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Taliban abducted young people, officials believeBy the CNN Wire Staff
September 2, 2011
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Authorities in Pakistan's tribal region believe the Taliban have abducted around 30 young people on an outing there.
NATO races to secure violent, porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border
By Amie Ferris-Rotman
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Alim Mohammad surveys the stretch of land he has guarded for the last four years, squinting under the sunlight from a cliff overlooking what the United States calls the most dangerous place in the world.
Russian president calls for regional solutions in Afghanistan and neighboring nations
By Associated Press, via The Washington Post Friday, September 2, 4:51 PM
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Friday that the fate of Afghanistan and surrounding nations should be decided by regional powers, an apparent call for reduced U.S. engagement.
Regional Leaders In Dushanbe Discuss Drugs, Security, Trade
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 2, 2011
At a regional summit today, the presidents of Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan discussed how to prevent illegal drugs moving through the region, and the security measures needed to do so.
Russia willing to boost co-op with Afghanistan: Medvedev
DUSHANBE, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) -- Russia is ready to further promote cooperation with Afghanistan, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said here Friday.
Presidents meet on foreign military presence in Afghanistan
DUSHANBE, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) -- The presidents of Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan agreed here Friday that steps to downsize the foreign military presence in Afghanistan should be accompanied by the international coalition's joint efforts.
U.S. aid talks strain partnership with Afghanistan
At odds over agreement for American assistance after combat mission ends
Associated Press By Deb Riechmann and Anne Gearan Thursday, September 1, 2011
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - A pact aimed at clearing up mistrust and confusion between Washington and Kabul about the future of U.S. troops and aid in Afghanistan has instead sowed more of the same.
Russia eyes on Central Asia's mass energy projects
DUSHANBE, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) -- Russia on Friday showed big interest in joining a project to build a gas pipeline linking Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
In Afghanistan, Reviewing A Decade Of Promises
by Quil Lawrence NPR September 2, 2011
People living in Afghanistan 10 years ago had little electricity, few radios and almost no televisions to alert them of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington. The news didn't really reach across the country until the American bombing campaign and invasion began a month later. The fall of the Taliban regime at the end of 2001 and the flood of international aid raised hope in Afghanistan.
Can Petraeus handle the CIA’s skepticism on Afghanistan?
Washington Post By David Ignatius September 1, 2011
When David Petraeus takes over as CIA director next week, he will confront a tricky problem: CIA analysts who will be working for him concluded in a recent assessment that the war in Afghanistan is heading toward a “stalemate” — a view with which Petraeus disagrees.
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Taliban abducted young people, officials believeBy the CNN Wire Staff
September 2, 2011
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Authorities in Pakistan's tribal region believe the Taliban have abducted around 30 young people on an outing there.
Islam Zeb, a senior administrator in Bajaur Agency, told CNN on Friday the people were between the ages of 10 and 20 and elders were meeting to discuss the recovery of the children.
Zeb said the youth were walking to a picnic spot along a river to mark the end of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan.
Members of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan contacted relatives and said they were holding the youth, Zeb said.
Bajaur Agency, which lies along the porous border with Afghanistan, is one of seven districts in Pakistan's tribal region.
This abduction comes days after a cross-border attack by militants from Afghanistan, which killed 25 Pakistani security personnel in Chitral, a mountainous region in northern Pakistan.
Journalist Shaan Khan contributed to this report
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NATO races to secure violent, porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border
By Amie Ferris-Rotman
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Alim Mohammad surveys the stretch of land he has guarded for the last four years, squinting under the sunlight from a cliff overlooking what the United States calls the most dangerous place in the world.
The Afghanistan-Pakistan border is porous, long and teems with illegal activity, from the Taliban insurgents who hop back and forth to the enormous amounts of weapons, explosives and narcotics that are smuggled across it.
"We have a really hard time," said Mohammad, 23, flashing a set of rotten teeth and hoisting his assault rifle over his shoulder.
Dressed in camouflage, he is one of 20,000 guards protecting the 2,640 km (1,610 mile) border along Afghanistan's east.
