First it was John Allen, American commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, who apologised over the burning of Holy Quran by the US soldiers at Bagram air base, then came the apology from Leon Panetta, Secretary of State for Defence.
Now it’s President Obama’ turn to help diffuse raging sentiments. Obama has sought apologies from Afghans in a letter being delivered to President Karazai. Why the Americans got up to here; why such a disregard of religious sentiments of Afghans? As expected, NATO has tried to hide behind the routine excuses: it was an act on the part of few individuals, it was an unintentional act, and soldiers were trying to dispose off some religious texts and books which the imprisoned Taliban allegedly used to pass clandestine information among them.
It is obvious that such an apologetic behaviour is not sufficient to calm down the runaway sentiments which have already resulted in several deaths in Kabul and elsewhere. Such incidents are not helpful to win Afghans’ hearts and minds but on the contrary these are endangering what has been achieved in last ten years.
However, all this is not deterring a number of Americans making good bucks out of this war. As per media reports, the value of contracts only to engage the interpreters for the US forces has reached $2.3 billion mark. Let’ forget those thousands of Afghans and hundreds of Western soldiers who have lost their life in this war on terror, at least a good number of high profile politicians and contractors in the US and Afghanistan have amassed their bank accounts with ordinary American’ tax money. Let’s forget the display of disrespect for other’s religion and its long term impact in the occupied lands; at least pockets and ego of some arrogant people are being filled to brim.
MASOOD KHAN
Jubail, Saudi Arabia