BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS

This essay was first published in the Bangkok Post on May 24, 2010 as "The pain and sorrow of two cities in crisis"


September 11, 2001 might well have been the worst day ever in the history of New York, but it was pretty much just another day in Bangkok.

I was riding in a taxi from Soi Aree to Sukhumvit when I first got news that my hometown had been struck by some kind of shocking attack. The Thai driver, who had his radio on, was upset. Then he told me, in a kind and commiserating way, that a plane had hit New York's World Trade Center. I understood every word he said, but somehow it didn't add up. I tried to convince myself that I had misheard, so shocking was the news.

A short time later I was with a group of mostly American friends, watching TV in horror as the second tower came down. We found what scant comfort could be had at a time of a great human tragedy by obsessively searching for information on TV and online, commiserating quietly.

The next day I had to teach even though my mind was numb, still in mourning for my hometown, the news full of apocalyptic images. I took the skytrain from Soi Aree to Siam and walked to the faculty of communication arts at Chulalongkorn University. Before class, I heard some students chatting to one another in the hallway.

"Did you hear about the World Trade?"

"No. What happened?"

"A plane crashed into it."

"Taay leao! Right there in Ratchaprasong?"

"No, silly, World Trade Center in New York."

"Oh, you had me worried for a minute."

I said nothing, but the ignorance and apathy of the second speaker left me feeling sick. I went to the dark, air-conditioned faculty meeting room, where a group of students was gathered, watching TV. Finally I thought, someone who will understand. But they were watching a badminton match broadcast from Malaysia and were reluctant to change channels. Again, I felt a silent pain I couldn't express.

On my way back to my office, I saw a fellow ajarn in the hallway, choked up, with tears in his eyes. He said how sorry he was to hear the news from New York. He didn't say much, he didn't have to; he understood.

I felt reconnected with the human condition.

In the days that followed, I carried a sense of inner pain that wasn't easily translated. I was offended by what was and wasn't on Thai TV, at once not enough news, but too much sensationalism. But what really riled me was seeing a televised report of a hair styling contest in which one of the Thai contestants had her hair done up in a double beehive, representing two towers, complete with a toy plane crashing into one of them.

I stopped watching TV. But the newspapers by then were all reporting the callous words of then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who, when asked about the terror attacks on America, replied thus.

"Mai pen rai," said the prime minister, "rao pen klang." (We are neutral).

He said Thailand was neutral so it was no matter of concern.

Ouch.

Neutral between what two sides? Killing and being killed? Terrorists and victims of terror? What was there to be neutral about?

And even if Thailand didn't happen to be a close ally of the United States, wouldn't a word or two of sympathy be in order, just on humanitarian grounds?

Now Bangkok has been struck with a huge tragedy and in an odd parallel to 9/11, Bangkok's "World Trade Center", now renamed CentralWorld, has been hit so bad by arsonists it looks like the Pentagon after a jet crashed into it.

If my own feelings about New York, and my adopted home of Bangkok are any guide, it's not just a hole in a building, but a hole in the heart of the city. And the photo of a tattered Thai flag and wide-eyed modernist statue backed by the gutted building will no doubt become an icon of the shock and pain for many.

What has happened in Bangkok in recent weeks has created an open, gaping wound that will take years to repair.

For many Thais, foreign news coverage of domestic turmoil rubs salt in an open wound, especially when it is rife with error, lacks balance, makes sensational claims and tries to fit Thailand's tragedy into simplistic narrative frames in between frequent commercials. CNN, which seems to work on the assumption that anti-government forces are always right, even during riots (except in the US), gives undue airtime to overly made-up, puffy-haired announcers with fancy graphics tools who make ignorant comments about Thailand.

No better are the surprisingly insensitive comments about the torching of Bangkok made by famous academics, such as "All of this is justified", or "The farmers of Thailand have stood up!"

Just what farmers would that be in reference to?

Much of the academic comment to date reeks more of intramural red versus yellow intrigue akin to a heated sports match than a heartfelt concern for people on the ground.

As I came to understand after 9/11, even trivial comments hurt people when they are down.

