IS BOTSWANA ALSO ANGRY AT THE TALIBAN?

Western media has been ranting and raving about how the “international community” is incensed about the Taliban having taken over Afghanistan. Tragically, our own Ministry of International Affairs and Cooperation has been deathly silent on this issue but we really need to make our voice heard. Are we, like the United States, western Europe, Australia, and New

Zealand really concerned about the Taliban takeover? Do we really want a military confrontation with the Taliban? Granted, the Botswana Defence Force is militarily superior to the Taliban but no army, no matter how militarily superior, has been able to win a war against the Afghans. Ask the British, Russians, and Americans. Afghans have a failsafe military strategy that makes it impossible for outsiders to dominate them for an extended period of time.

Their strategy is not to win but to simply show up on the battlefield each day, get routed – and show up on the battlefield the next day.

Think of this in terms of a guy in your village who loses all his bar fights but is fighting every night from January 1 to December 31. His strategy is not to win but to wear out his opponents until they move on to a different bar – or just stop going to bars altogether and join a “Fire!” church.

That is exactly what the Taliban does and if it decides to go to war against Botswana, it wouldn’t care how many times BDF beats it; it would just ensure that its mujahedeen show up on the battlefield each day. We certainly don’t want that because we can’t afford to be in the position that the US is in right now.