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Taliban claim blast at NATO base in Kabul
By David Fox And Hamid Shalizi – Sat Aug 15, 6:18 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – The Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb that killed seven people on Saturday in the heart of the Afghan capital's most secure district five days before an election the Islamist group has vowed to disrupt.
Afghan Suicide Attack Kills Seven, Raises Security Concerns Ahead Of Elections
August 15, 2009 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
A suicide car bomb has exploded outside the NATO military headquarters in Kabul, killing at least seven people and wounding dozens more.
Afghan, American ops kill 38 Taliban
Sat Aug 15, 8:19 am ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) – Afghan army special forces backed by US-led international troops killed up to 38 Taliban militants in separate operations, they said on Saturday.
End of Karzai era would be a blessing for Afghans
Mahmoud Saikal August 14, 2009 The Australian
NEXT Thursday's presidential and provincial elections in Afghanistan have the potential to strengthen the nation's democratic institutions, provide a fresh mandate for the fight against terrorism and extremism, and help improve the living conditions of Afghans.
Afghan Hopeful Has Penchant for Details
Presidential Candidate Offers Slew of Proposals to Combat Official Corruption
By Joshua Partlow Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, August 15, 2009
KABUL, Aug. 14 -- Ask presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani how he would curb the corruption permeating the ranks of the Afghan government -- the "cancer that is eating through our society,"
Holbrooke's Projects Long Occupation of Afghanistan, Pakistan
Huffington Post - Aug 14, 2009
The conference on Afghanistan with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, sponsored by the Center for American Progress on August 12 turned into a disappointing press conference promoting the virtual nation-building plan
Abdullah Abdullah throws down election gauntlet to President Karzai
Jeremy Page in Kandahar The Times (UK) August 15, 2009
In a cloud of dust and fumes, the convoy of SUVs and battered sedans screeched to a halt before the Shrine of the Cloak of Prophet Mohammad in Kandahar.
Afghanistan Exit Strategy: Buying Off the Taliban?
By Mark Thompson Time.com Washington Friday, Aug. 14, 2009
By measure both of blood and of treasure, the war in Afghanistan is a costly business. To date, 782 U.S. troops have been killed there, and the conflict is costing Washington $4 billion a month.
Candidates profile: Karzai, Abdullah, Ghani
FT.com 08/14/2009
Hamid Karzai: beneficiary of incumbency
Hamid Karzai, Afghan president, faces 40 challengers in his bid to win a second term in office. But it is doubtful whether any will muster sufficient support to unseat a man who enjoys the benefits of incumbency, patronage, name recognition and powerful friends abroad.
With Karzai Favored to Win, U.S. Walks a Fine Line
The Washington Post By Joshua Partlow and Karen DeYoung 08/14/2009
KABUL - Criticism Tempered To Avoid Hostility
The last time Hamid Karzai ran for president, in 2004, he was clearly America's man in Afghanistan. U.S. military helicopters shuttled him between campaign stops. At his inauguration, Vice President Richard B. Cheney
NATO, Afghan Troops Focus On Election Security Amid Taliban Threats
August 15, 2009 By Ron Synovitz Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
With a Taliban suicide attack claiming seven lives in Kabul on August 15, there are renewed fears about security ahead of Afghanistan's presidential election next week.
Why McChrystal may not get more troops for Afghanistan
By Gordon Lubold – The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! News - Aug 14 2:00 AM
Washington – If the top commander in Afghanistan asks for more US troops to accomplish the mission there, he will encounter a Pentagon that is reluctant to green-light the request.
Afghan gov't, NATO condemn Taliban car bomb in Kabul
KABUL, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The government of Afghanistan and the NATO-led multinational peacekeeping force ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) have strongly condemned the suicide car bomb that left some
Airstrike kills 13 Taliban insurgents in E Afghanistan
KABUL, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-led Coalition's airstrike against Taliban insurgents in remote areas of eastern Khost province have left over a dozen militants dead Saturday.
Afghanistan's women yearn for more
'We are like birds who have left the cage, but with our wings still clipped,' says one Kabul student. Women enjoy a much better life than under the Taliban, but still face age-old constraints.
By Laura King Los Angeles Times - Aug 14 6:25 PM
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan — One is the face of despair; the other, of hope.
Afghanistan out to impress in four-day format
Cricinfo staff August 15, 2009
Afghanistan's remarkable success in the ICC World Cup Qualifiers, where they qualified for the Super Eights, will give them plenty of confidence as they take on a Zimbabwe XI in their first Intercontinental Cup fixture in Mutare.
Cynicism and apathy mark Afghan polls
Saturday, 15 August 2009 BBC News
After seven years of democracy, many Afghans now view their presidential elections with cynicism or apathy, as the BBC's Kate Clark discovered.
Herat Officials Accused of Dirty Tricks
In parts of the province, bribery and intimidation are said to be rife.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By IWPR trainees in Herat (ARR No. 331, 14-Aug-09)
The mullah looked nervous about speaking to a reporter.
“Who will guarantee our safety if we tell the truth about what is happening here?” he said.
Young Heratis Have Little Faith in Elections
Many believe outcome of ballot will be determined by foreign powers.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Mohammad Shafi Firozi in Herat (ARR No. 331, 14-Aug-09)
“Everybody knows the United States will choose the next president of Afghanistan,” said Shah Rahman Afzali. “We should not participate in sham elections.”
Germany to build military barrack, municipality building in N Afghan province
KABUL, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The foundation stone of a military barrack for Afghan National Army (ANA) was laid down in Afghanistan's northeast province of Badakhshan on Friday, spokesman of provincial administration said on Saturday.
Force Protection Sales May Jump Amid Afghanistan Push
By Edmond Lococo
Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Force Protection Inc., the third- largest maker of blast-resistant trucks for the U.S. military, said annual sales of vehicle repair and maintenance services may be double what the company had projected
US: Govt Withholds Information About Bagram Detainees
By Danielle Kurtzleben IPS-Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug 14 (IPS) - The U.S. government continues to withhold even the most basic information about prisoners in the Bagram detention facility in Afghanistan, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a New York-based legal rights organisation.
Military Translators Risk Low Pay, Death
By Pratap Chatterjee* IPS-Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug 14 (IPS) - Murtaza "Jimmy" Farukhi was killed while on patrol with the U.S. Marine Corps on Sep. 9, 2008, at the age of 23. He was not a soldier, but a local translator employed by Columbus, Ohio-based Mission Essential Personnel (MEP).
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Taliban claim blast at NATO base in Kabul
By David Fox And Hamid Shalizi – Sat Aug 15, 6:18 am ET
KABUL (Reuters) – The Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb that killed seven people on Saturday in the heart of the Afghan capital's most secure district five days before an election the Islamist group has vowed to disrupt.
Afghanistan's Defense Ministry said at least seven people were killed and nearly 100 wounded in the blast outside the sprawling headquarters of the NATO-led international force, near the U.S. embassy, in Kabul.
A spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force said there were some ISAF casualties, while an official with the Afghan Ministry of Transport, whose headquarters bore the brunt of the blast, said dozens of employees were hurt by flying glass.
"Unfortunately, there are casualties," said Canadian Brigadier General Eric Tremblay, an ISAF spokesman. "I am not going to go into numbers. There's Afghan civilians and there are ISAF military."
The blast shattered windows in the area and shook buildings in the Wazir Akbar Khan district, home to most major foreign embassies and organizations in the capital.
It also rattled confidence in an August 20 presidential election which pits incumbent Hamid Karzai against 35 challengers. Two recent polls have Karzai with a comfortable lead over his nearest challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, but not enough to avoid a second round run-off.
Karzai condemned the attack but said it would not stop Afghans from voting.
"The enemies of Afghanistan try to create fear among people in this election period but people still realize the importance of going to ballot boxes to cast their votes," Karzai said in a statement.
The Taliban, stronger than at any time since they were driven from power eight years ago, have vowed to strike polling stations and threatened reprisals against voters.
"The target was the U.S. embassy, but we could not reach it," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.
BOLD ATTACKS
Violence has surged recently, with Taliban fighters staging bold attacks on provincial government buildings in the south and east, and also launching raids in once-quiet areas in the north and west.
"The sad thing is that, although you don't know where these things are going to happen, these things are expected, so I don't think there's going to be too many changes," a diplomat in Kabul said.
Saturday's suicide bomb attack was the first in Kabul since January, when the German embassy was targeted.
Taliban fighters also stormed government buildings in the capital on February 11, killing 19 people in an audacious commando-style raid.
Kabul has also recently come under attack by rockets.
The vehicle carrying Saturday's bomb appeared to have got through two lightly manned checkpoints before attempting to drive the wrong way through a major reinforced security post, where it was stopped.
ISAF's Tremblay said the suicide bomber "entered our defensive system and was blocked by the Afghan army" and then decided to detonate the vehicle. "It was an isolated attack. It's not a complex attack," he said.
Abdullah Latif, a driver with the Transport Ministry, said he heard a loud explosion and breaking glass.
"People were just arriving at work. There were tens of people injured by the glass," he said.
Mohammad Moussa Zaher, a doctor at the Wazir Akbar Khan hospital, told Reuters that 55 people had been treated there.
The election is a test for U.S. President Barack Obama's strategy of rushing thousands of extra troops to Afghanistan to tip the balance in an eight-year-old war some in Washington admitted this year they were not winning.
Some 30,000 extra U.S. troops have already arrived this year, pushing the total Western force above 100,000 for the first time, including 62,000 Americans.
Foreign troop commanders say they will provide perimeter security for the elections, with security at polling stations the responsibility of Afghan forces and police.
(Additional reporting by Peter Graff in KABUL)
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Afghan Suicide Attack Kills Seven, Raises Security Concerns Ahead Of Elections
August 15, 2009 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
A suicide car bomb has exploded outside the NATO military headquarters in Kabul, killing at least seven people and wounding dozens more.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the August 15 attack, which comes just days before the August 20 presidential election, and officials are concerned that there will be more attacks in the city in coming days.
The Afghan Defense Ministry said at least 90 people, including children, were wounded in the attack that occurred in the heavily fortified district, which is home to the U.S. embassy, presidential palace, and many other foreign diplomatic missions and international organizations as well as Afghan government buildings.
U.S. Embassy Targeted
A Taliban spokesman told news agencies that the target of the attack was the U.S. embassy.
RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan reports that an Afghan parliamentarian Hawa Alam Nuristani and at least four soldiers from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force were among people wounded in the blast.
An official with the Transport Ministry, which is located nearby, said dozens of people inside the ministry building were hurt by flying glass as the blast shattered the windows.
An eyewitness, who works for the Transport Ministry said, "We were inside the ministry building when a very large and strong explosion happened."
"All the windows at the ministry were shattered. We all rushed toward the street to see what had happened. Many ministry employees had their heads injured, limbs broken or were in very bad condition,” the eyewitness said.
Another eyewitness told Radio Free Afghanistan that most of the casualties were Afghan civilians.
The suicide bomber evaded several security checkpoints to reach the area. The attacker detonated the explosives as Afghan security forces stopped the vehicle in front of the NATO headquarters.
Heightened Security
Increased security measures are in place in Kabul in recent weeks as the country gears up for the August 20 presidential and provincial council elections.
Hundreds of additional police and army soldiers have been deployed onto Kabul’s streets.
The Taliban has repeatedly threatened to attack polling stations and warned Afghans not to vote.
The August 15 suicide attack raised concerns in Kabul that there will be more such strikes in the capital and elsewhere in Afghanistan.
Abdul Ghafar Sayeedzada, the chief of Kabul’s criminal investigation department, told reporters that additional checkpoints and extra troops will be in place to prevent militant attacks in the capital.
Written by RFE/RL correspondent Farangis Najibullah with Radio Free Afghanistan and agency reports
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Afghan, American ops kill 38 Taliban
Sat Aug 15, 8:19 am ET
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) – Afghan army special forces backed by US-led international troops killed up to 38 Taliban militants in separate operations, they said on Saturday.
In a surprise attack on Friday night units from the two forces working together dropped from helicopters into Charchino district, in central Uruzgan province, for a battle that lasted several hours, the Afghan army said.