NATO has been beefing up security on the poorly marked frontier with new equipment and extended training, but border guards and Afghan officials worry it may not be enough in the face of escalating violence in a decade-long war.
Mohammad said he was recently ambushed three nights in a row by insurgents as they crossed the border at Spin Boldak in southern Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban.
"Other times, we see whole truckloads of suicide vests and explosives trying to pass through," he told Reuters, pointing through a sandy haze across the sun-torched landscape at the Pakistani border 3 km (2 miles) away.
Spin Boldak is the second busiest crossing after Torkham, which is further up north in the Khyber Pass in Nangarhar province, near Kabul.
Appearing innocuous and sleepy, U.S. officials warn the terracotta villages along the border harbour insurgents that launch cross-border raids, something the guards know.
"Al Qaeda and the Taliban flow over it all the time, but it's our job to protect it," said Zabihullah, 32, who only gave his first name. He is among the 130 recruits who on Saturday became the first to graduate an extended eight-week NATO border patrol training course.
Afghanistan and Pakistan regularly trade accusations over that. Pakistan's military on Saturday blamed the "scanty presence" of NATO and Afghan forces for regular assaults like one that killed at least 36 people.
"There has been an increase in the number of foreign terrorists and we are putting a lot of pressure on them," Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak told Reuters last week in a jibe clearly aimed at Pakistan.
NO COMPUTERS, NO RADIOS
Zabihullah's course was the first in Afghanistan to benefit from being extended by two weeks -- a decision NATO made in May amid criticism from trainers that the six-week basic course for army and police was too short and not professional enough.
But a lack of equipment and facilities plague the border patrol force, said Afghan General Mujtaba Patang, in charge of all police training.
"We simply cannot sustain a good level of security without proper equipment. Many of our border police live in remote areas, with no computers or radios. They can't communicate with each other," Patang told Reuters.
His concerns were echoed by guards, who said corruption among the force's upper echelon worsened already bad conditions.
"Some of the guys wear sandals at the border because their boots have been taken by officers who sell them," said Mohammad.
Customs officials have said the Afghan government collects around a fifth of the revenue it should in Kandahar province a year due to corruption.
Major General Walter Golden, deputy commander for police in the NATO training mission, acknowledged "pockets of corruption" exist, but said 85 percent of the force will be equipped by March.
Between now and then, $2.7 billion worth of weapons, vehicles, aircraft and communications gear will be given to the Afghan security forces, Golden said, a significant increase over previous years.
A large, $23 million border crossing compound is also under way, expected to open in July next year in Spin Boldak.
A Romanian team taught Zabihullah and his fellow recruits combat techniques, vehicle search procedures, marksmanship and a basic literacy class in Spin Boldak in an adobe and stone fortress built by the British in the nineteenth century.
On a baking hot day toward the end of the holy month of Ramadan, thirsty and fasting graduates showed off their skills for their NATO and Afghan trainers, acting out a scenario when they catch an insurgent planting a roadside bomb.
Around three-quarters of the border police have undergone basic training. Well over half of the 170,000-strong Afghan army and 135,000 police are also trained, though the number of the forces will swell in coming years.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is racing to train Afghanistan's army, police and border guards by the end of 2014, the deadline when all security responsibilities will have been handed over to the Afghans.
"As long as ISAF makes sure weapons are not scarce, we should be all right," new border police graduate Abdul Malik, 30, told Reuters.
(Editing by Nick Macfie)
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Russian president calls for regional solutions in Afghanistan and neighboring nations
By Associated Press, via The Washington Post Friday, September 2, 4:51 PM
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Friday that the fate of Afghanistan and surrounding nations should be decided by regional powers, an apparent call for reduced U.S. engagement.
The remarks appear to mark a new effort by Moscow to make strategic and economic inroads in Afghanistan at the expense of the United States, whose relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai have become strained.
“What is happening in Afghanistan in the security sphere ultimately lies on our shoulders, so we need to strengthen cooperation within regional organizations” Medvedev said.
