AFGHANISTAN , DOES IT STILL MATTER ?

What chance Afghan peace talks?
By Chris Morris
BBC News, Kabul




It's all quiet in Afghanistan's national stadium in Kabul. The grass is being watered, the pitch is being marked out for a football match, and a couple of workmen are carrying wooden scaffolding behind one of the goals.

But only a few years ago - at the turn of the century - this was where the Taleban held their public executions, hanging or stoning people to death in front of large crowds.

And the comparison between then and now is worth thinking about, at a time when there are suggestions that the Western-backed government here could be about to start talks with the Taleban.

President Hamid Karzai has always been keen to promote reconciliation. This still feels like a very early stage of negotiations, but the United Nations has now upped the ante by offering to mediate.

It could all come to nothing or - possibly - something significant could be starting to happen.

Feelers

"The government has left the door open," said President Karzai's spokesman, Hamayun Hamidzada. "We welcome any initiative, any effort, that will lead to peace."


So the government is putting out feelers, trying to work out whether there is a genuine desire for contact among the central leadership of the Taleban.

It is useful to remember that Taleban has become a catch-all term used to describe quite diverse groups and tribes - local Afghans, groups backed by Pakistan, foreign radicals linked to al-Qaeda.

They won't all be welcome at the negotiating table.



"We have been in contact with the Taleban," Mr Hamidzada said, "with those who actually wanted to join the political process, or just come back as ordinary citizens."

But can there really be meaningful talks at the same time as military clashes are taking place every day in places like Kandahar and Helmand?

"What we're doing is opening the door of negotiation for those Taleban who are actually Afghan," he replied.

"But others, more radical, who are coming from outside - their intention is to destroy Afghanistan and we have to deal with them militarily."


'Free Afghanistan'

Finding out what the Taleban really think is not easy. We reached a Taleban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, by phone somewhere in southern Afghanistan.

He told the BBC that the government should agree to the Taleban's demand that foreign troops leave the country, before serious negotiations begin. In other interviews he's phrased things slightly differently.

"We want a free independent Afghanistan," he said. "We want 100% Islamic law and no foreign interference. That is the inspiration behind our jihad [holy war]."

But there are tens of thousands of foreign troops in Afghanistan at the invitation of President Karzai's government. Many of them are fighting against the Taleban every day.

Still, senior officials at Nato and the UN say they are interested in the idea of formal discussions between the government and the Taleban, provided that the Afghan constitution is respected.


As for the Americans, for a long time their mantra has been "no talks with terrorists". But it is a little more nuanced now.

The Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte, was a recent visitor to Kabul.

"We would think that this proposal for talks should be handled in such a way by the government of Afghanistan," he said, "that it does not in any way undermine or prejudice all the important political, social and economic accomplishments that have occurred in this country since 11 September 2001."

That seems to be a view shared by many vendors on Kabul's Music Street, a riot of noise in the heart of the city. There are CDs, DVDs, videos... Hollywood, Bollywood, you name it.

All of it was banned completely under the Taleban. So there are - understandably - mixed feelings about talking to the Taleban once again.

"They can't come back with the same system that they used to have, but talking is good because we're fed up with the war, with the fighting," said one man.

"They might try to ban music again, so I'm not sure I want them back. But we're all sons of the same soil," said another.

'Fingers in the pie'

So will anything significant actually happen?

At the moment, it is hard to tell. Some well-connected sources argue that it probably won't.

There are elements in Hamid Karzai's government - and in parliament - who do not want to talk to the Taleban at all. Sharing power in any sense would mean they would lose ground.

And then there are other foreign powers - who do not have military forces in the country - but who have their own interests in Kabul.

"Moscow is ruling here, India is ruling there, Tehran is ordering here. So now Afghanistan's [destiny] is not in our own hands."

Professor Wadir Safi of Kabul University points out that all Afghanistan's neighbours have got a finger in the pie, and wield influence somewhere in this complex political system.


But he is looking in particular at events in Pakistan.

"I think if Benazir Bhutto is coming to power there, they will be happy for these talks to happen as soon as possible," he argued.



In order to solve Pakistan's internal problems it will be in their interest "to talk to the Afghan government through the Taleban to finish this situation".

That could just be wishful thinking. Perhaps a few disaffected tribes could be persuaded to talk and to change sides.

And there are certainly officials in Kabul who think constant military pressure on the Taleban over the past six months could be pushing them towards compromise.

But one source in Pakistan, with close contacts in the Taleban, is not optimistic.

They will always talk at a local level, he argued, but there is little sign of change in the central command.

Long haul


Central Kabul is busy and bustling these days. People enjoy basic personal freedoms they never had under the Taleban.

And that begs a question - is the Afghan government's vision for Afghanistan really compatible with that of the Taleban anyway?

"The government's vision is the legitimate one for Afghanistan," said presidential spokesman Hamayun Hamidzada.

"The burden of responsibility is on the Taleban to make their vision compatible, not on us," he added.

"So you're asking them to change?" I ask.

"Of course. Change in the light of the constitution. Change for the Afghan people. Change for the sake of peace."

But there are some who won't change.

And even if a meaningful process of reconciliation does begin, the future of Afghanistan will probably be fought over as well as talked about for years to come.

Taleban 'needed for Afghan peace'

The Taleban "will need to be involved" at some stage with a peace process in Afghanistan, UK Defence Secretary Des Browne has said.
At a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference, he said a solution would have to be "Islamic based".

Mr Browne said Taleban involvement would happen "because they are not going away" any more than Hamas was from the Palestinian territories.


He said the UK needed to see through "commitments" in Afghanistan and Iraq.

'Progressive' agenda

There are more than 7,500 British troops fighting the Taleban in Afghanistan, and about 5,500 soldiers in Iraq.

Mr Browne told delegates at the meeting hosted by the IPPR think-tank: "These are challenges we should not take on if we are not prepared to see them through and some of them are commitments for decades, some of them may be commitments for generations."

However, he stressed the commitment would not necessarily be military.

