The Clipboard: Afghanistan: The forgotten conflict

From an article¹:

There are daily reports of continuing ferocious clashes between Coalition forces and native insurgents. The brave men and women who have accepted the task of helping to restore order to their own land are repeatedly picked off, brutally and mercilessly, by the rebels among their countrymen. The American forces that "liberated" the nation are now bitterly accused of brutalising its inhabitants.

The enormous post-war reconstruction effort, the spectacular peace dividend seen as the key to establishing lasting stability in a nation torn by despotic rule and disfigured by an irresistible US-led invasion, is struggling to deliver the across-the-board improvements required.

On one significant front in their international war on terror, the Coalition is facing an explosive cocktail of disturbing developments. And the signs are that the situation is deteriorating.

"It's never been good," a senior source at the Ministry of Defence wearily conceded last night, "but the security situation in Kabul is definitely getting worse."

For this is not Iraq, the customary arena for all the Coalition's difficulties in imposing its will upon a reluctant nation. It is Afghanistan, the trail-blazing epitome of the success in exporting western democracy and values around the world as a force for good.

As the bloody imbroglio of Iraq has preoccupied the world's headlines, the exercise in nation-building once viewed as the template for all others has begun to tear at the seams: to the extent that some officials in Washington and London are beginning to warn of a descent into bloodshed that would rival the brutality of Baghdad...

...Over the longer-term, reviewing efforts to pacify Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, and looking ahead to an uncertain future, Tony Blair and George Bush are contemplating a "complete strategic failure" in Afghanistan...

...In the southern area of Afghanistan in particular, the warlords and rebels stubbornly remain. Earlier on in the operation, Blair is believed to given a commitment that British troops would take the lead in pacifying the south. Now, with the overall security situation deteriorating, and the southern zone earmarked as the crucible of the unrest, he is under greater pressure to make good on that promise.

Scotland on Sunday understands that planners at the military's Northolt headquarters have drawn up emergency proposals to send in up to 5,500 troops to help avert a descent into more widespread bloodshed. The dramatic move would increase the present British presence in Afghanistan tenfold and require additional funding of almost £500m. MoD sources confirmed last night that the contingency plans have been firmed up in response to persistent concerns that the notorious rebel commander Gulbadin Hikmatyar has teamed up with Taliban fighters in the area. Senior army and navy officers, along with officials from the Treasury, were in the region last week to survey the options.

"We are going into an area where there's a civil war going on," one MoD source said. "It's dangerous and it's somewhere new. People [within the MoD] are not saying 'don't go there'. What they are saying is 'don't penny-packet this - we will have to do it properly'."

Doing it properly will mean Blair meeting his pledge not to walk away from Afghanistan. It will also mean further arguments with his defence officials, the Treasury and, perhaps, his own party - and risk further tarnishing his reputation at home with a military adventure abroad. But this enormous investment, in military, financial and political terms, may be the only way he can salvage lasting success from what many had already regarded as the most conclusive international achievement of his career. (link)

While nobody was paying any attention, Afghanistan has been going to hell in a handbasket. From everything I've read, Bush could hardly wait to move on from there to Iraq, in pursuit of whatever delusional idea he has about Iraq. And this is what it has come to.

---

Complete text of the article, The forgotten conflict, by Stephen Carter and Brian Brady

There are daily reports of continuing ferocious clashes between Coalition forces and native insurgents. The brave men and women who have accepted the task of helping to restore order to their own land are repeatedly picked off, brutally and mercilessly, by the rebels among their countrymen. The American forces that "liberated" the nation are now bitterly accused of brutalising its inhabitants.

The enormous post-war reconstruction effort, the spectacular peace dividend seen as the key to establishing lasting stability in a nation torn by despotic rule and disfigured by an irresistible US-led invasion, is struggling to deliver the across-the-board improvements required.

On one significant front in their international war on terror, the Coalition is facing an explosive cocktail of disturbing developments. And the signs are that the situation is deteriorating.

