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US insists exit strategy for Afghanistan is on track
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama's top military planners on Wednesday defended their exit strategy for Afghanistan, saying that despite setbacks US troops could still begin withdrawing by July 2011.
Afghan President Karzai Begins Japan Trip
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty June 16, 2010
KABUL -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai today begins a five-day visit to Japan, one of the biggest donors to his country.
Ambiguity shrouds Kandahar operation
By Abdul Haleem
KABUL, June 16 (Xinhua) -- The long-awaited and much-propagated major military offensive to uproot Taliban militants in their birthplace Kandahar in southern Afghanistan has yet to kick off, although all necessary preparations, according to military officials, have been put in place.
Afghanistan seeks bids to tap huge mineral wealth
Wed Jun 16, 4:20 am ET
NEW DELHI (AFP) – Afghanistan is to seek bids from global mining groups to extract the war-torn country's near one trillion dollars of mineral wealth, its mines minister said.
Deposits could aid ailing Afghanistan
Politico By MICHAEL O'HANLON 06/16/10
What to make of the troubling reports from Afghanistan?
Recent news stories cause great concern: “Karzai Is Said to Doubt West Can Defeat Taliban.” “U.S. Intelligence Puts New Focus on Afghan Graft.” “Kandahar Offensive Not on Schedule.”
Afghanistan's newfound mineral wealth could fuel further conflict
The discovery of vast mineral reserves is a frustrating reminder of how much better life could be for the Afghan people
guardian.co.uk - Environment Michael Williams Wednesday 16 June 2010
The US Geological Survey prompted widespread cheer in Kabul with the release of a report on Monday stating that Afghanistan is home to $1 trillion (£680bn) in mineral wealth. But Afghan and international leaders should be cautious. This discovery is a double-edged sword.
Dozens of Pakistani troops 'captured by the Taliban'
June 16, 2010 BBC News
The Afghan Taliban says it has captured dozens of Pakistani soldiers after attacking their checkpoint in a cross-border raid.
Ex-Taliban Leaders See Hopeful Signs for Talks
By ROD NORDLAND and CARLOTTA GALL The New York Times June 15, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — Despite their hard-line public stance and continued attacks, the Taliban are quietly putting out tentative feelers in response to the government’s recent peace jirga, according to Afghan government officials and two former Taliban political leaders.
Questions on Afghan strategy touch nerve in Pentagon
By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON, June 15 (Reuters) - Downbeat news reports and second-guessing in Congress about the course of the war in Afghanistan have touched a nerve in the Pentagon, where some worry the negativity is undercutting public sentiment before President Barack Obama's strategy even has a chance to work.
U.S. Bolsters Afghan Police to Secure Kandahar
New York Times By C. J. CHIVERS June 15, 2010
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The American paratroopers climbed down from armored vehicles and spread out along Highway 1, Afghanistan’s main road. An Army engineering team moved behind.
Afghanistan’s Civic War
June 15, 2010 The New York Times By JAMES TRAUB
POSTSCRIPT: On June 15, after this article went to press, Hajji Abdul Jabbar, district governor of Arghandab, was killed in a bombing, according to Afghan and United States officials.
Concern Grows Over U.S. Strategy In Afghanistan
by Jackie Northam NPR
June 16, 2010 When President Obama announced the new counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan in early December, critics and supporters described the plan as ambitious and optimistic.
Roadside bomb kills 3 in southern Afghan province
GHAZNI, Afghanistan, June 16 (Xinhua) -- A roadside bomb struck a vehicle of a private security company in Afghanistan's southern Ghazni province on Wednesday, killing three, police said.
Afghanistan's 'game-changer'
By Gregg Carlstrom Al Jazeera
"The quality of the ore is excellent, and the richest varieties are to be found," a surveyor wrote in a report on Afghanistan’s untapped natural resources.
Afghanistan's woeful water management delights neighbors
The Christian Science Monitor By Tom A. Peter 15/06/2010
Any effort by Afghanistan to improve water management could ruffle neighbors, who benefit from the country's losing two-thirds of its water due to lack of infrastructure.
The power of education is the real gold in Afghanistan
Washington Post By Kathleen Parker Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Amid all the dark news from Afghanistan, every now and then a sliver of light slips through the cracks.
Afghanistan, it turns out, is rich in minerals. Trillions rich. It's going to become the Saudi Arabia of lithium, they say. Thanks to vast stores of that resource, plus iron, copper, cobalt and gold, this impoverished, war-torn nation could become a wealthy nation.
Petraeus becomes ill during hearing on Afghan forces and withdrawal date
By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Lawmakers pressed Gen. David H. Petraeus on Tuesday to explain why Afghanistan's security forces were not assuming more of the burden for the war there and to assess whether President Obama's July 2011 deadline to begin U.S. troop withdrawals was feasible.
Winning The Peace In Kandahar
The Public Record By Wahid Monawar Jun 15th, 2010
Earlier last month, the Obama administration and Karzai ironed out some bends, but unfortunately, the United States has chosen to take the easy way out of the Afghan dilemma, by showing to the world that Karzai and his Warlords are able to march Afghanistan on the right path toward
Anger Wells up at Poor Water in Northern Afghan City
Residents say failure to deliver on promise of new wells means water-borne diseases continue to plague Charikar.
By Mohammad Saber Saffar - Afghanistan Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) ARR Issue 364, 15 Jun 10
Homayun, 26, sits in the shade of a wall in the main hospital for Parwan province in northeast Afghanistan, looking anxiously towards the children's ward.
Hindu Kush-Himalayan countries to share biodiversity data
KATHMANDU, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Some 25 representatives from eight countries of the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region agreed to use a global platform to share biodiversity data, according to Kathmandu-based International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).
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US insists exit strategy for Afghanistan is on track
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama's top military planners on Wednesday defended their exit strategy for Afghanistan, saying that despite setbacks US troops could still begin withdrawing by July 2011.
Under questioning from senators, General David Petraeus, the commander of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, repeated his support for Obama's goal of transferring security duties to Afghan forces starting in July 2011.
"But it is important that July 2011 be seen for what it is: the date when a process begins, based on conditions; not the date when the US heads for the exits," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"Moreover, my agreement with the president's decisions was based on projections of conditions in July 2011. And needless to say, we're doing all that is humanly possible to achieve those conditions," he said.
He said regular assessments will be made as the date approaches.
Petraeus and Michele Flournoy, the defense undersecretary for policy, stressed to senators that counterinsurgency campaigns are rollercoasters, with advances and setbacks.
Petraeus said Afghan forces "are very much in the fight throughout the country, so much so that their losses are typically several times US losses."
He said they are taking the lead in some areas, including around the capital Kabul.
Petraeus also said security has improved in the southern town of Marja, following a much criticized offensive there. He said he could buy bread in a market there accompanied by security but also surrounded by hundreds of Afghans.
Senator Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the commission, said he was glad to hear of the general's "support for that July 2011 beginning of US troop reduction decision.
"I continue to strongly believe that it is essential for success in Afghanistan for everyone to understand the urgency for the Afghans to take responsibility for their own security," he told the general.
Obama's fellow Democrats support the 2011 deadline for beginning a withdrawal following a surge of tens of thousands of troops this year and are anxious to avoid an open-ended commitment of troops.
Senator John McCain, the Republican senator, welcomed the general's remarks that conditions on the ground would determine when US troop withdrawals begin.
However, he said they appeared to contradict those by a White House spokesman that the July 2011 date was "etched in stone."
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Afghan President Karzai Begins Japan Trip
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty June 16, 2010
KABUL -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai today begins a five-day visit to Japan, one of the biggest donors to his country.
Last year, Japan pledged up to $5 billion in aid to Afghanistan over five years.
But Japanese officials have said the aid depends on whether the security situation allows international projects to go forward and is also contingent on guarantees the assistance will not be lost to graft.
Karzai, who is taking along his foreign and economics ministers, will meet Prime Minister Naoto Kan and others after an audience with Emperor Akihito on June 17.
compiled from agency reports
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Ambiguity shrouds Kandahar operation
By Abdul Haleem
KABUL, June 16 (Xinhua) -- The long-awaited and much-propagated major military offensive to uproot Taliban militants in their birthplace Kandahar in southern Afghanistan has yet to kick off, although all necessary preparations, according to military officials, have been put in place.
Military officials said in the beginning that the well-planned offensive will start in June and wrap up before Ramadan, the Muslim holy fasting month which falls in August.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai in his recent visit to Kandahar on the weekend gave go-ahead signal to the operation against Taliban militants.
Accompanied by the U.S. four-star General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the over 125,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, Karzai on Sunday assured Kandaharis in a public meeting that the operation aimed at fighting corruption, bringing good governance and ensuring viable peace would begin from the provincial capital Kandahar city.
However, he did not set a timeline for the proposed operation, saying it would commence from Kandahar city and gradually spread to districts to ensure security across the province.
General McChrystal, according to media reports, said Kandahar operation may begin in a month or two and will possibly take many months.
The Afghan president opposed the military operation during a tour to Kandahar in early April, emphasizing that there would be no operation without the consent and support of locals.
Speaking at a gathering attended by hundreds of tribal chieftains, notables and influential figures, the participants expressed opposition to the planned operation when the president sought their opinion.
Karzai approved the operation this time in the wake of a series of bloody Taliban-linked attacks in Kandahar which have claimed more than 100 civilian lives over the past one month.
The deadliest violent incident which has drawn wide condemnation from home and abroad was the suicide attack on a wedding party last week which left 84 people including women and children dead and 92 others injured.
Kandahar, the spiritual capital of the Taliban outfit until its ouster from power, is the second largest city in Afghanistan and anyone, according to the history, ruled this strategically important province could rule the whole country.
The proposed military operation seems to be the ever-biggest NATO-led offensive in Afghanistan since the ousting of Taliban regime by the U.S.-led military coalition in late 2001.
Furthermore, the Kandahar operation will prove decisive for both the NATO-led forces and Taliban militants who have been fighting for the eviction of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
The hard-line Taliban militants, which emerged in Kandahar in 1994, disappeared in Kandahar when their regime was driven out of power in late 2001. They regrouped there in 2006 to target NATO troops.
Nine years have passed but still it has remained a puzzle to many observers as there is no solid clue about the whereabouts of Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar and his lieutenants.
Describing Kandahar as "strategically important and center for Taliban empire", a legislator from Kandahar province Ms. Shukiba Hashimi noted in a panel discussion that Kandahar operation would not succeed unless and until the government wins the support of people by fighting corruption and ensuring justice there.
Neither NATO commander nor Afghan Defense Ministry has set any time for cracking down Taliban hideouts in Kandahar.
Analysts believed withholding the offensive operation and the continued militancy would claim more lives in Kandahar in particular and in the country in general.
Spiraling militancy and conflicts have claimed the lives of over two dozen NATO soldiers in the conflict-ridden Afghanistan since the beginning of June, according to media reports.
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Afghanistan seeks bids to tap huge mineral wealth
Wed Jun 16, 4:20 am ET
NEW DELHI (AFP) – Afghanistan is to seek bids from global mining groups to extract the war-torn country's near one trillion dollars of mineral wealth, its mines minister said.
Wahidullah Shahrani said the country would organise a roadshow to promote opportunities for foreign investors on June 25 in London.
