GOP disappointed in new drug chief?

According to a press report this week, Congressional Republicans are upset with the appointment of a State Department official to a newly created post of an anti-narcotics chief in Afghanistan. According to one staffer, the position was intended for someone to "knock heads together;" when someone from Foggy Bottom was tapped they've argued that "all this has done is put another player on the field."

There seem to be two worries: first that Thomas Schweich, most recently of the INL and a former chief of staff at the US Mission to the UN, is not senior enough to make this happen, and second that he harbors "soft on drug" inclinations (one staffer said "It's putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.")

Schweich's positions are not clear yet. From his comments he certainly doesn't seem one of those namby-pamby incrementalists so derided by the drug warriors. On alternative livelihoods without eradication, he has said "we don't think that's ever worked anywhere in the world." He's a clear proponent of spraying (though with the Afghan government's consent.)

Perhaps its his "pessimism" that has earned him enmity: he has said that eliminating poppies in the south is "a longer term proposition, maybe five or 10 years." For congress, that sounds hopelessly long. For those familiar with the challenge, it seems more than a bit optimistic...

House GOP protests drug czar for Afghanistan:WASHINGTON, March 27 (UPI) By SHAUN WATERMAN: Republicans in Congress are angry at the Bush administration's choice of a State Department official to fill a new post to oversee U.S. efforts against drug smuggling and corruption in Afghanistan. "It's putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop," said one senior House GOP staffer. A little-noticed announcement from the White House last week named Thomas Schweich to the new job: coordinator for counter-narcotics and justice reform in Afghanistan. MORE

Resource: Army Counterinsurgency Manual

It's been 20 years since the U.S. Army published a counterinsurgency field manual. Last year a new version was commissioned, and is available online here.

All the news that fits: 3 opeds from the NY Times

Three excellent op-eds in the Times today on Afghanistan and the region:

• Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid writes about his frustration as a liberal who supported Musharraf five years ago. "An exaggerated fear of Pakistan's people," he writes, must not prevent Americans from acknowledging that Musharraf is losing support: "Pakistan has grown increasingly divided between the relatively urban and prosperous regions that border India and the relatively rural, conservative and violent regions that border Afghanistan. The two mainstream political parties have historically bridged that divide and vastly outperformed religious extremists in free elections, but under General Musharraf they have been marginalized..." Musharraf has done some good, he says, but his time has come...

• Nicholas Kristof writes about Kiva, a site that allows ordinary people to make direct loans overseas. He was in Afghanistan this week checking up on his two loans (of $25 each) to a baker and a TV repairman in Kabul. Kiva loans are administered directly by local partners and with little overhead (Kristof's New York to Kabul flight represents an older model of administering aid...) Kiva is a terrific mechanism--and hopefully Kristof's article will bring them some attention from the mainstream.
  
  • For more details, see www.Kiva.org.

• Rory Stewart stays on message: humility, humility, humility.  Actions justified on moral grounds is nonsensical if they cannot be acheived; "we have no moral obligation to do what we cannot do." Stewart does no service by conflating US policies in Iraq and Afghanistan for rhetorical reasons, but he has some sober and sage advice:

"We will have to focus on projects that Iraqis and Afghans demand; prioritize and set aside moral perfectionism; work with people of whom we don’t approve; and choose among lesser evils. We will have to be patient. We should aim to stop illegal opium growth and change the way that Iraqis or Afghans treat their women. But we will not achieve this in the next three years. We may never be able to build a democratic state in Iraq or southern Afghanistan. Trying to do so through a presence based on foreign troops creates insurgency and resentment and can only end in failure."

Update: the battle for Kajaki dam

How is Operation Achilles going? Joe Friesen answers one facet of that question by looking at one of the operation's goals: to secure Kajaki dam and create a "safe zone" that would permit repair.

The dam currently supplies 380,000 people with sporadic power; if refurbished it could provide 2,000,000 with steady power, not to mention irrigation and employment. It would serve as a symbol of what the government can deliver that the Taliban cannot.