"It's never been good," a senior source at the Ministry of Defence wearily conceded last night, "but the security situation in Kabul is definitely getting worse."

For this is not Iraq, the customary arena for all the Coalition's difficulties in imposing its will upon a reluctant nation. It is Afghanistan, the trail-blazing epitome of the success in exporting western democracy and values around the world as a force for good.

As the bloody imbroglio of Iraq has preoccupied the world's headlines, the exercise in nation-building once viewed as the template for all others has begun to tear at the seams: to the extent that some officials in Washington and London are beginning to warn of a descent into bloodshed that would rival the brutality of Baghdad.

Scotland on Sunday understands that British military planners have warned the MoD and the Foreign Office that the Nato-led effort to pacify Afghanistan, through the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), faces a series of mortal challenges to its authority in the coming months. Amid persistent, poisonous disputes between regional warlords, and difficulties in equipping the 8,000-strong international force to keep the peace, some openly fear that the fragile democracy could plunge back into civil war.

Over the longer-term, reviewing efforts to pacify Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, and looking ahead to an uncertain future, Tony Blair and George Bush are contemplating a "complete strategic failure" in Afghanistan.

Such a worst-case scenario, if it proves accurate, presents a brutal dilemma: either the Coalition reneges on the grand promises delivered more than three years ago and abandons the Afghans to their fate; or they take the challenge head-on, in the certain knowledge that this would demand a huge increase in military activity and all the dangers that would entail.

When it was bombing the Taliban the West was quick to promise it would follow up the military campaign with long-term nation-building. Given the consequences a failed Afghanistan had already produced, it was in their own interests to make sure things changed.

Tony Blair told Afghans: "The conflict will not be the end. We will not walk away, as the outside community has so many times before."

In practice - while many things have improved - instability and lawlessness are still rife, the opium trade threatens to turn the country into a narco-state, and reconstruction is falling short of expectations.

Initial aid fell far short of needs, and it was not until March 2003 - with a resurgent Taliban threatening to destabilise the fragile new regime - that the international community began committing the sort of cash experts said serious reconstruction demanded.

And even with the new money, delivery has dragged far behind, with less than a billion dollars worth of projects completed as of February this year.

At this rate, it will take more than 90 years to spend the $27.5bn the government says is needed to rebuild the country.

Opium is widely thought the greatest threat to Afghanistan. The country still provides about 90% of world production: the view from the US government is that it is "on the verge of becoming a narcotics state". Opium already accounts for more than a third of the total economy: money that funds warlords and fuels corruption that is spreading through the heart of government.

And yet for Afghan farmers it is arguably a far more effective aid programme than anything the international community can offer. Income from drugs since 2002 is more than twice total aid flows - even if much of the money goes to the dealers, many villagers depend on the crop, with more than a billion dollars going straight to farmers' pockets in 2003.

For the government the biggest danger could be from ill-conceived efforts to target these growers. The small town of Maiwand, 90 minutes drive from Kandahar, was recently visited by a dedicated government poppy eradication force, backed up with American security contractors armed with M-16s and John Deere tractors.

The result was a riot. Farmers reportedly lay down in front of the tractors, saying they would rather be killed than give up their crop, and a hail of gunfire could be heard coming from the fields where crowds had converged on the eradicators.

Eyewitnesses said almost all the firing came from the soldiers. At least four people were injured, and there were unconfirmed reports of two deaths. Standing in his ravaged fields two days after the incident, Haji Sadow Khan, the white-bearded farmer whose crops were targeted, said 80 people in his extended family depended on the income from the poppy: if the eradication continued they would not be able to stay on the land.

The political consequences could be serious. "It is because of our beards that the Taliban are not active in this area," Sadow Khan said, referring to his status as an elder, "and this is how the government rewards us."

There is serious concern among many observers about the tactics being used against the opium threat. "Some very foolish people in the United States think that the way to stabilise the country and get rid of the drugs problem is to stop people from growing drugs without having any alternative development ready to provide them with income," says Barney Rubin, Afghan expert and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Cooperation in New York.

