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Taliban attack near Kabul kills police, civilians
By Hamid Shalizi – Mon Aug 10, 11:46 am ET
PUL-E-ALAM, Afghanistan (Reuters) – At least three Afghan police and two civilians were killed in a brazen attack by Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers on government buildings near Kabul on Monday, officials said, 10 days before elections.
UN: Hamid Karzai's Government Using State Resources to Swing Afghan Election
The Telegraph UK By Ben Farmer Sunday 09 August 2009
The United Nations said there is growing evidence that Hamid Karzai's government is abusing state resources to help him win this month's presidential election in Afghanistan.
Karzai election rally shows reliance on tribal alliances
Thousands of Ismaili Shias throw votes behind Afghan president after endorsement of spiritual leader
guardian.co.uk, Monday 10 August 2009 13.30 BST
The crowds assembled in a remote village in Afghanistan's mountainous hinterland may have been kept waiting without water in the baking heat for four hours, but no one was complaining, or even questioning why they were there.
Unity needed in Afghanistan, U.N. says
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 10 (UPI) -- Afghanistan is entering a difficult period following the Aug. 20 election where solidarity is needed to ensure national security, the top U.N. envoy said.
Afghan elections: 80% puppetry, 20% political drama
Online Journal By Ben Tanosborn 10 Aug 2009
In less than two weeks, Afghanistan will hold its second presidential elections since the United States occupied that country in November 2001.
Afghan police fast-tracked for elections
Khaleej Times Online 10 August 2009
KABUL - Afghan police recruits clutch their guns and leopard crawl across gravel under the noon sun. A teddy bear nearby is rigged up as a fake improvised explosive device — the favoured weapon of the Taliban.
US commander warns Taliban gaining upper hand
Mon Aug 10, 4:57 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The top US commander in Afghanistan warned in an interview published on Monday that the Taliban had gained the upper hand after the bloodiest month yet for US and British troops.
U.S. commander seeks civilian 'surge' in Afghanistan
By Nancy A. Youssef And Warren P. Strobel, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Mon Aug 10, 5:59 pm ET
KABUL, Afghanistan — In addition to requesting some 45,000 additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan , the country's top American military commander will ask the Obama administration to double the number of U.S.
Opium addiction takes hold of families, villages in Afghanistan
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI Associated Press
SARAB, Afghanistan — Open the door to Islam Beg’s house and the thick opium smoke rushes out into the cold mountain air, like steam from a bathhouse. It’s just past 8 a.m. and the family of six
Is The Taliban Winning in Afghanistan?
Katie Couric, Lara Logan Discuss Whether U.S. Losing Ground In Afghanistan War
By Lara Logan CBS News
(CBS) In Afghanistan, the new U.S. commander is giving a blunt assessment of how the war there is going. In Monday's Wall Street Journal, General Stanley McChrystal says the Taliban now have the upper
Roadside bomb wounds 4 Afghan civilians
KABUL, Aug. 10 (Xinhua)-- Four non-combatants sustained injuries as a roadside bomb struck a police van in Khost city the capital of Khost province in east Afghanistan Monday, a local official said.
White House: Afghan war not in crisis
AP By ANNE GEARAN 10 Aug 2009
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's national security adviser did not rule out adding more U.S. forces in Afghanistan to help turn around a war that he said on Sunday is not now in crisis.
Dispatches From Afghanistan: No Young Soldiers
Monday, August 10, 2009 Fox News By Michael Yon
Michael Yon, an independent journalist and former Green Beret, is in Afghanistan reporting on the war against Al Qaeda terrorists and the Taliban. Here is a portion of his latest dispatch exclusively for FOXNews.com.
Afghanistan: Opportunity lost
ABC News August 11, 2009, 11:38 am
Afghanistan is about to face a crucial election as the US-led coalition mounts a fierce "surge" against the insurgency. In the first instalment of a two-part series, Foreign Correspondent's Mark Corcoran,
New Zealand to send SAS troops to Afghanistan
WELLINGTON, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand's Special Air Service (SAS) troops will again be sent to Afghanistan for a deployment of 18 months, Prime Minister John Key announced on Monday.
Intimidation, Insecurity Remain Concerns Before Afghan Election
By Steve Herman VOA News 09 August 2009
With less than two weeks to go before Afghanistan holds its presidential election there is continuing concern about intimidation and insecurity.
Can Afghanistan be saved? We'll know in a year, Jones says
The Christian Science Monitor By Mark Sappenfield 08/09/2009
The national security adviser said on Sunday that new strategies need time to work. But the US will not stay 10 years.
50 drug barons on U.S. target list in Afghanistan
KABUL (AP) — A U.S. military "kill or capture" list of 367 wanted insurgents in Afghanistan includes 50 major drug traffickers who give money to Taliban militants, U.S. military commanders told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
U.S. and NATO troops are attacking drug warehouses and militant-linked narco dealers in Afghanistan for the first time this year, a new strategy to counter the country's booming opium poppy and heroin trade.
Afghan student killed in road accident in India
NEW DELHI, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- A 22-year-old Afghan student has died after being overrun by a car in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh on Sunday, reported the Press Trust of India.
Drop in wheat price worries farmers, pleases consumers
KABUL, 10 August 2009 (IRIN) - Farmers in Afghanistan's top cereal-producing provinces worry that the decline in wheat prices will push them into poverty, while urban consumers welcome the fall.
Weighing Cost and Conscience in Afghanistan
By Eric Etheridge The New York Times August 10, 2009, 5:40 pm
The United States under President Obama may no longer be fighting a “global war on terror,” as his counterterrorism and homeland security adviser John Brennan announced in a major speech last week.
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Taliban attack near Kabul kills police, civilians
By Hamid Shalizi – Mon Aug 10, 11:46 am ET
PUL-E-ALAM, Afghanistan (Reuters) – At least three Afghan police and two civilians were killed in a brazen attack by Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers on government buildings near Kabul on Monday, officials said, 10 days before elections.
The attack, the latest in a series of assaults before the August 20 presidential poll, came after U.S. commanders said the war in Afghanistan had not reached a crisis point even though the Taliban had gained momentum.
Deen Mohammad Darwish, a spokesman for the governor of Logar province, about an hour's drive south of the capital, Kabul, said one Taliban attacker was also killed along with the police and civilians. Witnesses said gunbattles lasted several hours.
The Taliban last month vowed to disrupt the election, calling on Afghans to boycott the vote. There has been a spate of ambushes on candidates, campaign workers and election officials before and after that warning.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said six fighters wearing vests packed with explosives had attacked the governor's office, police headquarters and election offices in Pul-e-Alam, 70 kms (45 miles) from Kabul.
A major highway linking Kabul to provinces in the southeast was closed because of the fighting.
The attack followed the brazen pattern of similar assaults in the eastern cities of Khost and Gardez last month.
Darwish said three Afghan soldiers were seriously wounded in a gunbattle during which a vest worn by an insurgent exploded.
As Afghan forces battled to reclaim the police headquarters and governor's office, witnesses reported seeing at least one U.S. Apache attack helicopter fire on the compound.
A spokeswoman for U.S. and NATO-led forces in Kabul could not confirm if U.S. helicopters had fired any missiles. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said ISAF troops helped defuse explosives found in one building.
Abdul Rahim, an aid worker in an office next to the police building, said five police were killed and 26 people wounded. He said at least three of the attackers were dressed in burqas, the head-to-toe covering worn by some Afghan women.
Reuters reporters in the city heard at least three loud blasts and thick smoke poured from the police building.
"THINGS WILL GET WORSE"
With U.N. officials saying that violence and poor security had hampered election preparations in some areas, residents in Pul-e-Alam feared it would deteriorate further.
"Things will only get worse with the election," shopkeeper Faizal Ahmad said. "We will have no security in the future."
President Hamid Karzai is the front-runner to retain power over a field of 35 challengers but poor security in the south, his traditional ethnic Pashtun power base, looms as a potential problem if it results in poor voter turnout, analysts have said.
Poor Pashtun turnout could mean no candidate secures more than 50 percent of the vote, requiring a second-round runoff when challengers could form a coalition behind one of Karzai's main rivals, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah or former finance minister Ashraf Ghani.
With the push for talks with "moderate" Taliban gaining momentum in London and Washington, Karzai repeated an earlier promise to call a loyal jirga, or national council of elders and had asked Saudi Arabia for help to facilitate such talks.
"Our hope for nationwide peace, security and national reconciliation in Afghanistan ... is in a better condition than before," Karzai told a large crowd of supporters in Kabul.
In an interview published earlier on Monday, U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal said the Taliban had gained momentum recently, advancing out of traditional strongholds in the south and east into the relatively more peaceful north and west.
"It's a very aggressive enemy right now," McChrystal told The Wall Street Journal newspaper (http://online.wsj.com/).
"We've got to stop their momentum, stop their initiative. It's hard work," said McChrystal, who will present an assessment of the war after the August 20 election.
Violence across Afghanistan this year had already reached its worst levels since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-led Afghan forces in 2001 and escalated dramatically after major offensives were launched in southern Helmand province in July.
July quickly became the deadliest month of the war for foreign troops, with at least 71 killed. Despite the Taliban gains and growing military casualties -- August is already on track to match or pass the July toll -- U.S. national security adviser Jim Jones said the war had not reached a crisis point.