"We will invite bids for the development of our mineral deposits in the next few months," he said after a meeting with his Indian counterpart B.K. Handique in New Delhi Tuesday, according to Dow Jones Newswires.
A number of Indian companies and global miners have already shown interest in Afghanistan's deposits, the minister said.
"To start with, we will invite bids for iron ore and copper mines," Shahrani added.
A recent study by US geologists found Afghanistan had reserves of valuable minerals on a larger scale than previously believed, a Pentagon spokesman said.
The value of the minerals, which include lithium, iron, gold, niobium, mercury and cobalt, was estimated at about a trillion dollars, the study said.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in January that the deposits could help one of the world's most impoverished nations become one of the richest, based on preliminary findings of the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
Little of the minerals have been exploited because the country has been mired in conflict for three decades, and is today embroiled in an insurgency by Islamist militants led by the Taliban.
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Deposits could aid ailing Afghanistan
Politico By MICHAEL O'HANLON 06/16/10
What to make of the troubling reports from Afghanistan?
Recent news stories cause great concern: “Karzai Is Said to Doubt West Can Defeat Taliban.” “U.S. Intelligence Puts New Focus on Afghan Graft.” “Kandahar Offensive Not on Schedule.”
Meanwhile, U.S. casualties increase even as troop numbers and costs escalate. And President Hamid Karzai recently sacked two of the West’s favorite Afghan reformers, Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar and the head of the National Security Directorate, Amrullah Saleh.
There is much to be concerned about in Afghanistan. The war is far from won — whatever that means.
Indeed, it is not clear that we can achieve even the modest goals needed for a reasonable exit: some semblance of stability and an Afghan state strong enough to prevent the insurgency from taking over as we leave.
But there is more reason for hope than these headlines would suggest.
Two stories stand out. The first focuses on a trip Karzai took with Gen. Stanley McChrystal to Kandahar on Sunday. The second is a new Defense Department report that Afghanistan may hold more than $1 trillion in mineral wealth — not entirely new information but a more careful analysis than was previously available.
They do not add up to a major turn of the tide in Afghanistan. Critics on the left are correct to point out that mineral wealth cannot substitute for battlefield progress or for greater legitimacy and effectiveness of the Afghan government. But these realities still should, at least, help balance much of the negative news of late.
First, Karzai’s trip: His June 13 visit was a sharp contrast from the one earlier this spring. On that trip, Karzai displayed ambivalence about McChrystal’s plans for a major military buildup around that crucial southern city, where the Sept. 11 attacks were planned.
Karzai effectively gave local leaders a veto over any major operation.
But Sunday, Karzai asked local leaders for assistance on the tough road ahead. “This operation requires sacrifice,” Karzai pleaded with the crowd, “and without sacrifice you cannot restore peace to Kandahar.”
“Will you help me?” he asked. Many in the 400-strong throng stood and expressed support.
He played the role of commander in chief as well as Washington could have hoped. His rhetoric was fully in tune with the challenges to be faced in coming months — in security terms as well as governance terms.
The U.S. and NATO military commands have also helped, emphasizing more clearly that the core of the Kandahar operation will not be a major military offensive but what McChrystal calls a “rising tide” of security and governance. It is planned to take months, not days or weeks.
To be sure, actions speak louder than words. And we are sure to need Karzai’s help in Kandahar to counter corruption — including from his own powerful half-brother — and ensure adequate Afghan contributions to the operation.
But the notion that Karzai was a leader who doubted the ability of current plans to defeat the Taliban — as reported in one New York Times article — was belied by his inspirational and resolute words.
Second, the mineral deposits: The Defense Department’s office for economic investment activities in war zones, headed by the formidable Paul Brinkley, has concluded that Afghanistan may, in fact, be rich. Not just in its poppies, or its ability to attract foreign aid, but in actual resource wealth buried in the ground.
Its iron, copper, lithium and other deposits may be worth more than $1 trillion. If they can generate even $10 billion a year for the Afghan state, that would nearly double the nation’s gross national product. This could also provide a long-term funding source for Afghan security forces and other major national needs.
Critics and skeptics point out that resource wealth is often corrupting, especially in developing countries. Some of the world’s biggest producers of key minerals, gems and oil, for example, are among the world’s most kleptocratic economies.
For such income streams often benefit only a narrow stratum of society rather than the population as a whole. They can also skew exchange rates, in what is known as “Dutch disease” — making it harder for farmers and small businessmen to sell goods abroad.
Such concerns are real, and Afghans have to be attentive to this risk as they design contracts for the mining work. But mineral wealth will hardly introduce corruption, which is already well established in the country.
Indeed, mineral wealth could provide the Afghan government and international community with opportunities to tackle some key economic problems that have long plagued the country. With the right strategy, it could even help reduce corruption.
First, it could provide a long-term funding source that could gradually replace foreign aid. It could pay for Afghanistan’s army and police force, schools, health clinics and infrastructure, like the irrigation systems and roads needed by farmers.
Lack of such prospective funding is partly why Afghanistan’s government has not been able to build adequate security forces or infrastructure.
Second, with the money from natural wealth, Kabul could increase salaries of key ministers and other government employees. This would, in turn, deprive these officials of the excuse to take bribes to compensate for unacceptably low paychecks.
Combined with improved means of ferreting out corrupt officials — which has already led to arrest or indictment of as many as 20 officials this year — the new funding source could help address corruption over the long term.
Claiming a big turnaround from this recent news would go too far. The Taliban and Haqqani network still need to be weakened on the battlefield, and Afghan governance needs to improve quite a bit.
But there is indeed reason for hope in Afghanistan.
Michael O’Hanlon is co-author of the Afghanistan Index at the Brookings Institution and co-author, with Hassina Sherjan, of “Toughing It Out in Afghanistan.”
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Afghanistan's newfound mineral wealth could fuel further conflict
The discovery of vast mineral reserves is a frustrating reminder of how much better life could be for the Afghan people
guardian.co.uk - Environment Michael Williams Wednesday 16 June 2010
The US Geological Survey prompted widespread cheer in Kabul with the release of a report on Monday stating that Afghanistan is home to $1 trillion (£680bn) in mineral wealth. But Afghan and international leaders should be cautious. This discovery is a double-edged sword. The mineral reserves may pave the path to a better future, but they may also lead to even more endemic conflict.
The "blood diamond" phenomenon – diamonds mined in African war zones that are then sold on to finance an insurgency or a warlord's grip on a region – is well known, but other examples of misused mineral wealth abound. Afghanistan may not have diamonds, but it does have an insurgency, the country is packed with warlords and many of the minerals present in Afghanistan are the cornerstones of conflicts in other parts of the world. You don't have to look far to find an example of how minerals can fuel conflict rather than end it. One of Afghanistan's closest neighbours is mired in conflict that is partly rooted in mineral wealth.
In India, a hidden war against the government is raging in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. The basis for this conflict is political and social. The insurgents, called Nexalites, are descended ideologically from Mao Zedong and show no signs of abandoning their fight against what they believe is to be an unfair, caste-bound capitalist system. The Indian government stepped up its campaign against the guerillas in 2006, in part because of what lies beneath the forest floor in Southern Chhattisgarh – some of India's largest reserves of iron ore, coal, bauxite and limestone. India's largest corporations have moved into the region to harvest these resources and some £1.6bn worth of contracts have already been signed. Nonetheless, conflict remains endemic.
Although you've probably never heard of this war, it is no trivial matter. Estimates put the insurgent forces at around 4,500 fighters and around half the population supports the Nexalites. Some of that support is coerced and some is willing. Upwards of 50,000 people have been displaced, two-thirds of the forest is off-limits to the Indian government and numerous posts from doctors to police are unfilled because of the war. The rebels set up "people's courts" to punish and execute what they call capitalist collaborators. In 2009, the Indian prime minister concluded that the state was losing the fight against the Nexalites – not a good sign for a superpower on the rise.
India is, perhaps, not a very good comparison; it is a much larger state than Afghanistan and only a portion of the country is caught up in this conflict. It is also a rather strong democracy, with centralised government and a self-funding military. Delhi is in a much stronger position to fight an insurgency than Kabul. Perhaps a better example would be the endemic conflict in places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Sudan, and Rwanda. Not exactly a good list to join – but it may be where Afghanistan finds itself.
It is far too early to tell which way the discovery of these vast mineral deposits will play out, but I doubt it will have much effect on current Nato operations. It is common knowledge that Afghanistan is well endowed with various minerals. Just last year, the Chinese began digging into the ground in Logar Province to access the 240m tonnes of copper ore accessible via surface mines. But historically most of Afghanistan's resources have not been exploited – in part due to the constant war. The rugged terrain, lack of infrastructure, primitive methods and out-fashioned technology further complicate the excavation of minerals.
The good news is that these same variables also hinder the ability of the Taliban and Afghan warlords to exploit these resources. As for China's recent involvement, the positive benefits – if they materialise – will be found far in the future. While they may make a positive contribution to a lasting peace, ultimately such a project does not remove the fundamental political conflict between the insurgent forces and the Afghan government.
In the end, the rediscovery of Afghanistan's mineral wealth is just another frustrating reminder that a far better future could exist if only this fractured state could pull itself together. That cohesion will only come through a political process and at the moment such a process is sorely lacking. And it will not occur if minerals become yet another factor contributing to Afghanistan's endless war.
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Dozens of Pakistani troops 'captured by the Taliban'
June 16, 2010 BBC News
The Afghan Taliban says it has captured dozens of Pakistani soldiers after attacking their checkpoint in a cross-border raid.
Pakistani security sources confirm some troops are missing.
The Taliban says it is holding up to 40 Pakistani troops after its raid in the Mohmand tribal area on Monday.
Afghan officials said eight soldiers had been handed over to the Pakistani consulate in Jalalabad, but Pakistan's army said it had no knowledge of this.
Checkpoint 'over-run'
The BBC's M Ilyas Khan says that while attacks by the Taliban on border check posts are relatively routine, it is unusual for Pakistani soldiers to be held by the militants in Afghanistan.
A Taliban spokesman told the BBC that it was in fact holding Pakistani troops on both sides of the border after Monday's attack.
It said 30 soldiers were being held in Afghanistan and 10 in Pakistan.
The Taliban says it captured the soldiers after over-running the checkpoint.
Local officials in the Mohmand area confirmed to the BBC that about 40 soldiers were unaccounted for.
Pakistani security sources said on Monday an undisclosed number of troops were missing.
An Afghan army commander in Jalalabad told the BBC that 10 Pakistani soldiers had been handed over to the Pakistani consulate, although the Pakistani army said it was not aware of this.
'Baseless propaganda'
Meanwhile, the Afghan Taliban have dismissed the findings of a report which says Pakistan's intelligence service had a direct role in supporting the insurgents.
In an e-mail sent to the BBC, the Taliban said the report was "baseless propaganda".
The report, compiled by a London School of Economics scholar, said Pakistani intelligence provided funding, training and sanctuaries to the Taliban on a much greater scale than previously thought.
"The Islamic Emirate considers this report of the London School of Economics as merely baseless propaganda," the letter said.
The Taliban have also denied reports that their fighters hanged a seven-year-old boy last week on charges of spying in Afghanistan's Helmand province.
"After a full investigation by the Islamic Emirate leadership, it became clear that no event of execution had taken place," a Taliban statement said.
