Afghanistan presents a tangled and thorny policy quandary. But there’s a quick reference tool available to gauge the deluded, self-defeating nature of the US- dominated Western intervention ”” that big-dollar, faint-heart- ed alliance that has found itself lost and groping for landmarks in a land where warfare has reigned uninterrupted for a full 30 years, since the outbreak of civil war in April, 1978.
Just go to the US Drug Enforcement Agency’s Web site (www.usdoj.gov/dea) and click on ”œMajor International Fugitives.” See any Afghan faces, the big Khans of global heroin trafficking? No, it’s mostly just coke-pushing Columbians. Don’t bother clicking on ”œCaptured Fugitives,” either: the heroin Khans are nowhere in evidence.
So we’re led to believe that with all the resources deployed in Afghanistan by the United States military, its intelligence services, and the State and Justice departments (including one of the DEA’s largest overseas operations), there are simply no leads on the ringleaders of the industry that accounts for 93 percent of the world’s heroin traffick- ing ”” the mother of all mother loads of raw drug stock, opium, a crop so immense that by the State Department’s own reckoning, Afghanistan’s 2007 harvest, if all the poppy resin were refined into heroin, would produce a commodity worth upwards of $40 billion.
”œOf course we know who the big men are in heroin,” says one weary agent of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security. ”œThe Americans, too ”” we discuss the structure of these gangs, the people who handle the drugs and those in high office who protect them.
”œBut we cannot act. The heroin culture is our power structure, it’s that simple. It is our curse, our downfall.”
Onto this landscape of corruption and official denial lands John Manley’s ”œIndependent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan,” report, followed swiftly by even bleak- er assessments by US, European and United Nations inquiries. All speak of a global initiative that is failing.
Worse, the NATO governments confronted by these assessments appear unequal to the task of tackling the key contributing factors of the crisis. Having deceived themselves and their respective publics for so many years, they are unable to devise new strategies to rescue the Afghan project from spiralling further into the abyss.
Canadians, for example, are led to believe that the biggest urgency revealed by the Manley report is the need to muster another 1,000 troops. Meanwhile the Harper government takes no steps whatsoever to address the real weaknesses: the misguided US command-and-control effort; chaos and corrup- tion in the Western-sponsored Karzai regime; and the Taliban leadership’s continuing holiday in the borderlands of Pakistan, from where they coolly and efficiently plot the killing of Afghan civilians ”” and Canadian soldiers.
Certainly the Manley report has levelled a good deal of blistering criti- cism on these fronts. The US-dominat- ed NATO/ISAF command suffers ”œdamaging shortfalls,” notably a ”œtop heavy command structure,” which dis- plays ”œan absence of a comprehensive strategy.” In the Western-sponsored Karzai regime, ”œcorruption is wide- spread,” and its workings are ”œcharac- terized by cronyism, bribery and a variety of shakedown enterprises man- aged by government officials.”
The regime’s corruption is ”œunder- mining not only the hope for an Afghan solution but also support for the Western forces sacrificing their lives.” On Pakistan, the panel emphasizes a grim truth that has been concealed by President Bush, Prime Minister Harper and other Western leaders: ”œTaliban commanders who are responsible for the violence in Afghanistan are directing it primarily from sanctuaries in Pakistan.”
At the same time, the review process is critically flawed ”” though not by its own conduct or con- tent, but by the political atmosphere into which it falls. Debate in Ottawa over the Afghanistan mission distracts the nation with the crass, ill-informed parry and thrust of party politics at its lowest. Consequently, even while the Manley pages cry out for better com- munications and a greater emphasis on reconstruction, the ruling elite in Ottawa actively disinforms the public by directing its parliamentary parox- ysms squarely on the combat mission ”” and a perversely mischaracterized version of that undertaking to boot.
Contributing to the confusion are Canada’s leading newspapers, news agencies and networks, whose manage- ments stubbornly refuse to staff and report the Kabul regime or Pakistan sanc- tuaries stories. One reporter who recent- ly returned from Kandahar comments: ”œForget the larger picture, we’re not even staffing the Canadian Forces story prop- erly. Just count the number of reporters and photographers on the ground at KAF (Kandahar Air Field). They’re down from last year, way down.”
As a result, Canadians hear and see the Afghanistan story mainly in the context of parliamentary debates, those confusing tangles of hyperbole that have done so much to sap under- standing of our country’s Afghan mis- sion. Meantime, scant attention has been paid in Canada to the Karzai regime’s continuing lurch towards dis- integration ”” despite the increasing frequency of President Karzai’s public meltdowns and tantrums.