"I don't think we're at a crisis level where there is any move by the Taliban to overthrow the government," Jones told the CBS program "Face the Nation."
(Additional reporting by Sayed Salahuddin in KABUL; Writing
by Paul Tait; Editing by David Fox)
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UN: Hamid Karzai's Government Using State Resources to Swing Afghan Election
The Telegraph UK By Ben Farmer Sunday 09 August 2009
The United Nations said there is growing evidence that Hamid Karzai's government is abusing state resources to help him win this month's presidential election in Afghanistan.
Kabul - An election report released said monitors had received increasing reports officials were biased and were using their resources to campaign for Mr Karzai.
Rival candidates were being denied access to national state television and government cars or lorries were being used to ship people to rallies.
The report, by the UN mission to Afghanistan and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said: "These reported breaches of impartiality tended to be in favour of presidential candidate Karzai."
The recent replacement of three key police chiefs with supporters of Mr Karzai "gave a cumulative impression that they were politically motivated", it added.
The report said the Karzai government had done little to stop the abuses and they were threatening his rivals' ability to run for office.
It also warned Taliban intimidation and violence were hindering election campaigning and preparation.
Credible presidential elections on Aug 20 are key to international efforts to stabilise Afghanistan in the face of worsening Taliban violence.
Diplomats fear that a poor turn out, or widespread fraud, would hand the Taliban, which has officially called for an election boycott, a propaganda coup.
International officials have said instances of fraud are inevitable, but hope they can be kept to a minimum and not alter the result of the election.
Kai Eide, UN special representative to Afghanistan, said: "If you are talking about free and fair [elections] in terms of an established democracy, then I think that goes beyond the expectation of a country like Afghanistan."
The lacklustre campaign has ignited in recent weeks with the emergence of Dr Abdullah Abdullah, former foreign minister, as a potentially strong rival to Hamid Karzai.
However the report warned insurgency violence and growing Taliban intimidation were both hampering free campaigning.
Insurgents have killed election officers and campaign workers in recent weeks.
Candidates have been unable to hold rallies or campaign in large swathes of the south and east.
Intimidation and insecurity have hindered women campaigners and candidates most.
The report said: "Anti-government elements have intensified their intimidation tactics to discourage participation." Analysts fear a low voter turn out in large reaches of the Pashtun-dominated south where the insurgency is strongest.
Dr Abdullah told The Daily Telegraph that Mr Karzai had so far "not hesitated" in trying try to manipulate the elections.
He said: "He has not hesitated so far in the process, by using the state apparatus, state resources and many other things.
"But can you steal the verdict of a nation?"
Mr Karzai remains the favourite for the elections after building a strong coalition of former warlords and strongmen from the country's ethnic power bases.
He must win more than 50 per cent of the vote on August 20 to avoid a second round run off.
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Karzai election rally shows reliance on tribal alliances
Thousands of Ismaili Shias throw votes behind Afghan president after endorsement of spiritual leader
guardian.co.uk, Monday 10 August 2009 13.30 BST
The crowds assembled in a remote village in Afghanistan's mountainous hinterland may have been kept waiting without water in the baking heat for four hours, but no one was complaining, or even questioning why they were there.
"We have come here to support Karzai because our leader has told us to vote for him," said Abdul Salim, a student and one of the thousands of Ismailis – the Shia sect that follows the Aga Khan – who flocked to see Hamid Karzai's first campaign stop outside the capital.
When the president finally arrived at the rally in Kayan, he was given a suitably boisterous reception by thousands of Ismailis despite delivering a speech that was thin on ideas for solving the country's many problems.
His three promises were to "work for peace", extract even more money from Afghanistan's western backers and push for economic development.
"We have made a long journey with many successes," Karzai said of his record. "But our happiness has come with despair as we do not have overall security in the country."
But policy pronouncements are not the point in a place like Kayan, a traditional village that typifies Karzai's reliance on religious and ethnic leaders to turn out voters for him.
The backing of key powerbrokers has led many observers of Afghanistan's second ever presidential election to assume that Karzai enjoys an unassailable advantage over a crowded field of candidates, despite widespread dissatisfaction with his eight-year rule.
The prospect of a free lunch, entertainment and the sheer spectacle of the president of Afghanistan swooping in via helicopter to the village all helped attract crowds, many of whom arrived the night before to camp out in the valley.
Karzai's appearance necessitated a huge security operation, with hundreds of elite Afghan soldiers arriving the day before to secure the site. But the real draw was Syed Mansoor Nadiri, the spiritual leader in Afghanistan of the Ismailis.
Revered by his followers, many of whom paid obeisance to him by brushing their faces against his outstretched hands, Nadiri had put out the word that all Ismailis should vote for Karzai.
Some of the attendees seemed unaware they had come to attend a political rally, believing it was simply an Ismaili celebration. Others were critical of Karzai but said they would still vote for him after their leader's endorsement.
Printed cards were distributed throughout the crowd showing where they should put their tick in less than two weeks' time, and speakers led the assembled crowd of several thousand in chants of "Support Karzai!"
Standing next to Karzai on a covered stage, the Ismaili leader presented the president with a brown chapan, a traditional Afghan robe.
Nadiri's son, a businessman who paid for the two-day festival, said his father had been courted by all the leading candidates in the 20 August poll – including Karzai's two leading rivals, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani.
But Nadiri said he decided to throw his support behind Karzai, despite his presiding over of rising violence and endemic corruption in his government. He denied there had been any backroom deals with the president as many suspect.
"The support and the backing the community has given to President Karzai has not been because of deal making – this kind of enthusiasm and love that you see cannot be bought," he said.
"If we look at his cabinet we see every minority group is represented.
"This is the first time in the history of Afghanistan that we have seen all groups included."
With Karzai still tipped to prevail in the poll Nadiri is anxious the Ismailis, a long persecuted and impoverished minority, should be on the winning side.
During the Soviet occupation of Afganistan in the 1980s, Kayan avoided much of the destruction in the rest of the country by declaring itself a "neutral" territory. But the village and the grand Nadiri family house, which boasted a swimming pool and an electric train, were laid to waste.
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Unity needed in Afghanistan, U.N. says
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 10 (UPI) -- Afghanistan is entering a difficult period following the Aug. 20 election where solidarity is needed to ensure national security, the top U.N. envoy said.
Afghanistan holds it second-ever democratic election Aug. 20 for provincial councils and president. It is the first election coordinated entirely by Afghan officials through the Afghan Independent Election Commission.
More than 40 candidates, including two women, are competing for president, with some 3,000 campaigning for provincial council positions.
Incumbent President Hamid Karzai leads the pack in preliminary estimates over his former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani.
Kai Eide, the U.N. special envoy for Afghanistan, told reporters that regardless of the victors in the Aug. 20 contest, it is "tremendously important" that other political leaders join the national consensus to embark on a new way forward for the war-torn country.
"If there is fragmentation then these challenges cannot be addressed effectively," he said.
He added the country is set to enter a "critical period" for its struggle for national security, with an influx of international troops tackling a looming insurgency against the backdrop of national elections.
"And if it's a fragmented political leadership that we will have to live with for the period to come, Afghanistan will not be able to address those critical challenges," he said.
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Afghan elections: 80% puppetry, 20% political drama
Online Journal By Ben Tanosborn 10 Aug 2009
In less than two weeks, Afghanistan will hold its second presidential elections since the United States occupied that country in November 2001.
Democratic elections, we deem them to be, although many Afghans and foreigners alike consider the process more of an American coronation of another vassal-monarch from that celebrated dynasty: the House of Dollar. Of course, the title is one of president; Zahir Shah being the last king, one never to lay claim to the throne since deposed in 1973 -- now dead for two years.
As much as I have always been drawn to both culture and history from that part of the world, I have never visited the land, and have known but a few Afghans that I never considered being representative of that nation; all from the upper class, either university students or well-off professionals choosing their own exile. And during the last six years in which I have extended notes and commentary in my columns about this rugged, exotic (to me) land, I have relied greatly on briefings/discussions by/with my European journalist friend, Mingo, whose judgment and impartiality I trust, an unquestionable Afghanphile who has spent almost eight years of the last decade in that country, speaks fluent Dari and has innumerable friends and connections throughout that land.
“Americans’ ill-placed honor,” Mingo tells me, “may force the White House, Pentagon and Congress to stay on with this war in the manner they did with Vietnam four decades ago; but your stay in Afghanistan, if that’s the path Obama chooses, will be as painful or worse . . . and eventually, just as they did to the Russians, the Pashtun will kick you out.”
Americans shouldn’t count on a round one victory for Pres. Hamid Karzai on August 20; that is, unless the turnout in the southern Pashtun region is very strong, or the fraud that has been perpetrated in voter registration was deeply rigged to favor the present leader, more so than any of the other 35 candidates. As far as Mingo sees it, corruption is so pervasive in government -- at both federal and provincial levels -- that some voters could end up going to the polls several times. But whether Karzai comes out the victor, or one of his top two rivals -- former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and ex-finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai -- is able to muster a coalition to dethrone him, the country will remain in the “good hands of corruption” that seems to be part of everyone’s life, and one of the fundamental reasons for the rebellion of so many Afghans against the West and those amongst them who benefit from the occupiers’ presence.
Mingo is convinced that, overwhelmingly, the population looks back with nostalgia at the days of peace and Islamic justice, sharia, when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan.