There was a sense then, and now, of disbelief. If only it were a dream, or if one could turn back the hands of time, but you wake up each day and the hard truth is still there.

But time does heal, and facing the truth squarely does help. New Yorkers were distraught, at times riven with rage and riled up by callous comments made by cavalier commentators who chose to see 9/11 as just desserts or as someone else's problem.

US President Barack Obama has been prudently silent, despite the efforts of Thaksin's lawyer/PR flack who is angling to extract a trumped up "human rights" condemnation of Thailand at a time when the country that offered to come to Lincoln's help with a supply of elephants during the US Civil War requires the understanding of an old friend.

After 9/11, New Yorkers got back to their lives and eventually the tragedy was put into perspective and taken in stride.

Best of all, New Yorkers emerged from the political crisis as open and big-hearted, tolerant and as cosmopolitan as ever.

New Yorkers discovered that terror ceases to intimidate and divide when hatred and fear are let go of and people instead come to grips with the problem in a way that allows them to fortify their spirit while getting on with their lives.

At a time in the life of my country when I required quiet commiseration and understanding, many individuals in Thailand, including a taxi driver, my students and my colleagues at Chula, reached out with quiet understanding.

I wish to share the same sentiment with the good citizens of Bangkok and the provinces who have been hurt by recent events and are still reeling with shock, sadness and disbelief.

Philip J Cunningham is a freelance writer and political commentator Read more on this article...

THE GRAY LADY GETS IT WRONG, AGAIN

BY PHILIP J CUNNINGHAM


The New York Times set the tone for its recent China quake coverage with a devious headline:

“After Quake, Tibetans Distrust China’s Help”


What’s wrong with the headline, affixed to an April 17, 2010 report from China by Times staffer Andrew Jacobs?

Let’s first consider headlines you are unlikely to ever see on the pages of the New York Times or any other decent newspaper.

“After 911, Jews Distrust America’s Help”

“After Katrina, Blacks Distrust America’s Help”

Now take another look at the NYT headline. It’s simply not up to good journalistic standards, is it? In fact it is insulting, if not borderline incendiary.

To say that “Jews distrust America’s help” is to be crude and insensitive. Such a headline commits a double indignity, slyly suggesting that Jews are not really American and Americans are not really Jews.

Ditto for any ethnic group you chose to test the decency of the headline with. Black, white, Irish, Italian or whatever ethnic group you like. It is insulting and it is inaccurate.

And it strikes close to home, so the NYT wisely avoids it.

Now what about China? Ethnic Tibetans in Qinghai are Chinese citizens. Even the Dalai Lama agrees with that.

So what business do the suits on 41st Street in Manhattan have declaring independence on behalf of ethnic Tibetans in Qinghai?

(TO CONTINUE READING, PLEASE CLICK HERE TO GO TO FRONTIER INTERNATIONAL) Read more on this article...

New York Times on ISI; Serena Hotel Attack (Plus Update Connecting the Two and Historical Background)

David Rohde and Carlotta Gall deserve huge credit for an outstanding investigative article today on Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate. This article makes sense out of all the contradictory indications about the ISI's links to the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban as well as other armed militant groups. It also covers the ISI's role in domestic politics, including election rigging. It is clear from the article that a military regime cannot (and some will not) control the militants it created and that the military will also not permit civilians to take control of the state. But at least President Bush is hard at work building the broadest possible global alliance against Iranian speedboats and Filipino radio pranksters. Bush reportedly does not believe his own intelligence agencies' report on Iran, as it failed to coincide with what he knows to be true. (More on this from Scott Horton....)

The attack on the Serena Hotel in Kabul is a shock for all of us foreigners who have gone there for tea. conferences, or brunch, even if we never stayed there. Like most people who go in and out of the Kabul expatriate community, I imagine, I knew a couple of people who were there -- in my case including some Norwegian diplomats.

News reports mention that this was Afghanistan's only "five-star" hotel. They don't mention that nearly all Afghans live in "zero-star" conditions, including the thousands of people who pass that traffic circle every day and see inaccessible luxury behind thick walls. The rioters attacked the Serena in May 2006, apparently believing that alcohol is served there, though it is not.

