Afghan News Compendium

Dark pasts of Afghans are kept quiet BOSTON GLOBE June 20/06

Sayed Gulabzoi: member of parliament for the southern province of Khost.
as minister of the interior he oversaw the intelligence service notorious for torturing and killing civilians.
Amanullah Guzar: Kabul police chief
The most controversial appointment is linked to land theft and extortion in his home territory on the Shomali plains north of Kabul.
Karzai appointed 13 former commanders with alleged links to drug smuggling, organized crime, or illegal militias to senior police positions across the country.
......A sensitive UN High Commissioner for Human Rights report that has been shelved for the past 18 months accuses leading Afghan politicians and officials of

Afghan Government Composition

In one southern province, for instance, the new Karzai-appointed governor is a former senior Taliban minister who is still on the United Nations most-wanted list for his alleged ties to Al Qaeda.

Britain is the fall guy for the US retreat from Afghanistan June 7, 2006

Karzai appears to be moving away from the western models and towards a more traditional Afghan politics. Last month he appalled western observers by appointing a dozen provincial police chiefs described as "gangsters and criminals".

Karzai plans return of Taliban's religious police

The Afghan government has alarmed human rights groups by approving a plan to reintroduce a Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the body which the Taliban used to enforce its extreme religious doctrine......It would also encourage people to behave in more Islamic ways.

Afghan Leader Losing Support

Many Afghans and some foreign supporters say they are losing faith in Karzai's government, which is besieged by an escalating insurgency and endemic corruption and is unable to protect or administer large areas of the country. Several European governments are expressing serious concerns about his leadership.
......some European governments do not see Afghanistan as a role model for a modern Muslim democracy. They have begun to question the wisdom of costly long-term economic commitments and the risk of ongoing high battlefield casualties.
......A Western diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity said: "Nearly five years on, there is no rule of law, no accountability. The Afghans know it is all a charade, and they see us as not only complicit but actively involved. You cannot fight a terror war and build a weak state at the same time, and it was a terrible mistake to think we could."
...... Public confidence in his leadership has soured with reports of highway police robbing travelers, government jobs sold to the highest bidder, drug traffic booming and aid money vanishing. Several dozen Afghan and foreign observers expressed similar views.

Top soldier quits as Afghan blunders turns into 'pointless' campaign

......THE former aide-de-camp to the commander of the British taskforce in southern Afghanistan (Colonel Charlie Knaggs) has described the campaign in Helmand province as “a textbook case of how to screw up a counter-insurgency”. Captain Leo Docherty, of the Scots Guards, became so disillusioned that he quit the army last month.
......“All those people whose homes have been destroyed and sons killed are going to turn against the British. It’s a pretty clear equation — if people are losing homes and poppy fields, they will go and fight. I certainly would. We’ve deviated spectacularly from the original plan.”
......Docherty traces the start of the problems to the British capture of Sangin on May 25. He says troops were sent to seize this notorious centre of Taliban and narcotics activity without night-vision goggles and with so few vehicles they had to borrow a pick-up truck. UK forces have run short of food and water and have been forced to rely on air support and artillery.
......They captured the town, and then because of a lack of support, his men were unable to carry out any development, throwing away any opportunity to win over townspeople. He questioned “where were the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office? “Now the ground has been lost and all we’re doing in places like Sangin is surviving,” said Docherty. “It’s completely barking mad.
...... “We’re now scattered in a shallow meaningless way across northern towns where the only way for the troops to survive is to increase the level of violence so more
MUCH LIKE THE WAY CANADIAN SOLDIERS ARE BEING TREATED

