Showing posts with label Barnett Rubin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barnett Rubin. Show all posts

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Rubin: Messages on Obama from my Inbox

Since the election, I've gotten quite a few notes from people around the world in the form of emails, text messages, and Facebook messages. I thought I would share a few:

A Western reporter in Southern Afghanistan:
It [Tuesday] looked like an extraordinary night from here. I was on an embed last week. The failure here is complete. As you know, the challenge in Afghanistan and Pakistan is staggering. Several Afghans made impromptu declarations to me today that Obama's victory filled them with hope. We may have a window here, albeit a very small one.
A senior official of the Afghan government:
I read the speech of Mr. Obama, "Yes we can". It is great. It seems his charisma, speaking and oral skills have played a great part in his victory. Although the speech is largely for American audience, it is appealing to everybody in any corner of the world. I also read Senator McCain's speech. It shows how much maturity is in the US elections. I always thought should Obama lose the contest, US will remain a superpower but not necessarily from a moral point of view. Now however the US can be an example of morality in politics for many many countries.
A senior official in Tehran (two messages):
(1) Hope all is well with you and your family. I want to say congratulations. Hope CHANGE could bring better for all.
(2) I know you are busy in these days but my wife that is following your presidential election really impressed and insisted me to convey her warmest congratulation to you and your family. When she saw the emotion of your people after the result of the election in the TV she told me, she remember our people emotion when Dr. Khatami won the first period of his presidency.
A photographer in Paris:
yes you could and you did it bravo and thanks for all of us.
A Kenyan UN official from the same ethnic group, Luo, as Obama’s father, from Kigali:
Well done!!! America has made history! There is partying across the continent and tomorrow is a public holiday in Kenya! I will miss it as I am in Rwanda!
Another UN official, in Sudan, with the same surname as the Kenyan above, to whom I mistakenly wrote at first:
You may be surprised to know that I am a Sudanese Luo. But the Luo we speak is just the same as the Acholi of Uganda. You mention eating dinner in Nairobi with [O., the Kenyan UN official] in 1998. Oooh! that's when I was just 18 years old. Anyway am a different O. in Sudan. I pray, Obama has to win, and in Jesus name he will win!
An Afghan journalist at BBC Persian Service:
Many many congratulations. I’m so happy for Americans and the world. You have made the history. The world is behind you.
From a colleague in Saudi Arabia:
All brothers saying Tabrik. See you soon.
From a Pakistani friend wandering around Europe flogging his book:
It’s a bloody landslide! Thank God, he won. Barney, don’t accept anything without consulting me first please. I don’t trust your judgments on these things.
From an Italian colleague:
Subject: I love America!

Last January I pledged that, should Barak Obama be elected President of the United States of America, I would finally become a citizen of this great country. Tonight, after eight years of doubts and disappointments, I found again the country I fell in love with when I decided to make it my home twelve years ago. The country where I decided to raise my family. A country where everyone has an opportunity, really. Tonight, I am extremely proud of the United States, and of everything it stands for. I want to be part of it, today and forever. Tomorrow morning, I will mail out the application for naturalization that my students brought to me at the beginning of the semester.
From a young Afghan from Kabul, currently studying in India:
Congrats Barney. Sir, The world is all yours, coz this is now Obama who is leading the horse!!! Let's see how much his so-called "CHANGE" would affect the lives of innocent Afghans.

Read more on this article...

Monday, November 3, 2008

Rubin: Hitchens on McCain and Khalidi

I don't always agree with Christopher Hitchens, but it is uniquely satisfying to read him when I do. His rambunctious counter-attack on McCain-Palin for their shameful (shameless?) slur on Rashid Khalidi is worth savoring. Read more on this article...

Friday, October 31, 2008

Rubin: McCain's Racism Trifecta

I can't stop stewing over this attack on Rashid Khalidi. Even the Washington Post editorial board called out the Republicans on this one, quoting Rashid as saying he would just wait till the "idiot wind" blows over. That's the editorial's title: Idiot Wind."

I have been wondering why among all the awful things going on this one is occupying so much of my mental space, and I think I figured it out. Partly it's because I know the person involved (I'm writing this sitting at the dining-room table where Rashid was a guest two weeks ago), but it's beyond that.

What did John McCain do?

He exploited the Holocaust AND the Nakba to stimulate anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry in order to frighten Jews from voting for an African-American secretly stigmatized as a Muslim terrorist. Wow! My whole life flashed before my eyes. That one sentence attacked virtually everything I ever considered important.

No victory can be big enough. Let's get out there and take back our country. Read more on this article...

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Rubin: My Friend, the "Neo-Nazi"

It is really strange to turn on the television and see actual presidential and vice-presidential candidates charging that someone who had dinner at my apartment two weeks ago -- Professor Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University -- is a "neo-Nazi." Yet John McCain actually said this yesterday. Sarah Palin also attacked him, as a "radical professor" and "former spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization." (Rashid never held such a position, though he did at one time try to present the Palestinian point of view to journalists in Beirut. I think this is the same PLO whose leader, Mahmoud Abbas, is the elected president of the Palestinian Authority, the U.S.'s preferred "moderate" Palestinian leader, and Israel's partner in negotiations, but maybe it is some other PLO, known only to Sarah Palin.)

But all this is beside the point. I actually find it demeaning, insulting, and depressing to have to defend Rashid. I could say, I know him, he has been a guest in my home in New York and in my rented house in Provence, he bears absolutely no resemblance to the image these despicable people are trying to project of him, and lot's more. I could point out that I am Jewish and have VISIBLE JEWISH ARTIFACTS IN MY HOME, which did not appear to alarm Rashid, if he even noticed them, but it is all just so ridiculous I don't know what to say.

I don't want to treat these charges with the respect of a refutation. I just want to express my disgust with those who uttered them and my solidarity with my friend, Rashid Khalidi.

UPDATE: After I put this up, I saw that Juan Cole has commented on this far more cogently than I, as has Scott Horton, a fellow guest at the above-mentioned dinner party and house in Provence. Read more on this article...

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Rubin: U.S. and Iran in Afghanistan

An article I wrote with Sara Batmanglich about U.S.-Iran relations in Afghanistan has been posted on the website of MIT's Center for International Studies. It opens:
AFGHANISTAN IS ONE of several contexts in which the long-term common interests of the U.S. and Iran have been overshadowed by the animus originating in the 1953 CIA-led coup in Iran and the Iranian revolution of 1979, to the detriment of the interests of the U.S., Iran, and Afghanistan. This confrontation has served the interests of the Pakistan military, Taliban, and al-Qaida. Re-establishing the basis for U.S.-Iranian cooperation in Afghanistan would provide significant additional leverage over Pakistan, on whose territory the leadership of both the Taliban and al-Qaida are now found.
And it ends:

There is, however, a major strategic judgment to be revisited. The military and intelligence agencies of both Pakistan and Iran have systematically used asymmetrical warfare, including terrorism, as a tool of their security policy. Which of them poses a greater threat to U.S. national interest and international peace and security? How should responses to these two threats be balanced? Since the Iranian revolution, the U.S. has overreacted to the Iranian threat and engaged in systematic appeasement of Pakistan, which is now home to the leadership of both al-Qaida and the Taliban (both Afghan and Pakistani). These countries are rivals for influence in Afghanistan and are sponsoring competing infrastructure projects for road transport and energy trade. Iran and India are building a combined rail and road link from the Iranian port of Chah Bahar to Afghanistan’s major highway. Pakistan, with Chinese aid, is building the port of Gwadar in Baluchistan, aiming at a north-south route to Central Asia. “Taliban” regularly attack Indian road building crews in southwest Afghanistan, and Pakistan charges that India is supporting Baluch insurgents from its consulates in Afghanistan.

