Here is the dilemma: To be politically correct, or to be factually correct?
When we look at Afghanistan, we try to ignore a big part of the picture: The elephant in the room – The Afghan people.
No definite steps can be taken towards lasting peace without taking into consideration the part that Afghans have played in starting and exacerbating their own woes.
For their own sake and for the sake of the entire region and the world at large, it is necessary for the Afghans to be honest about their own role in this composite mess.
Since 1967, there have been several cutoff points where the Afghans could have moved in the right direction but they didn’t.
PDPA (Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan) was the communist party established on 1 January 1965 by Nur Mohammad Tarakai and Babrak Karmal. After gaining some popularity the party was flooded by too many ambitious people and it voluntarily split into four factions in 1967: Khalq, Parcham, Setami Milli and Grohi Kar. — This was the first major step in the wrong direction. Many of the troubles of Afghanistan today can be traced to this splintering of communists.
In 1973, Sardar Daoud Khan overthrew his first cousin King Zahir Shah and became the president of Afghanistan. He was supported by PDPA that was still a minority voice in a country where people looked with suspicion at communism. — This was the second wrong step for PDPA. Had it stayed away from power, it would have had the chance to unite internally and gain the mass popularity for better serving their country. But they preferred instant power.