The Taliban criticised journalists for misreporting the event.
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Ex-Taliban Leaders See Hopeful Signs for Talks
By ROD NORDLAND and CARLOTTA GALL The New York Times June 15, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — Despite their hard-line public stance and continued attacks, the Taliban are quietly putting out tentative feelers in response to the government’s recent peace jirga, according to Afghan government officials and two former Taliban political leaders.
While it was under way, the Taliban attacked the consultative peace jirga, or council, which ended June 6, both with rockets and through denunciations. Many political opponents doubted that the jirga would be successful, because insurgents had not been included. Publicly, the insurgents insist that they reject the effort to start talks.
But the two former Taliban leaders, who both are known to maintain contacts with the insurgents, said in interviews on Monday and Tuesday that the Taliban have been encouraged by signs of progress on removing some of their names from a United Nations blacklist, as well as by indications that the government may speed up the release of Taliban detainees.
Meanwhile, insurgents in troubled areas of Wardak Province said they would no longer attack government officials there as long as they were not working with the NATO coalition, according to a prominent Afghan official, who, like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter.
The official said Afghan officials had taken the gesture as a hopeful sign, even though Wardak has had a recent increase in insurgent activity, as well as possible infiltration by fighters from Al Qaeda and Arab fighters, and violence and threats continued elsewhere in the country.
Calling for an end to the blacklist and the release of detainees were two of the decisions made by the consultative peace jirga. A visit this week by a United Nations delegation to review the list was received favorably by Taliban leaders as evidence of good faith, said Mullah Arsala Rahmani, who is one of 137 Taliban figures on the list.
“The blacklist will be a start,” said Mullah Rahmani, now an Afghan senator and formerly the minister of higher education under the Taliban government. “It is symbolically very important. Even if they only remove 60 or 70 names, that would be enough. The next step could be talks between government and Taliban representatives in some neutral country.” He suggested either Turkey or Saudi Arabia would be likely locations.
Hajji Musa Hotak, the former Taliban planning minister and now a member of the Afghan Parliament from Wardak Province, who was one of the first five Taliban figures to be removed from the United Nations blacklist last January, concurred.
“I have heard the same thing,” he said. “If the government fulfills their promises on the blacklist and the prisoner releases, we are ready to take part in negotiations.” Mr. Hotak added that he had heard that seven names were under consideration for being taken off the list, and said, “Even that would be a start.”
On Tuesday, the organizers of the peace jirga announced at a press conference that the members of a High Council for Peace, which would be charged with arranging negotiations, would include neutral, nongovernment figures.
While both Mr. Hotak and Mullah Rahmani are known to maintain close connections with the Taliban, and Mullah Rahmani in particular says he was recently in indirect communication with the Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar, there is no way to verify their claims.
In addition, it is unclear how much control older Taliban political leaders have over a new generation of younger military commanders, most of whom are not even on the United Nations blacklist.
The Taliban’s official spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, reached by telephone on Tuesday, repeated his denunciation of the jirga and dismissed the diplomatic activity concerning the blacklist. “This is not the way to make the Taliban leadership agree to negotiate,” he said. “U.N. mediation can only work if the foreigners end their occupation of the country first.”
A third former Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Salam Rocketi, who had been a corps commander under the Taliban and now lives in Kabul, also predicted that taking names off the blacklist could help start negotiations, although he said he was no longer in touch with the insurgents.
“This is their policy, to play a double game, telling people you’re going one way when in fact you’re going another,” he said of the insurgents. “All they’re waiting for is a green light from the Americans and if they get it, they would change 180 degrees tomorrow.” By “green light,” he said, he meant action on the blacklist.
The United States and other permanent members of the Security Council could veto any proposed changes to the list.
Despite the hints of a thaw, there was no overall letup in the violence on Tuesday. A massive car bomb exploded, killing Hajji Abdul Jabar Murghani, the governor of the Arghandab district, a key location in the United States military buildup just outside the city of Kandahar. His son and a bodyguard were also killed.
Elsewhere, insurgents killed four NATO soldiers in four separate attacks, two in southern Afghanistan and two in eastern Afghanistan, according to statements from the International Security Assistance Force. Two of the dead were British soldiers, killed in separate firefights in the Nad Ali district of Helmand Province, the British Defense Ministry announced.
In Wardak Province last week, Agriculture Ministry extension workers in three districts — Chak, Jalrez and Sayedabad — reported that they had been contacted in person by Taliban insurgents, officials said. They expected to be attacked, but instead were told by the insurgents that they could carry on their work.
“This is very significant,” said Farouk Wardak, the minister of education and a confidant of President Hamid Karzai, who had organized the peace jirga. He said the episode was discussed in a cabinet meeting and taken as a positive signal from the insurgents.
“The Taliban told the workers to go back and tell government officials that we won’t bother you, if you’re honest and don’t bring foreigners,” Mr. Hotak said. “I consider this as a very good sign, especially to come such a short time after the jirga.”
Threats persisted elsewhere, however. In eastern Ghazni Province, the governor, Mohammad Musa Akbarzada, confirmed that the Taliban on Monday night distributed leaflets, known as night letters, warning government workers to leave their jobs within five days or be punished or killed.
Mullah Rahmani, the senator, said that the Taliban leadership “still does not believe or trust in the current government,” but that movement on the blacklist would give Mr. Karzai more credibility with the insurgents. Mullah Rahmani himself had been visited by the United Nations delegation shortly before giving the interview, and he said it was the first time he had ever met with them concerning his own case.
He added that Mr. Karzai’s frequent criticisms of the NATO peacekeeping force, as well as of his own government’s failures, had found a sympathetic if skeptical ear with many Taliban leaders. On Sunday, however, Mr. Karzai visited Kandahar and warned local leaders of impending military action to regain control there from the Taliban.
Sangar Rahimi and Mujib Mashal contributed reporting from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Afghanistan.
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Questions on Afghan strategy touch nerve in Pentagon
By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON, June 15 (Reuters) - Downbeat news reports and second-guessing in Congress about the course of the war in Afghanistan have touched a nerve in the Pentagon, where some worry the negativity is undercutting public sentiment before President Barack Obama's strategy even has a chance to work.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is among those to privately voice concerns about a wave of pessimism that they believe stems partly from embedding journalists solely with military units in Afghanistan's south, where fighting is fiercest. Some officials talk of changes to make embeds go elsewhere too.
The Pentagon's growing sensitivities put a spotlight on what some see as increasingly shaky support for a six-month-old war strategy that hinges on surging U.S. forces into the restive south, heartland of the Taliban, before starting a gradual withdrawal in July 2011, conditions permitting.
Asked in a Senate hearing on Tuesday whether he still supported beginning a withdrawal in July 2011 given recent setbacks in the south, General David Petraeus, who oversees the Afghan war as head of U.S. Central Command, said: "I support the policy of the president."
But he added: "In a perfect world ... we have to be very careful with timelines."
The Pentagon's publicly stated goal is to be able to demonstrate at least some measure of progress across the country by year-end, when Obama's White House will review the war effort.
But some top military officials say they won't really know whether the counterinsurgency strategy is working or not until next summer, around the time Obama hopes to begin a draw down.
"It's a war. It's not a political campaign," one military official said. "The negativity (in the press and in Congress) can go too far. There are parts of Afghanistan that aren't going well. It's a mixed bag."
Gates let his frustrations show last week after a meeting with NATO ministers in Brussels.
"I, frankly, get a little impatient with some of the coverage because of the lack of historical context," he told reporters, noting that the 30,000-troop surge ordered by Obama in December was only now beginning to be felt on the ground.
"So as far as I'm concerned, this endeavor began in full, and reasonably resourced, only a few months ago," he said.
Gates appeared to be referring to news accounts about stronger-than-expected Taliban resistance in the southern district of Marjah and a slower start to a long-awaited offensive in the Taliban's birthplace of Kandahar.
At Tuesday's congressional hearing, senior lawmakers voiced strong concern about the direction of Obama's war effort, a message that took some at the Pentagon by surprise.
"While I understand the fact that there have been developments, such as the increase in casualties, that would cause concern, there also needs to be a recognition that we know and warned this fight was going to get harder before it got easier," said Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell.
Reporters typically want to embed in the southern Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, where the insurgency is strongest. But Morrell said that offered a skewed, and largely negative picture of the overall war effort.
"While Helmand and Kandahar are important provinces, they do not comprise the entirety of Afghanistan," Morrell said. "There are many places where security is improving and life is getting better.
"So I think there are some of us, in light of that, who would like to figure out a way to provide reporters a broader view of the situation in country."
One option being discussed within the Pentagon would be to require reporters who go to the south to also embed with military units in northern and western Afghanistan, where the security situation is far more stable.
At least one third of the new forces pledged have arrived in Afghanistan as part of the war strategy spearheaded by General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan. But many of them have yet to be fully deployed.
"We do expect, by the end of the year, we'll be able to show that they are making progress," Morrell said. "Let's at least allow them the next six months to prove that General McChrystal's strategy will work." (Additional reporting by Phil Stewart; editing by Chris Wilson)
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U.S. Bolsters Afghan Police to Secure Kandahar
New York Times By C. J. CHIVERS June 15, 2010
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The American paratroopers climbed down from armored vehicles and spread out along Highway 1, Afghanistan’s main road. An Army engineering team moved behind.
This was a military patrol with an unusual touch. The paratroopers were not hunting the Taliban. The engineers were not looking for roadside bombs. They were taking measurements for a checkpoint to be built for the Afghan National Police.
NATO’s long-awaited summer campaign to secure Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second largest city, has begun. In its early stages, it looks little like what was anticipated months ago.
What had been described by military officers last winter as an offensive has instead opened with an effort to expand an Afghan police and government presence. The daily missions for many patrols are oriented not toward fighting but toward trying to extend influence in an area where a sprawling insurgency first took root.
The campaign to date, moving by increments, focuses on civil order.
Western troops, soon to triple in number in Kandahar Province in the last phase of President Obama’s military buildup, are designing new checkpoints and police precincts while encouraging Afghan police supervisors to become more active. At the same time, NATO is training recruits and officers already on duty, hoping to double the strength and improve the skills of the local force.
Thus far that force is tiny. Of the more than 100,000 police officers that Afghanistan claims to have on its books, only roughly 800 to 1,000 officers are here, in a city of at least 500,000 people in the Taliban’s Pashtun heartland.
Kandahar is where in the 1990s Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader, and his followers rose from rural obscurity to international notoriety. It has been all but ungoverned since they were chased from Kabul in late 2001. The Taliban remain the dominant power in agricultural areas around the city. They operate freely in urban neighborhoods, too. The American plan must also contend with the possibility that the Taliban could choose to fight more directly at any time.
Moreover, military officers acknowledge that the Taliban have sizable support among the population, and that many residents harbor misgivings about the gathering campaign — worried that it will endanger civilian lives, property and livelihoods.
For NATO and the United States, this creates a tactical puzzle. The city acts according to its own rules. But it is not, day by day, a combat zone. Normal life continues. Insurgent attacks are sporadic and most days are quiet. One challenge, military officers say, is to keep it that way as forces flow in.
Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, the British officer commanding Western troops in southern Afghanistan, describes two different tracks for the months ahead. First, in the city, the emphasis is on establishing the rudiments of a government. Later, in outlying areas, he said, a more military approach will be used.