"Twenty-nine enemies were killed. The bodies are still lying in the battle field," southern Afghanistan military corp commander general Shair Mohammad Zazai told AFP.
He said the troops confiscated 96 sacks of aluminium nitrate explosive and a large amount of opium.
Separately, Taliban militants ambushed an Afghan army patrol on Friday in Barmal, a district of Paktika province bordering Pakistan, the defence ministry said in a statement.
"A large number of enemies were killed but they left behind two of their dead. Four Afghan soldiers were also wounded," the statement said.
In neighbouring Khost province, seven militants were killed in a joint operation by Afghan army and NATO forces and 17 militants were wounded, the ministry said.
Afghanistan has experienced a series of fresh attacks across the country in the days before the presidential vote on August 20, only the country's second.
A suicide blast in Kabul early Saturday killed seven civilians and wounded more than 90 others.
The ultra-Islamic Taliban fighters have called on people to boycott the vote. They were toppled from power by a US-led invasion in late 2001.
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End of Karzai era would be a blessing for Afghans
Mahmoud Saikal August 14, 2009 The Australian
NEXT Thursday's presidential and provincial elections in Afghanistan have the potential to strengthen the nation's democratic institutions, provide a fresh mandate for the fight against terrorism and extremism, and help improve the living conditions of Afghans.
Moreover, judging from the large and enthusiastic crowds at the leading candidates' election rallies, the elections may bring to office a new president, a new government and younger provincial members.
Although a US-funded survey released this week shows the incumbent, President Hamid Karzai, has 36per cent support among voters, some of his rivals, in particular former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, are gaining ground and there is the strong possibility of a run-off, especially if local strongmen are unable to mobilise blocs of supporters in favour of the status quo.
Yet, far from being destabilising, a change, if handled wisely by the Afghan elite and its international partners, would strengthen democracy. Unfortunately, there are signs that opponents of the election are determined to disrupt it.
The recent Taliban call for an election boycott, attacks on election rallies and campaign offices, as well as the killing and wounding of several campaign officials and a dramatic increase in foreign troop losses are tragic indications of this. The UN's Afghan envoy has described this month's election as "the most complicated ever".
Yet the international and Afghan military forces appear to be serious about creating a safe environment for conducting the poll. And regardless of the difficulties, holding an election, even with some deficiencies, would be better than postponing or cancelling it. However, every effort must be made to avoid a failed election, one marred by violence or widespread fraud, which could lead to political in-fighting over the outcome and a possible power vacuum.
Unfortunately, a new UN report claims the Karzai government has abused state resources to bolster the President's candidacy. This and previous unconstitutional steps such as delaying the elections and extending Karzai's term of office have already overshadowed the election outcome.
With the possibility of a run-off gaining momentum, some pro-government analysts have started fear mongering, warning of potential ethnic unrest and violence. It's therefore extremely important that President Karzai and other leading candidates exercise restraint and show statesmanship in taking Afghanistan through this crucial election peacefully.
Irrespective of the Karzai administration's performance, after eight years there is a natural call for change. Historically, Afghanistan's rare opportunities to develop and entrench an effective political system have been undermined by personal ambitions and foreign meddling. Many Afghans will only believe in democracy's potential to foster change if they see their votes turning a president into an ordinary citizen and an ordinary citizen into a president. It is also important that Afghans see their votes as part of a process that strengthens the rule of law and state institutions instead of serving any candidate's ego or ethnic agenda. The argument that Afghanistan needs strong leaders before it can have strong institutions is no longer valid: strong institutions can now give birth to successful leaders.
Despite the international community's investment, Afghans have lately lost confidence in their government. This can be attributed to the polarisation of Afghan politics because of a heightened focus on individuals and on ethnic divides, coupled with the state's dysfunctional performance. This has eroded the public confidence that had developed since the previous presidential election in 2004 and spawned a worrying culture of indifference to state affairs.
A democratic change of leadership in Kabul would lead to a fresh period of co-operation between the government and the governed.
Afghanistan also needs a responsible and strong opposition.
Karzai, if not surrounded by opportunist associates, may have the capacity to make use of his statesmanship and lengthy experience by helping to nurture an opposition capable of holding the government to account. He could also use his extensive international contacts to keep Afghanistan in the spotlight while it needs development aid.
Contrary to the myth generated by vested interests, Karzai is not the only person who can rule the country. His presidential rivals include several candidates who may well prove capable of running the state effectively, and who also have experience of dealing with the international community. If the level of international support given to President Karzai is extended to another popularly elected Afghan leader, it may well lead to a more effective government and improved living conditions, with al-Qa'ida and the Taliban being deprived of oxygen.
On the other hand, a victory for the status quo, granted by a listless electorate, would symbolise the triumph of back-room manoeuvring, a tribal system (Arbabi), and the personalisation of politics.
Given Karzai's recent alliances, mostly with those who have championed the divisive causes of ethnicity and self-interest, his next government could be even more disappointing than the present administration, and responding to the demands of his power-hungry coalition partners would keep him tied up for months. Judging from history, 13 years of rule by Karzai would probably pave the way for governments to be run once again by dynasties, thereby exacerbating the Afghan people's disillusionment with democracy.
The emergence of a new leader and a new government, on the other hand, would reflect the maturity of democracy in Afghanistan. It would lead to renewed enthusiasm and a fresh opportunity to move things in the right direction.
A new president would need to make merit the basis for all government appointments, build on the achievements of the past eight years and chalk out a comprehensive strategy for effective state-building, democratisation and institutionalisation.
Curbing the insurgency and terrorist activities and cutting off their sources of external support would obviously be the first priority.
Finally, under the Afghan constitution, governance is highly centralised, with the presidential office encumbered with too many responsibilities. An overburdened presidency would lead to disappointment even under a new government, just as it did under the present administration. The gradual decentralisation of power promised by some presidential candidates may be the way to go.
Mahmoud Saikal has served as Afghanistan's deputy foreign minister (2005-06) and ambassador to Australia (2002-05). He is a visiting fellow at the Australian National University's Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy. This article reflects his personal views.
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Afghan Hopeful Has Penchant for Details
Presidential Candidate Offers Slew of Proposals to Combat Official Corruption
By Joshua Partlow Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, August 15, 2009
KABUL, Aug. 14 -- Ask presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani how he would curb the corruption permeating the ranks of the Afghan government -- the "cancer that is eating through our society," as he puts it -- and the answer is a barrage of detailed plans and programs.
If elected, Ghani said, he would require 3,000 civilian and military leaders to disclose their assets. He would mandate thrice-yearly "citizen report cards" for officials from district-level administrators up to cabinet ministers. He would link the salaries of civil servants such as teachers to growth in state revenue and decline in corruption.
And he would require that within five years, 50 percent of government jobs be turned over to people younger than 30, who constitute the majority of the population, in an attempt to dismantle nepotism and patronage networks.
"There's no vision as to where this country should go," he said of the current government in a recent interview, as he reclined on cushions in his garden in Kabul. "There has been no leadership."
Ghani, a 60-year-old author, former finance minister and professor with a doctorate in anthropology from Columbia University, is the most cerebral of the candidates running in Thursday's election. He moves from clipped, precise English to the Afghan languages of Pashto and Dari, and he speaks some French and Arabic.
U.S. officials are partial to Ghani, a politician in the mold of Iraq's articulate Kurdish deputy prime minister, Barham Salih, or Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad -- Western-educated leaders who can describe their people's problems to Americans in English. Ghani has attracted American campaign volunteers and brought on Democratic strategist James Carville as an adviser.
But for Ghani, who spent 24 years abroad, including a long stint with the World Bank, this ease with the West does not appear to have translated into wide popularity at home. Two recent polls by U.S.-based firms have him running fourth in the election, with 4 and 6 percent of the vote, respectively. President Hamid Karzai remains the front-runner, with approval numbers in the mid-40-percent range.
"Ashraf Ghani has the complete solution, but he's off-putting to a large number of the Afghans, and not for ethnic reasons," said one U.S. official in Afghanistan. "Too much of Ashraf Ghani's campaign is in the West."
Ghani disputes that, saying he has spent more time than his opponents listening to the problems of average Afghans.
"The problem is that the West sees me at the side that they know," he said. "I speak to you in English. If I spoke to you in Pashto, I'll be incomprehensible. But when I speak Pashto, or in Dari, my Afghans see me operating as an Afghan."
He dismisses the polls, saying they were conducted before his televised debate against former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah on July 23 (Karzai chose not to participate). Ghani's campaign took a hit this week when Abdullah pulled out of a second planned debate. "The two campaigns are hiding behind advertisements in a way that is not advantageous for the nation," Ghani said in a statement Friday.
"The polls have never gotten anything right in Afghanistan. I would like to see one prediction by foreigners that has come true in Afghanistan," Ghani said in the interview. "I know this country more intimately. I'd like to challenge anybody who has as detailed a plan for every province of Afghanistan as I do, or as detailed a level of knowledge."
His technocratic background has made him a leading candidate for a potential chief executive position, should Karzai win reelection. Karzai has offered him the position and U.S. officials have discussed it with him, Ghani said, but he has so far rejected it.
"I hope first to beat him. But if there is a need for a national government, we need to think about it. Those issues are premature now," he said, noting that Karzai had approached him with similar offers over the past three years. "If Mr. Karzai wins and wanted me to be a part of his government, he would have to sacrifice a lot of his bad habits."
Ghani has called for reforming Afghanistan's judicial system and closing the detention center at Bagram air base and all other international prisons in the country within three years. He also says that boosting the numbers of U.S. troops here is necessary to make up for the Bush administration's neglect of Afghanistan. For now, he said, his focus is on alleviating the problems of women, young people and the poor.
"The government is not a source of enrichment for me," he said, adding that his candidacy is "strictly driven by service."
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Holbrooke's Projects Long Occupation of Afghanistan, Pakistan
Huffington Post - Aug 14, 2009
The conference on Afghanistan with Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, sponsored by the Center for American Progress on August 12 turned into a disappointing press conference promoting the virtual nation-building plan being integrated into the US military operations in that country.
It was an opportunity for CAP to begin distancing itself from the military occupation which has claimed 781 American lives thus far, and at this rate will cost one trillion dollars by the end of President Obama's first term.
CAP continues to call Afghanistan a "war of necessity" against al-Qaeda safe havens, an argument which could just as easily apply to Hamburg, Germany, where the September 11 highjackers plotted, or many other locations in failed-states around the globe.
Podesta sat at Holbrooke's side during a 90 minute discussion that was mainly promotional. Podesta did ask the only pointed question of the day, which was whether the Afghan mission has expanded well beyond President Obama's early focus on neutralizing Osama Bin Ladin and any terrorist cell focused on attacking the United States.
Holbrooke joked about the previous evening's Stephen Colbert show which featured an interview with Clintonite operative James Carville, now the campaign consultant for Ashra Ghani, a Western-educated World Bank economist running at four percent in recent polls against Hamid Kharzai. Aren't you campaigning against America's favorite client?, Colbert asked. The following day the New York Times reported that Ghani was likely to be appointed prime minister if Karzai wins, putting the US deeper in the drivers seat after Afghanistan's elections next week. Holbrooke joked that Colbert and Carville "got it right."
Holbrooke's team, most of whom were present, includes senior State Department diplomats, former advisers to the John Kerry campaign, counterinsurgency liaisons from the Pentagon, CIA and FBI counter-terrorism operatives, AID and agricultural experts, a British diplomat, a former Soros official in Kabul, women's rights advocates, an Air Force commander, and well-known authors Barnett Rubin and Vali Nasr. This was described as "the civilian side" by Holbrooke, though he noted that his CIA adviser "can't be surfaced" for public events.
This was a nation-building team, a parallel government, assembled for the very long haul.
There was virtually no acknowledgement that "the civilian side" depends entirely on the success of "the military side" in killing, capturing and defeating the insurgencies raging in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nearly ninety percent of US funding goes for military purposes, and General Stanley MacChrystal soon will be asking the White House for more troops.
