As spring rolls around and we in Madison start to venture outside for more fun in the sun, it’s important to remember that warm weather is hardly ubiquitous in its good-hearted nature. In fact, halfway across the world in Afghanistan, the spring brings violence and conflict as the local guerilla groups that oppose the American, Afghan and other coalition forces inside the country take advantage of the warmth to mount bold offenses, reports the Israel Times. This should hardly qualify as news. For the 10-plus years we have been at war in Afghanistan, the Taliban and offshoot groups such as the Haqqani network break off fighting in the winter and come back, coordinated and determined after the snow melts to fight off foreign intruders that they have been rebelling against for three decades.

However, recent developments in the country should not go by without note. The New York Times reports a recent string of green-on-blue killings, where American or Afghani forces have been killed or betrayed to the Taliban by “friendly” members of the Afghani army or police force. MSNBC reports we discovered suicide vests within the Afghan defense ministry itself. There have been coordinated attacks, reports the Guardian, earlier this week on three different provinces, including the capital of Kabul, that border the Pakistani tribal regions. This all points to the harsh reality that, notwithstanding the significant gains made in women’s rights, secular education and infrastructure development, the security forces on the ground in Afghanistan are not fighting their 11th year of the war. They are fighting their first year for the 11th time.

The past 10 years of the war in Afghanistan paint a bleak picture for the future. Far too many failed policies, missed opportunities and complete strategic gaffes have led me to believe that our efforts and presence in the country are futile at best and actively harmful at worst. A paper by United States Agency for International Development found that the U.S. has failed to develop a comprehensive agricultural program that would eliminate the enormous poppy cultivation and heroin production schemes that provide practically unlimited revenue to the Taliban. USAID also states that instead of eliminating strongmen, America employed them by turning them into clients and funding the same warlords that had terrorized so many of the Afghan people for the previous decade. Most importantly, USAID said, it enacted policies and strategies that propped up violent, undemocratic regimes such as the Pakistani military, who used aid money to modernize its military in ways more akin to fighting its neighbor India than to preventing or fighting domestic terrorist groups or the governments of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, which is supported in Pakistani-born journalist Ahmed Rashid’s 2008 book “Descent into Chaos.”

In response to recent CNN poll suggesting that more than 70 percent of Americans now support withdrawal, the New York Times’ Room for Debate section featured arguments about Afghan pullout several weeks ago. The authors split about 50-50 between arguing for immediate pullout and advocating a stay-the-course policy. Arguments were divided along familiar fault lines, with those encouraging withdrawal contending that pullout was inevitable and those resisting departure arguing that Afghani institutions such as the government, the police forces and the army needed more time and development before they could ensure the countries safety on their own. A single Afghani writer argued that not only did the U.S. need to remain in the country for longer, it needed to stay past the deadline of 2014 set by the military for full withdrawal. Staying for an extra two years will not be the difference between success and failure.

As bleak as the picture looks, there are bright spots. When terrorist groups launched attacks on the Afghan parliament earlier this week from strongholds across the border in Pakistan, The New York Times reports representatives of three different ethnic groups banded together inside the parliament building instead of splitting apart. One member, Muhammad Naim Hamidzai Lali, grabbed his bodyguard’s machine gun and went to the roof to take the fight to the opposition directly. As he put it, “The Parliament is the house of the nation, and we are representatives of the people and we need to defend the nation’s house … So I took the gun from my bodyguard and began shooting at the terrorists.” Lali’s actions belie the one fact we know about Afghanistan: The Afghans are the only ones who can save it.

Nathaniel Olson ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science, history and psychology.