“The problem in Kandahar city,” he said, “is it’s a lot less about insurgency, and much more about criminality, warlordism, a culture of impunity, bad government or weak government, parallel structures and frankly, something that needs to be properly organized.”
He added, “What’s needed in the city are better Afghan security forces, and more of them.”
Recent patrols show what this ambition looks like in its early phases. The city now has 10 police districts, each with a police station that assigns officers to run checkpoints. Each district is assisted by an American military police squad and Canadian police advisers.
Changes are under way. Kandahar is being carved into smaller districts. A ring of checkpoints is being built around the city. More Western forces are arriving. The American military police company and battalion staff members who have been assisting the police will be replaced by five fresh companies.
A unit from the 82nd Airborne Division, Company D of the First Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, was moved to Kandahar last month. It escorts Army engineers working on infrastructure projects.
Infrastructure is one element of policing; competence, integrity and equipment are others. American officers and troops say the police, known for ineptitude and corruption, have improved since last year, when NATO devoted more troops to train them.
American soldiers who work beside the police described improving units but continuing problems: drug use, absenteeism, corruption, sloth. The picture, in sum, is complex.
One Army noncommissioned officer said that police officers he worked beside routinely helped themselves to food and other goods in Kandahar’s shops and bazaars, and sometimes dug up farmers’ crops and confiscated them.
Another said that some units had been professional and willing to work. They are less likely, he said, to beat detainees and more willing to walk on patrols without American supervision.
Two recent patrols showed how far the police had yet to go to achieve competence, much less self-reliance.
On the first patrol, an American military police squad, led by Sgt. Gary Woodruff, was assigned to inventory a checkpoint that would soon become the headquarters for a new district. When the squad arrived, most of the Afghans were asleep. Few had their weapons nearby.
The squad pulled aside the Afghans one by one, made a roster and scanned each man’s irises and fingerprints for a database. The soldiers recorded the serial numbers of the officers’ weapons and jotted down the officers’ cellphone numbers. It was clear that until the Americans performed the tally, no one knew how many police officers worked at the checkpoint, what their names were or what equipment they had.
On another patrol, Capt. John Thomas, Company D’s commander, was discussing plans with a deputy checkpoint commander, Mahibullah, who casually mentioned that he had a bomb in the shipping container he used as an office and bedroom. The captain stopped almost midstride. He asked him why he had a bomb there.
Mahibullah said the police had found the bomb hidden in the soil nearby. They had called for an Afghan police ordnance-disposal team, he said. The team never arrived. After waiting several hours, a more senior commander ordered the police to pull up the bomb by hand and carry it to the checkpoint.
“That’s the wrong answer,” Captain Thomas said. “And this is something I can help you with.” Inside the office, a live antitank mine could be seen resting in the corner.
Mahibullah’s two young sons stood at the door. The captain asked everyone to stay out of the room until a disposal team arrived. Later, he summed up how the city looked through the lens of the police, as the operation to secure Kandahar begins. “They are getting better,” he said. “They have a ways to go.”
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Afghanistan’s Civic War
June 15, 2010 The New York Times By JAMES TRAUB
POSTSCRIPT: On June 15, after this article went to press, Hajji Abdul Jabbar, district governor of Arghandab, was killed in a bombing, according to Afghan and United States officials.
Lt. Col. Guy Jones, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division’s Second Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry, is on his fourth tour of Afghanistan. The first time around, in June 2002, when he was a 31-year-old company commander, his job was to find Osama bin Laden. He still has happy memories of working alongside Gul Agha Shirzai, the local strongman in Kandahar, who may have been loathed by the people but could be counted on to deliver American war materiel to anywhere in the region for only $5,000 a truckload.
Now Colonel Jones has returned to the region to fight a very different war. Based in the Arghandab District, just north of Kandahar, he and his troops are at the epicenter of the looming American showdown with the Taliban. This time, he cannot win by making common cause with warlords. He can’t even win by shooting people. “I almost never do kinetic operations,” he said to me one night in April, using military talk for classic operations. We were sitting in an office in the Arghandab District Center — the seat of local government rather than of military operations. Just then his troops were seeking to clear insurgents from some villages to the north. “How do you separate the enemy from the people?” asked Jones, a natural-born pedagogue much given to the rhetorical question. “Well, one way is I can go out and just hang out there. Eventually they’ll get so frustrated that they’ll just leave. And then I know who to look for.”
The war Colonel Jones is fighting is, of course, the counterinsurgency war that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, regional commander of the U.S. military, urged President Obama to adopt during the fierce and protracted policy debate over Afghan strategy last year. Some of the president’s closest advisers, including Vice President Joe Biden, argued that after seven years of American neglect and the Afghans’ corrupt and incompetent governance, it was simply too late to fight for hearts and minds. But Obama accepted most of his generals’ advice, agreeing to dispatch 30,000 more soldiers as well as hundreds more civilians to the battle. Senior military and civilian officials in Kandahar use the same language Jones does in describing the impending effort there (no one calls it a “battle”): no kinetic operations, civilians out front, Afghans leading the way. NATO officials acknowledge that the plan is driven as much by the near impossibility of defeating the Taliban in a region where they are deeply rooted as it is by counterinsurgency doctrine. This is, for reasons of necessity as well as of philosophy, the new face of war in Afghanistan. Obama also said that, by mid-2011, he would begin to draw down troops — which means that Jones and his fellow commanders may have just another year to carry out a task that many policy makers and experts, not to mention many American voters, aren’t convinced can be done at all.
The essence of counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine is that you cannot defeat an insurgency by killing insurgents, because their ranks will continue to grow as long as the people from whom they draw recruits view their own government as illegitimate. The Army’s COIN manual, revised in 2006 as the growing insurgency in Iraq made a mockery of the Bush administration’s claims of “victory,” asserts that “the primary objective of any counterinsurgent is to foster the development of effective governance by a legitimate government.” Because security is the precondition for sustained political change, military operations are indispensable. But kinetic operations can alienate the population. Among the paradoxes highlighted in the document: “The more force used, the less effective it is” and “The best weapons for COIN do not shoot.” The manual also acknowledges the obvious: “In many ways, the conduct of counterinsurgency is counterintuitive to the traditional American view of war.”
COIN strategy not only commits the military to civilian goals, but it also elevates civilians to a status equal to that of military personnel. The civilian “uplift” that President Obama mandated will triple the number of government officials in Afghanistan to more than 1,000 and, perhaps more important, disperse them into the countryside, where only a few have been working. Until recently, the work of distributing aid and fostering good government has been carried out largely by officials in “provincial-reconstruction teams.” Those teams continue to operate, but the new plan drives the effort to the local level, placing a district-support team in critical areas, especially in the contested south and east of the country.
The Operational Coordination Center for Arghandab is home to members of Jones’s battalion; detachments of Afghanistan’s police, intelligence services and army; the district-support team and a contingent of Canadian civilians also working on development. At the far end of the base is the District Center, a square, whitewashed two-story building where the district governor receives petitioners and officials. It’s a picturesque setting: from the roof of the District Center you can look back across the valley at a solid green rectangle of pomegranate orchards and grape vineyards, a broad field of pale swamp grasses and the Arghandab River, the source of the region’s fertility and wealth, such as it is. Beyond the stone retaining wall that rings the base is a steep hill with an elaborate shrine to a 15th-century saint, Baba Wali. On Fridays, thousands of Kandaharis come out to the hillside to picnic and to feast their eyes on the kind of vivid greenery unknown in their dust bowl of a city.
The night I arrived, Jones was conducting his weekly “key-leader engagement meeting” in an office on the second floor of the District Center. Jones, who majored in nuclear engineering at Texas A&M, had a lot of theories, and one — just politically incorrect enough to flourish in a remote place like Arghandab — had to do with the role of key leaders in Afghanistan. “Compare the Afghan people to sheep,” Jones said to me in one of our long conversations. “You know if you just suddenly jump at sheep, they’ll fall over and have a heart attack? When they’re scared, they’ll just huddle with the shepherd. As soon as they hear the sound of his voice, they’ll calm down.” The Taliban were trying to terrorize people into fearing that their shepherds couldn’t protect them. The COIN fight was a fight over the shepherds — the key leaders. But who were they?Jones said that he could figure this out if he just looked carefully enough, which seemed like a brave assumption, given the deep undercurrents of tribe and clan, not to mention the way decades of war and occupation have left Afghans suspicious of outsiders and prone to telling them whatever they want to hear. A goal of key-leader engagement was to identify local leaders and determine who should talk to them and how they could best be persuaded to stand up to the Taliban.
Colonel Jones sat behind a desk and ran the meeting along with his executive officer, Maj. Russ Black. The first order of business was the local representative of Afghanistan’s ministry of education. “What can we do to get rid of the guy?” Jones asked. The man rarely showed up, and he was said to be putting ghost teachers on the rolls in exchange for a piece of their salaries. The message he was sending was, Your government doesn’t care. Couldn’t the district governor, Hajji Abdul Jabbar, do something about it?
“The D.G. doesn’t have much traction with the ministry of education,” explained Christopher Harich, a lawyer and former West Virginia state government official who was hired by the State Department for a one-year hitch in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai controlled local government, appointing district and provincial governors. Abdul Jabbar had minimal staff and little authority over officials sent from Kabul. Meanwhile, no more than half of the 16 schools in the district were operating. Harich suggested that the district governor be asked to appeal to the provincial governor in Kandahar. What else could he do?
Talk turned to Abdul Jabbar, a 68-year-old ex-mujahedeen, moody and mercurial, imperious and often stubborn but an acknowledged leader who knew everyone in the district. If the people were to believe in government, they would have to believe in the district governor; so Jones and the district-support team members devoted a good deal of thought to how they could put Abdul Jabbar forward and ensure that he got public credit for local achievements, including those he had very little to do with. “The D.G. has to go to Morghan,” Jones said, referring to a village in the southern part of the district, “and he has to congratulate them for standing up to the Taliban. And we need to get the mayor of Kandahar out to reinforce that.” The elders of Morghan, in a remarkable show of courage, refused to let insurgents operate. By June, when fighting was expected to pick up, the people had to see that the local government stood behind them. Harich had to work on Abdul Jabbar to overcome his reluctance to visit the dicier parts of the district. And he needed to help him re-establish Morghan’s shura, or council, which had ceased to function as a result of Taliban violence.
The Arghandab valley funnels directly into Kandahar. For many years Mullah Naqib, chief of the dominant Alokozai tribe and a feared and respected mujahedeen, kept the district firmly under his thumb; he did not oppose the Taliban but warned them that if they brought their battles to Arghandab, “I’ll hang you from a tree,” as an Afghan Army officer told me. This is what passes locally for good governance. The roads were safe, and the crops could make their way to market.
Mullah Naqib died in 2007, and Karzai, acting against all local custom, imposed the old man’s son as successor rather than allowing the tribe to make its own choice. The Alokozai split, and the rejectionists made common cause with the insurgents. The Taliban had already begun making major inroads across the south and east of the country; Arghandab, along with Panjwayi and Zhari, the districts immediately to the west, was rapidly overrun by insurgents. The violence overwhelmed the Canadian troops assigned to Kandahar Province. By last summer, with the new strategy taking shape, military officials concluded that they would have to reassert control over the region. A Stryker brigade from the U.S. Army was deployed there.