Soldiers reveal horror of Afghan campaign

Soldiers deployed in Helmand province have told The Independent that the sheer ferocity of the fighting in the Sangin valley, and privations faced by the troops, are far worse than generally known.
......"We are flattening places we have already flattened, but the attacks have kept coming. We have killed them by the dozens, but more keep coming, either locally or from across the border," one said. "We have used B1 bombers, Harriers, F16s and Mirage 2000s. We have dropped 500lb, 1,000lb and even 2,000lb bombs. At one point our Apaches [helicopter gunships] ran out of missiles they have fired so many. Almost any movement on the ground gets ambushed. We need an entire battle group to move things. Yet they will not give us the helicopters we have been asking for.
......"We have also got problems with the Afghan forces. .. But many of the police will not fight the Taliban, either because they are scared or they are sympathisers."
......The anxiety has been deepened by the decision of the Pakistani military to do a deal with militants and withdraw from some of the border areas.
......US commander in Sangin asked British troops to move in. The result has been that overstretched forces have come under constant attack.
......Lt Gen Richards, who says British forces have been involved in some of the fiercest fighting since Korea, has now decided to withdraw from outlying positions.
......"We did not expect the ferocity of the engagements. We also expected the Taliban to carry out hit and run raids. Instead we have often been fighting toe to toe, endless close-quarters combat. It has been exhausting. I remember when we had to extract a Danish recce group which was getting attacked on all sides; it was bedlam. We have greater firepower, so we tend to win, but, of course, they can take their losses while our casualties will invariably lead to concern back home.You also have to think that each time we kill one, how many more enemies we are creating. And, of course, the lack of security means hardly any reconstruction is taking place now, so we are not exactly winning hearts and minds."

Cdn Reservist was disillusioned with military, family says

William Babe said his nephew was disillusioned with the military and that Boneca planned to leave and go back to school this fall. Boneca was on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan and serving with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. Babe said he was due home at the end of this month. In recent phone calls, Babe said, Boneca sounded depressed.
......"He said, 'Uncle Bill, it's not like it was on TV' and 'I would never do this again,'"Babe said. "I don't think he believed totally in what he was doing because I think he saw things he didn't expect to see and didn't want to see and probably did things he didn't want to do." Babe said his nephew's death is a horrible waste, and added that he would like to see Canada pull its forces out of Afghanistan.
......"All that went on and the treatment they were getting by the Canadian army and by the people over there, wasn't what he bargained for," DeCorte said. "They'd go out on tours … they'd be out for 22 days [with] not enough rations, not enough water.
......"The people of Canada have to realize this kind of stuff, that they've been treated like that." DeCorte also called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to pull Canadian troops out of Afghanistan.

No Peace to Keep - A Case Study of the Military in Afghanistan JUNE 29:

Canadian troops and Afghan civilians are paying with their lives for Canada's adherence to the US government's failing military and counter-narcotics policies in Kandahar. The US-led counter-terrorist operations and militaristic poppy eradication strategies have triggered a new war with the Taliban and other insurgent groups, and are causing countless civilian deaths.

Thousands displaced by fighting in Kandahar

reports from tribal leaders in the Panjwaii and Zhari districts indicated 2,500 – 5,000 families had been displaced by the fighting. the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman in Kabul, said it was aware of the recent displacements but did not have precise figures
......"People are still feeing their villages and are in a very desperate condition with no shelter and food," Safai said.

UK charity warns of Afghan famine

Millions of people in Afghanistan face starvation after a drought destroyed crops farmers in the worst affected areas have lost all their produce.
......Most of the water has dried up in the provinces of Herat, Badghis and Ghor, and the wheat harvest is down by 90% to 100% in parts of Faryab province, the study indicates. The survey indicates those most at risk from starvation are children, pregnant women, landless families and the elderly.

Failing Afghanistan

Today in large areas of Afghanistan there is renewed warfare, corrupt or ineffectual governance, and hope-destroying poverty untouched by misspent foreign aid.
......President Bush and his policy makers deserve a large part of the blame for their failure to rehabilitate Afghanistan.
......Rumsfeld rejected proposals for a hefty force of peacekeepers that might have provided Afghans the security they needed and deserved. The populace went unprotected, and the Taliban returned to impoverished areas misruled by warlords. Now, NATO troops today are taking unexpected casualties in the southern provinces and US warplanes are killing innocent civilians in hundreds.
......Rumsfeld's also committed the spending a substantial share of US reconstruction funds on private US contractors. If less of that money had been spent on US contractors, more could have been distributed by Karzai's government in job-creating public works, and more could have been done to help the population and enhance the authority of the central government.
......Because of these blunders, the price in blood and treasure of preventing Afghanistan from once again becoming a failed state is much higher than it ever should have been. ...... [[ NB: TOP NATO COMMANDER SAYS (next): "The future of Afghanistan will not be determined by the military"and insisted civilian aid was vital to stabilize the country and enable an exit strategy for the international military force. ]]