Especially with his obdurate refusal to accept British diplomat Paddy Ashdown as the UN’s new Afghan envoy (a slap in the face for the Harper govern- ment, which backed Ashdown), Karzai has lost his fashionista aura, that image, carefully crafted by his US sponsors, of the valiant statesman struggling to real- ize his peoples’ destiny. He now resem- bles little more than the evidence on the ground in Kabul has long suggested: a weak and unimaginative leader suc- cumbing to the bilious corruption of many of his closest allies and appointees; a small man who is losing his grip not only on power, but on reality, too.
This became alarmingly obvious in Karzai’s emotional outbursts in January over the Ashdown appointment. For months, Karzai had been at odds with London over British attempts to woo Taliban commanders off the battle- field in Helmand province. Sources close to the presi- dent’s US advisors point to a much larger fear on Karzai’s part ”” that the arrival in Kabul of a policy pragma- tist of Ashdown’s stature would mark the beginning of the end of the Karzai family’s hold on power. That threat haunts not only Hamid, but also his brashly acquisitive brothers Qayuum, Mahmood and Ahmed Wali ”” three men who have latched onto the inter- nationally financed aid initiative and turned it into Afghanistan’s foremost family enterprise of wealth creation and influence peddling.
Ashdown, for his part, has been darkly philosophical about Karzai’s stance. After all, the Afghan leader is a politician facing an election campaign next year. Ashdown commented: ”œI sup- pose he must have calculated that beat- ing up on Britain ”” an ex-imperial power ”” beating up on the United States, was not going to do him any harm in a proud Afghanistan amongst the Pashtun vote.”
That ethnic Pashtun voting block, the same community preyed upon by the Taliban for support in the south, is the unwieldy burden weighing down the caravan of ill-conceived stratagems that constitutes the US-led campaign in Afghanistan. Washington and its allies have consistently promoted Pashtun notables, stacking Karzai’s cab- inet and ministries with them. But too many of them have served only their personal interests, following the lead of expatriate Afghan entrepreneurs more focused on building bank accounts in Dubai, rather than assisting the recon- struction of their homeland.
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A dangerous political backlash to this US-fostered imbalance is gathering momentum in the form of the United Front, dominated by non-Pushtun for- mer guerrilla communities, notably the northern Tajik followers of Ahmed Shah Massoud. While the Lion of the Panjshir is nearly seven years dead, murdered by al-Qaeda suicide bombers, the beacon of his dream of a united, nationalist Afghanistan still burns fiercely in the hearts of his people. While the United Front remains, itself, a deeply fractious entity, something much more threaten- ing has accompanied its emergence: the re-arming, by its constituent elements, of private militias across the north of Afghanistan.
Half a world away, the Karzai regime’s richest sponsor sleepwalks toward oblivion. The Bush administra- tion continues to encourage public igno- rance of Afghanistan: most Americans still believe Hamid Karzai is that neat guy in the lambswool hat and cloak who speaks good English. Occasionally the Republican and Democratic hopefuls make a side-reference to Afghanistan, but only to slight the accident-prone incum- bent. This 2008 campaign confirms once again that creating understanding just doesn’t cut it on US election trails.
Contrast that with the advice of DC’s straight talkers. An assessment co-chaired by retired Marine Corps General James Jones and former UN Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering has stated that Afghanistan risks becom- ing a failed state and a forgotten war. The review cited weakening interna- tional resolve and a mounting skepticism among Afghans about their country’s future.
Was this report, released just a week after the Manley document, a much- needed wake up call? Perhaps, but few, if any, decision-makers in American gov- ernance ”” or the media ”” appear to be stirring. Witness the latest incredible chapter in the saga of Zalmay Khalilzad, the undisputed Khan of policy blow- back in Afghanistan, a man entirely deserving of his reputation among expe- rienced observers as Washington’s man with the molten gun.
This past January, when Hamid Karzai went ballistic at the Davos sum- mit over the Paddy Ashdown appoint- ment, the diplomatic rumour mill began grinding out an astonishing prospect: that the smooth-talking Afghan-American academic-turned- statesman, ”œKing Zal” Khalilzad, the Bush administration’s former ambassa- dor to Kabul and Baghdad, and cur- rently its representative to the UN, was considering standing for the office of president of Afghanistan in 2009.
