Afghanistan: What's wrong with this picture?

Take a look at all of those US flags - up against Pakistan's border.

Yes, that's right. While Robert Gates and Condi Rice (who just arrived in Afghanistan for a surprise visit) have both been threatening the demise of NATO if Afghanistan becomes a "failed state" by not having other countries sending in more combat troops because they won't be bullied into it, US troops are busy fighting along the Pakistani border because their useless commander-in-chief has been busy propping up Pervez Musharraf to the tune of $10 billion the past few years. And what, exactly, has he gotten in return?

Musharraf, who has been protecting the notorious AQ Khan from international scrutiny, is now reportedly relaxing Khan's house arrest rules. The Bush administration has forgiven Musharraf every step of the way for his refusal to take control of Waziristan and if you're wondering why the US military won't commit more troops to Kandahar, where our Canadian troops are dying, it's probably because they'll be too busy training Pakistan's army.

Michael Vickers, assistant defense secretary for special operations and low-intensity conflict, said training sites are being chosen for a five-year program to train and equip the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary unit, to confront al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region.

"That is just getting under way," he told reporters at a briefing. "There may be other training assistance as well, subject to continuing discussions with the Pakistanis."

The training is part of a new $750 million U.S. development effort to make Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) less hospitable for al Qaeda and the Taliban. Washington has given Pakistan $10 billion, mainly in military aid, since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

As usual, this is too little way too late considering the situation in Afghanistan. But, both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have been planned for on the fly at the behest of Donald Rumsfeld:

As the United States prepared to respond to the attacks of September 11, Rumsfeld pushed a reluctant military to think unconventionally about going to war in Afghanistan. Dissatisfied with the plan for a large-scale invasion that he received from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Rumsfeld turned to the Pentagon's Special Operations forces.

"He is willing to start military operations in Afghanistan before most of the military thinks that we're ready to do so. And [a] small number of special forces soldiers combined with CIA support for indigenous Afghan resistance forces brings about spectacular results," Krepinevich says.

When the president's attention turned towards Iraq, Rumsfeld pushed his war planners to think outside the box. Emboldened by his success in Afghanistan, the secretary once again pushed aside Pentagon critics and demanded an unconventional war plan.

"Rumsfeld thinks you can re-invent [the] war plan," The Washington Post's Bob Woodward tells FRONTLINE, "And anything that smacks of the old way or something that looks conventional to him, he asks questions about. Doesn't necessarily oppose it, but will ask questions about it, and is looking to make this quicker, with less force and with less casualties."

So, if the Afghanistan war is lost, it certainly isn't NATO's fault. And, just how much of a difference will 1,000 more soldiers make?

This is all on the Bush administration and no amount of guilt-tripping by Gates and Rice at this point is going to change that.

“I do think the alliance is facing a test here,” Ms. Rice said in a visit to London. “Populations have to understand that this is not just a peacekeeping fight.”

Can she possibly be any more condescending?

In Canada, as expected, the Conservative government will table a motion on Thursday for parliament to consider Canada's future role in Afghanistan beyond February, 2009. Stephane Dion said this week the debate will be "civil". Just how do you debate civilly with a bullying government armed with Bush talking-points and insults that any opposing opinion equals siding with the Taliban? While Dion hopes to play chess with Harper - hoping he'll accept a non-combat role extension - "The NDP and the Bloc Quebecois have said flatly that they will vote against any extension of the mission."

As I wrote here last week, there's much more to this debate than whether or not the troops will continue fighting. There's an economic component that's important to both the Conservatives and Liberals in terms of US/Canada relations and I believe that's what's fueling the Harper/Dion meetings this week ie. how to stay on the so-called good side of the US without getting dinged financially.

But that's not what the general public will hear about in this upcoming "debate". It will be all about NATO's credibility and the idea that Canada is responsible for saving it.

Somehow, the Afghanistan people have been forgotten in all of this.