A reevaluation of the threats originating in Iran and Pakistan should lead to a recalibration of U.S. policy in Afghanistan to tilt away from Pakistan and more toward Iran. Yet it would be wrong and destructive to treat Pakistan with the type of enmity now reserved for Iran. Like Iran, Pakistan’s policy is motivated by a combination of genuine security threats, ideological aspirations, and institutional interest. In Pakistan’s more open political system, it is far easier for the U.S. to engage with allies inside the country against the security services whose covert policies the U.S. finds threatening.

Ultimately, U.S. interests would be best served by supporting efforts to extend and improve governance and security in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, thereby depriving al-Qaida and its epigones of refuge on either side of the border. Using Afghanistan as a base for anti-Iran policies handicaps the U.S. in pressing for Pakistani cooperation, thus undermining one of the country’s most important strategic objectives. Of course, such recalibration will also require shifts in Iranian policy away from the path it has taken. Clearly abandoning any U.S. agenda of forcible regime change in Iran will make such a shift much more likely.

Read more on this article...

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Rubin and Rashid in Foreign Affairs: From Great Game to Grand Bargain

Ahmed Rashid and I have just published an article in Foreign Affairs: From Great Game to Grand Bargain: Ending Chaos on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It opens:
The Great Game is no fun anymore. The term "Great Game" was used by nineteenth-century British imperialists to describe the British-Russian struggle for position on the chessboard of Afghanistan and Central Asia -- a contest with a few players, mostly limited to intelligence forays and short wars fought on horseback with rifles, and with those living on the chessboard largely bystanders or victims. More than a century later, the game continues. But now, the number of players has exploded, those living on the chessboard have become involved, and the intensity of the violence and the threats it produces affect the entire globe. The Great Game can no longer be treated as a sporting event for distant spectators. It is time to agree on some new rules.
I think it is fair to say that Ahmed and I are not as sure of anything as we sound in the article, but we thought it was time to introduce some broader perspectives. We are looking for debate and discussion, not agreement. Read more on this article...

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Rubin: Pakistanis on Pakistan

Scott Horton of Harper's has interviewed Ahmed Rashid, whose book "Descent into Chaos" has just come out, on Pakistan and the Taliban:

The CIA, we learned in a report today, has compiled damning evidence of the Pakistani military’s complicity with the Taliban. But this is hardly news. Indeed, one analyst has repeatedly warned that Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf and his intelligence service have been taking America for a ride, pretending to support U.S. counter-terrorism operations while sheltering and supporting the Taliban and numerous other extremist organizations. That analyst is Ahmed Rashid, and he is the most articulate of the observers of the region between the Oxus and the shores of Karachi. Based in Lahore, Rashid combines scholarly excellence with popular appeal, as demonstrated by his book on the Taliban, which is Yale University Press’s all-time best-seller. Rashid’s latest book, Descent into Chaos pulls back the cover on American operations in Afghanistan, which were hampered from the outset by chronic bad judgment on the part of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.


The following article by Afrasiab Khattak, the head of the Pashtun Nationalist Awami National Party in the Northwest Frontier Province (Pakhtunkhwa) appears in Dawn today. I have not been able to find it on the website yet. Khattak is provincial head of the party that heads the elected government of NWFP and has been appointed Pashtun Peace Envoy by the NWFP Provincial Assembly.

FATA’s growing disconnect

By Afrasiab Khattak

IT is hardly an exaggeration that the security of Pakistan, Afghanistan, the entire region and indeed that of the whole world will be defined by developments in Fata over the next few months. Different scenarios are being painted by military strategists and political experts.

Al Qaeda, after regrouping in the militant sanctuaries of the area, is acquiring the capacity to repeat attacks in North America or Europe similar to those carried out in 2001 in the US.

If reports about the exchanges between Pakistan and the US at the highest level are anything to go by it is pretty clear that the US will retaliate against Pakistan, probably even more severely than it did against the Taliban-dominated Afghanistan. Similarly the use of these militant sanctuaries for cross-border fighting is so large in scale (in fact all the six political agencies bordering Afghanistan are being used) that denial in this regard is no longer plausible.

The federal government has to either admit defeat or muster the political will to resolve the problem, or else justify the existence of militant sanctuaries by explaining their usefulness to the national interest. We have run out of time and this decision cannot be delayed any more as there are no takers of the denial line.

As if this were not enough, armed lashkars (armies) from militant sanctuaries in Fata are poised to penetrate/invade the contiguous settled districts. The events in Hangu some three weeks back are a case in point. The Hangu police arrested four Taliban commanders from a car that also contained weapons, explosive material and manuals for making bombs in a place called Doaba not far away from the Orakzai Agency border.

Hundreds of Taliban surrounded the Doaba police station and demanded the commanders’ release. They also blocked the Hangu-Kurram highway. During this confrontation the Frontier Constabulary was ambushed near Zargari village and 16 security personnel were killed. Subsequently the army was called in to launch a military operation in Hangu. This action was not just in retaliation for the murder of 16 FC men but also came in view of the threat of attack by four to five thousand Taliban from Orakzai and Kurram agencies.

By now the said military operation has been completed and the targets achieved to the extent that the Taliban have been chased out of Hangu. Nevertheless, they have fled to Orakzai Agency where they are regrouping and preparing for future attacks.

The NWFP (Pakhtunkhwa) government is in a quandary. It has to call in the army whenever armed lashkars threaten to overrun a district as the police force simply does not have the capacity to fight an ever-expanding insurgency.

After Swat the army has also been deployed in Hangu. In view of the militant sanctuaries situated nearby, the army cannot be withdrawn in the near future. Imagine if the story is repeated in other vulnerable districts. Will the army also have to be deployed in all these other districts? Will such measures not bring the existence of the civilian provincial government into question?

Is it not amazing that in spite of such high stakes the presidency that has a monopoly over governance in Fata seems to show no anxiety over the prevailing situation? It is continuing with the policy of keeping Fata a black hole where terrorist groups from across the globe run their bases. It is still a no-go area for the media and civil society, and so far there is no corrective measure or policy change in sight. So much so that we have failed to take even the most preliminary step of extending the Political Parties Act to Fata.

