For how long

It will soon be 9 years now that the UN has approved a military engagement of allied forces in Afghanistan. For which results so far?

The very first reason why the US decided to strike this country was because OBL was hiding there and the then "rulers" of the place refused to extradite him. The goal was to put a hand on Al Q's leader. Had OBL chosen to take refuge in the middle of Africa, this is where NATO forces would be by now.

He's still on the run and will never be captured. Didn't President Bush acknowledged once that getting OBL wasn't a priority? (March 13 2002) ("I don't know where Bin Laden is, I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority")

Out of solidarity with America after the 9/11 attacks, all its allies volunteered to participate in the war and the ongoing occupation.

Now, since catching OBL isn't a priority not even a goal of this war, many in the US -and even more in Europe- begin to wonder what's the point of all this.

Let's see:

1°) Winning hearts and minds of Muslim populations whose country is being occupied by "infidels" who want to impose their political system? Needless to say nobody believes one word of that stuff.

2°) To eradicate training camps for would be terrorists? Any derelict place in the world can be turned into a "training camp".

3°) To foster a prosperous, dynamic economy in a country that will soon embrace western values and life style? Actually, poppy crops are prosperous like they've never been before. The first market is the West.

4°) To assure the building of a reliable military ally of NATO forces? What's going on in Pakistan (the staunchest support of the Taliban regime up to 2002) shows how reliable this sort of ally can be.

5°) To sow the seeds of democracy and expect gratefulness of the locals?

There's no end in sight but nobody can admit the truth: there's no point in staying in this region of the world where the mentalities are about what they were back in the 13th century among people who hate the West and its inhabitants.

The casualties are minimal as a matter of fact but the Germans for example wonder why they've lost 42 men over there. And the Canadians may well think that 151 is too many. As for the US they've lost 1223 soldiers. For what purpose? What has been achieved after 8 years of war and occupation? What can be expected for the 5 years to come?

The Russians -who weren't exactly sissies- failed to achieve anything in Afghanistan. It's very likely that the outcome will be the same with the current NATO engagement in this place stuck between Iran and Pakistan, where about every individual (there are more than 30 million of them) is a potential enemy of the West.

Unless, of course, the real goal of this occupation is to settle even more military bases around Iran...

Peace isn't around the corner then.