Out of pocket...

Afghanistan Watch will not be updated regularly until Feb 1. . .until then, Carl

Burdened U.S. military cuts role in drug war

The LA Times has been following Congress' push to get the Pentagon more involved in counternarcotics--see the rundown from last month here.  Here's the latest from Josh Meyer:

Air and sea patrolling is slashed on southern smuggling routes
WASHINGTON, Jan 22, by Josh Meyer (LA Times): Stretched thin from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has sharply reduced its role in the war on drugs, leaving significant gaps in the nation's narcotics interdiction efforts...Internal records show that in the last four years the Pentagon has reduced by more than 62% its surveillance flight-hours over Caribbean and Pacific Ocean routes that are used to smuggle cocaine, marijuana and, increasingly, Colombian-produced heroin. At the same time, the Navy is deploying one-third fewer patrol boats in search of smugglers...The Department of Defense defended its policy shift in a budget document sent to Congress in October: "The DOD position is that detecting drug trafficking is a lower priority than supporting our service members on ongoing combat missions."...

Image: The US Coast Guard working...in Umm Qasr Iraq!? Photo by PA1 Tom Sperduto, USCG.

Claudio Franco: How and why the Taliban fight

This is a nice piece of reporting by Claudio Franco of the San Francisco Chronicle foreign service which describes, among other things:

• The uneasy alliance between the Taliban and the "Arabs," who are seen as trigger happy and intent on martyrdom. "They won't stop shooting even when they are told to. And they always write messages home before a battle -- they get ready to die. I know them well, and I don't like them; they just don't trust Afghans." says one Taliban fighter. Another: "Some of them stay for six months and then go back, nobody knows where. They pay a lot to get in and out. None of them will talk, but they come here to train, I guess. Al Qaeda has its own network in Konar and Nuristan; they don't need us."
• The confidence the Taliban have in their tactics: "The U.S. helicopters cannot land if we are around, and they can't always target us from the air. They know we only need a split second to hit them and disappear. We only assemble with other units for large-scale attacks. With a few hours' advance notice, we can be virtually anywhere in the province. Once we have split up, it's extremely difficult to locate us without risking being hit."
• The resentment stirred by merging humanitarian and military roles in the PRT model: "They are uniformed soldiers, not nurses," says one Taliban.

(NB: Barnett Rubin notes that "This groups seems to be Hizb-i Islami Hikmatyar, not Taliban. Maybe the distinction is not so clear anymore, but Kashmir Khan is a major Hikmatyar commander." Either way, the article is insightful...)

In remote Afghan camp, Taliban explain how and why they fight
Konar, Jan 21, 2007 (SF Chron) by Claudio Franco  --...After months of protracted negotiations, Kashmir Khan, the Taliban insurgents' overall commander in Konar and Nuristan provinces, consented to the visit of a Western journalist to meet with these fighters, and guaranteed security...Musa Khan said his unit had 25 to 30 fighters, a handful of whom were deployed on the hilltops surrounding the interim base, securing all the potential access routes to the camp. This is how the Taliban operate in the eastern provinces, Musa Khan explained through a translator -- "groups of 20 to 40 lightly equipped men who are extremely mobile and effective in this rugged terrain."

Taliban to open their own schools in the south

The Taliban remain highly unpopular in the south, in part because they are seen as tearing down without building anything up. This new initiative to build schools is an attempt to provide some services. However, with only a million dollars to spend they will be hard pressed to convince people that they offer a viable alternative to government schools.

Taliban to open schools in Afghanistan Jan 22 (AP) by NOOR KHAN The Taliban said they will open their own schools in areas of southern Afghanistan under the group's control, an apparent effort to win support among local residents and undermine the Western-backed government's efforts to expand education.