It is only natural that we are perturbed when attacks are launched from across the border. But should we not be equally sensitive to the loss of our sovereignty over Fata to militant groups? Strangely enough we do not seem to be bothered about the militants’ total control of Fata. When the international media carries reports about this situation we dismiss them as ‘enemy’ propaganda against Pakistan. We have failed to grasp the fact that in the post-cold war world there is a universal consensus about two things. One, that all assault weapons that can be used for launching a war cannot be allowed to be kept in private possession. Two, that no state will allow the use of its soil by non-state players against another state. The entire world is astounded by our fixation with the cold war mode. We have developed an incredible capacity to live in unreality. This is indeed dangerous for any state system but it can be catastrophic for a state dancing in a minefield.

Where does all this leave the people of Fata? They are victims and not perpetrators as some people would like us to believe. They are in fact in triple jeopardy. Firstly they are groaning under the draconian Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) of 1901. They have no access to the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan since they are not justiciable outside of the jurisdiction of the higher judiciary.

Secondly the tribal belt has almost been occupied by foreign and local militant organisations that are better equipped, better trained and better financed than the local population. More than 160 tribal leaders have been killed by terrorists in North and South Waziristan who operate with total impunity. Today’s Fata is not dissimilar to the Taliban and Al Qaeda controlled Afghanistan before 9/11.

Thirdly, the people of Fata get caught in the crossfire between militants and security forces from both sides of the Durand Line. The so-called collateral damage has seen a cancerous growth in Fata. The people of Fata have lost the support and protection of the state. They have no access to the media, courts and hospitals or to humanitarian assistance. The only intervention by state players takes place through their armies and air forces in which people of the tribal area are mostly on the receiving end.

For any informed and sensitive Pakistani, the situation in the tribal area is the top-most priority when it comes to policy formation and implementation. We must realise that the question of dismantling militant sanctuaries in Fata and taking short-term and long-term measures to open up the area and integrate it with the rest of the country needs urgent national attention if we are to avoid the impending catastrophe.

Read more on this article...

Monday, July 28, 2008

Rubin: Milanovic on Globalization and Corrupt States

In my first post on former US Afghanistan counter-narcotics coordinator Tom Schweich's article claiming that Afghanistan is a narco-state (with the connivance of the US Department of Defense, Democratic Party, and NATO among others) I mentioned a World Bank article on the world drug economy and corruption by a Hungarian economist. I was pretty close, really: actually it's an article by a Serbian economist, Branko Milanovic, published by Yale Global Online.

Here's some of what Milanovic has to say in his essay, Globalization and the Corrupt States:
Intensified trade and travel have enabled the rise of corrupt states that thrive on illegal businesses. Only by changing the rules of the same global trade that has allowed corrupt states to grow can one hope to remove this blot on globalization.

"Corrupt states" are different from a more commonly used category of "failed states." The distinguishing characteristic of a failed state is its inability to exercise control over its national territory; a key feature of a corrupt state is its weak governance structure, lawlessness and inability to move toward self-sustained development. While failed states have existed in the past - think of the Ottoman Empire in its last century - the spread of corrupt or criminalized states is a recent phenomenon, almost non-existent before the current wave of globalization. Is this a coincidence?

Globalization influences the relative profitability of different activities. In the US, globalization reduced profitability of steel production and increased it for software. In corrupt states, profitability soars in the production of goods and services that are internationally illegal: drugs, sex trafficking, contraband weapons or cigarettes, or counterfeit goods. . . .

Once organized crime and its supporters become the largest employers in the country, they play the same role that a more conventional business plays in other countries. They try to influence the political process. Moreover, they need to control the political arena - election of presidents and parliaments - even more tightly than "normal" business people because their very existence depends on having a government willing to tolerate violation of international rules as the country's main activity.

The government structure that emerges is "endogenous": It reflects domestic social and economic structure, which in turn is the outcome of greater international trade and economic incentives, much like other countries, except that the governance structure is, almost inevitably, more corrupt. The recent World Bank and International Monetary Fund's insistence on reforming governance in these countries is bound to fail because the cause is misdiagnosed.

Governance is viewed by the international organizations as something "exogenous," something that a country just happens to have and which - through a better electoral process, more transparent laws and more honest lawmakers - can be improved. Thus the international organizations are in a permanent, and fruitless, search of an "honest" lawmaker, an Eliot Ness who will bust corruption and illegality. They fail to notice that governance structures respond to underlying incentives, and to expect an honest person to rise to power in a corrupt state is akin to expecting a person with no financial backing from big business to be elected president of the US. In both cases, the outcome of a political process reflects the country's underlying economic conditions.

A different approach is necessary: legalize the currently illegal activities like prostitution and drug use and modify the often draconian US and European immigration laws that stimulate human trafficking. If prostitution and drugs indeed became like haircuts and candies, their production would obey the same rules: Countries that export beauty services and confectionary products are not notably more corrupt than others. Some of the current entrepreneurs would remain in these activities, others would move to others. In either case, there would be a general "normalization" akin to what was observed after prohibition on alcohol sales was lifted in the US. Thousands of "bootleggers" became normal producers of alcohol, alcohol-linked criminality decreased, and only a minority of those with preference for high risk and crime moved to other illegal activities. . . .

The key is that meaningful reforms do not begin in the corrupt states themselves, but in the rich world that is the main consumer of illegal goods and services. This requires a total overhaul in our thinking about the root cause of a corrupt state. Many of the most corrupt states are "corrupt" because they specialize in goods and services that are deemed illegal. But what is illegal today is not necessarily illegal tomorrow. "Illegality" is a historical category, as the long history of accepted prostitution and drug use shows. Thus if illegality is the main cause of corrupt governments, then the best way to root out corruption is to remove illegality.

The way to help corrupt countries does not lie in hectoring them about the virtue of good governance, but in pushing for the legalization of their main exports. The target constituency of the international organizations' advocacy thus becomes the rich, not the poor, world.

Read more on this article...

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Rubin: Bush Administration on Drugs in Afghanistan -- So Wrong, So Long

This reminds me of an old Jewish joke (scroll down for joke), updated:
The rabbi was in his study deep in thought, when in rushed Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, Thomas Schweich, Senior Coordinator for Rule of Law and Counter-Narcotics in Afghanistan, and Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of State. It was clear that they had been having a heated argument that only the learned rabbi could resolve.

"Rabbi, goodness gracious, this mission creeper wants to drag our warfighters into police work!," burst out Rumsfeld. "First we must win the war on terror, even if it means arming, funding, and protecting drug traffickers! Then let others win the war on drugs! Mercy me!"

The rabbi thoughtfully scratched his beard. "You're wrong," he said.

"Of course he's wrong, rabbi," yelled Schweich. "Drugs are funding the Taliban and al-Qaida! Not only that -- our supposed allies in the Afghan government are protecting traffickers! The poor Tajiks and Uzbeks and Hazaras have all stopped growing poppy and only the greedy rich Pashtuns still want more! Even the UN Agency that I fund says so! The only answer is aerial spraying!"

The rabbi studied the commentaries in a holy book and seemed lost in contemplation. "You're wrong," he said.

