Afghanistan caught in friendly fire
By M K Bhadrakumar
The Barack Obama era is commencing on a combative note in Afghanistan. The
Afghan bazaar is buzzing with rumors that the equations between Washington and
Kabul have become uncertain. Senior Afghan figures have been quoted as
concluding that "the new US administration and the current Afghan
administration will not be speaking the same language".
This followed a controversial visit to the Afghan capital Kabul last week by
United States vice president-elect Joseph Biden. As the chairman of the
powerful US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden is not a novice to
foreign affairs and diplomacy, or to Afghanistan. Yet, during his visit, Biden
apparently pulled up
Afghan President Hamid Karzai for not giving a good account of himself as a
ruler.
Again, Afghan Foreign Minister Dadfar Spanta has objected to US secretary of
state-designate Hillary's Clinton's use of the term "narco state" to describe
Afghanistan in her Senate testimony last Tuesday on her nomination. He called
in the Associated Press specifically to rebut that Clinton's characterization
was "absolutely wrong". Nerves are getting frayed at the edges.
NATO chief chips in
Alas, the Obama presidency is starting on a false note when close coordination
between Washington and Kabul ought to be the hallmark of relations. As if
taking a cue from the irate Americans, the secretary general of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, tore into the
Karzai government in an unprecedented opinion piece in The Washington Post on
Sunday, alleging among other things that "the basic problem in Afghanistan is
not too much Taliban; it's too little good governance".
Scheffer is a consummate diplomat in the best traditions of the Atlantic
alliance and is known to be always at Washington's bidding. He wrote, "We have
paid enough, in blood and treasure, to demand that the Afghan government take
more concrete and vigorous action to root out corruption and increase
efficiency, even where that means difficult political choices."
Kabul didn't even wait for a full working day before Afghan Foreign Ministry
spokesman Ahmad Baheen plainly told Scheffer where to get off. He accused that
the Afghan government was being undermined as the "international community,
including some powerful NATO member countries, has their own favorite warlords"
who they back against the Karzai government. Baheen, in turn, accused Western
aid groups of corruption and the coalition forces for condoning opium
production.
Biden leaks confidential talk
The curious part is that details of Biden's sensitive conversation in the
Afghan presidential palace have found their way into the media and, inevitably,
to the noisy Kabul bazaar. Afghans cannot resist coming up with conspiracy
theories.
Karzai's spokesman Humayun Hamizada neither confirmed nor denied the reports
that Biden had delivered a tough message to Karzai. He merely said the
conversation was "frank but cordial and friendly". In diplomatic idiom, that
usually means Biden and Karzai politely agreed to disagree. Or, more to the
point in this case, Karzai, being the weaker of the two, held his ground.
Hamizada hinted that the differences were mainly over the war's strategy. He
recalled Karzai had time and again stressed the "need to review the war on
terrorism ... need to review our strategy, the way we fight terrorism and where
we fight terrorism".
According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFERL), Biden played "an
aggressive foreign-policy role" in Kabul and delivered a "strong message" to
Karzai. American officials have been cited as saying Biden "encouraged the
Afghan leader to rid his government of corruption and temper his public
statements regarding civilian casualties caused by NATO forces in Afghanistan".
Biden seems to have taken a particularly dim view of Karzai's growing criticism
regarding the excessive use of military force by US troops against Afghan
civilians. He reportedly warned Karzai that Washington "will view future
statements as posturing for the presidential elections set to take place in
Afghanistan later this year". American sources added that Biden "included no
mention of the end of Karzai's presidential run, over which the United States
in any case has no say".
Afghan bazaar speculates regime change
Meanwhile, the Kabul bazaar is full of rumors that Biden flatly told Karzai he
was on his way out and that the US vice-president elect's mission might have
been an effort to find a suitable replacement. Unsurprisingly, Biden's call on
Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar led to further speculation that the
British-educated Afghan official, who, according to RFERL, "is widely
considered one of the most effective managers in Karzai's administration",
might just be the suitable replacement that Washington is looking for as the
next president of Afghanistan.
A spate of articles has appeared in the Western media during the past six
months portraying Karzai as presiding over a corrupt, inefficient, ineffectual
government that is confined to Kabul and its environs. This has generated a
negative impression about Karzai in Western opinion, apart from making it very
obvious that things are not going smoothly between the Afghan government and
the international community.
Karzai holds his ground
What probably put the Americans' back up was an outspoken interview that Karzai
gave to The Chicago Tribune last month. For the first time, Karzai reacted to
Obama's harsh remark while on the campaign trail that the Afghan president had
not yet "gotten out of the bunker and helped to organize Afghanistan".
Karzai loudly wondered: "Bunker? We are in a trench, and our allies are with us
in the trench. We were on a high hill with glorious success in 2002, backed
fully by the Afghan people ... We must now look back and find out as to why are
we in a trench, or if you'd like to describe it, a bunker. Why are we in a
bunker?"