Friesen reports, however, that despite military progress by NATO forces "the Sangin valley south of the dam remains a hotbed of Taliban activity. Until it is secured, construction on a road leading from the highway to the dam cannot begin." Things will take a while to sort themselves out.

Of course, even if Kajaki dam is secured, the region will not be home free. Transmission lines will need to be upgraded as well, and insurgents could still blow up power lines and transformers to turn out the lights. Friesan notes this would risk alienating the population, but this hasn't stopped similar tactics in Iraq.

The fight to win Kajaki dam KANDAHAR, March 24, by Joe Friesen:...  The alliance says British forces have won the high ground in the area, giving them a significant strategic advantage. They have been clearing Taliban positions, blowing up arms caches and slowly gaining ground. Coalition forces have also encircled most of northern Helmand, with Canadians from the Royal Canadian Regiment on the eastern edge of that movement. But the Sangin valley south of the dam remains a hotbed of Taliban activity. Until it is secured, construction on a road leading from the highway to the dam cannot begin, and without a safe road it's impossible to supply the operation. MORE

Photo: DOD: Paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division patrol the Ghorak Valley of Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan during Operation Achilles, March 6.

Afghanwire launches new site, podcasts

Afghanwire.com, an excellent site that monitors Afghan media and provides background, has launched a new website "to give experts, both local and foreign, another outlet to voice their opinions about the current events and issues." They will also have a podcast every two weeks that will offer voices from the field and "Around Afghanistan with Vanni Cappelli."

Seems like they don't have any podcasts up yet. They are hard to do well. Does anyone know of any good podcasts on Afghanistan?

By the Numbers

Number of different (and often conflicting) land registries in Helmand:            17

Arrests by the British-supported Criminal Justice Task Force since May 2005: 830

Percent that resulted in a conviction:                                                           42%

Estimated years of opium exports that traffickers have stored in reserve:       4

                                                                                    Source: The Guardian

MORE BY THE NUMBERS BELOW
 

Should we end the counterinsurgency and refocus?

Getting a lot of buzz is Rory Stewart's guest column in the NY Times, in which he concludes that the West has bit off more than it can chew and that "the original strategy of limiting our role was correct."

It's a thoughtful piece, and Stewart writes well; however, his own policy prescriptions are no more coherent than the muddled thinking he dissects. MORE

After the Mastrogiacomo kidnapping

Fred Burton of Stratfor (subsc. req) writes that the Mastrogiacomo kidnapping (and subsequent negotiation for release of prisoners) is a sign that "reporters (and other Western noncombatants) have now become a valuable commodity in Afghanistan -- a 'get out of jail free card' for jihadists or criminals." Seems like he's jumping the gun here; statistically speaking, Afghanistan has not been an especially dangerous conflict zone for foreign journalists to operate. But Burton is right that the high-profile event could inspire copycats:

The problem is, even if this is not the beginning of a larger Taliban strategy to commoditize foreigners, their actions have in effect already done this. Other actors at large in Afghanistan, including al Qaeda, non-Taliban jihadists, criminal groups and even the various tribes, could decide to follow Dadullah's lead in order to gain the freedom of their own colleagues or family members.

Whether higher risks are reality or mostly perception, incidents like this effect how reporting and reconstruction is done (deteriorating security has crippled each in Iraq; it's impossible to do these jobs right from the green zone.)

Afghanistan Watch by the Numbers

By the numbers

Click here to see the latest By the Numbers.

• Suicide bombing attempts in 2006:                                142
• Total Afghan soldiers and police killed in these attacks:  46
• Foreign soldiers killed:                                                  15
• Afghan civilians killed:                                                206
• Suicide bombing attempts, Jan-Feb 2007:                      22
• Suicide bombers dead or captured:                                22
• Total foreign or Afghan security forces killed:                  8

                    Source: "Afghanistan's Record of Suicide Attacks in 2006"
MORE

Amnesty law passes; what next?

