Karzai Courts Chevron, Dole
Sept. 26 (Bloomberg)
By Mark Drajem-- Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who
is weathering criticism amid renewed attacks by the Taliban,
sought to persuade U.S. companies such as Chevron Corp. and Dole
Food Co. to invest in Afghanistan...
"The sooner you come, the better will be your reward,''
Karzai told business groups at George Washington University
today. "Are security threats a factor? No. You won't even know
about them until you turn on CNN.''...
Continue reading "Karzai to Citgo: Don't watch CNN..." »
In his NYT op-ed, Joel Hafvenstein, who worked on an alternative livelihoods program in Helmand, offers a vivid account of how our counternarcotics strategy (and our development strategy in general) has collapsed in the absence of security:
Afghanistan’s Drug Habit
Sept 20 (NYT):
... By May 2005, we had paid out millions of dollars and had some 14,000 men on the payroll simultaneously. The program buoyed the provincial economy, and would have made a fine launching pad for long-term alternatives to poppy.
Security was our Achilles’ heel. There was a new American military base by the graveyard on the edge of town, but the few score Iowa National Guard members there lacked the manpower and the local knowledge to protect us. We could not afford the professional security companies in Kabul, most run by brash veterans of Western militaries. Then, just before Christmas, some of our engineers were carjacked. We resorted to the only remaining source of protection: the provincial police.
Continue reading "With lives threatened, livelihoods wither" »
Here's an op-ed I wrote the appears in today's Christian Science Monitor. (Please click the link to bring up the entire article.)
Failings of the Rumsfeld doctrine
Intense air power and small groups of troops didn't win in Iraq or Afghanistan.
NEW YORK, By Carl Robichaud: This month's devastating wave of suicide attacks in Afghanistan (including three attacks on Monday, which brought the total number to 69 since 2005) is a grim reminder that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, under fire for his role in Iraq, has been the architect of not one but two failing wars - and of a dangerous vision for how to apply American power.
Continue reading "Rumsfeld and Afghanistan" »
Lt. Col. Frank Sturek: "You can win every firefight you want, but the battle is in these villages.''
The story mentions the ABC News poll, taken in December 2005, which shows 77 percent of Afghans
said their country is headed in the right direction. ABC will be releasing this years poll results in December--the results will say a lot about where we're headed.
America's juggling act
KABUL San Jose Mercury News
By Peter Bergen -...When I traveled in Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003, the Taliban threat had receded into little more than a nuisance. But now the movement has regrouped and rearmed. Bolstered by a compliant Pakistani government, hefty cash inflow from the drug trade and a population disillusioned by battered infrastructure and lackluster reconstruction efforts, the Taliban is back -- as is Afghanistan's once forgotten war...
I recently traveled to Afghanistan for three weeks, meeting with government officials, embedding with U.S. soldiers from the 2-4 Infantry and interviewing senior American military officers. I found that while the Taliban may not constitute a major strategic threat to President Hamid Karzai's government, they have become a serious tactical challenge for U.S. and NATO troops, as the war here intensifies. And their threat is only amplified by their ubiquity and invisibility.
Continue reading "Peter Bergen: Why the Taliban is back" »
The current administration is a big proponent of bringing private sector experience to bear on development projects. But does it work?
Yes and no, reports the latest brief from USIP (based on off-the-record consultations.)
Afghanistan Reconstruction Group advisors were helpful as senior advisors to Afghan ministers--offering ideas, insights, and new strategies--but were ineffective as monitors or managers (where they found themselves stepping on toes...) Here's the brief:
The Afghanistan Reconstruction Group: An Experiment with Future Potential
By Beth Cole DeGrasse and Christina Parajon, September 2006:
The Afghanistan Reconstruction Group (ARG) was created by the National Security Council in 2004 as a non-traditional approach to reconstruction. The ARG brought high-ranking former U.S. private-sector executives and government employees to serve in the embassy in Kabul. The intent was for the group to apply its private-sector experience and expertise in an advisory role to both the U.S. government and the Afghan government.
We have now begun to evaluate ARG successes and shortcomings as well as potential future uses of the concept. Given current U.S. advocacy of market economy, citizen self-determination, and democracy, what should be the role for public-spirited, top-level private-sector experts in U.S. government stabilization and development operations?