During the past half century, Afghans have been exposed to both the preaching and the practices of three distinct political philosophies: socialism “Soviet Union -style,” fundamentalist Islam from the Taliban, and that democratic capitalism espoused by the West -- more specifically, American capitalism. To Mingo, their choice and loyalty may be split from time to time, but the latter clearly emerges as a poor third choice.
So if Americans insist in staying there, it is to secure their own interests . . . and not the overall interests of the Afghan people, no matter how many places Americans help secure in schools for women, or how much is spent in public relations when Afghans’ eyes and ears are tuned to the number of civilian casualties our military inflicts in the process of killing the Taliban. Not a pretty picture, particularly when compared to the Russian “collateral experience” there . . . and from a military with such accurate weaponry as the Pentagon claims. And, of course, sartorial Hamid Karzai is always caught in the middle, defending the occupiers, yet trying to appear to his people as their ombudsman.
The White House, Pentagon and even the Afghan government may downplay the concerns expressed by think-tanks -- the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) topping them all -- as to how significant the presence of the Taliban is in most parts of Afghanistan. But casualties that both America and other NATO members are likely to suffer will eventually tell it all. And, Mingo claims, the 2007 plan of the Taliban to have this geometric progression in hostilities in their campaign to retake the country by 2011 is running like clockwork. So far, their overall strategy and nature of their tactics are proving them to be right on the money.
But if our CIA is inefficient or derelict in bringing this reality to the White House, Israel’s Mossad is not, and they have their Zionist marionettes in the top slots of the appropriate committees of the US Senate trying to get the White House to double (or triple) the number of Afghan forces in the next two years, at whatever cost “they” (a Senate that obviously will work for AIPAC and not the interests of the American people) would be willing to fund, perhaps as much as $30 billion in the next two years. Yep, Israel can count on Senators Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, to get the job done. And a Rahm Emanuel at the White House is ready to cram it down the president’s throat!
But a 400,000 or 500,000 Afghan combined military-police force won’t stop the Taliban, says Mingo, and most of such “trained force” is likely to defect to the Taliban, at the proper time, against their nation’s puppet regime.
Is America’s military presence in Afghanistan one of economic and military interests, or is it just Americans’ instinct to ask “how high” when the Israelis ask them to jump? A rather easy but embarrassing question that needs to be asked!
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Afghan police fast-tracked for elections
Khaleej Times Online 10 August 2009
KABUL - Afghan police recruits clutch their guns and leopard crawl across gravel under the noon sun. A teddy bear nearby is rigged up as a fake improvised explosive device — the favoured weapon of the Taliban.
In a brown tent to the side, a young man asks a First Aid instructor if police should help all the wounded at the site of an explosion when there is every chance one could be an attacker.
This Kabul fire station — a former Taliban jail, says the fire chief — is a classroom for a pre-election crash course in being a policeman in Afghanistan where the police have to be more soldier than community cop.
Some 14,800 recruits have been pushed through three weeks of training for the August 20 presidential and provincial council elections when police will be the first line of security for nearly 7,000 polling centres.
They will be backed by Afghan soldiers and international forces with the defence ministry saying the entire combined force of 300,000 men will be out on polling day to thwart any attempt by Taliban militants to disrupt voting.
Five more weeks of training after the polls will make the recruits — 4,800 for Kabul and 10,000 for the country’s most unstable districts — full policemen, US and Afghan trainers say.
“It is not just for elections, it is a down payment on the larger growth,” said Major General Richard Formica, commanding general of the Combined Security Transition Command - Afghanistan (CSTC-A) that trains Afghan security forces.
Boosting the Afghan forces, and the police in particular, is a priority in US President Barack Obama’s revamped plan to beat a spiralling insurgency that has this year seen record attacks.
It is an effort that has cost the United States, the biggest trainer of security forces, about 18.7 million dollars since 2005, according to figures provided by CSTC-A.
The police have come second to the army in the post-Taliban drive to rebuild Afghanistan’s war-shattered security forces.
But this is changing as the need for more police has become clearer with violence spreading and militants able to take over districts and get past checkpoints to carry out attacks in the hearts of major cities.
Without the men being trained for the elections, there are just 82,000 policemen for a country of between 25 and 36 million; close to 6,000 are in the capital, a city of four million.
Authorities have recommended an increase of near double, Formica said. The figure would be made clear in a strategy review by the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, due early September.
The 95,000-strong Afghan army is better trained and equipped than the police, who are characterised — sometimes unfairly — as hash-smoking and always on the look out for bribes.
Formica rejects the perception of “every policeman as crooked” but admits there are problems, which he is confident could be whittled out with more training.
The police also suffer the heaviest losses in the fighting with roughly 1,400 killed last year and three losing their lives for every Afghan soldier who dies, according to US military officials.
Entry-level salaries for both forces have been levelled out to 120 dollars a month but the calibre of recruits for patrol-level police is often poor.
“Compared to Europe and the United States, of course the quality is low, but compared to the quality all over Afghanistan, it’s average,” said Carl Erik Jensen from the European Union police training mission.
“Many of them, about three-quarters, probably cannot read or write, so this is a special challenge for our trainers,” said the deputy chief superintendent.
But this is what is available in one of the poorest countries in the world, ruined by war and with roughly 70 percent illiteracy.
Just weeks before arriving in Kabul for the elections crash course that covers weapons, ethics, First Aid and other basic duties, 18-year-old Nasrullah was a farmer in a remote valley in the rugged northeast.
Handling a gun is not a problem — he has carried one since he was 16. But he speaks minority Pashai and struggles with Dari, the language of the city where he will be deployed on voting day.
“I want to serve my country, to bring security to Nuristan,” he said.
The standard of recruits is far higher at the Afghan National Police Academy, a neat officers’ school where young men — all with high school diplomas — sit under trees awaiting their first day’s instruction.
One of them, 22-year-old Dur Mohammad, recounts how two rockets fired by Taliban had landed at his school in the southern province of Helmand but did not explode because they struck water.
It made him decide to join the security forces to defend his home and family. “I am ready to give my blood for my country,” he said.
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US commander warns Taliban gaining upper hand
Mon Aug 10, 4:57 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The top US commander in Afghanistan warned in an interview published on Monday that the Taliban had gained the upper hand after the bloodiest month yet for US and British troops.
"It's a very aggressive enemy right now," General Stanley McChrystal told The Wall Street Journal from his office in a fortified NATO compound in Kabul, referring to the Taliban insurgency.
"We've got to stop their momentum, stop their initiative. It's hard work."
The story carried the headline "Taliban Now Winning," prompting a spokesman for McChrystal to "clarify" that the general never said the Taliban was winning.
McChrystal "explained that International Security Assistance Forces are facing an aggressive enemy, employing complex tactics that is gaining momentum in some parts of Afghanistan," said Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, communications director of the NATO-led force.
"During the course of the interview he also observed that insurgents in Afghanistan face their own problems in terms of popularity, cohesiveness and ability to sustain morale and fighting capacity."
As McChrystal's comments reached print, a Taliban suicide bomber and armed militants attacked Afghan government and police headquarters near Kabul -- an audacious assault that killed two policeman just days before nationwide elections.
McChrystal indicated several strategic shifts in his interview with the Journal, including plans to shift more troops to the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, where the insurgents are believed to have set up shadow government offices.
"It's important and so we're going to do whatever we got to do to ensure that Kandahar is secure," he said.
A big decision facing McChrystal, appointed in May to replace General David McKiernan, is whether to endorse a request by his predecessor for an additional 10,000 troops, primarily for training Afghan police and security forces.
McChrystal told the Journal he would direct a "very significant" expansion of the Afghan army and national police, which would double in size under plans being finalized by senior US military officers.
The shifting US strategy in the country, where 75 foreign troops were killed in July alone -- the bloodiest month for coalition troops since the 2001 invasion -- also involves pressure on the country's massive drug trade.
A US Senate committee report obtained by AFP Monday said that 50 alleged Afghan drug traffickers with suspected ties to the Taliban have been placed on a Pentagon "kill list" of people targeted for elimination.
"Major drug traffickers who help finance the insurgency are likely to find themselves in the crosshairs of the military," the report said. "Some 50 of them are now officially on the target list to be killed or captured."
McChrystal, meanwhile, said Taliban attacks were becoming increasingly sophisticated, often combining roadside bombs with ambushes by small teams of heavily-armed fighters.
He added that Taliban forces were increasingly moving beyond their traditional strongholds in southern Afghanistan to threaten formerly stable areas in the north and west.
To counter this US troops would be redeployed into some of the most heavily-populated parts of the country to better protect Afghan civilians from rising levels of Taliban violence and intimidation, he said.
McChrystal is due to lay out a new strategic assessment in Washington after Afghanistan's August 20 vote.
President Barack Obama has made Afghanistan a central foreign policy concern and is building up US troop levels to a record 68,000 by year's end, more than twice the number stationed there at the end of 2008.
Taliban attacks, now at record levels, threaten to overshadow the upcoming polls, billed as a key benchmark in Afghanistan's progress since the 2001 US-led invasion.
Electoral authorities said Monday that voting might have to be suspended in 10 districts unless the necessary security is in place.
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U.S. commander seeks civilian 'surge' in Afghanistan
By Nancy A. Youssef And Warren P. Strobel, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Mon Aug 10, 5:59 pm ET
KABUL, Afghanistan — In addition to requesting some 45,000 additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan , the country's top American military commander will ask the Obama administration to double the number of U.S. government civilian workers who are in the country.
