NO RESPITE IN AFGHANISTAN

 

The facts on the ground suggest that the American plan for the transformation of Afganistan into a stable “democratic” ally of NATO, hosting western military bases on the doorstep of Central Asia, is failing. Native resistance to the occupiers is increasing and its tactics are becoming more deadly every year. Opium production is rising exponentially and this article argues that the US economy may indeed be one of the beneficiaries of the drug trade.

 

RAMTANU MAITRA

 

The November 2007 report of the United States’ (US) National Security Council (NSC) on the war in Afghanistan caused a flutter and reminded Americans that besides Iraq, US troops are also on a mission in Afghanistan to eliminate Islamic extremists. According to US officials, the report card after six years of waging war indicates that “success” is a mirage and that the wide-ranging strategic goals that the Bush Administration set for 2007 have not been met, even as US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces have scored significant combat successes against resurgent Taliban fighters.

Expressing concerns over the NSC Report, US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates made an unannounced visit to Kabul on December 3, 2007, his third since he assumed his post in December 2006. Besides his scheduled meetings with President Hamid Karzai and the NATO Commander, it was evident that Gates was there to evaluate the situation on the ground. He was keen not to show any panic when he told the media, “I’m not worried about a backslide as much as I am (about) how we continue the momentum going forward. ... One of the clear concerns that we all have is that in the last two or three years, there has been a continuing increase in the overall level of violence”. According to CBS news, a senior US defence official, referring to Gates’s visit, stated that the US military is concerned and is looking for definitive signs of greater activity by al Qaeda and foreign fighters, but the US has not seen enough proof to draw any conclusions. The official discussed the terrorist network on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.

The NSC Report and Gates’s stated concerns may come as a surprise to some Americans, who would like to believe what is “pleasant” and make little effort to know the reality. However, long before the report was released, it had been well established that “success” in Afghanistan is not achievable, as it has not been defined. The NSC Report does not identify the “wide-ranging strategic goals of the Bush Administration” that soldiers from the US and Europe (NATO) are trying to achieve.

 

A REALITY CHECK

 

However, not everyone associated with the war admits that things are “not going” right. For instance, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who hops from one base to another, says that contrary to negative media stories, “We see an increase in the standard of living of Afghan people here and we see a lot of reconstruction and development going on. In other words, there is reason for optimism in Afghanistan”. One wonders. Those who are interested in on-the-ground realities and are not willing to devour fantasiesspoonfed by the powers-that-be, for the reasons-that-be, should evaluate the Afghan situation on the basis of the following four factors.

First, after six years of warfare, it must be clearly understood that the Afghan terrain does not allow for a conventional army to maintain control over rural areas— which is about 95 per cent of the land. Conventional armies can win battles and decimate enemies that they meet, but they will never successfully occupy Afghanistan. The British, in the early 1900s and the Soviets in the 1980s went pell-mell into the country, overestimating their own valour and underestimating the Afghans’ will to defend their nation, customs and traditions. They got the lesson they deserved. Nothing much has changed since.

Despite the cacophony about having set up a democratic system in Afghanistan, the reality is different. It is difficult to fathom how occupying forces can set up a democratic system, when the majority of the people are eager to evict the occupiers. As a result, democracy has remained a mirage. Even Karzai agrees. Thus, the only way a reasonably stable Afghanistan will emerge—and it will once foreign troops leave—is when a political process, however tough and time-consuming that may be, brings about a participation of Afghans from the North, South, East and West. Afghanistan cannot be indefinitely occupied and controlled by foreign troops with the help of Afghan warlords and drug barons—the unspoken strategy of the Bush Administration to realise its “strategic goals”, whatever they may be.

 

OCCUPY TO PROTECT OR DESTROY OPIUM?

 

Second, Afghanistan is now the world’s largest opium/heroin producer— accounting for about 95 per cent of the world’s production and more than 50 per cent of its gross domestic product. This has not always been the case, as recorded figures show. According to opium production figures (Table 1), there are three main things to note. The Taliban took control of most of Afghanistan in 1995 and opium production, which had been hovering around 2,000–3,000 metric tones after the defeated Soviet army left in 1989, rose to 4,600 tonnes in 1999. The next year, the Taliban went hammer and tongs against opium production and brought it down to 185 metric tonnes by 2001. In the winter of 2001, the US invaded Afghanistan allegedly to eliminate the drug-producing, terrorist-sheltering, “Stone Age Islamists”—the Taliban. After that, thanks to the occupiers’ “vigilance”, opium production began setting new records every year. In 2007, the recorded amount was 8,200 metric tonnes—about four times the amount produced in 1988.

