Der Spiegel reports provide a much needed dose of reality: the locals are tired of the foreigners, and are beginning to blame NATO armies rather than the Taliban for the ongoing death and destruction:

The ... Bundeswehr, now has two noxious enemies in Afghanistan: the rumor mill and the Taliban's improved explosives.

Last Thursday, a massive bomb exploded beneath a German "Marder" infantry fighting vehicle, killing one and wounding five soldiers.

The incident brought the total number of German soldiers killed thus far in Afghanistan to 52. Four have died in the last two weeks alone.

Until now, the heavily armored Marders were considered relatively safe.

But the insurgents are apparently now capable of building larger bombs, and the attack last Thursday shattered the myth of the vehicle's safety, signaling a new stage in the war.

At the same time, NATO forces are growing increasingly mistrustful of the Afghan security forces.

The Germans have been "partnering" with the Afghans, training them and fighting alongside them. But, on Feb. 18, an Afghan soldier shot three Bundeswehr soldiers near Baghlan. As a result, German soldiers are starting to question whether they are dealing with partners of questionable loyalty.

As with Greece and the Euro, so with Germany and Afghanistan, reality is taking awhile to break through 'received wisdom'.

Received wisdom/spin has it that the Taliban are losing the war. Not so, reports Der Spiegel:

... instead of giving up, the Taliban simply adjusted their strategy to match that of the Americans: killing enemy leaders.

On Oct. 8, 2010, the governor of Kunduz province died when insurgents detonated a bomb in a mosque during Friday prayers.

On March 10, 2011, a suicide bomber blew himself up next to Abdul Rahman Sayedkhili, the provincial police chief of Kunduz.

On April 15, Khan Mohammad Mujahid, the police chief in Kandahar province, died in a suicide bombing at his headquarters.

And now Gen. Daud and Gen. Shah Jahan Noori, the Takhar police chief, were killed in the May 28 attack.

Indeed, a German officer describes the Taliban's new strategy as "an eye for an eye."

"For each Taliban leader we kill," he says, "we can now expect an attack on a top official in the Afghan government."

The only thing that can explain the large number of deadly attacks is that the Taliban have widely infiltrated the Afghan security forces.   [DS]

None of this is reported in the UK's mainstream media, which instead offers voters a monotone commentary centred around the dead.

Viewers are (a) bored with the war, and/or (b) feel there's nothing they can do about it, and/or (c) sense it's unpatriotic to criticise.

Cameron's response is very Blairite: a law offering service men and women a renewed compact with the nation.   [Gdn]

By all accounts it's rather less than what's needed for the dead, the injured, and their families, who were not responsible for political decisions taken far above their heads, and which have ruined their lives to no evident purpose.

One final thought occurs: many will not identify with the squaddies, since military service is no longer a social obligation to be recalled years later as a time when we were - quite literally - "all in it together".

The range of possible reasons offered by government ministers indicate either a lack of certainty, or perhaps a need to mask the truth.

Historian Michael Burleigh argues that we are currying brownie points in Washington - [4] - while Washington looks to have learned nothing from failure in Vietnam. [3]

Brown sticks to the mantra that our presence there prevents a repeat of 7/7 - [5] - and Phil Woolas claims it's controlling immigration. [8]

David Miliband argues that this war is on a par with WWII. [9]

Claims the UK forces are there to bring stable government - even democracy - were destroyed by the corrupt election , and NATO's decision to live with the result.

This might also enhance the 'nice little earners' to be made by NGOs and their consultants.  [6]

Killing civilians with weapons that are supposed to be accurate to within a yard isn't the best way to win 'hearts and minds'.  [18]

Operation to clear Helmand poppy fields begins

Major Ross Brown, head of eradication for the Provincial Reconstruction Team's (PRT) counter-narcotics department, said Afghan teams from each district would use tractors and ploughs, provided by international funding, to target farms ranging from small holdings to large, organised crime operations.

They will face constant danger as many poppy producers use improvised explosive devices (IEDs) - more commonly associated with the insurgency - to protect their crops.

Maj Brown said a carrot and stick approach was being used - almost literally.

Farmers who have been offered the opportunity and support to switch to growing carrots and wheat, but who have refused to take up the offer, will be targeted first.

Maj Brown said: "The long-term aim is to create a secure and stable food zone in the heart of Helmand ...

"There is an increasing appetite among locals to eradicate poppy growth in the region ...

"Most of all, locals are objecting because growing poppy is illegal and against Islamic law."

Ind  16 Mar 2012

British military sanctions Afghan poppy cultivation

Karzai calls for Nato-led troops to withdraw from rural areas ...

Karzai told Panetta that the weekend shootings in southern Afghanistan were cruel and that everything must be done to prevent any such incidents in the future.

He said that was the reason he was demanding the pullout from rural areas now and early transfer of security ...

Ind  15 Mar 2012

Cameron: 'Britain and US will leave Afghans without a perfect democracy'

Translated = 'We need plenty of time to negotiate our escape route with Kazakhstan'

Prime minister admits Afghanistan will be left with 'huge developmental problems' when troops withdraw by 2014 ...

Cameron expressed horror at the shootings, but said Britain and the US would not alter their timetable for withdrawal as they work "absolutely in lockstep" to end Nato's "lead combat role" by the middle of 2013, in favour of a "support combat role", and withdraw all combat troops by the end of 2014 ...

Gdn  13 Mar 2012

Cameron 'forced to visit' Kazakh dictator ...

Obama and Cameron must strike a balance over Afghanistan withdrawal

If the US takes a noticeable extra step towards the exit door, the other 47 nations in the Nato coalition may begin an unedifying stampede towards it too.

That is a real fear for Isaf's commander, General John Allen, whose stability strategy relies upon an orderly, co-ordinated pullout.

And what of the civilian reconstruction teams who are also planning to draw down in step with the military? They may have to revisit their ideas.

Hamid Karzai may not welcome a swifter withdrawal by Nato if it is accompanied by a wobble on foreign aid to his country post-2014.

Karzai argued strongly for a 350,000-strong security force, and Nato has bankrolled it, but his government cannot afford to sustain this number or anything like it. Not without money from the west, at least, and hard commitments of cash for the future have not been made.

The US is Afghanistan's biggest donor, but it is already giving less – $2bn last year, compared with $3.5bn the year before.

The UK gives £178m a year, but for how long? ...

Gdn  13 Mar 2012

U.S. Officials Debate Speeding Afghan Pullout

... in a radio interview President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to the Afghan mission in spite of the recent setbacks, warning against “a rush for the exits” amid questions about the American war strategy.

“It’s important for us to make sure that we get out in a responsible way, so that we don’t end up having to go back in,” Mr. Obama said ...

The shootings on Sunday, and the burning of the Korans, come at a time when Afghans seem increasingly uncertain about their country’s fate once the Americans withdraw.

Asylum applications to other countries are at an all-time high, while passport applications have overwhelmed the Afghan Foreign Ministry’s ability to process them ...