The Strykers are credited with driving many of the insurgents out of the area, but they did so at a terrible cost — 21 soldiers were killed. Soldiers inside giant armored vehicles crashed and crawled through tiny villages, making themselves targets for huge improvised-explosive devices. Kevin Melton, an official with the U.S. Agency for International Development who works with Harich on the district-support team, came in with the Strykers and remembers saying to officers, “You guys are enemy-centric, and that’s not what this is about.” The brigade commander, Melton says, “didn’t get COIN.” In December, the battered Stryker detachment handed off to the 82nd Airborne’s 2/508th. Colonel Jones arrived the following month.
Though his father was an Army officer as well, Jones is not a chiseled Übermensch in the image of Generals Petraeus and McChrystal. He’s wiry and no doubt can chin himself on an index finger, but he has small features set in a boy’s soft face. He’s enthusiastic and excitable, and his body is rarely at rest. After years in Afghanistan and Iraq, Jones fell into the habit of performing a simultaneous translation of his words into broad gestures, a pantomime that often features a hand placed feelingly over his heart. The colonel seemed terribly eager, almost anxious, to bridge the immense gap between himself and his Afghan hosts.
The gap was not only a matter of language. Jones, whose troops kept the district from being overrun by the Taliban, was obviously the supreme power in Arghandab. But that power had to be used in the service of the feeble local authority. Jones was elaborately deferential and consultative. He conducted himself toward Abdul Jabbar with an odd combination of delicacy and teasing. He would tenderly take the old man’s hand as they walked down steps and would solicit his advice on matters great and small. Bismullah Jan, the interim district police chief, told me that while the Stryker brigade had ignored his admonition to get out of their vehicles and walk, Jones had listened: “Every time when he does anything, he shares it with us. If there is a new plan, he will ask will it be successful or not.”
Jones has served all over Afghanistan — Kandahar, Helmand and Ghazni in the south and southeast, Nangarhar in the northeast. The lessons dawned slowly for him, as for other field-level officers in what had long seemed like a winning, or at least nonlosing, effort. “By 2007,” Jones said in the Texas twang that he and practically everyone else on the base seemed to have, “we realized that building a military” — an Afghan military — “ain’t going to help them build a government.” The Bush administration, ideologically opposed to nation-building, invaded Afghanistan with virtually no thought of the country’s future and left the civilian side to the United Nations. Beyond Kabul, Afghans depended on the good will of local power brokers — often the ones, like Gul Agha Shirzai, who became rich and powerful by making themselves useful to the American military.
As it happens, Shirzai is the archvillain of Sarah Chayes’s “Punishment of Virtue,” a heartbreaking account of the American mistakes in judgment in the early years of the war — mistakes that set the stage for the return of the Taliban. Chayes, a journalist and activist, depicts Shirzai as a deeply corrupt and brutal figure in league with drug traffickers and possibly insurgents; but because he supplied intelligence, private security, reliable transport and much else to commanders in the field like Col. Guy Jones, he became a favorite of the Americans and the all-powerful governor of Kandahar. Jones has an antic, clownish side, and in one of his impromptu sketch routines he mimicked the time he hid among Shirzai’s retainers when the warlord was peeling off bank notes. But the joke didn’t sound so funny in retrospect. I asked Jones one morning how he could square his fondness for Shirzai with his new task of establishing good government. “I guess I hadn’t thought about it that much,” Jones said, transparent to a fault. “The people probably did view him as the thug. But what else could we have done?”
The war he is now fighting is designed, in part, to address the unforeseen consequences of the war he fought before.
In January 2007, Colonel Jones returned to Afghanistan as divisional planner for the eastern regional command, at Bagram Air Base. He recognized that the new job was to build Afghan institutions. This turned out to be much harder than it sounded. “When you try to build a nation,” Jones says, “there’s not a book that tells you how to build. As you try to build a government from the bottom up, that doesn’t work, because there’s not a rung to grab onto to link it higher. You got to build it from both sides.” Jones and the very few civilian officials in the region had tried to bolster provincial and district government — which barely existed — and to provide projects to give young men something to do besides join the growing insurgency. With Taliban pouring across the border from Pakistan, they didn’t make a great deal of headway.
Now Jones had come back to Afghanistan at a time when the insurgency was much more pervasive, but the American government committed itself to the strategy he had come to believe in. Jones’s goal was to help build the bottom rungs of the ladder. He wanted to establish a “development shura” in every village and make sure every new project went through the district’s own shura. He was going to use the force at his disposal to bolster the district governor. “I can go secure any place you want me to secure,” he once explained to me. “It’s not that hard. But why don’t I make something out of it — which is supporting what the governor wants, because he has a greater understanding of the environment than we do?” Abdul Jabbar appeared to be a shrewd judge of people and situations. He knew who was corrupt and who wasn’t. He told Kevin Melton which contractors would cheat the Americans and which ones wouldn’t; and he had been dead on.
But Abdul Jabbar was also an uneducated man whose idea of governance had a lot to do with yelling at people and whose working methods came straight from the warlord tradition: petitioners crowded around him with creased papers, importuning him to fix this or grant that. He stamped their papers and sent them on their way. His “staff” consisted of a clerk and Hajji Muhammad, who was young and well organized but thoroughly overwhelmed. (Two staff members have since been added.) I asked the governor one day if he wouldn’t like some professional help. No, he said, he just needed a new car and many more guards. “He’s got the leadership,” as Christopher Harich, the State Department contractor, put it diplomatically, “he just doesn’t have the management skills.” Harich also suggested that Abdul Jabbar “might have just a touch of dementia going on.” The American exercise in capacity-building could be no stronger than the available construction materials.
Taliban activity had been picking up as the weather grew warmer, and insurgents flowed back into the area from their sanctuary in Pakistan. Two days before I arrived, one soldier was killed and three more were wounded by a cluster of I.E.D.’s planted in the road near Charbagh, in the turbulent belt just a few miles northwest of Kandahar. A rocket was fired over the base. Soldiers to the west came under attack from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. Jones continued to instruct his men to fire only when fired upon. This wasn’t easy, especially in the aftermath of events like the road bombing in Charbagh. The soldiers were itching to shoot somebody. Still, even with the stepped-up activity, there was rarely anyone to shoot. The Taliban came out at night, when the patrols were gone, threatening villagers who participated in cash-for-work programs or sent their children to school. The men of the 2/508th fought a phantom war, facing I.E.D.’s rather than insurgents.
I went out on several patrols with a platoon from Delta Company. We walked through the sea-green depths of the pomegranate orchards, not yet in fruit, and when we came to a high mud wall separating one property from another, we vaulted over it to get to the lane beyond. Lt. Ross Weinshenker, the patrol commander, told me that he hadn’t been in a vehicle since he arrived in Arghandab and always walked through fields and villages rather than on roads. “You have to get to know the people,” he said as we crossed a wheat field with the first green shoots poking through. “It’s the only way you’re going to win this war.”
Our objective was the village Leghar. Earlier that morning, Harich and I had been approached by an old man and his better-dressed companion, who bore a document. “To dear commissioner of Arghandab District,” it read, “we kindly request like these: 800-meter damage of small brook of dirty water.” The water was causing disease. The companion introduced himself as Abdul Halim, a medical doctor who was delivering the petition on behalf of his friend, who lived in Leghar. Harich wanted to take a look for himself, and Lieutenant Weinshenker agreed to stop off there.
Once we reached Leghar, it was not hard to find the small brook of dirty water. A foul trench ran through the center of the village. Weinshenker asked for the malik, or village leader, and an elderly gentleman with a long beard suddenly appeared. Weinshenker removed his helmet and wraparound sunglasses, and he, Harich and Khan Muhammad, the malik, sat in a narrow band of shade beneath a wall. Harich said that he had heard about the problem with the ditch and wanted to help. But, he said to the interpreter, “they have to have the village provide security in the area.” Villages would get projects if they stood up to the Taliban. Khan Muhammad promised to protect whatever contractor they sent. This was not the right answer. Now Lieutenant Weinshenker took over:
“We’ve had two different attacks on our troops 150 meters from here. We can help you if you can make an effort to help secure the area.”
“I’m going to inquire who they are,” promised the malik. “Unfortunately I don’t know who these guys are.”
Weinshenker is not particularly patient by temperament and was rendered even less so by a recent situation involving his men. “We found an I.E.D. right across the road,” he said, showing the first signs of exasperation. “This was targeted at my dismounts. It would take at least 15 minutes to bury. Someone must have seen it.”
“Nobody saw anything.”
“How is that possible?”
Now the malik started to become exercised. He waved his arms and said: “Since 60 years it is like this. Nobody can stop it.” Harich turned to the lieutenant and said dryly, “We have a setback here.” It was not a particularly rewarding key-leader engagement.
Weinshenker shared Jones’s COIN instincts but not his optimism. By sitting down with village maliks, he was able to learn the name, age, tribe and occupation of every family head, along with their attitudes toward the government and the NATO forces. Several soldiers in his company doing intelligence work clamored for the data, but his company commander shrugged it off, so it hadn’t been shared and put to use. COIN was still counterintuitive for many soldiers. “Nobody makes the big picture for anybody,” Weinshenker lamented, as we sat hunched over the computer in his tent. “I feel like the whole time here we’re treading water.” The Taliban were maddeningly elusive — “like water.” But he could also see why the Taliban’s criticism of a corrupt and indifferent government made such headway. Maybe it made more sense to try to talk to them than to fight them.
Arghandab was something of a show district. General McChrystal had already been there twice. One morning, Lt. Gen. Andrew Leslie, commander of the Canadian Army, paid a visit. After listening to one of Jones’s passionate briefings, the general asked for the microphone and congratulated his host for “truly understanding and operationalizing counterinsurgency theory.” The auguries, in fact, were generally positive: Taliban attacks were down from the previous summer; farmers were expecting a bumper crop of pomegranates; a few closed schools had reopened. The district shura I attended consisted mostly of bearded gentlemen arguing over who was responsible for breakdowns in security and the district governor’s berating the whole lot of them; but, as Jones put it, “If they’re arguing like kids, and they’re doing it in a nonviolent way, then they’ve just experienced governance.” As recently as a year ago, the district was too dangerous for the shura to meet at all. Now people were beginning to see the shura as a place to get problems solved. Kevin Melton said: “The communities are starting to say, ‘This is not just my problem.’ We are slowly working our way to a social contract.”
And yet the Taliban continued to afflict the district like a low-grade virus. Many of the villagers who came to the District Center and sat patiently in the shade waiting to get their registration papers or to petition government officials refused to talk to me; they worried that even there the Taliban might be listening. Muhibullah, a young man with a neatly trimmed beard and a crisp pale green shalwar kameez, had come from Charbagh, where the I.E.D.’s were laid the week before. “During the day,” he said, “the government is there; they offer projects and say you can work. But then the Taliban leave a night letter at the mosque and say if you work on this project, you will pay the penalty.” The penalty, he said, was having a finger, an ear or your nose lopped off. The local school closed after the Taliban killed a teacher. As a shopkeeper, Muhibullah was fortunate that he could afford the car fare to send his kids to school in Kandahar. “The situation is getting worse,” he said. “People are leaving for Kandahar because of the security situation.” Soon, one brave elder of Morghan was killed by the Taliban, according to Jones. And in early June, after I left, a huge explosion killed at least 39 people, including several members of an anti-Taliban militia.