I am sure that the people of Kabul don't want more violence in their city. They were badly frightened by the riots in 2006. But there is huge resentment and anger building up at the overbearing foreign presence. The May 2006 riots were sparked by an accident where US military vehicles killed a pedestrian. Afghans see and often do not distinguish among the "Chinese restaurant" brothels and the glittering restaurants (by Afghan standards, not ours) serving luxuries, including alcohol, to foreigners, some of whom are being highly paid to destroy Afghanistan's opium livelihood, which Afghan Islamic figures say is no worse than the alcohol they drink at night after destroying farmers' poppy crops.

Many Afghans think that money that is supposed to be used to help them is instead being used to pay for the good life for foreigners in the Serena hotel. Alas, it is true. When aid donors boast of how much technical assistance they are giving Afghanistan, they provide data on the size of the contracts they have given to consultants. I have spent some of the grant and contract money that pay for my salary and travel expenses on meals and tea at the Serena Hotel. These expenses are counted as someone's assistance to Afghanistan.

This is a new kind of target for the Taliban. Foreigners going to restaurants in Kabul (including some where, unlike the Serena, alcohol is in fact served), sometimes joke that they feel like targets. Up to now, however, they have not been. The Taliban have mostly attacked the international forces and Afghan army, police, and officials, as well as other "collaborators," such as employees on reconstruction projects or public figures who support the government. Sometimes they kill civilians indiscriminately when they attack government buildings (including cases when they killed students in schools). But as far as I know, this is the first attack targeted at the foreign assistance community and the "corrupt" lifestyle it has brought to Afghanistan. I imagine it will not be the last.

Update: AP quotes Amrullah Saleh, head of the National Security Directorate of Afghanistan, as saying that the attack was planned by the network headed by Siraj Haqqani, a native of Khost currently based in the North Waziristan Tribal Agency of Pakistan. So it seems the two posts above might be connected. In case this hypothesis proves true, here is some background.

Haqqani's father, Mawlawi Jalaluddin, was a highly praised mujahidin commander in the 1980s. He was called "Haqqani" because he attended the Deobandi madrasa Haqqaniyya in Akhora Khattak on the Grand Trunk Road between Peshawar and Islamabad, headed by Senator Sami-ul-Haq of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema. This madrasa trained many Taliban leaders.

Haqqani was one of the CIA's favorites because of his penchant for "killing Russians" and executing Afghan "communist" prisoners after trial for apostasy. He was one of ten commanders known as "unilaterals" who got aid directly from the CIA, not filtered through the ISI. His huge base (later occupied by al-Qaida) was built by a Pakistani construction company connected to the military and paid for by private Saudi donations (not sure whose, but it could easily have been Bin Laden).

Though not a member of the Taliban core group in southern Afghanistan (he is from the Zadran/Jadran tribe in Khost, in the east), he became an important minister and commander of the Taliban, leading offensives in the Shamali plain north of Kabul in cooperation with al-Qaida.

During the Coalition operation against the Taliban in the fall of 2001, the ISI brought Haqqani to Islamabad several times, offering him to the U.S. as a "moderate Taliban" replacement for Mullah Umar, but Haqqani did not cooperate or at least he didn't deliver. In December 2001 Mawlawi Jalaluddin announced that despite his opposition to the U.S. invasion, now was the time for peace in Afghanistan, and he sent a delegation from the Jadran tribe to attend the inauguration of Hamid Karzai. Someone (reportedly Mawlawi Jaluluddin's rival, Pacha Khan Zadran, though there are other suspects as well) warned the U.S. that Taliban were approaching Kabul, and a U.S. bombing raid killed over 60 elders of the tribe who were on their way to Kabul for reconciliation.

Since that time, Mawlawi Jalaluddin (who may have died -- reports are unclear) and his son Sirajuddin have built up a powerful front based in North Waziristan. The Jadrans remain factionalized and their loyalties have vacillated -- today many are serving in pro-government militias, and cross-border attacks from Waziristan are said to have decreased.