Alex Thier and Scott Worden have a piece in the Christian Science monitor that suggests that Karzai, if he plays his cards right, can "seize this opportunity to cement his leadership by transforming a self-serving attempt by warlords to avoid justice into a measure that truly sets a course for reconciliation and peace."

They argue that the outcry the bill spurred--especially from the National Council of Islamic Clerics who say it violates sharia law--is a positive sign; moreover, because of language within the amnesty provision, it "does not really protect any individual from answering for his crimes -- so long as a victim is brave enough to bring a claim." Thier and Worden argue that the best way to proceed is to implement the bill within the context of Karzai's Action Plan for Transitional Justice, which precludes amnesty for "crimes against humanity" (which are also prosecutable under international law.) In sum--and like Barney Rubin last week--they believe there's some lemonade to be wrung from these lemons. Worth a read...

Healing the wounds of the civil war requires both reconciliation and accountability
WASHINGTON (CSM) By J Alexander Thier and Scott Worden

Like every country facing the aftermath of civil war, Afghanistan is struggling to balance the need for peace and stability with demands for justice and accountability...Although President Hamid Karzai successfully negotiated a crucial amendment to protect the rights of victims of war crimes, the new amnesty law still favors the powerful warlords who sponsored the bill.

What’s wrong with Afghanistan’s suicide bombers?

Afghanistan has seen a precipitous rise in suicide bombings (from 25 in 2005 to 136 in 2006) but they have failed to cause many fatalities among their targets: foreign and international security forces. And while they may have achieved their goal of impeding the goals of Karzai's government and its international backers, these tactics are earning the Taliban enmity among the people whose support they most need.

So conclude Brian Glyn Williams and Cathy Young of the Jamestown Foundation, who recently conducted a five month study on 158 documented suicide bombings in Afghanistan from 2001-2007. One of their conclusions is that despite surface similarities with Iraq, “the suicide bombing campaign in Afghanistan has its own specific dynamics” which are extremely significant. MORE

Quoteboard

Some quotes from locals in Helmand, where allies are in the midst of Operation Achilles, the first major offensive of the season. The deputy governor of Helmand has announced plans to eradicate fully half of Helmand's poppy crop this year.

"No has destroyed my poppy and no one will be able to destroy it...We are not paying the Taleban, but they tell us, 'As long as we are here, no one can destroy your poppy'."

        - Hamidullah, a farmer in Musa Qala, Helmand

"I am a small-scale smuggler...I just buy poppy from farmers and sell it to bigger drug traffickers....We don't have a problem with the Taleban...if we give them money, we give by choice, like the zakat. People support the Taleban. Why shouldn't they?" 

        - Rahmatullah, local smuggler in Helmand  

 

Growth in legal economy outpaces growth of opium

The IMF has estimated that agricultural gains will allow the Afghan economy to grow by a robust 16%  this year. That's well above the previously estimated 12% growth, and even higher than last year's 14% growth.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher told Congress yesterday that "What we've seen in Afghanistan is the regular economy has been growing a lot faster than the economy of opium production." Some of the figures cited in the Bloomberg story (e.g. that "now accounts for about a third of the economy, compared with more than 60 percent five years ago") are suspect; it's easy to get these figures wrong because people often cite the opium trade as a percentage of different things (for example total economic activity vs. legal GDP.) I plan to dig into these numbers more the coming days, but even if the trend is exaggerated it would be an encouraging development (even amidst the latest data that the opium economy continues to expand). As Boucher qualified, narcotics is still the biggest business in town, and it will be a challenge "to get Afghanistan to the point where it can develop an economy, it can develop a country without the corrosive and corrupting influence of the drug trade."

Afghan Economy to Quicken, IMF Says, Reducing Opium Dependence
By Michael Dwyer, March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Afghanistan's economic growth will accelerate over the next two years, according to the International Monetary Fund, with increased production of wheat and fruit helping reduce the economy's opium dependence.

"Growth is expected to accelerate in 2006-07, with even stronger growth likely in 2007-08 owing to a rebound in the agricultural sector,'' Murilo Portugal, IMF deputy managing director, said in a statement on the Washington-based lender's Web site. The pace of expansion had previously been expected to slow to 12 percent this fiscal year from 14 percent in 2005-06.