Table 1: Opium Production in Afghanistan (Metric Tonnes)

 

1994      1995       1996       1997      1998        1999          2000

3,400     2,300      2,200      2,800     2,700       4,600         3,300

2001      2002       2003       2004      2005        2006          2007

185        3,400      3,600      4,200     4,500       6,700        8,200

Source: National Security Council, EIR International, December 14, 2007

 

Who benefits from such a massive growth in opium production? Many people; according to a private group of analysts, narco-corruption is present at all levels of the Afghan government. Every corrupt governor, police chief, or ministry official is a recruiting agent for the Taliban. Public officials trying to build a new transparent state, where impunity is no longer the rule, are undermined by the corruption around them. The hypocrisy is visible to all, especially the local people, as most counter-narcotics efforts are directed against poor farmers—who may not even own the land—while the well-connected flaunt their drug wealth with lavish houses and SUVs.

Another ruse used from time to time to smooth the ruffled feathers of antidrug moralists in the US and elsewhere, takes the form of huge efforts made by the Afghan government, with the help of US troops, to eradicate opium. One such lie came to light recently. The United Nations (UN) Report on Opium Production 2007, singled out Balkh as a  “leading example” of an opium-free province, saying other areas should follow “the model of this northern region where leadership, incentives and security have led farmers to turn their backs on opium”. But the fields of Balkh in northern Afghanistan exhibit ten foot tall cannabis plants, flourishing where opium was previously planted! The crop—the source of both marijuana and hashish—can be just as profitable as opium, but draws none of the scrutiny from officials bent on eradicating poppies. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimated in its October 2007 Survey that cannabis cultivation rose 40 per cent in 2007, to 173,000 acres from 123,550 in 2006 and that opium was being grown in at least 18 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

In addition, even where opium was eradicated, it was done in such a way that it arouses grave misgivings. A New Yorker magazine article cited an Uruzgan province farmer’s complaint against Virginia’s DynCorps eradication team, that they had not only destroyed poppies, but also wheat and vegetables. He also charged that only tribes alienated from the Karzai government had their fields wiped out while those politically aligned with the government were “missed”. What this private group (DynCorp) either did not investigate, or did not publicise was that in the era of globalisation and liberalisation, with massive sub-prime mortgage losses and slaughter of hedge funds, cash vanishes like camphor, but opium brings in real money. It helps some of the liquidity-starved banks, now a part of the casino-style financial system, to generate cash and stay afloat. Proceeds from the Afghan drug trade may now exceed 150 billion dollars per year. The opium explosion in Afghanistan is a reality, while the “strategic objective” of the Bush Administration remains a miasma, to say the least.

The Russian government has in fact accused the US of waging a narco-war—President Putin used the term “narco-agression”—by flooding Russia with heroin from Afghanistan, across Central Asia. Russia’s ambassador to Kabul, Zamir Kabulov made that charge on the Vesti News channel. One result is that Russia now has six million heroin addicts, a 2,000 per cent rise since the fall of the USSR. Vesti further reported that drugs were routinely carried on US transport planes to American bases at Ganci in Kyrgyzstan and Incirlik in Turkey for subsequent distribution, according to a February 24, 2008 article by Valdimir Radyuhin in Global Research. Repeated accusations have also been made against Karzai’s two brothers, Kajum and Ahmed Vali for being long time linchpins in the heroin trade, even before their brother became a head of state.

 

HOW WIDESPREAD IS THE ENEMY?

 

The third factor is the conditions that prevail along the Afghanistan–Pakistan border. The border known as the Durand Line, drawn in the sand more than 100 years ago by a long-dead employee of the British colonialists Mortimer Durand, never existed in the minds of the Afghans and is now defunct. When the Bush Administration jumped in to “smoke out” Osama bin Laden, those who had even a faint understanding of the terrain pointed out that the western part of Pakistan (west of the Indus River) would become as much enemy territory as Afghanistan itself. In trying to estimate how “well” the foreign occupiers are doing the part of Pakistan west of the Indus River should be examined. In the real world, this part of Pakistan has become virtually independent and Islamabad’s writ does not extend there. Islamabad, for reasons not difficult to understand, does not want to press the issue more than it has already done.