Leading US newspapers and maga- zines duly reported the story, and man- aged to do it straight-faced. Newsweek, for example, stated: ”œKhalilzad had a suc- cessful stint as US ambassador to Kabul after the Taliban fell, helping to form the Karzai government and working with then Maj. Gen. David Barno, command- er of US forces, to pacify the country.”
Successful? Pacify? What about the assessment done in early February by US Marine Corps chief General James Conway, that violence in Afghanistan has escalated because the Pentagon lacks a clear picture of Afghanistan. ”œIt is a bit confusing at this point,” Conway stated, ”œbecause we as a department need to see it the same way and quite frankly, at this point in time, we just don’t.” So where was the administration’s chief Afghan diplomat as this confusion persisted? Still actively involved from his post in New York, according to European officials familiar with the US command structure.
Regarding Khalilzad’s past, Newsweek was not alone in failing to recount the salient facts. Specifically, that when the record is searched for US officials who supported the most suspect Afghan com- manders of the 1980s ”” those who’ve become the leading anti-American mili- tants of today ”” Khalilzad tops the list. As well, he helped deepen Washington’s reliance on Pakistan’s notori- ously self-serving military intelligence service, the ISI, which nur- tured and continues to support the Taliban. Khalilzad advocated US recogni- tion of the Taliban regime in the 1990s, while helping to promote UNOCAL’s trans-Afghan oil pipeline project. And as the Bush administration’s ambassador to Kabul, he stacked the Karzai cabinet with ethnic Pashtuns, marginalizing Tajiks to the extent that, even at Karzai’s presiden- tial palace, one insider condemns Khalilzad as ”œan ethnic fascist.”
Good presidential material? Hardly. As for Khalilzad’s management of the Afghan reconstruction effort, his record of advancing the careers of grasping Afghan Americans loyal to the Bush administration speaks volumes (see Policy Options, ”œCashing In On Karzai & Co,” November, 2007) According to one Western diplomatic source with years of experience in Kabul: ”œA few of us have been asking one another if we know of a more divi- sive or domineering figure on the polit- ical scene hereabouts. The only names we came up with are big militia leaders, or religious or ethnic supremacists.
”œEven a lot of Pashtuns laugh at the suggestion of Zal as a candidate for elected office here. After all, the coun- try now faces the real threat of disinte- gration along ethnic and regional lines. Khalilzad helped strengthen those fault lines, not ease them.”
Aid specialists point to today’s alarm- ingly ineffective global assistance effort as further evidence of the drawbacks of the Bush administration’s domineering style. The group ActionAid accuses donor nations of ”œfollowing an inconsistent and incoherent approach.” ActionAid says the donors have failed to deliver a full $5 bil- lion of aid pledged, ”œdespite finding the many hundreds of billions necessary for military operations.”
A total of $16 billion in aid has reached Afghanistan since the ouster of the Taliban regime in 2001. Even some of Karzai’s own administrators warn that the distorted, ineffectual channelling of foreign assistance is contributing to, rather than relieving, disaffection among the Afghan civilian population. One presidential aide in Kabul says: ”œThe whole process is skewed in favour of foreigners and westernized Afghans, the donor/consultant elite. Aid isn’t going through appropriate channels, and it’s not reaching the people of Afghanistan. Much of it goes in big administration, security, and salary costs for foreigners, and for their westernized Afghan part- ners and interlocutors.
”œThese people, particularly Afghan-Americans who’ve built up large offshore holdings, take advantage of a weak system. That system is near- ing breaking point. There’ll be a strong backlash from the Afghan people, in the provinces and here in Kabul. That could prove to be the final disaster: a collapse of order, not just trust.”
This grim assessment, like much of the Manley report, is sharply at odds with the mainly reassuring state- ments that have come from the Harper government over the past two years. The PMO has only depicted the Karzai administration in an upbeat way and, according to sources at Foreign Affairs, he has instructed sen- ior diplomats at the Canadian embassy in Kabul to discourage can- did news coverage of the regime by Canadian journalists.
The Manley panel delicately sug- gests a ”œrebalancing” of the govern- ment’s communications practices, saying it ”œmust engage Canadians in a continuous, frank and constructive dialogue.” In other words, it’s time to quit blowing smoke over the critical weaknesses of the Afghan mission.
Question: what good is quitting the smoke while cyclones of official denial continue to spin and churn?
