Creating democracy in Afghanistan was doomed from the start

[DuctapeFatwa]

Two years after American troops arrived in Kabul, how is the Bush administration's project for a democratic and prosperous Afghanistan coming along? Well, the opium crop is booming: 3,600 metric tons this year, almost back up to the peak production of 4,600 metric tons that was reached before the Taliban banned the crop in 1999.

Virtually none of the revenue finds its way into the hands of Hamid Karzai's interim government in Kabul; the provincial warlords who control almost everything outside the capital keep it for themselves.

The rest of Afghanistan's cash income comes almost entirely from foreign aid, but much of it is channeled through the same local warlords, strengthening their grip on the population. Small wonder that the new Afghan national army, supposed to be 70,000 strong, only managed to train 4,000 troops last year, and that the proportion of girls at school, never more than half, is dropping again because of widespread intimidation in rural areas, says an article by Gwynne Dyer, a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.

Karzai is a legitimate and respected political leader, but he is only a Pashtun-speaking figurehead in an interim government whose dominant figures are mostly drawn from the non-Pashtun minorities of the north. That was inevitable at the start, because the United States subcontracted the actual job of overthrowing Taliban rule on the ground to the Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara and Turkmen militias of the Northern Alliance, but little has been done to adjust the balance since. So the southern, Pashtun-speaking provinces that were once the Taliban's heartland are falling back into the hands of the resurgent fundamentalists. Most of Zabul and Oruzgan provinces and half of the Kandahar region are once again Taliban-controlled by night, and U.S. troops and those of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have come under fire more often in the past three months than in all of the previous 15. More than two dozen American and ISAF troops have been killed this year, a loss rate worse than Iraq given the far smaller number of foreign troops in Afghanistan.

http://www.nni-news.com/current/world/news-04.htm

[jonoboy]

1. remember T.Blair; "Afghanistan, we won't abandon you !"

[ConsAreLiars]

2. I spent a few months in Afghanistan

before the Cons began fostering and supplying militant fundie fanaticism to use as a tool of US imperialism. Of course, spending time there gives me no qualifications as an expert, although it does make the people of that land much more real to me than if I had never been there. But after crossing into Peshawer I had the good fortune to spend a few hours with a young Pathan tribesman who, after being orphaned had received a number of years of education in England and was returning home.

One thing that the conversation made clear to me was that the very weak central govt (then a nominal kingdom with legislative accouterments) was very consistent with the realities of how society was structured. Loyalties, and obligations and interdependencies and economic relations were all very localized - family, village, tribal affiliation, in order of importance. This young man's family had been killed in a raid, and there was no question in his mind that the only moral response was what we in the US call "street justice." But this wasn't a matter of anger; this was a matter of honor. And the same was true, he helped me understand, for the village and the tribe and the country, in that order - and now the religious affiliation has become an important one as well, although at that time it was not an issue. Later the power of the warlords came with the US funding of a war culture and became another factor in Afghan political reality.)

This is one reason I opposed the use of warfare against Afghanistan instead of a more focused action against the Osama death cult. Apart from the cowardice and ignorance that lay behind such a "strategy" and the blood of innocents that resulted, the only sure consequence would be to put foreign occupiers and their agents in the role of blood enemies.

(edit typo)

[Solly Mack]

3. The Iraqis say the same about their country

Well, OK...some do. Of that some, they feel their country is still too tribal to embrace democracy. They also feel the lack of education is the major drawback to escaping the tribal religious mentality. Illiteracy is high... and it is..despite what is said to the contrary.

They agree that in time they could move toward a more secular, less religious, better educated society.....if they are allowed a true role in self-governing.