Sweeping Karzai Under The Afghan Rug

While we’re all wrapped up in presidential politics, I thought now would be a good time to remind us of the fact that, as noted here by Think Progress and McClatchy, May was the most violent month in Afghanistan since our 2001 invasion…

April featured 199 violent incidents in 86 districts, making it the most lethal April in the six year conflict. May featured 214 incidents of violence in over 100 districts, also a new six-year total for May and the highest single monthly total. Despite official efforts to spotlight improvement, the spring offensive thus far is worse than last year’s spring offensive. The security situation has deteriorated again.

And this tells us that Our Gal Condi Rice flew over as a gesture of support to Afghan President Harmid Karzai to meet with him and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband over the matter of rejecting Britain’s Paddy Ashdown as international special envoy to Afghanistan.

The article tells us…

The skirmishing highlights the multiple fronts on which the Bush administration is battling as it tries to correct what many critics say is a deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan. With 42,000 NATO troops stationed here, tension has been growing between Karzai's government and the West, particularly Britain, amid concerns about a loss of Afghan sovereignty. The issue of the special envoy, in particular, has been widely covered in the Afghan media, touching Afghan sensitivities about foreign interference and fears of colonial intentions by Britain and other powers.

Karzai has had other disagreements with Britain recently, in particular over its handling of the Taliban insurgency and the booming opium trade in Helmand Province, where British troops are deployed. At the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, Karzai criticized the British forces in Helmand, complaining that they had forced him to remove the provincial government and police force in 2006, leaving a vacuum that the British had failed to fill and allowing the Taliban to surge in.

Asked about that criticism, Karzai said he had been misquoted, adding that he had held a meeting with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain the next day because he had been embarrassed at what he had been quoted as saying. He went out of his way during the news conference Thursday to express gratitude to NATO.

That seems to be a familiar pattern with Karzai, by the way; he “rattles his sabre” a bit before he gets slapped down by this country or our pals “across the pond” and ends up towing the line.

Also, Karzai tells us the following in an interview he gave to Der Spiegel recently…

SPIEGEL: Some Afghan people say that the president himself, who is appointing high-ranking officials in Kabul and in the provinces, is fueling the insurgency with these personnel decisions. Is that there any truth in that?

Karzai: Governance has improved immensely in Afghanistan. For the first time in six years, the Afghan budget has become transparent, there are no longer any secret funds. Before, the governors did whatever they wanted. Now there is a reporting requirement and there are former governors who were criminal or corrupt who are now in prison, like the former governor of Baghdis province. Of course the country needs more time, but the problems we have in the south and east are not because of bad governance.

SPIEGEL: Then what are the reasons for the difficult situation there?

Karzai: There is a lot of interference from abroad. The south part of the country has always been the center of the Taliban activity; they came from there. And there are also traces of the mujahedeen's decades-long battle. These are all factors.

…

SPIEGEL: The south is the hub of drug smuggling. Is it possible that Ahmed Wali Karzai, one of the most influential politicians in Kandahar, who leads the provincial council, doesn't have the slightest idea what is going on or has nothing to do with it?

Karzai: Yes, it is very much possible. Our family has been influential in this part of the country for 300 years. I am the president of Afghanistan today, but I do not have the slightest idea who is involved in the drug business there. Nor is the drug dealing solely a problem for Afghanistan. The lion's share of the money goes to the international mafia and not to Afghans.

According to this report, though, I’m not sure “interference from abroad” and “the international mafia” can be used as excuses for the once-more flourishing drug trade, especially when involvement by both Karzai and his brothers is alleged…

Russian journalist Arkady Dubnov quotes Afghan sources as saying that, "85 per cent of all drugs produced in southern and southeastern provinces are shipped abroad by US aviation." A source in Afghanistan's security services told Dubnov that the American military buy drugs from local Afghan officials who deal with field commanders overseeing eradication of drug production. Dubnov claimed in Vremya Novostei that the administration of President Hamid Karzai, including his two brothers, Kajum Karzai and Ahmed Vali Karzai, are deeply involved in the narcotics trade.

A US expert on Afghanistan, Barnett Rubin, told an anti-narcotics conference in Kabul last October that, "drug dealers had infiltrated Afghani state structures to such an extent that they could easily paralyse the work of the government if the decision to arrest one of them was ever made." Former UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke said in January that, "government officials, including some with close ties to the presidency, are protecting the drug trade and profiting from it. He described the $1-billion-a- year US counter-narcotics effort in Afghanistan in The Washington Post in January as "the single most ineffective programme in the history of American foreign policy. It's not just a waste of money. It actually strengthens the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, as well as criminal elements within Afghanistan."

(Actually, upon further consideration, I think Karzai should thank the "interference from abroad" since it apparently is contributing to the wealth he and his brothers currently enjoy.)

And as far as freedom of the press is concerned in Afghanistan, I bring you the tale of journalist Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh here, sentenced to death for insulting Islam, notably this excerpt…

Late last year Afghan intelligence service agents began investigating his activities. The intelligence service called his brother, who is also a journalist, and told him to bring Kambakhsh to their office.

Kambakhsh waited five hours on the afternoon of Oct. 27 to meet the head of the local intelligence service. He never showed up.

When Kambakhsh asked if he could go home, he says he was told, "As of today, you are under arrest. You cannot leave."

Three months later, he was taken for trial. The only people with him in the courtroom in Mazar-i-Sharif were three judges, a court scribe and the prosecutor. Kambakhsh said he had no defense lawyer, and only three or four minutes to defend himself.

"It was not enough time for this complicated matter. I demanded more time, but they said it's very late," he said, recalling that the hearing started at about 4 p.m. - well after most government offices close for the day.

The judges found him guilty of handing out to fellow journalism students a report he printed off the Internet. The article asked why under Islam men can have four wives but women cannot have multiple husbands.

Kambakhsh said the article accused Islam of violating women's rights, but he was hesitant to discuss details. He insisted he had no knowledge of it until government officials accused him.

The verdict sparked an international outcry, with a number of organizations demanding that the case be annulled and Kambakhsh set free.

A U.S. State Department spokesman expressed concern that Kambakhsh was sentenced to death for "basically practicing his profession."

“Concern”? How about “outrage”? Oh, sorry – I forgot we’re talking our Bushco here, and life for the “have nots” is cheap as far as they’re concerned.

And if I’m going to say something about Afghanistan, I should link once more to this tour de force of a post by profmarcus that speaks volumes about what is transpiring in that country.

I probably should give Karzai a measure of credit that he has managed to last as president despite at least four assassination attempts. However, it is clear that our policy of what seems to be propping up him and his sycophants (Taliban or no) through the drug trade to buy us a peace that is tenuous at best is something that is bound to eventually fall apart.

And hopefully, Karzai will be able to remain out of the spotlight just enough (meaning that the status quo will be in place) to buy time for a President Obama to get a team together to try to undermine the Taliban through the use of the “soft power” (food, medicine, cooperation with international agencies, diplomacy – remember that one?) so thoroughly despised by our current ruling cabal.

I know I rightly beat up on Tom Friedman the other day because he ignored his own culpability yet again concerning the runup to the Iraq mess in a recent column. However, in that column he talked about how you acquire “leverage” prior to negotiating.

Building it up in Afghanistan will be a long, tedious process over time, but adult political leadership realizes that you do it through the means I just described instead of trying to shove it down someone’s throat through a sustained military presence (yes, I know we have a military objective for real, but what of after that?), with or without Karzai at the helm.