"But rabbi," pleaded Condi Rice, "Both of these political appointees from different factions of the Republican Party have the ear of the President! So what if neither of them knows anything about Afghanistan or the economics of the drug industry or counter-insurgency? They can't both be wrong!"

The rabbi stared at the ceiling, as if seeking the counsel of a Higher Father. Finally he spoke: "You're wrong too."
(Note to Afghans: to change cultural context, replace learned rabbi with Mullah Nassruddin. Christians -- not sure, but you could try Father Ted or a character from Garrison Keillor.)

If only I were exaggerating....

Rumsfeld armed and empowered anybody who would or could fight the Taliban and resisted any attempt to curb them, since he didn't want any trouble while we saved our forces for success in Iraq (and then needed more to make it even more successful!). The U.S. doesn't do nation building, it does regime destroying. The Bush administration didn't even allocate any new money for reconstruction the first year! They wanted other countries to clean up Afghanistan after we had destroyed al-Qaida and Taliban. Then -- next!

Schweich (and his predecessor, Bobby Charles) revolted against this policy. Drugs, they rightly argued, were funding the insurgency and government corruption. The war on drugs is part of the war on terror. We have to do both at the same time! Spray the fields and arrest the power-holders! If anyone opposes us, arrest them too!

But nobody ever explained how to win over the farmers while destroying their crops before they had secure alternatives. (Schweich denies he was doing this, which shows how little he understands peasant villages in general, let alone Afghanistan.) Nobody every explained how to fight the Taliban and build security in alliance with a government based on the power of drug-trafficking militia commanders funded and armed by the U.S. while arresting these same people. Consequently the U.S. pursued a bad counter-insurgency strategy and a bad pro-insurgency strategy simultaneously, which Schweich confirms in his account of the total absence of an inter-agency process for implementation of counter-narcotics . It's difficult to say if the government as described by Schweich was not implementing a strategy or implementing no strategy.

The answer is, THINK!!! What are we trying to accomplish, where, with whom, and with what resources? Then develop a strategy for the specific situation instead of taking dogmatic unexamined concepts like "war on terror" and "war on drugs" and trying to smash them together.

The goal is political -- to help our Afghan allies win the battle for legitimacy. The political, military, and economic strategies (including counter-narcotics, which cuts across them) have to be integrated for that end. Yes, integrate counter-insurgency, counter-narcotics, development, and lots of other types of operations by disaggregating them into lines of policy and figuring out priorities and relationships: strengthen counter-insurgency AND counter-narcotics by massive aid to increase the productivity and connectivity to markets of rural communities without attacking their livelihoods before the aid comes to fruition; strengthen legitimacy and governance with massive aid to the police and justice system (refused by Rumsfeld to President Karzai's face) while offering a package of cooptation or marginalization for leaders formerly or presently involved in trafficking; use military force sparingly but only against the highest part of the value chain (heroin labs, major trafficking operations); and attack the sources of the drug industry outside of Afghanistan by programs against the export of precursors to the country and money laundering.

I know that was an excessively dense paragraph. For an excessively lengthy exposition of the same thing, see the report I wrote with Jake Sherman.

In conclusion, a warning from Mullah Nasruddin about policy recommendations:
At a gathering where Mullah Nasruddin was present, people were discussing the merits of youth and old age. They had all agreed that, a man's strength decreases as years go by. Mullah Nasruddin dissented.
- I don't agree with you gentlemen, he said. In my old age I have the same strength as I had in the prime of my youth.
- How do you mean, Mullah Nasruddin? asked somebody. Explain yourself.
- In my courtyard, explained Mullah Nasruddin, there is a massive stone. In my youth I used to try and lift it. I never succeeded. Neither can I lift it now.

Only God knows the whole truth.

Read more on this article...

Rubin: Liberal Reality Attacks Bush Appointee's Claims on Colombia and Afghanistan

One of the recurrent themes in Tom Schweich's report from the front about how "odd cabal of timorous Europeans, myopic media outlets, corrupt Afghans, blinkered Pentagon officers, politically motivated Democrats and the Taliban [prevented] the implementation of an effective counterdrug program," is that the strategy he was proposing was tried and true. It had demonstrated its effectiveness all over the world, especially in Colombia.

This just in:

PASTO, Colombia — Along with Colombia’s successes in fighting leftist rebels this year, cities like Medellín have staged remarkable recoveries. And in the upscale districts of Bogotá, the capital, it is almost possible to forget that the country remains mired in a devilishly complex four-decade-old war.

But it is a different story in the mountains of the Nariño department. Here, and elsewhere in large parts of the countryside, the violence and fear remain unrelenting, underscoring the difficulty of ending a war fueled by a drug trade that is proving immune to American-financed efforts to stop it.

Soaring coca cultivation, forced disappearances, assassinations, the displacement of families and the planting of land mines stubbornly persist, the hallmarks of a backlands conflict that threatens to drag on for years, even without the once spectacular actions of guerrillas in Colombia’s large cities.

Soaring narcotics cultivation in the areas affected by the insurgency . . . . Sounds just like Afghanistan. . . .

But then "reality has a well-known liberal bias." Read more on this article...

Friday, July 25, 2008

Rubin: Schweich, ICG, etc. -- Assume the Existence of a State in Afghanistan

The buzz about Afghanistan (outside of Afghanistan) has focused on Thomas Schweich's New York Times Magazine article, Is Afghanistan a Narco-State? This article contains the startling revelation that corrupt Afghan officials protect the drug trade, and that neither President Karzai nor the U.S. Department of Defense believes that direct confrontation with some of the most powerful people in Afghanistan while we are already losing the struggle with the Taliban is a good idea.

Before I proceed, I would like to stipulate that I know and like Tom Schweich. He came into his job as coordinator for counter-narcotics and rule of law in Afghanistan with virtually no background on the subject and read into his brief very quickly and impressively. He is very smart, and he works harder than I do. Unfortunately, he has no idea what Afghanistan is.

(For a detailed analysis of the drug economy in Afghanistan, counter-narcotics policy, and the fallacies of arguments like Schweich's see the report I co-authored with Jake Sherman.)

(Another point: drugs is by far the largest industry in the Afghan economy, probably accounting for a quarter to a third of GDP. It is not a "deviant" activity in the sociological sense. As a political scientist, I don't know of any government in the world that does not have relations with the owners of its country's largest industry and biggest employer. There was a very good essay on this general problem, not focusing on Afghanistan, by a Hungarian World Bank economist. I'll post the link as soon as I can find it.)

I'm going to criticize the Bush administration later in this post (no fainting please), but the basic error Tom makes is not limited to the Bush administration, Republicans, people on the right, or Americans. Samina Ahmed of the International Crisis Group and many others (for example in my own human rights community, if I have not yet been excommunicated) make the same mistake, which we might call the Can Opener Assumption.

According to a story I heard in graduate school, a chemist, a physicist, and an economist were stranded on a desert island where their only provisions were canned food. How would they eat? The chemist tried to analyze the composition of the metal and searched for materials that would rapidly corrode it. The physicist sought to create a lens out of palm leaves and sea water to concentrate the sun's energy enough to pierce the metal. All failed. Finally, they turned to the economist to ask his advice.