Continue reading "USIP Briefing: the Afghanistan Reconstruction Group experiment" »
Dick Cheney on Sunday, arguing that Pakistan and Afghanistan would suffer if the United States left Iraq:
"What's
Karzai going to think in Kabul? Is he going to have any confidence at
all that he can trust the United States, that, in fact, we're there to
get the job done?"
What indeed would Karzai think? The U.S. has not provided him the support to "get the job done"--and the single biggest reason might well be the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Karzai is presumably less concerned with the symbolism of an American withdrawal from Iraq than he is with getting the diplomatic, financial, and military resources that his country needs (which remain tied up in Mesopotamia).
Continue reading "What would give Afghans confidence" »
Is Musharraf in such a compromised position that admitting the self-evident is considered a political risk? Pakistan, when it's hand has been forced, has occasionally cracked down, but only on foreign jihadists, not indigenous Taliban. Does this statement signal a new policy, or just a breeze warm air? Time will tell, but don't hold your breath.
Musharraf Pledges to Pursue Qaeda and Taliban Insurgents
By CARLOTTA GALL (NYT) KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 7 — President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, in a conciliatory speech to Afghan officials and members of Parliament, conceded Thursday that Al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents had been crossing the border into Afghanistan to mount attacks but denied that he or his government were backing them. In a major policy shift that may cost him support at home, General Musharraf pledged to seek out and destroy the command structure of insurgents apparently linked to Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban rulers, who are fighting NATO and Afghan forces in southern Afghanistan.
Continue reading "Musharraf concession--but why and to what effect?" »
Suicide car bomb kills 16 in Afghan capital Sep 8, 2006 By Terry Friel KABUL (Reuters) - A huge car bomb exploded near the U.S. embassy in Kabul on Friday, killing at least 16 people including up to seven foreigners, the worst suicide attack in the city since the Taliban were overthrown in 2001...Police and rescue officials said at least 16 people, including up to seven foreign soldiers or security contractors, were killed in the explosion that stripped trees, wrecked cars and shattered windows for several hundred yards in either direction...
Continue reading "Suicide car bomb kills 16 outside US embassy" »
Here are the latest casualty figures I could find (Sept 7, 2006):
- Violence related deaths in past four months: 1600 Source: AP
- Coalition deaths since 2001: 466 Source: CNN
- Non-US coaltion deaths: 137
- US wounded in action since 2001: 893 Source: CNN
- Deaths by coalition member: (cont...)
Continue reading "By the numbers: Casualties, Sept 2006" »
Ann Jones, author of Kabul in Winter, takes on America's "phantom aid" to Afghanistan:
How U.S. dollars disappear in Afghanistan: quickly and thoroughly
San Francisco Chronicle, Sept 3, by Ann Jones: ...
To understand the failure -- and fraud -- of reconstruction in Afghanistan, you have to take a look at the peculiar system of U.S. aid for international development. During the past five years, the
United States and many other donor nations pledged billions of dollars to Afghanistan, yet Afghans keep asking: "Where did the money go?" American taxpayers should be asking the same question...
...answers appear in a fact-packed report issued in June 2005 by Action Aid, a widely respected nongovernmental organization headquartered in Johannesburg. The report studies development aid given by all countries worldwide and says that only part of it --
maybe 40 percent -- is real. The rest is phantom aid. That is, it never shows up in recipient countries at all.
Continue reading "Where did the money go?" »
New Assault Takes Big Toll on Taliban, NATO Says
September 4, 2006 (NYT) By CARLOTTA GALL
KABUL— NATO and Afghan forces encountered fierce resistance from Taliban rebels on Sunday in a new offensive in southern Afghanistan, where four Canadian soldiers were killed and several were wounded in the fighting, officials said.
A NATO spokesman, Mark Laity, said that reports from the field estimated that as many as 200 Taliban fighters were killed Sunday, with 80 people captured by Afghan troops. Casualty figures for the Taliban, in particular, have been impossible to confirm, but, if true, the toll would be one of the highest in what has been months of intensifying battles in the south.
Continue reading "NATO: Southern offensive deals blow to Taliban" »