The defence secretary also said Labour needed a "progressive agenda" on defence.

"There are significant questions we need to ask ourselves as a party about our relationship with defence policy and consequently about those who we ask to deliver it," he said.

Story from BBC NEWS:

Acclaimed author urges Canada to rethink 'dishonest' approach in Afghanistan

Wed Oct 3, 6:07 PM



By Sue Bailey, The Canadian Press


OTTAWA - NATO has bitten off far more than it can chew in Afghanistan while expounding a "strange, dishonest rhetoric" that overstates progress as much as it builds false hope, says former British diplomat and best-selling author Rory Stewart.


Canada should help lead a major refocus on parts of the country, namely in the north, that actually support democratic reform and development, he says.


"NATO has set itself up for failure by taking on far more than it could possibly achieve," he said Wednesday during a visit to Ottawa.


"Canada's great challenge is to identify three or four things that could realistically be done with the kind of resources, commitment and will that we have. And to make sure we achieve them in a way that leaves Canadian people feeling proud, NATO feeling that it's done something and, most important of all, the Afghans feeling that they've gotten something out of this intervention."


Those three or four things may include efforts to improve education and infrastructure in Kabul and other relatively peaceful zones where such development is welcome, Stewart says.


Military action could be channelled to keep insurgents from controlling major cities, he suggests, while special forces could be used to monitor religious schools that double as training cells for terrorists.


That would leave huge swaths of the South without the kind of development many Afghans want, he concedes.


"You can only do what you can do."


Citizens who want greater freedoms and services may eventually gravitate toward centres where they've been allowed to flourish, he says.


Stewart, 34, now lives in Kabul after increasingly harrowing diplomatic stints in Indonesia, Montenegro and finally Iraq. The Oxford-educated former British army officer set off in 2001 on a 10,000-kilometre walk across Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal. The dangerous, epic journey started in the months just after the Taliban fell and was the basis for his acclaimed memoir The Places in Between.


Prime Minister Stephen Harper stressed during a news conference Wednesday that Canada accepted a mission to protect "the poor people" in the volatile southern region of Kandahar.


"We took the responsibility as a country. I think that we should see that responsibility through to the best of our ability.


"We think we have a moral responsibility there. It's not a matter of just playing to the polls."


In a thinly veiled shot at Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, Harper said it would be unwise for anyone aspiring to be prime minister "to play to short-term or uninformed political sentiment on issues that are so critical."


Stewart says Afghans - like everyone else - want basic freedoms and a say in who governs them.


But many will never support a central government or free market, especially in the insurgent south where centuries-old tribal codes still shape an Islamic society that deeply mistrusts strangers, let alone foreigners.

Harper wants to extend Canada's combat role past February 2009, but faces three opposition parties that have vowed to fight it. The matter could be intensely debated this fall against the political backdrop of a potential election.

From politicians to military leaders and diplomatic brass, the mantra on Afghanistan has been to hold the course. Progress is being made. Failure means capitulating to the extremist anti-West forces that helped incubate 9-11.

Stewart says few people are willing to take the flak that goes with pointing out that proponents of the current Afghan mission are hopelessly optimistic in their belief that enough cash and goodwill can turn a fundamentally Islamic state into a Western-style democracy.

Besides, Afghanistan does not hold the anti-terrorism key, he adds. Another 9-11 could be planned in an apartment pretty much anywhere in the world.

"What on Earth are we doing in terms of state building?" he said.

"Having fooled ourselves that all you need is more money and more troops ... let's try to redefine the problem and find a more honest, realistic objective."

Stewart is pushing for much more open discussion on a topic that makes scapegoats of naysayers.

"If you point out that our state-building enterprise is not working, people will quite quickly accuse you of being a reactionary or even a racist. They will try to suggest that if you raise problems, you're being denigrating towards Afghans, that you're not respecting the sacrifice of the troops.

"Anybody engaged in this debate comes under a lot of pressure from the military, from diplomats and from the Afghan government itself to try to suggest that everything is going well when it's not."




Copyright © 2007 Canadian Press

Karzai fear over Pakistan clashes
By Lyse Doucet
BBC News, Kabul



Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has expressed concern about the recent upsurge in fighting in Pakistan's border tribal district of Waziristan.
Mr Karzai said the violence would have an impact on both countries.

The fighting has left more than 200 militants and dozens of Pakistani soldiers dead, the authorities say.

Mr Karzai also denied allegations from Pakistan's military that militants operating in Pakistan were being helped from over the border in Afghanistan.

The president chose his words carefully, clearly trying to avoid causing damage to what has long been a deeply sensitive and often strained relationship between two neighbours sharing a strategic border.

Afghan leaders often accuse Pakistan of giving sanctuary to Taleban militants and their allies, including al-Qaeda.

Now, there are accusations from Pakistan.

Firm denial

In an interview with the BBC, the president said there could be linkages to Afghanistan in the recent upsurge in fighting in Pakistan's tribal territory of Waziristan.

But he firmly denied allegations from a Pakistan military spokesman that well-trained militants were getting help from across the border in Afghanistan.

"Do we have money to supply, do we have guns to supply, do we have reasons to support extremists that we are fighting here every day?" he asked.

When asked if Taleban militants fighting in Afghanistan were going back to Waziristan, Mr Karzai said: "It's the other way round. Everyone knows it's the other way round."

So the main source of tension has not gone away. But President Karzai said relations with Pakistan were definitely better.

"The environment is much better, the co-ordination is better, and there's a new purpose," he said.

One observer in Kabul called the change "an attitude of mind, not anything concrete".

But it is certainly a marked change from the lows of last year when the two presidents were publicly trading accusations, provoking very personal tensions that worried many Western countries whose troops are deployed on the front line in the fight against the Taleban in Afghanistan.

When I recently met Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in Islamabad I also noticed how he measured his words, speaking of his good relations with President Karzai.

Mr Aziz attended the opening in August of an unprecedented jirga in Kabul. The gathering of tribal elders and politicians from both sides put common interests on the table including the fight against the Taleban and other militant groups.