Related:

The war that can bring neither peace nor freedom; The crisis of the Afghan occupation is a reminder of its fraudulent claims, growing cost in blood, and certainty of failure

Pakistani News Channel Goes Off Air

Intrigue takes Afghanistan to the brink
 

They're Just More Dead Civilians

The stories about the unending deaths of Afghan civilians, mainly as the result of "air strikes" (which is just a PC way of saying bombings), eat away at me.

Note the latest news:

More than 100 people, nearly half of them Afghan civilians, were killed in Nato air strikes against the Taliban this weekend, an investigation by local officials in Helmand province has concluded.

This, on the heels of repeated outcries for NATO to be more damn responsible while NATO spokespuppets issue the standard, meaningless apologies. It's just insulting. And although Karzai is trying to wrest control of the situation, he is virtually powerless to do anything to stop the killings while NATO's chief just wants to pay off the families and move on. (And what's the big topic of the day at that conference about Afghanistan? How much judges get paid. Get real.)

He [Karzai] has repeatedly called on US, Nato and Taliban forces to do more to prevent civilian casualties, warning that "Afghan life is not cheap and it should not be treated as such". And he has ordered foreign forces to co-ordinate military operations with the Afghan government. "From now on, they have to work the way we ask them to work in here."

Good luck with that. It's not going to happen.

And the military always uses the same excuse:

Major John Thomas, an Isaf spokesman told the Associated Press: "We don't mean to trivialise any of those who died but we want to make it clear that we believe the numbers are a dozen or less."

He blamed the Taliban for the civilian deaths, saying: "It's the enemy fighters who willingly fire when civilians are right next to them."

Now tell me, if London had decided to launch "air strikes" on Belfast to root out IRA terrorists, does anyone think this "human shield" line would have passed muster? Are you kidding me?

We are taught that "civilian casualties" are acceptable during war time but, while some may be absolutely unavoidable, when you have a situation like the one in Afghanistan where more ordinary people are being killed by the allied forces than by insurgents, isn't it time to rethink the military strategy - a strategy, by the way, which everyone has agreed will not even end the war there? Britain's government officials expect to be there for decades.

The US military is now also expanding attacks into Pakistan. How many more civilians will they kill there while their military pretends that fewer are dead than the real counts show?

Now, read this carefully:

Operations inside Pakistan might be carried out independently by the United States, probably with air power, by Pakistani forces acting alone or as joint offensives. In all cases, though, the US will pull the strings, for instance by providing the Pakistanis with information on targets to hit.

Musharraf has apparently already told his military commanders, the National Security Council and decision-makers in government of the development.

Officially, both NATO and Pakistan deny any agreement on hot-pursuit activities. Major John Thomas, spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, told Asia Times Online, "The ISAF would not strike any targets across the border. That is not part of our mission. We work with the Pakistani government closely on cross-border issues. The ISAF does not have a counter-terrorism mission that I know of."

NATO is supposed to be in charge of military operations in Afghanistan, yet US forces are still free to do whatever they want to? Is it any wonder the place is still such a mess? And if the ISAF's mission does not include counter-terrorism, what is it still doing in Afghanistan?

This statement is from NATO's web site:

NATO is contributing to the fight against terrorism through military operations in Afghanistan, the Balkans and the Mediterranean and by taking steps to protect its populations and territory against terrorist attacks.

And this:

ISAF’s key military tasks include assisting the Afghan government in extending its authority across the country, conducting stability and security operations in co-ordination with the Afghan national security forces; mentoring and supporting the Afghan national army; and supporting Afghan government programmes to disarm illegally armed groups.

No counter-terrorism mission for ISAF? You're kidding, right?

In addition to that, as far as NATO involvement in attacks inside Pakistan go:

Islamabad on June 25 urged NATO-led forces to exercise “restraint” while conducting operations against Taliban fighters in Afghanistan along its border, days after scores of civilians were killed in air strikes by coalition planes and helicopter gunships inside Pakistan.