Meanwhile, analysts say the Afghan economy appears more and more to be built on the Western aid that has enriched the country’s elite, who have taken much of the money out of the country.

Cash moving through Kabul International Airport has gone up drastically in the past year, so that now about $4 billion is leaving the country, in a legitimate annual economy of about $15 billion ...

NYT  13 Mar 2012

An Afghan Comes Home to a Massacre

“Our government told us to come back to the village, and then they let the Americans kill us,” Mr. Samad said outside the military base, known as Camp Belambay, with outraged villagers who came to support him.

They transported the bodies of Mr. Samad’s family members, as well as the other victims, and the burned blankets that had covered them as proof of the awful crime that had occurred.

After years of war, Mr. Samad, a poor farmer, had been reluctant to return to his home in Panjwai, which was known in good times for its grapes and mulberries.

But unlike other displaced villagers who stayed in the city of Kandahar, about 15 miles away, and other places around the troubled province, Mr. Samad listened to the urgings of the provincial governor and the Afghan Army.

They had encouraged residents to return and reassured them that American forces would protect them ...

NYT  13 Mar 2012

'Taliban Stronger than Ever' after Massacre

Taliban fire at delegates visiting Afghan massacre site

Soldier was stationed at 'troubled base'

Lewis-McChord in spotlight ...

Barack Obama to take David Cameron to basketball game during visit to US

US soldier kills up to 16 Afghan civilians in shooting spree

It is no use Obama talking about being 'deeply saddened' by this tragic event. Several points need to be made: such violent outbursts by lone gunmen are a regular feature of this particular ultra-individualistic society, in which the marginalized have little hope of making it back into the mainstream. The complex situation in Afghanistan - poverty, graft, drugs, clans, and medieval religious fundmentalism - add to the already stressful nature of soldiering in a war zone. The fact that the US, and their running dogs in NATO, cling to this bankrupt disaster for fear of something worse, is a commentary on the bankruptcy of Western policy making.

It is not the first time US soldiers have intentionally killed Afghan civilians but the death toll is unprecedented for a single soldier.

The soldier ... appears to have made no attempt to cover up the shootings.

Gdn  11 Mar 2012

Cameron 'forced to visit' Kazakh dictator over UK weapons trains route in exchange for exit from Afghanistan

Diplomatic sources say that President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the iron-fisted ruler of Kazakhstan, is insisting on the Prime Minister’s visit as a condition for allowing one of the largest military convoys in British history to cross his country ... (but) Kazakhstan ... is key to the 2014 pull-out operation ...

Military commanders are planning to use Russian railways, built by the tsars 140 years ago, to bring home millions of pounds worth of equipment more than 3,500 miles.

‘Nazarbayev is seeking to milk Britain’s need for an overland route to bring its military hardware out of Afghanistan,’ the diplomatic source said. ‘He is stung by Western criticism of his rigged elections and human rights crackdowns ...

Mail on Sunday  11 Mar 2012

Security Fears Lead Groups to Rethink Work in Afghanistan

An Afghan government plan to abolish private security companies at the end of this month, along with the outbreak of anti-American demonstrations and attacks in the past month, has left the private groups that carry out most of the American-financed development work in Afghanistan scrambling to sort out their operations, imperiling billions of dollars in projects ...

NYT  11 Mar 2012    Afghanistan    America    War on Terror Log

Lewis-McChord in spotlight ...

No rush for Afghan exit after killings, says Obama

U.S. Scrambles to Contain Fury Over Attack in Afghanistan

Afghanistan: dash for the exit

Afghanistan campaign: a fragile strategy easily derailed by lone gunmen?

American Is Held After Shooting of Civilians in Afghanistan

The pressure grows for a quick Nato exit from Afghanistan

Afghanistan deaths: David Cameron marks 'desperately sad day' for Britain

Vietman Mk II: You canNOT win hearts and minds AND have military victory.

Speaking in Downing Street, Mr Cameron said: "This is a desperately sad day for our country and desperately sad of course for the families concerned.

"It is a reminder of the huge price that we are paying for the work we are doing in Afghanistan and the sacrifice that our troops have made and continue to make.

"I do believe it's important work for our national security right here at home but of course this work will increasingly be carried out by Afghan soldiers and we all want to see that transition take place." ...

Tel  07 Mar 2012

Intractable Afghan Graft Hampering U.S. Strategy

And what the squaddies are giving their lives for ...

For the past few months, possibly the most intriguing poker game in Kabul has been taking place in the sprawling pink sitting room of the man at the center of one of the most public corruption scandals in the world, the near collapse of Kabul Bank ... Sherkhan Farnood, the founder and former chairman of Kabul Bank ...

Mr. Farnood, who in 2008 won about $143,000 at a World Series of Poker event in Europe, appears to know a good wager when he sees one. Despite years of urging and oversight by American advisers, Mr. Karzai’s government has yet to prosecute a high-level corruption case ...

... the Obama administration has concluded that pressing the fight against corruption, as many American officials tried to do in recent years, could further alienate Mr. Karzai and others around him whom Washington is relying on as it tries to manage a graceful drawdown.

“It’s a little late in the game to worry about anticorruption measures because what in the world is the alternative going to be?” said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “If you find people who aren’t corrupt, it is largely because they haven’t had the opportunity.”

NYT  07 Mar 2012

Death toll of British soldiers in Afghanistan passes 400

The chief of the defence staff, General Sir David Richards, said the men were doing "a dangerous but important job", adding:

"Increasingly the Afghans themselves are taking the lead in providing security across Helmand. This transition is allowing Afghans to gain the confidence to reject the Taliban and live normal lives."

Some experts remain unconvinced. Gareth Price, senior research fellow on the Asia programme at Chatham House, suggested the explosion could have been designed to send a message to the Afghan people that the national army could not guarantee their safety.

Anthony Glees, director of the centre for security and intelligence studies at the University of Buckingham, said:

"The fact that these people were killed by an IED (improvised explosive device) might suggest not just that this is a very dangerous place but that the Afghans aren't particularly good at delivering security."

Gdn  07 Mar 2012

Afghanistan campaign needs political follow-up, say MPs

Mr Ottaway told BBC Radio 4's Today programme:

"There is no doubt there have been great tactical successes in the south but at the end of the day we can't win militarily ...

"There is a danger that, without political leadership, the current military campaign is in danger of inadvertently derailing efforts to secure a political solution to what is essentially a political problem ...

BBC NEWS  02 Mar 2012

Afghanistan campaign needs political follow-up, say MPs

Afghanistan: the endgame drama

Disillusion, mistrust and suspicion: the legacy of the Afghan war

Hamid Karzai backs clerics' move to limit Afghan women's rights

President Hamid Karzai's endorsement of the Ulema Council's document, which allows husbands to beat wives under certain circumstances and encourages segregation of the sexes, is seen as part of his outreach to insurgents including the Taliban ...