General Pervez Musharraf then showed up for the jirga's closing ceremony, despite concerns in Kabul he would stay away because of a political crisis at home and reports that a state of emergency was about to be imposed.

There has been little progress on follow-up since then but it has helped clear the air, for now.

Increased violence

President Karzai said he was now more hopeful solutions could be found to curb the growing number of attacks on both sides of the border. His own country is struggling with the worst violence since the fall of the Taleban in 2001.

There have been four suicide bombings in Kabul alone in the past 10 days that have killed more than 40 people.

When I pointed out that General Musharraf had already tried military and political approaches to stem the growing strength of militant groups in Waziristan, President Karzai said making deals as President Musharraf had done last year was "absolutely wrong".

President Karzai said their two countries had to work together with the international community and local people to eliminate the sanctuaries of the extremists, as well as their financial backers and the religious schools or madrassas which he described as training grounds for terrorism.

As one source in Kabul put it, there is now a recognition two neighbours are facing a common front on both sides of the line dividing them.

Asked whether he had stopped blaming Pakistan for the Taliban's continuing strength, President Karzai diplomatically said he was not blaming anyone - he was just trying to point out the problems that still had to be addressed.

October 25, 2007

Afghan military needs 10 more years of help: Hillier

By Bill Graveland, THE CANADIAN PRESS



Gen. Rick Hillier told reporters in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Thursday, that the Afghanistan mission could use one more battle group to help control the war torn country. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Bill Graveland
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - An army isn't built overnight and in the case of Afghanistan there's little chance its military will be ready to safeguard national security on its own within the next decade, says Canada's top soldier.

Gen. Rick Hillier, the chief of defence staff, made the observation Thursday as he concluded a three-day whirlwind visit to meet with commanders and troops in the field in war-torn Kandahar province.

His frank assessment may come as a disappointment to those hoping the Afghan army may soon be able to operate on its own and keep Taliban insurgents in check, thus allowing Canadian troops to go home.

"I think most Canadians, living in the incredible country that we have, don't always see all the complexities of trying to rebuild a country and, in some cases, build a country from the 25 years of destruction that took place in Afghanistan," Hillier told reporters at Kandahar Airfield.

The Afghan soldiers that have been trained by Canadian and allied forces so far are "top-notch," Hillier said. But he noted it takes about three years to train a single battalion - 500 to 600 troops.

"You just don't build that overnight and the international community will have to be involved for some time to see this through to the final level where you've got a government that works effectively," Hillier said.



After years of work and training, there are about two battalions of Afghan soldiers in Kandahar province. Overall, there's a total of about 38,000 Afghan troops in the country. It may sound good on paper but the number is only about half of what is needed for Afghanistan to provide its own security.

"An army is what's required to allow them to keep their security, so that's a long term project," Hillier said.

"It's going to take 10 years or so just to work through and build an army to whatever the final number that Afghanistan will have, and make them professional and let them meet their security demands here."

Hillier's remarks echo those from other NATO leaders who have said Afghanistan will have to be a longterm commitment for members of the alliance.

Canada has about 2,500 troops serving with NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF. Its mission is to help the Kabul government assert its authority across thefractured country and overcome the security challenges posed by Taliban insurgents, rival warlords and narcotics kingpins.

Most of the Canadians are in Kandahar province, a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan where some of the the bloodiest fighting has taken place.

Since 2002, 71 Canadian military personnel and one diplomat have died in Afghanistan. The Canadian government is under public and opposition pressure to bring the troops home when the current mandate of the Afghan mission expires in February 2009 - or even earlier.

"Canada will decide whatever role it's going to play," Hillier said. "The panel is in place and the government will make its decisions."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed a five-person panel, headed by former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley, to make recommendations on the future of the mission. The range of options includes the continued training of the Afghan army and police, and withdrawing altogether.

But the Harper government's throne speech indicates it wants Canada's direct involvement in Afghanistan to continue until 2011.

In the short-term, Hillier is hoping to get additional support from other NATO allies in terms of helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and more troops.

"What would be best here would be another manoeuvre battalion group to give us the flexibility to be able to ... keep a footprint in an area where we've been until the Afghan police and army can take that area over by themselves," Hillier said.

"That will allow us to manoeuvre off to other areas where the Taliban are slightly stronger, and put them on the back foot in those other areas."

"With just the one battle group here, even with the Afghan National Army forces and the police we are now getting here, we still do not have all the capabilities that we have to do."

Japan ends Afghan naval mission
Japan has ordered the withdrawal of its two ships supporting US-led operations in Afghanistan.
The move follows the government's failure to agree a deal with the opposition to extend the mission beyond the end of its mandate on 1 November.

However, the government of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has said it would try to pass new legislation to allow a more limited mission.

Japan has refuelled coalition warships in the Indian Ocean since 2001.

"The government will make its utmost effort... to resume an important mission in the Indian Ocean," chief Cabinet spokesman Nobutaka Machimura said.

The US ambassador to Japan, Thomas Schieffer, said a permanent withdrawal would send a very bad message to the international community and terrorists.

Mr Fukuda is due to visit the US next month, his first overseas trip since taking office.

Failed talks

Mr Fukuda held talks on Tuesday with opposition Democratic Party leader Ichiro Ozawa, who said he could only back an extension to the mission if it was part of a United Nations operation.

The two men are due to meet again at the end of the week.

The ships involved - a destroyer and a refueller, with 340 troops - are to head for Japan later on Thursday. They last refuelled a ship on Monday.

Japan's mission has been dogged by allegations that Japan supplied far more fuel to US forces than officially recorded - encouraging speculation that Tokyo might have helped supply the US war in Iraq, not just its operations in Afghanistan.

Japan's constitution forbids it from fighting other nations, but the government has recently tried to revise it to allow for a more robust defence policy.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai was "very appreciative of Japan's assistance, both economically and indirectly, as in the support to refuelling", his spokesman said.