The Haqqanis are considered by the U.S. military to constitute almost a separate operation from (though nominally affiliated with) the Taliban under Mullah Umar. They are one of the pivotal points of cooperation between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, as the Haqqanis have close relations with Baitullah Mahsud, Amir of the Pakistani Taliban and commander in South Waziristan.

If anyone believes that the ISI does not know where the Haqqanis are, there is a bridge not far from my office in lower Manhattan I would like to show you.

Historical Note: In May 2002 in Kabul I attended a meeting at the home of the former king of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah, where he received a delegation from the Jaji tribe in Paktia, neighbors (and at times rivals) of the Jadrans. The Jaji elders reminded Zahir Shah that their fathers and grandfathers had helped his father, Nadir Shah, overthrow a usurper in Kabul, Amir Habibullah Kalakani, known as Bacha-i Saqaw (son of the water carrier) and Khadim-i Din-i Rasul Allah (servant of the religion of the Messenger of God). Habibullah came from the Tajik village of Kalakan north of Kabul, which briefly became a "Maoist" bastion in the early 1980s.

The elders offered to help Zahir Shah evict the Northern Alliance from Kabul, as they had helped his father before him. Zahir Shah said he wanted to work for peace and asked them to participate in the Emergency Loya Jirga scheduled for the following month.

By the way, when Nadir Shah (then Nadir Khan) mobilized the Jajis, Jadrans, Ahmadzais, and Tanis against Amir Habibullah, he was sitting in Waziristan, receiving aid from the British through the political agents in the Tribal Agencies. . . . Read more on this article...

A Crime Foretold: The Charsadda Bombing

Yesterday's suicide attack that killed 56 people in Charsadda, a village northeast of Peshawar, Pakistan, was not aimed just at Aftab Ahmad Sherpao, the former Interior Minister. It was part of a strategy by the Pakistani Taliban, supported by al-Qaida, to surround Peshawar with a ring of destabilization.

At the time of the attack, Sherpao, a native of Charsadda, was praying in the mosque on the occasion of 'Id al-Adha (known in South Asia as 'Id-i Qurban), which commemorates the sacrifice of Abraham's son. In the Torah the son is Isaac; in the Qur'an it is Isma'il. Jews commemorate their account of this event on Yom Kippur: the substitution of a ram for Isaac in the sacrifice prefigures the scapegoat, released into the wilderness by the High Priest to atone for the sins of the people.

And speaking of scapegoats -- I wonder who will be blamed for this? The attack on Charsadda was not exactly a surprise. When I was in Islamabad on November 5 I received some information from Peshawar about the Pakistani Taliban. Here is the verbatim copy (cut and pasted with no change) from the notes I took on my laptop:

Ppl being trained for Charsadda. Will be taken over just before or after Id al-Adha (end of hajj). Cmdr is Sher Khan. Currently training his men in Chapari area of Momand Agency adjacent to Char Sadda district.

If a five-day visit to Islamabad enabled me to learn that an attack on Charsadda was being planned for 'Id, I wonder how many other people knew it. I wasn't even trying to find out about security threats. Somebody just told me in the course of a wide-ranging conversation. I can't say who, but it is not somebody that the government does not know how to find.

To understand better what this is about, look at this map (easier to read original here):

Charsadda is northeast of Peshawar, just southwest of Malakand, where Sufi Muhammad (now jailed) led the Tehrik-i Nifaz-i Shariat-i Muhammadi, an armed movement for implementation of the shari'a, a few years ago. Just north of Malakand is Swat. At the time of my meeting in Islamabad, Sufi Muhammad's son-in-law, Maulana Fazlullah, was leading fighters who took over several villages in Swat. On the northwest, Charsadda borders on the Mohmand Tribal agency, where Commander Sher Khan was reportedly training his men to attack Charsadda. Mohmand agency is just south of the Bajaur Agency, where Usama Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Gulbuddin Hikmatyar have frequently been reported. Bajaur then connects to Dir district, which connects the tribal agencies to Swat. According to my informant:

Police intercepted weapons being sent to Fazlullah more than once, and every time military intervened to rescue weapons and people. Over last two years. Running radio for 2 years, stockpiling wpns in Paivand near Nehagh Dara connecting Swat and Dir. Camp run by two Arabs, Syrian and Iraqi.