Gdn  06 Mar 2012

Afghan clerics' guidelines 'a green light for Talibanisation'

Afghanistan

Nato pulls out of Afghan ministries after Kabul attack

Nato should 'pull out' of Afghanistan, period. It's already Vietnam Mk II

Gen [John] Allen added: "We are committed to our partnership with the government of Afghanistan to reach our common goal of a peaceful, stable and secure Afghanistan in the near future."

The UK Foreign Office confirmed it had "withdrawn civilian mentors and advisers from institutions in the city as a temporary measure".

Isaf spokesman Brig Gen Carsten Jacobson said that Nato could not yet reveal the identity of those killed.

He also said: "We cannot confirm where the killer came from, what his nationality was, whether he was in uniform or not, all these questions are not known." ...

Early reports suggest the two officers were shot in the ministry's command and control centre.

The BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says this is where representatives of 34 provinces meet to plan security.

He quotes sources as saying that Interior Minister Bismullah Khan was having a meeting with senior Western officials elsewhere in the building when the shooting took place.

The Taliban said in a website statement that it carried out the attack in response to the Koran burnings ...

BBC NEWS  25 Feb 2012    America    War on Terror Log

A warning from Somalia

Koran Protests Resume in Afghanistan Despite U.S. Apology

Will Afghan Koran row prove Nato's tipping point?

Why Taliban are so strong in Afghanistan

For Punishment of Elder’s Misdeeds, Afghan Girl Pays the Price

Did your partner, relative, loved one die for this?

Although baad (also known as baadi) is illegal under Afghan and, most religious scholars say, Islamic law, the taking of girls as payment for misdeeds committed by their elders still appears to be flourishing.

Shakila, because one of her uncles had run away with the wife of a district strongman, was taken and held for about a year.

It was the district leader, furious at the dishonor that had been done to him, who sent his men to abduct her.

Shakila’s case is unusual both because she managed to escape and because she and her family agreed to share their plight with an outsider.

The reaction of the girl’s father to the abduction also illustrates the difficulty in trying to change such a deeply rooted cultural practice: he expressed fury that she was abducted because, he said, he had already promised her in marriage to someone else ...

NYT  16 Feb 2012    War on Terror Log

Afghan civilian deaths rise for fifth year

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama) documented 3,021 civilian deaths in 2011 compared with 2,790 in 2010 and 2,412 in 2009 ...

"Afghan children, women and men continue to be killed in this war in ever-increasing numbers," said Jan Kubis, UN Special Representative for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

"For much too long Afghan civilians have paid the highest price of war.

"Parties to the conflict must greatly increase their efforts to protect civilians to prevent yet another increase in civilian deaths and injuries in 2012."

The 2011 Annual Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict said a total of 11,864 civilian lives had been claimed by the conflict since 2007 ...

BBC NEWS  04 Feb 2012    War on Terror

Pakistan helping Afghan Taliban - Nato

Nato has failed in exactly the same way as the US failed in Vietnam: you cannot have both military victory and win 'hearts and minds'

Despite Nato's strategy to secure the country with Afghan forces, the secret document details widespread collaboration between the insurgents and Afghan police and military ...

The report also depicts the depth of continuing support among the Afghan population for the Taliban ...

It paints a picture of al-Qaeda's influence diminishing but the Taliban's influence increasing ... the document says that in the last year there has been unprecedented interest, even from members of the Afghan government, in joining the Taliban cause.

It adds: "Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governance over the Afghan government, usually as a result of government corruption." ...

BBC NEWS  01 Feb 2012    Pakistan    War on Terror Log

Obama admits use of drones in Pakistan

Afghanistan’s Soldiers Step Up Killings of Allied Forces

A decade into the war in Afghanistan, the report makes clear that these killings have become the most visible symptom of a far deeper ailment plaguing the war effort: the contempt each side holds for the other, never mind the Taliban.

The ill will and mistrust run deep among civilians and militaries on both sides, raising questions about what future role the United States and its allies can expect to play in Afghanistan.

Underscoring the danger, four NATO service members were killed and a number were wounded on Friday when a gunman wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon on them ...

NYT  20 Jan 2012    America    War on Terror

France threatens troop withdrawal from Afghanistan

Afghan soldier kills French troops

Nato troops killed by Afghan forces – timeline

Afghanistan

William Hague questioned on Pakistan drone strikes

The Government is coming under increasing pressure to reveal if the UK is providing intelligence to help the US carry out drone strikes in Pakistan.

Lawyers for the son of a man killed in such an attack have written to the foreign secretary William Hague wanting to know what the UK's policy is.

Pakistan has called the strikes, which the US does not publicly acknowledge, a violation of its sovereignty ...

The law firm Leigh Day & Co is acting on behalf of Noor Khan, whose father was killed earlier this year in a drone strike on a jirga - or council of elders - in north-west Pakistan.

Richard Stein, head of human rights at the firm, said he wanted to know whether any information was being passed by agents of the UK Government to US Government forces to assist in the attacks ...

BBC NEWS  17 Dec 2011    America    Coalition Log    War on Terror

Afghan anti-corruption watchdog threatens to quit

Speaking in the runup to Monday's Bonn conference on Afghanistan, Drago Kos severely criticised the two Afghan institutions in charge of tackling corruption: the attorney general's office and the high office of oversight.

"We are not satisfied with their work. If they take the lead, there will be impunity. Nobody is ever brought to court. There are no prosecutions.

"Cases just stop at the HOO or the police or the attorney general's office. Orally, they support our work, but nothing is done," said Kos.

The independent anti-corruption monitoring and evaluation committee was created this year largely at the prompting of the US and British governments, but Kos said so far there had been no prosecutions of top Afghan figures implicated in corruption.

"We will have no problem to leave as soon as possible. If there are no changes, there is no point for us to stay.

"We are out of here," said Kos ...

Gdn  04 Dec 2011

Top British commander says west must see the job through in Afghanistan

Is Field Marshall Haig a hero of yours, General?

"We almost owe it to those who have gone before to see the job through," [Lieutenant General James Bucknall ] said.

"Having made this investment in blood, I am more determined. If I didn't think we could do this I would take a very different view but I am confident we can do it." ...

Gdn  04 Dec 2011    Afghanistan    War on Terror Log

Afghanistan bombs kill 58 ...

Afghanistan: we must leave now

'The Stream of New Insurgents Is Almost Endless'

US and Nato 'far from goals' in Afghanistan

Jailed Afghan Drug Lord Was Informer on U.S. Payroll

Political Ties Shielded Bank

Depositors Panic Over Bank Crisis

Graft-Fighting Prosecutor Fired

Karzai Aide in Corruption Inquiry Is Tied to C.I.A.

Afghanistan

Nato helicopters 'kill Pakistan checkpoint soldiers'

The incident risks dealing a fresh blow to US-Pakistan relations, which had only just begun to recover following a unilateral US raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan in May ...

"The latest attack by Nato forces on our post will have serious repercussions as they without any reasons attacked on our post and killed soldiers asleep," he said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media ...