But the spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, added that the extension of the refuelling mission was a bilateral issue between the US and Japan.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7072485.stm

Stumbling into chaos: Afghanistan on the brink

Report
November 2007


The security situation in Afghanistan has reached crisis proportions. The Taliban's ability to establish a presence throughout the country is now proven beyond doubt; exclusive research undertaken by Senlis Afghanistan indicates that 54 per cent of Afghanistan's landmass hosts a permanent Taliban presence, primarily in southern Afghanistan, and is subject to frequent hostile activity by the insurgency.

The Taliban are the de facto governing authority in significant portions of territory in the south and east, and are starting to control parts of the local economy and key infrastructure such as roads and energy supply. The insurgency also exercises a significant amount of psychological control, gaining more and more political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people who have a long history of shifting alliances and regime change.

Afghanistan Five Years Later: The Return of the Taliban



- Five years after their removal from power: The Taliban are back

- Taliban Frontline now cuts half-way through Afghanistan

- US and UK led failed counter-narcotics policies are responsible

- Humanitarian crisis hits southern Afghanistan - extreme poverty, drought and hundreds of thousands starving in south

After five years, the United States-led international reconstruction mission has failed Afghanistan and its people. An all-military approach and aggressive poppy crop eradication strategies led by the US and the United Kingdom have triggered a hunger crisis and accelerated the return of the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. The US and the UK are responsible for these humanitarian and security crises, which make Afghanistan a renewed menace for its own people and the world.

The 2001 liberation from the Taliban regime was a well-intentioned response to the threat that Afghanistan, as a failed state, posed to global security. Although the US and its partners have deployed large and costly security operations, after five years Afghanistan is again a war zone, and southern Afghanistan has become, once more, the battlefield for the control of the country.

Tories accused of trying to muzzle military
TheStar.com - News - Tories accused of trying to muzzle military

December 10, 2007
Murray Brewster
THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA - Important information and interview requests directed to the Canadian military must now be cleared by senior bureaucrats who are under the direction of the prime minister's office, say defence sources.

The Privy Council Office directive applies to all matters of ``national importance," but is primarily focused on shaping information related to the war in Afghanistan.

The order was issued within the last two weeks and caps a determined effort by the Conservatives to assert more civilian control over the military, which has been seen in government circles to have too much influence in the conduct of the war.

Clamping down on public comment follows restrictions imposed earlier this year by the military itself on the release of documents under access-to-information legislation.

Smothering the political fire of the Afghanistan debate has been a principal aim this fall for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who effectively shut down opposition criticism in the House of Commons by appointing a eminent persons panel to review Canada's role beyond 2009.

"They want to turn the noise down," said one defence source.

A second official added that the military side was in the ``information business" while the political side was "in the marketing business."

Requests for comment from the Prime Minister's Office and Defence Minister Peter MacKay's office were not answered Monday.

A call to interview senior public affairs officers at the Defence Department was denied, but officials did release a two-line email suggesting the military has long "co-ordinated (communications) with both the minister's office and the Privy Council Office."

Regulations governing members of the Canadian Forces when they speak with the media were enacted in 1998.

"There has been no change in policy," said the note.

But clamping down on information and interview requests wouldn't require a formal change in policy, only a political order.

Such a directive would be "extraordinary, but not unprecedented," said a leading expert on federal government administration.

"Informally, this has been done for years," said Donald Savoie, chair of public administration at the Universite de Moncton.

"Civil servants who want to advance their careers have made sure that PCO is informed on important or embarrassing stories, but formalizing such a process would be extraordinary."

A retired colonel and expert in access-to-information said the military, the group that has been most effective in rallying support for Afghanistan and explaining the mission to Canadians, has been gagged.

"People should absolutely be concerned because these are our sons and daughters serving in Afghanistan," said Michel Drapeau, a lawyer and defence commentator.

"It leaves one with the impression of some sort of political manipulation or lack of transparency, where transparency should be absolutely necessary."

Savoie, an author and adviser to former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna, also said the sweeping nature of what could be interpreted as "national importance" is troubling, especially in a time of war.

It is unclear how far along the chain of command the order extends and how much freedom the country's outspoken chief of defence staff, Gen. Rick Hillier, has been given. He has raised the ire of Conservatives for his blunt public statements, which have sometimes contradicted his political masters.

Drapeau said that he suspects the government is trying to keep the issue of Afghanistan off the public radar until an independent panel, headed by former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley, reports in January.

Those recommendations could lead to a vote in Parliament later that month or in early February.

"If there's a requirement to rally around the flag and democratic support for the extension of the mission, then you don't get this by having a bunch of idiots voting in the dark," said Drapeau.

"We as educated, sophisticated, well-informed Canadians have to be able to make decisions based on at least some information."

Idealists may view the creeping stranglehold on information related to Afghanistan as a back-door imposition of censorship, Savoie said.

Last summer, the military stopped releasing documents under access to information regarding Taliban prisoners. At the same, it has subjected almost all requests to an extra review process - over and above existing checks - in the name of national security, even if they don't relate to Afghanistan.

Over the last few months, routine information and interview requests by various media have either been answered by short, often non-sequitor e-mail responses or by silence.

Kandahar: Inside and out
TheStar.com - World - Kandahar: Inside and out

One year after his last tour in this embattled land shared by wary Canadians and war-weary Afghans, the Star's Mitch Potter returns to find that things have become better . . . and worse

December 15, 2007
Mitch Potter
TORONTO STAR

KANDAHAR - A Canadian soldier throws a dubious, better-you-than-me glance as he opens the fortified gate allowing passage into the tumultuous beyond that is Kandahar city.

Out there, the prize of the entire Afghan mission still waits to be claimed.

And if you are wondering whether it is better or worse than this time last year, the answer, most vexingly, is yes. Kandahar is better - and worse - than it was.


Westerners don't often exit the Canadian provincial reconstruction team headquarters, but when they do, the journey usually involves armoured convoys rather than simply walking out the door, as the Toronto Star is doing today.

