Warlords of Afghanistan Coasters?

Matt Weems, a self-described “illustrator & armchair statesman,” has created a set of provocative and beautifully inked coasters based on his research, which depict the “Warlords of Afghanistan.”  These make a great gift for anyone with a sense of humor and an interest in Afghanistan (Weems notes that they “inform the public and protect furniture from discoloration.”)

Check out his site here:

As for the warlords themselves, they are a glimpse into another age. We live in a society crammed shoulder to shoulder with others, careful not to offend, concealing our ambitions, publicly mouthing pious opinions about how drugs are bad, church is good, and pretending we have freedom. The warlords are a fascinating contrast; contemporary versions of Robert Guiscard, Jesse James, Al Capone, and many other freebooting scallywags from our own past. They are amazingly resilient, lurking in the hills when defeated, waiting for a chance to come back. They are also cruel and brave and crazy with conviction. They live large and die violent, self-pitying deaths.

Oxfam report: Serve the Essentials

This Oxfam report, subtitled “What governments and donors must do to improve,” approaches South Asia's development from a comparative perspective which, according to Jean Drèze of the Delhi School of Economics, “has been overlooked.” According to Drèze, the report “makes excellent use of this perspective by scrutinizing regional contrasts in South Asia -– between as well as within countries.”

There are some good insights and data here, but the recommendations tend to be overbroad to usefully apply to individual countries.  Below are a few of the useful prescriptions: 

Quoteboard

"But, you know, the Taliban are active in southern and eastern Afghanistan. The situation in northern and western Afghanistan is not so different in terms of governance, poverty, insecurity. You know, if somebody—Russia or Tajikistan wanted to start an insurgency in Badakhshan, in northeastern Afghanistan, they could do it very easily for almost no money because people are so disaffected there. But there’s no insurgency there."

                                      - Barnett Rubin, speaking at CFR, Oct 25

"It is nationalism fuelled by Islam. They draw considerable strength from painting themselves as the heirs of Afghanistan's warrior traditions. Even the most uneducated foot soldier will quote the dates of the battles in the nineteenth century when they beat the British. They do not see themselves as part of a wider world 'jihad', but an Afghan solution to an Afghan problem."

                                 -David Loyn, of the BBC, on Taliban ideology

                      

VIDEO: The BBC's David Loyn travels with the Taliban

Senator: Dems would launch oversight hearings on Iraq, Afghanistan

A special investigator found that KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary, has been routinely overclassifying  information as "proprietary," thereby "hindering competition and oversight." In response to the report, Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota said that if Democrats take control of the Senate they will "will launch oversight hearings on war matters ranging from faulty intelligence leading up to the war to wrongdoing by contractors" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Report: Halliburton unit exploited rules
WASHINGTON, Oct 27, By ANNE PLUMMER FLAHERTY (AP) By Anne Plummer Flaherty:  The Halliburton subsidiary that provides food, shelter and other logistics to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan exploited federal regulations to hide details on its contract performance, according to a report released Friday...

"I'm convinced that this is the most significant waste, fraud and abuse in the history of this country," [Sen. Byron] Dorgan said.

Human Rights Watch: ISAF should create victim compensation fund

After NATO's bombing Tuesday night--which appears to be the largest civilian death toll from an airstrike--Human Rights Watch calls for NATO to take more precautions with airstrikes and to emulate the U.S. in establishing a victims compensation fund (see also the AP story):

HRW Press release, October 30:   NATO forces operating under the mandate of the International Security Assistance Force to Afghanistan (ISAF) need to take greater precautions to protect civilians and establish a program to compensate Afghans who have lost family members, are injured or suffer property damage due to their actions, Human Rights Watch said today. . .

According to media reports, more than 60 civilians were killed this week in heavy fighting between NATO forces and insurgent forces in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province. NATO has admitted that at least 12 civilians were killed in NATO air and ground operations in Panjwai. Another two dozen were reportedly killed last week during clashes in Kandahar and neighboring Helmand province, during which NATO used heavy aerial bombardment. . .

“Compensating injured civilians is the right thing to do, and the smart thing to do,” air strikes in Afghanistan, more than twice the 160 carried out in Iraq. . . Zarifi said. “This has been US policy, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be NATO policy as well.”

Photo: Sam Zia-Zarifi, Research Director, HRW Asia

CFR rush transcript available

Read the rush transcript of Amb. Said Tayeb Jawad and Barnett Rubin's address to the Council on Foreign Relations, which covers everything from the role of Pakistan to the role of NGOs.  This is a must read...more on Monday.

Sandbagging Paktika?

