The Iraqization of Afghanistan
A massive suicide car bomb very near the US embassy embassy in Kabul has left at least 3 dead, including Coalition soldiers.
The resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan have begun actually taking and holding territory from time to time in the south.
On Monday, Taliban had deployed a bomb that killed 17 in an attempt to kill the local police chief.
Just a few days ago, They killed 4 Canadian troops and injured 9.
Afghanistan's poppy crop is up 40% this year over 2005, posing severe problems of narco-terrorism on the Colombian model.
Some observers think the Taliban are taking back over southern Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is especially important to Washington because it is the only plausible way to bring natural gas down from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India. The Turkmenistan alternative is being used to push Delhi away from any flirtation with an Iranian pipeline.
As Afghanistan falls again into substantial chaos, India is being forced to reconsider, and to seek to draw on Iran's Yadavan fields, with a pipeline coming down through Pakistani Baluchistan and over to the Indian border.
The turn for the worst in Afghanistan may explain the sudden warming of relations between Delhi and Tehran. Indian PM Manmohan Singh called up Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and stressed the need to fast track the pipeline project, which had seemed dead earlier this summer. (Last spring the pro-Iranian minister of petroleum had been fired, and some assumed it had been in part as a result of American pressure).
By deserting Afghanistan to run off to war in Iraq, Bush ensured that it would risk falling again into social turbulence, and thus helped seal the fate of the Turkmenistan pipeline through Herat (wouldn't the Taliban just blow it up?)
In turn, that may have ensured that Iran would be able to sidestep US sanctions by dealing, not only with China, but also with India.
And that may mean that Bush let the big fish get away by getting bogged down in Iraq, which is turning out not to be any prize for him, either.
It is like the Aesop's Fable where the dog with a piece of meet in its mouth crosses a bridge and sees its reflection, and hungers for the reflected meat, but in grabbing at the mirage, drops the piece already in its mouth, and ends up with nothing.
posted by Juan Cole @ 9/08/2006 12:36:00 AM
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one detail missing from this particular rendition of the dog fable — a detail that has stayed with me since grade school — is the fact that the reflected image of the meat appeared much larger than the piece the dog already had. that detail serves to underscore the dog's greed. like the dog in the fable, bush foolishly snatched at what appeared to be the larger, more desireable, though ultimately illusory prize (iraq) while abandoning his real gains (afghanistan) and losing everything in the end.
This is the full collapse of American foreign policy. And Bush claims things are getting better, utter insanity. He is like Hitler in his bunker in Berlin as the Russian occupied the city-- he believed Germany was still winning until the very end. Unlike the coward Bush, that monster had the guts to commit suicide.
Juan Cole,
The detail, consistancy, and substance of your weblog never ceases to amaze me. I am a 4th year International Relations major at University of Delaware. I frequently cut and paste quotes from here and post them on www.facebook.com on my profile, I always cite! Thank you for your dedication and service to reality and history.
-Drew Marshall
Interesting to read this post alongside Sidney Blumanthal's look at the State Department under Rice:
This May, as the situation in Iraq drastically worsened, Rice directed the senior staff that she wants no more reporting from U.S. embassies. She announced in the meeting, according to one participant, that people write memos only for each other and that no one else reads them. She said she didn't and wouldn't read them. Instead of writing reports, the diplomats should "sell America," she insisted. "We are salesmen for America!"
...
"There is no plan for Iraq," a senior national security official with the highest intelligence clearance and access to the relevant memos told me. "There is no plan. No plan."
No plan in Iraq. No plan in Afghanistan. But always plenty of spinning plans for the next election.
Link for that Blumenthal story: here.
"....fate of the Turkmenistan pipeline through Herat (wouldn't the Taliban just blow it up?)..."
No, the CIA or oil companies agents will just pay them off under the table with guns and cash. Who do you think getting all that poppy production out and marketing it all over the globe?
Welcome to free enterprise 101, American Style, been that way since the 19th century.
You see MSU textbooks don't teach you real world politics and economics. This is called experience on the job.
IBA Television reports that the father of one of the IDF members kidnapped 6 years ago along the Blue Line has videotape of the incident.
Lebanese TV (LBA?) broadcast a Hizbullah tape of the incident but IDF authorities say it is heavily edited and leaves out many details of this kidnapping.
The father alleges that the videotape clearly shows one of the kidnapped Israelis being placed in the back of a UN vehicle. The insinuation is that UNIFIL was instrumental in helping Hizbullah transport the current captives out of the area.
