US thwarts efforts by Afghanistan for more international forces

[Windy]

Failure in Afghanistan

Published: July 14, 2004

Afghanistan

Karzai, Hamid

International Relations

To the Editor:

"Afghan President Describes Militias as the Top Threat" (front page, July 12) is disturbing, not only for what it tells us about the state of affairs in Afghanistan but also for what it documents about another bungled mission by the Bush administration.

In 2002, the administration blocked the expansion of the International Security Assistance Force, authorized by the United Nations, in Afghanistan beyond Kabul. President Hamid Karzai desperately sought its expansion.

Even some warlords preferred an expanded international force, figuring that their own political future as regional players in the country would be better secured by a stable central government than by continued factional fighting.

But it was not to be. The United States didn't want the United Nations force to get in its way. And the result was utterly predictable: today, the country beyond Kabul belongs to the warlords.

JOHN G. RUGGIE
Cambridge, Mass., July 12, 2004
The writer, a former United Nations assistant secretary general, is a professor of international affairs at Harvard.
__________________

[NMDemDist2]

1. Jon Stewart last night said there will be more cops in NYC

"guarding" the Prez at the convention than there are troops in Afghanistan looking for bin Laden

that may be overstating the facts a bit, but not by much

[Hell Hath No Fury]

3. Jon said there will be....

10,1000 cops at NYC, our Afghanistan forces are somewhere from 8,000 - 10,000 right now, depending on what report you read.

He was not overstating the case.

Here's a short report I did on Afghanistan for my site:


---------------------------------------

Afghanistan: The Forgotten War

On June 15, 2004, George W. Bush stood in the White House Rose Garden
with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and described the current situation in Afghanistan this way:

----
Three years ago, the Taliban had granted Osama bin Laden and his terrorist Al Qaida organization a safe refuge. Today the Taliban has been deposed, Al Qaida is in hiding, and coalition forces continue to hunt down the remnants and holdouts.

...Three years ago, 70 percent of Afghans were malnourished, and one in four Afghan children never saw their fifth birthday. Today, clean water is being provided throughout the country, hospitals and clinics have been rehabilitated, and millions of children have been vaccinated against measles and polio.

Three years ago, women were viciously oppressed and forbidden to work
outside the home, and even denied what little medical treatment was
available. Today, women are going to school and their rights are
protected in Afghanistan's constitution.

...Three years ago, the smallest displays of joy were outlawed. Women
were beaten for wearing brightly colored shoes. Even the playing of music and flying of kites were outlawed. Today we witness the rebirth of a vibrant Afghan culture. Music fills the marketplaces and people are free to come together to celebrate in open.

Afghanistan's journey to democracy and peace deserves the support and
respect of every nation, because free nations do not breed the ideology of terror.<1>
----

But almost three years after our troops entered Afghanistan to capture Osama Bin Laden, life for most Afghans -- especially women -- is far from being the rosy picture painted by George W. Bush.

Today, most of Afghanistan remains in chaos as regrouping Taliban
insurgents fight against the Karzai government, and regional warlords
fight each for power.<2> Security is so precarious that relief agencies have been unable to get into many areas of Afghanistan, while some agencies, including Doctors Without Borders, have been forced to leave the areas they could access after their aid workers came under attack or were killed.<3>

Less than 10,000 Afghan army recruits have been trained by coalition
military teams, and these new forces remain seriously under-equipped and unable to fill the country's basic security needs.<4> Warlords have been "hired" by the Pentagon to have their militias maintain control in the areas outside of Kabul; these same militias have been engaging in gang rapes, kidnapping, extortion, heroin production, and enforcing the same strict Islamic restrictions the Taliban was known for.<5> International organizations warn the lack of national security has created conditions that could seriously undermine the democratic process of the upcoming national elections.<6> Already, preelection intimidation tactics have been seen with the deaths of election workers and newly registered voters.<7>

International funding pledged for the rebuilding of Afghanistan has been slow in coming and nowhere near the $15-20 billion Hamid Karzai says the country needs for rebuilding over the next four years.<8> NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, head of the organization leading the international effort, has said he's "felt like a beggar sometimes" trying to get the US and the other allies to supply the peacekeeping troops, equipment and funding needed to make the NATO mission a success.<9>

Most of the infrastructure of Afghanistan remains unrepaired due to the lack of funding and security issues. Availability of electricity and clean water remains out of reach for the vast majority of the
population<10>. Even the nation's largest hospital in Kabul continues to suffer from a lack of medications and is short of the most basic of medical equipment such as stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs.<11> Though the World Health Organization estimates that 95% of Afghans have been psychologically effected by decades of war and violence, there are only four mental hospitals in the country, with only $100,000 in funding allocated for mental health in 2003 for the entire country.<12>