Social structural differences may explain why the militants chose to attack Swat rather than Dir, which is closer to their training camps: in Dir the tribal structure, dominated by Yusufzai khans, is more intact and resistant to outside influence, whereas in Swat tribal power was weakened by the rule of the Wali, a religious (Sufi) figure, leaving the society less structured and more vulnerable once the Wali was removed. (So say my informants: I have not conducted research on this subject.)

This offensive northeast of Peshawar complements advances from other sides. My notes again:

Encircled Peshawar. Captured Darra Adam Khel [eastern part of Orakzai Agency, which cuts off Peshawar district's southern access to the rest of NWFP]. Advancing on Peshawar from Matani from Darra [Adam Khel] side from south. From Bara in the West [a sub-region of Khyber agency]. Mohmand population in the northwest.

While I have not conducted a systematic search, I have not come across any discussion in the U.S. media of the Taliban offensive to destabilize the areas around Peshawar, which is adjacent to Northern Punjab and the capital, Islamabad. The bombing is depicted as an act of terrorism aimed against an individual, rather than as part of a political and military strategy by a coherent political group. Just last week, however (on December 14), in an interview with BBC Urdu service, Baitullah Mahsud, the commander of South Waziristan, reported that the Pakistani Taliban had agreed to a single chain of command under him.

This apparent U.S. inattention to this major development has of course given rise to conspiracy theories in Pakistan: that the U.S. wants the Taliban to surround Islamabad so that it has an excuse to destroy Pakistan's nuclear weapons.... Of course this is completely ridiculous (please do not circulate this theory on the internet and attribute it to me), but the weak reaction to the Pakistani threat by President Musharraf, who clearly considers the Supreme Court and the Bar Association to be greater dangers to his power, and the continued support for Musharraf by Washington, generate such theories as Pakistanis struggle to make sense out of the slow-moving and quite visible catastrophe that is gathering in their country. The New York Times has it right today: Musharraf is weakening Pakistan. Read more on this article...

WSJ vs. NYT: is the Afghan glass half empty or half full?

Immediately below yesterday's interview with Karl Rove on the Op-Ed page, the Wall Street Journal published an article, "The Road to Jalalabad," that also tried to put a positive spin on a Bush administration problem. The author, Ann Marlowe, who has described herself as "more or less a neocon," sets out to counter the criticisms of the administration's record in Afghanistan. She attributes them entirely to partisanship -- her opening target is Hillary Clinton, who, Marlowe claims, has "cynically charged that we are 'losing the fight to al Qaeda and bin Laden' in Afghanistan."

Marlowe had no way to know that only one day before the publication of her article, New York Times reporters David Rohde and David Sanger would publish a comprehensive overview of the Bush administration's myopic parsimony in Afghanistan, drawing from on-the-record interviews with all three post-9/11 US ambassadors to Kabul, President Bush's first special envoy on Afghanistan, a serving three-star army general who commanded all US forces in Afghanistan, and a retired four-star marine general who as Supreme Allied Commander oversaw all NATO operations in the country. (I commented on that article yesterday.)

But I am not writing just to criticize Ann, as I will call her, since we have met in both Kabul and New York. Though it was clear from our first conversation that we did not agree, I respect the work she has done. Ann has been to Afghanistan eight times and contributed some of her own resources to worthwhile projects. She is not just an opinionated ideologue: her article is based on first-hand observations of genuine achievements that deserve more attention and analysis than they receive. By now Ann is a candidate for membership in the Association of People who Know More about Afghanistan than Is Legal in Most States and the District of Columbia, which I claim to have founded in 1992.

Ann's article is useful because a comparison of what she wrote and the New York Times article provides us with a means to discuss that endless question: is the Afghan glass half full or half empty? Is it nothing more than a matter of perspective, partisan or otherwise?

I first remember engaging with this amazingly persistent metaphor at a meeting in Paris in April 2005. This meeting eventuated in an edited volume with the alliterative title The Crescent of Crisis: U.S.-European Strategy for the Greater Middle East. It is the only volume to which I have every contributed with a blurb by Bill Kristol, though, to be fair, he did not attend the session on Afghanistan, presumably because his priorities, like the administration's, were elsewhere.