If Israelis see the UN force as an ally to Hizbullah (and if they do not aggressively attempt to disarm Hizbullah, this is likely), it becomes part of the current media chorus that Israel has been tricked and victimized and that Israel should reoccupy Gaza immediately, annex the Golan Heights and establish a unilateral DMZ to the Litani River so they can be safe.
Having watched some segments of American society descend into paranoia the past 5 years, it appears that Israel is on a similar path on a more spectacular scale. The thinking of their current government seems to be that Israel and the US are the only true dealers in the area (and the US should be watched closely so it does not waver) and the rest of the entire world is dedicated either actively or through apathy to the destruction of Israel.
And these are the people who have the nukes in the area?
There is a disturbing trope among the Left that the reason we lost Afghanistan is because Bush rushed off to Iraq leaving the job half done. I enjoy American exceptionalism as much as the next fellow, but why do we assume that we would succeed where the Greek, British and Soviet Empires failed? The more narrow ambition of capturing bin Laden was achievable. As I recall the Taliban offered to give him to us so they could carry on dynamiting Budddhist shrines unmolested. The bin Laden misadventure was a political expedient to keep the game afoot while Bush extracted every dram of benefit from the whole "War President" fiction. The rationale for the Patriot Act, Iraq, John Bolton and every other betrayal of American values wold have been lost had Osama been in custody in October of 2001.
One of the things that bothers me when the "opium" issue comes up, is the immediate assumption people come to that it somehow got worse because of the Taliban. You hear and read those assumptions in the media all the time.
Well, for many years, The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) has been conducting thorough research on the grounds in Afghanistan, and has been publishing their findings. These findings tell a different story.
Here are some exerpts:
1-From the 2001 report
http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afg_opium_survey_2002.pdf
"During the 1990s, Afghanistan firmly established itself as the largest source of illicit opium and its derivative, heroin, in the world. By the end of the 1990s, Afghanistan provided about 70% of global illicit opium production, well ahead of Myanmar (about 22%) and Lao PDR (about 3%). Primarily supplying countries in South West Asia, Central Asia, East and West Europe, as well as in South Asia, the Arabian Peninsula and Africa, illicit opiates of Afghan origin were consumed by an estimated 9 million abusers, which is two-thirds of all opiate abusers in the world. It can be estimated that, all along the trafficking chain, about half a million people have been involved in the trade of illicit Afghan opiates in recent years. Although these numbers are only approximate, UNODCCP also estimates that the overall turnover of illicit international trade in Afghan opiates can be roughly estimated at US$ 25 billion annually. An abrupt decline of illicit opium poppy cultivation was recorded in Afghanistan in 2001, following the ban imposed by the Taliban regime in its last year in power. Despite the existence of significant stocks of opiates accumulated during previous years of bumper harvests, the beginning of a heroin shortage became apparent on some European markets by the end of 2001. Furthermore, the absence of the usual harvest in Afghanistan in spring 2001 and the subsequent depletion of stocks pushed opium prices upwards to unprecedented levels in the country (prices increased by a factor of 10), creating a powerful incentive for farmers to plant the 2002 crop. The power vacuum in Kabul caused by the aftermath of 11 September 2001 enabled farmers to replant opium poppy (starting in October/November 2001). By the time the Afghan Interim Administration was established and issued a strong ban on opium poppy cultivation, processing, trafficking and consumption (17 January 2002), most opium poppy fields had already started to sprout. "
2- From the 2004 report:
http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afghanistan_opium_survey_2004.pdf
"The area under opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan increased from about 80,000 hectares (ha) in 2003 to a record level of 131,000 ha in 2004. The 64% increase recorded this year is in line with the assessment of farmers’ intentions made at the beginning of the planting season (UNODC, Farmers’ Intentions Survey, February 2004). The 2004 opium survey implemented by UNODC and the Afghan authorities confirmed the encroachment of opium poppy cultivation to previously unaffected areas. Opium poppy cultivation is now found in all 32 provinces of the country, up from 18 provinces in 1999, 23 in 2000, 24 in 2002 and 28 provinces in 2003. With one exception (Wardak), increases were reported in all provinces this year. However, the bulk of opium poppy cultivation is still relatively concentrated with just three provinces accounting for 73,000 ha, or 56% of the total area under cultivation: Hilmand (29,400 ha), Nangarhar (28,200 ha) and Badakhshan (15,600 ha). If one adds the next three provinces of Uruzgan, Ghor and Kandahar, 72% of the total cultivation of opium poppy took place in six provinces and 28% in the remaining 26 provinces. Ninety-two percent of opium poppy cultivation took place on fertile irrigated land. The expansion of opium poppy cultivation came at the expense of cereal cultivation, notably of wheat, which declined significantly in 2004. Opium poppy cultivation continues, nevertheless, to cover a relatively modest share of the national agricultural land (3% in 2004, up from 1.6% in 2003). By comparison, wheat covered 39% of all agricultural land in 2004. Opium poppy’s share can, however, reach much higher levels in some of the provinces such as 29% in Nangarhar, 28% in Badakhshan and 24% in Kunar."