It is likely that the Bush Administration in its haste did not quite understand what it was doing. Perhaps London did and instigated it. An independent nation, virtually underground, depending on others, is something the British Empire always encouraged. For London, it is not a bad idea and in fact, it is useful to set up a tribal nation at the crossroads to Iran, Central Asia, Russia and the Indian subcontinent. It is quite likely that the Bush Administration has not quite achieved its undefined “strategic objective” but perhaps London has.

 

KILLING THE INNOCENTS

 

The fourth factor is the level of violence. There is no question that violence begets violence. Just follow the indiscriminate bombing that Afghan villagers have been subjected to over the last six years. Only a handful of them were Taliban sympathisers to begin with, but now most of those still living are anti-US and anti-NATO. Their numbers add up to many thousands. However, for the media consumption of American citizens all of them are the despicable—but drugeradicating—Taliban. The indiscriminate bombing is disapproved of by all Afghans, even those who are the beneficiaries of the US–NATO presence. Consider for instance, Karzai, a self-confessed American puppet who endorses almost anything the foreign forces do. However, even he speaks out against this indiscriminate killing of Afghan men, women and children, but his protests do not end such actions.

On November 29, 2007, Afghan officials reported that US forces “mistakenly” killed road construction workers in air strikes in eastern Afghanistan. As many as 14 engineers and labourers were killed in the incident in Nuristan province, which officials blamed on faulty intelligence, possibly fed by the Taliban. The workers, who had been contracted by the US military to build a road in the mountainous province, were sleeping in their tents when they were killed. According to Sayed Noorullah Jalili, Director of the road construction company Amerifa “I don’t think the Americans were targeting our people. I’m sure it’s the enemy of the Afghans who gave the Americans this wrong information”. Former Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld would have replied, “Stuff happens”. But this is not the only “stuff ” that is happening out there and these incidents will continue. With the policy Washington has embraced, the nature of the “stuff ” may get more dangerous.

 

 

LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY

 

Returning to the NSC Report, it is evident that some light was shone to clear up facts, which had been drowned out by earlier propaganda. Last summer, columns of copy appeared in mainstream media showing the success of Operation Medusa—launched against the Taliban in the drug-infested province of Helmand. The report quotes Seth Jones of the Rand Corporation as saying that in last year’s Operation Medusa, Canadian combat troops fought hard for control of the Panjwai district, south of Kandahar. He added, “Four weeks ago the levels of Taliban in Panjwai ... were back up to pre-Operation Medusa”. The report pointed out that experts believe that the Taliban’s control had extended beyond the group’s traditional southern territory, with extremists making substantial inroads into the western provinces of Farah, Herat and others along the Iranian border, even as they regularly challenge eastern-based US forces. “We’re seeing definite expanded strongholds”, said a US official who declined to be identified by agency. “That’s not going to stop in 2008. ... If anything, it’s gaining momentum”.

Northern Afghanistan, ethnically separate from the Pashtun-dominated Taliban areas, is still considered relatively peaceful, although officials regard a November 6, 2007, suicide bombing in northern Baghlan province—that killed more than 80 people most of them children—as an ominous sign. Though US intelligence officials initially questioned the Taliban’s denial of responsibility, they now believe the bomb was the work of Hezb-e-Islami, a Taliban ally group, even as suspicion has grown in Afghanistan that most of the deaths were caused by Afghan police officers responding to the explosion. Hezb-e-Islami, headed by a mullah, beneficiary of a great deal of largesse (American taxpayers’ money) and one of Washington’s former favourite “blue-eyed” Afghans, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, is active all along the eastern border.

The report also debunks some of the bite-size opinions churned out by the Bush Administration’s propaganda machine. One is about suicide bombers. It was previously said that suicide bombers were introduced as a desperate measure, because the insurgents were in their last throes. However, Afghanistan, which had never experienced suicide bombers until 2007, is now terrorised by them. The report quoted a former senior US commander as stating that suicide attacks are a “hugely effective tactic”, imported from Iraq to Afghanistan, in convincing the local people that the Coalition cannot protect them. “The idea that (suicide bombs) are a sign of desperation, that’s ludicrous” he said.