US-Pakistan downturn
30 Sept 2010: Nato helicopters kill two Pakistani soldiers, prompting nearly two-week border closure in protest
22 April: Supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan halted for three days in protest over drone attacks
2 May: US announces Bin Laden's death and says Pakistan not warned of raid
2 June: Top US military chief Adm Mike Mullen admits "significant" cut in US troops in Pakistan
10 July: US suspends $800m of military aid
22 Sept: Outgoing US Adm Mullen accuses Pakistan of supporting Haqqani militant group in Afghanistan; denied by Pakistan

BBC NEWS  26 Nov 2011    America    War on Terror log

Mullen mauling shows patience wearing thin with Pakistan

US Admiral: 'Haqqani is veritable arm of Pakistan's ISI'

US General Peter Fuller fired as Afghan training chief

The truth gets you the sack, General

Maj Gen Peter Fuller, deputy commander of Nato's Afghan training mission, said in an interview with Politico the country's leadership was "isolated from reality" ...

Politico have reported that the general appeared to be irritated when referring to a recent comment made by Mr Karzai - that Afghanistan would side with Pakistan if the country ever went to war with the US ...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that the Afghan president's statement has been misinterpreted.

The general also likened the Nato training mission in Afghanistan to teaching a man to fish.

"You can teach a man how to fish, or you can give them a fish.

"We're giving them fish while they're learning, and they want more fish!" ...

BBC NEWS  05 Nov 2011    War on Terror Log

Afghan leaders 'isolated from reality'

Thirteen American soldiers killed in bloody day across Afghanistan

The latest assaults are a major setback for the US-led coalition as it seeks to draw down combat troops in a war that is increasingly unpopular in the West.

Indeed, it sent an alarming message as senior Nato and Afghan officials met on the same day to discuss the planned handover to local security forces.

It also was an embarrassment for President Hamid Karzai who has been trying to reach a peace deal with the Taliban ...

Foreign troops are due to have handed security over to the Afghans and largely left the country by 2014.

But violence across Afghanistan is at its worst since the start of the war 10 years ago this month, according to the United Nations, despite the presence of more than 130,000 foreign troops ...

Tel  29 Oct 2011    War on Terror Log    

Afghanistan would side with Pakistan in war with US, says Hamid Karzai

In Kabul, Clinton bluntly warned Pakistan that the US would act unilaterally if Islamabad failed to crack down on the Taliban-linked Haqqani network inside its North Waziristan sanctuary.

Clinton then flew to Islamabad to deliver the message in person during a four-hour meeting with Pakistan's top generals, calling on them to bring the Haqqanis to the negotiating table, kill the group's leadership or pave the way for the US to do so.

Karzai's interview with Geo was aired barely 24 hours after Clinton left the region.

Afghanistan owed Pakistan a great debt for sheltering millions of refugees over the past three decades, he said, and he stressed that his foreign policy would not be dictated by any outside power.

"Anybody that attacks Pakistan, Afghanistan will stand with Pakistan," he said. "Afghanistan will never betray their brother."

Gdn  23 Oct 2011    War on Terror Log        'Due process'

Afghanistan officials 'systematically tortured' detainees

The [UN] report, based on interviews with 379 randomly selected prisoners including teenage boys, says torture was systematic at five locations around the country and was designed to obtain confessions, which are often the only form of evidence against a suspect.

Abuse had occurred in 47 facilities across 24 of the country's 34 provinces, although it was not "institutional or government policy", the 74-page report says.

Detainees told UN investigators that tortures included: being hung by wrists to walls and ceilings; beatings, usually with rubber hoses and electric cables; twisting and wrenching of genitals; removing of toenails; threats of sexual abuse; and electric shocks.

It said blindfolding and hooding of detainees was common as well as the denial of medical care ...

Another [interviewee] told of how NDS officers escalated the torture the longer he refused to confess to an association with the Taliban.

"They took off my clothes, and one of them held my penis in his hand and twisted it severely until I passed out," said the man, who like all other interviewees is not identified by name.

"After I woke up, I had to confess because I could not stand the pain, and I did not want that to happen to me again and suffer the same severe and unbearable pain." ...

Gdn  10 Oct 2011    Torture    War on Terror Log    

Gary Schmitt

Neocons Gone Wild

CounterCurrents

US and Nato 'far from goals' in Afghanistan

Retired Army General Stanley McChrystal said the US began the war with a "frighteningly simplistic" view and still lacked the knowledge to achieve a successful end.

"Operation Enduring Freedom" aimed to track down Osama Bin Laden after 9/11 and eliminate the Taliban.

The UN says more than 10,000 civilians have died in the past five years alone.

More than 2,500 international troops have been killed - most of them American.

The conflict has already surpassed Vietnam to become the longest war in US history.

"The war is said to have cost the Americans $120bn, and the British £18bn.

"Just think how, if that money had been judiciously and wisely invested here, it might have transformed everything."

John Simpson
BBC World Affairs editor, Kabul

The BBC's Paul Wood, in Kabul, says that Western officials admit that parts of the country will remain violent after 2014 when Nato relinquishes its combat role.

Without a peace deal with the Taliban, he says, few really expect the war to be brought to an end.

BBC NEWS  07 Oct 2011    War on Terror Log

German General Says NATO Mission Has 'Failed'

A Brutal Afghan Clan Bedevils the U.S.

They are the Sopranos of the Afghanistan war, a ruthless crime family that built an empire out of kidnapping, extortion, smuggling, even trucking.

They have trafficked in precious gems, stolen lumber and demanded protection money from businesses building roads and schools with American reconstruction funds.

They safeguard their mountainous turf by planting deadly roadside bombs and shelling remote American military bases ...

Today, American intelligence and military officials call the crime clan known as the Haqqani network ... the most deadly insurgent group in Afghanistan ...

A quarter-century ago, the Haqqani fighters were not the targets of C.I.A. missiles.

They were the ones shooting C.I.A.-supplied missiles, the shoulder-fired Stingers that would devastate Soviet air power over Afghanistan.

Jalaluddin Haqqani was in temporary alliance with the United States against its greater adversary, the Soviet Union, just as his network today is allied with a Pakistan that sees Afghanistan as a critical buffer against its greater adversary, India.

His clan’s ruthlessness and fervent Islam were seen then as marks of courage and faith on the part of men Ronald Reagan called freedom fighters ...

NYT  25 Sept 2011    War on Terror Log        

Afghanistan peace process in tatters

The explosion in the heart of Kabul's diplomatic district kills off a peace process that was already on life support.

It also deprives President Karzai of an important ally who had flown into Kabul specifically to meet the men claiming to be Taliban envoys and emboldens his enemies who are implacably opposed to the idea of powersharing with armed insurgents ...

Gdn  20 Sept 2011    War on Terror Log

Deadly protest exposes cracks in Afghan strategy

For some Afghan - and international -- officials, this was a pre-planned attack, carried out by the Taliban, using the anti Koran-burning protest as cover.