Why have the Taliban proved so resilient? COIN theory dictates that an insurgency will continue to wax as long as people believe that the government is illegitimate. Colonel Jones, the district-support team and the district governor may have begun knitting a social contract in Arghandab, but it wouldn’t matter if the stitching came undone at the next level. A Western expert on government reform whom I spoke to in Kabul used a different metaphor: unless the Karzai administration committed itself to effective governance and at least some measure of federalism, the work of district-level development would be like “growing a beautiful fruit on a diseased vine.” And the citizens of Arghandab had to look no further than the provincial capital to detect that disease. Gul Agha Shirzai is now the governor of Nangarhar Province, but his baleful influence in Kandahar has been replaced by that of Ahmed Wali Karzai, President Karzai’s half-brother, a far more powerful and fearsome figure than Shirzai ever was, though he serves only as head of the normally toothless provincial council. Officials in Kandahar and Kabul acknowledged that the people of Kandahar province despised A.W.K., as he is known, and viewed him as an emblem of all that was wrong with the Afghan government. But President Karzai refused to move against him. And because A.W.K., like Shirzai, had made himself useful to the C.I.A. and to Special Forces, he, too, enjoyed American protection. It was understood and accepted when there is a battle for Kandahar, American and NATO forces will have to deal with A.W.K.
A war in which the goal is governance turns out to be a lot harder to win than one with the goal of beating the enemy. Outsiders could bring money and projects; and senior Obama administration officials seem convinced that schools and clinics can be alchemically converted to the precious currency of legitimacy. But how could you win over the people of Kandahar Province if they viewed government as a charade propagated by Ahmed Wali Karzai? As Alexander Thier, a leading Afghan expert, puts it, “People are going to make judgments about the state predicated on the perception that the state is a just actor rather than that it’s a service provider.” After eight years of neglect, he said, “it’s too late for technical fixes.”
Colonel Jones is a sophisticated thinker, and he understands that legitimacy is not something you shake out of a bottle. Still, he is a congenital optimist, and he says that if you do the right thing, and you keep at it, things will come out right. In our last conversation, in the tent where he lives and mostly works, Jones told me that Afghanistan has been transformed since he first came in 2002. Kabul was bustling; the Afghan National Army was learning to stand on its own; the governance program had made huge strides. He added: “And the timelines will all get shorter as you build.” In five more years, he said, Afghanistan should have a proper state. But American troops begin leaving in mid-2011; it’s not clear that Afghanistan has five years.
James Traub is a contributing writer for the magazine. His most recent article was about the West African drug trade.
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Concern Grows Over U.S. Strategy In Afghanistan
by Jackie Northam NPR
June 16, 2010 When President Obama announced the new counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan in early December, critics and supporters described the plan as ambitious and optimistic.
But now questions are growing over whether the new strategy to turn things around there is working.
Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, is scheduled to return to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday to resume his testimony about operations in Afghanistan.
Before the hearing was interrupted Tuesday, when Petraeus became faint and later recovered, he came under sharp questioning. Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who has backed President Obama's troop increase, raised concerns that a "mounting crisis" may be developing for the U.S. in Afghanistan.
The U.S. strategy involves injecting 30,000 additional U.S. troops into Afghanistan to battle the Taliban and other insurgents, particularly in the south, and bringing in an army of civilians to build the country's infrastructure and civil society.
Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, headed up the administration's first review of Afghanistan. Riedel says the Obama administration knew what it was up against when it unveiled the new strategy.
"I think even they have been surprised by how poorly the post-initial military operations have gone," he says.
Now, Markey says, the U.S. generals are adjusting their plans, which is not uncommon in counterinsurgency. A major offensive against the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar was supposed to be under way by now. Instead, U.S. military officials say it's being pushed back while they build up local public and political support for the operation.
That includes bringing Afghan President Hamid Karzai to Kandahar to talk with the tribal elders. But Karzai has been erratic and sometimes counterproductive to U.S. efforts to implement its strategy, Markey says.
Markey says the administration doesn't have a firm policy on how to handle the Afghan president.
"I would say the administration has gone back and forth on its political strategy, beginning with a lot of sharp criticism of Karzai in the early days after the administration came into office and now shifting to a lighter touch," he says, adding that none of these approaches has "born quick and easy fruit" on the political front.
Some Positive Signs
Coll says there are some positive signs. He says Pakistani military and intelligence officials are still ambivalent about how to pursue their interests in Afghanistan and whether to break completely with the Taliban. At the same time, Coll says, they have taken on insurgents on their own soil, something they wouldn't have done a few years ago.
In another example, the Afghan National Army holds promise if they can get enough trainers in Afghanistan, Coll says.
But Riedel says that will require resources and the hundreds of trainers promised by NATO allies have not been provided. "We've had a very difficult time finding enough trainers who can go in there with the language capabilities, with the training capabilities to start building up the Afghan army and, even more difficulty, the Afghan police, fast enough," he says.
Coll says this is all part of the mixed picture coming out of Afghanistan in the six months since the strategy was unveiled.
"It's early. Everybody involved, including the skeptics about the new strategy, recognizes that it's going to be at least December before you can begin to judge the prospects in 2011 and 2012," he says.
In the meantime, Obama will be getting regular reviews from his commanders in the field.
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Roadside bomb kills 3 in southern Afghan province
GHAZNI, Afghanistan, June 16 (Xinhua) -- A roadside bomb struck a vehicle of a private security company in Afghanistan's southern Ghazni province on Wednesday, killing three, police said.
"The incident took place this morning. As a result, three employees of Roshan security company were killed," deputy to provincial police Nawroz Ali told Xinhua.
Roshan company is a local security company and all the victims are Afghans, he further said, without providing more details.
Ghazni has been the scene of increasing Taliban-linked insurgency since the beginning of this year.
Roadside bombings and gun battles have claimed the lives of 10 persons including three police and a Polish soldier over the past three days in Ghazni province.
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Afghanistan's 'game-changer'
By Gregg Carlstrom Al Jazeera
"The quality of the ore is excellent, and the richest varieties are to be found," a surveyor wrote in a report on Afghanistan’s untapped natural resources.
The surveyor was one Captain Drummond, a British officer in the 3rd Light Cavalry. The year? 1841.
169 years later, the New York Times reported that Afghanistan could have nearly $1 trillion in copper, iron and other minerals. The US defence department called those reserves a "game-changer" for the US-led war in Afghanistan.
Despite centuries of attention, though, Afghanistan’s natural resources have proved difficult to extract. It’s not for lack of trying: The British empire took an interest in them; so did the Soviet Union, which conducted numerous geological surveys in the 1970s.
More recently, the World Bank published a report in 2004 on the vast economic potential in Afghanistan’s mining sector. And the US Geological Survey reported in 2007 that Afghanistan has "significant amounts of undiscovered nonfuel mineral resources."
But companies looking to exploit Afghanistan’s natural resources would face major security and logistical challenges, plus a corrupt bureaucracy in Kabul. So there’s great reason to be skeptical that the Pentagon’s not-really-new discovery will have a significant impact on the Afghan economy or the stability of the Afghan government.
Security and transport
Iron and copper are Afghanistan’s best-known resources: US and Afghan officials estimate that the country’s reserves could be worth up to $700 billion. Newer surveys have also found large quantities of niobium, a rare metal used in specialised alloys; and lithium, a key component in many modern electronics.
Many of Afghanistan’s most resource-rich provinces are also its least secure. The vast majority of its lithium reserves are believed to be in Ghazni province, for example, an area in eastern Afghanistan plagued by increasing Taliban violence. (Earlier this week, five Afghan police were killed in an attack on their checkpoint in Ghazni; last week, three officers were killed by a roadside bomb.)
Kandahar and Zabul provinces, two areas where the insurgency has a strong presence, contain sizable iron reserves.
Then there is the question of shipping: how to move tons of minerals from landlocked Afghanistan to major ocean ports. It’s the opposite of the problem faced by Nato commanders, who have struggled for years to find secure supply routes into Afghanistan. Pakistan is one option, but those border crossings are dangerous, and the shipping industry in Pakistan has historically been controlled by a corrupt group of businessmen - the so-called "transportation mafia."
Iran offers another route, but its southeastern provinces are plagued by a simmering insurgency, and the Iranian border is far from many of Afghanistan’s known mineral deposits.
A third option is the northern route, through the Central Asian republics and Russia, but that is a long, expensive journey - two-and-a-half times more expensive than shipping through Pakistan, according to Nato.
Corruption
Any major mining efforts would be coordinated through Afghanistan’s ministry of mines, which some US officials have described as incompetent: There are no major mines operating in Afghanistan today. It also has a reputation as one of the country’s most corrupt institutions.
Wahidullah Shahrani, the current minister of mines, took office just five months ago. His predecessor, Mohammad Ibrahim Adel, was accused last year of accepting a $30 million bribe from a Chinese mining firm in exchange for a contract to develop the lucrative Aynak copper field.
Before that, in 2006, Adel was accused of accepting a bribe from Mahmoud Karzai, a brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai, in exchange for control of a cement factory.
The Wall Street Journal reported in January that the mining ministry postponed awarding a major iron ore deposit in central Afghanistan. The report suggested that the bidding process had been marred by corruption.
The Pentagon’s announcement is likely to set off a scramble for Afghanistan’s minerals, particularly among its neighbors. China and India both have extensive economic ties with Afghanistan, and a huge need for raw minerals. But with no history of large-scale mining operations, poor security, and corrupt oversight, there are huge obstacles to the Afghan people seeing any benefit from their natural resources.
Indeed, political scientists have long warned of the "resource curse": countries with extensive natural resources often develop far more slowly than those without.
"The particularly corrosive effect that the theft of these resources can have is to make politicians who were powerful and possibly corrupt even less accountable to the people," said Mike Davis, a London-based analyst with the activist group Global Witness. "It increases their capacity to do everything from rig elections to building up militias."
"It's really like pouring petrol on a fire that's already out of control," he said.
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Afghanistan's woeful water management delights neighbors
The Christian Science Monitor By Tom A. Peter 15/06/2010
Any effort by Afghanistan to improve water management could ruffle neighbors, who benefit from the country's losing two-thirds of its water due to lack of infrastructure.
Herat - For three springs now Zobair Ahrar has watched helplessly as annual flooding washed away 1,500 square meters of his land – about five percent of his property. A former dam designer turned farmer, Mr. Ahrar estimates it would cost $1 million to build a dam that could control the floods eroding the land in his and a hundred other villages.
Mr. Ahrar approached the provincial Ministry of Irrigation for help. Officials told him they were investing in other places and he needed to fix the problem himself. Unable to afford the dam, he and his neighbors will either get outside help or eventually have to move.
Thirty years of war have left Afghanistan’s irrigation canals clogged and pitted, and farmers are beginning to feel the weight of decades of neglect. Aside from erosion, farmers lack the resources to build the canals capable of irrigating large swathes of land – and this in a country where agriculture employs more than three quarters of workers.
In order to develop, Afghanistan must revamp its water infrastructure, but doing so could spark tension with neighbors who’ve come to rely on excess water flowing from Afghanistan.