The announcement follows a violent campaign by the fundamentalist Islamic group against state schools in the five years since its ouster by U.S.-led forces. The Taliban destroyed 200 schools and killed 20 teachers last year, and President Hamid Karzai said Sunday that 200,000 children had been driven from the classroom... MORE

Photo: A girls school torched by the Taliban last year (Credit: Zalmai for Newsweek)

Afghanistan Needs More than Reinforcements

As the administration prepares to send another 20,000 soldiers to Iraq, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates traveled to Afghanistan. There he met U.S. and NATO commanders that find themselves shorthanded against a renewed insurgency. In 2006, armed attacks tripled, to over twelve per day. With only 20,000 U.S.soldiers in all of Afghanistan, split between the NATO command and the U.S.-led coalition, there are not enough troops to go around.

The mission in Iraq, insatiable and interminable, has left Afghanistan in a state of chronic neglect. General David Richards, the NATO commander, estimates that he is 4,000 to 5,000 troops short; coalition commander General Karl Eikenberry is also calling for reinforcements. Unlike in Iraq, where troop increases have been tried before and failed, a few thousand additional soldiers in Afghanistan could go a long way, allowing international forces to hold towns that have been cleared of Taliban and to be proactive rather than reactive. That’s why the new chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Joseph Biden, has said, “If we're surging troops anywhere, it should be in Afghanistan.”

The argument for additional troops is compelling, but it’s important the conversation not end there. MORE

The man from Bogota

Pres. Bush announced today the next Ambassador to Afghanistan: William B. Wood. Wood has an impressive resume that suggests no experience whatsoever in the region (a curious distinction for  the nation's most demanding diplomatic post east of Baghdad...)

Wood's last posting, however, hints at why this president might find him a suitable candidate for the job:

Wood, 56, has spent most of his career in the diplomatic corps, working most recently in Bogotá with Colombia's government against a domestic insurgent group and drug traffickers.

Where did they file those eradication plans?

Troop increase: necessary but not sufficient

As I and others argue in today's San Francisco Chronicle, an increase in troop levels is a necessary but hardly sufficient condition for improving security. The fundamental challenges are: a) developing a smart and coherent approach toward Pakistan; and b) investing more (and more wisely) in state building, economic development and rule of law -- the components of sustainable security.

Anna Badkhen's piece does an great job of laying out the challenges that lie behind the numbers game:

U.S. weighing troop increase for Afghanistan
Jan 18 (San Francisco Chronicle), Anna Badkhen, Chronicle Staff Writer: As the Bush administration struggles with bipartisan opposition to increasing troop levels in Iraq, the new Pentagon chief is also weighing requests to send more troops to Afghanistan, where military commanders anticipate another surge in violence in the spring. While many analysts support a troop boost to Afghanistan, they also warn that the increase alone would not be enough to fight the resurgent Islamic militia, which has been staging increasingly bold attacks against U.S., NATO and Afghan forces and civilians.

"It's pretty clear that the fighting is more sustained than anybody had expected," said Carl Robichaud, an expert on Afghanistan at the Century Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy research group in New York. But he added that giving the international forces "the resources they need is a necessary but by no means a sufficient move. ... We shouldn't be under any illusions that that's going to transform what's going on in Afghanistan."

Karzai sacks chief of staff amid rumors

Karzai today replaced Jawed Ludin, his chief of staff, with Omar Daudzai (who preceded him in that post two years ago.) Ahmed Rashid reports that "the cause of the shake up was due to political infighting within the president's staff" and that "the move has shaken Western diplomats in Kabul and is seen as a sign that Mr Karzai is struggling to control the loyalty of his government."

Karzai sacks aide amid plot rumors
LAHORE, Jan 18, By Ahmed Rashid: ...[Ludin's removal] has triggered a flood of rumours amongst Afghan cabinet ministers about a possible conspiracy by some warlords against Mr Karzai just as Afghan and Nato forces brace themselves for a major Taliban offensive in the next few weeks...MORE

Congress for a surge in Afghanistan?