NATO forces reportedly fired several missiles on June 22 at two villages, leaving at least 33 people dead and more than 70 wounded in North and South Waziristan.

“This incident underscores the need for better coordination, care and restraint by NATO forces, especially when they are operating close to the border,” foreign office spokeswoman Tasneem Aslam told reporters in Islamabad. “We have protested against this incident and we condemn the killing of civilians,” she added.

And I have to mention that the NATO leadership looked incredibly stupid after that:

NATO-led forces admitted June 25 that during an anti-insurgent operation near the shared border, their forces had mistakenly tracked rebels into Pakistani territory and killed up to 10 civilians.

“We regret two things: one that we mistakenly operated inside the Pakistani border, and secondly we regret the loss of civilians in our operation,” an International Security Assistance Force spokesman, Major John Thomas, said in Kabul.

Trained military personnel who don't know how to read maps or use a freaking compass or GPS system? Who are they trying to kid?

And meanwhile, on the Pakistan front, guess who's running the show for those operations?

Senior US officials, including John Negroponte, the deputy secretary of state, and Richard Boucher, the assistant secretary of state, recently visited Pakistan to spell out to opposition leaders that the US is still behind Musharraf, although it will support the participation of secular, democratic political parties in government.

This development occurred even as Washington voiced its dissatisfaction over Musharraf's performance with regard to the Taliban: it pointed to Pakistan's clear involvement in supporting the insurgency in Helmand province since last year.

Indeed, the US was even prepared to withdraw its support of Musharraf, who seized power in 1999, but after a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney to Pakistan, the general remains in favor. Cheney's office is believed to run the United States' Pakistan policy.

What Dick wants, Dick gets. I'll bet he's even counting on flowers and candy.

The reasons are probably twofold: the US needs Pakistan's support should it attack Iran (covert operations into Iran are reportedly already taking place from Pakistan), and the US is concerned over the revival of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Pakistan

I think we all know that reason number #1 is the prime motivator for Bushco's continued support of Musharraf - to the tune of $1 billion per year. And Pakistan does have nukes, after all. The US administration knows that Musharraf is between a rock and a hard place politically, so he needs to be propped up in order to survive. Yes, another one of those flourishing "democracies" where Bushco actually runs the place. They're like franchises.

And because Dick just hasn't been able to come up with enough credible evidence to launch his war on Iran now, the newest meme is that there are Iranian weapons in Afghanistan. Karzai denies that charge.

Karzai has said there is no proof the Iranian-marked weapons are provided by Tehran.

"Iran and Afghanistan have never been as friendly as they are today," he said earlier this month.

But a defence ministry general said the government had "evidence", including documents, to prove the weapons were coming into the country for the Taliban, with Tehran's knowledge.

The official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, would not give further details.

Of course he wouldn't. It's spin.

Ratchet up that rhetoric, boys:

"Iran is giving the option to the US that if it does not give Iran a green light on the nuclear issue and its role in the region, Iran can turn Afghanistan into a second Iraq or Vietnam for them," the general said.

Another military general who asked not to be named agreed, saying, "Iran is baring its teeth to the US at this stage" -- but is also capable of destabilising Afghanistan.

I guess since the "hey, there are Iranian-made weapons in Iraq" thing didn't quite cut it, Buscho now has to figure out other ways to convince the world that bombing Iran is an absolute, imminent necessity.

So meanwhile, as these warmongering fools try to stir up even more trouble, they are doing absolutely nothing to make sure that they stop killing innocent people who are obviously just getting in the way of the glorious day when they will win the war on terror - which, by definition, is impossible.

It's a geopolitical game played on the backs of innocents. War for war's sake. War for profiteering. War for oil. Why should they care about dead men, women and children?

It's infuriating and it needs to end. What the hell is my country doing over there?

Related: Wiki's count of civilian deaths in Afghanistan since 2001
 

Another Canadian Killed in Afghanistan

Via the NYT:

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Five Americans and two other soldiers died when a Chinook helicopter was apparently shot down Wednesday evening in Afghanistan's most volatile province, a U.S. military official said. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force said other troops rushing to the scene were ambushed and had to call in air support to drive off their attackers.