“Agriculture is really the economic driver at this stage,” says Allan Kelly, deputy country director of the Asian Development Bank, which has committed $400 million in grant money to irrigation in Afghanistan. “Improving irrigation is critical to agricultural sector growth [otherwise] we’ll have the continuation of widespread poverty and declining irrigation.”
Most water flows abroad Afghanistan doesn’t face a water shortage – it’s unable to get water to where it’s needed. The nation loses about two thirds of its water to Iran, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and other neighbors because doesn't harness its rivers. The government estimates that more than $2 billion is needed to rehabilitate the country’s most important irrigation systems.
“The farmers are poor people. They cannot buy some machines to dig the canals,” says Khalil Entezari, head of irrigation in Herat for the Department of Agriculture. “If we don’t solve this problem it will continue to get bigger and bigger and farmers will continue to leave their land.”
One of the biggest attempts to address the problem is under way in Herat Province along the border with Iran, where India is funding the construction of a $180 million dam. The project, called the Salma Dam, will regulate river flow during flood season and reduce the amount of water that flows from the Hari Rud River to Iran and Turkmenistan from 300 million cubic meters per year to 87 million cubic meters.
“We have never been able to save our water, to control it, and have a good management system that directs it towards the lands that need it,” says Faisal Ahmed Zakeri, explaining the dam’s significance. Mr. Zakeri is the director of the water management department at the Ministry of Energy and Water in Herat.
When it’s completed in Sept. 2011, the dam, and a subsequent canal project, are expected to more than double the amount of land farmers are able to cultivate to 80,000 hectares. Zakeri also estimates that it will boost farming jobs by 20 percent and raise local wages from $3 per day to $7 per day.
Though the Salma Dam will benefit many people in Herat, its reach only goes so far. Many farmers like Ahrar, whose land is fed by a different water system, will still need assistance.
Thirsty neighbors As Afghanistan improves its own water supply, however, it will also have to manage the diplomatic fallout over the amounts that will no longer flow to Iran and other neighbors. While the country’s river and canal systems have remained untouched over the last 30 years, its neighbors have built dams and other considerable infrastructure that depend on water flowing into their borders from Afghanistan.
“All the projects that Afghanistan will do, will have a serious impact on the downstream states,” says Matthew King, an associate at the East-West Institute based in Brussels who recently coauthored an article about water management in Afghanistan.
If Afghanistan builds dams and undertakes other water projects that reduce the flow of water to its neighbors’ without first obtaining an agreement, in some extreme cases, Mr. King says it could provoke armed conflict.
Brokering such treaties may prove difficult for Afghanistan at the moment: In the midst of a conflict and rebuilding, it is uncertain how much water it needs or even how much it has. The government could lose out if it negotiates such treaties now, says King.
Abdul Rahman, head of the Herat Professional Engineering Shura, believes difficult international negotiations over water are worth the effort. Much of the fighting in the country is fueled by jobless rural people, he says, and other violence stems from people battling over access to water.
“War lasts for a short time. Eventually it will end,” he says. “But if we are unable to manage the water system it can affect this region for a long time to come."
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The power of education is the real gold in Afghanistan
Washington Post By Kathleen Parker Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Amid all the dark news from Afghanistan, every now and then a sliver of light slips through the cracks.
Afghanistan, it turns out, is rich in minerals. Trillions rich. It's going to become the Saudi Arabia of lithium, they say. Thanks to vast stores of that resource, plus iron, copper, cobalt and gold, this impoverished, war-torn nation could become a wealthy nation.
No more wars, no Taliban, no heroin, no Osama bin Laden.
Too good to be true, right?
The deposits are real enough, but the question remains: Can a country without mining infrastructure and populated by people who've never known prosperity or possessed the collective memory of self-direction (70 percent of Afghans are under age 30) put its resources to constructive use?
Although the potential is "stunning," according to Gen. David Petraeus, the sidebars and footnotes to this heartening story are full of caveats and "yes, buts."
There's also potential for corruption, for fights between the central government and the provinces, for conflict along the border with Pakistan, where some of the richest deposits are located, and for a resurgent and enriched Taliban.
Moreover, turning deposits into a functioning mining industry will take decades. But speculation naturally leads to the hope that Afghanistan could begin to fund its own reinvention and liberate other nations, notably ours, from that burden.
The key, it seems, lies in educating the rising generation of Afghans -- in the liberal arts as well as in the technologies needed to advance this new economic potential. There is hope there, too, not least because of the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF), the nation's only private, nonprofit university.
The school was launched with the help of a substantial grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development and built on 48 acres in Kabul. Instruction commenced in 2006, and the first class graduated last month. The school has 500 students, 20 percent of them women, and it hopes to expand to 800 students next year and to 2,000 in five years.
Most Afghans can't afford the tuition -- 70 percent receive financial aid -- and are being educated in large part through American donations. Some of those donors attended a dinner in Washington recently to hear from students and to honor former first lady Laura Bush for her support of the university. A new fundraising project is underway for the Laura W. Bush Women's Resource Center, which will be the cornerstone of a new library and student services building with classrooms, conference space and an auditorium.
And you thought all she did was sit and smile.
The dinner, held at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, was attended by many of those who have worked in the private sector to help bring opportunity to Afghans, especially women. In attendance, to name but a few, were C. Michael Smith, university president; Leslie M. Schweitzer, chair of the Friends of the AUAF; Said T. Jawad, Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States; and Caroline Hudson Firestone, who has dedicated herself to helping Afghan women and is the author of "Afghanistan in Transition."
It was one of those events familiar to Washingtonians where philanthropists and government officials convene to sip wine and, if the spirit moves the crowd, to write checks. If inspiration is the lubricant that compels luckier Americans to share prosperity, then this particular evening was rich.
The highlight was the testimony of five students who trekked from Afghanistan to report on the results of American generosity. More than once, they urged the audience: "Don't feel sorry for us, be there for us."
Each spoke variously of escaping the Taliban, losing family members, living as refugees in Pakistan. All spoke of feeling safe on the campus, of free speech, of open dialogue with professors and mutual respect -- all miracles we take for granted.
But one young woman stood out. Masooma Habibi, a graduate of Goldman Sachs's 10,000 Women program at the AUAF, founded an Internet-related consulting business in Kabul and employs nearly two dozen people. Her head covered, she spoke softly in somewhat halting English. The AUAF is "like a dream," she said. When Americans educate an Afghan, "you are playing with life, so thank you."
We knew just what she meant.
It seems at times too much to hope that Afghanistan might ever become a stable country, where men and women could lead prosperous, peaceful lives. The key to that kind of future clearly lies in education.
There's more to mine in Afghanistan than minerals. And there's gold in these students.
kathleenparker@washpost.com
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Petraeus becomes ill during hearing on Afghan forces and withdrawal date
By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Lawmakers pressed Gen. David H. Petraeus on Tuesday to explain why Afghanistan's security forces were not assuming more of the burden for the war there and to assess whether President Obama's July 2011 deadline to begin U.S. troop withdrawals was feasible.
At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, paused uncomfortably before answering a question from Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) about his "best personal judgment" on the deadline. "In a perfect world," he responded, "we have to be very careful with timelines." He then offered a "qualified yes" that the 2011 date could be met, assuming conditions were right.
But just as Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the ranking Republican on the panel, was criticizing the "arbitrary" withdrawal date, the hearing was abruptly suspended when Petraeus slumped in his chair and passed out at the witness table.
"Oh, my God," someone shouted. Petraeus appeared to be unconscious for several seconds as aides bent over him and Levin banged the gavel. He eventually rose and slowly walked to a side door leading to an anteroom, where he was seen by a Senate physician, drank fluids and ate a banana.
Petraeus returned to the chamber after half an hour, joked that he had not been trying to avoid McCain's questions, and said he had been dehydrated. Levin said that he was overruling the general's desire to continue the hearing and that they would resume on Wednesday, when Petraeus is also scheduled to appear, with Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy, before the House Armed Services Committee.
Both Obama and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates telephoned Petraeus soon after the episode, and White House spokesman Bill Burton said Obama reported that he was "doing great." After a more extensive checkup by Senate doctors, Petraeus returned to work, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.
Petraeus, treated last year for prostate cancer, is often described as a driven workaholic and is a physical fitness buff. Many officials shun liquids before lengthy testimony to avoid having to excuse themselves during hearings.
Defense officials insisted that Petraeus's pause before confirming his support for Obama's withdrawal strategy had more to do with his physical condition than any disagreement with the White House.
Obama set the July 2011 date last fall, even as he decided to vastly increase the U.S. troop commitment, as a way of pressing Afghan President Hamid Karzai to improve governance and Afghanistan's own security forces. Gates succeeded at the time in persuading the president to base the size and pace of withdrawal on circumstances on the ground. But it has remained a subject of controversy and concern among senior military officers in the Pentagon and Afghanistan, who say it would embolden the Taliban leadership to hunker down and wait out the U.S. assault, while sowing doubts about the U.S. commitment in the minds of Afghan leaders.
Petraeus resisted a similar withdrawal timeline in 2007 when he commanded U.S. forces in Iraq. He finally agreed, he said Tuesday, "based on a projection of conditions that would be established." In Afghanistan, he said, "we are assuming that we will have those kinds of conditions that will enable [a drawdown] by July 2011. That's the projection. And that is what again we have supported."
Senators also questioned progress in expanding the size and capabilities of Afghan security forces, whose eventual takeover from U.S. troops is the basis of what Gates has called America's "exit strategy." When Levin asked how many Afghan troops were deployed in the Helmand River valley and in Kandahar, where U.S. forces are concentrated in slow-moving offensives against the Taliban, Petraeus said he would have to supply the answer later.
The military's system for rating Afghan military units according to their ability to operate independently of U.S. forces is under investigation by the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, who is expected to issue a report next month. Military experts have suggested that the system, which counts equipment and training rather than capabilities in the field, is deeply flawed and gives a false reading of Afghan competence.
Adding to the administration's difficulties in Afghanistan, the House on Tuesday again put off consideration of the White House's requested supplemental war funding for this year as members disagreed over whether to add unrelated budget requests to the bill.
Staff writer Greg Jaffe contributed to this report.
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Winning The Peace In Kandahar
The Public Record By Wahid Monawar Jun 15th, 2010
Earlier last month, the Obama administration and Karzai ironed out some bends, but unfortunately, the United States has chosen to take the easy way out of the Afghan dilemma, by showing to the world that Karzai and his Warlords are able to march Afghanistan on the right path toward a democratic and pluralistic society. This type of grandiloquence and discounting Karzai’s unpopularity back home- in single digits even with his Popalzai sub-tribe- is not only cosmetic, but demonstrates insufficient respect to Afghans. In the end, that will not safeguard America’s national security interests nor the objective of helping to secure a peaceful and stable Afghanistan.
The Obama administration has prioritized the defeat of terrorism in Afghanistan to one of America’s top national security aims, with a large troop commitment and now much praise for Karzai. However, less than a month prior, Karzai’s inept leadership, tolerance for corruption, electoral mischief were addressed as key issues affecting the U.S.’s ability to win against the Taliban and begin to withdraw. This 180 degree was catalyzed by a strong outburst by Karzai against the U.S. and its role in the elections. Basically, Karzai was able to turn these criticisms, supported by on the ground realities, into a diversion away from the problems that have resulted from his leadership, or lack thereof. What was raised as matters that needed his attention was now America’s fault that needed further “resources and partnership” to resolve.