The proposed civilian "surge" is the fourth leg of Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal's emerging strategy to rebuild Afghanistan's economy and government, along with more American troops, vastly expanded Afghan security forces and closer cooperation between U.S. and Afghan troops, including posting troops from both countries at the same bases.
The request for additional civilian resources will be part of a 60-day assessment of the strategy in Afghanistan . McChrystal's plan also will outline how the military wants to revamp the relationship between civilians and the military so that soldiers shift economic and political development work to civilians.
It's not clear, however, whether the State Department can deploy enough civilians fast enough to make progress in an economically backward nation that remains plagued by an Islamist insurgency, internal rivalries, inadequate infrastructure, official corruption and a booming opium trade. What's more, nearly eight years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan , one thing that many of its people have in common is growing discontent with the presence of foreign forces.
The assessment was to be released later this week, but the Pentagon has announced that it won't be made public until early September. The plan is already a race against time in Afghanistan and in Washington , where the administration is eager to demonstrate significant progress before the 2010 congressional elections.
A State Department official said that there were 560 to 570 U.S. government civilian employees in Afghanistan at the end of last year, and that by the end of this year there'll be about 1,000.
Only 75 of the new arrivals are in Afghanistan so far. "We're doing this in a planned way. We have to balance getting the right people out there, as opposed to just deploying them quickly," said the official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, as the official wasn't authorized to speak for the record. "We fully expect to be able to get them all out there by the end of the year."
Many of the new arrivals will join provincial reconstruction teams, which work with provincial and local officials across Afghanistan . Not all of them are coming from the State Department . The U.S. Department of Agriculture is sending 55 employees into the field as part of an effort to rejuvenate Afghanistan's once-rich agriculture.
It may be difficult, however, to convince some disheartened American troops to work with civilians, whom they think haven't had much impact in the places where they've been.
In Kabul , though, military officials called the proposal a central part of their plan, saying that rebuilding Afghanistan's shattered economy and cleaning up its corrupt government are key to the U.S. strategy.
The military will move to population centers and wrest control from the Taliban , and civilians will move in afterward to rebuild communities. In many places now, the Taliban not only control areas by force but also have established local courts, government centers and businesses and have run government officials out of their communities.
"Government is the key, and you will see that in General McChrystal's strategy," said a senior military official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because he isn't authorized to speak to the news media. "If all we achieve is security, then this won't work."
However, even if the surge occurs, "it might not arrive until early 2010," said Andrew Exum , who's at the Washington -based Center for a New American Security , a national-security policy research center, and who serves as an adviser to McChrystal. "For the near term, the military needs to be prepared to take on responsibilities better executed by civilians. . . . We're on a very short timeline in Afghanistan with respect to shifting momentum, and by the time the civilians arrive in any significant numbers or capabilities, it might be quite late in the game."
As for the provincial reconstruction teams, he said, there's no standardization. "What (each one does) depends on their relationship with the Afghan people and their guidance from their home country," Exum said.
Many of the new employees are being hired under a special provision of the law that allows the government to hire temporary personnel on an expedited basis. Aside from the new hires, it's not clear where the additional personnel will come from. Some could come from Iraq , where a State Department inspector general's report recently recommended that the U.S. Embassy be downsized significantly and provincial reconstruction teams be phased out.
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul has alerted the State Department that hundreds more civilians beyond the total of 1,000 now planned probably will be needed in 2010 and 2011, officials said. The total could end up reaching 1,350, with about 800 in Kabul and about 550 outside the capital.
Richard Holbrooke , the Obama administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan , dismissed criticism that the civilian buildup has been insufficient so far.
"We have a very sustained plan. This is not like taking an existing military unit out of Fort Bragg and training them and then sending them out," Holbrooke said at a briefing last month. "We have hundreds of people in the pipeline."
(Youssef reported from Kabul, Afghanistan , and Washington ; Strobel reported from Washington . Jonathan S. Landay contributed to this article from Kabul .)
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Opium addiction takes hold of families, villages in Afghanistan
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI Associated Press
SARAB, Afghanistan — Open the door to Islam Beg’s house and the thick opium smoke rushes out into the cold mountain air, like steam from a bathhouse. It’s just past 8 a.m. and the family of six — including a 1-year-old boy — is already curled up at the lip of the opium pipe.
Beg, 65, breathes in and exhales a cloud of smoke. He passes the pipe to his wife. She passes it to their daughter. The daughter blows the opium smoke into the baby’s tiny mouth. The baby’s eyes roll back into his head.
Their faces are gaunt. Their hair is matted. They smell.
In dozens of mountain hamlets in this remote corner of Afghanistan, opium addiction has become so entrenched that whole families — from toddlers to old men — are addicts. The addiction moves from house to house, infecting entire communities cut off from the rest of the world by glacial streams. From just one family years ago, at least half the people of Sarab, population 1,850, are now addicts.
Afghanistan supplies nearly all the world’s opium, the raw ingredient used to make heroin, and while most of the deadly crop is exported, enough is left behind to create a vicious cycle of addiction. There are at least 200,000 opium and heroin addicts in Afghanistan — 50,000 more than in the much bigger, wealthier United States, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and a 2005 survey by the UN. A new survey is expected to show even higher rates of addiction, a window into the human toll of Afghanistan’s back-to-back wars and desperate poverty.
Unlike in the West, the close-knit nature of communities here makes addiction a family affair. Instead of passing from one rebellious teenager to another, the habit passes from mother to daughter, father to son. It’s turning villages like this one into a landscape of human depredation.
Except for a few soiled mats, Beg’s house is bare. He has pawned all his family’s belongings to pay for drugs.
“I am ashamed of what I have become,” says Beg, an unwashed turban curled on his head. “I’ve lost my self-respect. I’ve lost my values. I take the food from this child to pay for my opium,” he says, pointing to his 5-year-old grandson, Mamadin. “He just stays hungry.”
Beg’s forefathers owned much of the land in the village, located beside a gushing stream at the end of a canyon of craggy mountains in Badakshan province, hundreds of miles northeast of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital.
He once had 1,200 sheep. He sold them off one by one to pay for drugs.
The land followed. He’s turned his spacious home, once lined with ornamental carpets, into a mud shell. He grows potatoes in rows in the last of his fields and each time he harvests the crop, he has to make a choice — feed his grandchildren, or buy opium. He usually chooses drugs.
Basic necessities like soap long ago fell by the wayside.
“If we have 50 cents, we buy opium and we smoke it. We don’t use the 50 cents to buy soap to clean our clothes,” explains Raihan, Beg’s daughter and the mother of the 1-year-old. The toddler wears a filthy shirt and no underwear. “I can be out of food, but not out of opium.”
The country’s few drug treatment centers are in cities far from villages like this one. And even those able to get themselves to the cities are often unable to get help. The drug clinic in Takhar province, the nearest to Sarab, has a waiting list of 2,000 people and only 30 beds.
So the villagers are drowning in opium. They begin taking it when they are sick, relying on its anesthetic properties — opium is also used to make morphine. Sarab, a village located at 8,000 feet and snowed in for up to three months a year, is a day’s walk over mountain paths to the nearest hospital. The few shops in town do not even sell aspirin.
“Opium is our doctor,” says Beg. “When your stomach hurts, you take a smoke. Then you take a little more. And a little more. And then, you’re addicted. Once you’re hooked, it’s over. You’re finished.”
When his grandson Shamsuddin, 1, cut his finger in the door jamb, Beg blew opium smoke into the child’s mouth, a common practice in this part of the world which is now resulting in rampant child addiction. He doesn’t want his grandchild to become an addict, but he says he has no choice. “If there is no medicine here, what should we do? The only way to make him feel better is to give him opium.”
From a single smoke, they progress to a three-times-a-day habit that spreads. When Beg began using opium, it wasn’t just his wife and daughter who followed suit. It was his brother. Then his brother’s wife. Like an epidemic, it makes its way across the village.
Health workers say that to treat the addiction, they need to treat the entire community. Last year, the Ministry of Health took 120 addicts from Sarab to a facility in a town one day’s drive away to be treated. Three months later, they found that 115 of the 120 had relapsed.
“First my neighbor started doing opium again,” explains Noor, one of the women treated, whose eyes are dark caves. “Then my cousin. Then my husband. And then after a while, I also started.”
Most of the addicts spend $3 to $4 a day on opium in a part of the world where people earn on average $2. They sell their land and go deeply into debt to maintain their habit.
“I used to be a rich man,” says Dadar, a man who looks to be in his 70s and whose family of seven is addicted. “I had cattle. I had land. And then I started smoking. I sold the cattle. I sold my land. Now I have nothing.”
He wears an old windbreaker encrusted with dirt. His wife pulls back her lips to show a mouth full of diseased teeth. Their grandchildren have knotted hair and ripped clothes stained with muck.
Because they’ve sold their cattle, they no longer eat meat. When they sold the last of their land, they also lost their wheat, potatoes and greens. Their diet now consists of tea and the occasional piece of bread given by a neighbor.
Village chief Sahib Dad says even those who are not addicted are forced to pay a price.
“When a person gets addicted, he has nothing to eat,” says Dad. “That affects his neighbor because the neighbor is forced to give over a part of his food. For this reason, all of us are poorer.”