On the other side, two hours late, our Afghan interpreter is waiting in a beat-up civilian vehicle, smiling sheepishly. He lost track of the time during midday prayers. It must have been God's will, he suggests with a wink.

In the no man's land between these two solitudes, we encounter a brazen young Afghan boy, cute as a button, who sings a mantra of his only English words: "Hi! Shocolate. Gum. Candy ... Canada!" And a much older Afghan man, a greybeard with a diseased eye, who is treading dangerous close to the armed Canadian gatekeepers in the desperate hope that someone - anyone - with financial means will assist his medical predicament.

On this day, there is no chocolate for the youngster, no doctor for the elder. Instead, the Canadian soldiers at the gate have been busy working hand-held metal detectors on the steady parade of Afghan contractors who comprise the majority of the traffic into the compound. They are here for money.

"We try to stay friendly with the locals - but within limits. Some days, we give the kids candy; some days, they bombard us with stones," says one of the soldiers, who asked that his name not be published.

"The worst is when they decide to pick on the local dogs. This place is a living hell for dogs. If you are an animal in Afghanistan and you don't have enough meat on your bones to be food, you are screwed. We've had a lot of dogs crawl through our gates just to die after they've been attacked with stones. It's twisted."

This is our second week wandering the city unembedded and our anxiety level has fallen accordingly.

Kandahar today is not Saigon before the fall; it is not even Baghdad before the surge. The general mood of the city has lifted somewhat in recent months, if only because the scourge of suicide attacks lately has shifted to the capital Kabul, a day's drive away, giving Kandahar something of a respite.

But it is also no place to be reckless. A few blocks from the Canadian headquarters, we pass an enclave of mansions belonging to the drug lords and warlords who remain a force unto themselves in Kandahar - some superficially loyal to the government of President Hamid Karzai, most loyal only to themselves.

Our pace quickens as we encounter a bearded man on a motorbike with an AK-47 strapped to his back. He wears no uniform, so there is no telling why he is so brazenly armed. And no percentage in trying to find out. We veer down a side road to safety.

The best evidence of a better Kandahar comes in the smiling faces of old acquaintances, Ehsan Ullah and Naseem Sharifi. Ullah, a school principal, and Sharifi, an entrepreneur, are both charter members of unofficial civil society, working in their own ways toward a more cohesive, peaceful Kandahar.

Ullah credits the generosity of Toronto Star readers for dramatic improvements since his efforts were first featured in the paper in March 2006. A Canada-based charity was created in the aftermath of the story (www.theafghanschool.org), which in turn raised resources to establish a more secure location for the more than 200 girls who study English, health and computer sciences under Ullah's tutelage.

"Individual Canadian donors are changing the lives of these young girls," Ullah told the Star during a tour of the new premises of what is now called the Afghan Canadian Community Centre.

"The added resources have allowed us to establish our own security so the girls know they can study in safety. So now we are full, with twice as many girls waiting to enter the program."

Sharifi, Star readers may remember, is a Kandahar-born expat who returned to the city after the fall of the Taliban. Having spent the intervening years in Seattle, he came back with the notion of establishing Kandahar's first bona-fide coffee house.

When we profiled him last year, Sharifi's coffee house was a tiny affair with big ambitions - all of which have since been realized. He has added a second storey replete with Internet cafe, billiards room and free-access library, all of which is designed to be home away from home for an emerging generation of literate, development-minded Pashtun students.

"The success of the coffee house has spawned a few imitators in the past year, which is fantastic. Today, we have five or six places in the city where educated young people can go to interact, to talk, to read, or even just to shoot pool," said Sharifi.

"I know that sounds normal to Canadians. But to Afghans it is a kind of breakthrough. Cafe culture is something new for us. But it is beginning to take hold."

But no glimmer of hope in Kandahar comes without a commensurate cautionary tale. During the Star's latest rounds in the city, one prominent citizen arrived for a pre-arranged interview and proceeded to pull from his briefcase a computer-drawn graphic analyzing what he regarded as the darkest development in the region since last we met.

"I stayed up late last night thinking of what I should say. Finally, I decided it was easier to draw it than to tell it. Here, this says everything."

The single-sheet drawing amounts to a screaming indictment of the Afghan National Police, placing the cops at the epicentre of all that is wrong. Arrows run from the police bubble in the centre of the graphic to smaller bubbles representing drug smuggling, kidnapping, extortion and to the Taliban itself. One arrow leads from the police to a sub-section called "Keeping underage boys as their wives," an allegation that in the West would be known simply as pedophilia.

The Star is asked to memorize the graphic. And then, for the protection of all involved, to destroy it.

"It is not simply that the police are bad. The problem is getting much worse. One year ago we could say these things out loud. Now, we can only whisper, because they are so strong that if you do more than whisper you put your life at risk," said the Kandahar source and graphic-maker, who asked for obvious reasons not to be identified.

"When I meet the Canadian commanders in Kandahar, I want to scream out that this is the biggest problem. But I don't know if they get it.


"The most frightening thing is that it feels like we are starting to repeat the 1990s, when the warlords were in control and everything was chaos. Today, the police and the warlords are the same thing. And that was the recipe that gave us the Taliban the first time. Everyone wanted law and order so badly the Taliban was able to rise. I worry that if we don't clean up the police, this will happen all over again."

In a second visit to Naseem's coffee shop, we meet a young man sick with worry. Thafsir Shah, 23, has been looking for his brother Hikmat for the past four months and has been unable to find a single clue. He fears the worst.

"Hikmat is 30 years old. He works as an interpreter with the Canadian soldiers. On Aug. 25 he was ambushed and pulled from his bicycle in the Chodi district of Kandahar. The attackers wore the uniform of the Afghan army - but they were not army at all," Shah told the Star.

"Only my father and I know these facts. Hikmat's wife, who has her hands full with my 15-month-old nephew, and my mother, we have not told them this news. Whenever they ask, we tell them Hikmat is on a `long mission' with the Canadian troops."