Germany commits military planes

The Financial Times reports today that after several weeks of debate, "Germany will send at least six military planes and extra soldiers to Afghanistan despite public misgivings that peacekeepers are being sucked into the US-led war with the Taliban." Despite objections from several in PM Angela Merkel's cabinet, the Bundestag voted decisively (405 to 157 with 11 abstaining) to send 6 to 8 Tornado reconnaissance jets (which will add 500 crew and staff to the 3000 German troops in Afghanistan.)

Germany sends warplanes to Afghanistan

Berlin (Financial Times) By Hugh Williamson, March 9, 2007:...Yesterday's vote was controversial as it blurs the nature of Germany's military role in Afghanistan. Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 this has been focused on peacekeeping and reconstruction, in line with the distanced stance of politicians and the public towards the US-led military conflict with the Taliban.

Photo: DOD: A German tornado fighter jet.

                                       

Mohseni on preventing erosion of press freedoms

Today's Wall Street Journal printed an oped by Saad Mohseni, director of the Moby Media Group (which owns and operates Tolo TV, Lemar TV, Arman FM and Afghan Scene Magazine.) Mohseni argued that of all Afghanistan's successes, "perhaps none is more amazing than the success of its media. In name, at least, we now have a free press." But he also notes recent erosions of press freedom, including arrests, intimidation, and a June regulation prohibiting certain "provocative articles" against mujahideen. The press faces challenges from Islamists and politicians, especially the Ministry of Information and Culture. Meanwhile, Karzai does not seem to place press freedom at the top of his busy "to-do" list (Mohseni cites an Aug 19 speech in which the president "chose to criticize the media for exceeding their mandate and urged them to control themselves more.") Here is an excerpt from the piece, which is available in full to subscribers. ("Pressing for Freedom," Wall Street Journal, By Saad Mohseni. KABUL, March 9):

Afghanistan today boasts seven private television channels, dozens of private radio stations and hundreds of newspapers and magazines...Over the past year, however, there have been troubling signs that not everyone in the Afghan government supports this development. The pressure comes on many fronts...MORE

Photo: Saad Mohseni translates a Tolo TV clip for former USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios -- and his guest Rush Limbaugh...

Biden, Boucher, Jones and Dobbins

Today the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held Hearings on Afghanistan entitled "Time for a New Strategy?"  Witnesses included Richard Boucher (Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia), Gen. James Jones (U.S. Marine Corps, fmr commander of NATO, Retired) and Amb. James Dobbins (RAND, fmr Special Envoy for Afghanistan). I'll have their comments shortly; in the meantime, here is Senator Joseph R. Biden's opening statement:

BIDEN:  Today we face an issue “at the very heart of our war on terror: the deteriorating security conditions in Afghanistan.  If current trends continue, we may soon find that our hard-won success on the battlefield has melted away.”

I didn’t write these words in preparation for this morning’s hearing. I spoke them nearly five years ago, on the floor of the United States Senate. [May 17, 2002] MORE 

State Dept human rights report on Afghanistan

The U.S. State Department has just released its annual country reports on Human Rights Practices, and the Afghanistan section is available here. The bottom line: Afghanistan's performance "remained poor" but, according to the report, is improving. Abuses cited in the report include torture, prison conditions, impunity for officials, prolonged detention without trial, and violations of freedom of the press, religion and for women. Here's an excerpt:

Afghanistan's human rights record remained poor due to a deadly insurgency, weak central institutions, and the country's ongoing recovery from two-and-a-half decades of war. MORE

An ink blot strategy. . .for poppies?

Antonio Maria Costa, Director of UN Office of Drugs and Crime, on a new strategy to "Establish a stronghold of opium-free, or provinces with a negligible amount, and then slowly regain control of the other provinces.” Sort of the ink blot strategy, but for drugs. At first glance, seems a long shot, though the latest study suggests that 6 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces do not grow poppies:

“We may be able to create a corridor, or an area ranging from Pakistan in the southeast to Turkmenistan in the northwest.”