NATO Wants Reinforcements in Afghanistan

NATO's top commander, Gen. James L. Jones , on Thursday called for allied nations to send reinforcements (hundreds of troops, with planes and helicopters) to southern Afghanistan. He acknowledged that nations have been reluctant to commit troops to the NATO force, which has sustained increasing casualties in the last weeks. (NATO force = 20,000 troops)
......Thursday, Taliban militants took over a police station in the town of Garmser in Helmand province after officers fled for a second time in two months, police said. Taliban forces briefly held the town for two days in July before coalition troops retook it.
...... Jones criticized the international community for not matching the military effort in Afghanistan with more economic help: "The future of Afghanistan will not be determined by the military," he said. He complained that aid programs to Afghanistan were "in some stage of life support" and insisted civilian aid was vital to stabilize the country and enable an exit strategy for the international military force.

'Taliban Taking Over'

The Senlis report is based on extensive field research in the critical provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Herat and Nangarhar
......The Taliban have regained control over the southern half of Afghanistan and their frontline is advancing daily. "The Taliban frontline now cuts halfway through the country, encompassing all of the southern provinces," the Senlis Council report says "Right now we cannot say we see a lot of foreign elements; we see basically the neo-Talibans as they are called, they are Afghans
......"a humanitarian crisis of starvation and poverty has gripped the south of the country. There are around Kandahar now camps with people starving, kids dying almost every day, and this is obviously used by the Taliban to regain the confidence of the people, and to regain control of the country." "The subsequent rising levels of extreme poverty have created increasing support for the Taliban, who have responded to the needs of the local population," the report says. "Remarkably this vital fact seems to have been overlooked in funding and prioritisation of the foreign policy, military, counter-narcotics and reconstruction plans. Consequently the international community has lost the battle for the hearts and mind of the Afghan people, the report says..
......The report blames "the U.S. and UK-led Poppy eradication programme, he said. "It is a direct attack on the livelihood of the farmers, so there is a clear connection between the eradication and this humanitarian crisis. All this is being used by the Taliban to say that when we were there we were maybe hard and cruel, but you could feed the family, now look what's going on. They are more and more providing support, social services to the local population."
......Nation-building efforts have failed because of "ineffective and inflammatory military and counter-narcotics policies. At the same time there has been a dramatic under-funding of aid and development programmes." ($82.5 billion on military operations VS $7.3 billion on development)
...... Hunger is leading to anger, the report says. "Despite appeals for aid funds, the U.S.-led international community has continued to direct the majority of aid funds towards military and security operations."
......The report warns of difficult conditions in "makeshift, unregistered refugee camps of starving children and civilians. Some are there because their homes have been destroyed by coalition forces' interventions in the 'war on terror' and the current heightened counter-insurgency operations, the report says.
......The large numbers of civilian casualties and deaths have also fuelled resentment and mistrust of the international military presence, the report says. There were 104 civilian casualties in Afghanistan in the month of July alone.

Senlis Council Field Report - Five Years Later: The Return of the Taliban

......SECTIONS: Preface - 2001: A Lost Window of Opportunity
1. Afghanistan's instability and the Return of the Taliban
2. Hunger Crisis: Extreme Poverty in Afghanistan
3. Failed Counter-Narcotics Policies Central to Failure of Afghanistan’s Reconstruction
4. International Community is Part of the Governance Crisis in Afghanistan
5. Five Years On, the US-led International Community has Failed Afghanistan
List of Appendices

How NATO Hopes to Turn the Tide in Afghanistan

After heavy bombardment of an area the Taliban return to the region after coalition forces left and capitalize on local anger at losses inflicted by U.S. forces. This time NATO intends to take and hold the contested area, no matter the cost.
[[ WITH 25,000 TROOPS NATO INTENDS TO OCCUPY ALL VILLAGES IN SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN ]]

Afghanistan: New players, old mistakes Gwynne Dyer.