Barnett Rubin described the American policy goals in terms that put security -- military success -- first: to enable Afghanistan to gain control of its territory and make the entire region more secure.
It is little wonder that the Obama White House lobbied in recent months to kill Rep. Jim McGovern's simple resolution calling for a report on an exit strategy from the Pentagon by December.
There is no exit strategy, even though President Obama once offered his opinion that one was needed, and a majority of House Democrats voted for the McGovern bill. [John Burton, chairman of the California Democratic Party, recently sent an email to 100,000 Democrats endorsing McGovern's measure, a sure sign of discontent at the grass-roots of the party].
Holbrooke, a highly-educated and articulate diplomat who long ago was an author of the Pentagon Papers, wriggled in trying to answer Podesta's question about mission creep. "It's a good question why we are in Afghanistan if al Qaeda is largely not there," he began. "The connections between al Qaeda and the Taliban are 'very elusive'", he added. But Afghanistan could become "recruiting territory" for al Qaeda in Pakistan if the US left Afghanistan, he claimed, so if you abandon Afghanistan you will suffer somewhere else.
Podesta asked another question: can America settle for a "weak Afghanistan" combined with military intervention in Pakistan? The commitment is not "open-ended" but will take a "long time," came the answer.
"I don't use the word 'victory', but 'success' instead", Holbrooke noted. And what is the "success" that will allow an exit? You cannot define success, he mused, "but we'll know it when we see it." Success will not involve a battleship surrender or a Geneva conference, he predicted.
The biggest problem will be "strengthening the police after the military does the clearing", he noted, which sounds like subcontracting the war to local forces once we have paid for, armed and trained them.
The sense one got from this presentation was that Holbrooke is assembling an infrastructure which will be in place if and when the troops have finished their "clearing", which may not be anytime soon.
What Holbrooke didn't say is that quagmire is more likely than success in the predictable future. And then he will be presiding over Dayton-style talks as he did in the Balkans a decade ago. "We feel the impatience of the public and the Congress", he admitted in response to a question.
Like success, a quagmire will be known when the public sees it. Forty-five Americans were killed in Afghanistan in July, a rate that is continuing in August. For every one of those dead American soldiers, not to mention the uncounted dead Afghan and Pakistan civilians, the quagmire already has begun.
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Abdullah Abdullah throws down election gauntlet to President Karzai
Jeremy Page in Kandahar The Times (UK) August 15, 2009
In a cloud of dust and fumes, the convoy of SUVs and battered sedans screeched to a halt before the Shrine of the Cloak of Prophet Mohammad in Kandahar.
Flanked by a dozen bodyguards, outstepped Dr Abdullah Abdullah, the main challenger in a presidential election on Thursday that will test the limits of a democracy for which 199 British lives have now been lost.
“Go! Hurry!” shouted one of Dr Abdullah’s aides as the bodyguards hustled him through the shrine’s gates, scouring the surroundings for suicide bombers or gunmen.
Once inside, Dr Abdullah uttered a prayer and bowed solemnly as tribal elders placed a black turban on his head — a sign both of welcome and of deference.
It was a moment of calculated political symbolism: this was the place where Mullah Omar, the Taleban leader, famously removed the Prophet’s cloak and displayed it from a rooftop to launch his campaign to conquer Afghanistan in 1996.
The cloak, traditionally brought out only in times of national crisis, is still there; it was left untouched by Dr Abdullah.
The shrine is also the symbolic heart of Kandahar, the former Taleban stronghold largely controlled by Mr Karzai’s half-brother and campaign manager, Ahmed Wali Karzai.
“Without rigging, Karzai will lose the vote in southern Afghanistan,” Dr Abdullah told The Times. “People are crossing ethnic, linguistic and regional lines.”
At the last election in 2004, Mr Karzai won in the first round with 55.4 per cent of the vote and vowed to eradicate terrorism, poverty, corruption and the opium trade.
Five years on, he has not only failed on all of those counts; a Taleban insurgency has enveloped most of the country and international forces have suffered their bloodiest month since 2001.
The election is seen not just as a test of his popularity but of the entire international mission in Afghanistan. “The legitimacy of the international community’s involvement in Afghanistan is at stake in this election,” said Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts’ Network. “These British soldiers — if they’ve died for something that ends in a mess then you simply can’t defend it.”
Most analysts believe that Mr Karzai is still the favourite to win — with the help of allies who will rig the vote, especially in the areas too remote or unsafe for independent monitors to visit.
But many now say that low turnout in the south could force him into a second-round run-off with Dr Abdullah, which could split the country along ethnic lines.
Mr Karzai is from the Pashtun ethnic majority, which dominates southern Afghanistan, whereas Dr Abdullah is half-Pashtun and half-Tajik and more closely associated with the Tajik north.
Dr Abdullah, however, is determined to win over disillusioned Pashtun voters. “I am a son of Kandahar,” he told a crowd at a rally after visiting the shrine. The response was mixed, not least because Dr Abdullah does not speak perfect Pashto. But he does appear to have the support of some Pashtun tribes, whose representatives attended the rally, as well as the vast majority of Tajiks.
Opinion polls are unreliable in Afghanistan, but one funded by the US this week put Mr Karzai in front with 36 per cent, and Dr Abdullah second with 20 per cent. Another released by the International Republican Institute on Thursday gave them 44 per cent and 26 per cent.
Mr Karzai’s aides dismiss those polls and insist that he will still win in the first round. His strategy has resolved around forging alliances with former warlords, ethnic minority leaders and other traditional powerbrokers whom he hopes can deliver large block votes.
Most controversially, he has chosen Marshal Fahim, a notorious Tajik warlord, as his candidate for vice-president, which has horrified many in the international community. The greater concern is that the insecurity in the south will hit turnout and encourage fraud to such an extent that the Afghan public will reject the results.
The Taleban has vowed to disrupt the poll and has distributed “night letters” threatening to cut the throats of anyone it finds with the ink stain on the finger that indicates they have voted.
Election officials say violence in the south will prevent about 700 of the country’s 7,000 polling centres from opening. Some observers report that Mr Karzai’s allies have been buying up voter registration cards in these areas.
Even Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, predicted a messy outcome. “There’ll be disputes, as there are in American elections,” he said on Wednesday. “We aren’t going to know on the evening of August 20 who won. CNN is not going to call this election.”
With the holy month of Ramadan due to start on August 21, the hope is that Afghans will stay off the streets after the poll. The fear is that a rigged result could trigger violent protests like those in Iran. “If there is too much rigging, there may be something similar to Iran, except more serious,” said Humayun Shah Asifi, Dr Abdullah’s vice-presidential candidate.
The contenders
Hamid Karzai 51, is an ethnic Pashtun from the same tribe as the former Afghan Royal Family, who studied in India before joining the anti-Soviet Mujahidin in Pakistan. He returned to Afghanistan in late 2001 when he was appointed President of the country’s interim government in a UN-sponsored deal in Germany.
Dr Abdullah Abdullah 48, is a half-Pashtun, half-Tajik ophthalmologist who joined the Panjshir Resistance Front against the Soviets and served as an adviser to the late Ahmad Shah Masood, who was assassinated in 2001. Dr Abdullah was appointed Foreign Minister under Mr Karzai’s interim government, a position that he held until he was dismissed abruptely in 2006.
Dr Ramazan Bashardost 43, is an ethnic Hazara who spent more than 20 years in France before returning to Afghanistan to become a member of parliament and Planning Minister. A self-styled man of the people, he runs his campaign from a tent opposite parliament, accuses the Government of rampant corruption and has vowed that he would not allow foreign troops to stay in Afghanistan if elected.
Dr Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai 59, is an ethnic Pashtun who received a PhD in anthropology from Columbia University and spent more than two decades outside Afghanistan. He gave up a $250,000-a-year salary at the World Bank to return to Afghanistan and serve as Finance Minister from 2002 to 2004.
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Afghanistan Exit Strategy: Buying Off the Taliban?
By Mark Thompson Time.com Washington Friday, Aug. 14, 2009
By measure both of blood and of treasure, the war in Afghanistan is a costly business. To date, 782 U.S. troops have been killed there, and the conflict is costing Washington $4 billion a month. Is that a good investment? Some suggest it may be far more cost-effective to simply pay those currently earning their keep as gunmen for the Taliban to stay out of the fight.
The notion may have gained more traction Thursday, Aug. 13, after a reporter asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates how much longer U.S. troops will have to keep fighting in the now eight-year-old Afghan war. Gates, recalling his years as a top CIA official, said the war's end date is one of those national-security "mysteries" for which there are "too many variables to predict."
Uncertainties are unavoidable in war, of course. One of them is the exact number of bad guys in Afghanistan, many of whom are paid to fight, and just how much their paymasters are spending on them. But a new report from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week says U.S. commanders commonly refer to the "$10 Taliban" — alluding to the amount insurgents earn each day from Taliban coffers swelled by drug proceeds and Islamist benefactors. That's more than an Afghan cop makes. "They can collect double or triple pay for planting an improvised explosive device," the report adds. So how many fighters are on the Taliban payroll? Earlier this year during a visit to Washington, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, Afghanistan's Interior Minister, estimated there are between 10,000 and 15,000 Taliban fighting his government and its U.S. allies.
That makes a quick cost-benefit analysis possible. While plainly some Taliban members are an ideologically committed hard core who won't lay down their guns, a lot — perhaps most — would presumably stop attacking U.S. and allied forces if they could earn more from that than they currently do for fighting. Vice President Joe Biden has estimated that only 5% of those fighting for the Taliban are "incorrigible, not susceptible to anything other than being defeated," while 70% are in it only for the money. The remaining 25%, he said, fall in between. So if the U.S. opted to pay all Taliban fighters $20 a day — double what they get now — to stop fighting, that would amount to a $300,000 daily bill, or one-fifth of 1% of the war's current cost to the U.S. taxpayers of $133 million a day. The monthly cost of buying off the Taliban rank and file would be $9 million, less than the price of a single AH-64 Apache helicopter.
"The U.S. could put all the Taliban fighters on its payroll at twice the daily rate [that they earn in the insurgency], withdraw all [American] forces except those needed to guard the paymasters, and buy the insurgency at less cost than maintaining forces, Burger King, Popeye's, defense contractors and Nautilus equipment in Bagram [the key U.S. military base in Afghanistan]", writes John McCreary, a former senior Pentagon intelligence analyst. "If the Taliban can buy fighters," he writes in his daily intel blog NightWatch, "the U.S. should be able to outbid the Taliban for the same men."
It's not as far-fetched as it sounds. As McCreary explains, the U.S. military did something very similar in Iraq, paying as many as 100,000 Sunni insurgents $300 a month to stop fighting. That worked out to about $1 million a day — the price of a single mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle (MRAP). The U.S. has shipped more than 10,000 MRAPs to Iraq and Afghanistan — making clear just how much of a bargain the U.S. got when it bought off much of Iraq's insurgency.
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Candidates profile: Karzai, Abdullah, Ghani
FT.com 08/14/2009
Hamid Karzai: beneficiary of incumbency
Hamid Karzai, Afghan president, faces 40 challengers in his bid to win a second term in office. But it is doubtful whether any will muster sufficient support to unseat a man who enjoys the benefits of incumbency, patronage, name recognition and powerful friends abroad.
The 51-year-old president, who was first elected in 2004 but served as interim leader in the preceding years, has kept his campaigning to a minimum, but has drawn enthusiastic crowds to the events he has attended.
His popularity stems partly from his strong ethnic support base. He is a member of a distinguished Pashtun family who were close to the former royal family. Ethnic Pashtuns make up 40 per cent of the population, the largest voting bloc.
He also enjoys pockets of support outside his ethnic group in rural areas that have felt the benefits of foreign aid and recent improvements in governance.
Mr Karzai has proved adept over the years at cementing ties with rival political factions, through a combination of charm and patronage - reportedly promising cabinet posts, governorships and even newly created provinces in exchange for support.
Several of his powerful allies are expected to deliver hundreds of thousands of votes each, especially among minorities such as ethnic Hazaras and Uzbeks. This may help to offset concerns that many polling centres in the war-torn south and east – Pashtun strongholds – may not be able to open because of the threat of violence.