In a sign of Russia’s effort to exert influence in the region, Medvedev announced that a deal will be signed early next year with Afghanistan’s northern neighbor, Tajikistan, to extend the presence of Russian troops in the country by 49 more years.
Medvedev and Karzai met at a four-nation summit in the capital of Tajikistan that also included Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, whose countries both share porous borders with Afghanistan.
Medvedev singled out the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, two Russia-dominated security blocs comprising mainly former Soviet Central Asian members, as being key to preserving stability.
The United States controls a strategically valuable military air transit base in Kyrgyzstan some 1,000 kilometers (650 miles) north of Kabul that is used to ferry troops in and out of the region. It also provides military assistance to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
Central Asian nations along Afghanistan’s northern border have grown increasingly nervous about the prospect of regional unrest following the planned pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in 2014.
Meanwhile, Russia has frequently criticized what it perceives to be NATO’s failure to quash Afghanistan’s multibillion dollar heroin trade. Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the world’s opium, the raw ingredient used to make heroin, much of which makes its way to the Russian market through Central Asia.
While the governments of Russia and Central Asian nations have spoken frequently about the need for a coordinated military approach to deal with these challenges, progress has been hampered by diverging views on the specific responsibilities of the fledging security alliances.
By securing a deal to maintain its military presence in Tajikistan for half a century, Russia ensures it will remain a stakeholder in Central Asian security for the foreseeable future. Under the existing arrangement, the base agreement was to expire in 2014.
The 201st Motorized Rifle Division deployed in Tajikistan numbers 7,500 servicemen and is the largest current deployment of Russian troops abroad. It is based in three garrisons — near Dushanbe and in the southern cities of Kulyab and Kurgan-Tube.
Russia’s military presence proved instrumental in negotiating an end to the civil war that ravaged Tajikistan in the 1990s.
Moscow has been strongly pressuring Tajikistan to allow it to revive a 1990s-era arrangement whereby Russian border troops were posted on the Tajik-Afghan border. Rakhmon’s government has resisted those overtures, however, amid concerns that it could undermine the country’s sovereignty.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are looking to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, both mountainous countries with a largely untapped potential for hydropower production, as a major future source of electricity.
One project, known as CASA-1000, envisions the creation of a 750-kilometer electricity line to transmit surplus electricity from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Medvedev said the Russian government was willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into the project, which is estimated will cost around $500 million to complete.
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Regional Leaders In Dushanbe Discuss Drugs, Security, Trade
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 2, 2011
At a regional summit today, the presidents of Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan discussed how to prevent illegal drugs moving through the region, and the security measures needed to do so.
In a joint statement following their talks in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, Russia's Dmitry Medvedev, Pakistan's Asif Ali Zardari, Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai, and Tajikistan's Emomali Rahmon agreed to work more closely to combat extremism and drug trafficking.
The leaders also urged the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan to step up the training of local security forces as it completes its planned staged withdrawal.
In a joint statement after the talks, the leaders said that the "reduction of foreign military presence in Afghanistan should be accompanied by adequate increase of efforts by the participants of the international coalition for training and arming Afghan national security structures."
Medvedev, who also held bilateral meetings with Karzai and Zardari, said that true stability and rule of law in the region can only be achieved by local governments.
The four leaders also pledged cooperation on regional energy projects and transport corridors.
The statement said Pakistan offered to host the next meeting of the four nations but did not specify a date.
compiled from agency reports
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Russia willing to boost co-op with Afghanistan: Medvedev
DUSHANBE, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) -- Russia is ready to further promote cooperation with Afghanistan, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said here Friday.
"We are ready to promote our cooperation with Afghanistan in the economic sphere, and in maintaining our political, security and humanitarian affairs dialogues," Medvedev said in a meeting with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai.
The situation in the region should eventually "depend on regional powers," he added.
"And I think that this is the policy we ought to pursue. This is the main area of our cooperation," Medvedev said.
Karzai, for his part, said Afghanistan is happy with development of relations with Russia. "This is the normal path for us to follow," he said.
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) will hold a summit here on Saturday as part of celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of its foundation.