Initial reports suggested the helicopter was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade, said the U.S. official, who insisted on speaking anonymously because the crash was still under investigation. NATO said there were no survivors.

Along with the five Americans, two soldiers from Britain and Canada who had been passengers were also killed, military officials said.

This, on the same day that opposition MPs were once again calling for useless defence minister Gordon O'Connor to resign for lying in parliament about the DND's funeral funding inaction.

May this soldier rest in peace.

In other news from Afghanistan:

JALALABAD, Afghanistan, May 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. military said coalition and Afghan troops killed six Taliban and arrested four in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, though a provincial official and residents said the casualties were villagers.

According to a coalition statement there were no coalition or civilian casualties suffered during a firefight that erupted in an operation in the mountains of Nangarhar province.

The statement did not mention the location in Nangarhar, but Dadak Zalmai, the chief of Khogiani district, said there was a pre-dawn raid on a house in his district.

"The troops killed three civilians and took four with them," Zalmai said.

Several residents said seven civilians, including women and children, were killed and eight wounded in the raid.

How many more civilians are going to die in these botched raids?
 

Follow the Afghan Drug Money

A strange thing happened in Afghanistan in April. NATO ran radio ads and distributed leaflets to reassure poppy farmers in the south that their crops were safe:

For the past month the Western alliance's International Security Assistance Force, tasked with restoring Afghanistan's security and protecting its reconstruction effort, have been running a series of radio ads suggesting that local farmers would no longer be punished for growing opium poppies. NATO hoped its security effort would get better cooperation from the local population if its mission was separated from that of a widely resented poppy-eradication program.
[...]
[The leaflets dropped in Helmand province stated] "The ANA [Afghan National Army] forces and ISAF forces will not eradicate your poppies, because ANA and ISAF forces know that the people there have no other income, that is why they are cultivating poppies."

Needless to say, officials were not impressed and the ads were pulled.
Via NATO's Spring Review, 2006:

NATO, if only by its presence in Afghanistan through the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), cannot be isolated from this issue. Operation Plan 10302, the guidance document according to which ISAF forces should operate as they expand into southern Afghanistan, a major poppy-growing area, specifies the role of NATO forces in supporting Afghan counter-narcotics efforts. This includes logistic support, sharing intelligence and information, and providing training assistance to the Afghan National Army and police in counter-narcotics procedures. While ISAF must perform these duties, NATO-led forces must also avoid becoming so entangled in counter-narcotics activities that their ability to implement key tasks is undermined.

The poppy eradication campaign presents a number of complex challenges and the vicious cycle of violence coupled with the slow reconstruction and lack of alternatives for affected farmers (who consist of about 10% of the population and who produce some 90% of the world's opium) has also caused problems that we, in the west, don't hear much about at all:

In 2004, Nangarhar in eastern Afghanistan was estimated to produce approximately one-fifth of Afghanistan's opium. In 2005, its opium cultivation had decreased by as much as 96 percent. While considered an eradication success story, significant economic hardship and major social discontent followed. For many peasants, it meant a 90 percent reduction in their total cash income, by as much as $3,400. The Cash-for-Work programs designed to provide alternative livelihoods, such as digging wells, offered compensation significantly below income losses. The programs also failed to reach the poorest and most vulnerable. The impoverished peasants have been forced to curb basic food intake and sell long-term productive assets, such as livestock and land. Many have been left feeling betrayed that the promises to help make a new life were unmet, and many are going back to planting poppies this season. The situation in Helmand to the south is analogous.

The most pernicious side effect of the efforts in Nangarhar and Helmand is the inability of peasants to repay their accumulated opium debt. Creditors who lend money to peasants to make it through the winter months and buy seeds for the following season - the only microcredit system available - double or triple the peasants' debts if they are not repaid in the same year. The peasants then have to grow even more poppy than they would have otherwise. If peasants take too long to repay, they face the possibility of being killed by the traffickers and having their houses seized. They are left with two options: Give away their daughters (girls as young as 3) as brides to the creditors or abscond to Pakistan.