The economist examined the can. After reflection he said: "In principal the problem is very simple. First, assume the existence of a can opener."

In this case, the solution is: assume the existence of a state.

Tom summarizes President Karzai's view as:
"[Mr Karzai] perceives that there are certain people he cannot crack down on and that it is better to tolerate a certain level of corruption than to take an aggressive stand and lose power."
I imagine that is a fair statement of President Karzai's view. He has decided not to lose power trying to do things that might fail disastrously. Tom never says that Karzai is wrong about this, so I wonder what his objection is. Maybe such a grim analysis is contrary to his moral principles.

I happen to think that the President of Afghanistan does not have to be that weak, and there is more he could do, though not the way Tom recommends. But Tom tells us a few things he does not comment on, and he refers to a few things he does not say explicitly, that might explain some of President Karzai's problems.

I'm going to make this short, because there is nothing new here. The Bush administration responded to 9/11 by arming and funding every commander they could find to fight the Taliban, regardless of criminal past or involvement in drug trafficking. Then they refused to get involved in "nation building" activity and instead got other "lead nations" to be responsible for various security issues with insufficient funding and capacity, including counter-narcotics. Then, every time that President Karzai tried to remove one of the U.S.-funded commanders from a position, Donald Rumsfeld would warn him against it and say the US would not back him if there was a problem.

Then the Bush administration decided narcotics in Afghanistan was a problem, but since they didn't want to move against the power holders, they decided to attack the poor -- at least they are consistent in their domestic and foreign policy: eradication, eradication, eradication. They wanted to have a "balanced" policy in Afghanistan: alongside our counter-insurgency policy we should also have a pro-insurgency policy. Karzai resisted that too.

(The charge about poverty is the one that upsets Tom the most. He cites the UN, actually the UN Office of Drugs and Crime, which argues that poverty and poppy cultivation are not connected and says he would not support a policy that attacked the poor. I am analyzing the effect of the policies not the intentions behind them. See our report for an explanation of the poor data and statistical fallacies on which UNODC bases its claim. The World Bank takes the position that "Dependence on opium cultivation is associated with poverty.")

To his credit, Tom tried to introduce more incentives and more enforcement. It is very good that he compiled a list of corrupt officials with data that would hold up in a US court (and he is a law professor, not, I think of the Yoo/Addington variety, so he should know). But just who did he think was going to arrest or fire these people?

It's simple: assume the existence of a state.

What does this mean? Tom Schweich says that Afghanistan's Attorney-General, Abdul Jabbar Sabit, says he wanted to arrest 20 corrupt officials and that Karzai stopped him. Unlike Tom, I have known Sabit for 20 years. He helped me in my research by introducing me to some of his colleagues in Hizb-i Islami. But I would not necessarily take everything he says literally.

Actually Sabit did try to arrest a corrupt official one time, General Din Muhammad Jurat, one of the most powerful Northern Alliance commanders in the Ministry of the Interior. The upshot was that Jurat detained Sabit and disarmed and beat his men. This was not in a remote area on the Pakistan border but less than an hour's drive north of Kabul in an area considered to be under "government" control. What does that mean? It means that Jurat and people like him are the government. There is no state that operates independently of power holders like Jurat. The project is to build such a state, not assume its existence and use it based on that false assumption.

The same applies to Samina Ahmed's incoherent critique of "talking to the Taliban," though at times she opposes negotiating with the Taliban and at other time accepting the Taliban's most extreme demands, as if this were the same as talking to them (this is the John Bolton approach to diplomacy: surrender first, then we'll discuss the terms). (Samina is also a friend, but I wonder if ICG takes the same position on Hamas, Hizbullah, or Iran?)

According to Samina, the international community should first build a state in Afghanistan and then negotiate the Taliban's surrender. Talking now would just be a "quick fix" that would not work. First we should build a functioning nation-state, and then construct the political agreement on which it will be based. Sounds good to me! And how do we build that state without a political agreement? Assume the existence of legitimacy. Read more on this article...

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Rubin: Hizb-i Islami Blames Northern Alliance for Attack on Indian Embassy in Kabul and Everything Else

Ahmadullah Archiwal, an Afghan student in New York, has translated the Hizb-i Islami (Hikmatyar) press release on the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul from Pashto to English. I also received an official English version issued by Hizb-i Islami from a colleague in Kabul, but it seems that the official English version de-emphasizes certain points, so I prefer to use Ahmadullah's version. As there has been some confusion in the past, I would like to emphasize that by publicizing a document I am not endorsing its content. I think the content indicates something about the strategy of HIkmatyar and his backers and is therefore worthy of study. Here is the text:
Press Release of Hizb-i-Islami on the explosion in the front of Indian Embassy

While strongly condemning all the criminal acts of targeting helpless and innocent Afghans we recommend to our Mujahideen to demonstrate practically to the nation that they are not involved in such acts, have paid their full attention towards the actual enemy, and do not want to fire a single bullet to other than their enemy.

Some Afghans might ask that, who are responsible, for the explosions that result in the death of innocent and helpless Afghans, for explosions in the mosques, for killing of the religious scholars (Mullahs), for burning the schools, for detonating clinics and madrasas. Why do they commit such crimes? Why any one does not claim responsibilities for such crimes? Are they Taliban and Mujahideen or some circles in the American government of Kabul?

Everyone knows that Northern Alliance wants to demonstrate to their foreign supporters that their long armed presence in the government of Kabul is imperative. They want to get more aid from India. America and their puppets want to intensify the rivalry between India and Pakistan and to turn our country a site for their rivalry. Those who will be benefited are Americans, who will sell their weapons to both the countries, and is the Northern Alliance who will get more aid from New Delhi for their enmity with Pakistan.

This is their reason for opposing Islamabad; otherwise, it is clear that Islamabad is a strong supporter of the USA in the on going war. Pakistan is also a strong supporter of the Afghan government. It is the country that with the pressure from the ISI imposed the leader of Northern Alliance twice on Afghans.

Those who detonate bombs in Iraqi mosques, Kills Iraqi scholars, scientists and make Sunnis kill shites and shittes to kill Sunnis….. They are the same circles who are also behind such acts in Afghanistan. We should not undermine the remarks of the United Nations representative who has said: The intelligence organizations of some countries are involved in acts in which ordinary people are killed!!

If they think that CIA, MOSAD, Sipah –i-Pasdaran are behind such acts in Iraq, then it is a fact that those and some other agencies are behind the same acts in Afghanistan as well. As a matter of fact such people do not believe in God, do not have any sacred goal, they are the ones who do not give any importance to the blood of Afghans, and those who killed more than fifty innocent people in only two provinces in a week in their blind bombardment, they also commit the same crimes .Sometimes, they do such acts directly by themselves and some times do them through the Afghan Intelligence Agency.