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Presidents meet on foreign military presence in Afghanistan
DUSHANBE, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) -- The presidents of Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan agreed here Friday that steps to downsize the foreign military presence in Afghanistan should be accompanied by the international coalition's joint efforts.
In a joint declaration signed in Dushanbe after a four-party meeting, the presidents reiterated their support for the Afghan government's efforts to promote "national reconciliation, as well as welcomed the beginning of a transfer of responsibility for security to the Afghan armed forces as part of the Kabul Process."
"The heads of state have noted that the recently launched reduction of the foreign military presence in Afghanistan should be accompanied by adequate steps by the participants in the international coalition to enhance their efforts to train and arm Afghan security structures and to help build a healthy and sustainable economy in the country," the leaders said in the statement.
The fight against terrorism, extremism and cross-border crime will benefit from more active cooperation between the agencies in charge of these issues, they said.
"Appropriate international and regional mechanisms, primarily the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization), as well as closer cooperation within the regional anti-terrorist structure of the SCO are relevant to achieve these goals," the presidents said.
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U.S. aid talks strain partnership with Afghanistan
At odds over agreement for American assistance after combat mission ends
Associated Press By Deb Riechmann and Anne Gearan Thursday, September 1, 2011
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - A pact aimed at clearing up mistrust and confusion between Washington and Kabul about the future of U.S. troops and aid in Afghanistan has instead sowed more of the same.
Afghan officials worry that the United States is looking for a way to decrease support for Afghanistan after the combat mission ends in 2014, especially in light of U.S. economic woes and waning public support for the war, now in its 10th year.
U.S. officials insist the agreement is designed to allay that fear, but acknowledge the draft agreement is less precise than the Afghans want, and unenforceable.
With Kabul seeking detailed guarantees but Washington insisting on something more vague, it’s not surprising that each side is looking warily at the other.
Negotiators from both countries are to meet in Washington this month to continue their talks. Discussions come at a time when relations already are strained, anti-Americanism is running high in Afghanistan and uncertainty abounds over what will happen to the nation as foreign forces continue their march home.
The document is meant, in part, to give Afghans confidence that the United States will not abandon them after 2014, when U.S. and other foreign combat troops have left or taken on military support roles.
At the same time, it will give the U.S. a legal framework to continue counterterrorism, counter-narcotics and training missions, according to a senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing negotiations.
Two Afghan officials and a senior U.S. official said the goal was to get an agreement before an international conference in December in Germany on the future of Afghanistan.
However, an Obama administration official stressed that there is no deadline for completing the negotiations and that it will be up to leaders of both countries to decide when to sign it. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are sensitive.
Among the sticking points being negotiated:
• Will American forces be stationed on joint or Afghan-run bases?
• Who will take the lead in conducting nighttime kill-and-capture raids, a flashpoint for anger over foreign meddling in Afghanistan?
•Will detention operations be run by the Afghans or Americans?
• What long-term commitments will the U.S. make to support the struggling Afghan government, education and health care?
The document will leave several major questions unanswered, including how long U.S. taxpayers will foot the bill for Afghan security forces, which in 2014 will cost an estimated $8 billion a year.
The agreement also sets up a potential conflict between two U.S. goals for Afghanistan - a base of operations for counterterrorism and a peace deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban insurgency. The Taliban demand a complete withdrawal of foreign forces.
The so-called “strategic partnership agreement” was sought by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and U.S. officials are confident that Afghans’ desire to get something in writing is likely to trump their worry that the document is not specific enough.
But the talks have gone on longer than the Americans wanted, and there is palpable frustration at what two U.S. officials described as circular and repetitive discussions. The two sides already held talks twice this year.
Mr. Karzai has a string of specific demands, including that U.S. troops stop conducting nighttime raids to nab suspected insurgents and that Afghans be put in charge of detention facilities.
He also wants a ban on U.S. launching operations into other nations from Afghan soil. The U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan was launched from Afghanistan.
Some Afghan officials also want the U.S. to equip them with F-16 fighter jets and Abrams tanks - military wares that U.S. officials say are too costly and not needed by the nascent Afghan security forces.