Some of his alliances have fuelled allegations that he has done little to tackle cronyism and corruption in Afghanistan. His choice of Mohammed Qasim Fahim, a former defence minister and militia leader, as his vice-presidential running mate, added to these concerns.
Mr Fahim, an old-style strongman, deserved a place in government, said Mr Karzai, because veterans of the anti-Soviet struggle of the 1980s had been unfairly excluded from power.
Mr Karzai’s ties with the former US-backed Mujahideen dates from his years in exile, when, after completing his studies in India and France, he moved to Pakistan where he helped provide financial and logistical support to anti-Soviet fighters.
Mr Karzai has been dogged by the epithet ‘Mayor of Kabul’ because of his government’s failure to extend its remit much beyond the capital. If he wins a second term, He has promised to pursue a policy of negotiations with the Taliban to try to end the war and focus on building roads, improving education, boosting the economy and shoring up agriculture. Although dubbed a US puppet by his enemies because of his close ties with Washington, he was close enough to the Taliban in the 1990s to be invited to serve as their ambassador to the United Nations - an offer he turned down.
His electoral alliances with militia leaders from the past have disappointed a fast-growing younger generation of educated and more independent thinking voters hoping for change. But he is credited by business leaders with doing much to develop the economy. Local business leaders say his administration has ”facilitated” their success by keeping taxes low and offering other incentives.
Abdullah Abdullah: suave ex-chief diplomat
Former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah is second in the polls behind Afghan president Hamid Karzai, in whose government he served.
An ophthalmologist, Mr Abdullah worked in refugee camps in Pakistan during the war against the Soviets, when he allied himself with Tajik resistance hero Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was assassinated by the Taliban on the eve of the September 11 2001 attacks on New York.
His mother was an ethnic Tajik, while his father was a Pashtun from Kandahar, the city from which the Taliban hailed.
The most concrete policy proposal that he offers is a promise to move to a parliamentary system and he has campaigned on the slogan: ”Give me the power, so that I can return the power to you.”
Fluent in French and English, Mr Abdullah is suave and used to dealing with foreign governments. When the embattled Northern Alliance troops struggled to maintain its base north of Kabul during the Taliban’s rule, he spent a considerable amount of time abroad lobbying foreign governments for help.
The government formed after the defeat of the Taliban in 2001 was dominated by the ethnic Tajik dominated Northern Alliance – something that Hamid Karzai gradually sought to change. But Abdullah remained in his post of foreign minister until 2006 – a measure of his political independence.
His ties with the Northern Alliance, however, could cost him votes with the Pashtun tribes of the south and east of Afghanistan and the country’s second largest minority, the Hazara, who suffered at the hands of Massoud’s army during the civil war that followed the withdrawal of the Soviets.
Ashraf Ghani: the technocratic candidate
Ashraf Ghani is the most westernised and technocratic of all the candidates standing in the Afghan elections but, lacking a broad support base, he has lagged in the polls behind the other two main candidates Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah.
He played no part in Afghan politics until the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001. After a decade at the World Bank, where he had worked on the reform of the Russian coal industry among other things, he quit his job and returned to Afghanistan.
In November 2002, he accepted an appointment as a special advisor to the United Nations and assisted Lakhdar Brahimi, the special representative of the secretary-general to Afghanistan, to prepare the Bonn Agreement, the process and document that provided the basis of transfer of power to the people of Afghanistan.
The following year he was appointed finance minister in Hamed Karzai’s new government, where he became popular with international donors and gained a reputation for efficiency, travelling the world to drum up support for the country.
He instituted regular reporting to the cabinet, the people of Afghanistan, and international stakeholders as a tool of transparency and accountability.
After Mr Karzai’s election as president in October 2004, Mr Ghani declined to join the cabinet and asked to be appointed as head of Kabul University. The move was widely seen in Kabul as the result of a personality clash with President Karzai and there were complaints from finance ministry officials about Mr Ghani’s abrasive management style.
In 2005, he founded the Institute for State Effectiveness to help develop integrated approaches to state building. He has been a vocal critic of Mr Karzai’s failure to tackle corruption and, of the three leading candidates, has presented the most detailed manifesto, calling for a quadrupling of rural incomes and promising a million new jobs. He also wants to close the controversial prison at the US military base in Bagram north of Kabul within three years
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With Karzai Favored to Win, U.S. Walks a Fine Line
The Washington Post By Joshua Partlow and Karen DeYoung 08/14/2009
KABUL - Criticism Tempered To Avoid Hostility
The last time Hamid Karzai ran for president, in 2004, he was clearly America's man in Afghanistan. U.S. military helicopters shuttled him between campaign stops. At his inauguration, Vice President Richard B. Cheney was there to hail the day as a major moment "in the history of human freedom."
With a new round of voting one week away -- and Karzai favored to win another term -- a less-enamored Obama administration is looking for ways to lessen U.S. reliance on the Afghan president by working more closely with favored ministers and bolstering the authority of provincial and local leaders, according to American and Afghan officials.
The goals reflect frustration among U.S. officials over Karzai's performance in the past five years, particularly his seeming indifference to the widespread corruption within his government. But as it increasingly appears that Karzai will be its partner over the next five years, the United States has also sought to preserve a relationship with him.
"Because they couldn't construct a plan to replace Karzai, I think they toned down the criticism and kept the option open of working with Karzai, should he get reelected," said Zalmay Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. "I think some administration officials realized that by being so openly critical of Karzai, they faced the risk that they could get a Karzai who was not only reelected but was hostile to the U.S. because of how he had been treated."
The United States is "actively impartial" in the Aug. 20 vote, said Jane Marriott, a senior adviser to U.S. special representative Richard C. Holbrooke. But according to Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta, U.S. officials back the idea of a new chief executive position under Karzai to add coherence and competence to his struggling bureaucracy.
"I know that in Washington this idea has strong supporters," Spanta said in an interview, adding that installing a "shadow prime-minister" would pose constitutional problems.
U.S. officials have discussed the proposal with a key Karzai challenger, the technocratic former finance minister Ashraf Ghani, though they have not endorsed him for the job.
Rather than "just pouring money into building the government," Holbrooke adviser Barnett R. Rubin said, the administration is focused on "rebuilding the relationship between subnational authorities and local communities." Rubin stressed that such activities were being undertaken in cooperation with the central government in Kabul.
Critical of some of Karzai's cabinet choices, the administration has praised the competence of presidentially appointed local leaders such as the governor of Helmand province, Gulab Mangal. Plans by the U.S. Defense and State departments call for installing American "mentors" and liaisons in Afghan ministries in Kabul, a policy that was heavily used during the early years of the U.S. military occupation of Iraq.
President Obama has called the Afghan election, the second since the Taliban regime's ouster in 2001, the most important event of the year in this country. Originally scheduled for April, the vote was postponed during what Holbrooke called a "crisis" period of Afghan constitutional and security upheaval. As a result, Holbrooke said, the Obama administration was forced to defer other priorities in Afghanistan and spend "most of the spring" sorting out the electoral crisis.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the new U.S. military commander here, has postponed completion of his review of the security situation, originally due to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates this weekend, in part because of the upcoming presidential and provincial council elections. "This is our main effort. I don't want anybody to think we're not anything but completely focused on this," McChrystal said.
"Until the election legitimizes the government, whoever wins, we have to focus on that," Holbrooke said. Holbrooke, Marriott and Rubin spoke at a media event in Washington on Wednesday.
U.S. officials here said their primary interest now is a fair and free election campaign in which the candidates -- 3,324 people have registered for 420 provincial council seats, and 41 are vying to be president -- debate the issues. The officials also say they want a vote unmarred by fraud or violence, results that Afghans accept as legitimate and a government that responds to the needs of the people.
"We're very careful not to conjecture. What we're clear about is regardless of who comes into power, there needs to be much greater demand for accountability," said a U.S. official involved in the election process.
Of the leading presidential candidates, Karzai remains the clear favorite. A U.S.-funded poll released this week found that 45 percent of decided voters favored him, compared with 25 percent for his closest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, an ophthalmologist and former foreign minister. The margin is significant because Karzai, who won in 2004 with 55 percent of the vote, would need to clear 50 percent to forestall a runoff.
The question of who, if anyone, the United States backs has been important from the beginning, although candidates have had to walk a fine line in simultaneously portraying themselves as acceptable to Americans and able to keep U.S. funding flowing, but distant enough not to be seen as an American puppet. Four prominent Afghan politicians, including Abdullah and Ghani, the former finance minister, attended Obama's inauguration in January. Karzai, however, was absent, and a narrative developed early on that Obama was eager for a change at the top in Afghanistan. Ghani and Abdullah have told people privately that the United States gave them the green light to run for president, according to a former U.S. official here.
Karzai was angered when U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry appeared beside Ghani and Abdullah at news conferences in June, although Eikenberry stressed impartiality in his remarks. A week and a half after Karzai failed to show up at Afghanistan's first televised debate, against Abdullah and Ghani, Eikenberry published an op-ed in The Washington Post calling for "serious debate among the candidates."
Despite the administration's denials, many in Afghanistan view these developments as a message that the Americans favored Karzai's rivals.
"The U.S. has certainly tried to undermine Karzai's leadership," said Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies. But the failure of rival candidates to unite on a ticket dashed what appeared to many observers to be a U.S. hope of an opposition coalition.
"I think the greatest pressure on the United States has been to convince Afghans and all the candidates that it is not interfering in the election one way or another," Vali Nasr, a senior Holbrooke aide, said in an interview. "What the U.S. has consistently said is that it wants an election that is free and fair, and does not lead to indecision, confusion or violence, that the elections would be followed quickly by getting back to business."
Concerns persist about Karzai's leadership on many levels, including his ability to address corruption, to project his power nationwide, to help stem rising Taliban violence and to outline a clearer plan for a peace process. U.S. officials have been critical of his decision on the campaign trail to surround himself with infamous commanders such as his running mate, the powerful Tajik leader Mohammed Fahim, and several others Karzai has courted in an attempt to secure ethnic and regional voting blocs.
Karzai has at times been critical of the U.S. presence, especially over the issue of civilian casualties in U.S. military operations. But in a speech this week, he said that he valued American sacrifices in the war and that "we will not only keep this strategic partnership with the U.S., but we also will improve it." At the same time, he demanded that coalition troops stop arresting Afghans and close all foreign prisons here.
Karzai's rivals describe him as paranoid about foreign intrigue.
"He considers everybody part of that big plot," Abdullah said. "In the meetings with elders and political leaders who have talked and spoken to me, he says this, 'We should unite. You know, there are plots, Americans, British,' and so on and so forth."
"His relations with the Americans?" Abdullah said. "What do you think? Everybody is stuck with him."
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NATO, Afghan Troops Focus On Election Security Amid Taliban Threats
August 15, 2009 By Ron Synovitz Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
With a Taliban suicide attack claiming seven lives in Kabul on August 15, there are renewed fears about security ahead of Afghanistan's presidential election next week.
While security has been a key focus of NATO and Afghan government troops during the past year, Taliban militants have waged their own campaign of threats and intimidation ahead of the August 20 ballot.
Taliban militants hope to undermine the legitimacy of the election by reducing voter turnout.
The NATO security strategy for Afghanistan's presidential elections has included efforts to bolster the Afghan National Army, as well as build up international forces with a U.S.-led surge.
In recent months, there has been a major offensive to clear militants out of strongholds in the volatile southern Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar. In other areas, there also are reports of deal-making between Kabul officials and the leaders of regional militia factions.
Insecurity is at its peak in the southern and eastern Pashtun-populated regions where the Taliban and other insurgents are active. Local sources in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar suggest that the recent U.S., British, and Afghan operations in neighboring Helmand Province have forced many Taliban fighters into Kandahar, which might prove a critical threat on election day.
Afghanistan's Election Commission says that nationwide, about 500 out of a total of 7,000 polling stations might not open on voting day because of security concerns.