This collaboration between the Brookings Institution and the European Union Institute for Security Studies aimed at bridging US-European differences on Israel/Palestine, Syria/Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. On each subject the sponsors had paired analysts from the new world and the old to compare and contrast "American" and "European" perspectives and seek to forge a synthesis.

I accepted the invitation to provide an "American" perspective on Afghanistan. My trans-Atlantic foil was Ambassador Michael Schmunk, the former German special envoy on Afghanistan. Schmunk, with whom I had appeared at several previous meetings, gave his presentation, about how much the international community had achieved, and I gave my presentation, about how much the international community had not yet achieved, thereby endangering the sustainability of what it had. As I recall, Michael then summarized our presentations by saying that he thought the glass was half-full, whereas I thought it was half-empty.

I argued that this distinction missed the point. As a simple matter of fact, if a glass is half-full, it is ipso facto also half empty. People seem to make this distinction to defend their efforts against what the Wall Street Journal calls "the naysayers" in its web blurb for Ann's article. But the US, NATO, UN, and many other countries are not in Afghanistan in order to congratulate themselves on their efforts, or to do, as the Journal wrote somewhat peevishly, "as well as anyone has the right to expect." We are in Afghanistan to achieve some vital objectives. If we fail to achieve them, no one will give us an 'A' for effort. Besides, how do we know the glass is half rather than a tenth full -- and how full does it have to be before it contains enough water -- or essential oil, as in this picture of Gulestan Ltd. employees Shafiqullah Azizi And Mathieu Beley (which I took, by the way, in Jalalabad in April 2006)?

But I understand and even sympathize with Ann's frustration and Michael Schmunk's desire to show that Germany's and Europe's engagement had not been for naught. The media focus almost entirely on the military struggle. One modest contract I have had with a media organization describes me as a "terrorism analyst." I tried to have this changed to "regional analyst" or "Afghanistan analyst." But the TV people told me they were interested solely in terrorism, and thus far they have been true to their word.

Ann rightly asserts that Afghanistan is and has long been one of the poorest countries in the world with massive obstacles to economic development and political stability that have nothing to do with the Bush administration (or even the Clinton administration). But from her visit to Kabul and three Eastern provinces (Nangarhar, Laghman, and Khost) she concludes that "the trend lines are up, not down."

What are those trend lines? More flights between Dubai and Kabul on the private carrier Kam Air (though she does not mention that the national carrier, Ariana, is being stripped of its assets by various mafias and is consequently in greater danger of collapse now than it was when it was placed under international sanctions during the Taliban regime); cheaper and geometrically increasing access to mobile telephones (and, she might add, television and the internet); repair and construction of both primary and secondary roads; investments, largely funded by the US, in infrastructure for agricultural marketing; the growth of private banking; the construction of a new university in Khost with funding from the United Arab Emirates; significant funding of development by remittances from migrant workers; the "wholehearted support" for the US of "85-90% of the population," according to a US military officer; the growth of school enrollments; and, she claims, some improvements in security: no "conventional attacks" by Taliban in 2007 and some success in countering "al Qaeda, Taliban and other fighters [who] cross from Pakistan," something she apparently considers to be an unavoidable fact of local geography. She repeats the common conservative trope that Afghanistan (or Baghdad) is no more violent than the US's inner cities (we know who lives there of course). She mentions San Jose, Indianapolis,and Detroit, but it does not occur to her to wonder why parts of the US are apparently almost as violent as Afghanistan. I guess it's just the way those people are.

Like Ann, I wish that more people in the US and Europe knew of these positive trends and real accomplishments. They do not lead me to conclude that Afghanistan is irreversibly on the way to stability and prosperity, but they show what we have to lose by not making a more effective effort. They give me hope that, despite all the mistakes, mismanagement, corruption, and even crimes, the will of the people of Afghanistan is still strong enough that an international partnership with them can succeed.