After consulting commanders, it seems Sec Gates is leaning toward troop increases in Afghanistan. What about Congress, which has pushed back again an escalation in Iraq? Today The Hill featured a story on Congressional Democrats and their desire to shift attention to Afghanistan. Among those who say their committees will examine the issue:

• Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees .
• Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), Chair of House Defense Appropriations subcommittee.
• Rep. Marty Meehan (D-MA), chair the House Armed Services Investigations and Oversight subcommittee, has said that he's solicited ideas from all the members of his panel on Afghanistan: “There has been a discussion but we have to agree on a plan to do that.”
• Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y.), and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) have returned from a congressional delegations to Afghanistan and their observations should color today's debate.
• On the other hand, The Hill reports that Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) plans to refrain from calling for additional troops in Afghanistan "because he wants to ensure any effort is multinational." Some good details here...

Dems struggle to shift focus to Afghanistan from Iraq
WASHINGTON, (The Hill) Jan 17, By Roxana Tiron: Several top Democrats, including 2008 presidential hopefuls Sens. Joseph Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), said a troop increase should occur in Afghanistan rather than Iraq...MORE

Photo: Sen. Evan Bayh meets with Afghan forces.

 

US Sec Def Gates in Afghanistan

Defense Secretary Robert Gates met with the NATO Sec-Gen yesterday, where he reiterated the need for both a military and civilian response to growing instability, and today be gins meetings in Afghanistan. According to a defense official, Gates will ask military commanders today whether they have the troops and resources to counter Taliban offensives.

U.S. defense secretary in Afghanistan for talks on fear of Taliban gains
KABUL, Jan 16 (AP): U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates met with the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan on Tuesday before planned meetings with NATO and U.S. military leaders and Afghan President Hamid Karzai to discuss the resurgent Taliban insurgency. It was Gates' first trip to Afghanistan since he took over for Donald H. Rumsfeld last month. Gates has said several times recently that he is worried that U.S. gains in stabilizing Afghanistan could be in jeopardy...

More aid for Afghanistan--or just better aid?

How can we improve the quality of aid delivery in Afghanistan? Many people would point to specific concerns vis a vis Afghanistan's economy, security situation, etc, but it's also worth taking a step back and asking: What are the criteria for successful aid in any country?

There are nearly as many theories on this as there are development economists. But one of the best concise summaries can be found in an important article in Foreign Affairs by Nancy Birdsall, Dani Rodrik, and Arvind Subramanian.

In it Birdsall, Rodrik and Subramian, three top scholars on the impact of foreign assistance, highlight areas in which aid has been successful: eradicating smallpox, lowering infant mortality, increasing school enrollment, etc. Then comes the rub: in each case, they note that “What these successes share is that they were narrowly targeted at specific objectives. Assistance does work well, but only when the recipient countries do the right things to help themselves and have the capacity and the leadership to spend the money wisely.”:

But aid has not been associated with the sustained increases in productivity and wages that ultimately matter. . .There are many reasons for the mixed performance of foreign assistance. Donors themselves cause many of the problems. Recipient countries can be overwhelmed by the multiplicity of donors pursuing many, even inconsistent, objectives, disbursing aid to innumerable projects and imposing a plethora of conditions on its use. These factors contribute to rather than offset a poor country's lack of institutional capacity. On top of that, there is the natural volatility and uncertainty of foreign aid, which make it difficult for recipient governments to plan their budgets. For more than a decade, the bureaucracies of donor states and organizations have been unable, despite good intentions and constant resolve, to change the political incentives and constraints that impede the reform of their aid-delivery apparatuses.

Probably more important, however, are institutional deficiencies on the recipients' side. Aid is only as good as the ability of a recipient's economy and government to use it prudently and productively. Thus, the fundamental dilemma: countries most in need of aid are often those least able to use it well. That sets limits on the extent to which large infusions of foreign funds can make a difference.The greatest example of the success of aid -- the Marshall Plan -- illustrates the importance of homegrown institutional competence. Because the institutions and capabilities of the United   Kingdom, France, and Germany survived the war to a large extent, even their war-ravaged economies were able to exploit fully the potential of financial assistance.

Read the complete article for more...

Hekmatyar: we evacuated bin Laden and Zawahri

In an interview aired today, Gulbaddin Hekmatyar (who during the 1980s received, through the ISI, more US funding than any of the other mujahideen) declared that his militia helped bin Laden escape after September 11:

Afghan warlord says he helped bin Laden escape
ISLAMABAD (Reuters), Jan 11: ...Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister in early 1990s, said in an interview aired on Pakistan's private Geo television channel on Thursday that he met bin Laden and Zawahri after fighters loyal to his Hizb-e-Islami group helped the two al Qaeda leaders escape from the Tora Bora region in late 2001.