It is this migration to Pakistan that especially threatens the counterinsurgency and state-building efforts in Afghanistan. First, migration forced by eradication further alienates the populace from the Kabul government and the international community sponsoring eradication. Second, the refugees easily become fodder for the insurgency. It was Afghan refugees indoctrinated in the radical madrassahs of the Deobandi movement in Pakistan who comprised the bulk of the Taliban's fighters in the 1990s. The shelter most easily available to Afghans driven out by eradication is once again the madrassahs. They try to indoctrinate the current refugees to reject the Karzai government and the very concept of democracy and instead join the Taliban insurgency in a jihad against Karzai and the United States. All too easily, the Taliban insurgents who use Pakistan as a haven can remind them of the good times when the Taliban sponsored poppy cultivation during the 1990s.

The success in curbing drug production in Afghanistan has thus come at the price of undermining state-building and empowering the insurgency.

So, from that perspective, one might think that NATO's ill-fated ad campaign may have had a point.

But there's more to this situation than these realities.

The standard line pushed by western governments about the poppy cultivation situation in Afghanistan can be found in many news stories such as this one, published after US troops were attacked during eradication efforts last week:

Officials say the Taliban are raking in millions of dollars through poppy taxes. The U.S. government estimates the opium trade generates US$3 billion a year in illicit economic activity.

While that is true, there is also another layer to this story. Via Global Research:

Who benefits from the Afghan Opium Trade?

by Michel Chossudovsky

The Western media in chorus blame the Taliban and the warlords. The Bush administration is said to be committed to curbing the Afghan drug trade: "The US is the main backer of a huge drive to rid Afghanistan of opium... "

Yet in a bitter irony, US military presence has served to restore rather than eradicate the drug trade.

What the reports fail to acknowledge is that the Taliban government was instrumental in implementing a successful drug eradication program, with the support and collaboration of the UN.

Implemented in 2000-2001, the Taliban's drug eradication program led to a 94 percent decline in opium cultivation. In 2001, according to UN figures, opium production had fallen to 185 tons. Immediately following the October 2001 US led invasion, production increased dramatically, regaining its historical levels.
[...]
According to the UN, Afghanistan supplies in 2006 some 92 percent of the world's supply of opium, which is used to make heroin.

The UN estimates that for 2006, the contribution of the drug trade to the Afghan economy is of the order of 2.7 billion. What it fails to mention is the fact that more than 95 percent of the revenues generated by this lucrative contraband accrues to business syndicates, organized crime and banking and financial institutions. A very small percentage accrues to farmers and traders in the producing country.

...what distinguishes narcotics from legal commodity trade is that narcotics constitutes a major source of wealth formation not only for organized crime but also for the US intelligence apparatus, which increasingly constitutes a powerful actor in the spheres of finance and banking. This relationship has been documented by several studies including the writings of Alfred McCoy. (Drug Fallout: the CIA's Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive, 1 August 1997).

In other words, intelligence agencies, powerful business, drug traders and organized crime are competing for the strategic control over the heroin routes. A large share of this multi-billion dollar revenues of narcotics are deposited in the Western banking system. Most of the large international banks together with their affiliates in the offshore banking havens launder large amounts of narco-dollars.

This trade can only prosper if the main actors involved in narcotics have "political friends in high places." Legal and illegal undertakings are increasingly intertwined, the dividing line between "businesspeople" and criminals is blurred. In turn, the relationship among criminals, politicians and members of the intelligence establishment has tainted the structures of the state and the role of its institutions including the Military.

So, is there actually a vested interest by the US, other governments and even NATO not to interfere with much force in poppy cultivation? Especially since they have failed so miserably in their reconstruction efforts? Or could these shadow deals actually be driving the slow pace of rebuilding in Afghanistan?