After selling their land, some families resort to even more desperate measures. They take loans from the shopkeepers who sell them drugs. Then they sell their daughters, known as ‘opium brides,’ to settle the debt. They lease their sons.
“I know he is angry with me. But what can I do? I have nothing left to sell,” says Jan Begum, who has sent her 14-year-old to do construction work for the drug dealers. “I tried to stop, but I can’t. Whenever I do, the pain becomes unbearable.”
The problem is compounded by Afghanistan’s neighbors. Iran immediately to the west has the world’s highest per capita heroin use. The heroin labs there, as well as in Pakistan to the east, use opium imported from Afghanistan. These countries are now exporting heroin addiction back to Afghanistan in the form of returning refugees.
Like opium, heroin in Afghanistan is biting off whole families. Gul Pari, 13, watched her mother get high on heroin when she and her brother were in elementary school. Now she lies in a bed in a drug treatment center for women in Kabul. Her 15-year-old brother Zaihar is across town in a rehab facility for men.
Their bodies are like brittle sticks. The 13-year-old tries to push herself up on one elbow, but her thin arm cannot hold her up, so she falls back onto the pillow. Her emaciated brother leans against a wall to steady himself.
What will happen when they go home is unknown. They live with their mother — a recovering heroin addict — under a tarp in the yard of an abandoned house.
Mohammad Asef, a health worker at the clinic taking care of Zaihar Pari, says he is worried about the boy’s chances of recovering. “In America people go and get high in the park. In Afghanistan, they do it in the home,” says Asef. “They bring it inside. They burn it on the family stove. Everyone sees. So everyone is affected.”
In Sarab, villagers who are not addicted keep their distance from those who are. They don’t invite them into their homes. They discourage them from coming to village meetings. It’s as if they are trying to quarantine themselves.
Beg says that for him all hope is lost. Even after he is buried, it’ll take 70 years for the opium to ooze out of his bones. His hope, he says, are his grandkids — the only people in the family who are not yet addicts.
As Beg is getting high on a recent morning, the 1-year-old crawls over and starts playing with the opium pipe. He picks it up and shakes it, as if it were a rattle. Then, imitating his grandfather, he raises the pipe to his mouth.
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Is The Taliban Winning in Afghanistan?
Katie Couric, Lara Logan Discuss Whether U.S. Losing Ground In Afghanistan War
By Lara Logan CBS News
(CBS) In Afghanistan, the new U.S. commander is giving a blunt assessment of how the war there is going. In Monday's Wall Street Journal, General Stanley McChrystal says the Taliban now have the upper hand and the war has reached what he calls a "critical and decisive moment."
Last month was the deadliest of the war for U.S. troops -- with 45 deaths. In July of last year, there were 20; 14 in July of 2007.
CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric discussed the report with Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent lara Logan.
Couric: Lara, is General McChrystal really that pessimistic?
Logan: Not according to one of his top aides. I spoke to him just a few hours ago. He said the general was speaking in a very specific context. That in certain parts of the country in the eyes of the people, the Taliban have gained the upper hand but this does not apply to the whole of Afghanistan.
Couric: We're hearing he may request an additional 45,000 U.S. troops on top of the 21,000 already deployed, is that true?
Logan: Well, General McChrystal likely to request more troops it. The exact number is not known at this point. He has not yet decided. And there were three sets of figures on the table. And so I mean he will make his recommendation in the coming weeks.
Couric: Just how much we're not sure. Meanwhile the elections are August 20. Do you think people will be able to vote freely throughout the country?
Logan: Well in large parts of the country, yes, they'll be able to vote. But in the parts of the country, where, for example, General McChrystal say the Taliban have gained the upper hand, they will have a very difficult time. The Taliban wants the elections to fail. They want the U.S. to fail and they will be doing everything they can to stop people going to the polls.
Couric: Meanwhile the Obama administration announced today it is preparing some 50 benchmarks to measure success because Congress is getting antsy about this war. Do you think that's a reliable way to measure progress?
Logan: Benchmarks can be a double-edged sword and it's very difficult with counterinsurgency because it is a long-term strategy. It takes years to see results. And it only takes 15 seconds to blow up a building or to blow up a road. So it's very difficult. It doesn't mean anything to the Afghan people. They feel it in their daily lives whether there's a difference or not. This more about the American people.
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Roadside bomb wounds 4 Afghan civilians
KABUL, Aug. 10 (Xinhua)-- Four non-combatants sustained injuries as a roadside bomb struck a police van in Khost city the capital of Khost province in east Afghanistan Monday, a local official said.
"It was around 11:30 a.m. local time when a police vehicle ran over a mine injuring four civilians including a child in the nearby of the site of incident," Director of provincial Health Department Amir Badshah Mangal told Xinhua.
All the injured men have been taken to hospital and of them is in critical condition, the official further said.
According to the official, all the policemen aboard the vehicle are safe and sound.
Taliban militants who vowed to derail the coming Aug. 20 Afghan election have intensified their activities mostly in the shape of suicide and roadside bombings which often harm civilians.
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White House: Afghan war not in crisis
AP By ANNE GEARAN 10 Aug 2009
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's national security adviser did not rule out adding more U.S. forces in Afghanistan to help turn around a war that he said on Sunday is not now in crisis.
James Jones, a retired Marine general with experience in Afghanistan, said the United States will know "by the end of next year" whether the revamped war plan Obama announced in March is taking hold.
The administration is redefining how it will measure progress, with new benchmarks that reflect a redrawn strategy. An outline is expected next month.
Making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows, Jones did little to dispel the growing expectation that Obama soon will be asked to supplement the 21,000 additional forces he already approved for Afghanistan this year.
"We won't rule anything out," but the new strategy is too fresh for a full evaluation, Jones said.
"If things come up where we need to adjust one way or the other, and it involves troops or it involves more incentives ... for economic development or better assistance to help the Afghan government function, we'll do that."
The Obama plan is supposed to combine a more vigorous military campaign against the Taliban with a commitment to protect Afghan civilians and starve the insurgents of sanctuary and popular support. It envisions a large development effort led by civilians, which has not fully happened, and a rapid expansion of the Afghan armed forces to eventually take over responsibility for security.
"If we can get that done ... we will know that fairly quickly," Jones said.
The New York Times reported Sunday that the Pentagon has created a target list of Afghan drug traffickers to be captured or killed. Citing interviews with two U.S. generals in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report to be released this week, the Times said the strategy is aimed at disrupting the flow of drug money used to finance Taliban insurgents.
The system to measure progress in Afghanistan is several weeks from completion. It reflects creeping congressional skepticism about the war and its costs. The United States has spent more than $220 billion since the U.S.-led invasion of 2001, plus billions for more toward aid and development projects. By the United States' own admission, much of the aid money was wasted.
Members of the House Appropriations Committee wrote recently that they are worried about "the prospects for an open-ended U.S. commitment to bring stability to a country that has a decades-long history of successfully rebuffing foreign military intervention and attempts to influence internal politics."
The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Sunday he does not know how Congress would react to a new request for additional troops.
"It depends on what the facts and the arguments are," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. "It depends what our commanders in the field say. It depends also I think in part what our NATO allies are willing to do."
Appearing with him, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., warned against repeating what he called the mistake of committing too few troops to Iraq at the start of the war.
"My message to my Democratic colleagues is that we made mistakes in Iraq. Let's not 'Rumsfeld' Afghanistan," Graham said, referring to former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld resisted sending a very large U.S. force at the outset of the Iraq war in 2003.
"Let's don't do this thing on the cheap," Graham said. He said he will "be shocked if more troops are not requested by our commanders."
Violence has spiked this year, with roadside bombs the militants' weapon of choice. There are relatively few direct firefights. There are signs the Taliban is pursuing a classic tactic of a smaller, weaker enemy waiting out a larger, militarily superior one.
Deaths among U.S. and other NATO troops have soared. With 74 foreign troops killed — including 43 Americans — July was the deadliest month for international forces since the start of the war in 2001.
There are currently 62,000 U.S. troops and 39,000 allied forced in Afghanistan, on top of about 175,000 Afghan soldiers and police. Some NATO countries plan to withdraw their troops in the next couple of years, even as the U.S. ramps up its presence.
The newly installed top U.S. general in Afghanistan is preparing an interim assessment that is expected to be a sober accounting of the difficulties of fighting an entrenched and technically capable insurgency eight years into the war. Gen. Stanley McChrystal is expected to identify shortfalls that should be filled by more forces — perhaps a mix of Afghan, NATO and U.S.
His report had been expected this week but is now delayed at least until after the Afghan national elections on Aug. 20.
U.S. officials have said they are neutral on the election's outcome so long as voting comes off smoothly and with a minimum of irregularities. Jones cited the elections as evidence of progress. He rejected the idea that a secret, hastily arranged gathering of the top U.S. defense officials in Europe last weekend carried a whiff of desperation.
"No, I don't think we're at a crisis level ... or that there's going to be any movement on the ground by the Taliban that's going to overthrow the government. We're going to have, I think, a good election," Jones said.
Jones appeared on "Fox News Sunday," NBC's "Meet the Press" and CBS' "Face the Nation." Levin and Graham were on CBS.
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Dispatches From Afghanistan: No Young Soldiers
Monday, August 10, 2009 Fox News By Michael Yon
Michael Yon, an independent journalist and former Green Beret, is in Afghanistan reporting on the war against Al Qaeda terrorists and the Taliban. Here is a portion of his latest dispatch exclusively for FOXNews.com.