If that is true, it shows how the insurgency retains the capability to strike even in places where it traditionally has very little support.

Despite some Pashtun-Tajik ethnic tensions in Mazar, the Taliban has never really had a foothold there.

The city was considered so safe, it was among the first seven locations named as ready to be handed over from Nato to Afghan security control in July ...

This is a deeply conservative, deeply religious country. An insult to Islam will inflame passions as no other issue.

If the violence was spontaneous, that is perhaps more worrying for the international community than if there had been a Taliban guiding hand.

It would show how precarious is the position of the international community here; even how much latent hostility there is for the international presence in Afghanistan ...

BBC NEWS  02 Apr 2011

US Afghan war review: On track, down a cul-de-sac

Mr Obama's war strategy will fail because the two essential ingredients for a successful counterinsurgency campaign are missing: a legitimate and functioning national government, and the ability to deprive insurgents of external support.

There is no realistic likelihood of getting either soon.

Just one measure of the problem of establishing a state that can defend itself is that the yearly cost in salaries alone of sustaining a force of 171,600 Afghan troops and 134,000 police by October 2011 is greater than the government's annual revenue.

And that is before their loyalty or integrity are tested in the absence of US troops.

And on Pakistan, the wisest words were written by former US ambassador Anne Patterson when she said that no amount of US aid would stop elements within the Pakistan military supporting the militants.

Without a resolution of Kashmir, Pakistan will not stop treating India as the strategic threat ...

Guardian  17 Dec 2010

Will the Afghanistan war break Obama's presidency?

Veteran foreign policy analyst Leslie Gelb, writing in the Daily Beast, said Obama can no longer persuasively answer the basic question: why are 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan, at an annual cost of $113bn?

"Afghanistan is no longer a vital interest of the United States but continuing the war there tears at our own nation's very vitals," Gelb said, arguing that international terrorism now has many bases, including Stockholm and London, and is no longer centred in the Hindu Kush (if it ever was). He added:

"With America drowning under a $1.5tn deficit for next year and an almost $15tn overall debt, we are verging on banana republic-hood...

Guardian  16 Dec 2010

The Case for Negotiations with the Taliban

Afghan Report Exposes a Split Over Pullout Timelines

Barack Obama: Afghanistan war is on track

Groundhog Day for Afghan Policy

Jailed Afghan Drug Lord Was Informer on U.S. Payroll

When Hajji Juma Khan was arrested and transported to New York to face charges under a new American narco-terrorism law in 2008, federal prosecutors described him as perhaps the biggest and most dangerous drug lord in Afghanistan, a shadowy figure who had helped keep the Taliban in business with a steady stream of money and weapons.

But what the government did not say was that Mr. Juma Khan was also a longtime American informer, who provided information about the Taliban, Afghan corruption and other drug traffickers.

Central Intelligence Agency officers and Drug Enforcement Administration agents relied on him as a valued source for years, even as he was building one of Afghanistan’s biggest drug operations after the United States-led invasion of the country, according to current and former American officials.

Along the way, he was also paid a large amount of cash by the United States ...

NYT  11 Dec 2010

Transparency International

Cables Offer Shifting Portrait of Karzai

WikiLeaks cables expose Afghan contempt for British military

The dispatches expose a devastating contempt for the British failure to impose security and connect with ordinary Afghans.

The leaked US embassy cables covering Afghanistan also reveal:

• Widespread suspicion of high-level corruption in the Afghan government, with one cable detailing how the vice-president was carrying $52m in his suitcase when he was stopped at Dubai airport.

• Iran's growing influence in Afghanistan as Tehran finances senior politicians and, the cables allege, trains Taliban militants.

• Anger among America's allies when they discovered that the US military was charging a 15% handling fee on hundreds of millions of dollars being raised internationally to build up the Afghan army.

Guardian  02 Dec 2010    

Helmand governor criticises UK military strategy

'UK military want to leave Sangin because of lack of popular support'

Karzai questions UK effectiveness

UK 'not up to task' of securing Helmand, says US

U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan

"Afganistan ... has little or no history of environmental protection ... "

Welcome to the world of Bhopal and Deepwater Horizon, guys!

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe ...

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys ...

The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources. Just last year, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine ...

Endless fights could erupt between the central government in Kabul and provincial and tribal leaders in mineral-rich districts.

Afghanistan has a national mining law, written with the help of advisers from the World Bank ...

At the same time, American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth ...

Another complication is that because Afghanistan has never had much heavy industry before, it has little or no history of environmental protection ...

NYT  13 June 2010

Be under no illusion, Nato is in no shape to make progress in this graveyard of empires

... Nato's need to show progress has produced a number of counter-productive quick fixes likely to deepen the violence.

These dangerous initiatives include setting up local militias to fight the Taliban where government forces are weak.

These are often guns-for-hire provided by local warlords who prey on ordinary Afghans ...

The differences between the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan underline that the latter is more dangerous for foreign occupiers.

In Iraq the anti-US guerrillas sprang from Sunni Arabs, a community to which less than one in five Iraqis belonged.

The post-Saddam government in Baghdad was supported by the Kurds and the Shia, making up four-fifths of the population.

Afghans are more xenophobic than Iraqis. "Suspicion of foreigners is part of every Afghan's DNA," said a Western diplomat in Kabul.

The Nato leaders in Lisbon may want to consider two other respects in which Afghanistan may prove a more dangerous country.

The Afghan government is much feebler than its equivalent in Baghdad where there is a tradition of central control and $60bn in oil revenues.

Militarily, what defeated the Soviet army in Afghanistan was not the warlike prowess of the Afghans but the 2,500km long border with Pakistan.

So long as this remains open, and the insurgents have safe havens in Pakistan, Nato and the Afghan government are not going to win.

Independent  20 Nov 2010    

Afghan police corruption 'hits Nato pullout'

In Lisbon, they talk. In Afghanistan, they die.

Nato ... what is it actually for?

Afghan Leader Admits His Office Gets Cash from Iran

Private security firms are the real issue

During an often hostile news conference, Mr. Karzai also accused the United States of financing the “killing” of Afghans by paying private security contractors to guard construction projects and convoys in Afghanistan.

He has declined to postpone a December deadline he set for ending the use of private security forces despite urgent pleas from Western organizations, including development organizations, that need protection here ...

President Karzai has so far refused to modify the ban, although he has said that he would consider requests to delay it on a case-by-case basis.

In many respects, his sharp words reflect a widespread feeling among Afghans, especially in insecure areas, that foreign security firms are running roughshod over them and intruding in culturally unacceptable ways on their daily lives.

At the news conference, Mr. Karzai lashed out at the United States, implying that American officials had leaked information to The New York Times about Iranian payments because of disagreements over the private security companies ...

NYT  26 Oct 2010

Iran Is Said to Give Top Karzai Aide Cash by the Bagful

Security contractors in Afghanistan 'fund Taliban'

Heavy US reliance on private security in Afghanistan has helped to line the pockets of the Taliban, a US Senate report says.

