According to the BBC, the “Mayor of Kabul”, a.k.a Khamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan, has threatened Pakistan by warning that he would send “troops across the border” to “confront militants based in Pakistan” adding that when militants crossed over from Pakistan to kill Afghans and coalition troops, his nation had the right to retaliate in “self-defence”.
There is, of course, a reason why the always elegant “Armani President” Karzai is referred to as “Mayor of Kabul” in Afghanistan: his influence does not extend beyond the Afghan capital (and even that, only courtesy of NATO firepower). All the real power in Afghanistan is either in the hands of the Tadjiks, Uzbeks and Hazara of the (former) Northern Alliance or the Taliban. Karzai has even less firepower than Maliki in Iraq (the latter can at least hope for some support from the Badr Corps). So when he threatens to send troops into Pakistan one can only either conclude that Karzai is talking about NATO forces or that the man has just gone totally insane.
Anyone doubting it should realize that even though Pakistan has a formidable military it never succeeded in controlling (nevermind defeating) the Islamists of Waziristan or anywhere else along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
Clearly, Karzai is humiliated and frustrated by the recent escape of over 1100 prisoners from a jail in southern Afghnanistan following a daring operation by Taliban forces. Still, the kind of utter nonsense he is spewing now is inexcusable for a person trying to impersonate a credible political leader. His delirious threats will only serve to confirm what many already knew: the Mayor of Kabul is little more than a buffoon.
UPDATE: also, check out the good commentary by Eric Margolis for the Toronto Sun.
1100 prisoners escaped?
Just WOW.
this article from the financial times reveals what NATO and its intellectuals are saying behind closed doors.
Financial Times FT.com
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The dream of Afghan democracy is dead
By Anatol Lieven
Published: June 11 2008 18:59 | Last updated: June 11 2008 18:59
In public, defeat in Afghanistan is unthinkable for western governments. In private, for many it already seems inevitable – at least if the western definition of “victory” remains the vastly overblown goals set since the overthrow of the Taliban, within any timeframe that is likely to be acceptable to western electorates.
In recent meetings involving Nato officials I have been struck by the combination of public acknowledgment that, to achieve real and stable progress in Afghanistan, western forces will probably have to remain there for a generation at least, and deep private scepticism that western publics will stay the course for anything like that long. Indeed, most plans have the hopeless aim of producing clear results within three years, for fear that otherwise Canada will not prolong its presence beyond 2011 and the whole Nato effort will begin to unravel.
Similarly, public statements of faith in Afghan democracy are coupled with private expressions of near-despair when it comes to hopes of improving Hamid Karzai’s administration. Many western officials admit privately that any real hopes of creating a democratic Afghanistan are now dead. “If we could get a moderately civilised and effective military dictatorship, we’d be very lucky indeed,” was the grim comment of one senior officer.
Every statement by western leaders such as Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, that this is a struggle for Afghan democracy makes it more difficult to change course. The west has already spent so long talking up Mr Karzai’s democratic credentials that – absurdly – we now feel that we cannot overrule him even when he vetoes vitally important western policies.
The first step in rethinking Afghan strategy is to think seriously about the lessons of a recent opinion survey of ordinary Taliban fighters commissioned by the Toronto Globe and Mail.* Two results are striking: the widespread lack of any strong expression of allegiance to Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership; and the reasons given by most for joining the Taliban – namely, the presence of western troops in Afghanistan. The deaths of relatives or neighbours at the hands of those forces was also stated by many as a motive. This raises the question of whether Afghanistan is not becoming a sort of surreal hunting estate, in which the US and Nato breed the very “terrorists” they then track down.
We also should remember why the US invaded Afghanistan with Nato backing in the first place: not to create democracy, or even to overthrow the Taliban, but to kill or capture the leaders of al-Qaeda. Today, killing Osama bin Laden should be made the top priority for western intelligence in the region. This is not because it would have a great direct impact on the global terrorist threat – it would not, as al-Qaeda and its allies have long since become thoroughly decentralised – but because such a public success would make it much easier for us to declare victory and go home.
While we should certainly not quit without creating some kind of Afghan settlement, every plan that the west makes should be formulated with eventual and complete withdrawal in mind. We need to start serious negotiations with the Taliban leadership now, not because such talks promise any chance of results by next year’s Afghan elections, or by 2011, but because the great majority of settlements to such conflicts have been achieved only after many years of negotiations.
Any hope either of a settlement, or of containing an Afghan civil war after the west’s withdrawal, also depends critically on Afghanistan’s neighbours. Iran and Pakistan in the first instance, Russia, India and China in the next should be fully involved in all plans for Afghanistan’s future, their vital interests in the country recognised and diplomatic attention devoted to trying to forge a regional consensus. We must avoid actions in Afghanistan that destabilise and alienate those neighbours – such as the US air strike across the border that has just killed 11 Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan will be critical to Afghanistan’s stability long after the west has left the region.
No quick solution to the Afghan conflict exists. The steps that I have recommended would, however, provide an indispensable precondition for even limited progress, which is to stop digging ourselves deeper into our existing hole. Many admit privately that any real hopes of creating a democratic and developed Afghanistan are now dead. “If we could get a moderately civilised and effective military dictatorship, we’d be very lucky indeed,” was the grim comment of one senior officer.
*www.theglobeandmail.com/talkingtothetaliban
The writer, professor in the war studies department of King’s College London, is author of America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
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from the canadian press: “shit’s hitting the fan”!
Taliban swarm edges of Kandahar
ALEXANDER PANETTA
Canadian Press
June 16, 2008 at 2:00 PM EDT
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters swarmed the doorstep of Afghanistan’s second-largest city Monday, bombing small bridges and scattering landmines to keep Canadian and international troops at bay.