SANGIN, Afghanistan — Daily dramas unfolded, including the bangs, booms and small-arms fire that punctuated the times. At 1800, I was preparing to go to orders with 1 Platoon, A Company of 2 Rifles, when shots from a large-caliber rifle began cracking low over base.
I passed by sniper Kris Griffith, and said, “Hey Kris, why don’t you grab your rifle and go shoot that guy?” Kris replied that two other sniper teams were on it. “He’s close,” I said, and Kris answered, “About 600 meters.” Then we went our separate ways.
Orders were given and then the soldiers performed final checks on their gear and tried to fall to sleep in the sweltering evening heat. Some nights I would go to sleep using the sleeping bag as a pillow, only to wake up with it drenched in sweat.
The alarm was set for 0213 hours, but at 0211 I sat up and turned it off before it could wake the soldiers who were not going on the mission. I had nineteen minutes to pull on my boots, body armor, and small rucksack, before I had to get to breakfast, engage in final conversations, and then show up for the mission at 0310....
The conditions were “red illume,” meaning there was less than 10 millilux of ambient light and it was too dark for most helicopters to fly, even while using night vision gear. It was plenty dark.
Soldiers and section leaders did “final check” after “final check” of their gear, and talked quietly among themselves while last-minute updates came over the radio.
In red illume, the soldiers used dim red lights that were harder for the enemy to see. Red light also preserved our night vision. By showing up a half-hour before departure and sitting quietly, our eyes and senses had time to adjust and tune in to the battlefield. The battlefield was a thirty-second walk away.
Some soldiers smoked cigarettes before stepping out into the wild zone. Most were quiet. There was little talking during the last ten minutes....
By 0357 hrs, some shops were already open, including this shoe store. The Taliban in this area did not seem to wear running shoes as did some of the enemy groups elsewhere in Afghanistan. Here, the enemy mostly wore sandals or went barefoot. (Many often ran right out of their sandals, especially during combat.)
Shops on this very street sold fertilizer used to make bombs. They might as well have sold dynamite. (The fertilizer also happened to be good for growing opium.) The bombs regularly blow the limbs off troops around Afghanistan. Soldiers may lose their legs, or their legs and an arm and their eyesight, or worse. But what can we do, really? Gasoline, like fertilizer, can be an incredible weapon.
Are we to ban gasoline and attack gas shipments while trying to build a country from scratch? We talk about weapons flowing in from Pakistan, while in reality most of the casualties in this area come from bombs made from fertilizer sold in the open markets.
We talk about Pakistani Taliban flowing in, while the local ANA Commander, Colonel Wadood, tells me that some of the fighters are Tajiks from places like Ghor Province. Tajiks generally hate the Taliban but they come to make money, he says.
The crux of the mission was a raid, but the task of our section was to provide security and fire support for the raiders. If the enemy were to try to hit our guys during the raid, our job was to kill the enemy, and so our objective was a farmhouse that overlooked the target.
British soldiers moved into an occupied farmhouse as the man willingly opened the gate to let us in. Several cute children were sleeping under the stars. The soldiers were so quiet the kids were not disturbed. I thought to myself, “What would the kids think if they woke up and saw the soldiers?”
About fifteen minutes later, one of the children woke up, and his voice could be heard through the silence of the night. The man with the turban stepped over and spoke quietly to the child who immediately zonked out again, as if it were all part of a dream.
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Afghanistan: Opportunity lost
ABC News August 11, 2009, 11:38 am
Afghanistan is about to face a crucial election as the US-led coalition mounts a fierce "surge" against the insurgency. In the first instalment of a two-part series, Foreign Correspondent's Mark Corcoran, who has been visiting Afghanistan since 1998, reflects on an opportunity lost.
It was early morning on April 25, 2003 - Anzac Day - as our swarm of troop helicopters and escorting gunships approached the helipad at a remote Special Forces outpost in the arid, mountainous, lunar landscape of Paktika Province - the border country between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As we touched down, a US patrol operating from the next outpost - barely 30 kilometres away - was hit in a well planned ambush. I was embedded with the 82nd Airborne Division - and two of their soldiers were now dead.
They'd been killed by one of the few insurgent groups then operating in the border area. A dozen or so fighters - Chechens - immediately fled to the short distance to sanctuary over the border in neighbouring Pakistan before the Americans could bring their decisive air power to bear.
The paratroopers were visibly shocked, not only by the loss of comrades - but that the insurgents had gone on the offensive - in one of the first successful attacks since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.
It was an ominous sign of things to come.
I quietly sat with a veteran sergeant as his tears welled - not only at the loss, but also in frustration - as he spelt out what he saw as the quick, decisive and blindingly obvious strategy to bring peace to Afghanistan; win the hearts and minds.
A few days later, in a plywood and sandbag mess hall, we watched satellite TV as a flight-suited President George W Bush descended from the skies to land on an aircraft carrier displaying a banner reading "Mission Accomplished" for both Iraq and Afghanistan.
"In the battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the Taliban, many terrorists and the camps where they trained. We continue to help the Afghan people lay roads, restore hospitals and educate all of their children.
Yet we also have dangerous work to complete. As I speak, a special operations task force lead by the 82nd Airborne is on the trail of the terrorists and those who seek to undermine the free government of Afghanistan." declared President Bush.
We all looked at each other in stunned silence.
Apparently what had just happened out on this half-forgotten Afghan frontier wasn't part of the script as written by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or President Bush.
Afghanistan, we were told, was all about chasing "bad guys". Reconstruction and reconciliation, building up the relationship and all-important contacts in the community came a very poor second.
But there simply weren't enough US troops on the ground to effectively pursue any of these options.
Back then, bringing some sort of meaningful peace to Afghanistan appeared relatively easier. US troops had much popular support - even in the south of the country. The Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan were in disarray after being deposed in late 2001.
Australia had an SAS squadron operating out of Kandahar Airport. I'd see them from long distance - endlessly patrolling in their cut-down 4WD's.
Out in the towns and villages of the Kandahar region there was almost universal approval for Australian Special Forces. Village elders, Afghan political leaders, US commanders all sang their praises. I was told they had an impact far out of proportion to their relatively small numbers. They made a difference. You can't buy PR like that.
But by early 2003, Afghanistan was reduced to a sideshow. The main game moved to Iraq. Even the Australian SAS squadron that I'd seen in early 2002 had gone, bound for Baghdad. Australia's military presence was reduced to one lonely liaison officer.
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai told me he was mystified by the withdrawal of Australian Special Forces. His repeated requests to Canberra for them to return would be ignored for another three years. Australia's official response? There weren't enough SAS troopers to go around - the diggers would fight only one war at a time.
The window of opportunity to make a substantial difference in Afghanistan's long cycle of conflict - possibly the best chance in decades - slammed firmly shut around mid 2003 - as the Taliban regrouped, distancing themselves from Al Qaeda, re-badging as an army of liberation against the western occupiers.
Now, in 2009, the US-led coalition is engaged in a fierce and bloody campaign in the south and east - and belatedly implementing the hearts and minds tactics many on-the-ground commanders advocated back in 2002/03. But is it too late?
Much of the recent debate in Australia over involvement in Afghanistan also misses a crucial issue. Setting aside the "War on Terror" rhetoric for a moment, if the US-led forces achieve a short-term military victory in Afghanistan, what happens next? Exactly who are Australia and the US/NATO alliance fighting for? What kind of people are going to run this New Afghanistan?
-*Tomorrow: Mark Corcoran on Afghanistan as a narco-state.*
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New Zealand to send SAS troops to Afghanistan
WELLINGTON, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand's Special Air Service (SAS) troops will again be sent to Afghanistan for a deployment of 18 months, Prime Minister John Key announced on Monday.
Key told a press conference that the SAS will be in Afghanistan for 18 months, in three rotations, with up to 70 troops serving at each time.
Key said the cabinet's decision stems from a review of New Zealand's commitment to maintaining security and stability in Afghanistan.
"New Zealand has a direct and vital interest in supporting international efforts to eradicate terrorism, and to promote peace and stability," Key said.
The SAS were last in Afghanistan in 2006, and New Zealand has also had a Defense Force contingent running a provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in Bamyan province since 2003.
Key said the PRT would be gradually drawn down and there would be an increased civilian effort focused on the province in the areas of agriculture, health and education.
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Intimidation, Insecurity Remain Concerns Before Afghan Election
By Steve Herman VOA News 09 August 2009
With less than two weeks to go before Afghanistan holds its presidential election there is continuing concern about intimidation and insecurity.
A report issued by Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission and the United Nations mission gives a mixed assessment of the ongoing campaign.
Monitors say while political rights of candidates and their supporters "have generally been respected" there has been documented violence. Notably there were four killings related to the election for the period covered by this report - the second half of July.
The monitors say women candidates have difficulty campaigning and female potential voters are being hindered from registering.
The joint report cites an upward trend of intimidation by what it calls anti-government elements, as well as rival candidates and their supporters. Security concerns are also limiting freedom of movement and open campaigning.
This all raises the issue as to whether Afghanistan can hold elections that can be deemed "free and fair."
U.N. Special Representative in Afghanistan Kai Eide says the same standards applied to developed Western democracies should not be used to evaluate a "complex" election in an unstable country with weak institutions.