Members of the Northern Alliance who were serving the Russians and now serving Americans do such acts in Herat, Khost, Kandahar, Ghazni, Paktia, Nangrahar, Nuristan, Kunar, Laghman and other provinces. They are the people who are in the control of the Khad, they invited Russians and then Americans to attack Afghanistan, and they requested Iran to occupy Herat and pressed Americans to intensify their bombardment and to drop heavier bombs on Afghans. They are the ones who have made private prisons for Americans in Kabul and Panjsher where innocent Afghans are tortured. They are the people who spy for the imperialists and invite them to drop bombs on the villages, cities and mosques of Afghanistan. They are fighting under the command of imperialists against their own people in the East, South and South Western parts of the country and commit such crimes that even foreign military officers, who command their subordinate to keep such acts secret, feel shy to talk about them. Northern Alliance, internal enemy of Afghans and the collections of the foreign servants are responsible for all such crimes. They even dropped bombs and fired rockets on the innocent citizens of Kabul during their reign so to blame real Mujahideen!!

While strongly condemning all the crimes that targets helpless and innocent Afghans we recommend to our Mujahideen to demonstrate practically to the nation that they are not involved in such accidents, have paid their full attention towards the actual enemy, and do not want to fire a single bullet towards other than their enemy. Avoid conventional fighting, the harm of such fighting is greater than their gains, ordinary people are targeted and are forced to leave their houses in such fighting.

We also tell to the nation to pay attention to the conspiracies of the internal and external enemies and to be prepared for the days when the imperialists will withdraw from our country. That time is closer, American system is closer to collapse. The present situation of Afghanistan is just like those days when the Soviet troops were making preparations for their withdrawal. All those Afghans, who want the independence of their country, collapse of the reign of the foreign servants, the end of the conflict, opportunity for Afghan nation to determine their own future by themselves without the foreign intervention, and the establishment of an Islamic system, should come closer.

With a hope for those sacred goals.

Long live Mujahideen.

Read more on this article...

Friday, July 18, 2008

Barnett Rubin Interview with Pepe Escobar of Real News

Pepe Excobar of Real News and Asia Times interviewed me on the U.S., NATO, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The transcript and the first of four videos are on Real News.

Excerpt:
ESCOBAR: How come nobody saw it coming, the resurgence of the Taliban and the neo-Taliban's base in the Pakistani tribal areas?

BARNET: I don't know that it's accurate to say that nobody saw it coming.

ESCOBAR: They're running rings around NATO this spring and summer.

BARNET: Of course NATO did not see it coming. The US government did not see it coming.

ESCOBAR: Exactly. [inaudible] I'm referring to.

BARNET: That's true. And I think that is because they essentially didn't understand the regional situation, and they seemed—. I'll just talk about the United States, you know, the Bush administration. They were just focused on al-Qaeda and the terrorist threat. They had a very superficial analysis of Pakistan—not everybody in the government, of course. There are many professional people in the government who understand the situation. But as far as the top leadership was concerned, they had a relationship with President Musharraf, and President Musharraf was willing to use his security forces to arrest Arabs from al-Qaeda who came into Pakistan from time to time. And they really put all of their analytical resources into dealing with Iraq, and put Afghanistan kind of on autopilot, and didn't recognize, first of all, that just having an election in Afghanistan was far from sufficient to stabilize the country, you know, just defeating the previous government and having an election. There were all kinds of governance issues, which prevented the government from really controlling the territory. And second, that Pakistan still really did not consider the Taliban to be an enemy the way that the United States did. In fact, the Pakistan military considered the Taliban to be a resource for the security of Pakistan.
Ok, this part is not too shocking. Other parts might be interesting. Read more on this article...

Rubin: The Tao of Afghanistan (UPDATED with Variant)

I just received an email from the Academy of Sciences in Afghanistan. Apparently archaeologists have discovered an ancient Buddhist inscription in a bunker on Bagram air base in Kapisa Province, center of the ancient Kushan Kingdom. It is the first inscription to show the influence in Afghanistan not only of Buddhism, but also of Tao thought, particularly a variant that flourished in the tribal areas of Southwestern China, near the borders of today's Vietnam. Scholars are still uncertain as to its meaning, but they sent me a preliminary translation:
The Disciple asked: Master, What is the Way to Emptiness: not implementing a good strategy, or implementing a bad strategy?

The Master answered: The Way to Emptiness requires a Strategy for Implementation.

The Disciple asked: Master, is increasing troops a strategy for implementation?

The Master answered: Those who cannot move in large numbers mount offensives. Those who prevail increase their troops.

The Disciple asked: Master, if a province falls where there are no troops, is the cup of victory half-full of emptiness or half-empty of plenitude?

The Master answered:

When troops increase, the East rises;
When the East rises, the Center is disturbed;
When the Center is disturbed, the South falls;
When the South falls, North and Center lose their harmony;
When North and Center lose their harmony, the West turns away.
When the East rises, the Center is disturbed, the South falls, North and Center lose their harmony, and West turns away, the Center is filled with Emptiness.

This is the Way to Emptiness.
Scholars are still trying to understand the highly allegorical language. I will post more as I hear it.

UPDATE: Apparently this was a well-known sutra that was passed on in different versions but was then lost. The archaeologists have found another tablet on the same site with a slightly variant text:
The Disciple asked: Master, What is the Way to Emptiness: the way of not implementing a strategy, or the way of implementing no strategy?

The Master answered: The Way to Emptiness lacks a Strategy for Implementation.

The Disciple asked: Master, can increasing troops implement the way of no strategy?

The Master answered: Those who cannot move in large numbers mount offensives. Those who prevail increase their troops. [NOTE: This phrase is the same in all variants.]

The Disciple asked: Master, if a province falls where there are no troops, is the cup of victory half-full of emptiness or half-empty of plenitude?

The Master answered:

This is the way of implementing no strategy.

When troops increase, the East rises;
When the East rises, the North and Center lose their harmony;
When the North and Center lose their harmony, the South and Center become as one;
When South and Center become as one, the West turns away.
When the West turns away, the Center is filled with Emptiness.

This is the Way to Emptiness.
Publication of a full compendium of all variants is envisioned within a 16-month time table or "horizon." Read more on this article...

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Rubin: War on Terror Madness

OK, I know this is the kind of thing that gives bloggers a bad name, but I just have to share. So I'm in LaGuardia Airport in New York waiting for my flight to Virginia for a two-day high-level conference on Afghanistan, which, in case you hadn't noticed is not doing too well. Hundreds of insurgents attacking the Kandahar jail, hundreds attacking a U.S. base on the Kunar-Nuristan frontier (there has to be something wrong with any policy that requires a U.S. army captain to understand the differences among Nuristani tribes), huge suicide bomb at the Indian Embassy, the U.S. supported Afghanistan government has cut off talks with the U.S.'s main non-NATO ally, Pakistan, on the grounds that the intelligence agency of the latter is trying to destroy the former, and I could mention a few other things too.

Anyway, how many times and how many ways have I been saying that this was going to happen for the past seven years? I cannot count the ways. I attended Karzai's inauguration in Kabul in December 2004. Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld flew in for the occasion. Afterwards we all went over to the Foreign Ministry for lunch. Rumsfeld was sitting at the head table with Karzai, Lakhdar Brahimi, the former UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General, and so on, but Cheney was eating elsewhere in an undisclosed location by himself. Poor Karzai had to eat two lunches, one with Rumsfeld, and another with Cheney.