Shah and his father anticipated a ransom demand might follow. Or worse, the discovery of a body. They have made the rounds of all the districts, pleading with tribal leaders and known Taliban sympathizers for information. All for naught.

"There is nowhere else to turn. At some point, we have to tell my mother, even though she will be devastated. It is in the hands of God now."

Beyond the outer cordon of gunman is an inner cordon of tribal elders, each waiting their turn. And then an inner cordon of tea drinkers, beyond which one finds the fresh-faced king of this particular castle - Kareemullah Naqibi.

Barely 25 years old, Naqibi is the newly anointed successor to his father Mullah Naqib, whose death by heart attack two months ago came as a body blow to the stabilization effort in Kandahar. Mullah Naqib was not only the leader of the vast Alokozai tribe that guards Kandahar city's northern ramparts, he was the region's most respected militia leader by dint of his exploits during the anti-Soviet jihad.

His son, by contrast, looks like a deer in the headlights.

But because of a controversial intervention by none less than President Karzai himself, the young man is now in charge of his fellow clansmen. And on the day of the Star's visit, a long line of elders, every one of them more than twice his age, was busy paying homage to the young chieftain.

Never mind that Afghanistan is baffling to non-Afghans. Even Kabul natives say they are baffled by the tribal intricacies of Kandahar, which remains far and away the most complicated calculus in the country. The young Alokozai leader smiles when we posit that taking on the task so suddenly might be more than anyone reasonably should expect of him.


"When my father died, the Taliban came and danced on our house in Arghandab. They surrounded us in our moment of grief. This reminded everyone who are enemies are," said Naqibi. "But we managed to push them away, with the help of the Canadian soldiers. I know I am just one man. But I learned at the feet of my father. I was with him always, I learned from him. My ambition is to follow his path and earn the respect he commanded."

Naqibi acknowledged the problem of police corruption. "This is correct. Some are drug addicts. I accept that police reform is critical. The government is working on this."

Mullah Naqib, it is said, never entertained the notion of negotiating with the Taliban. But his son says otherwise.

"And our intention now is to break them apart. President Karzai is right about reconciliation. We will negotiate as a way forward, with the ones who will join us to build a better country."

Little hope for Afghans in 2008
By David Loyn
BBC News, Kabul



After two years in which the violence in Afghanistan has become worse, it is hard to see signs of hope in 2008.

The detailed new international commitments, and promises of more money, put forward at the London Conference in January 2006, made little headway as the war against the Taleban went into a new phase.

In the south, mainly British and Canadian forces have sustained far more casualties during this period than earlier, as they have fought for control of the Pashtun heartland.

In the east, US forces have been trying to contain the insurgency in the giant White Mountain range, hampered by a porous border to the Taleban recruiting grounds in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province on the other side.

Development assistance that matters, and the normal business of government, are difficult to provide in these areas.

To fill the vacuum the military have been taking an increasing role in providing aid; a task that they are not trained nor equipped for.

Taleban gains

Failure to bring other meaningful development means that tactical victories, such as the symbolically important capture of the town of Musa Qala in northern Helmand, have little value in the overall counter-insurgency campaign.

It is hard to win the hearts and minds of people whose fields and homes are constantly fought over.


The Taleban found it hard to recruit three years ago.

Now they have significant influence across the countryside, although not the main roads and towns, in most of Afghanistan.

Given the frail reach of the national police and justice system, the Taleban have increasingly been called on to settle local disputes.

To tackle this, new thinking across the international community in 2008 includes a fresh look at links between the Taleban-led insurgency and the opium trade.

There have been some successes: opium is grown in fewer provinces.

But in the main growing area of Helmand the increases have far outstripped reductions elsewhere.

Corruption

The US government has been wanting to spray opium fields from the air, but appear to have lost this argument.

Instead the aim is to send Afghan forces in on the ground to destroy twice as many opium fields in Helmand province as last year. Drug barons will be pursued and targeted much more ruthlessly.


President Hamid Karzai has been under growing pressure to name and shame those high up in government circles who are believed to have links to the opium trade, as corruption moves to centre stage as one of the key challenges facing his government.

Mr Karzai does not need to face the electorate again until 2009 but there is some speculation that he could call an election in 2008, to cut off the campaigns of a growing number of serious challengers.

Attempts to introduce democracy further down to district level have so far failed, and instead the international community is trying better to understand how traditional power networks operate - sitting down with tribal elders instead of insisting that they face elections.

Tribal militias

The idea that democracy can provide a solution on its own - the dogma of 2001 - has been abandoned.

Alongside tribal elders, tribal militias are being trained and encouraged to defend their areas against the Taleban, despite the obvious risks of this strategy giving more power to regional warlords.

Aid flows remain far smaller per head than in some other post-conflict countries, and co-ordination, either in the military or civilian sphere, remains a major challenge.

The influential think tank, the International Crisis Group, speaks of the "failure of Kabul's diplomatic and donor community to engage fully in the fledgling process".

The former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown has been negotiating terms for a new role in Afghanistan co-ordinating the international effort and its links with the Karzai government - a job locally nicknamed the "super gorilla".

He comes with experience from a similar role in Bosnia, but Afghanistan is a far larger task as he acknowledged recently, going as far as saying,
"We have lost and success is unlikely".


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/7156338.stm

Published: 2007/12/30 12:55:11 GMT

Kabul gets only 3 hours of electricity a day, despite millions in U.S. and global aid

Written by R.A.W.A.
Monday, 14 January 2008

More than five years after the fall of the Taliban - and despite hundreds of millions of dollars in international aid - dinner by candlelight remains common in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

By Jason Straziuso

KABUL, Afghanistan - Gul Hussein was standing under a pale street lamp in a poor section of east Kabul when the entire neighborhood suddenly went black.

"As you can see, it is dark everywhere," the 62-year-old man said, adding that his family would light a costly kerosene lamp for dinner that evening. "Some of our neighbors are using candles, but candles are expensive, too."