Is it me, or is paying men in Paktika to fill sand bags perhaps not an ideal model for alternative livelihoods?  The CNN report is less skeptical, especially when it comes to the Paktika PRT: "115 soldiers and sailors covering an area slightly bigger than Maryland -- a little goes a long way here," reports correspondant Jennifer Eccleston.

• See the video: Video: Afghanistan reconstruction  

Bribe money up in smoke

"It doesn't matter where you go in the world, people respond to cash." In case thought the heady days of 2001 were over... 

How £1m bribe cash for Afghan warlords went up smoke October 23, 2006 (ThisIsLondon) By Joanne Moore: A secret slush fund of more than £1million sent to Afghanistan to bribe local warlords was destroyed when the Special Forces aircraft carrying it burst into flames as it came in to land.

Afghan women still have little voice in family planning

Family planning increased in some provinces, according to USAID figures, but women still have little say in these decisions, according to a Tufts study:

Contraception use at 10% (St. LouisPost-Dispatch) by Phillip O'Connor, DASHT-E QAL'EH — …Only 10 percent of married Afghan women aged 15 to 49 use any method of contraception, according to the Population Reference Bureau in Washington.

Rubin on resolving the insurgency

Barnett Rubin writes today in the Wall Street Journal that "Pakistan has never fully acted on U.S. demands to fight the Taliban, not because Gen. Musharraf is "against us" rather than "with us," but because the Pakistan army sees its interests in a regional context, not as part of the U.S. war on terror." The Pakistan military sees Islamist militants as useful, both in supressing Pashtun and Baluch nationalism and in cementing its own rule within Pakistan by marginalizing mainstream political parties.

It is therefore not enough to shut down Taliban commanders; the coalition must also push Pakistan to adopt civilian rule and permit political parties in the tribal areas (where they are currently outlawed, allowing radicals a monopoly.) At the same time, donors must press the Afghan government to start discussions on the contentious border issue (which Afghanistan does not recognize) and limit India's rising influence.

Rubin argues, in essence, that because the Taliban serve as useful agents in a broader regional struggle, they cannot be defeated until there is progress on Afghan-Pakistani-Indian relations, greater political freedom in Pakistan, and economic opportunity in the tribal areas. A narrow focus on killing terrorists and suppressing the Taliban--or even on empowering the Afghan government--cannot succeed.

A Border Affair (subscr. req)
October 25 (WSJ), By BARNETT R. RUBIN: It will take more than a dinner at the White House -- such as the one held for Pervez Musharraf and Hamid Karzai last month -- to overcome the longstanding antagonism between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Of course, the political clumsiness on the part of the U.S. does not begin or end there. Had we paid more attention to pre-9/11 history, we might not face a rising Taliban insurgency with sanctuary in Pakistan.

Kabul-Kandahar highway, Musa Qala, and Senlis Council

Today the PCR Project gives a good run-down of stories they are following:

• It is becoming increasingly dangerous and expensive to use the once highly touted Kabul-Kandahar highway...
• The Senlis Council, a highly respected NGO that has argued for the legalization of poppy, may have been kicked out of Afghanistan for engaging in activities that are “contrary to the constitution of Afghanistan” and tacitly encouraging poppy growth.
• British troops withdrew from Helmand Province’s Musa Qala last week after a September deal with tribal elders and the provincial governor [which] could become a model for other districts throughout the South...

Microlending and Afghan reconstruction?

USAID announced this month (clip below break) that $80 million will be distributed in small loans to rural Afghans over the next three years. This is a welcome initiative. Credit programs exist in Afghanistan, but on too small a scale to compete with the array of traffickers who already occupy the role of lender. These traffickers extend cash to impoverished farmers at usurious rates (and with predictably harsh penalties for non-payment) in return for future payment in cash or poppy sap.

Micro-lending programs are powerful because they correct a market failure--the stifling absence of credit for poor people. For years, Muhammad Yunus, who received the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his work at the Grameen Bank, has argued that despite their lack of collateral and traditional "creditworthiness," poor people -- and especially poor women -- can make highly reliable borrowers.

You can read Dr. Yunus's excellent Wall Street Journal op-ed here (A Hand Up, Not a Handout.) He argues that loans are usually more effective than grants, even -- and especially -- when the needs are greatest.  Counterintuitive? Read his argument:

In Bangladesh, we've learned that when aid is free, not only do the poor get the least of it, but everyone inflates their needs. While some handouts are clearly necessary in such times, we focus on lending small amounts of money. This lets us keep costs down and rebuild funds for the next disaster. Most importantly, our Grameen banks are ready to act at a moment's notice. They can respond to a disaster without waiting for anyone's permission, immediately becoming like humanitarian agencies by suspending loan payments, and providing cash, food and medicines.