"After the American attack on Afghanistan, I directed my people to evacuate our guest brothers to safer places," said Hekmatyar. "Some valiant and honest mujahideen of Hizb-e-Islami evacuated Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri along with some other comrades and transferred them to a safer place," he said. "I met with them there." The authenticity of the interview could not be independently confirmed, but interviewer Saleem Safi told Reuters that it was conducted inside Afghanistan nearly three weeks ago. . .

Photo Source: Wikipedia

New Resource: Peace Operations Monitor

The Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee (CPCC) has launched the Peace Operations Monitor, "a web-based resource providing up-to-date factual information on complex peace operations" which offers an “integrated mission perspective, i.e. compiling information on the governance arrangements as well as military, civilian, police, humanitarian, diplomatic, and other components of current peace operations." There's some very good material here...Check it out at Monitoring Peace Operations in Afghanistan.

Linking to Tajikistan's surplus power

Not breaking news, but worth noting: the Asian Development Bank has authorized $56.5 million in loans (which will be supplemented by several other funds) to allow Afghanistan to tap into Tajikistan's surplus hydropower. According to GlobalSecurity.org, Tajikistan has the greatest hydroelectric capacity in Central Asia; in fact it has could increase its production almost twentyfold (it currently produces 16.5 billion kilowatt hours per year, but could produce 300 billion kw hours.) The project is due for completion in 2010 and should relieve some of Afghanistan's power shortages:

ADB backing energy cooperation between Afghanistan and Tajikistan KABUL: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is backing a project to tap Tajikistan’s power surplus to meet shortfalls in neighboring Afghanistan through loans to the two countries totaling US$56.5 million. MORE

Photo: Nurek Dam, the world's tallest, sits astride the Vakhsh River in western Tajikistan.

Afghanistan's three legal systems

Last month, in the wonderfully reported Honor Among Them, the Economist asked "how the Pushtuns' ancient tribal code is fighting for survival against radical Islam"? The author notes that "By one estimate, jirgas settle over 95% of Afghanistan's disputes, civil and criminal." I'm not sure what estimate they are referring to here, but the author argues that people shun both sharia and legal courts "not just because the regular courts are incompetent and corrupt...(but) where authority is contested by a well-armed citizenry, the jirga's verdicts, delivered with the warring parties' consent, tend to be more enforceable than off-the-peg legal or Islamic judgments."

The irony is that while the West see Taliban-style sharia as backwards, their code looks almost progressive compared to Pashtunwali. Sharia guarantees to women certain rights of inheritance and does not recognize the exchange of women as a means to end disputes or the Pashtun habit of wife inheritance.

Some try to finesse the differences... MORE

Photo: A pashtun jirga breaks for lunch from a murder trial. Pakistan, Feb 2000. Credit: T. Kurosaki  

 

Gulchera's story, from Mursal Women's Magazine

Afghanwire has an excellent translation service for the Afghan press--you can now get a weekly digest of the best news and commentary, translated from Dari and Pashtu and delivered to your inbox. This offers Afghanistan Watch the opportunity to offer more local content--please let us know what you are interested in seeing more of...

Here's an article published in Mursal Women's Magazine that caught my eye. While Afghan women still have insufficient access to justice, there are now at least outlets that will air their concerns:

THREE MARRIAGES, TWO MEN Jan 7, (Mursal) translated via Afghanwire: The sun-burnt face of Gulchera, who has suffered too many miseries, absorbs everyone’s attention. We see the tears running from her eyes. She was telling us the story of her life, punctuated with sobs, and sometimes she was not able to speak clearly. I met her a few days in a row in front of the ministry of women’s affairs, and when one day I asked a question about her life, she responded:

“I got married for the third time to one of two brothers. My father in law forced me too much. Recently with the help of almighty God, I left that place and went to my father’s house. I am asking the authorities to grant me justice and assign my fate.”