Taliban 'Night Letters'
The Taliban strategy has included direct attacks on government buildings. It also has included the posting of so-called "night letters" on the walls of mosques and village compounds with warnings that voters will be punished.
Jean MacKenzie, the Kabul-based country director of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, says that there is a coordinated insurgent campaign to keep people from voting.
Along with night letters, she reports that in some parts of the country, the Taliban and other militants have shown up at mosques during Friday Prayers to warn that those found with an ink-stained finger will have it "cut off." As a safeguard against fraud, voters in Afghanistan have to dip their index finger in a bottle of ink in order to cast their ballot.
MacKenzie says that despite Karzai's reassurances, "these threats are having a very definite impact on the minds of would-be voters."
"The level of commitment or trust among Afghans in these elections was not high to begin with. Now, given this campaign of threats and intimidation, I expect that it will depress voter turnout quite significantly," MacKenzie says.
Dutch Army General Tom Middendorp, the outgoing commander of a NATO task force in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, is more confident.
He describes a security strategy in southern Afghanistan that was developed jointly by Afghan government forces and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force to ensure a secure voting process.
"What we did in Uruzgan -- we sat together with the key leaders: with the governor, with the chief of the army, chief of the police, chief of the NDS intelligence service, and the chief of the independent election committee," Middendorp says.
"We looked at the map on how can we cover most of the population in the province and how can we enable them to cast their votes. And we had good cooperation there -- cooperation on the positioning of the polling centers and the security that can be providing by the Afghan security forces and ISAF. I think we now have a disposition of polling centers that covers at least 85 percent of the population," he says.
More specifically, Middendorp says Afghan and NATO security forces will be deployed on election day in an array that is similar to the successful security operations during the 2004 presidential election.
"The police developed a plan to do the close protection of all these polling centers. The Afghan National Army developed a plan to provide protection there as well -- which is the wider area protection. And ISAF has a tier three and tier four role -- which means air cover and a quick reaction force," Middendorp says.
"We really want this to be Afghan elections. We don't want to create the impression that ISAF is influencing that in any way. So it is Afghan organized and Afghan secured as much as possible."
Bringing In The Militias
Security during the elections of 2004 and 2005 was provided jointly by NATO and Afghan forces. The Afghan National Army set up checkpoints closest to polling stations while international troops covered the wider surrounding areas and provided air cover.
In many parts of Afghanistan during those votes -- especially in the north -- local Afghan militias also helped provide security in wider areas around polling stations.
But with some local militia commanders reportedly joining with insurgent fighters in recent years, there have been concerns about how much cooperation the central government can get from militia leaders during the 2009 election.
MacKenzie, of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, says that hasn't stopped Kabul from reportedly trying to broker arrangements where local militia help provide security on election day.
"We've heard definitely from the west -- i.e., Herat -- where they are trying to put together these militia factions to provide security for the day of the polling and for possible aftermath. We have not heard this from the north as yet. But I would not be at all surprised if that kind of thing is taking place up there as well," MacKenzie says.
"If so, it is quite dangerous. There might be Iran-type demonstrations or some violence once results are announced. And if there are protests or some kind of violence, these militias could go either way."
"The Guardian" newspaper of Britain reported that Afghan President Hamid Karzai's younger brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, apparently brokered a series of secret deals with Taliban commanders in southern Afghanistan to try to ensure that voting would take place in next week's election.
But in an interview with RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan, Wali Karzai denied having struck any personal deals with the Taliban. He said only that tribal elders in some regions had concluded such agreements with local insurgents.
"In some regions tribal elements have concluded verbal agreements with the Taliban that they will not create troubles on election day. But we have not done any negotiations with the Taliban movement and they have not agreed to anything. Nothing like that has happened," Karzai said.
Even if greater security prevents the Taliban from carrying out its threats on August 20, Afghanistan still could face additional security and logistical challenges related to the election. Many polls suggest that while Karzai is the frontrunner, he may not be able to secure the 50 percent majority needed to win outright in the first round.
If a runoff becomes necessary, the top two candidates out of the field of 35 would face off against each other in a second vote no later than October. New ballots would have to be printed and distributed, and the process would be repeated. These preparations would have to take place while the country also marks the month of Ramadan.
RFE/RL correspondent Abubakar Siddique and Radio Free Afghanistan correspondent Asmatullah Sarwan contributed to this report
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Why McChrystal may not get more troops for Afghanistan
By Gordon Lubold – The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! News - Aug 14 2:00 AM
Washington – If the top commander in Afghanistan asks for more US troops to accomplish the mission there, he will encounter a Pentagon that is reluctant to green-light the request.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that Gen. Stanley McChrystal is free to ask for whatever he thinks is needed for the mission. But should the general ask for tens of thousands of more forces, as some analysts involved in his Afghanistan assessment have suggested, those troops may not be available right away.
Mr. Gates indicated as much Thursday when he said that providing more forces to Afghanistan in the near term would be a challenge because the drawdown in Iraq won't begin substantively until early next year.
"Until the more accelerated drawdown in Iraq begins after the elections there, it will be a challenge for us, and particularly as we seek to increase the dwell time at home for our forces," Gates said at a briefing at the Pentagon. "Dwell time" is the amount of time troops spend in the US between deployments. It gives the soldiers time with their families and helps ease the strain of long deployments.
Gates has made lengthening that time at home a priority as he manages demands in Iraq and Afghanistan. Asked if dwell time was more important than the mission in Afghanistan, Gates said, "I think you have to balance these things."
The defense secretary has authorized the Army to expand by 22,000 soldiers in order to have a big enough force during the drawdown in Iraq and the surge in Afghanistan. But that will take time, leaving a potential shortage in the short-term.
For now, no demand
General McChrystal's much-anticipated battlefield assessment, due next month, will not include a request for more forces, Gates confirmed Thursday. That request, should it come, will be separate. The significance of this is unclear, but it suggests that the administration is less focused on the number of troops it needs for Afghanistan than on the kinds of missions the troops need to perform.
Gates has already said that he fears too many troops in Afghanistan begin to resemble an occupation that will not be received well by an Afghan population that has endured more than 30 years of war. But he has also noted that the good conduct of US troops on the ground – something emphasized by McChrystal – can mitigate the impact of their presence.
By the end of fall, 68,000 American troops will be on the ground, including the 21,000 authorized by President Obama earlier this year. NATO has another 39,000 troops there.
A US brigade of about 5,500 troops is supposed to deploy to Afghanistan in late fall, Pentagon officials have pointed out, noting that it makes sense to wait to see what impact they have before deciding on more troops.
Playing down Afghanistan?
Still, more troops are inevitable, some experts say. The Pentagon runs the risk of undermining the mission there if it sends troops in a piecemeal fashion, they add, pointing to the success of the surge in Iraq, which quickly deployed as many as 30,000 troops over five months in early 2007.
As the Obama administration grapples with healthcare reform and the economy, some fear the needs of the mission in Afghanistan will be played down.
"I think they are worried about sticker shock," says an analyst who asked for anonymity because of his proximity to the matter. "No one has really explained to the American people how bad the situation is over there, and the administration has not focused on preparing people for this."
By contrast, the announcement in early 2007 of the surge of forces in Iraq telegraphed a clear message, the analyst said. "We told the enemy that you're going to have a brigade landing on your head very month."
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Afghan gov't, NATO condemn Taliban car bomb in Kabul
KABUL, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The government of Afghanistan and the NATO-led multinational peacekeeping force ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) have strongly condemned the suicide car bomb that left some 100 people dead and injured in the Afghan capital Saturday.
In the deadly blast for which Taliban claimed responsibility, seven persons, all of them civilians, have been confirmed dead and over 90 others got wounded.
Zabihullah Mujahid who claims to speak for the insurgents in talks with media via telephone from undisclosed location said that a suicide bomber exploded his car full of 500kg explosive device at 9:00 a.m., killing 24 employees of U.S. embassy and foreign troops besides destroying four vehicles.
"Riding an explosive-laden car, the bomber blew it up in front of ISAF gate at around 08:30 a.m. local time, killing three civilians and wounding 85 others," Interior Ministry said in a press release.
Meantime, Defense Ministry in a statement put the number of casualties seven and those sustained injuries as high as 91 including a female parliamentarian.
The NATO-led ISAF forces also in a statement described the attack as a coward terrorist act against civilians and denounced it.
"The insurgents prove once again that they use indiscriminate violence that kills or injures scores of innocent Afghan civilians," said Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay, ISAF Spokesman said in a press release.
It also added that a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated near ISAF Headquarters, Kabul, Afghanistan, around 8:30 a.m. today left injured several ISAF service members but no ISAF personnel were killed in the blast, it stressed.
Moreover, Afghan Foreign Ministry in a statement termed the blast a coward terrorist act and strongly denounced it.
"This inhuman act carried out by the enemies of Afghanistan to derail the electoral process won't deter the people from going towards election and democratic process," the statement emphasized.
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Airstrike kills 13 Taliban insurgents in E Afghanistan
KABUL, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-led Coalition's airstrike against Taliban insurgents in remote areas of eastern Khost province have left over a dozen militants dead Saturday.
The press department of Coalition Forces in southeastern Afghanistan told media that 13 insurgents were killed as a result of air raids in Sapera district in the wee hours of Saturday.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and international troops have yet to make comments.
In separate incident, according to police, two civilians were killed Saturday in neighboring Paktia province as their car hit a roadside bomb.
Aziz Ahmad, the provincial police chief of Paktia, told Xinhua that the incident occurred in Zurmat district in the morning, leaving two civilians dead and four others wounded.
Taliban militants have vowed to speed up their attacks against Afghan and international troops mostly in the shape of suicide and roadside bombings as a suicide car bombing in front of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) headquarters Saturday left seven people dead and injuring over 90 others, most of them civilians.
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Afghanistan's women yearn for more
'We are like birds who have left the cage, but with our wings still clipped,' says one Kabul student. Women enjoy a much better life than under the Taliban, but still face age-old constraints.
By Laura King Los Angeles Times - Aug 14 6:25 PM
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan — One is the face of despair; the other, of hope.
Zeinab, 22, believed that only death could provide an escape from her husband's merciless beatings. So she set herself on fire, leaving one-third of her body covered with oozing, blistering burns. She faces a lifetime of disfigurement and, unless she returns to her abusive husband, the likely loss of her two children.
Twelve-year-old Nazira's classroom is a sweltering tent, and her desk is a plastic mat on the ground. But her teachers say she is one of their brightest pupils, encouraged by a mother and father who want her to get as much education as she can. Her eyes sparkle when she describes her ambition: to become a doctor.
Nearly eight years after the fall of the Taliban movement, Afghan women live on the cusp of triumph and tragedy. Life is immeasurably better than it was under Taliban rule, when they were forbidden to leave their homes without a male relative, beaten for infractions such as laughing aloud, deprived of schooling and employment, shrouded and faceless in public.
But dozens of girls and women, interviewed over several months in homes and mosques, in parks and in prison, in street markets and classrooms, described a nagging sense that the gains have not been all they had hoped for. That after all this time, all this effort expended, life should be different. Better.
"It's a kind of freedom, yes," said a university student named Zarifa, who like some of the other women did not want her full name published. "We are like birds who have left the cage, but with our wings still clipped."
The thwarted dreams of many Afghan women mirror a palpable sense of disillusionment in a country still battered and broken despite billions of dollars in international aid, and Afghanistan's place at the center of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's biggest and most sustained military campaign.
Many Afghans, of both sexes, describe the heady optimism that prevailed after the Taliban government was dislodged in 2001, only to be replaced by growing trepidation over the last three years as the insurgency reinvigorated itself, violence surged, corruption flourished and rebuilding proved agonizingly slow.
Although the U.S.-led invasion was spurred by the Sept. 11 attacks, the belief that Afghan women would be liberated from a reign of medieval cruelty provided a strong moral underpinning for the war effort.
"I think the West was naive, in some ways," said Manizha Naderi, a women's rights activist. "There was this notion that when the Taliban were gone, we would all be able to throw off our burkas and celebrate. But it hasn't been like that."