Micro-lending provides a counterbalance to the two biggest problems we've seen in reconstructing Afghainstan--the problem of administrative costs and bureaucratic delays implicit in foreign aid. The point of Yunus's article is to recommend microlending for Katrina victims, but it raises the question: are we doing enough to support microlending in Afghanistan?

Musharraf's Waziristan Bargain: Cooperation or Capitulation?

Journalist Ismail Khan, who has bylines for The New York Times and Dawn (Pakistan's biggest English-language paper), takes a closer look at Pakistan's truce with militants in North Waziristan and concludes that it is "hard to defend its position that the truce is directed against the Taliban and not in their favour." He notes that the truce was signed with militants, not tribal elders, as was claimed, and has no meaningful measures for enforcement.

If Khan and other critics are right, the deal will make things far more dangerous in southern Afghanistan in the coming months (a NATO offical recently said that militant activity has increased threefold in the border regions.)

Creating any meaningful truce is complicated. Khan dismisses claims that "Pashtun alienation" or nationalist sentiment is central to the Taliban movement, citing the dominant presence of Pashtuns in the current government ("The days of the Tajik-led Northern Alliance's dominance are over.") Nor, he argues, is the Taliban a nationalist struggle: "their resistance is fired by a desire to wage 'jihad and defeat the infidels'." Worth a read...

Why the Waziristan deal is a hard sell
PESHAWAR, Oct 13 (DAWN) By Ismail Khan: New facts have emerged about this year's September 5 deal between the government and militants in North Waziristan that may explain the unease felt by international players involved in the conflict in Afghanistan. Although the agreement secured the public endorsement of US President George W. Bush, western and Afghan officials are privately critical of the deal.

Sources say there are a number of factors fuelling suspicion. Firstly, the deal was signed with militants and not with tribal elders, as is being officially claimed...

Illicit: Traffickers Diversify

I was reading Moisés Naím's excellent book Illicit the other day, and came across this passage (which is continued after the break). Afghanistan is a case study in the processes he describes; the impact of institutional capture by opium traffickers and their allies is already evident, and their diversification (into real estate, for example) is well underway. Expect more of the same. All future attempts to reform Afghan politics, justice system, or economic development must account for the centrality of the illicit economy:

Left unchecked, illicit trade can only pursue its already well advanced mutation. There is ample evidence that it offers terrorists and other miscreants means of survival and methods of financial transfer and exchange. Its effect on geopolitics will go further. In developing countries and those in transition from communism, criminal networks often constitute the most powerful vested interests confronting the government. In some countries, their resources and capabilities even surpass those of their governments.

World Food Program's Largest Warehouse Opens in Afghanistan

Under construction since 2003, the new complex--the UN agency's largest worldwide--covers 13 acres and includes two huge warehouses for food and one for vehicle spare parts. The parking lot accomodates 150 vehicles and a massive underground fuel depot

Meanwhile, according to a WFP situation report, "Worsening security continues to limit WFP operations," including attacks on October 8 and 11 in which "commercial trucks transporting WFP food were attacked in Farah Province, with the latter incident resulting in the death of a driver's helper. These events seriously threaten WFP's ability to move food to the western regions of the country." During the last reporting perion, WFP assisted 133,500 people across Afghanistan and is engaged in drought emergency response and winterization pre-positioning. According to its report, WFP has received only 63% of the amount requested (and only 38% of the appeal) and is now "facing serious pipeline breaks which jeopardise the ability to provide enough drought relief," especially in the North, where "Local communities are selling livestock to get food and drinking water, or migrating from their home areas."

WFP's LARGEST WAREHOUSE COMPLEX NOW READY FOR BUSINESS IN AFGHANISTAN
Kabul (WFP press release): Secure, efficient storage and handling is critical to the success of large food assistance programmes such as what the UN World Food Programme is delivering in Afghanistan. WFP has recently completed construction in Kabul of its largest warehouse complex - worldwide, a strong indication of the agency's commitment to helping Government address the food needs of Afghans in need of assistance...

The new facility, costing $3.5 million, will provide needed storage for food aid for the central, northeast and southeast regions, where poor roads, limited seasonal access and insecurity are major challenges to transport. The facility can hold 15,000 metric tonnes, enough food to fill 1,500 trucks, in its two warehouses. At such future time when WFP ceases to operate in the country, the compound will be handed over to the Government..