Calmly, I sat next to her and asked to tell me about her life. MORE

The Iraq surge and Afghanistan

David Wood, in an excellent article yesterday for the Baltimore Sun, notes that "President Bush is expected to announce this week the dispatch of thousands of additional troops to Iraq as a stopgap measure, an order that Pentagon officials say would strain the Army and Marine Corps as they struggle to man both wars." He reports that "already a U.S. Army infantry battalion fighting in a critical area of eastern Afghanistan is due to be withdrawn within weeks in order to deploy to Iraq."

The article manages some fresh insights on the (well-tread) question of troop levels, and is well worth a read. There are legitimate arguments both ways as to whether more U.S. troops are needed in Afghanistan, but one thing is certain: these decisions should be made by the Pentagon and the commanders in the field--not dictated by developments in Iraq. The dubious "surge" strategy in Iraq threatens to do just that.

Afghan war needs troops
KABUL, Jan 7 (Baltimore Sun) By David Wood: Radical Islamist Taliban forces, shattered and ejected from Afghanistan by the U.S. military five years ago, are poised for a major offensive against U.S. troops and undermanned NATO forces, prompting American commanders here to issue an urgent appeal for a new Marine Corps battalion to reinforce the American positions...

Gen. James T. Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps...said U.S. commanders understand that the Afghan war is an "economy of force" operation, a military term for a mission that is given minimal resources because it is a secondary priority, in this case behind Iraq.

Nevertheless, Conway said, he favored dispatching a Marine battalion here, a decision that must be approved by the new defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, and by the president. "It has to be made pretty soon," Conway said. "We can't jerk the troops around and say, 'Hey, oh, by the way, you're going to Afghanistan in February.'"

CQ: White House line on war cost called too low

Congressional Quarterly notes this week that "Three independent assessments place the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus anti-terrorism activities, at amounts in excess of the Bush administration’s figures." Click here to see the breakdowns. (CRS separates out spending by operation, while CBO's breakdown, by spending bill, is less transparent.)

These charts highlight two stark realities:

• First: military spending in Iraq dwarfs spending on Afghanistan (by a five to one margin in recent years). Based on a threat assessment, one would be hard pressed to justify this allotment.
• Second: military spending in Afghanistan--at $20 billion last year--itself massively overshadows to all other international spending in Afghanistan (for example, CRS notes that five years of U.S. spending (FY2001-FY2005) on reconstruction, humanitarian aid, economic assistance, and training for Afghan security forces combined comes to $5.7 billion.)

Rectifying these two massive imbalances is a necessary first step to getting America's Afghan strategy back on track...

Amb. Robert Hunter on Riga aftermath

Today Robert E. Hunter (RAND senior adviser and former U.S. ambassador to NATO,1993 to 1998) writes that "there is no ambiguity and there should be no ambivalence" about NATO countries "radically stepping up their collective commitment" to Afghanistan:

Europe's Afghan test
WASHINGTON, Jan. 2, Outside View (UPI), Robert E. Hunter:...The good news at the Riga summit was that allied heads of state and government did focus on Afghanistan. The bad news is that they came up far short of what they have to do to reverse declining fortunes. NATO's military commanders gained a paltry number of new troop pledges. Those allies unwilling to face the risks of conflict agreed to modify their so-called "national caveats" that keep them out of harm's way, but only in an emergency, and tactical airlift will still fall far short of basic needs.

Paula Lerner: The Women of Kabul

The Washington Post has completed a fantastic multimedia special on women in Kabul. The project features stunning photography by Paula Lerner, a photojournalist who visited Afghanistan three times in the past eighteen months to trace the efforts of five women entrepreneurs. The remarkable women she profiles have received assistance from the Business Council for Peace (BPEACE), a nonprofit that helps women in post-conflict countries. They used the grants and experience they gained to found a children's center, a clothing shop, a textile business, and a fitness center. Inspiring work, innovatively presented.

THE WOMEN OF KABUL
A Multimedia Feature

Photos and Audio by Paula Lerner