The study by the Senate Armed Services Committee says this is because contractors often fail to vet local recruits and end up hiring warlords ...

Some 26,000 private security personnel, mostly Afghans, operate in Afghanistan.

Nine out of 10 of them work for the US government ...

Doug Brooks, the president of a body that represents private security contractors, said contractors in the field faced hard choices regarding whom to employ.

"If your option is either using the local nationals who may be working for a local headman or warlord, or importing somebody from another part of Afghanistan - which automatically makes them a target - you may not have a whole lot of choice," he told the BBC's World Today programme.

"There's an aspect to this, a best value aspect, that I think the US government has ignored for too long," Mr Brooks said.

"The tendency among Congress is simply to go for the cheapest things they can find, the cheapest contractors, and that undermines, I think, the more quality contractors." ...

BBC NEWS  08 Oct 2010

Afghan civilian toll points to Isaf mission dilemma

Afghan Votes Come Cheap, and Often in Bulk

In northern Kunduz Province, Afghan votes cost $15 each; in eastern Ghazni Province, a vote can be bought for $18.

In Kandahar, they sell their rights for as little as $1 a ballot.

More commonly, the price seems to hover in the $5 to $6 range, as quoted to New York Times reporters in places like Helmand and Khost Provinces.

Even by the standards of a country rated as one of the poorest in the world, Afghans seem to be selling their votes cheap, and it is not so surprising why.

Five dollars is a lot of money when more than half the population lives on less than a dollar a day.

Indeed, in many rural parts of the country there is nothing in the way of a legitimate cash economy ...

Vote buying is much more common in this election than the last national balloting here last year ...

This time, many well-heeled Afghan independent candidates are looking to buy their way into the lucrative sinecure of a seat in Parliament.

That not only comes with a healthy salary — about $2,200 a month gross — but tremendous opportunities for graft ...

Osman Shenwari, 60, a malek, or village mayor, from the Spinghar District of Nangarhar Province, says he knows one candidate in his area who has already purchased 10,000 voter registration cards.

“The candidates send their representatives to every village and district center to look for people who want to sell their voting cards, and they pay 500 afghanis for each card,” he said. That’s about $11 each.

In many places, so-called vote maleks organize the trade.

These are brokers who collect all the voter registration cards in a community, and then peddle them to the highest bidder.

Typically, the vote malek keeps half of the money and the voters get half ...

NYT  17 Sept 2010    

Afghan poll workers' bodies found

Political Ties Shielded Bank in Afghanistan

Kabul Bank sits at the center of a financial crisis that has exposed the shadowy workings of the country’s business and political elite, and how such connections shielded the bank from scrutiny.

The panic surrounding Kabul Bank is threatening to pull down the Afghan banking system and has drawn in the United States.

And it is driving a wedge between the Fahims and the Karzais, the two Afghan political families that benefited most.

Now, the financial-familial arrangement is teetering on the edge of collapse.

"The brothers orchestrated the political deal to serve their business interests," said a prominent Afghan businessman in Kabul who, like virtually everyone interviewed for this article, spoke only on condition of anonymity.

"Fahim became vice president, and the bank financed Karzai’s re-election ... "

In the early 1990s, during the tumultuous years of the Afghan civil war, Hamid Karzai was arrested and detained by the Afghan intelligence service — then being run by General Fahim. Mr. Karzai was released, but only after a rocket struck the jail where he was being held.

General Fahim is also suspected of involvement in serious human rights violations during the 1990s, according to several advocacy groups.

In particular, he was a key commander during the Ashfar massacre in 1992 in Kabul, when an estimated 800 ethnic Hazaras were killed and raped ...

NYT  07 Sept 2010

Depositors Panic Over Bank Crisis in Afghanistan

Afghan leaders promised to guarantee deposits in an attempt to arrest the panic, which began earlier this week when the country’s top banking officials demanded the resignations of Mr. Frozi, the bank’s chief executive, and the bank’s chairman, Sherkhan Farnood.

Afghan and American officials say the two men presided over the bank in a reckless and freewheeling manner, doling out millions to allies of President Hamid Karzai and pouring money into risky investments that crashed.

The bank’s troubles — and the corruption associated with them — are posing a direct challenge to the country’s fledgling financial system, which was built under American guidance after the collapse of the Taliban government in 2001.

Kabul Bank, which counts a brother of President Karzai among its politically connected shareholders, illustrates the intertwining of political and economic interests in Afghanistan.

Afghan and American regulators said the bank’s political connections had shielded it from scrutiny until now.

If the loss of confidence spreads beyond Kabul Bank, it seems almost certain to strain the resources of the Afghan government — and make it more likely that the United States will be forced to intervene ...

NYT  02 Sept 2010

Security stepped up at Kabul Bank

Graft-Fighting Prosecutor Fired in Afghanistan

Fazel Ahmed Faqiryar, the former deputy attorney general, said investigations of more than two dozen senior Afghan officials — including cabinet ministers, ambassadors and provincial governors — were being held up or blocked outright by Mr. Karzai, Attorney General Mohammed Ishaq Aloko and others.

Mr. Faqiryar’s account of the troubles plaguing the anticorruption investigations, which Mr. Karzai’s office disputed, has been largely corroborated in interviews with five Western officials familiar with the cases.

They say Mr. Karzai and others in his government have repeatedly thwarted prosecutions against senior Afghan government figures ...

Mr. Faqiryar made his accusations amid a growing sense of alarm in the Obama administration and in Congress over Mr. Karzai’s failure to take action against officials suspected of corruption, but also as the administration debates whether pushing too hard on corruption will alienate a government whose cooperation it needs to wage war ...

NYT  28 Aug 2010

Karzai Aide in Corruption Inquiry Is Tied to C.I.A.

Mr. Salehi’s relationship with the C.I.A. underscores deep contradictions at the heart of the Obama administration’s policy in Afghanistan, with American officials simultaneously demanding that Mr. Karzai root out the corruption that pervades his government while sometimes subsidizing the very people suspected of perpetrating it.

Mr. Salehi was arrested in July and released after Mr. Karzai intervened.

There has been no suggestion that Mr. Salehi’s ties to the C.I.A. played a role in his release; rather, officials say, it is the fear that Mr. Salehi knows about corrupt dealings inside the Karzai administration.

The ties underscore doubts about how seriously the Obama administration intends to fight corruption here.

The anticorruption drive, though strongly backed by the United States, is still vigorously debated inside the administration.

Some argue it should be a centerpiece of American strategy, and others say that attacking corrupt officials who are crucial to the war effort could destabilize the Karzai government ...

NYT  25 Aug 2010

David Cameron sets stage for eventual UK withdrawal from Afghanistan as he visits Kabul

British and US troops need to move 'further and faster' in stabilising the country, prime minister says in press conference with Hamid Karzai ...

Cameron announced a series of measures to help stabilise the country and to strengthen the British military effort to hasten the withdrawal:

• A doubling of the number of teams, from 10 to 20, dealing with improvised explosive devices. This will cost £67m and will be paid for from the Treasury reserve.