"What we want to see is credible elections, inclusive elections and the elections where the results are accepted by the Afghan people," said Eide. I think those are important standards that we see as a basis for how to evaluate the election results."
Another concern cited in the report are allegations that government resources, including public media, are being used to aid particular candidates.
Afghanistan's 17 million eligible voters go to the polls on August 20.
Incumbent President Hamid Karzai faces several-dozen challengers, but experts say he might be able to secure at least 50 percent of the votes, thus avoiding a second round of balloting.
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Can Afghanistan be saved? We'll know in a year, Jones says
The Christian Science Monitor By Mark Sappenfield 08/09/2009
The national security adviser said on Sunday that new strategies need time to work. But the US will not stay 10 years.
National Security Adviser James Jones asserted Sunday that the Pentagon will require a year to determine whether its Afghan strategy is working.
The comment, made on NBC's "Meet the Press," is an indication of how little progress Afghanistan has made under international stewardship since 2001 – and the enormity of the task ahead.
The top US military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, called past American neglect toward Afghanistan a "culture of poverty" in a recent meeting with reporters and editors at The Washington Times. Both the nation of Afghanistan and foreign troops in Afghanistan have been under-resourced as America put its attention squarely on Iraq during the past administration.
Now, that is changing. But tellingly, Admiral Mullen suggested that, eight years after the Taliban was routed, the US military is still digging "out of a hole" and has yet to reach "year zero."
Diplomatic and military leaders have repeatedly warned that Afghanistan presents far a more complex set of challenges than does Iraq. Now that America is turning its attention toward Afghanistan more fully, it appears to be discovering the depth of the situation.
The commander of US forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, reportedly is set to ask for an increase in troop levels. This is on top of the 21,000 President Obama has already sent there as part of his shift from Iraq to Afghanistan.
The man who preceded General McChrystal wanted more troops, too. His standing request for 10,000 additional troops never received a response from Washington.
McChrystal's request – if it materializes – is bound to receive more serious consideration, given that he was hand-picked by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. But it is not likely to be met enthusiastically by those of in the left wing of Mr. Obama's Democratic Party.
Nor is the assertion by General Jones (retd.) that it could take a further 12 months to know whether the US-led coalition is making progress in Afghanistan.
Pointedly, Jones rejected a claim by McChrystal's senior counterinsurgency adviser, David Kilcullen, that the US and NATO would be involved in Afghanistan for another 10 years. Yet increasing familiarity with Afghanistan leads to more sober assessments of the work ahead, as Obama's team is learning.
Largely illiterate, riven by ethnic and tribal factions, and without any legal economy, Afghanistan lacks many of the building blocks that Iraq – despite its sectarian strife – had.
Afghanistan has been in a state of war virtually since the Soviet invasion of 1979, and in the decade before the fall of the Taliban, it was run by thieves, warlords, or religious fanatics.
Only in the past few months has the US begun to appraise these generation-old crises fully and consider the cost of the remedy – hence Mullen's comments about the US not yet reaching "year zero."
The toughest work, Jones suggests, still lies ahead.
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50 drug barons on U.S. target list in Afghanistan
KABUL (AP) — A U.S. military "kill or capture" list of 367 wanted insurgents in Afghanistan includes 50 major drug traffickers who give money to Taliban militants, U.S. military commanders told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
U.S. and NATO troops are attacking drug warehouses and militant-linked narco dealers in Afghanistan for the first time this year, a new strategy to counter the country's booming opium poppy and heroin trade. NATO defense ministers approved the targeted drug raids late last year, saying the link between Taliban insurgents and the drug trade was clear.
According to a report to be issued by the committee this week, U.S. commanders have no restrictions on the use of force against the targets, "which means they can be killed or captured on the battlefield," the report states.
When the nexus between a drug trafficker and the insurgency is clear enough, the drug trafficker is put on a list of insurgent leaders wanted by U.S. forces, said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, the top U.S. spokesman in Afghanistan.
"The list of targets are those that are contributing to the insurgency, so the key leadership, and part of that obviously is the link between the narco industry and the militants," Smith said Monday.
To be placed on this target list, formally called the "joint integrated prioritized target list," requires two verifiable human sources and "substantial additional evidence," the report says.
The U.S. military does not conduct operations against narcotics dealers who are not involved in the insurgency, because those individuals are dealt with by law enforcement agencies, according to Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, a U.S. military spokeswoman.
"It's terrorists with links to the drug trade rather than drug traffickers with links to terrorism," said Lt. Col. Todd Vician, another U.S. military spokesman.
The existence of militant-linked drug traffickers on a wanted list of insurgents is a fairly recent development, following that NATO change in policy, though the individuals likely were known to the military before then, Smith said.
The majority of the wanted drug traffickers are in southern Afghanistan, where the drug trade is strongest, though "there are links elsewhere dealing with trafficking," Smith said.
U.S. Marines and Afghan forces have found and destroyed hundreds of tons of poppy seeds, opium and heroin in southern Afghanistan this summer in raids that troops were not allowed to carry out a year ago.
In another major U.S. policy shift, the U.S. announced in June it would no longer support the destruction of individual farmers' poppy plants, and instead would increase attacks on drug warehouses.
For years, the U.S. strategy has centered on training Afghan forces to eradicate farmers' poppy fields by hand. But such efforts never destroyed a significant portion of the crops. Farmers complained that the program targeted small, helpless poppy growers and passed over more powerful land owners, and the forces came under constant attack by militants.
Linking the fight against Taliban or al-Qaeda insurgents to people seen driving the country's illegal drugs trade is an issue that has long stirred debate inside NATO.
The top U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, said last month that the Taliban gets more money from donors in oil-rich Persian Gulf nations than from drugs.
European governments have never shared U.S. enthusiasm to use military power in a counternarcotics strategy, and last fall's decision by NATO to declare war against drug labs and traffickers in Afghanistan has not silenced critics.
"NATO policy is that if there is a direct nexus between drugs and funding the insurgency, then NATO has a role," said NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero.
Placing drug traffickers on a wanted list of Afghan militants will significantly hurt insurgents, according to Daniel Twining of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
The Taliban insurgency "is only sustainable thanks to the roughly $300-400 million in drug revenues it earns annually from controlling or taxing the narcotics trade, and from the failures of the Afghan state to connect with the Afghan people, leaving vast and ungoverned swathes of the country subject to parallel administration by the Taliban," Twining said.
However, Fabrice Pothier, head of the Brussels-based Carnegie Europe, said the effectiveness of NATO's policy is "highly disputable."
"How can restricted NATO interdiction operations put a dent in a $3.5 billion industry? There is no clear evidence to date that proves that targeting the drugs business will weaken the Taliban insurgency," Pothier said.
Afghanistan's Counter Narcotics Ministry says 98% of Afghanistan's poppy crop is grown in five southern insurgency-plagued provinces, where the government has little or no control. That is where U.S., Afghan and British forces have been destroying drug warehouses this summer.
About 4,000 U.S. Marines in July launched their biggest anti-Taliban offensive since 2001 on the southern province of Helmand, the center of the country's opium poppy cultivation.
U.N. officials say Taliban fighters reap hundreds of millions of dollars from the drug trade each year, profits used to fund the insurgency. ANew York Times report published Monday cited CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency estimates saying that the Taliban earn $70 million a year from narcotics.
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Afghan student killed in road accident in India
NEW DELHI, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- A 22-year-old Afghan student has died after being overrun by a car in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh on Sunday, reported the Press Trust of India.
Ahmed Jawid, who was from Jowz Jan province in Afghanistan and a first year Arts student at the Government College in Chandigarh, was crossing the road when he was hit by a speeding car, said the report.
The Afghan Embassy officials was rushing to the city to take care of the body of the dead student.
The driver of the car has been arrested for causing death due to rash and negligent driving, said the report.
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Drop in wheat price worries farmers, pleases consumers
KABUL, 10 August 2009 (IRIN) - Farmers in Afghanistan's top cereal-producing provinces worry that the decline in wheat prices will push them into poverty, while urban consumers welcome the fall.
Wheat prices have dropped by more than 30 percent over the past year but are still significantly higher than in early 2007, according to the Agriculture Commodity Price Bulletin released by the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL).
"Wheat prices continued declining in Afghanistan, averaging Afghanis 16.9 [about US$0.35] per kg in mid-July, compared to Afs18.2 [about $0.38] in June and Afs 19.2 [about $0.40] in May," the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in the Asia Pacific Food Situation Update in July.
A bumper harvest - more than 6 million MT of cereals - has been forecast this year, largely owing to better rainfall and increased wheat cultivation across the country, according to the FAO. At least 17 of the country's 34 provinces, including Herat and Badghis, will produce 50,000MT surplus cereals, MAIL and FAO have said.
Afghanistan annually needs about 6.5 million MT of cereals to feed its estimated 28 million people, according to the MAIL.
Food prices skyrocketed as the country suffered a severe drought in 2008. Drought and high food prices pushed millions into high-risk food insecurity as UN agencies and the government launched two emergency appeals to feed the most vulnerable.
"We are happy prices are dropping because we can buy food now," said one man in Kabul's main food market.
Stabilizing prices
The government plans to buy 100,000MT of wheat from domestic farmers in a bid to stabilize prices and help protect vulnerable farmers.
"We aim to prevent a major deflation in cereal prices," Saaduddin Safi from the MAIL, told IRIN, adding that the UN World Food Programme (WFP) was also encouraged to buy local cereals.
