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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.''...
You've got to give it to the General: he hired himself a bold publicist. Folks in the White House must sure wish that Musharraf would just head on home already--especially after he made some frank comments on Iraq and an appearance on The Daily Show (apparently he asked Stewart if he could come on...)
Check the video (it takes a second to load):
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Pervez Musharraf Pt. 1 --
Jon pours some tea for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and asks him where Osama bin Laden is. |
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Pervez Musharraf Pt. 2 -- Unlike Jon, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf doesn't see the need to change his work itinerary. |
President Karzai comparing Pakistan's cooperation with terrorists with "trying to train a snake against somebody else":
"You cannot train a snake. It will come and bite you."
and on Mullah Omar (AP):
[Omar] is "for sure" in Pakistan. Musharraf "knows it and I know it," Karzai said. "He's truly there."
President Musharraf, responding to President Bush's CNN comments that he would kill or capture Osama bin Laden if he had intelligence that he was in Pakistan:
"No. We wouldn't like to allow that at all...We would like to do it ourselves."
...and Musharraf's claim (to be aired on 60 Minutes this Sunday) that the US threatened to bomb Pakistan "to the Stone Age" if it did not receive cooperation in the War on Terror:
"The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the stone age'," Musharraf said. "I think it was a very rude remark," Musharraf says in the interview. "One has to think and take actions in the interests of the nation, and that's what I did."
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.
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 NewsBy 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.
The Financial Times on Britain, France, and NATO:
Transatlantic tensions
...So the prospect of a Prime Minister Cameron in Britain and a President Sarkozy in France holds out the possibility of some European convergence on policy towards the US and a steadier transatlantic relationship, particularly with a post-Bush White House. Yet this could be entirely upset if a resurgent Taliban were to force Nato to retreat from Afghanistan. For Nato's credibility rides on success there. Should the alliance fail, the US is likely to turn instead to coalitions of the willing for future endeavours. Any French gloating at the US abandoning Nato would also be misplaced. For failure in Afghanistan would largely stem from Nato's European members not pulling together equally to provide sufficient troops. This is causing rising tension, not just between Europe and the US, but between Europeans themselves.
That would be a lousy foundation even for the sort of post-Nato security organisation in Europe that Paris long advocated.
Discussions continue tomorrow...
NATO's Troop Appeal Goes Unanswered
Sept. 14 (Bloomberg) By Ed Johnson-- The North Atlantic Treaty Organization's plea for troop reinforcements in Afghanistan went unanswered...Member states gave ``positive indications'' about providing further troops in the future...NATO ambassadors will meet tomorrow to discuss the issue. A meeting of alliance foreign ministers next week in New York will be followed by a conference of defense ministers in Slovenia the following week, Appathurai added.
Meahwhile, a candid statement by Annan on shortages of competent international forces for stability operations:
"We are competing for the same troops,'' -Secretary General Kofi Annan, on how both NATO and the UN struggle to find enough troops for their missions worldwide.
The latest report from the International Crisis Group on Balochistan:
Crisis Group: Pakistan: The Worsening Conflict in Balochistan
President Pervez Musharraf and the military are responsible for the worsening of the conflict in Balochistan. Tensions between the government and its Baloch opposition have grown because of Islamabad’s heavy-handed armed response to Baloch militancy and its refusal to negotiate demands for political and economic autonomy. The killing of Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti in August 2006 sparked riots and will likely lead to more confrontation. The conflict could escalate if the government insists on seeking a military solution to what is a political problem and the international community, especially the U.S., fails to recognise the price that is involved for security in neighbouring Afghanistan.
"Although regional parties still seek provincial autonomy within a federal parliamentary democratic framework, and there is, as yet, little support for secession, militant sentiments could grow if Islamabad does not reverse ill-advised policies" that include economic exclusion and military operations. "The only one way out," argues the report, "is to end all military action, release political prisoners and respect constitutionally guaranteed political freedoms."
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" »
Coca Cola returns to Afghanistan
BBC, Sept 11: More than a decade after the Coca Cola bottling plant in Afghanistan was ravaged by artillery fire, the company is back with a gleaming new facility in capital, Kabul. The new bottling plant in the Bagrami Industrial area of Kabul has been set up with $25m, creating jobs for 350 people on a 60,000 square metre site...The facility, which can produce 15 million, 24-bottle cases of the soft drink annually, will initially produce Coke's three most popular brands - Coca Cola, Fanta and Sprite - for the Afghan market.
Incidentally, all of Coca Cola's slogans, including "I'd like to buy the world a Coke," can be found here. It's quality reading (how about "Whenever you see an arrow, think of Coca-Cola" from 1909 or "Don't wear a tired, thirsty face" from 1933, or "The happy symbol of a friendly way of life" from 1945...)
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).
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" »
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.
New Assault Takes Big Toll on Taliban, NATO Says
September 4, 2006 (NYT) By CARLOTTA GALLKABUL— 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" »