‘Delete them, or we will delete you”

Controversy swirling over Sunday's civilian deaths. Did the U.S. forces have something to hide, or were they merely acting out of a misguided default? This from Tom Zeller's "Notes on the News":

The circumstances of the incident on the highway are hotly contested, as Carlotta Gall reported for The Times yesterday. The American military says that the killed and injured civilians simply were caught in the crossfire between coalition troops and the militants who had snarled traffic with a suicide-bomb attack. MORE

Gordan Adams on the "snowball effect" of Pentagon primacy

Last month Dr. Gordon Adams, of the Woodrow Wilson International Center gave some striking testimony before the Senate Budget committee. His express topic was the rising costs of US policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the second half of his presentation focused on a serious development that has not received enough scrutiny: the expansion of the Pentagon portfolio at the expense of the organs tasked with making foreign policy.

Adams describes the "snowball effect" of this cycle: "the more we ask DOD and the military to do, the more they become responsible for our overseas relationships." Essentially, Iraq and Afghanistan have "become a test bed for a new concept in U.S. foreign and security assistance. Increasingly, the Defense Department is expanding its role in this area, altering an historic practice of State Department (and AID) policy supervision (and implementation) for security and foreign assistance."

We've seen this approach to Afghanistan, we've seen it in Iraq, and it shows no signs of waning:

"Inevitably, DOD will want to expand the authorities for which they are responsible, as they will seek this year. The more we expand DOD authorities, and underfund State and USAID for such activities, the less State and USAID have the credibility and retain the competence to carry out policy leadership and program administration in these areas. This trend risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy."

After listing components of this trend (see here) he argues that using the military as "one-stop shopping" "runs the double risk of underfunding and disempowering our diplomacy and foreign assistance agencies, and, at the same time, distracting the military from their core mission." MORE

Photo: Gen. Anthony Zinni, former head of Centcom, with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (Al-Ahram). In her book "The Mission," Dana Priest captured how Zinni was viewed by many as the de facto seat of American authority in the region.

Barnett Rubin examines the 'reconciliation law'-- line by line

Below is Barnett Rubin's analysis of the controversial "Reconciliation Law" that has been submitted by the parliament and now sits with the president. Despite widespread criticism (see here or here) that the law would give immunity to war criminals and obstruct justice, Rubin finds that, in general, "most of the text is acceptable or even positive,even if the intentions are not." I'd be interested in whether others share his views--please post a comment if you agree or disagree...

Rubin notes that "it is drafted very unclearly, which may be an advantage" and argues that "the government and international community should try to calm the situation and turn a discussion about politics into a discussion about the rule of law. The resolution is drafted as a political statement, not a law, and this provides an opening for discussion.":

Here is the general and most important point: After a period of civil war or rebellion, it is appropriate and legal, under international, national, and shari'a law, for the state to issue an amnesty for all combattants, regardless of their political affiliation.  This is the point of the example of Prophet Muhammad given in the resolution.  As the head of the Muslim umma, he forgave those who had fought and rebelled against it after the conclusion of hostilities. This is a very good example and should be followed.

In the Afghan case it means that no leader, organization, or combatant should be prosecuted for acts of war that they committed while taking up arms against or for any government or party.  They key point is that this amnesty applies to acts of war. International, national, and shari'a law, however, recognize another category of acts, much more limited in scope, which the state cannot pardon unilaterally. MORE

Jawad: Frustration that political participation has not led to results

From Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States, Said T. Jawad, in a CFR interview today:

"From the entire financial assistance that's been given to Afghanistan, only 5 percent has been given to the Afghan government. Twelve percent of the funds have been given to the Afghan reconstruction trust fund established for Afghanistan. And we can withdraw money under certain conditions. The remaining 82 or 83 percent of the assistance has been spent outside the budget and control of the Afghan government. MORE

Photo: CFR