• An extra £200m to be diverted to Afghanistan from the existing international development budget.

• More efforts to inform people in Britain of progress. There will be quarterly reports to parliament by the foreign secretary, William Hague, or the defence secretary, Liam Fox.

• A declaration that further deployments of British troops are "not remotely" on the agenda.

Speaking alongside Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, Cameron said that Afghanistan was Britain's "most important foreign policy issue, the most important national security issue facing our country, and it is that national security approach I want to stress here today ... "

Guardian  10 June 2010

The Whitehall mandarins who set up the bloodiest mission since Korea

A killer above the law?

The UK use of drones to kill "high-value targets" in Afghanistan should have come as no surprise ... drones have great attractions. They are a relatively cheap way of killing people in areas that are otherwise largely inaccessible ...

Drones lend themselves to secrecy. Used without fanfare in remote and inaccessible areas, they are invisible to all but their potential victims.

The military advantages are obvious, but so too are the potential rule-of-law problems. Unless governments voluntarily disclose information, human rights monitors and independent journalists are unable to verify claims that there are limited or no civilian casualties ...

That is the situation in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the CIA is operating a secret drone killing programme about which we have been particularly critical because the US refuses to disclose the programme's legal justification, the safeguards designed to minimise civilian harm, or the follow-up inquiries conducted ...

Secrecy ... provides incentives to push the margins in problematic ways.

Two examples will suffice.

First, the US, with reported Nato agreement, has already added Taliban-supporting drug traffickers – alleged criminals – to its kill list.

Second, in the wake of the December suicide bombing of CIA operatives in Khost, American drone killings have surged dramatically.

In a zone of secrecy, there is no way to know if the 90 people reportedly killed in 11 subsequent strikes were legitimate targets or simply retaliatory killings.

Equally discomfiting is the "PlayStation mentality" that surrounds drone killings. Young military personnel raised on a diet of video games now kill real people remotely using joysticks ...

Guardian  08 Feb 2010

Iran to make 'advanced' attack drones

RAF 'relying' on drones

Corruption in Afghanistan

Just how extreme corruption has become in Afghanistan can be seen in a new study released by the United Nations. According to the paper, 59 percent of Afghanistan citizens point to corruption as the greatest problem facing the country -- that ranks the problem even higher than security (54 percent) and unemployment (chosen by 52 percent of those polled).

The study, released on Tuesday, was put together by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and includes the responses of 7,600 people from 1,600 villages questioned between August and October of last year.

The study shows just how omnipresent the payment of bribes has become in everyday life in Afghanistan. In the last 12 months, Afghan citizens have paid $2.5 billion in bribes -- roughly a quarter of the country's gross domestic product.

"The Afghans say that it is impossible to obtain a public service without paying a bribe," UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa writes on the organization's Web site. The "cancer of corruption" is "metastatic," he says, and can be found even in the highest echelons of government.

Afghans who have had recent contact with government representatives report that, in 40 percent of the cases, they were asked for bribes.

Every second person surveyed reports having bribed someone in the last year -- usually after having been requested to do so.

The average payment is $158 -- a generous sum for a country in which average annual income is a mere $425 ...

Der Spiegel  19 Jan 2010

UNODC

Just a week before this country’s presidential election, the leaders of a southern Afghan tribe called Bariz gathered to make a bold decision: they would abandon the incumbent and local favorite, Hamid Karzai, and endorse his challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.

Mr. Abdullah flew to the southern city of Kandahar to receive the tribe’s endorsement. The leaders of the tribe, who live in a district called Shorabak, prepared to deliver a local landslide.

But it never happened, the tribal leaders said.

Instead, aides to Mr. Karzai’s brother Ahmed Wali — the leader of the Kandahar provincial council and the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan — detained the governor of Shorabak, Delaga Bariz, and shut down all of the district’s 45 polling sites on election day. The ballot boxes were taken to Shorabak’s district headquarters, where, Mr. Bariz and other tribal leaders said, local police officers stuffed them with thousands of ballots.

At the end of the day, 23,900 ballots were shipped to Kabul, Mr. Bariz said, with every one marked for President Karzai.

“Not a single person in Shorabak District cast a ballot — not a single person,” Mr. Bariz said in an interview here in the capital, where he and a group of tribal elders came to file a complaint. “Mr. Karzai’s people stuffed all the ballot boxes.”

The accusations by Mr. Bariz, and several other tribal leaders from Shorabak, are the most serious allegations so far that have been publicized against Mr. Karzai’s electoral machine, which faces a deluge of fraud complaints from around the country.

The Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission said Tuesday that the number of complaints about vote stealing and other forms of fraud had reached 2,615 ...

NYT  01 September 2009

Growing Accounts of Fraud Cloud Afghan Election

It was a heated debate during the Bush administration: What to do about evidence that Afghanistan’s powerful defense minister was involved in drug trafficking? Officials from the time say they needed him to help run the troubled country. So the answer, in the end: look the other way.

Today that debate will be even more fraught for a new administration, for the former defense minister, Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, stands a strong chance of becoming the next vice president of Afghanistan.

In his bid for re-election, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has surrounded himself with checkered figures who could bring him votes: warlords suspected of war crimes, corruption and trafficking in the country’s lucrative poppy crop.

But none is as influential as Marshal Fahim, his running mate, whose trajectory in and out of power, and American favor, says much about the struggle the United States has had in dealing with corruption in Afghanistan.

As evidence of the tensions, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton bluntly told Mr. Karzai that running with Marshal Fahim would damage his standing with the United States and other countries ...

NYT  26 August 2009

Vast sums of money are being lavished by Western aid agencies on their own officials in Afghanistan at a time when extreme poverty is driving young Afghans to fight for the Taliban ... foreign consultants in Kabul, who are paid out of overseas aids budgets, can command salaries of $250,000 to $500,000 a year.

The high expenditure on paying, protecting and accommodating Western aid officials in palatial style helps to explain why Afghanistan ranks 174th out of 178th on a UN ranking of countries' wealth. This is despite a vigorous international aid effort with the US alone spending $31bn since 2002 up to the end of last year.

The high degree of wastage of aid money in Afghanistan has long been an open secret. In 2006, Jean Mazurelle, the then country director of the World Bank, calculated that between 35 per cent and 40 per cent of aid was "badly spent". "The wastage of aid is sky-high," he said ...

Whole districts of Kabul have already been taken over or rebuilt to accommodate Westerners working for aid agencies or embassies. "I have just rented out this building for $30,000 a month to an aid organisation," said Torialai Bahadery, the director of Property Consulting Afghanistan, which specialises in renting to foreigners. "It was so expensive because it has 24 rooms with en-suite bathrooms as well as armoured doors and bullet-proof windows," he explained, pointing to a picture of a cavernous mansion.