But that may not happen if current trends continue, especially some that Ann did not mention. Unfortunately these concern fundamental issues that will determine whether Afghanistan and its international supporters can sustain these achievements.

The NYT article identifies the following not so hopeful trends:

Like Osama bin Laden and his deputies, the Taliban had found refuge in Pakistan and regrouped as the American focus wavered. Taliban fighters seeped back over the border, driving up the suicide attacks and roadside bombings by as much as 25 percent this spring, and forcing NATO and American troops into battles to retake previously liberated villages in southern Afghanistan.

. . . Afghanistan’s embattled president, Hamid Karzai, said in Washington last week that security in his country had “definitely deteriorated.” One former national security official called that “a very diplomatic understatement.”

At critical moments in the fight for Afghanistan, the Bush administration diverted scarce intelligence and reconstruction resources to Iraq, including elite C.I.A. teams and Special Forces units involved in the search for terrorists. . . . .

When it came to reconstruction, big goals were announced, big projects identified. Yet in the year Mr. Bush promised a “Marshall Plan” for Afghanistan, the country received less assistance per capita than did postconflict Bosnia and Kosovo, or even desperately poor Haiti, according to a RAND Corporation study. . . .

In September 2005, NATO defense ministers gathered in Berlin to complete plans for NATO troops to take over security in Afghanistan’s volatile south. It was the most ambitious “out of area” operations in NATO history, and across Europe, leaders worried about getting support from their countries. Then, American military officials dropped a bombshell.

The Pentagon, they said, was considering withdrawing up to 3,000 troops from Afghanistan, roughly 20 percent of total American forces. . . .

Three months after announcing the proposed troop withdrawal, the White House Office of Management and Budget cut aid to Afghanistan by a third. . . . American assistance to Afghanistan dropped by 38 percent, from $4.3 billion in fiscal 2005 to $3.1 billion in fiscal 2006, according to a study by the Congressional Research Service. . . .

In the spring of 2006, the Taliban carried out their largest offensive since 2001, attacking British, Canadian and Dutch troops in southern Afghanistan.

Hundreds of Taliban swarmed into the south, setting up checkpoints, assassinating officials and burning schools. Suicide bombings quintupled to 136. Roadside bombings doubled. All told, 191 American and NATO troops died in 2006, a 20 percent increase over the 2005 toll. For the first time, it became nearly as dangerous, statistically, to serve as an American in Afghanistan as in Iraq. . . .

Among some current and former officials, a consensus is emerging that a more consistent, forceful American effort could have helped to keep the Taliban and Al Qaeda’s leadership from regrouping.

The Times article does not even deal with narcotics. According to a UN report released in June, Afghanistan's opium production continued to soar in 2007, accounting for 90 percent of the world's supply. Helmand Province alone produced more than Myanmar, the world's second largest producer.

All the flights to Dubai and mobile phones in the world will not defeat the growing insurgency, stabilize the tribal areas of Pakistan where the Taliban and al-Qaida are based, and sustain a government undermined by rampant drug-fueled corruption. International observers agree that stabilizing Afghanistan will require foreign troops for years if not decades, but Afghans will not tolerate the current toll of civilian casualties for years let alone decades, especially when they realize, as reported by Mark Benjamin in Salon.com, that the number results in part from the US counter-terrorism forces using looser rules of engagement than NATO. The Afghan government will never be able to pay for even the current size Afghan National Army, and under current threat conditions it would need a far larger and better equipped one to provide security. The only alternative is to reduce the level of external threat, but destabilization in Pakistan and a US confrontation with Iran could have the opposite effect. Overall, the summary conclusion I presented in Paris in April 2005 now seems a little too rosy:

Since the overthrow of the Taliban by the US-led coalition and the inauguration of the interim authority based on the UN-mediated Bonn Agreement of December 5, 2001, Afghanistan has progressed substantially toward stability. Not all trends are positive, however. Afghanistan has become more dependent on narcotics production and trafficking than any country in the world. It remains one of the world’s most impoverished and conflict-prone states, where only a substantial international presence prevents a return to war. The modest results reflect the modest resources that donor and troop-contributing states have invested in it (Figure 1). Afghans and those supporting their efforts have many achievements to their credit, but declarations of success are premature.

