[R-G] The other war we're losing

[Anthony Fenton]

Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
All Rights Reserved
Los Angeles Times

September 13, 2007 Thursday
Home Edition

SECTION: MAIN NEWS; bad desk code; Editorial_pages Desk; Part A; Pg. 19

LENGTH: 706 words

HEADLINE: The other war we're losing

BYLINE: John Kiriakou and Richard Klein, John Kiriakou, now in the  
private sector, served as a CIA counter-terrorism official from 1998  
to 2004 and recently returned from Afghanistan. Richard Klein, a  
former State Department official, is managing director for the Middle  
East and Arabian Gulf at Kissinger McLarty Associates in Washington.

BODY:


Former Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld says in the current  
edition of GQ magazine that the war in Afghanistan has been "a big  
success," with people living in freedom and life "improved on the  
streets."

To anyone working in the country, there is only one possible,  
informed response: What Afghanistan is the man talking about?

In reality, Afghanistan -- former Taliban stronghold, Al Qaeda haven  
and warlord-cum-heroin-smuggler finishing school -- feels more and  
more like Sept. 10, 2001, than a victory in the U.S. war on terrorism.

The country is, plain and simple, a mess. Al Qaeda and its Taliban  
allies have quietly regained territory, rendering wide swaths of the  
country off-limits to U.S. and Afghan forces, international aid  
workers and even journalists. Violent attacks against Western  
interests are routine. Even Kabul, which the White House has held up  
as a postcard for what is possible in Afghanistan, has become so  
dangerous that foreign embassies are in states of lockdown, diplomats  
do not leave their offices, and venturing beyond security perimeters  
requires daylight-only travel, armored vehicles, Kevlar and armed  
escorts.

Fear reigns among average Afghans in Kabul. Street crime, virtually  
unheard of in Afghan culture, has increased dramatically over the  
last three years as angry, unemployed and often radicalized young men  
settle scores with members of other tribes and clans, steal and rob  
to feed their families and vent their frustration with a government  
that appears powerless to help them. Taking a chance by eating in one  
of Kabul's handful of restaurants or going shopping in one of the few  
markets left is a new version of Russian roulette.

For U.S. officials and diplomats, Kabul is simply a prison. Embassies  
are completely closed to vehicular and even foot traffic. Indeed, at  
the American Embassy, the consular section issues visas only to  
Afghan government officials. If an average Afghan wants a visa to the  
U.S., he or she must travel to Islamabad, Pakistan, to apply. To  
allow Afghans to stand in line for visas at the embassy in Kabul  
would invite terrorist attacks or attract suicide bombers.

Consider that an American Embassy staffer going to the U.S. Agency  
for International Development office across the street is required to  
use an underground tunnel that links the two compounds. Even though  
the street is closed to all traffic other than official U.S. or U.N.  
vehicles and is patrolled and guarded by armored personnel carriers,  
tanks and Kalashnikov-carrying security personnel with a safety  
perimeter of several blocks, the risk from snipers, mortars or  
grenades is ever present.

Working in Supermax Afghanistan makes the USAID's performance all the  
more heroic. Since 2003, the agency has overseen the investment of  
more than $4 billion in Afghanistan, has built more than 500 schools  
and an equal number of clinics and has paved more than 1,000 miles of  
roads, all while suffering about 130 casualties at the hands of the  
Taliban and Al Qaeda.

By some measures, Afghanistan should be a feel-good story by now --  
the Taliban is, officially at least, out of power, Al Qaeda has been  
chased to the wilds of the Afghan-Pakistani border and U.S. forces  
are on hand to consolidate and solidify a peaceful new order.

But the truth is very different. By any measure, this remains a "hot"  
war with a well-armed, motivated and organized enemy. Village by  
village, tribe by tribe and province by province, Al Qaeda is coming  
back, enforcing a form of Islamic life and faith rooted in the 12th  
century, intimidating reformers, exacting revenge and funding itself  
with dollars from massive poppy cultivation and heroin smuggling. As  
Al Qaeda reestablishes itself, Osama bin Laden remains free to send  
video messages and serve as an ideological beacon to jihadis  
worldwide. The country's president, Hamid Karzai, meanwhile, is in  
effect little more than the mayor of Kabul.

The war in Afghanistan is a political and military one-step-forward- 
two-steps-back exercise. The work there isn't just unfinished, it is  
more dangerous and less certain than policymakers in Washington and  
talking heads in New York studios can imagine. Those suggesting  
otherwise are either naive or flacking a political agenda.