That, she and others said, can be attributed to deeply rooted cultural traditions that predate Taliban rule and persist in its aftermath, abetted by poverty, illiteracy and the growing insecurity of day-to-day life.
"The more security deteriorates, the more women become vulnerable," said Sima Samar, the head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. "I dislike that word -- 'vulnerable.' But that is the reality."
For many Afghan women, this feeling of disenfranchisement is heightened, not eased, by the national elections scheduled for Thursday.
There are just two female presidential candidates, in a field of nearly 40. Record numbers of women are seeking seats in provincial assemblies, but intimidation is commonplace and some have gotten death threats simply for daring to show their faces on campaign posters.
And almost no one believes that the elections will bring about any dramatic change in women's lot.
President Hamid Karzai, expected to emerge as the victor even if the race is forced to a runoff, has repeatedly yielded to conservative religious elements to win political support. He caused an outcry this year by signing a controversial law that in its original reading condoned marital rape. He has since pledged to review it.
"There's been no strong debate over women's rights in this election; it's just not a priority," Samar said. "None of the major candidates speaks very boldly on the subject. It has faded into the background."
When she poured gasoline on herself and struck a match, Zeinab felt as if it was the only decision she had ever made for herself.
Born to a poor Pashtun family in the west of Afghanistan, Zeinab never learned to read or write. She married at 16, at her family's behest.
As her husband's abuse steadily worsened, she had no idea it was possible to seek help. She learned that only later, when doctors and nurses fought to save her life at the country's only dedicated burn center, at Herat Regional Hospital.
"It's as if," Zeinab gestured with a bandaged hand, groping for words, "as if I didn't know that there was a world outside my house. Even what I have learned in these last three months, from my time in the hospital, it's more than I knew before in my entire life."
Marie-Jose Brunel, a French nurse with the relief organization HumaniTerra, sees Zeinab every few days as an outpatient, lavishing hugs and affection along with stern practical advice: Squeeze a rubber ball every hour to keep your burned hand from freezing into a claw. Crane your neck to make the healing skin more supple.
Zeinab's greatest concern is her children: a 4-year-old son and a 2-year-old daughter. Unless she returns to her household, they probably will be lost to her.
"When my daughter looks at me and sees my scars, she is afraid," she said. "That is the hardest thing of all."
For many Afghan women, events that would constitute a harsh but survivable blow in the West -- a maiming accident, serious illness, the loss of a spouse -- can mark a descent into inescapable poverty. Many of the beggars on the streets of Kabul are women in burkas, moving through traffic like blue ghosts.
"I cannot tell you how terrible was my life on the streets," said Qamargul, 40, whose husband forced her to beg after she proved unable to bear children. He took another, younger wife, and the two of them would allow Qamargul indoors to sleep only after she handed over each day's meager earnings. Otherwise, she was turned out into the cold.
A Western-funded group rescued Qamargul after a savage beating from her husband landed her in a hospital, and she hopes to learn a trade and live independently. But her efforts to get a divorce have been stymied, a common occurrence in a legal system that still considers ending a marriage to be a man's prerogative.
At a recent hearing, she was asked by the exasperated judge, "Why don't you just do as you should, and go home to your husband?"
In Afghanistan, as anywhere, there are many happy marriages. But for less fortunate women, the marriage contract can be used as a means of subjugation.
Girls as young as 8 are forced into marriage. Rape and domestic violence are endemic. Women and girls are routinely sold or bartered to meet clan obligations, a practice that is technically illegal but widely tolerated.
"I asked my father, 'Why did you sell me?' said Obeida, a 13-year-old who was sold into servitude when she was 8. She became a servant for her buyer -- and a bride in waiting.
"I cried all the time for my mother," she said.
Her older sister, Maryam, who was sold at 11, managed to alert authorities before Obeida could be forced, as Maryam had been, to marry an older man. Obeida now lives in a Kabul shelter and is attending school for the first time.
On a recent morning, clad in her school uniform, she glowed with anticipation.
"I feel my life has begun again," she said.
Nazira, the Kabul schoolgirl, said she cannot imagine a life without learning. Her teachers sometimes tell the girls about Taliban times, but it all seems too distant, too impossible.
"Is it really true, what happened then?" she wanted to know.
The school's headmistress, Arifa Jalal, described the secret school she ran during Taliban rule. When militants knocked at the door, she would explain away the presence of the girls in her living room, inventing some family connection to each.
Now the biggest problem, she said, is the lack of funding, coupled with enormous demand. Even here in the capital, the school has no working plumbing. The girls bring water bottles. It's so crowded that they study in shifts. "But I know we will send many to university," Jalal said.
Jalal knows that she and her students are lucky in the relative security they enjoy in Kabul. In swaths of the countryside where insurgents have the upper hand, girls' schools are routinely burned and bombed, and teachers and pupils terrorized.
Nazira has classmates who have been forbidden by their parents to continue their education once they reach puberty, saying they are in danger when they leave home even to walk to class. But her parents have promised that she can stay in school.
"They say, 'Your books are like a passport in this life,' " she said.
These are the success stories of the post-Taliban era. Young women fill college classrooms. Women take part in government. Female newscasters appear on television, defying threats. Women have shown themselves to be among the most energetic of entrepreneurs, a driving force in the small-business sector.
Homaira, who owns and runs a beauty salon in downtown Kabul, used to secretly give haircuts in her home under the Taliban, not only as a means of earning a livelihood but also as a gesture of defiance.
"I have a skill, and I'm proud I can take care of myself," she said. "But for my daughters, I want more."
Support for women's advancement can sometimes come from unexpected quarters. In a rural district outside Kabul, a farmer named Haji Qudbuddin has 10 daughters. Two have married and left home, but all of the younger ones are in school. And he wants them to marry whomever they please when they grow up.
Qudbuddin, who is the malik, or headman, of a string of 10 villages, said he came to his views only after learning to read and write, something that did not happen until after he had spent his youth as a mujahedincommander, fighting first the Soviets and then the Taliban.
"Women have rights," he said. "But until I was educated, I did not know this."
At the hillside Sakhi shrine in Kabul, one day of the week is set aside for women, and on a late-summer day, the soaring structure is filled with shafts of sunlight, a few fluttering birds and the murmur of female voices.
Two heavily pregnant women prostrate themselves as best their swollen bellies will allow, praying for a safe delivery. Others offer up prayers they will conceive a child, or make a good marriage. Many simply sit, leaning against the brick walls, enjoying these rare moments of relaxation and sanctuary.
Among those taking time to reflect on her life is Mina, a model-slender 18-year-old clad in tight jeans and a fashionable asymmetrically cut coat. Her older sister, Nasreen, is about to marry a man who is a virtual stranger to her, and go live with him abroad.
Mina says that here at the shrine, she prayed for a happy life for her sister and for herself. But she also believes she can make her own destiny.
"My life is in my hands," she says. "I will go to school, I will work . . . but maybe I will have to leave Afghanistan to do this."
Leila, a 41-year-old government employee wearing a long denim skirt, is beyond girlish dreams. "I need my husband's permission to go anywhere, including here," she says matter-of-factly.
Still, when she looks back to the years of imprisonment in her home under the Taliban regime, a day out like this one can seem like something of a miracle.
"I can hope for more freedom," she says. "And even that wish makes me a little bit more free."
laura.king@latimes.com
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Afghanistan out to impress in four-day format
Cricinfo staff August 15, 2009
Afghanistan's remarkable success in the ICC World Cup Qualifiers, where they qualified for the Super Eights, will give them plenty of confidence as they take on a Zimbabwe XI in their first Intercontinental Cup fixture in Mutare.
However, they are up for a stiff challenge for Zimbabwe are led by the hugely impressive Tatenda Taibu, who had also formerly captained the senior team, and include players who've had far greater exposure to international cricket.
It will be interesting to see how Afghanistan make the transition from their experience in the limited-overs format to the four-day game. As a result of their hugely impressive performance in the World Cup Qualifiers, Afghanistan have earned ODI status for four years, qualified for this tournament, have been promoted to Division One of the World Cricket League and won funding grants from the ICC. Their success has undoubtedly given them great recognition - they were in fact the most closely followed side in the Qualifiers - but the team would now want to take a step ahead and makes its mark in the longer version. The visitors will bank heavily on the leadership of their captain Nowroz Mangal along with Hamid Hassan, Karim Khan and batsman Mohammad Nabi, who has played for the MCC and is among the few players in the squad with first-class experience.
In accordance with the recommendations of the ICC's task force, Zimbabwe have sent an A team to the competition. Taibu's experience is a huge asset for the side that includes full internationals like Chris Mpofu, Timycen Maruma, Regis Chakabva and Forster Mutizwa. For their experience, Afghanistan's extremely limited exposure to first-class cricket and home advantage, Zimbabwe will start favourites.
Zimbabwe XI (squad): Tatenda Taibu (captain), Timycen Maruma, Forster Mutizwa, Admire Manyumwa, Chris Mpofu, Natsai Mushangwe, Friday Kasteni, Bothwell Chapungu, Tendai Chisoro, Cephas Zhuwawo, Regis Chakabva, Shingirai Masakadza, Trevor Garwe, Tafadzwa Kamungozi, Mbekezeli Mabuza.
Afghanistan (squad): Nowroz Mangal (captain), Khaliq Dad, Karim Khan, Mohammad Nabi, Mirwais Ashraf, Raees Ahmadzai, Dawlat Ahmadzai, Mohammad Shehzad, Hamid Hassan, Samiullah Shenwari, Ahmad Shah, Noor Ali, Asghar Stanikzai, Shapoor Zadran.
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Cynicism and apathy mark Afghan polls
Saturday, 15 August 2009 BBC News
After seven years of democracy, many Afghans now view their presidential elections with cynicism or apathy, as the BBC's Kate Clark discovered.
So, who is going to be the next president? The question was put to me a year ago, by a friend who is more political than most Afghans.
He is a former mujahid - he fought the Soviet armies as a young man and is too honest for his own good.
Like many Afghans, he is completely disheartened by the corruption that has engulfed his country. But he was looking to the future, hence the question.
"I have no idea," I replied. "The elections are ages away."
"Ah," he said, "so the Americans haven't decided yet."
It is a generally held belief here that foreigners in general and Americans in particular will decide next week's election.
But despite this belief, electioneering has been very real although the focus has not been so much on getting the support of individual voters, as the backing of men who can supposedly deliver blocks of votes.
'Big beasts'
Over the last few months, there has been a scramble by candidates to secure the backing of the big beasts of the Afghan political jungle.
They are mainly the leaders and major commanders of those jihadi factions who, after years of warfare, ended up on the winning side in 2001 - in other words, with the US-led forces.
Added to their ranks are civilians who have come back from exile and some tribal leaders.
All are men who have done well since 2001, establishing themselves as important patrons who look after their networks. Many face continuing allegations of corruption, opium-trafficking and human rights abuses.
They promise to deliver voters - blocks of voters - for their chosen candidate. Then after the election, it will be payback time.
The next government, according to one joke I heard, will have 200 ministers to fulfil all the back-room deals made.
If you wanted to defend this type of politicking, you could say that Afghans tend to act communally - at the clan or village level, as tribes or ethnic groups, or as factional networks.
One friend told me, quite matter-of-factly, that 300 people were waiting for him to decide who to vote for (family members and former students who looked to him for guidance).
I wondered if in Britain I could actually contact 300 relatives or colleagues to even discuss an election.
Deal-makers
There is also a strong desire among Afghans to pick the winning side. There is no point getting promises from a candidate who is going to lose.
So it is important to create the impression of being the man who is going to win, with high-level endorsements and mass rallies which offer free lunches.
Posters are plastered everywhere and a tangle of new billboards have gone up.
Candidates stare misty-eyed from above the dusty streets, pose with pleasing-looking children and dress in turbans or ties, depending on which segment of the electorate they hope to attract.
So how successful will the deal-makers be, the men who have been wooed for their promises of block votes?
Everything - from loyalty and arguments to money, to the use of state machinery, to violence and intimidation, to registering phantom voters - is already at work, and on-the-day vote rigging is expected.
This may be one reason why, even now just days away from the election, many voters appear apathetic.