And, according to the Russians, 2006 will be the record breaker. (exerpt from http://en.rian.ru/world/20060906/53578447.html)
"Afghanistan's opium poppy harvest this year may be the biggest in its history, a Russian presidential envoy said Wednesday.
Russia's interior minister said last month that opium poppy production kept growing in Afghanistan, despite measures taken by the global community to counter it.
"This year, the most impressive, formidable crop will be harvested - up to 95% of the world's heroin - 6,100 to 6,200 [metric] tons of opiates," said Anatoly Safonov, a Russian representative for international cooperation in fighting terrorism and trans-border organized crime.
He said opium poppy crops rose 40% this year."
So the assumption that the Taliban are behind the opium trends is false. They tried to quash it when they were in power. The Taliban religious militia has nearly wiped out opium production in Afghanistan. When that power dissipated, it sprung up again.
A detailed report, by the Senlis Council, an international policy thinktank has analysed the causes of the current mess: Poverty, poverty and... poverty. If you spend 900% more on military operations than you do on eliminating poverty and reconstruction work, what do you expect the farmers to do?
From the last chapter of AN UNEXPECTED LIGHT, Travels in Afganistan, by Jason Elliott, published 1999:
Describing a meeting between some Westerners and Afgani government officials:
". . . there was a note of frustration (in the conversation) when it came to the recent news of America's "covert" intention to destabilize the regime in neighbouring Iran. . . Afgans still felt abandoned by their former ally, whom they had supposed would return after the defeat of the Soviets and help rebuild their ruined country. News that Washington had now agreed to sponsor the undermining of a neighbouring governemnt came as a kind of cynical confirmation."
". . . Even the government's former adversaries in Russia and Iran had agreed to recognize and support the effort from Kabul to resist the Taleban's advance. But the Americans had held back, and their reluctance to recognize the government officially was a source of bitter disappointment. Washington had also refrained from expressing diapproval of the Taleban. An American congressman had even spoken up publicly strongly in their favor, suggesting they were the sole candidates for leadership of the country."
The chickens came home to roost a long time ago.
From the last chapter of AN UNEXPECTED LIGHT, Travels in Afganistan, by Jason Elliott, published 1999:
Describing a meeting between some Westerners and Afgani government officials:
". . . there was a note of frustration (in the conversation) when it came to the recent news of America's "covert" intention to destabilize the regime in neighbouring Iran. . . Afgans still felt abandoned by their former ally, whom they had supposed would return after the defeat of the Soviets and help rebuild their ruined country. News that Washington had now agreed to sponsor the undermining of a neighbouring governemnt came as a kind of cynical confirmation."
". . . Even the government's former adversaries in Russia and Iran had agreed to recognize and support the effort from Kabul to resist the Taleban's advance. But the Americans had held back, and their reluctance to recognize the government officially was a source of bitter disappointment. Washington had also refrained from expressing diapproval of the Taleban. An American congressman had even spoken up publicly strongly in their favor, suggesting they were the sole candidates for leadership of the country."
The chickens came home to roost a long time ago.
Rumsfeld's decision to draw down American forces in the South is looking pretty bad. Isn't this one more reason to get rid of him?
So far I have seen no comment in your (excellent) blog on Pakistan's accomodation with Waziristan. Seems to me that spells an end to the entire Afghan exercise (as well as the hunt for bin-Laden).
I agree on you ALsobobfromCt. Rumsfeld's withdrawal of American forces in the south really made a bad mark. What could be his reason? Could it ever be credible enough? It has to be if he wants to stay on his post for a long long time.
http://www.oefbibbcity.com
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