Black Sunday: The day the U.S. invaded Afghanistan

By Muhammad Jalal Nineteen years ago, on this day, with its arrogant policy of “you are either with us, or against us”, George W. Bush launched his preemptive crusade on Afghanistan. Americans, who claim to be the champions of liberty and democracy began a war on co-existence, taking the lives of tens of thousands of […]

By Muhammad Jalal

Nineteen years ago, on this day, with its arrogant policy of “you are either with us, or against us”, George W. Bush launched his preemptive crusade on Afghanistan. Americans, who claim to be the champions of liberty and democracy began a war on co-existence, taking the lives of tens of thousands of innocent Afghans.

It is in our living memory that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan in 2001 appealed “to all countries and their peoples to negotiate to solve the crisis” through peaceful means. Everyone witnessed when the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s representative facing international media late that year said: “We are part of the world and want to be treated as such.” But arrogant Americans did not see negotiation and diplomacy as an option. The Americans believed that they did not need to negotiate as they possess the most powerful military with the most advanced technology in the world. With the help of its puppet warlords and successive puppet regimes in Kabul, the results have been imprisonments, kidnappings, tortures, rapes, murders, injuries, and persecution of innocent Afghans.

Innocent Afghans have suffered immensely because of the war and the brutality of the US since 2001. From B52 bombings in early days of the war, to regular night-raids on innocent people’s houses, all the way to the use of the Mother of All Bombs, war crimes became a norm for Americans and their puppets. Gatherings of people were bombed; whether it was a funeral, a wedding, a hospital or a school. People were massacred in night raids, with the Panjwai massacre a classic example. Innocent Afghans were abducted, imprisoned and tortured for decades in the notorious Guantanamo and Bagram jails. Thus, the invasion on Sunday October 7, without a doubt, is one of the darkest days in the modern history of Afghanistan.

As with the previous invaders, Afghans and the Mujahidin of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan stood firm and committed to liberate the country from the invaders. There were no modern weaponries and airpower with the Mujahidin, but there was will, motivation and a just cause for freedom, which brought the invaders to their knees. Napoleon Bonaparte famously and rightly stated that: “There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.” Mujahidin of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan are blessed with spirit and determination, beating passionately in the hearts of every soldier and leader. Ever since 2001, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has consistently advocated for a peaceful solution to the crisis, while at the same time warned the Americans about the consequences of invading a sovereign state.

Subsequent to the military invasion of Afghanistan, the US alongside its European allies wanted to impose a Western-style secular democracy on Afghanistan. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has been defying those who aim to impose foreign ideas and concepts on Afghanistan and will struggle continue to struggle towards establishing an Islamic system. The US and its allies failed and will fail in both its military invasion of Afghanistan as well as in its cultural invasion of the country. With hundreds of billions of dollars wasted by the International Community to impose a western way of life on the Afghans, the outcome is nothing but a corrupt regime in Kabul. More than 90% of Afghans live in poverty. Drug production is at its highest in history. Crimes have become a daily routine. All these, while a few corrupt elites surrounded by blast-walls in Kabul, live extravagantly and try as much as they can to extend the war, to support the lives they have become accustomed to.

After 19 years, the US has finally come to understand that there should have been dialogues and a peaceful resolution instead the ongoing war. The situation in Afghanistan would have been very different today had the US not invaded, and instead used dialogue as means of resolving the issues in 2001.