Though 77 per cent of Afghans lack access to clean water, Mr Bahadery said that aid agencies and the foreign contractors who work for them insist that every bedroom should have an en-suite bathroom and this often doubles the cost of accommodation.

In addition to the expensive housing the expatriates in Kabul are invariably protected by high-priced security companies and each house is converted into a fortress ...

... much of the aid money goes to foreign companies who then subcontract as many as five times with each subcontractor in turn looking for between 10 per cent and 20 per cent or more profit before any work is done on the project. The biggest donor in Afghanistan is the US, whose overseas aid department USAID channels nearly half of its aid budget for Afghanistan to five large US contractors.

Examples cited in an Oxfam report include the building of a short road between Kabul city centre and the international airport in 2005 which, after the main US contractor had subcontracted it to an Afghan company, cost $2.4m a kilometre – or four times the average cost of road construction in Afghanistan. Often aid is made conditional on spending it in the donor country.

Another consequence of the use of foreign contractors is that construction has failed to make the impact on unemployment among young Afghans which is crucial if the Taliban is to be defeated ...

Go figure: The West's spending in Afghanistan

$57 The foreign aid per capita to Afghanistan, compared with $580 per capita in the aftermath of the Bosnian conflict.

$250,000 Typical salary of foreign consultants in Afghanistan, including 35 per cent hardship allowance and 35 per cent danger money. Afghan civil servants typically receive less than $1,000 a year.

$22bn The shortfall in donations compared to the international community's estimate of Afghanistan's need – around 48 per cent.

40 per cent Share of international aid budget returned to aid countries in corporate profit and consultant salaries – more than $6bn since 2001.

$7m Daily aid spend in Afghanistan. The daily military spend by the US government is around $100m.

The Independent 01 May 2009

'When are you leaving?'

Although it has yet to come clean on the issue, the Government believes that our commitment in Afghanistan will last for generations. Our ambassador to Kabul blithely mentioned us being there for "30 years".

But what are we there for? Any discussion of strategy among commentators tends to revolve around one of two opposed views. The first adheres, doggedly, to the post-9/11 mission: to ensure no return to when the Taliban harboured the mass murderers of al-Qaeda ...

But the second view is voiced less often – except by generals in private. That is because a depressing uniformity of outlook prevails among politicians in the two major parties, namely that a critical view of what is happening in Afghanistan might undermine the western alliance. Our young soldiers are being killed just to show willing in Washington, doubly so now that a popular Obama has replaced Bush ...

It is impossible to build a central government in a country where local leaders resent all outsiders, and whence anyone of any ability has fled. With an abundance of opium, rather than oil, there is little prospect of creating an Afghan national army equivalent to that now patrolling Iraq. Hence further confusion. Is it the West's task to engage in drug eradication – without giving Afghan farmers any alternative – let alone to reverse the religious Reformations the Islamists represent? ...

Recent events in Pakistan's Swat Valley illustrate the extent of our logistical dilemmas. Without informing the US, the Pakistani government concluded an open-ended deal with the Taliban, who were outnumbered four to one by the Pakistani army.

The Taliban militants were convinced to lay down their arms in exchange for the restoration of Islamic law to the region. US officials called it a "surrender disguised as a truce", concerned that the agreement could create a haven for extremists. The shops reopened and a "caravan of peace" arrived to celebrate the return of justice and order. But the caravan's Taliban escorts shot dead a Pakistani TV journalist covering the spectacle, flagrantly violating the 10-day ceasefire they had just agreed. So much for talking to the Taliban, and al-Qaeda now has another potential enclave to move into, should Waziristan prove too hot or Somalia too remote ...

Telegraph 20 February 2009

Slipping out of control

UK military costs in Afghanistan and Iraq soar to £4.5bn

Civilian dead are a trade-off in Nato's war of barbarity

Afghan aid blunders 'waste millions'

Afghanistan: the dynamic and the risk

Britain's biggest national security problem isn't so much law enforcement as a cycle of mutual hostility and alienation

International terrorism, overwhelmingly promoted by Muslim extremists, represents a long-term threat to western democracies.

It will get worse before it gets better, by which time most of us will be dead, hopefully of natural causes.

The means by which the threat can be diminished - let us not pretend that it can be removed - impinge upon every corner of government and society ...

buddha9
November 14, 2006 02:14 AM

Max - your interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying article, raises some points which need rebutting -

1 - Why are Muslims the only underclass disaffected by economic deprivation, while white w/class are simply driven by race hatred? Neo-liberalism has created a situation where dissatisfaction is being increasingly felt by everyone (middle class included) and in fact, you could argue this widespread dissatisfaction is precisely what is being averted and headed off by being transformed into race hatred.

2- none of the chattering/political classes of whom you are member, have yet proved why the so called Muslim threat is any different than the much more potent IRA threat - after all that lasted generations, they were citizens of Britain. No one asked why Catholics weren't integrated/ couldn't integrate. Indeed the IRA threat lasted many years and let off more bombs and didn’t require, despite their open threat to UK sovereignty, the sort of exaggerated anti-terrorism legislation which is routinely considered now.

3- Why is it that when Muslims question the official narratives concerning the 9/11 and 7/7 bombings, they are automatically labelled terrorists sympathisers? 40% of Americans according to various polls think the US govt. knew off or sponsored in some form the attacks on the twin Towers. Are they all terrorists? Well perhaps they will be in a few years.

4 it is not Pakistan’s radicals who pose a threat to the population of Britain, but the Pakistan intelligence service as various articles tacitly admit. They are the ones rearming the resurgent Taliban, they are the ones who seem constantly to have some sort of connection to every claimed crazy radical caught in Britain. What do you propose to do about them? Well nothing of course.

5 your ref to the New East End is warranted, its a very good book. The liberals (and we're all liberals now) do dump people in areas of already existing poverty, without consulting the residents and when unrest happens the very same liberals from their sanctuaries in west and north London, utter pious homilies against the racism of the working class. Considering they are confronting the problems and they're under resourced already, I'm amazed (and I've worked in the east end) how little racism there is in these areas. Dump a lot of any sort of foreigners in Hampstead and see what you get.

6 i notice you claim al qaida (al-CIA-da) are indiscriminate, where the IRA weren't. Well Max some of us have long memories, and I don't recall the daily tele discriminating in this manner when the IRA bombs were going off.

Still, after all of that, I’ve seen much worse and more stupid articles about this topic than yours. The standard of the debate is getting better. The problem with your pious ending which of course everyone would wish were true, is that it fails to take into account the officially endorsed and ongoing violence that this system perpetuates on everyone, every day. Until that is resolved violence will occur. It’s just a matter of how you label it. The first step away from this sort of violence is for the rich to admit that their 20 year endeavour to stuff as much of the GNP cake into their mouths as they possibly can without paying any social cost what so ever, has in fact endangered everyone including them. That's the root course of the problem: neo-liberalism and the rich’s greedy, anti-social behaviour that goes with it. No amount of finger pointing and scapegoating of Muslims will alleviate that.

Guardian 14 November 2006