Since then the return to war has occurred. The Afghan glass may be half full, a tenth full, or near to overflowing. But it is standing on a very rickety table in an earthquake prone area. It will not matter how full the glass is if the table collapses or one of the region's unstable tectonic plates suddenly shifts. Read more on this article...

New York Times on Failure in Afghanistan

In today's New York Times, reporters David Rohde and David Sanger published a retrospective overview of how the Bush administration has failed in Afghanistan. While the article contains no revelations to those following the issue closely, some parts of the account have not appeared in print in such a prominent place before. The article provides a comprehensive overview of how, in the words of the NYT's headline, "The 'Good War' Went Bad."

The record of misjudgments is as familiar as it is complete: believing that the quick collapse of the Taliban regime in late 2001 constituted a resounding "victory"; a refusal to enlarge the international security presence to secure the country; a failure to follow up on boastful talking points about a "Marshall Plan" for Afghanistan with any strategic planning, coordinated leadership, adequate funding, or effective implementation; neglect and denial for years of the Pakistan military's permissive (at best) attitude toward the Taliban leadership; and, like a shiny silk thread of failure woven through the entire fabric, the constant diversion of military, political, intelligence, economic, and leadership resources to Iraq. As news reporters, the authors decline to make the obvious observation: more attention and resources from this administration meant a more comprehensive and disastrous failure in Iraq than in Afghanistan.

The article neglects one important aspect of the Afghan effort -- the involvement of the United Nations, which the reporters do not even mention. Yet one of the major reasons for the limited successes in Afghanistan was precisely that, because of the low priority the administration assigned to it, it agreed to a recommendation from the State Department to empower the UN to take the lead in helping Afghans assemble a political transition. The UN organized and chaired the UN Talks on Afghanistan in Bonn that designed the transition, and it oversaw the Loya Jirgas (Grand Councils), constitutional process, elections, and adoption of the Afghanistan Compact, the successor to the Bonn Agreement, which the administration has unsuccessfully tried to copy in Iraq. It was the success of these UN political efforts as much as anything else that enabled the Bush administration to camouflage its strategic failure for so long. (Note: I have a personal bias in that I was involved in these UN efforts as an occasional adviser or consultant).

The article also catalogues the efforts of both military and diplomatic professionals and some political appointees (notably Zalmay Khalilzad) to change these policies. The willingness of all former US ambassadors and several former US and NATO military commanders to go on the record in the New York Times in criticism of the administration's policies indicates how general is now the recognition that US policies were wrong, both in allocating global priorities and in planning for Afghanistan.

What the article does not analyze is the strategic and ideological doctrines of the administration, and in particular its radical misunderstanding of the threat from al-Qaeda and the challenges in Afghanistan, that led to these policy failures. The administration has tried as usual to shift blame to others, by claiming that the non-US "lead nations" in security sector reform performed inadequately and that NATO troop contributors have placed too many limitations on their troops. While these charges contain elements of truth, they ignore that the flawed "lead-donor" system resulted from the Bush administration's ideologically motivated refusal in 2002 either to lead or authorize others (such as the UN) to lead a well-coordinated and resourced state-building effort.

Complaints about NATO troop contributors ignore the political reality that allies are reluctant to sacrifice their soldier's lives to a conflict greatly exacerbated by Washington's own mistakes. This same dynamic is being played out again as the administration pushes for a disastrous policy of accelerated poppy eradication, and allies whose troops may die in the resulting resistance push back.

In future posts I will analyze the failure of the US and other international actors to define goals and hence to design a strategy for Afghanistan. The failure to define what we are trying to accomplish or to analyze what it would require to accomplish it results in politically motivated talking points on "success" that consist mostly of lists of genuine but unsustainable achievements. This strategic failure, which, alas, goes far beyond the upper reaches of the Bush administration, has led to policies being enacted piecemeal on drugs, Pakistan, Iran, reconstruction/development, and the Taliban. I will analyze the concept of "success" in Afghanistan (is the glass half full or half empty, or what?) and each of these particular subjects in subsequent posts. Read more on this article...