They seem to have duly taken note in Washington, and did not like the assertive
remark, deciding they might as well make it plain that someone they put in
power, they could just as well remove from power. What is overlooked, however,
is the substance of Karzai's criticism.
Which is a pity, since Obama can only benefit from reading and re-reading the
transcript of Karzai's hour-long interview. Most expert commentators would
share Karzai's views, though they might constitute an open indictment of the
American military commanders and their chief in the Pentagon.
Karzai had a strong point when he said, "The international community should
correct their behavior ... the [US-led] coalition went around the Afghan
villages, burst into people's homes and committed extra-judicial killings in
our country ... And if this behavior continues, we will be in a deeper trench
than we are today. And the war against terrorism will end in disgraceful
defeat."
Again, Karzai was spot on when he said, "If they [US-led forces] go to the
Afghan homes and burst in and arrest or kill, does that leave the Afghan people
with the feeling that they have a government? No. That is actually the
destruction of the Afghan government. If Afghanistan is a sovereign country, if
Afghanistan has a constitution, if Afghanistan has laws, and if there is the
slogan of strengthening Afghan democracy and institutions, then Afghan
sovereignty and Afghan laws must be respected, and not violated in such an
extreme manner as is being done today."
He stressed that the war strategy reportedly being conceived in the Pentagon to
arm Pashtun tribes and set them against each other would have catastrophic
consequences: "If we create militias again, we will be ruining this country
further." True, the new US war strategy is unrealistic insofar as it simplifies
what are in fact multi-layered structures of violence in Afghanistan. The
strategy overlooks the enormous variety of local violence. A policy similar to
the "awakening" of Sunni tribes in Iraq cannot be the answer to Afghan
violence.
Equally, Karzai was critical of the so-called "surge" policy that is the
brainwave of Central Command chief General David Petraeus from his Iraq
campaign. He felt any additional US troops should be deployed to man the
Afghan-Pakistan border rather than intensify military operations in the
southeastern provinces as the Pentagon is contemplating. To this end, the US
plans to double the number of its troops in the country, from about 30,000 to
60,000. Karzai anticipates that the proposed "surge" will only accelerate the
bloodbath, which in turn will make his position extremely precarious
politically and generate more local support for the Taliban fighters who are
increasingly being seen by the people as a genuine resistance to the marauding
Western forces.
Who isn't corrupt?
The US criticism about rampant corruption in Afghanistan has basis. But, then,
what do we expect out of a long sunset when a country slowly bleeds to death
and foreign military occupation strips it of national honor and
self-confidence? Putting things into perspective, it was former US secretary of
defense Donald Rumsfeld who introduced the US policy of dispatching planeloads
of green bucks to the Hindu Kush in a cynical move to encourage Afghan
"warlords" to take on al-Qaeda so that Americans didn't have to do the
fighting.
Most of these "warlords" who worked for the US special forces today
ostentatiously display their ill-gotten wealth. Many are deeply involved in
prostitution, bootlegging and drug trafficking. They are openly buying and
selling sinecure positions. Their palatial mansions in Kabul came up right
under the nose of the US Embassy. Again, it was the Pentagon's obstinacy that
the drug problem was not their business which allowed the situation to develop
into its current scale, eating into the vitals of the Afghan state.
When the occupiers themselves are the fountainhead of venality - like the
Spanish Conquistadors who introduced "European diseases" in the Western
hemisphere in the 16th century - how can the blame be apportioned to Karzai's
regime or family members? In a devastating essay recently, noted American aid
worker and author Ann Jones lifted the veil of silence over the spectrum of
corruption that the George W Bush administration introduced in Afghanistan.
(See The Afghan
reconstruction boondoggle Asia Times Online, January 13.)
The US not only skimped on aid but ploughed the big bucks into the coffers of
well-connected American military contractors and profiteers and the whole
retinue of parasites who generally go under the rubric of experts and
consultants. Jones called it "a form of well-organized routine graft that
leaves the corruption of Karzai's government in the shade and will undoubtedly
continue unremarked upon in the Obama years. Those multi-millions that will
continue to be poured down the Afghan drain really represent promises made to a
people whose country and culture we have devastated more than once."
Browbeating, damning or dumping Karzai will not end the stalemate in the war.
Actually, the best thing would be to allow the Afghan people to genuinely
choose Karzai as their president in the upcoming election and if they indeed do
so, to let him select his team. It may not be an English-speaking team, but
that is the best way the Afghan political process can hope to gain traction, if
at all, in the current gloomy scenario when it looks difficult to rescue the
seven-year US enterprise.
Karzai is still the best choice America has got in Kabul. Biden's visit was a
mistake because in political terms, he seems to have mortally wounded Karzai,
even if Washington's his intention was merely to do some plain speaking before
the Obama era commenced, about salvaging the US's efforts.
Biden's tough talk leaps out of a classic Graham Greene novel set in Indo-China
in the 1950s. It dampens the residual hopes of a clean break from the
overbearing US war strategy in Afghanistan, which Karzai resents and the
Taliban exploit.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka,
Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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