Photo: WFP delivering food. PAM

Quoteboard

"We could have carried on in 2002 in the same way we have gone about business now."

                                             - Brigadier Ed Butler

“We’ve lost five staff and our guards have killed thirty-four people in the last month and we’re just a construction company...This isn’t reconstruction, not construction, not even combat construction: this is war.”

        -a Western contractor who manages transport for a construction company moving materials to foreign troops in the south, who said he was dramatically reducing operations.  

More voices urge co-opting Taliban

An excellent article by Anna Badkhen, who has done some great reporting from both Iraq and Afghanistan:

More voices urge co-opting Taliban
October 15, 2006 (San Francisco Chronicle) by Anna Badkhen

Five years after the United States launched the war in Afghanistan to oust the Taliban from power, some U.S. political leaders and military commanders are saying that the only way to prevent chaos and violence from overwhelming the country is to co-opt the resurgent Islamic militia into the country's political system. From Gen. David Richards, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., they are stepping up calls for a political approach to suppressing the insurgency.

Pointing to a deal Pakistan forged with pro-Taliban leaders last month, granting the militia control of North Waziristan province in return for a cease-fire, they are raising the idea that NATO could forge a similar agreement and bring an end to the suicide bombings and raids in Afghanistan.

"I think played rightly, with luck and good judgment I believe is there, this could set an example how we should deal with these problems," Richards, a British officer, said during a visit to Pakistan Tuesday.

Photos: David Richards, top. Bill Frist in Afghanistan, bottom.

Who's Running Afghan Policy?

A very troubling article. As David Corn notes, O'Sullivan is not the problem, only a symptom of Washington's transient interest in Afghanistan. If any readers have any insights into who is minding the shop, I'd love to hear them. Is this article too pessimistic?

Who's Running Afghan Policy?
by David Corn, The Nation, October 30, 2006 issue

Several months ago a leading American expert on Afghanistan was meeting with Meghan O'Sullivan, a deputy national security adviser in the Bush White House. . . O'Sullivan, according to this expert (who wishes not to be named), didn't know what the Durand Line was. The expert was stunned. O'Sullivan is the most senior Bush Administration official handling Afghanistan policy. If she wasn't familiar with this basic point, US policy-making on Afghanistan was in trouble.

After Iraq, Afghanistan is the most profound foreign policy mess the Bush Administration faces. . . .Yet George Bush has no senior-level official responsible for policies and actions in Afghanistan.

Pictured: David Corn

Charting Afghanistan (CS Monitor visual guide)

Karzai calls for Jirga to combat Taliban

Strengthening traditional leaders is absolutely critical to stabilizing southern Afghanistan, but this initiative may be doomed from the start unless Karzai can credibly assure these leaders that they will actually receive the support he will doubtless promise. Many tribal leaders don't support a hardline Taliban agenda, but also don't feel like they have another option.

The political integration of Pashtun leaders is absolutely critical--but how is it best achieved?  Will creating these Jirgas provide Pakistan an additional opportunity to strengthen its hand in the region? Rashid's article suggests it would, but doesn't really specify how...

Karzai for jirga to crush Taleban
KABUL, Oct 6 (BBC) By Ahmed Rashid:  Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said he wants to hold a jirga (council) of Pashtun tribes from Pakistan and Afghanistan to end Taleban violence...Mr Karzai said he expected both he and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to attend the meeting by the year-end. Afghan ministers and officials are however concerned that such a meeting may be "manipulated" by Pakistan.

"I am thinking of a meeting between Afghan civil society, Afghan elders, tribal chiefs, clergy and Afghan spiritual leadership plus the intellectuals. From the Pakistan side I am hoping for the same thing," Mr Karzai told this correspondent in an exclusive interview.

"It should be a gathering of the people from one end of the Afghan border with Pakistan to the other end." Mr Karzai said the jirga would attempt to revive Pashtun civil society on both sides of the border in order to combat what he called the growing Talebanisation of the region. "The traditional secular Pashtun leadership of Pakistan has been undermined systematically and violently," said Mr Karzai...

Photo:  An impromptu shura takes place in Panjshir province May 28, 2007. (U.S. Army photo by Chris Shin) http://www.army.mil 

Frontline: Return of the Taliban

Watch online: Frontline special on Afghanistan

FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith ("Hunting bin Laden"; "Truth, War and Consequences") returns to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and presents a rare look inside this secret sanctuary in "Return of the Taliban." In a region long suspected of harboring Osama bin Laden and strictly off-limits to U.S. troops, Smith explores the complex web of alliances among the Taliban, Al Qaeda fighters and the Pakistani military, and analyzes the consequences for U.S. policy.

