Afghanistan: Just Say Nothing.....

President Bush's Cabinet has discussed the problem, sources said, and the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan met with Bush earlier this month. But the White House has reportedly not made a final decision. "We still don't have a policy," a senior Republican congressional aide said on condition of anonymity.

Quote:

"[Afghanistan must] be a country that doesn't export drugs. I don't know if you know this or not, but the Taliban government and al Qaeda - the evil ones - use heroin trafficking in order to fund their murder. And one of our objectives is to make sure that Afghanistan is never used for that purpose again.

- George W Bush, Crawford High School, November 15, 2001.

[...]

On June 15 last year President Karzai of Afghanistan met with Bush at the White House, and the dog and pony show that took place in front of the media was killingly funny when it wasn't banal to the point of absurdity. Here is one riveting exchange of views between the presidents :

Quote:

BUSH: . . . Under your leadership, Afghanistan's progress has been dramatic. Three years ago, the Taliban had granted Osama bin Laden and his terrorist al Qaeda organization a safe refuge. Today, the Taliban has been deposed, al Qaeda is in hiding, and coalition forces continue to hunt down the remnants and holdouts. Coalition forces, including many brave Afghans, have brought America, Afghanistan and the free world its first victory in the war on terror. Afghanistan is no longer a terrorist factory sending thousands of killers into the world. Three years ago, 70 percent of Afghans were malnourished, and one in four Afghan children never saw their 5th birthday.

KARZAI: Yes.

BUSH: Today, clean water is being provided throughout the country, hospitals and clinics have been rehabilitated, and millions of children have been vaccinated against measles and polio. Three years ago, women were viciously oppressed and forbidden to work outside the home, and even denied what little medical treatment was available. Today, women are going to school, and their rights are protected in Afghanistan's constitution.

KARZAI: Yes.

[...]

US defense secretary Rumsfeld went to Afghanistan eight weeks after the Bush-Karzai meeting and the Washington Post of August 12, 2004 reported that "Rumsfeld suggested that drug trafficking could present a far more serious threat to political stability and freedom in Afghanistan, the world's largest producer of opium poppies. 'The danger that a large drug trade poses to Afghanistan is too serious to be ignored,' Rumsfeld said, adding that . . . 'It is increasingly clear to the international community that to address the drug problem here is important . . . for the people of Afghanistan' as well as for victims of drug abuse abroad, he said." Rumsfeld, for once, was absolutely right.

On October 20, 2004 the Boston Globe reported US LtGen David Barno as saying "We're assessing exactly how the military's role may be reshaped as we go into this coming year, given the significant threat that drugs is [sic] making to the future of Afghanistan. We're assessing right now how the military will be able to . . . provide further assistance in that fight." Nothing has come of his assessment. There is talk of an eradication campaign in February, but if this goes ahead by a combination of spraying poppy fields and physical destruction of the crop there will be a surge of anti-western hatred that will be welcomed by bin Laden and other vile thugs.

The strategy of the Bush administration is to condemn, confront and crush whoever may disagree with it or oppose it in any way, but this doesn't work in Afghanistan. (It hasn't worked in Iraq, either, which is another story of hubristic failure.) What is needed is painstaking negotiation and reasoned firmness - and certainly not the swaggering, smash-them-bash-them aggression of cocky and exultant superiority which is so evident in Bush and his circle. In September 2001 Bush said "Americans are asking "Why do they hate us?"." He need look no further for an answer than his own bellicose, confrontational, jingoistic rhetoric.

Stubborn pride, downright ignorance, obsession with the use of brute force, and self-righteous refusal to admit that the Bush administration could ever be wrong about anything make a poor recipe for successful implementation of US policy. But then, if you consider yourself to be beyond criticism by anyone in the entire world -- well, who needs policies? The mixture of the Second Coming, the Third Reich and a dash of papal infallibility will see Bush through until the whole shoddy edifice of deceit and self-deception collapses. But meanwhile, thanks to George Bush, Afghanistan will continue to produce lots of heroin.