WFP's food aid programme has millions of beneficiaries across the country but is mainly reliant on imports.
WFP told IRIN it may purchase 7,000MT of wheat from vulnerable farmers through a scheme called "Purchase for Progress", provided the wheat meets international quality standards.
Most Afghan households spend 70 percent of their income on food and have few means to meet other fundamental needs such as health, education and shelter, according to Asif Rahim, the Agriculture Minister.
Indeed, some NGOs have warned that food prices are likely to "increase slightly due to the election in August and the month-long celebration of Ramadan [in August-September], during which people typically spend more money on food"," said the Famine Early Warning Systems Network in its Food Security Outlook. "In the most likely scenario through December, generally food secure conditions will deteriorate to moderately food insecure levels in chronically food insecure zones and provinces where accessibility is an issue due to harsh winter conditions."
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Weighing Cost and Conscience in Afghanistan
By Eric Etheridge The New York Times August 10, 2009, 5:40 pm
The United States under President Obama may no longer be fighting a “global war on terror,” as his counterterrorism and homeland security adviser John Brennan announced in a major speech last week.
But by whatever name, Obama continues to escalate the U.S. war in Afghanistan — the original front in the Bush G.W.O.T. In February the president authorized 17,000 new troops for the country, and Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander he recently installed there, is widely expected to ask for more in the very near future.
The general can be seen making his case in the Wall Street Journal today: “The Taliban have gained the upper hand in Afghanistan, the top American commander there said.” The general won’t commit to a number of new troops or if he will in fact ask for any, but “several officials who have taken part in Gen. McChrystal’s 60-day review of the war effort said they expect him to ultimately request as many as 10,000 more troops.”
That may be the minimum buy-in. In the London Times today, one of those officials taking part in the McChrystal review, Anthony Cordesman, bangs the same drum as his general (“the Taliban have been winning the war for control of Afghanistan’s territory and population”) but floats a much larger number: as many as 45,000.
There’s definitely support for more troops in some quarters in Washington. Late last month, Senators Joe Lieberman and Carl Levin told the president he needed to double the number of troops in Afghanistan. Yesterday on “Face the Nation,” Senator Lindsay Graham added his voice: “We made mistakes in Iraq. Let’s not Rumsfeld Afghanistan. Let’s not do this thing on the cheap.”
But whether or not there is good strategic reason to send more troops, spend more money, and invest the time in Afghanistan is a question that more and more observers are asking. “Perhaps it is my imagination (or just wishful thinking) but it sure seems like over the past week or so there has been a rising sense of queasiness about the current U.S. mission in Afghanistan,” says Michael Cohen today at Democracy Arsenal.
“What is it about Afghanistan, possessing next to nothing that the United States requires, that justifies such lavish attention?” That’s Andrew Bacevich, a former Army officer, in an issue of Commonweal earlier this summer.
In Washington, this question goes not only unanswered but unasked. Among Democrats and Republicans alike, with few exceptions, Afghanistan’s importance is simply assumed—much the way fifty years ago otherwise intelligent people simply assumed that the United States had a vital interest in ensuring the survival of South Vietnam. As then, so today, the assumption does not stand up to even casual scrutiny. . . .
Fixing Afghanistan is not only unnecessary, it’s also likely to prove impossible. Not for nothing has the place acquired the nickname Graveyard of Empires. Of course, Americans, insistent that the dominion over which they preside does not meet the definition of empire, evince little interest in how Brits, Russians, or other foreigners have fared in attempting to impose their will on the Afghans. As General David McKiernan, until just recently the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, put it, “There’s always an inclination to relate what we’re doing with previous nations,” adding, “I think that’s a very unhealthy comparison.” McKiernan was expressing a view common among the ranks of the political and military elite: We’re Americans. We’re different. Therefore, the experience of others does not apply.
Today at Foreign Policy, Mark Lynch writes, “I find the strategic rationale for escalating the war in Afghanistan extremely thin, and the mismatch between avowed aims and available resources frighteningly wide.”
What are the strategic reasons for expanding the commitment in Afghanistan? Why should the US be committing to a project of armed state building now, in 2009?
I hope that the argument isn’t that it’s to prevent Al Qaeda from reconstituting itself in the Afghan safe havens. That’s a fool’s game. It makes sense to keep the pressure on Al Qaeda, but does that require “armed state building”?
Suppose the U.S. succeeded beyond all its wildest expectations, and turned Afghanistan into Nirvana on Earth, an orderly, high GDP nirvana with universal health care and a robust wireless network (and even suppose that it did this without the expense depriving Americans of the same things). So what? Al Qaeda (or what we call Al Qaeda) could easily migrate to Somalia, to Yemen, deeper into Pakistan, into the Caucasas, into Africa — into a near infinite potential pool of ungoverned or semi-governed spaces with potentially supportive environments. Are we to commit the United States to bringing effective governance and free wireless to the entire world? On whose budget?
In his op-ed in The London Times, Cordesman says “armed nation building” is exactly what’s needed, in addition to defeating the Taliban and Al Qaeda:
In Afghanistan Nato/ISAF faces challenges that go far beyond the normal limits of counter-insurgency and military strategy. It must carry out the equivalent of armed nation building, and simultaneously defeat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
Responding to Cordesman, Spencer Ackerman notes, “That’s the first and the last time the word ‘Al Qaeda’ appears in the column, and mentioning ‘Al Qaeda’ is the closest Cordesman — a military analyst for whom I have a ton of respect — comes to discussing the actual U.S. interests at stake with escalation.”
Ackerman also takes issue with Cordesman’s effort to “define victory in achievable terms,” which include “a reasonable level of security and stability for the Afghan people; a decent standard of living by current Afghan standards; and the end of Afghanistan as a sanctuary for international terrorism.”
Ackerman’s take? “Well, then: mission accomplished.”
If these are U.S. interests at stake, then Cordesman’s first two definitions are means to the ultimate end of the third: ending Afghanistan as a sanctuary for international terrorism. Well, then: mission accomplished. Pakistan, not Afghanistan, is the current sanctuary for international terrorism, and the two on the come-up are Yemen and Somalia. John Brennan said on Thursday — if you blinked, you missed it — that Afghanistan is a war to stop the country from going back to being a sanctuary for international terrorism.
Even if you accept the premise that population-centric counterinsurgency is necessary for counterterrorism success — and if Al Qaeda is more interested in Pakistan than Afghanistan, that means that Afghanistan is a staging ground for us, not them, in the current confrontation — nothing within that premise implies a nation-building effort. Pushing the Afghanistan government into a position of greater provision of services is not the same thing as building that capacity for it. The only way you get there is through mission creep.
The Times today had news of more mission creep — or at least mission expansion: “Fifty Afghans believed to be drug traffickers with ties to the Taliban have been placed on a Pentagon target list to be captured or killed, reflecting a major shift in American counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan.”
On his blog Abu Muqawama asks: “Are we really going to spend our time, money and precious . . . assets going after the Pashtun Pablo Escobar?”
Color me eight shades of skeptical that reducing the Quetta Shura Taliban’s income from narcotics will significantly affect their operations. I am, overall, deeply wary of counter-narcotics operations in Afghanistan and what effect they have on our mission. If, on the other hand, we are “targeting” local power brokers — and not just drug traffickers — and by “targeting” we mean identifying and tracking, that might not be a bad idea. I think we should very much be tracking and mapping the social networks of power brokers in Afghanistan. . . .
Again, why are we in Afghanistan? To fight drugs?
In his Commonweal essay, Andrew Bacevich argues we need to see the conflict in Aghanistan in the big picture. Islamic radicalism is failing, time is on our side, and “if the United States today has a saving mission, it is to save itself.”
As for the putatively existential challenge posed by Islamic radicalism, that project will prove ultimately to be a self-defeating one. What violent Islamists have on offer — a rejection of modernity that aims to restore the caliphate and unify the ummah [community] — doesn’t sell. In this regard, Iran — its nuclear aspirations the subject of much hand-wringing — offers considerable cause for hope. Much like the Castro revolution that once elicited so much angst in Washington, the Islamic revolution launched in 1979 has failed resoundingly. Observers once feared that the revolution inspired and led by the Ayatollah Khomeini would sweep across the Persian Gulf. In fact, it has accomplished precious little. Within Iran itself, the Islamic republic no longer represents the hopes and aspirations of the Iranian people, as the tens of thousands of protesters who recently filled the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities made evident. Here we see foretold the fate awaiting the revolutionary cause that Osama bin Laden purports to promote.
In short, time is on our side, not on the side of those who proclaim their intention of turning back the clock to the fifteenth century. The ethos of consumption and individual autonomy, privileging the here and now over the eternal, will conquer the Muslim world as surely as it is conquering East Asia and as surely as it has already conquered what was once known as Christendom. It’s the wreckage left in the wake of that conquest that demands our attention. If the United States today has a saving mission, it is to save itself. Speaking in the midst of another unnecessary war back in 1967, Martin Luther King got it exactly right: “Come home, America.” The prophet of that era urged his countrymen to take on “the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism.”
Dr. King’s list of evils may need a bit of tweaking — in our own day, the sins requiring expiation number more than three. Yet in his insistence that we first heal ourselves, King remains today the prophet we ignore at our peril. That Barack Obama should fail to realize this qualifies as not only ironic but inexplicable.
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