This administration will find itself addressing the problems with this “public praise” policy when it becomes apparent that the Afghan people want to know that the U.S. is on the side of what is just and right. If the U.S. is pouring millions of dollars of funds, risking its young soldiers’ lives, and providing support for training of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police, then the U.S. has a responsibility to ensure that its resources are used wisely. Remaining quiet in the wake of government mismanagement will lead the U.S. to be blamed as part of the problem, not part of the solution. That must be avoided for fear of dragging the U.S. through what could become a quagmire. It is no longer an issue of “good” versus “evil” as the complexity of the situation has proven that we cannot assume that those with government titles today are the ones who we must blindly support. Afghan history has proven that when public opinion turns against a government in power, it does not last long.
In that process, a legitimate concern is raised: Are Karzai and his Warlords the trustees of Afghanistan’s future?
As the United States and its allies are preparing for a major offensive in the southern province of Kandahar, partnering with the right ally is a key ingredient for success. General Stanley McChrystal, who needs to find a “legitimate local partner”, needs to find that in the Afghan people and those who are seen as the legitimate community leaders. Simply putting Karzai on a pedestal and praising a well known drug-lord, his brother Ahmad Wali Karzai, as an able partner to wipe out the Taliban is a severe error.
In a recent interview, Ahmed Wali Karzai said: “I am hoping for a new beginning and I am hoping we can start working together.” Pablo Escobar may have had the same wish– a new beginning! Ahmed Wali Karzai’s inadvertent admission of a shady past track record begs a serious review.
Today, if you want to do business in Kandahar or if you would want to run for an office in Kandahar, you have a slim chance of achieving these goals without Ahmed Wali Karzai’s approval or his 25% cut. The similarities between Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel and the AWK Cartel are astounding. Like Ahmed Wali Karzai, Escobar too, was an elected official to the Chamber of Representatives of Colombia’s Congress, and like Ahmed Wali Karzai, Escobar too bribed countless government officials, judges and other politicians.
Like Ahmed Wali Karzai, Escobar silenced many of his political opponents. Escobar’s deeds resulted in the deaths of hundreds of individuals, including civilians, policemen and state officials. Corruption and intimidation characterized Escobar’s dealings with the Colombian system. The only drawback to Escobar’s cartel, unlike Ahmed Wali Karzai, is that he did not have a brother as President to protect him.
Unfortunately, the U.S. and NATO military commanders appear to support the strategy of reaching out to someone with a controversial past, who may prove to create more resentment with ordinary Afghans than someone who is a “necessary” partner in accomplishing the United States’ goals in Afghanistan.
The United States should consider not arriving at the same dangerous quandary in Afghanistan, as it did in Vietnam: “We are 10 percent concerned about Afghans; we are 20 percent concerned about the region; and we are 70 percent concerned about saving face.”
U.S. support for Ahmed Wali Karzai will not offer an alternate solution to Afghans, especially those who are affected with the upcoming operation. Rather, it will endanger many Afghan, American and coalition member’s lives. Asking for Ahmed Wali Karzai’s help is more like asking an arsonist to act as a fire marshal.
While the Obama Administration still evaluates who are acceptable partners among the sundry cast of warlords, insurgents, and criminals in the country, decision-makers in Washington, D.C. should not put their doubts about Ahmed Wali Karzai aside. The solution for peace does not reside in one person. Rather, it entails supporting rule of law and civil society development. There are many good people in Kandahar to support. Why would the U.S. military want to taint its efforts by providing funding, resources and political support to those who are acting against the rule of law and democracy? It may be the easy way to find partners, who will kill others without question, but those types of operations will certainly lead to resentment and backlash among a population that is caught between three forces– the Taliban, U.S./NATO, and Ahmed Wali Karzai’s “Kandahar Strike Force.”
General Stanley McChrystal should work in partnership with a community of various sub-tribes, clan of tribes, and division of clans, with the foresight to act judiciously and to avoid acting alone with a certain shady characters such as Ahmed Wali Karzai. Mobilizing this sort of collective action will provide impetus for solidarity with ordinary Afghans, will positively endure the offensive, will appeal to a broader number and is more likely to provide for outcomes that will be helpful to promoting peace and stability. Success in Afghanistan requires a broad, continuous and integrated campaign that prudently uses not just military power, but smart power that is rooted in a foundation of rule of law and democracy itself. Working with characters like Ahmed Wali Karzai and his Kandahar Strike Force will surely lead to a disastrous result for the U.S. as it attempts to win the peace in southern Afghanistan.
Wahid Monawar is former Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan, Governor of Afghanistan to the IAEA, and the founder of the Neo-Conservative Party of Afghanistan. He is currently an associate of Zurich Partners.
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Anger Wells up at Poor Water in Northern Afghan City
Residents say failure to deliver on promise of new wells means water-borne diseases continue to plague Charikar.
By Mohammad Saber Saffar - Afghanistan Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) ARR Issue 364, 15 Jun 10
Homayun, 26, sits in the shade of a wall in the main hospital for Parwan province in northeast Afghanistan, looking anxiously towards the children's ward.
"I lost one of my children to diarrhea last year," he said in anguish. "Now, my other child is also suffering the same disease. What if that one dies, too, God forbid?"
Homayun, a labourer from the city of Charikar, the administrative centre of Parwan province, located , some 60km north of Kabul, said he spent three days' wages on medicines for the child.
The cause of the illness was perfectly clear, he said.
"There's a stream in front of our house. People wash the dishes there. They even throw their rubbish in, and then we use the water for drinking, because we don't have clean tap water or a well," he explained. "The people are faced with severe problems because of this. The government does not care about the people."
Residents say that the problem of polluted drinking water in Charikar was supposed to have been addressed by a project to provide fresh water.
Last year, the regional governor's office, in cooperation with the American-run Provincial Reconstruction Team, PRT, agreed to drill four 350-metre-deep wells in four sections of the city.
The water is to be held in reservoirs and then pumped to homes via the mains system.
Officials said the 1.25 million US dollar water project would create a proper supply of drinking water by now, but so far less than a quarter of work has been done.
Some residents are still taking water from unhygienic sources, while others have to travel hours on foot to get to a spring or well and then carry the water home again.
Sweating profusely, 33-year-old Shaima and her two children were pushing a 25-litre bucket of water on a cart to their home in Charikar's Sixth District.
She told IWPR she had to walk two kilometres to the Golghondi spring in the western part of the city, where she had to wait in line for a further hour to get her bucket filled.
"Some children have left school in order to fetch water for their families, using buckets and carts, winter and summer, and walking dozens of kilometres to get to the springs at Golghondi and Hofian."
Locals say illnesses caused by polluted water are reaching crisis point in Parwan. Figures from the region's environmental health department indicate that 300 out of the 400 patients registered daily at the provincial hospital are suffering from diseases linked to contaminated water, and most are under 18 years of age.
The diseases range from diarrhea and amoebic dysentery to skin diseases and other allergies.
Dr Nasrollah Timori, who heads the environmental health department, said Parwan's 80-bed hospital could not cope with the number of cases.
He noted that 90 per cent of patients referred to private clinics in Parwan had also been affected by unhealthy water.
Timori said his department had repeatedly lobbied for action to be taken to provide potable water, but with little effect.
Health officials in the region say polluted water spreads disease not only when it is drunk, but also from being used to wash dishes, rinse fruit and vegetables, and even when people wash their hands in it. The number of cases goes up as the weather gets warmer.
Some blame a lack of coordination between donors and the contractors for the failure to deliver the water project on time.
Khwaja Rohollah Sediqi, deputy chair of Parwan's provincial assembly, accuses the donors, particularly the PRT and the provincial council, of failing to coordinate and monitor the work.
"The main problem is due to the donors, because they haven't been paying the contractor on time, so the latter slow down the work," he said.
The building contractor, the Nawid Nuri Bagramwal firm, says it did experience some delays in payments, but did not hold up work on the project.
"It's true we've had some problems receiving our money," said a company official. "But we are from this area, so we appreciate people's problems and thus we haven't stopped working for even one day."
He added that the fourth and final well would be completed in a month's time and handed over to the water supply department for use.
Kyle Higgins, commander of the PRT in Baghram, said his office was fully informed of progress with the well project.
"So far as I know, most projects were delayed due to climate problems, particularly winter, but the financial problem, which existed to some extent, has been solved now," he said.
Mohammad Qasim, director of the water supply network for Parwan, insisted that there were no technical hitches with drilling the wells. Three had been completed and water was already pumped from there to the reservoir.
However, he said, his water supply agency would not take over control of the wells until the fourth one was finished. At the moment, the working wells were supplying 2,600 homes, but this would increase to 156,500 once all the wells were connected into the mains network.
Although Afghanistan has extensive water resources, officials say only 20 per cent of the population has access to potable water.
Charikar has by four water sources – the Panjshir, Salang, Ghorband and Shatal rivers – but 70 per cent of their waters flow over the border to Pakistan, while the rest is used for irrigation by Afghan farmers.
Two canals flow through the centre of the Charikar, but they are badly polluted as people use the water to wash cars and carpets, and vegetable traders dump their spoiled produce there.
Some residents have to buy water to drink.
Abdol Basir, 25, a student at the Parwan institute of higher education, said his studies would suffer if he had to spend hours each day fetching water.
"We buy water from a tanker truck for three to five dollars every week," he said. "That water isn't 100 per cent healthy, and most people can't afford it."
Mohammad Khaled, 40, earns his living by selling water from a tanker truck, but says he does not make much of a profit. It is worst in summer, when people are more likely to take their own carts to fetch water.
Parwan residents say they are tired of hearing promises from officials.
As evening fell, Gol Aqa, 60, the village representative for the Parcha area, was still waiting for his grandson, who had gone to the Golghondi spring to fetch water.
"Although my beard is now white, I've never seen such inefficient government and officials," he said, shaking with anger.
"We've heard many times that the water problem will be solved today or tomorrow," he said. "The government congratulated itself five years ago, saying the potable water problem in Charikar had been solved. But five years have passed, and the problem is still there."
Mohammad Saber Saffar is an IWPR trainee reporter in Parwan.
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Hindu Kush-Himalayan countries to share biodiversity data
KATHMANDU, June 15 (Xinhua) -- Some 25 representatives from eight countries of the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region agreed to use a global platform to share biodiversity data, according to Kathmandu-based International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).
The representatives from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan brought together to discuss " Open access to and publishing of mountain biodiversity data from the HKH region" during June 14 to 18 agreed the decision.
In a workshop jointly organized by ICIMOD in collaboration with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment also concluded over using global platform to publish, harvest and use biodiversity data from the region, said the release issued by ICIMOD on Tuesday.
Following the principles of free and open access to biodiversity data, and mutual benefits for scientific research, conservation, and sustainable development, the countries have initiated a partnership process to adopt globally standardized and harmonized biodiversity information.
The workshop will further introduce international data and metadata standards, geo-referencing of biodiversity data, and use of data in policy making.
Krishna Prasad Acharya, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation of Nepal appreciated the approaches and emphasized the importance of free access data for effective conservation and the importance of supporting such initiatives, ICIMOD quoted him as saying.
ICIMOD, is a regional knowledge development and learning center serving the eight regional member countries of the HKH region.
It advocates the impact of globalization and climate change on the stability of fragile mountain.
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