“We will come to an agreement only if our conditions are accepted,” Mr. Karzai boldly told a group of Afghan security officials at a recent meeting.
A senior U.S. official familiar with the negotiations said the Obama administration is not trying to water down the agreement, but can’t - or won’t - negotiate so many details of the relationship at once.
The official said the agreement is supposed to be broad and by design will not carry the force of a treaty.
But Afghans say a vague agreement could leave them vulnerable to the Taliban, and that they need guarantees of support if they are going to risk the ire of neighboring nations like Iran by signing a long-term deal with the U.S. - especially one that will allow tens of thousands of U.S. troops to stay in Afghanistan.
Many Afghans are afraid of trusting the Americans because they felt abandoned by the U.S. after 1989, when the Soviet Union withdrew its army from Afghanistan.
U.S. support to mujahedeen fighters battling the Soviets dried up a few years later, and Afghanistan then sank into civil war. That was followed by the rise of the Taliban and the Sept. 11 attacks by al Qaeda, which was using Afghanistan as a sanctuary.
“There’s a famous saying ‘Once bitten, twice shy,’ ” said Shaida Mohammad Abdali, deputy national security adviser and special assistant to Mr. Karzai. “We are worried about our destiny, our future.”
Still, he is confident the two sides eventually will agree to a new pact.
A central question is how many U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan after the international combat mission ends in 2014, and for how long. Estimates have ranged from 20,000 to 40,000.
Two U.S. officials refused to specify any proposed numbers of American soldiers, and said the agreement would not have an expiration date.
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Russia eyes on Central Asia's mass energy projects
DUSHANBE, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) -- Russia on Friday showed big interest in joining a project to build a gas pipeline linking Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
The presidents of Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan signed a joint statement in Dushanbe, confirming that they attach great importance to promoting and strengthening trade, business and security ties between their countries.
"The sides welcome Russia's interest toward participation in the implementation of the project to build a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline," the presidents said in their statement.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev also noted that Russia is ready to take part in the CASA-1000 electricity transmission project, which could help to transfer electricity from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Medvedev said, his country could invest at least hundreds of millions dollars if the relevant countries invited Russia to join in the two projects.
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In Afghanistan, Reviewing A Decade Of Promises
by Quil Lawrence NPR September 2, 2011
People living in Afghanistan 10 years ago had little electricity, few radios and almost no televisions to alert them of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington. The news didn't really reach across the country until the American bombing campaign and invasion began a month later. The fall of the Taliban regime at the end of 2001 and the flood of international aid raised hope in Afghanistan.
With a U.S.-sponsored government setting up in Kabul, President George W. Bush spelled out America's pledge to Afghanistan in a speech at Virginia Military Institute in April 2002. Bush invoked America's patron saint of nation-building, George Marshall, the World War II general who oversaw the reconstruction of Germany.
"By helping to build an Afghanistan that is free from this evil and is a better place in which to live, we are working in the best traditions of George Marshall," Bush said.
To Afghans, this Marshall Plan for their country sounded like a promise underwritten by the most powerful nation on Earth. Bush listed how the U.S. would help; below, along with each pledge, NPR assesses progress in each area, 10 years on.
Building Security Forces
Bush: "Peace will be achieved by helping Afghanistan train and develop its own national army."
In the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghan commandos train with live ammunition at a military base. American efforts are focused now more than ever on training Afghan security forces to face down an insurgency that is much stronger now than 10 years ago. NATO trainers hope to reach 300,000 soldiers and police on the job this autumn.
But gunfights are less common in this war. The preferred weapon of the insurgency is the bomb and booby trap — in military jargon, an improvised explosive device, or IED.
Noor Hameed is the senior Afghan instructor at the counter-IED school at the base.
"To be honest, before this 10 years, we didn't have IED teams," he says. "The people of Afghanistan didn't know what IED is."
Trainers like Hameed are just what the Afghan forces need: native sons to replace foreign experts. But it's a tall order. After 10 years of fitful training, and nearly $30 billion invested by the U.S. alone, the Afghan security forces have an abysmal record of acting without direct NATO assistance. Attrition is still a problem, as are fears of ethnic factionalism. Literacy is only 14 percent among security personnel, a huge obstacle to building a police force that can support an evidence-based justice system.
