[R-G] Chaos in Afghanistan

[Anthony Fenton]

June 27, 2008
http://counterpunch.org/cloughley06272008.html
Bad and Getting Worse
Chaos in Afghanistan

By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY

Can anyone state exactly why foreign troops are fighting in  
Afghanistan?  What is the collective aim, the specific mission, the  
ultimate objective, of the 60,000 soldiers there?  I ask this because  
as I write the total of US deaths in Afghanistan “and region” is over  
450, and news has come in of the killing of more British and American  
soldiers.  And I wonder what all of them have died for.

There are three separate foreign military organizations in  
Afghanistan, and they conduct operations entirely differently. The  
International Security and Assistance Force, the NATO countries’  
military contingents,  and the independent US forces have no single  
overall headquarters ; they have entirely unrelated Rules of  
Engagement (a preposterous and almost unbelievable situation) ;  and  
do not have a combined mission statement.  If a young captain at any  
military college in the world were told to produce a planning paper  
for direction of military operations in a foreign country and came up  
with such a harebrained cockamamie muddle he would be laughed at and  
sent packing.

*****

The situation in Afghanistan is bad and getting worse, but before  
sketching the history of foreign military failure in that harsh and  
barbaric country it should be noted that its eastern neighbor,  
Pakistan,  remains host to the largest number of refugees existing in  
any one country in our horrible world.  There is no other nation that  
has accepted so many displaced people for so long – or has received  
less international gratitude for its generosity to foreign exiles.  
There has been attentive care, of course, from the saintly UN High  
Commission for Refugees whose staff around the world rarely receive  
the recognition they deserve.  But Pakistan has not received any  
acknowledgment, either, for its hosting of millions of Afghans, some  
of whom are intent on wrecking the country that has given them haven.

There remain in Pakistan over 1.5 million Afghans who have the status  
of refugees.  (Plus some 400,000 who have been absorbed into Pakistan  
society, legally or otherwise.)  They cannot return to their own  
country, no matter how much they may want to, because it is still in a  
state of chaos, thanks to inept foreigners, evil fanatics, terminally  
corrupt politicians, and ruthless tribal thugs who are allowed by the  
government and occupation forces to rule their fiefdoms with no regard  
for laws of God or man.

*****

The US Government Accountability Office made it clear last week that  
there should be no more funding of training for the Afghan army  
because there is no “coordinated, detailed plan” for its future –  
after five years of foreign military occupation of the country.     
Remember the chaotic scenes in Kabul in April when President Karzai  
fled for his life and Afghan soldiers ran equally swiftly from the  
scene of a shooting at a military parade?   That black comedy summed  
up the pathetic non-effectiveness of the new Afghan army. And the  
situation in Afghanistan would be uproariously funny, because of the  
amateur and clumsy dabbling by so many western nations, were it not  
that the majority of its citizens are in a state of even deeper  
poverty, fear and despondency than applied when the weird, fanatical,  
illiterate and psychotic Taliban were in power.

*****

After Britain’s three Afghan Wars in the 19th and 20th Centuries, the  
Soviet Union, in a fit of Kremlin madness (for it transpired that it  
was a gigantic mistake), decided they would succeed where the British  
had failed, and in 1979 they invaded a country which had been doing  
quite well until a coup had deposed leadership that actually tried to  
look forward socially and improve the lives of ordinary Afghans.  In  
the course of the Fourth Afghan War the country was destroyed, and  
brutal mujahideen “freedom fighters” prospered as a result of vast  
American subsidies. Their viciousness was promoted by tiny-minded gung- 
ho knuckle-dragging foreigners whose egos were matched only by the  
size of their moneybags.

When the USSR retreated from Afghanistan it was expected that western  
powers would rally round and help the country in its time of greatest  
need.  Reconstruction, good governance and establishment of rule of  
law were obvious imperatives.  Not a bit of it.  There is no oil in  
Afghanistan.  It doesn't produce vast quantities of anything  
marketable, apart from heroin, so was not a desirable plot to be  
cultivated.  There was no encouragement of democracy ; no notion of  
supporting the few forward-thinking Afghan leaders who wanted to bring  
at least a modicum of social improvement and equality to a benighted  
country that was in a state of anarchy.  So the moronic Taliban came  
to power and thrust Afghanistan even further back towards the Dark Ages.

But because the Saudi Arabian suicide plane-destroyers on 9/11 in  
America were guided by a murderous Saudi Arabian lunatic who lived in  
Afghanistan, the place became a priority.  Not for development, of  
course, for that was the last thing in the tiny minds of George Bush  
and his demented crew :  their priority was vengeance.  US air attacks  
destroyed countless villages and an unknown number of Afghans.  An  
assault on the area in which bin Laden was supposed to be hiding was  
ludicrously unsuccessful, and the whole story of that bizarre and  
militarily unprofessional fiasco has yet to be fully told. (I give  
some details in my next book, but am restricted by having many years  
ago signed the Official Secrets Act which,  as retailed in the  
wonderful BBC TV series ‘Yes Minister,’  is “Not there to protect  
Secrets. It is to protect Officials.”  There are, however, a couple of  
interesting tales.)

The Afghan brutes who are dignified by the word ‘warlord’ by the  
western media – for there is something swashbuckling in the word that  
appeals to hacks and headline writers – but who are only grubby  
gangsters – had a wonderful time, courtesy of the CIA and MI6.  They  
murdered hundreds of their closest enemies and laughed all the way to  
their Swiss banks, while bin Laden disappeared.  Elsewhere,  the drug  
thugs have had an even more vindictive and lucrative time. The Fifth  
Afghan War has been good for some – especially the dozens of corrupt  
members of the present government in Kabul who have prospered  
mightily. (Their names are well known by western nations involved in  
Afghanistan – I had detailed descriptions of names, places and bank  
accounts during my last visit to Kabul.)

But last week the ineffectual President Karzai of Afghanistan said  
that Afghan troops would cross the border into Pakistan to pursue and  
kill anyone who had been fighting against Afghan or “coalition”  
forces.  This would be a very serious statement were it not for the  
fact that the US Government Accountability Office has observed that  
“only two of 105 Afghan army units are considered [operationally]  
capable,”  with a third of them able to perform “only with routine  
international support” – for which read massive US bombing strikes  
such as killed Major Akbar of the Pakistan army and ten of his  
Frontier Corps soldiers on 11 June.

Afghanistan is a disaster area.  The lives of hundreds of foreign  
soldiers have been sacrificed by their governments.  The army of  
Pakistan has suffered thousands of dead and wounded. For what?  The  
collective wisdom of the condescending west has produced nothing other  
than chaos, death, corruption, hatred and booming heroin exports.

Is there any optimism that the next five years of the Fifth Afghan War  
will be any better than the last if present policies apply?  It is  
time for a common sense approach to Afghanistan by all the clever  
foreigners who think they know how the country should be governed.   
Does anyone think that will happen?

Brian Cloughley’s website is www.briancloughley.com

This is an expanded version of ‘The Fifth Afghan War’ that appeared in  
two newspapers in Pakistan, The Nation and The News, on June 25.