Voices of Afghanistan

Voices of Afghanistan: An Evaluation Study
by Seema Patel

The initial findings of the CSIS 2006 Measures of Progress report? "Afghans are less hopeful today than they were a year ago" and "The state-building mission has lost ground, and is slipping further into the 'danger zone'." 

To this end, six Afghan interviewers (three men and three women), trained in social science research, conducted 1,000 qualitative interviews over a six-week period covering the five pillars of reconstruction: security, governance, justice, economic opportunity, and social well-being.  The interviewers covered thirteen provinces—encompassing all five regions of Afghanistan—and captured a balanced sampling of ethnic groups...

Seeing past the doomsayers

Ann Marlowe, a close observer of Afghanistan since 2002 who just penned a romance about her visits ("The Book of Trouble"), argues that "if only American and other Western investors could see past the doomsayers, they too could play a part in the Afghan economic success story":

Afghanistan's Booming Economy...
By Ann Marlowe,  19 September 2006,  (The Wall Street Journal Asia): KABUL -- The recent spate of violence shouldn't be allowed to detract from the real story here: Afghanistan's booming economy. Frightened by exaggerated scare stories, American and other Western companies are missing out on lucrative investment opportunities grasped by ostensibly less sophisticated Afghan and regional players.

There's no shortage of profit to be made in an economy that grew 14% in the 12 months to March 21, and is expected to expand by a similar amount in the current financial year. In Kabul alone the number of cars and taxis has increased by one-third since last year to 400,000, up from fewer than 1,000 under the Taliban. Large sections of the city boast three- and four-storey buildings where mud brick houses stood only a few years ago, and twin 17- and 20-storey towers are currently under construction in Herat.
Telecom was one of the first big success stories. U.S. companies stood by as Afghanistan's first four mobile-phone licenses were auctioned off, starting in January 2003. The Afghan-American and regional investors who got licenses have profited as the number of private mobile-phone users rocketed from zero to 1.5 million over the last five years. Now finance and banking is taking off -- and, once again, Western companies are missing out...

15,000 families in the south displaced since July

The latest wave of Afghan refugees:

KABUL, Afghanistan, October 3 (UNHCR) – Fighting pitting government and NATO troops against Taliban combatants has forced some 15,000 families to flee their homes in three southern Afghanistan provinces since July.

UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday that the refugee agency was concerned about this displacement – amounting to approximately 80,000-90,000 people – in Kandahar, Uruzgan and Helmand. She said it had added "new hardship to a population already hosting 116,400 people earlier uprooted by conflict and drought."

CSIS new Afghanistan site, plus Hoagland and Tarzi

The Center for Strategic and International Studies has been running an excellent Post-Conflict Reconstruction project for some time. They have a new Afghanistan news digest that looks promising. This week it highlights several articles from the past couple weeks that are not to be missed:

• Jim Hoagland, writing in the Washington Post, on the differences between Afghanistan and Iraq in U.S. policy:

Being "forgotten" in that sense is better than being at the center of the kind of urgent and partisan debate that Iraq has sparked. Whether the White House is willing to admit it or not, Iraq's particularities have eclipsed or altered the Bush administration's strategies of pushing democracy forward in the Middle East and of fighting the war on terrorism abroad rather than on American soil. More

• Amin Tarzi, for Radio Free Europe, on the rifts within the Taliban (evinced through their competing websites):

The most recent contradiction between statements of the spokesmen of the Taliban and the website of the "Islamic Emirate" followed the suicide attack that killed Paktiya Governor Hakim Taniwal on September 10...A rift arose under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan between many traditional Taliban and elements who identified themselves with Arab Islamists...the same ideological split could be resurfacing, if indications are correct of increasing contacts between some neo-Taliban and self-proclaimed "jihadists" operating in Iraq. More

Between Musharraf and Karzai

Bush Plays Chaperon for Awkward Encounter

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 (NYT) By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG:...“It will be interesting for me to watch the body language of these two leaders to determine how tense things are,” Mr. Bush told reporters then, though he insisted later he was only teasing...

Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said Mr. Bush’s primary challenge was “not only to broker a verbal cease-fire,” but also to get the two men to “deal with the core issue” of their dispute over the Taliban. “What’s ironic is these two leaders need each other,” he said. “Their personal futures as well as their countries’ futures are very much intertwined, yet there is tremendous mistrust and bad blood.”

That much was evident Wednesday in the Rose Garden body language, which was as interesting as Mr. Bush had predicted. Although the two foreign leaders were handshake-distance apart — and some thought the president might prod them into one — no hands were extended...