And just how much can we trust Karzai's corrupt government to set things right?

Afghan anti-corruption chief is a convicted heroin trafficker

KABUL, Afghanistan — When the deal went down in Las Vegas, the seller was introduced only as "Mr. E." In a room at Caesars Palace hotel, Mr. E exchanged a pound-and-a-half bag of heroin for $65,000 cash — unaware that the buyer was an undercover detective. The sting landed him in Nevada state prison for nearly four years.

Twenty years later and Mr. E, whose real name is Izzatullah Wasifi, has a new job. He is the government of Afghanistan's anti-corruption chief.

Wasifi leads a staff of 84 people charged with rooting out the endemic graft that is fueled in part by the country's position as the world's largest producer of opium poppy, the raw ingredient of heroin.

President Hamid Karzai's office won't say if he knew about the drug conviction when Wasifi was appointed two months ago as general-director of the General Independent Administration of Anti-Corruption and Bribery. Wasifi, a childhood friend of Karzai, is the son of a prominent Afghan nationalist leader.

An Associated Press review of criminal records in Nevada and California revealed that the 48-year-old Wasifi was arrested at Caesars Palace on July 15, 1987, for selling 650 grams (23 ounces) of heroin. Prosecutors said the drugs were worth $2 million on the street.

And then there's Karzai's attorney-general:

The Harper government has been caught off guard by a deepening scandal in Afghanistan's justice system, following a police raid Tuesday evening on the country's most popular TV channel. The operation was ordered by Attorney General Abdul Jabar Sabet -- who is also a former resident of Montreal.

For more than a month, officials at Foreign Affairs, Citizenship and Immigration Canada and the Prime Minister's Office have dodged questions about Mr. Sabet's entry into Canada in 1999, and exactly how he was able to gain residency. Mr. Sabet has a history of association with Afghan extremist groups, and his earlier attempt to move to the United States was denied by American authorities.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's accident-prone attorney general first created a potential problem for Canadian Forces personnel last autumn, when he abruptly suspended Kabul Airport's respected police chief. Gen. Aminullah Amerkhel was an accomplished drug-buster, and his removal triggered a resumption of heroin trafficking through the airport, according to senior Afghan lawmen and legislators. Heroin profits help finance the Taliban's war effort against NATO forces, including Canadian troops based in Kandahar province.

Yet Canada and its NATO allies acquiesced to the crisis, despite calls from the Speaker of Afghanistan's Senate to have Gen. Amerkhel reinstated, and choruses of demands from Parliament that Mr. Sabet himself be removed from office. There, legislators lament that President Karzai's international sponsors appear content to be spectators of the corruption and ineptitude wracking their client administration in Afghanistan. Tuesday's raid may change that.

"The international community now has an obligation to act," says Saad Mohseni, head of Tolo TV, the channel whose offices were raided by 50 heavily armed policemen. Several Tolo journalists were badly beaten, and three were arrested. Four Associated Press employees covering the raid were taken away and roughed up as well. Mr. Mohseni says: "Sabet has shown that he is totally unfit to hold his position. Our international allies must tell the president this type of official is not acceptable to the Afghan people."

The problem is that Afghanistan's international allies, most notably the Bush administration and Canada's government, actually support this man, despite what he's done.

Considering the complexities and political maneuvering that goes on constantly behind the scenes, funded by billions of dollars in drug money, what chance do ordinary Afghanis have that they'll ever see anything resembling security and stability in their country? While everybody's so focused on insurgent and "terrorist" attacks in the news on this side of the pond, perhaps we need to spend more time gauging exactly what it's going to take to set Afghanistan on the correct path and, considering the many powers working against that end ("allies" and non-allies), we really need to ask if that's even possible.

It's certainly true that there is no military solution to Afghanistan's problems but is it even conceivable that a political one can be in the offing any time soon? The level of corruption, international interference and addiction to drug money would seem to signal that that answer is "no".