Posted on 06/26/2006 7:40:09 PM PDT by blam
Afghanistan crisis paves way for return of the Taliban
(Filed: 27/06/2006)
Five years after the West promised to rebuild Afghanistan, the country is facing its worst crisis since the Taliban was overthrown.
Hamid Karzai has criticised the West's refusal to help his government with more money and troops earlier on.
President Hamid Karzai and his western backers are seriously disillusioned with each other, while the Islamic militia is resurgent and people are being killed at a rate not seen since the 2001 American-led invasion.
At a recent reception for the Queen's 80th birthday at the new British Council in Kabul the scene may have been picturesque, with hundreds of diplomats, officers and Afghan dignitaries mingling on the lush green lawn, but the talk among them was full of gloom and desperation. Outside, lines of British troops kept guard against a possible Taliban attack.
Among the envoys and Afghan politicians there was abundant, and scathing, criticism of Mr Karzai's inability to govern effectively or punish those in his administration who are corrupt, dealing in drugs or close to the Taliban.
A few days later Mr Karzai in turn criticised the West's refusal to help his government with more money and troops much earlier on.
Ordinary Afghans have no doubt that the Taliban virus is spreading. Members of the militia, which ruled almost the whole country for five years from 1996, have been reported just 25 miles from the capital, distributing letters by night that threaten death to those who help the government.
Taliban attacks have taken place in the north near the border with Central Asia and in the west near Iran - hundreds of miles from the main battleground in the guerrillas' southern heartland. A suicide car bomber in the western city of Herat killed an American security official in May and car bombs in Farah have claimed several lives.
Every day somewhere in Afghanistan a girls' school is burnt down or a female teacher killed by the fundamentalist militants, says the United Nations.
More than 600 Afghans have been killed in the past six weeks in the south, where about 6,000 American, Canadian and British troops under Nato are fighting the Taliban. Afghans remember that this is about the same rate of deaths as in 1992-93 during the civil war that ushered in a Taliban takeover.
Mr Karzai is now seen by many Afghans and western diplomats as betraying the reform and nation building agenda set out by the Bonn agreement in 2001 and reverting to rule by fiat on tribal and ethnic lines.
This month he has ordered two corrupt former governors in the south to rearm their illegal militias in order to fight the Taliban, rather than deploying the new conventional, foreign-trained army.
It took several months of persuasion by Jack Straw and the Foreign Office to get rid of one of them - Sher Mohammed Akhunzada, the governor of Helmand province - before British troops were deployed there. Now Akhunzada is back with a 500-man militia force, while his brother remains deputy governor.
Nato is furious and so are the Japanese, who have spent £55 million paying for the disarmament of 62,000 militiamen.
Mr Karzai has also appointed 13 police officers widely known for brutality and corruption to key posts and brought back as an adviser Gen Mohammed Fahim, a powerful former warlord who was sacked as defence minister two years ago after western pressure.
''The government has to base their actions on good governance and not reliance on the old commanders," said Tom Koenigs, the UN secretary general's special representative to Afghanistan.
''The army and police have to be loyal not to commanders but to the constitution, which is why we are against forming uncontrollable militias and parallel forces."
Mr Karzai has also accused the West of ignoring the sanctuary provided to the Taliban by Pakistan, while officials say the militias are needed to beef up the beleaguered police force in the south.
''There are 40 policemen to protect 80,000 people in Uruzgan - what do you want us to do?" asked a senior Afghan intelligence official.
The real problem is the crackdown on the opium trade which is putting the drug runners' money on the side of the Taleban. We should just buy the opium at the market price; or, preferably push the price higher than what the market will bear so as little opium as possible reaches outside Afghanistan-- it's cheaper than warfare, or paying the social and medical costs of cheap heroin in the developed world and spreads a lot of cash around Arghanistan.
This is not entirely surprising. Afghanistan has been corrupt, tribal, and unruleable for the entire course of known history. I'm not sure what the solution is, if there is any, but pouring in money certainly won't help.
The Taliban assassinated the one man who might have had the stature to deal with this situation before the invasion.
600 Taliban killed in two weeks, versus fewer than two dozen Afghan civilians and troops killed...yet the news media goes into "Sky is falling" hysterics as if the Taliban was/were winning by setting off 1 bomb a month.
Sheesh...
There's a solution alright... More manpower, which would mean fewer casualties and greater security. But the political will from the rest of the world just isn't there. And yeah, alot of that is because of the hysterical media Southack is talking about.
Buy it and destroy it, for the reasons you mentioned. Seems like a win win all the way around to me.
how many of those 600 have been TALIBAN FIGHTERS.....duh!
The list of commonalities between liberals and Muslims just keeps growing.
Sounds just like the NY Times. Mischaracterizing the situation, on purpose. The dead he is referring to have been the dead taliban from a new offensive in the south.
Get a clue you worthless limey pantywaists.
The 800 pound gorilla everyone has to pretend not to notice: IT'S STILL A MUSLIM COUNTRY.
FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY ARE ANTI-ISLAMIC CONCEPTS.
NO Islamic country will EVER be successful except in the eyes of the religious leaders who are getting their every whim met at whatever cost to every other member of the society is required.
I'm afraid you're right about the 800 lb. gorilla. The whole religion is a curse to this planet. I don't think we should, however, let the Taliban take over again. It's still a good place to kill the enemy Islamicist bastards. There will be war for years and years it seems. Afganistan is pretty much intractable place to tame, but I think Iraq is considerably more hopeful.
IMO if you buy it this year you will buy it next year.
There's always gonna be a market for this crap.
We should just skip the middle man and simply burn our money in the privacy of our own homes.
Keep buying it until the market and the distribution apparatus is destroyed. Even if it takes a few years, it's still cheaper and easier than dealing with the problems otherwise.Once the market and distribution is gone, tell the grower the deal is finished.
I think that the British press (including the conservative press) is just very anti-American and wants us to lose in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Considering that we just sent two thousand terrorists to "paradise," I don't think that the Taliban are going to be marching on Kabul any time soon.
As for leadership in Afghanistan, I don't think that Massoud would have been any more effective considering that he was a Tajik (strike against him right away).
How much do you want to buy? Oh, I get it. Do you just want the stuff destined for North America or all of it?
Nation building is expensive.
Don't hold your breath.
I'd prefer we pay some Afganis to grow opium, wheat, fruits, nuts; wool, mutton, sheepskins, lambskins" ect.
But there's no sane reason for the US to buy up the available crop of opium worldwide until the market doesn't exist. That's total nonsense.
Turkey is also an Islamic country and has been a functioning democracy since the nineteen-twenties if I am correct. It will be a very tough task, but not impossible. The alternative is the return of the Taliban. In short there is no alternative.
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