Building Infrastructure, Services
Bush: "We're working hard in Afghanistan: We're clearing mine fields. We're rebuilding roads. We're improving medical care."
That holds up, according to Dr. Nadera Burhani, Afghanistan's deputy health minister. She cites huge improvements in basic health, thanks in large part to U.S. aid.
In 2002, the country had just 500 health facilities; now, there are 2,019.
"It has a very direct impact on services to the very needy people in very rural areas," Burhani says.
But she admits that in some ways, Afghanistan is still behind where it was decades ago, before three successive wars destroyed the country.
"Sometimes I am disappointed. Because when I was in 5th [grade], the war start in my country. Now I am 43 years old, still the war is going on. I wish that my country become secure. No more than that," she says.
Afghanistan has hundreds of kilometers of new roads, but fewer of them are safe to drive. On the day Burhani spoke with NPR, an insurgent suicide bomber leveled a health center in Logar province, killing dozens of patients, doctors and nurses.
The United Nations reported over the summer that civilian deaths from the war are at their worst level since the invasion — the vast majority from insurgent bombs.
Building The Legitimate Economy
Bush: "We will work to help Afghanistan to develop an economy that can feed its people without feeding the world's demand for drugs."
The report card on narco-trafficking, according to the United Nations and the World Bank, is a solid F. While poppy production has ceased in some provinces, the U.N. says the drug economy rivals the billions in aid still pouring into Afghanistan and threatens to dwarf the legitimate economy as donors draw down. The legitimate economy is also plagued by endemic corruption.
The U.S. inspector general for Afghan reconstruction concluded recently that high-ranking Afghan officials, including government ministers, are carrying out as much as $10 million per day through the Kabul airport.
At a windswept gravel pit on the outskirts of Kabul, a construction company owner agreed to speak on condition of anonymity.
"There is no system to award the good people and to punish the bad. There is no incentive toward doing good things," he said.
The man said bribes start the moment a contract is won, with a huge fee to be paid directly to the ministry involved — 5 percent to 15 percent of the contract, which can work out to something like half the profit.
"The first day you go to the ministry of mines, to take a permission to have a mine, the corruption starts there the first day," he said.
The bribes continue, from local officials to tax collectors, even a few thousand dollars to get the fee. In Afghanistan, you have to pay a bribe to get paid, he said. He linked the corruption right to the top, to President Hamid Karzai, whom he voted for twice.
The construction company owner added that Karzai's attempts to make peace with the Taliban have ruined investors' confidence.
"The future seems very dark, because the president has played a dangerous game, and he has lost that game. Next three, four years, we have to leave again. Leave everything," he said.
Building Government
Bush: "Peace will be achieved by helping Afghanistan develop its own stable government."
That final promise from the U.S., to bring a stable government to Afghanistan, is also an open question. Election observers say Afghan politics have grown more fraudulent over the years, and most consider Karzai's re-election in 2009 to be illegitimate. An equally questionable parliamentary election last year resulted in a near endless dispute, with Karzai trying to reinstate allies who had lost according to the official tally.
Still, among the warlords and government cronies, some new faces have emerged in the Afghan parliament — especially from the newly empowered Afghan media. Baktash Siawash, 27, was the country's youngest TV talk show host before he became the country's youngest member of parliament. Many Afghans are pinning their hopes on the next generation, a demographic that includes about half of the country. But Siawash says the American promise of reconstruction has been a failure.
"Forty-one countries came here. It was the golden chance. I do see some progresses, but it is not enough for spending billions of dollars. With the energy, the money and the blood of your brothers, sisters and your sons which have died for democracy-making in Afghanistan, it's nothing. We could have done more than what we have," he says.
Siawish says it's now up to Afghans to take charge and reshape their country. The son of a poor family with no political connections, Siawish himself is a symbol of budding democracy in Afghanistan. But he's not sure that democracy will survive the departure of U.S. troops.