More than five years after the fall of the Taliban - and despite hundreds of millions of dollars in international aid - dinner by candlelight remains common in the Afghan capital of Kabul. Nationwide, only 6 percent of Afghans have electricity, the Asian Development Bank says.

The electricity shortage underscores the slow progress in rebuilding the war-torn country. It also feeds other problems. Old factories sit idle, and new ones are not built. Produce withers without refrigeration. Dark, cold homes foster resentment against the government.


In Kabul, power dwindles after the region's hydroelectric dams dry up by midsummer. This past fall, residents averaged only three hours of municipal electricity a day, typically from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., according to USAID, the American government aid agency. Some neighborhoods got none.

"That's a scary sounding figure because it's pretty tiny," said Robin Phillips, the USAID director in Afghanistan. "So we're talking about the relatively poorer people in Kabul who have no access to electricity at this time of year."

Electricity was meager under the Taliban too, when Kabul residents had perhaps two hours of it a day in fall and winter. The supply has since increased, but not as fast as Kabul's population - from fewer than 1 million people in the late 1990s to more than 4 million today.

Meanwhile, souring U.S. relations with Uzbekistan have delayed plans to import electricity from that country. Power is not expected to arrive in a significant way until late 2008 or mid-2009.

"Life takes power," said Jan Agha, a 60-year-old handyman from west Kabul who recalled how the city had plentiful power during the 1980s Soviet occupation. "If you have electricity life is good, but if there's no electricity you go around like a blind man."

Some in Kabul do have electricity: the rich, powerful and well-connected.

Municipal workers - under direction from the Ministry of Water and Energy - funnel what power there is to politicians, warlords and foreign embassies. Special lines run from substations to their homes, circumventing the power grid. International businesses pay local switch operators bribes of $200 to $1,000 a month for near-constant power, an electrical worker said anonymously for fear of losing his job.


If high-ranking government officials visit the substations, workers race to cut off the illegal connections. Large diesel generators, which businesses and wealthy homeowners own as a backup, rumble to life.

Ismail Khan, the country's water and energy minister, dismisses allegations of corruption as a "small problem."

"The important thing to talk about is that in six months all of these power problems will be solved, and everyone will have electricity 24 hours a day," he said, an optimistic prediction that relies on heavy rains next spring and quick work on the Uzbekistan line.

Colorful maps on the walls of Khan's office show existing and future power lines. There's a wall-mounted air conditioner - a luxury in Afghanistan.

India, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on new power lines - including transmission towers installed this summer at 15,000 feet over the Hindu Kush mountains - to import electricity from Uzbekistan.

Though the line from Kabul to the Uzbek border is in place, a 25-mile section in Uzbekistan has not yet been built. And the U.S. has little leverage to speed it up, said Rakesh Sood, the Indian ambassador here.

Initially, Uzbekistan supported the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, opening an air base to U.S. planes. But the Uzbek government no longer views America as a friend, ever since U.S. leaders loudly criticized the country's human rights record when government-backed forces massacred peaceful demonstrators in 2005.

Even when the Uzbek line is completed, Afghanistan can no longer expect the 300 megawatts originally envisioned, Sood said. That would have been more than the 190 megawatts Kabul has today and a significant boost to the 770 megawatts Afghanistan has nationwide.

"We know we'll get significantly less. I wouldn't hazard a guess as to what it will be," Sood said. "At that time the U.S.-Uzbek relationship was very high and it has deteriorated substantially."

President Hamid Karzai, during a radio address to the nation last fall, said he discussed with President Bush the country's need to produce its own electricity.

But some efforts have run afoul of the continuing Taliban insurgency. A new U.S.-financed turbine for a hydroelectric dam in Helmand province is a few months away from being installed because of the "lack of permissiveness in the environment," USAID's Phillips said, using a euphemism for the spiraling violence there.

Also, more than $100 million is needed to upgrade Kabul's antiquated distribution system, and it remains unclear who will pay.

"One doesn't like to see the kinds of numbers that we've been talking about, but I wouldn't call it a failure," Phillips said. "To put a little more positive spin on it we all wish things could happen more rapidly."

The lack of power has hamstrung U.S. efforts to boost agriculture production, too.

"The No. 1 challenge to agribusiness is electricity," said Loren Owen Stoddard, USAID director in Kabul for alternative development and agriculture. "You can't keep things cold and you can't bottle them without power."

The U.S. is purchasing fuel-powered generators that will provide 100 megawatts of power for Kabul by late next year. The power will not come cheap at 15 to 20 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared with just 3.5 cents for electricity from Uzbekistan.

But until the Uzbek power comes in, Afghanistan has no choice.

"It's going to be more oil-fired power and praying for rain to get the hydropower going," said Sean O'Sullivan, regional director with the Asian Development Bank.

On a smaller scale, India has spent $2.2 million to outfit 100 villages with $450 solar cells. They dot the flat rooftops in Mullah Khatir Khel, a mud-brick village an hour's drive north of Kabul. Each cell can power a couple of light bulbs.

"I am very happy, why should I not be happy? I am using these bulbs and lanterns provided by India," said villager Abdul Gayoom. "Before we used to burn oil lamps, now it's a big saving."

RAWA: In the "darkest capital city of the world", many poor families have no access to electricity.

The Water and Energy Minister is a warlord and fundamentalist called Ismail Khan who is accused of human rights violations by Human Rights Watch.

When he was assigned as minister in 2004, he promised that after 40 days, he will provide electricity to everyone in Kabul, but after four years, situation is getting worse.

Intervention in Pakistan key to Afghan success, Dion says


Marianne White, Canwest News Service
Published: Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Reuters
QUEBEC -- Any attempt to counter terrorists war-torn Afghanistan will not succeed without an intervention in neighbouring Pakistan, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion said Wednesday.

Mr. Dion hinted NATO could take action in Pakistan, which has a porous border with Afghanistan, if the Pakistani government doesn't move to track terrorists.

