people are disillusioned, disgusted, confused."
For the United States and its NATO backers, which launched the war after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, two of the original objectives of the war have been achieved.
The Taliban regime that sheltered al-Qaeda collapsed soon after the first bombs fell a decade ago. The second took longer, but five months ago American soldiers finally pinpointed and killed Osama bin Laden.
Yet the war goes on, with increasing ferocity, with a resurgent Taliban and other extremist groups under their umbrella. Civilians are dying at record-high levels from the fighting. According to United Nations figures, the number of violent incidents such as bombings and gun battles has increased by 39 per cent in the past year alone.
For the countries with troops on the front lines, an exit from the Afghanistan quagmire looms on the horizon. NATO leaders have said they will withdraw their combat forces by the end of 2014.
Yet for Afghans, the timeline only deepens fears that their government is too weak and the country too divided to stand on its own. Looking back over the past decade, many people see a string of missed opportunities and blind spots that prevented Afghans and their foreign benefactors from building on their early military success.
"In the very beginning, we all thought that just by pouring in some money, maybe sending some troops and training a few Afghans, you would be able to rebuild," recalled Omar Samad, who rushed home from exile in the United States just weeks after the fall of the Taliban.
That "small footprint" approach, as he put it, underestimated the damage to Afghanistan's institutions and infrastructure from nearly three decades of war before the American invasion.
"It was a totally shattered country," said Mr. Samad, who served as ambassador to Canada and France for the new Afghan government before resigning earlier this summer. "It took us a few years – and I mean both the Afghans and the international community – to realize we were facing a colossal task."
Afghanistan remains one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. But it has changed in big ways and many Afghans credit the NATO presence for much of the spending and interest of international donors.
To make a phone call to Europe, Afghans used to have to drive to Peshawar in Pakistan. Now millions have mobile phones. To travel from Kabul to Jalalabad, a distance of 115 kilometres, used to take an entire day. Now it takes 2½ hours on a paved road that is part of a network of some 12,000 kilometres of new roadways.
"In Afghan villages, no one knew what the word 'clinic' even meant," said Zia Farhang, a Kabul-based engineer. "I travel around a lot and today there are clinics all over the country in the villages. Maybe there are no doctors or nurses, but the infrastructure is being put in place."
Much the same can be said of the Afghan state, many agree. It has a parliament, a government and an elected president. But they are empty shells, riddled with corruption and lacking credibility.
For that, Mr. Seraj blames Western countries. NATO devoted too few military resources in the early years to deter a Taliban comeback, he said, and its leaders imposed on Afghanistan a Western-style political system that is at odds with its tribal traditions.
"They built a house with imaginary walls," he said. "You can keep changing the roof, but it will collapse."