Women in Afghanistan have seen very little difference in their daily
lives since the end of rule by the hard-line Islamic fundamentalist
Taliban. Under Hamid Karzai, the Taliban's Department of Vice and Virtue has morphed into the Ministry of Religious Affairs, an agency responsible for making sure Afghan woman don't engage in "un-Islamic" displays in public.<13> Married girls are still forbidden by law to attend high school classes for fear their unmarried classmates will hear sexual information.<14> Girls' schools have been attacked and set on fire across the country<15>; recently three girls, ages 10 to 15, were poisoned for attending school in the town of Khost.<16> State run television has been prohibited by the new Afghan Supreme Court from broadcasting images of women singing<17>, while the Nangahar province has banned women performers of any kind on both television and radio.<18> Many Afghan women are still regularly subjected to forced marriage<19>, are forced to undergo "virginity checks" if they are seen in the presence of a male not related to them<20>, and are kept from working.<21> And the head-to-toe, blue burkha is still worn by a majority of Afghan women out of fear of rape and harassment.<22>

In a January 28, 2002 statement, George W. Bush made a commitment to
"ensure security, stability and reconstruction for Afghanistan, and
foster representative and accountable government for all Afghan women and men"<23>, but it is too clear that the administration has all but
abandoned it's commitment to Afghanistan and its people.

At the Rose Garden meeting with Karzai, George W. Bush touted the
successes of Afghanistan as a model, saying "the same thing's going to happen in Iraq".

We can only hope that he is wrong.


1] Transcript: Bush, Karzai Media Conference; The Washington Post, June 15, 2004
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43470-2004Jun15.html

<2> Now We Pay the Warlords; The Guardian, July 31, 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/comment/story/0,11447,1009459,00.html

<3> Fighting Hampers Afghan Aid Work; Reuters, June 9, 2004
http://www.dawn.com/2004/06/09/int4.htm

<4> Training of Afghan Army Slowed by Lack of Resources, Experience; St. Louis Dispatch, June 21, 2004
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/8975423.htm

<5> Now We Pay the Warlords; The Guardian, July 31, 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/comment/story/0,11447,1009459,00.html

<6> Elections and Security in Afghanistan, International Crisis Group, March 30, 2004
http://www.crisisweb.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=2554

<7> Infighting Delays Afghanistan Elections; The Associated Press, July 1, 2004
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040701_709.html

<8> Afghanistan Faces Funding Shortfalls; Asian Development Bank, June 6, 2003
http://www.adb.org/Documents/News/2003/nr2003079.asp

<9> NATO Chief Offers a Bleak Analysis; New York Times, July 3, 2004
http://globalsecuritynews.com/showArticle3.cfm?article_id=9853&topicID=31

<10> War Returns with a Vengeance as Allies Fail the Afghan People; The Independent, May 25, 2004
http://www.indymedia.ch/fr/2004/05/23263.shtml

<11> Afghanistan: Loma Linda Team Trains Physicians, Evaluates Hospital; ANN, May 18, 2004
http://news.adventist.org/data/2004/04/1084900302/index.html.en

<12> Afghanistan's Invisible War Wounds; San Francisco Chronicle, April 20, 2004
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgif=/c/a/2004/04/20/MNGMT67QPP1.DTL

<13> Afghanistan's Women after "Liberation"; ZNET, December 29, 2004
http://zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=4770

<14> Marriage spells the end of learning; The Guardian, November 29, 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/editor/story/0,12900,1095696,00.html

<15> Afghan Schools Struck By Attacks; The Associated Press, October 30, 2004
http://www.myafghan.com/news2.asp?id=-534391697

<16> Girls "Poisoned by Militants for Going to School"; May 3, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1208299,00.html

<17> Afghanistan's Supreme Court Protests Women Singing on TV; Reuters, January 15, 2004
http://rawa.fancymarketing.net/tvban.htm

<18> Afghan Province Bans Women Performers on TV; Radio, April 17, 2004
http://agitprop.org.au/nowar/20040417_reut_female_performers_banned.php

<19> Taliban-style Restrictions Alive in West Afghanistan; Agence France Presse, March 10, 2004
http://www.asianoutlook.com/articles/april04/16.htm

<20> Women Forced to Have Chastity Tests; The Guardian, December 17, 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,861398,00.html

<21> Taliban-style Restrictions Alive in West Afghanistan; Agence France Presse, March 10, 2004
http://www.asianoutlook.com/articles/april04/16.htm

<22> Women in Afghanistan Fear New Taliban-Like Rule; Women's ENews, May 15, 2003
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1328

<23> Joint Statement on New Partnership Between U.S. and Afghanistan; The White House, January 28, 2003
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020128-8.html

[NMDemDist2]

4. wow excellent reference, why did i think there was around 20K there?

must not be keeping up

[Spazito]

2. Afghanistan is another miserable failure by the bush and blair....

administrations. They promised not to abandon the Afghans as they did after the USSR was defeated there and they promptly did just that. 70% of Afghanistan is back in the Taliban and war lords control and blair and bush couldn't care less.

[gratuitous]

5. And Bush accused Kerry of "abandoning the troops"?

You know, the rebuttals just write themselves anymore.