"We are going to have to discuss that very actively if they (the Pakistanis) are not able to deal with it on their own. We could consider that option with the NATO forces in order to help Pakistan help us pacify Afghanistan," said Mr. Dion in Quebec City, commenting after his two-day trip to Afghanistan last weekend. "As long as we don't solve the problem in Pakistan, I don't see how we can solve it in Afghanistan."

The Liberal leader explained that Afghan officials told him they know where the extremist strongholds are in Pakistan. But he said the Afghans don't take action.

"One day, we are going to have to act because our soldiers are cleaning out some areas, but in fact very often they are only clean in principle. The insurgents go take refuge in Pakistan and they are going to come back (to Afghanistan) at the earliest opportunity. This could last very long if we don't tackle the problems that often originate from Pakistan," Mr. Dion said.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay told Canwest News Service Dion's comments were off base.

"Mr. Dion can't be serious to suggest NATO "intervene," in another country while simultaneously saying Canada should abandon its United Nations-mandated NATO mission in Afghanistan," he said in an e-mail.

"He has to explain to Canadians why he wants an "intervention" but wants to turn his back on Afghanistan, which has asked and continues to ask for Canada's help. It's inane."

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged last August that Islamic extremists are operating in tribal areas on his nation's side of the border with Afghanistan and providing support to insurgents fighting U.S. and NATO troops.

Mr. Musharraf and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai have been urged by the U.S. and other allied countries to work together to counter the extremists' presence in the tribal belt that straddles their 2,400-kilometre border.

But Mr. Dion said that more pressure has to be put on the Pakistani government for immediate action.

Although Mr. Karzai rejected the Liberal position that Canada should end its combat mission in southern Afghanistan by February 2009, Mr. Dion reiterated his party wants a halt to the 2,500-soldier combat mission in Kandahar as scheduled.

But he said he wants some troops to remain in Afghanistan to play a different role, for instance in training police, civilian protection and reconstruction in safer zones.

"We saw how much Canada is needed for development and security purposes and we should focus on that," stressed Mr. Dion, who added he was "impressed" by the job done by the Canadian Forces.

"We were proud to be Canadians when we were in Afghanistan," he said.

But nonetheless, Mr. Dion thinks that Canada's "enormous" involvement in the combat must come to an end.

"For the mission to succeed, NATO must apply the principle of rotation. When a country is in the most difficult combat mission during three years, there must be a time for rotation," he said.

The House of Commons will have to vote on whether to extend the mission, following recommendations brought forth by the panel headed by former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley.

Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Allies will ante up troops: Manley

Afghanistan mission risks 'futility' if no troops added
James Cowan, National Post

Published: Thursday, January 24, 2008

Bruce Edwards/Edmonton Journal
TORONTO -- If Canada's NATO allies fail to provide additional troops for southern Afghanistan, it will be an indication that the entire international mission has moved "too close to futility" and will justify Canada abdicating its responsibility for the region, John Manley said yesterday.

Mr. Manley, a former Liberal Cabinet minister, led the panel that this week delivered a report to Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Canada's role in Afghanistan. The report calls for Canada to remain committed to the NATO-led mission beyond its scheduled end in 2009, but only if other countries provide 1,000 additional troops to bolster security and training activities in the dangerous region surrounding Kandahar.

Mr. Manley said it would signal a "failure of the mission overall" if NATO was unable to find additional troops to meet Canada's requirements. He added that it would be irresponsible for the government to leave troops in the region without adequate support.

"The obligation that any government has is to make sure it does not risk its troops in a cavalier fashion when there's no reasonable prospect of success," he told the National Post's editorial board.

"Looking at it on the continuum from utility to futility, then that would put us too close to futility where we'd have to say, with regret, that we can no longer look our kids in the eyes and say, 'You've got to go there.' "

Jake Epp, another panel member and a former Conservative Cabinet minister, added that a withdrawal would be "a failure of NATO" rather than Canada.

Canada has approximately 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, mostly in Kandahar.

While other NATO countries have so far been reluctant to deploy their personnel in the southern region, Mr. Manley yesterday predicted a shift in attitudes toward the mission among European members.

"I've seen this movie before, when I was foreign minister and going to NATO meetings and the debate was about Bosnia," he said. "The Europeans weren't there and Canada had 1,800 troops there ... and [the Europeans] said they couldn't do it. Well, they did. Eventually, it became significant enough for NATO prestige and European prestige that they did come to the table."

Mr. Manley admitted it would be "extraordinarily messy" if Canada was forced to withdraw from southern Afghanistan. However, he suggested it was unlikely a withdrawal would ever come to fruition and said it "should not be difficult" to muster the additional troops.

"It should be achievable; it should not be that difficult," he said.

Derek Burney, another panel member and a former Canadian ambassador, noted the United States last week committed to sending more than 2,000 Marines to southern Afghanistan for seven months. If just half of those assignments were made permanent, it would fulfill the panel's proposal, he said.

Panel members have suggested Mr. Harper delay any vote in the House of Commons on the mission until after a NATO meeting in April. The Prime Minister has not publicly commented on the report, but Stephane Dion, the Liberal leader, on Tuesday reiterated his call for Canadian troops to end their combat role by February, 2009.

Mr. Manley yesterday called upon his Liberal colleagues to support the panel's recommendations. He also cautioned it would be unwise for Liberals to try to fight an election over the future of the Afghan mission.

"I don't think this is an issue that would be a good one for either party to stake itself on in an election campaign. I'm not sure if Canadians want partisan politics to be the focal point of a mission like this," he said. "And certainly, if I was campaigning as a Liberal, there are a bunch of other things that I might want to put my focus on other than a military expedition that was started by a Liberal government."

The panel's report also advocates investments in new helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles as well as a focusing of reconstruction and development efforts on aid that directly helps Afghans. The panel suggests Ottawa should pursue a "signature" project in the country, such as a hospital.

Mr. Manley said the Prime Minister must also take a direct role in explaining Canada's role in Afghanistan to Canadians and lobbying his NATO allies for further support.

"We would encourage the Prime Minister to be talking to his NATO counterparts starting now," he said.

Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.