Secret ballot
How different it all was in 2002 when Afghans met for a national gathering or loya jirga to choose an interim leader and a cabinet.
Delegates were selected across the country, partly by secret ballot.
The same leaders and commanders who are now so secure in their power had to face an electorate and they were nervous.
Many feared they would not gain votes if balloted in secret.
Afghanistan was then a country in flux where fear of the US military's strength kept commanders in check.
There was intimidation and violence but there was also room for a nascent democracy, and hope gave ordinary civilians the courage to face down threats.
The winning delegates were a mix: commanders, teachers, tribal elders, poets, even women.
When they arrived in Kabul, there was real excitement that, after a quarter of a century of war, change was in the air.
Of course, once in the capital and after they had voted in Hamid Karzai as the interim president, the delegates were completely ignored.
The US and Mr Karzai concentrated on working the old - usually unelected - militia leaders and making back-room deals.
For all their talk of wanting democracy in Afghanistan, what I saw in 2002 was an American administration more comfortable dealing with strong men and warlords than with delegates who had much more reason to call themselves representatives of the nation.
Seven years on and every election has seemed a little less democratic.
This time - with an electorate assuming the elections will be decided by the Americans or the political elite's deal-making, or that it will all be rigged anyway, there is little room for enthusiasm.
Although of course, the voters could still surprise everyone come polling day.
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Herat Officials Accused of Dirty Tricks
In parts of the province, bribery and intimidation are said to be rife.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By IWPR trainees in Herat (ARR No. 331, 14-Aug-09)
The mullah looked nervous about speaking to a reporter.
“Who will guarantee our safety if we tell the truth about what is happening here?” he said.
Mawlawi Ahmad (not his real name), preaches in a mosque in the Shindand district of Herat province. He insisted that he not be photographed or recorded.
“This election is for the people,” he said. “Anybody should be able to vote for whomever he or she wants. But here things are different. Powerful men enter villages and impose their will on the population. They have asked me several times to work for a specific candidate. When I refused and tried to stop them, they offered me money. I finally understood that nobody can stand against them.”
Shindand district, 100 kilometres from Herat city, is one of the largest and most heavily populated areas in the country. As Afghanistan prepares to go to the polls on August 20 to elect a new president, as well as some 420 provincial council members, many of Shindand’s residents are complaining of interference by local leaders in the campaign.
“People are uneducated, and do not know their rights,” said Mawlawi Ahmad. “This could very easily lead to fraud in the elections.”
With just one week to go before the vote, the question of the poll’s credibility is being raised. Turnout is likely to be low due to a lack of security as well as widespread voter disaffection. Many expect significant fraud, exacerbated by a dearth of election monitors and growing insecurity.
According to the residents of Shindand, these fears are well-founded.
“I was threatened by a local commander named Samadi,” said a village elder in Kajabad. “He said that I would face very unpleasant consequences if the villagers do not vote for [incumbent president Hamed] Karzai. I am doing what they tell me. [Karzai] is the most powerful person in our country. How could I resist, and put myself in danger by not following orders?”
From every part of the district, the stories pile up. Bribery and threats seem to be the preferred tactics.
Jan Gul (not his real name) owns an auto parts store in the district centre. He is a popular man, and said he had been courted by campaigners for his influence among the people.
“People come to me all the time asking me to campaign for Karzai,” he said. “I participate in gatherings and read a speech that has been written for me. Powerful people have forced me to do this. I have been threatened. I have to follow orders.”
Eight years after the United States-led invasion that sent the Taleban packing, Afghanistan appears to be in worse shape than ever. The insurgency is growing rapidly, seemingly undeterred by the ever increasing numbers of foreign troops determined to put an end to their movement.
Development has lagged, aid money has been misdirected or embezzled, and the population is very far from the optimism and enthusiasm that surrounded the country’s first presidential election in 2004.
Karzai won a first-round victory then, in a field of 18, with 54 per cent of the vote. While still favoured to win this election, Karzai has lost much of the lustre that clung to him during his first campaign.
He has, however, consolidated his political power. Once derided as “the mayor of Kabul” for the weak authority the central government had in much of the country, he has been able to field a team of campaigners that are said to have alternately bullied or cajoled the local population.
While Karzai’s campaign team is not the only one to face accusations of arm-twisting or bribery, his incumbency appears to have worked in his favour.
Residents of Bagh-e-Jahan, about 30 km from the district centre, complain that village leaders – who locals assume, rightly or wrongly, are loyal to Karzai – collected their voter registration cards and copied them, with the copies being sent on to the authorities in Kabul.
Many are now suspicious that their cards will be misused, although officials have apparently told them that the purpose of the copying procedure is to ensure that everyone who’s registered to vote will receive state aid.
Abdul Satar, a teacher in Bagh-e-Jahan, said, “The village leaders told us that we would get some kind of assistance if we gave our cards. I handed in mine, as well.”
Abdul Wahab, a village leader in the area, admitted that voter registration cards were collected and copied. He seemed nervous to be sharing his information, but he spoke willingly.
“We received orders from Kabul to collect people’s cards and make copies, so that the people could be supported after the elections,” he said.
The issue of registration cards could be pivotal if allegations of fraud surface after the elections. Afghanistan has no universal voter rolls, no names and addresses. Anyone with a card can cast a ballot, and the poll worker just notes down the number. No signatures or thumbprints are required.
The suspicion is that if local officials have copies of the registration cards, those inclined to falsify the vote would be able to cast the ballots of people who fail to show up at the polling station.
IWPR reporters spent a day in Kabul and a day in Herat attempting to contact Karzai’s campaign team about their alleged electoral tactics, but they would not respond to our enquiries.
Shindand’s district governor, Lal Mohammad, confirmed that voter registration cards had been collected by some organisations. He called it “re-registration”, without elaborating.
Lal Mohammad said that he, too, had heard that local commanders had been misusing their authority during the campaign, but he would not be drawn into a discussion of which candidate had been the beneficiary of their tactics.
“I do not think that the election process is proceeding properly in Shindand,” said Lal Mohammad. “More than 60,000 eligible voters have not received cards. This calls into question the whole legitimacy of the elections. Also, tribalism still dominates the political debate: people look first at a candidate’s tribal background, rather than his personality or his qualifications.”
Security, he said, will be an issue on election day, “The central government has promised to secure the area, but we do not have enough security forces.”
If the government cannot guarantee the security of polling stations, local elders may be allowed to relocate voting to their homes, according to the Independent Election Commission, IEC.
This has raised fears of massive fraud, since there will be almost no observers. Ballot boxes will be dropped off in the morning and collected at night, with little information about what happens during the day.
Local IEC officials for the western region of the country told IWPR that they had not received any complaints about powerful individuals subverting the normal campaign process. However, they did indicate concern at reports that this was happening.
General Esmatullah Alizai, police chief of Herat province, told IWPR that his forces were prepared, regardless of the threat.
“We cannot extend our operations into the furthest reaches of Herat,” he said. “It is possible that some people will try to take advantage of this to disrupt the elections but we are ready to tackle this situation.”
Maruf, a thin, worried man from Bagh-e-Jahan, was eager to speak with a reporter.
“I have four grown daughters,” he said. “I have no son to help me. I am scared at night, because God forbid that something should happen. People here are supporting Karzai because they are made to do so. The village leaders tell us that if we vote for Karzai and he wins, we will all be given a chance to fulfil our wishes.”
He stopped, and looked around, “I do not know what to wish for.”
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Young Heratis Have Little Faith in Elections
Many believe outcome of ballot will be determined by foreign powers.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting By Mohammad Shafi Firozi in Herat (ARR No. 331, 14-Aug-09)
“Everybody knows the United States will choose the next president of Afghanistan,” said Shah Rahman Afzali. “We should not participate in sham elections.”
Afzali is not an illiterate farmer, indoctrinated by the Taleban about “puppet presidents” and “infidel elections”, but a student at Herat University. And he is by no means alone in his views. Among Herat’s intellectual elite, it is widely believed that NATO countries will determine the outcome of Afghanistan’s presidential and provincial council elections, scheduled for August 20.
Herat, which sits on Afghanistan’s border with Iran, is one of the country’s most cultured and developed cities. But political disaffection is rife, particularly among the most highly educated segment of the population.
“We are imprisoned,” said Wajiha, an economics student. “Countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy control us. They claim that Afghanistan is a democracy, but this is not true.”
Another student, who did want to give his name, agreed, “I will never vote as long as foreign countries decide everything in Afghanistan.”
The international community has been at some pains to deny that they are interfering in Afghanistan’s elections. The US in particular has stated, publicly and repeatedly, that they will neither support nor oppose any candidate. Over the past week, the American embassy in Kabul issued yet another public statement reaffirming their neutrality.
But these protestations are falling flat, at least in Herat.
Many Afghans have a difficult time believing that NATO countries, especially the US, have abandoned their activist role in Afghan politics.
Hamed Karzai was hand-picked by then US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad to head the interim administration in 2001, and the Afghan president enjoyed strong support from the Bush White House. Karzai was commonly seen as an American puppet, and Afghans often joked that their country was “the 51st state”.
But years of disappointment and frustration have intervened since the heady days of Karzai’s first election, in 2004, when he triumphed over 17 rivals, receiving 54 per cent of the vote in a first-round victory. The Afghan president’s close association with the US became more of a liability than an asset as support for the foreign presence waned.
Karzai has had serious and public disagreements with the Obama administration, and many observers think that Washington would not be unhappy to see someone else in Kabul’s presidential palace.
But whether they persist in the view that Karzai has America’s blessing, or think that the international community has anointed another candidate, Herat’s young and educated have little faith that the elections will reflect the will of the people.
“The United States supported Karzai last time and they will support him again,” said one man who did not want to give his name. “Karzai will be the winner.”
Another passer-by, who was also reluctant to give his name, thought differently.
“Mirwais Yassini is the American candidiate,” he said, naming a parliamentarian who, while not well-known within Afghanistan, has received an undue share of international attention. “The US role is more indirect this time. They are exerting influence through foreign workers in the election commission.”
The Independent Election Commission, IEC, has overall responsibility for the conduct of the elections.
Zia Ahmad Zia, head of Herat’s election commission, strongly denied that internationals were influencing the IEC’s work.
“Foreigners are only providing technical assistance,” he said. “We are the real organisers of these elections, and we will conduct them accurately and in accordance with the law. It is the people’s vote that will choose the next president.”
It is not just Afghan voters who fear that foreign interference could skew the elections.
“The international community is … taking unhelpful actions,” wrote Khalilzad, the former US envoy, in an op-ed piece for the Financial Times. “While ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) and the UN are playing crucial roles in providing security and meeting the logistical needs of the elections, some officials are taking inappropriate partisan positions.”
But political analyst Abdul Matin dismisses these kinds of statements as “poisonous propaganda”. On August 20, he will cast his ballot and he hopes that his fellow Herat citizens will also do their civic duty.
“We should use our votes to bring peace and rebuild the country,” he said. “Nobody, not even the foreigners, can weaken the vote of the people.”
Mohammad Shafi Firozi is an IWPR trainee in Herat.
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Germany to build military barrack, municipality building in N Afghan province
KABUL, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The foundation stone of a military barrack for Afghan National Army (ANA) was laid down in Afghanistan's northeast province of Badakhshan on Friday, spokesman of provincial administration said on Saturday.
"The military barrack for ANA, costing six million euros, would be constructed within a year and German civil-military Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) would donate all expenses," Abdul Maruf Rasikh told Xinhua.
He also said that PRT would donate some 140,000 U.S. dollars for construction of municipality building of the province with 20 rooms.
A 105-meter-long bridge linking capital Faizabad to adjoining districts financed by Germany has been inaugurated at the end of July.
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Force Protection Sales May Jump Amid Afghanistan Push
By Edmond Lococo
Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Force Protection Inc., the third- largest maker of blast-resistant trucks for the U.S. military, said annual sales of vehicle repair and maintenance services may be double what the company had projected in the next five years as President Barack Obama expands operations in Afghanistan.