"The life of this regime, this government or this democracy will end with the withdrawal of the last soldier from the international community," he says.
It's that projected date — the end of 2014 — that is preoccupying Afghans. At that time, they will again weigh the pledges made to them in 2001, and decide whether the promises have been kept.
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Can Petraeus handle the CIA’s skepticism on Afghanistan?
Washington Post By David Ignatius September 1, 2011
When David Petraeus takes over as CIA director next week, he will confront a tricky problem: CIA analysts who will be working for him concluded in a recent assessment that the war in Afghanistan is heading toward a “stalemate” — a view with which Petraeus disagrees.
The analysts made their judgment in “District Assessment on Afghanistan,” completed in July, the same month Petraeus quit his post as U.S. commander there. He disagrees with the analysts’ pessimistic reading, as does Gen. John Allen, the new commander in Kabul; Gen. James Mattis, the Centcom commander; and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The CIA assessment is “pretty harsh,” said a military official who is familiar with its contents. He noted that the document used the word “stalemate” several times to describe the standoff between NATO-led forces and Taliban insurgents. Even in areas where the United States has surged troops over the past 18 months to clear insurgents, the CIA analysts weren’t optimistic that the Taliban’s momentum had been reversed, as President Obama and his military commanders have argued.
“Everyone looking at Afghanistan today recognizes that the challenges are real and that progress isn’t easy,” said a civilian official familiar with the assessment, adding that it was coordinated carefully with the military. This is the CIA’s seventh such district-by-district examination of the country.
The analysts’ skepticism about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, which has been deepening over the past several years, presents challenges for Petraeus and the White House.
The test for Petraeus will be whether he can give the analysts the independence they need to provide a sound evaluation of Afghanistan strategy, which he himself created. Petraeus has his own strong views about the war and has made clear that he will continue to say what he thinks. But if the analysts are taking a different view from the boss, there’s bound to be tension.
How Petraeus manages this inevitable friction — reassuring the analysts while remaining faithful to his own views — will be closely watched within and outside the CIA. This isn’t a military chain of command: Intelligence analysts resent efforts by outsiders (and even superiors) to shape their reporting. If they think Petraeus is trying to steer assessments, they’re sure to protest.
Petraeus maintained during his June 23 Senate confirmation hearing that he would give the analysts proper latitude in areas where he had been a commander, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. “In the Situation Room with the president, I will strive to represent the agency position,” he said, adding that he would be “keenly aware that I am the leader of an intelligence agency, and not a policymaker.”
Gossip about a supposed rift between Petraeus and the analysts has been circulating in Kabul during the past week, as word spread of the skeptical CIA assessment. Some speculated it was a preemptive strike by the agency bureaucracy; others saw it as a harbinger of impending change in White House policy. From my reporting, neither seems to be true. The analysts have long been skeptical on Afghanistan, but Obama has continued to support the military.
The larger challenge is for Obama. In 2009, he signed on to the limited objective of stopping al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and reversing the Taliban’s momentum — but using a broad counterinsurgency strategy to achieve that mission. If the CIA analysts’ view becomes widely shared, and there’s growing sentiment in Washington that the $100 billion-plus annual campaign is only buying an expensive stalemate, Obama will have to re-examine the plan and the troop levels. Ironically, if he chooses a more limited counterterrorism approach, Petraeus as CIA director would once again be at the center of the fight.
The White House for now seems comfortable with its gradual drawdown through 2014. The troubled relationship with President Hamid Karzai has improved slightly, thanks to a “reset” by the new U.S. ambassador, Ryan Crocker. There’s broad agreement, too, with the judgment of Obama’s sometime adviser, John Podesta, who argued after a July visit to Afghanistan for more emphasis on a political and economic transition strategy.
As with so many aspects of Afghanistan, there are echoes here of Vietnam — where CIA analysts were early and emphatic in their warnings that U.S. strategy wouldn’t succeed, but were countered by generals who insisted the United States could prevail with sufficient military power.
In a technical sense, Petraeus crossed the threshold between military and intelligence roles when he took off the uniform this week, but the real transition is ahead.
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