Anyway, on the way out after the Secret Service had done its thing, I caught up with Brahimi, who was looking annoyed. He told me that Rumsfeld had only said four words the whole time: "What an amazing success!" Brahimi and I walked past all the tanks and barricades blocking the street, which was completely empty of traffic on what would otherwise have been a normal working day in Kabul. Brahimi suggested that when I got back to the U.S. I should write something indicating that holding a presidential inauguration in a shut-down city surrounded by tanks was not exactly a success.

Well I did my best. Or at least I made an effort. Anyway, we are where we are, and I am where I am, in LaGuardia going to a conference to see whether there is a way to keep Afghanistan from going where it looks like it's going. And what happened?

THEY CONFISCATED MY TOOTHPASTE!

Yes, I had a tube of toothpaste (Sensodyne) in a regulation one-quart clear plastic bag which I dutifully took out of my bag and placed in the grey plastic bin along with my jacket (required at the conference) and my loafers (special flying shoes). My computer was in another bin. When I got to the other side the TSA employee was eyeing my toothpaste suspiciously. He turned it over and peered through the sealed clear plastic bag.

"You can't take this on. This is 4 ounces, and the limit is 3.5 ounces."

I didn't say anything. Probably they will have toothpaste at the conference center. But it's good to know that at least one part of the War on Terror is being implemented flawlessly. Read more on this article...

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Rubin: Interview with me by Globe and Mail

Graeme Smith, the Kandahar correspondent for the Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper, has published a print, audio and video interview with me. The print version is focused on "Afghanization," but the whole interview is much broader. I can't figure out how to embed the video, but you can play it here. Read more on this article...

Rubin: Translation of Statement by Afghan Government on ISI

I received this text from the Office of President Karzai this morning. There may be an edited version available later. Note the careful distinction between the elected government of Pakistan and the military, including the ISI. If only all of our policy makers and journalists were equally careful.

Statement Issued by the Afghanistan Cabinet Meeting

Monday, July 14, 2008

In the Name of the Almighty Allah

Over the past six and half years, Afghanistan has done its utmost to remove any misunderstanding and ease tension between the two countries and focused all its efforts for further promoting a good neighborly relation with the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. However, the rightful desire of the people of Afghanistan for an end to interference by Pakistan Intelligence (ISI) and its Army remained unfulfilled. Consequently, people of Afghanistan suffered countless sacrifices and destruction as a result of direct interference by the Pakistani intelligence outfits in the domestic affairs of Afghanistan.

Everyday in Afghanistan, children, women, clerics, elderly, teachers and our international partners who are here to help rebuild Afghanistan fall victims at the hands of the elements of the ISI. Education facilities, hospitals, and development projects continue to remain target of attacks.

The people of Afghanistan and the international community have come to the reality that Pakistan intelligence institutions and its army have become the largest center for breeding and exporting terrorism and extremism to the world and particularly to Afghanistan.

Afghanistan sincerely welcomed and supported the recent elections for a civilian rule in Pakistan. However, the expectation of the people of Afghanistan that an elected civilian government in Pakistan would have the control over its intelligence agencies hoping for an end to the on-going interference in Afghanistan not only didn't materialize, but the agency (ISI) continued and intensified its murderous activities against the civilians, international partners and foreign troops in Afghanistan.

The assassination attempt against the President of Afghanistan on April 27, masterminding the attack against the prison in Kandahar, beheading innocent Afghans in Bajur, Wazirestan and other areas on the other side of the Durand Line, attack in Dehrawood, attack against the Indian Embassy in Kabul that left more than 60 innocent people dead and more than 150 wounded , beheading of two innocent women in Ghazni, organizing suicide bombings and road side blasts and hundreds of other destructive acts are all indicative of the attempts by the ISI to once again occupy Afghanistan and to perish the true right of the people of Afghanistan for national sovereignty.

Pakistani authorities have recently refrained from attending the expected bilateral and trilateral meetings, thus deliberately harming the process of mutual discussions and the Regional Peace Jirgah.

While Afghanistan continues to maintain the people to people contact and its support of the elected government in Pakistan, it feels compelled in the face of the violent policies of Pakistani Army and Intelligence agencies, and for the sake of its national sovereignty to suspend its bilateral and multilateral meetings and sessions of the following until a positive spirit of dialogue and understanding for mutual trust is restored:

  1. The Joint Border Cooperation Meeting, scheduled to be held in Dubai on July 23-24, 2008;
  2. Meeting of the Joint Economic Cooperation Commission scheduled to be held on 26-27, July in Kabul;
  3. Meeting of the Regional Economic Cooperation Conference scheduled to be held in Islamabad on 26-27 August.

Read more on this article...

Monday, July 14, 2008

Rubin: Afghan Government Charges Pakistan Is World's Main Source of Terrorism

Update: Looks like India is getting in on the act -- a leak to the Hindu (Chennai) reveals that India is considering covert retaliation against Pakistan. The article has a useful review of RAW-ISI covert wars. It would not be surprising if the Afghan NDS and RAW were coordinating. Note that the recently retired former head of RAW, Vikram Sood, is the brother of the former Indian ambassador to Kabul, Rakesh Sood.

At today's weekly cabinet meeting, the government of Afghanistan, chaired by President Hamid Karzai, formally endorsed a statement charging Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate with responsibility for most of the terrorism carried out in Afghanistan. I have received the text in Dari and Pashto and will post it as soon as it is translated.

Excerpts from AP's coverage:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday directly accused Pakistan's intelligence agency of being behind a recent series of attacks by extremist Islamic militants that have killed scores of people.

"Dishonouring and insecurity in Afghanistan is carried out by the intelligence administration of Pakistan, its military intelligence institutions," Karzai said in a statement.

"We know who kills innocent people," the president said. "We have told the government of Pakistan and the world and from now on it will be pronounced by every member of the Afghan nation."

The cabinet announced meanwhile that Afghanistan would boycott a series of upcoming meetings with Pakistan unless "bilateral trust" was restored.

Pakistan's "intelligence agency and military have turned that country (in) to the biggest exporter of terrorism and extremism to the world, particularly Afghanistan," a statement from the cabinet said.

Karzai also referred to a suicide attack that targeted police in southern Uruzgan province on Sunday that killed 24 Afghans, most of them civilians in a bazaar, police said.

He also condemned the Taliban's killing in Ghazni province the same day of two women whom the militants alleged were prostitutes and worked for the police.

"These ladies were martyred by terrorists who have been trained in terrorist nests and intelligence offices outside Afghanistan where respect of (women's) honour doesn't mean anything," he said.

The decision by the Afghan government to boycott bilateral meetings are presumably intended to put pressure on the U.S. and on Pakistan's elected government to take measures to curb the ISI's activities. Thus far neither has publicly agreed with Afghanistan's direct attribution of responsibility, but their denials have been rather mild in tone.

