tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2275824557999662261.post3902339449483564661..comments2024-03-27T02:20:19.265-04:00Comments on Informed Comment: Global Affairs: Rubin: Points on an Integrated Strategy for AfghanistanJuan Colehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05794922740548563607noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2275824557999662261.post-55649008443185475552008-03-16T14:08:00.000-04:002008-03-16T14:08:00.000-04:00I am curious about what disagreements you might no...I am curious about what disagreements you might now have with this fine piece of hard work.<BR/><BR/>From my amateur point of view, your emphasis on local involvement in political and economic development seems like a good step. Despite a preference for local control, you talk about how the constitution gives the President a predominant responsibility and control.<BR/><BR/>I can’t remember any case where a politician ever just donated some of their power to others. Naturally, the President will want to retain his power and operate his patronage system that trickles down to local levels. However, over the long run that method will cause the government to implode because of two reasons. First, the broader base will have no place to go except to the Taliban if they want to increase their political will and economic security. This is already happening with the poppy production and with anger against the selfish and sometimes cruel warlords. Secondly, increased foreign aid will add fuel to the fire of factional competition for a limited source of goods. Often, insurgents do not win their wars, but the central government implodes.<BR/><BR/>So, the President and his patronage factions need to see the prospect that they will join the throngs of refugees if they do not try very hard to broaden political involvement at the local levels. <BR/><BR/>Developing a broader base presents several challenges. First, Afghanistan has more than 80 political parties. Clans and families will compete with each other. The patronage factions will compete with each other and all of the other divisive elements. Consolidating political power in peasant cultures is especially difficult because of the perception (the reality) that life is constantly on the edge and any one family can face a critical shortage of life's necessities at any time. If any one faction or family gains more than others, then they are perceived to take directly away from everyone else. Life is an impending life and death struggle with your neighbors. <BR/><BR/>They see the corrupt presidential patronage factions as simply gaining at the life and death expense of everyone else. Consequently, they will look for any opportunity to neutralize the strength of that central government. Actually, they are dependent, but they hate them. <BR/><BR/>So, how about this? What if the UN or some other qualified organization performs a mediating function between the factions, warlords, political parties and a broader base of participation? <BR/><BR/>What if they taught everyone how to identify their goals and make strategies to achieve those goals?<BR/><BR/>Most often, everyone will soon see that they have interdependent and overlapping goals. Most often, the best strategies will involve quite a bit of collaborative efforts. This is not new in Afghanistan. The central government patronage factions and warlords, clans and the Taliban already collaborate to grow and market poppy products. That’s quite a pilot project!<BR/><BR/>There are other examples in other places in the world where a central authority successfully mediates desperate peasant style cultures. <BR/><BR/>The kicker could be that the expelled UN diplomat says that about two-thirds of the Taliban would be open to a non-violent resolution to this conflict. If that is the case, an effective mediation effort may simply end this thing. <BR/><BR/><BR/>Bob SpencerAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2275824557999662261.post-44239165376211266892008-03-15T10:47:00.000-04:002008-03-15T10:47:00.000-04:00In the short term there are more pressing problems...In the short term there are more pressing problems.<BR/><BR/>from news sources:<BR/>A crippling food shortage in Afghanistan exacerbated by a harsh winter and an astronomical rise in the price of wheat has led the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) to begin distributing emergency food aid.<BR/><BR/>The UN food agency has begun providing emergency wheat deliveries to millions of Afghans in an attempt to prevent a humanitarian crisis. It plans to distribute aid packages this week containing wheat, beans, and cooking oil to some 650,000 people in and around Kabul, with aid shipments to remote areas to follow.[in and around Kabul!]<BR/><BR/>“We say that among these 6 million that we have estimated, 3.5 million are regularly in need of our food, and almost 3 million people are seasonally in need of our food,” WFP spokesman Ebadullah Ebad tells RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan. “We are concerned about those people who are living in remote areas. We are concerned about the shortage of food and getting food to them in that rugged terrain. If we don’t get that food there on time to those people in remote areas, we think that there will be a [humanitarian] crisis.” <BR/><BR/>Food shortages in Ajristan District of Ghazni Province, central Afghanistan, have forced some families to eat dried grass in order to survive, local people and the district administrator told IRIN.“Many families in Ajristan are eating different kinds of dried grass and vegetables like alfalfa, which are normally given to cattle, due to food shortages and extreme poverty,” said Raz Mohammad Hemat, the district administrator. <BR/><BR/>In the northeastern province of Badakhshan hundreds of families have reportedly been displaced due to food-insecurity in several areas, provincial officials reported. Preliminary assessments conducted by the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) indicated that up to 1,000 families had left their homes in Argo and Kishm districts, some of whom had moved to neighbouring Takhaar and Kunduz provinces in search of food. <BR/>http://afghandevnews.wordpress.com/Don Baconhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01867974292611546164noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2275824557999662261.post-15493578473217674802008-03-14T13:39:00.000-04:002008-03-14T13:39:00.000-04:00I have though from the beginning that we must leav...I have though from the beginning that we must leave Iraq, and I never wante war before that. I think we need to leave Iraq first, then Afghanistan. All you ideas help me undertand the problems involved, but I want our soldiers gone.<BR/><BR/>Sorry, the sign-in went wrong.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2275824557999662261.post-62240070222320836212008-03-14T13:35:00.000-04:002008-03-14T13:35:00.000-04:00logysnhI understand and agree with every word, but...logysnhI understand and agree with every word, but I just do not quite care for being right. I want us to leave Afghanistan and offer peaceful assistance. Enough destruction. We have assisting in the destruction long enough, too long, much too long.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com