About 2,000 of the company’s Cougar trucks that are being shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan will need spares, repairs and upgrades, Chief Financial Officer Charles Mathis said today in an interview in Boston. Over five years, such work may add about $1 billion in new sales, he said. That would lift annual service revenue to $450 million, from the $250 million the company had previously projected for such support work, he said.
Obama has made combating a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan a top priority and earlier this year announced he was adding 17,000 troops there. The additional forces need vehicles to protect them from roadside bombs, and Force Protection is expanding services sales for its existing fleet. The company lost the contest in June for a new type of truck called the Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected, All-Terrain Vehicle, or M-ATV.
“The M-ATV competition we knew would be intense,” Mathis, 49, said in the interview. “We did everything we could to try to win the competition but our business model and business plan did not depend on winning M-ATV. We believe we have a very good future in the survivability-solutions arena.”
Buffalo Vehicles
In addition to supporting the mine-resistant Cougar trucks, Force Protection is also hoping to win support work on the company’s Buffalo vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan that currently is provided by other suppliers, Mathis said.
Winning the volume of maintenance business Mathis described would exceed the forecasts of most analysts and investors, said James McIlree, a New York-based analyst with Collins Stewart LLC, who rates the shares “hold” and doesn’t own any. McIlree said he had forecast service sales to drop to $370 million next year from an estimate of $450 million this year. Collins Stewart buys and sells the securities for clients.
“The model I built assumed the level of business for spares and maintenance of Cougars would diminish as we withdrew from Iraq,” McIlree said in an interview today. “What’s been happening because the Marines are taking Cougars and moving them to Afghanistan is that revenue stream to maintain those vehicles has moved to Afghanistan. The company has opportunities to retain the spares business but it comes from a different geography.”
Share Performance
Force Protection rose 17 cents, or 3.6 percent, to $4.85 at 4 p.m. in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. The largest makers of MRAP trucks, by volume of vehicles delivered, are Warrenville, Illinois-based Navistar International Corp. and BAE Systems Plc in London. Both companies also bid unsuccessfully for the M-ATV order, which was won by Oshkosh Corp.
Mathis said he came to Boston to meet with investors and discuss the company’s outlook in the wake of the M-ATV loss.
“A lot of investors want to know where the long-term revenue is,” Mathis said. “We think there is $1 billion of incremental business here in upgrades, enhancement service and support opportunities over the next five years.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Edmond Lococo in Boston at elococo@bloomberg.net.
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US: Govt Withholds Information About Bagram Detainees
By Danielle Kurtzleben IPS-Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug 14 (IPS) - The U.S. government continues to withhold even the most basic information about prisoners in the Bagram detention facility in Afghanistan, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a New York-based legal rights organisation.
An April 2009 ACLU Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents and information about the detainment of prisoners at Bagram has yielded dead ends with both the Department of Defence (DOD) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The ACLU wants the Obama Administration to make these records public, including information about "the number of people currently detained at Bagram, their names, citizenship, place of capture and length of detention, as well as records pertaining to the process afforded those prisoners to challenge their detention and designation as ‘enemy combatants.’"
The Bagram detention facility, located on an air base north of Kabul, reportedly houses around 600 detainees. These detainees comprise a mixture of suspected terrorists from outside Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as Afghanis captured while fighting American soldiers.
In a letter responding to the ACLU’s FOIA request, the CIA said it could "neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence" of records containing the information requested by the ACLU.
The DOD’s response said that the department has a list containing basic detainee information, including names, capture dates and circumstances, and length of detainment. However, the DOD said that this list is classified, and cannot be released for national security and personal privacy reasons.
Bagram is a major topic of interest for several human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the International Justice Network, which have criticised the Obama Administration’s record on promoting justice in its overseas prisons, comparing conditions at Bagram to those at the much- criticised U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"There are serious concerns that Bagram is another Guantanamo - except with many more prisoners, less due process, no access to lawyers or courts and reportedly worse conditions," said Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, in a statement issued on Thursday.
"As long as the Bagram prison is shrouded in secrecy, there is no way to know the truth or begin to address the problems that exist there," said Goodman.
Several former and current Bagram detainees have accused U.S. soldiers at Bagram of holding them without charge, conducting harsh interrogations, and engaging in abusive practices such as beatings and sleep deprivation. While many agree that abusive practices towards prisoners at Bagram have stopped, denial of legal rights remains a major problem.
"The chief complaint [among Bagram detainees] is lack of meaningful process to challenge their detention," said Sahr Muhammedally, Senior Associate with the Law and Security Program at Human Rights First, a human rights advocacy organisation headquartered in New York. She said that many prisoners at Bagram do not know why they are being detained.
Muhammedally has travelled to Afghanistan to interview 30 Bagram detainees, most recently in April. She told IPS that the capacity does not currently exist to process all of the prisoners and bring them all to fair trials.
The question of fair trials for Bagram detainees was raised in April, when the Obama Administration appealed a federal judge’s decision to allow three Bagram detainees to challenge their detention in U.S. courts - a move that drew heavy criticism.
However, despite the current lack of transparency and due process at Bagram, Muhammedally told IPS that she remains hopeful that the Obama Administration will create meaningful changes at Bagram, citing a task force created in January to review and potentially change policies and procedures at the facility.
AFP reported in July that the Pentagon’s proposed "overhaul" of practices in Bagram is in response to a report by Marine Major General Douglas Stone, who helped to reform U.S. detention practices in Iraq. Ideas for new programmes at the facility include training "more moderate inmates" in job skills and de-radicalisation before their release.
Muhammedally thinks that these potential changes show that the Obama Administration remains committed to justice at Bagram. "I’m not ready to completely write off the administration’s policy on this issue, because I think they are concerned about what is going on there," she told IPS.
She added, "They are seriously looking at reforming the detention regime in Afghanistan. I’m just waiting to see what some of those reforms are going to be."
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Military Translators Risk Low Pay, Death
By Pratap Chatterjee* IPS-Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug 14 (IPS) - Murtaza "Jimmy" Farukhi was killed while on patrol with the U.S. Marine Corps on Sep. 9, 2008, at the age of 23. He was not a soldier, but a local translator employed by Columbus, Ohio-based Mission Essential Personnel (MEP).
Farukhi was one of 24 MEP translators killed and 56 injured since the company’s contract with the U.S. military began in September 2007, according to company statistics.
MEP was awarded a five-year contract in September 2007 by the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) to provide 1,691 translators in Afghanistan. MEP defeated the incumbent contractor, San Diego, California- based Titan Corporation. The contract is worth up to 414 million dollars.
When he was alive Farukhi was paid between 650 dollars and 900 dollars a month, depending on how much time he spent on patrol with the soldiers. In compensation for his death, his family got a one time payment of 10,000 dollars from MEP, and is hoping for a similar amount from their insurance company, Zurich Financial Services.
Farukhi’s former colleagues say that they are unhappy with the salaries, which have been cut some 20 percent in the last two years, as well as with the death compensation for their colleagues that have been killed.
Sole Bread Winner
A Tajik from the Panjshir Valley, Farukhi’s family fled their village in the 1980s after Russian jets destroyed their home during the Soviet occupation. They moved to Kabul and then, when the Taliban came to power, to Peshawar in Pakistan. When the U.S. defeated the Taliban, the Farukhi family moved to the Azaadi neighbourhood just outside central Kabul.
Farukhi’s father, Alam Shah, and his two younger brothers, Akbar and Kabir, said that Murtaza had taken a job with Titan in 2003, because his father was sick and the family needed the money.
"He was my best friend," Akbar, his 19-year-old brother, recalled. "He was very loving, kind, never hurt anyone. We would go to school together. He helped me when I got into fights, preventing me from getting into quarrels with other people."
Once he started working, Murtaza Farukhi was sometimes away for three to four months at a time. His family arranged for him to marry a distant cousin who was an orphan, and in May 2008 the couple had a daughter they named Najma.
On Sep. 8, 2008, Murtaza Farukhi had a premonition that something bad would happen. His wife urged him not to go to work, but he said that she should not worry. He gave his brother Akbar 50 dollars to fix the household computer. The last Akbar Farukhi heard from his older brother was a text message checking whether the repair had been done.
The following day, Murtaza Farukhi was killed in Nijrab, Kapisa province when a roadside bomb struck the Humvee that he was riding in. Also killed were Lieutenant Nicholas Madrazo and Captain Jessi Melton of the U.S. Marines, and Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Eichmann Strickland.
"It is always a tragedy when one of ours is hurt or killed in the line of duty, and we regard our fallen colleagues as heroes," says MEP spokesperson Sean Rushton.
Not Enough Compensation
Samim, a Pashtun translator from eastern Afghanistan who previously worked for MEP, says: "God forgive them, but there are many interpreters who have been killed but [their families] haven’t been compensated. Even if they did get any compensation, they got it after long arguments." He ticks some of them off from memory: "There was Hamid who was killed in Nuristan. Emran was killed in the Devangal Valley in Kunar Province, and another in Paktia," he says.
Samim, who asked that his full name be withheld for personal safety reasons, also says that MEP pays local translators less than their predecessor. A Titan translator who had spent two years with the company could expect 1,050 dollars a month, but MEP slashed this to 900 dollars or less. New employees who do not travel with the troops make just 650 dollars a month.
"MEP cannot comment on Titan Corporation’s practices. This is a different contract with different pay scales," says Rushton. He noted that translators who did "more difficult, more strenuous, and more dangerous jobs" were compensated at a higher rate. "When MEP took over the Afghanistan language contract, it overhauled the method by which LNLs [local nationals] were paid, improving it substantially - even while the number of contractors using it has doubled. The previous company’s payroll system was slow and inconsistent, and had a high error rate."
But former MEP translators noted that the higher salaries for more dangerous work were still lower than Titan’s rate. "I think they don’t really care that we are the people who work hand-in-hand, shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S. armed forces," said Samim. "They sacrifice their precious lives but [MEP] doesn’t care that they [the translators] are targeted. They may work for one year, but they will be targeted for the rest of their lives by the insurgents, the terrorists and the bad guys."
For most of the thousands of translators who now work for MEP in Afghanistan, even the lower salaries were better than no job at all, so most accepted the new contracts.
Several Afghan translators say that that don’t even get to keep a copy of their paper contracts. MEP said the lack of copies of the signed agreements was to protect the local hires who are not allowed to carry any documents that link them to the U.S. military.
Fired For Fighting
In July 2008, an MEP site manager fired Samim "for starting a fight with another linguist," according to a company statement released to CorpWatch. "During the fight, he used disparaging words regarding religion which damaged team morale."
Samim says that he was not even present at the time of the alleged incident and that the site managers confused him with a different translator. After four years on the job, he was told to leave the base in Kunar overnight "as if I was Taliban." Samim remains bitter. "I have saved many American lives. People even call me ‘Son of Bush, infidel,’" he said. "But MEP treats us like trash. They treat us like criminals."
Samim appealed his case to MEP’s director of human resources, but to no avail.
That kind of treatment lost MEP a skilled employee. Samim quickly found new work with DynCorp, a U.S. company with a police training contract, that valued his experience working in the field with U.S. troops in places such as the Korangal Valley in Kunar province, sometimes called the "Valley of Death." Before long, Samim was making more money than he had at MEP, and being courted by international agencies including the European Police mission in Afghanistan. Today he works for NATO in Logar Province.
Next In Line
In late September Akbar Farukhi and his father were invited to Camp Phoenix to meet MEP staff. They filled out the paperwork and were given 10,000 dollars in compensation - approximately a year’s salary. The family says it is still waiting for the second instalment of promised compensation.
There was only one guaranteed path for the family to stay together and support Farukhi’s widow and her orphan daughter. So on Sep. 21, 2008, immediately after Akbar Farukhi picked up the check for the death of his brother, the 18-year-old walked across Camp Phoenix to register with MEP to take his brother’s place. He did this so that he could get a basic 650- dollar-a-monthly salary to take care of his brother, his father, his widowed sister-in-law and Najma, Farukhi’s three-month-old daughter.
*This is the second of a two-part investigative series on translators in Afghanistan by Pratap Chatterjee.
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