Note that by calling Pakistan the "biggest exporter of terrorism and extremism to the world," the government of Afghanistan is implicitly challenging the U.S. claim that Iran is the greatest source of terrorism. Read more on this article...

Rubin: Notes from Kabul and Kandahar on Recent Bombings

In response to my previous post on the killing of civilians in the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul and in a bombing by the U.S. in Eastern Afghanistan, BBC correspondent Alistair Leithead wrote, "We went up to the bomb site in Nangarhar yesterday...here's the report...":

On a hillside high in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan there are three charred clearings where the American bombs struck.

Scattered around are chunks of twisted metal, blood stains and small fragments of sequined and brightly decorated clothes - the material Afghan brides wear on their wedding day.

After hours of driving to the village deep in the bandit country of Nangarhar's mountains we heard time and again the terrible account of that awful day.

What began as celebration ended with maybe 52 people dead, most of them women and children, and others badly injured.

The US forces said they targeted insurgents in a strike. But from what I saw with my own eyes and heard from the many mourners, no militants were among the dead. A big double wedding was taking place between two families, with each exchanging a bride and a groom. So Lal Zareen's son and daughter were both getting married on the same day.

He gave the account with his son, a 13-year-old groom, sitting at his feet.

"This is all the family I now have left," he said in a disturbingly matter of fact sort of way.

Apparently the wedding party was crossing a narrow pass of the type that Taliban might use for infiltration when it was bombed by U.S. planes. It reminds of of an incident from 1984: Christian Science Monitor reporter Ed Girardet was traveling to the Panjshir Valley with a weapons convoy. At a narrow pass in Upper Panjshir Soviet fighters decimated a caravan of nomads, killing dozens of them, possibly trying to block the infiltration route.

Leithead concludes:

Mirwais Yasini, a local MP and the deputy speaker of Afghanistan's lower house, made the point that civilian casualties widen the gap between the people and the government, and the international forces.

As another memorial service took place in the mountains, Lal Zareen told me: "I want President Karzai to make sure the people responsible for this face justice."

That will depend on the US findings and how the Afghan government acts.

These mistakes are incredibly costly in a counter-insurgency campaign which relies on winning people over, not forcing them against the authorities.

I wonder how many enemies have been created in Nangarhar as a result of the latest bloodshed?

I also got a note from an Afghan in Kandahar who summarized the situation:
I am writing from Kandahar. It is hell hot here--both literally and figuratively. The temperature is around 40 degrees on centigrade. The heat is especially unbearable during mid days when the sun is strong. And there is almost no electricity in this city. During the Taliban time Kandahar had at least 12 hours of electricity in 24 hours, now days pass here without a blink of electricity. Normally though we have 4 hours of electricity in 2 days. And the political situation has never been as bad here in the last seven years as it is now. There is a general discontent among the people. While a few corrupt government officials are embezzling lots of money, the rest of the population is even deprived of the facilities that it had seven years ago like--electricity, drinking water, and security. The Taliban are using this pathetic situation to their benefit. With the help of local population the Taliban now manage to carry out attacks within the city like the spectacular attack on Kandahar prison last month--and they will not stop there. In Kandahar, time is definitely on Taliban's side.
Finally, further information on the attack on the Indian embassy from Tom Stauffer, President of the American University of Afghanistan, in Kabul:
Indian Embassy Blast. One result of the suicide bomb attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul last week (7/7) was a flurry of inquiries from my emailing friends. The attack was a VBIED (vehicle borne improvised explosive device), actually a Toyota Corolla, with 80-100 kilos (over 200 pounds) of top quality RDX plastic bonded high explosive mixed with land mines and tank shells designed to inflict maximum hurt. The nature of the blast suggests that some professional intelligence service was involved. RDX (or cyclonite) is not found at street vendors.

The Indian Embassy was described as situated on a “leafy suburban street” in several press dispatches, which I figure must have been filed from London, Delhi or some other safe haven. (The actual location is in central Kabul.) Many journalists are afraid to come to Kabul, and, as a result, report from afar. I do not much blame them. . . .

Embassies and military compounds in Kabul are surrounded by wire mesh containers, about three yards on each side, filled with dirt, maybe also fronted by heavy concrete blast barriers. The mesh units each weigh many tons. This is what the bomb hit, albeit it at a weaker embassy entry point, and damage to embassy buildings could have been much worse. The blast was well absorbed, except for those unfortunates lined up to get travel visas to India.

At last count, about 60 died and 130 were wounded. More will succumb.Press dispatches always fail to convey the agony and human cost. Flesh and severed limbs were scattered about. Paris or Dubai based journalists reported the numbers but overlooked those real human beings who perished. Four included a mother and her three children who wanted to go to Delhi to catch a flight for London so that they would visit their student husband/father. A girl and a family, seeking a visa to study in India and passports respectively, were also wiped out. Most victims were just walking in the vicinity. Four Indian diplomats and six police officers were murdered and seven at the nearby Indonesian Embassy were wounded. Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry is also located on that same street and many visitors come on routine missions. I have been there twice. The mangled body of one Indian diplomat was found on the roof of his embassy’s main building hours following the blast. Today, the Indian Consulate started issuing visas again.

Anent who did it, everybody denies knowing anything as if the bombing was unplanned. Speculation on the streets and in the press run the gamut of possibilities, but talk concentrates on long deadly clashes among elements in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The story takes too long to tell in my blog, but suffice to say there is poison in the well of regional peace. The Indian Embassy bombing is for the world’s intelligence services to resolve, but trust me, they are working on it. Pakistan and the Taliban deny involvement.

A friend and very prominent Afghan-American missed the explosion by ten minutes because he forgot a small item back at his residence. The human dimension cannot be lost among a pile of geo-political analyses and poorly informed speculation that inevitably follows this and other terrifying VBIED detonations.
Read more on this article...

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Rubin: Afghanistan Accuses Pakistan of Responsibility for Attack on Indian Embassy

In a press conference yesterday, Humayun Hamidzada, the official spokesman of President Karzai (and a former colleague at the Center on International Cooperation at NYU) virtually accused Pakistan of responsibility for the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul yesterday:
Afghan officials have evidence that foreigners were behind a massive suicide bombing against India's embassy in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai's spokesman said Tuesday, implying that Pakistan orchestrated the attack.

The spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, did not name Pakistan's intelligence agency but told reporters it was "pretty obvious" who was behind Monday's bombing, which killed 41 people and wounded 150.

An Afghan security report released earlier Tuesday found that the bombing could not have succeeded without the support of foreign intelligence agencies, another reference to Pakistan, India's archrival.

"The sophistication of this attack, and the kind of material that was used and the specific targeting, everything has the hallmark of a particular intelligence agency that has conducted similar attacks inside Afghanistan in the past. We have sufficient evidence to say that," Hamidzada said. "The project was designed outside Afghanistan. It was exported to Afghanistan."

The Taliban continue to deny any involvement. I haven't seen any U.S. spokesmen commenting on these allegations. Read more on this article...