......1839, 1878, 1979, 2001: Four foreign invasions of Afghanistan in less than 200 years - all four invasions were doomed to fail. The first two were British (strictly imperialist), the third was Soviet (defend socialism and prosperity). The last was American (bring democracy and prosperity.)
...... In dealing with foreign conquerors, the first thing Afghans have learned is never to trust them, no matter how pure they say their intentions are – the window of opportunity for this crop of invaders to convince Afghans that this time is different, it closed some time ago.
The other thing Afghans know is how to deal with invaders:
......- Invaders will always be richer and better armed, so let them occupy the country –
......- don't try to hold the cities - fade back into the mountains.
......- Take a couple of years to regroup and set up your supply lines
......- and then start the guerrilla war in earnest (ambush, harass and bleed the foreigners)
......- invaders will always cut their losses and go home.
The endgame is beginning even in Kabul:
......Karzai, is making deals with the warlords and drug barons who will hold his life in their hands once the foreigners leave. In April, he dropped "coalition" approved candidates from a new list of police chiefs, substituting known gangsters and criminals who work for the local warlords.
......He will be talking to the “Taliban” soon, which is much broader than the previous narrow band of fanatics. Current resistance movement includes farmers (trying to protect their poppy fields), nationalists (furious at the foreign presence), and young men proving their bravery.
......The regime that will emerge is not likely to resemble the old Taliban, (Pakistani-backed and almost entirely Pashto-speaking.) It is most unlikely that Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks and Turkmen will simply accept that domination again.
......Afghanistan stands a reasonable chance of sorting itself out once the Western armies leave.

Failing Afghanistan

Today in large areas of Afghanistan there is renewed warfare, corrupt or ineffectual governance, and hope-destroying poverty untouched by misspent foreign aid.
......President Bush and his policy makers deserve a large part of the blame for their failure to rehabilitate Afghanistan.
......Rumsfeld rejected proposals for a hefty force of peacekeepers that might have provided Afghans the security they needed and deserved. The populace went unprotected, and the Taliban returned to impoverished areas misruled by warlords. Now, NATO troops today are taking unexpected casualties in the southern provinces and US warplanes are killing innocent civilians in hundreds.
......Rumsfeld's also committed the spending a substantial share of US reconstruction funds on private US contractors. If less of that money had been spent on US contractors, more could have been distributed by Karzai's government in job-creating public works, and more could have been done to help the population and enhance the authority of the central government.
......Because of these blunders, the price in blood and treasure of preventing Afghanistan from once again becoming a failed state is much higher than it ever should have been.

The lie that is foreign aid

Many development experts in Washington hailed the report as damning and groundbreaking.
......The ActionAid USA report says almost half of all aid remains "phantom" - either poorly targeted, double counted as debt relief, tied to donor goods and services or badly coordinated and highly conditional.
much of the current spending is ineffective, over-priced, donor-driven and based on a failed development model...... Donor funded "advisors" are brought in to draft "country owned" poverty reduction strategies," says the damning report.
......donors continue to insist on large technical assistance in most projects and programmes they fund. Another report by ActionAid US last year indicated that rich countries’ ‘technical assistance’, which consists consultancy, research and training, often promoted donor interests and inappropriate solutions. In the UK, for example, almost half of technical assistance spending goes to consultants and other experts, the majority of them British.
......The report says a big chunk of the funds go to Western consultants, research and training instead of going directly to the people who need it most.
......Foreign contractors won the contracts for the projects to be carried out on major roads across the country. Kenyans have raised queries over contracts domination by foreign contractors. Most work for design, supervision and actual construction of the roads was done by companies from China, Switzerland, South Africa, Ireland, France, the US, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy. It was acknowledged that they were more expensive than local contractors. In Cambodia, for example, a consultant’s fee was at $17,000 a month while a civil servant’s pay is only $40.
......ActionAid says that while this goes on, local knowledge, which is critical, is usually ignored.

Note: Afghan News – Afghan G... HARPER’S MAGAZINE: S... Dark pasts of Afghans ... Afghan Government Com... Britain is the fall g... Karzai plans return o... Afghan Leader Losing ... Top soldier quits as A... Soldiers reveal horror... Cdn Reservist was disil... No Peace to Keep - A Ca... Thousands displaced by ... UK charity warns of Af... Failing Afghanistan NATO Wants Reinforcem... 'Taliban Taking Over' Senlis Council Field ... How NATO Hopes to Turn ... Afghanistan: New player... Failing Afghanistan The lie that is foreig...