Opium is arguably a much greater threat to Afghanistan than the Taliban, but the movement is still very much alive.

In the past week six Afghans were shot dead when a vehicle belonging to a US company involved in irrigation was attacked by suspected Taliban militants on the main Kabul-Kandahar highway: the attack came a day after five others working on anti-drug project were killed in a separate incident. At least 30 Afghan and coalition soldiers have been killed in clashes with insurgents since early April.

The security question remains the most significant issue for the Coalition as it attempts to pacify the country. Initially, US forces in Afghanistan limited themselves to a narrowly-focused military campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. It was only in 2003 that tactics changed, with greater emphasis on counter-insurgency and winning hearts and minds through reconstruction projects.

This approach has been undermined by arbitrary arrests and the deaths of several detainees, as well as continuing outrage over Guantanamo Bay. Nonetheless recent months have seen a steady trickle of Taliban defectors returning to civilian life, with one ex-foreign minister due to stand in September's parliamentary elections.

The expansion of the relatively well-trained and disciplined Afghan National Army is also a source for hope, although neither it nor the under-equipped Afghan police have managed to seriously curtail the excesses of many local strongmen.

The elections are seen as a serious hurdle, one the government "barely have the technical means to pull off," Rubin says.

But widespread fraud and violence are feared as local commanders vie to consolidate their power, and the voting system has been widely criticised. Rubin says: "It is very likely that many people will not accept the outcome of the parliamentary elections... that the parliament that is elected will not therefore enjoy a great deal of legitimacy, that it will not be able to function, that the country will not be able to govern itself."

Without an effective government, the prospects for political stability, development and security - and the issues Afghans are most worried about - are limited. The danger is that eventually these dangers will drag the country back from the progress it has already made.

"There is a lot of progress on all fronts," Rubin says, "but that progress is not particularly sustainable, and it's not particularly firm." The stoical diagnosis is repeated in London - in public, at least. Behind the scenes, however, the British political and military establishment is preparing to bite the bullet and commit itself to an intensive campaign to ensure stability.

ISAF currently numbers around 8,000 troops from 47 countries, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the international coalition is not driving out the established para-military leaders and rebel insurgents quickly enough. It is more than a year since the Americans sent some 2,000 more marines to Afghanistan - joining around 12,000 compatriots already in the country - to step up the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders. They are still there.

In the southern area of Afghanistan in particular, the warlords and rebels stubbornly remain. Earlier on in the operation, Blair is believed to given a commitment that British troops would take the lead in pacifying the south. Now, with the overall security situation deteriorating, and the southern zone earmarked as the crucible of the unrest, he is under greater pressure to make good on that promise.

Scotland on Sunday understands that planners at the military's Northolt headquarters have drawn up emergency proposals to send in up to 5,500 troops to help avert a descent into more widespread bloodshed. The dramatic move would increase the present British presence in Afghanistan tenfold and require additional funding of almost £500m. MoD sources confirmed last night that the contingency plans have been firmed up in response to persistent concerns that the notorious rebel commander Gulbadin Hikmatyar has teamed up with Taliban fighters in the area. Senior army and navy officers, along with officials from the Treasury, were in the region last week to survey the options.

"We are going into an area where there's a civil war going on," one MoD source said. "It's dangerous and it's somewhere new. People [within the MoD] are not saying 'don't go there'. What they are saying is 'don't penny-packet this - we will have to do it properly'."

Doing it properly will mean Blair meeting his pledge not to walk away from Afghanistan. It will also mean further arguments with his defence officials, the Treasury and, perhaps, his own party - and risk further tarnishing his reputation at home with a military adventure abroad. But this enormous investment, in military, financial and political terms, may be the only way he can salvage lasting success from what many had already regarded as the most conclusive international achievement of his career.

reference=http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=444&id=559732005