The president of the Kandahar provincial council and brother of President Hamid Karzai said the rebels claimed a handful of villages and were rumoured to be seeking a bigger target: Kandahar city.
Canadian soldiers, U.S. special forces, and the Afghan army were deployed to the area to keep them from advancing, said Ahmed Wali Karzai. But landmines and bombed-out culverts stood in NATO’s path, he said.
Mr. Karzai said rebels had nabbed control of several villages along the Arghandab district — just next door to Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban.
Canadian soldiers with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) stand guard during a press conference on a prison attacked by Taliban militants in Kandahar province, south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Jun 15, 2008. U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces killed more than 15 insurgents during a hunt for inmates who fled prison after a sophisticated Taliban attack that set hundreds free, while Afghan forces recaptured 20 prisoners, officials said Sunday.
“They have taken over there,” Mr. Karzai said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“There are also strong rumours that they will attack Kandahar city at strategic points — my house, the government’s house, the police station.”
He said police had been deployed from the capital to help local forces protect the volatile region: “Everyone in Kabul is very much concerned.”
However, he downplayed the threat to his own safety. He said the Taliban has grabbed neighbouring villages in the past, only to lose them and similar rumours about an attack on Kandahar have circulated before.
The fears were palpable among NATO forces.
Some employees of the international troops refused to leave their homes Monday out of concern for their safety and did not come into work. One Canadian soldier bluntly assessed the situation:
“Shit’s hitting the fan,” he said. “They want to take the city. They want to make a statement.”
Mr. Karzai said it was unclear if the Taliban commanders responsible for the raid on Arghandab were some of the escaped inmates who fled from Sarposa prison in last week’s explosive raid.
Mohammad Farooq, the government leader in the Arghandab, said around 500 Taliban fighters had moved into his district and taken over several villages.
A tribal leader from the region warned that the militants could use the cover from Arghandab’s grape and pomegranate orchards to mount an attack on the provincial capital itself.
“All of Arghandab is made of orchards. The militants can easily hide and easily fight,” said Haji Ikramullah Khan.
NATO spokesman Mark Laity said NATO and Afghan military officials were redeploying troops to the region to “meet any potential threats.”
“It’s fair to say that the jailbreak has put a lot of people (rebels) into circulation who weren’t there before, and so obviously you’re going to respond to that potential threat,” he said.
Two powerful anti-Taliban leaders from Arghandab have died in the last year, weakening the region’s defences.
Mullah Naqib, the district’s former leader, died of a heart attack last year. Taliban fighters moved into Arghandab en masse last October, two weeks after his death, but left within days after hundreds of security forces were deployed there.
A second leader, police commander Abdul Hakim Jan, died in a massive suicide bombing in Kandahar in February that killed more than 100 people.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces killed 35 insurgents in two skirmishes in the south, the coalition said Monday.
Twenty rebels were killed in Zabul province after they attacked a combined patrol with rockets, mortars and gunfire. The combined forces returned fire and called in air strikes in Sunday’s battle.
Fifteen insurgents were reportedly killed in the Sangin area of Helmand province Saturday after a group of men in a treeline fired on Afghan and coalition troops. Two hours of fighting ensued, and military aircraft were again called in.
More than 1,900 people have died in insurgent violence in Afghanistan this year, according to Afghan and western officials.
Well, the fact is the entire concept of the operation in Afghanistan is deeply flawed and predicated on fundamentally false assumptions.
1) Force size: NATO has way, waaaaay too few forces in the country. The Soviets held on to all the major cities and mostly controlled the roads with about 80-100 thousand soldiers. To really control the place at least 3-4 times as much would be needed. There are about 60’000 ISAF personnel in Afghanistan, including civilians.
2) Mission: here is what the official ISAF mission is:
* ISAF conducts patrols throughout the 18 police districts in Kabul and its surrounding areas. Over a third of these patrols are carried out jointly with the Kabul City Police. There are also presence and patrol activities conducted within the Provincial Reconstruction Team areas of operation.
* ISAF coordinates Civil Military Cooperation (CIMIC) projects throughout its area of operations. The CIMIC objectives are to assist the Commander of ISAF in his effort to support the Government of Afghanistan in maintaining and expanding security throughout the country, to support stabilisation, reconstruction and nation-building activities, and to co-operate with the International Organisations and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). The CIMIC teams work in close co-operation with the local population and authorities and assess the situation concerning education, health, water, sanitation and internally displaced persons and returnees. They also initiate and monitor projects funded by either national or international donors.
* On a political level, ISAF works closely with the Afghan authorities, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), UN agencies, international organisations, non-governmental organisations and the US-led coalition (Operations Enduring Freedom – OEF). ISAF has Liaison Teams that coordinate issues directly with the Government of Afghanistan, with UNAMA and other international players.
* ISAF also supports the Government of Afghanistan in its security sector reform efforts.
Does this sound like a serious combat mission which any invasion of a country like Afghanistan should be? What an exercise in delusion, what a joke!
3) Power Base: Besides the hated infidels of NATO, the only real force in the country is either the Northern Alliance or the Taliban, both of which hate NATO. Thus, there are no local allies which NATO can count on.
4) The Pashtun Talibans live in Afghanistan and Pakistan separated by an artificial border. Still, absolutely no provision was ever made to address this issue. Somehow the US brass, and NATO now, seem to believe that it can fight the Pashtuns in one country but not in another.
5) Iran is the one country which could really, really help in Afghanistan. Instead of getting it on board, the Neocons are threatening it with invasion. Not very helpful indeed.
Now this pathetic edifice is coming tumbling down on the stunned faces of the morons who cooked up this military Ponzi scheme.