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Failing in both Afghanistan and Pakistan
Failing in both Afghanistan and Pakistan - thestar.comThat was a revealing series of articles on Afghanistan by the Stars veteran foreign correspondent, Paul Watson. He let the facts do the talking, showing how Canadas ostensible military and civilian successes in southern Afghanistan have, in fact, been embarrassing failures the schools that dont provide education, the dam that cannot store or regulate sufficient water, the justice system that remains as broken as ever.
While its been known that NATO lost Afghanistan long ago, or at least that it could not win, Watson has exposed some of the bigger lies the Stephen Harper government has been telling Canadians.
Perhaps we shouldnt be too tough on Ottawa. The United States and others havent done much better, either.
After nearly 12 years and $400 billion, NATO has failed to provide basic security to ordinary Afghans in Taliban strongholds. It has also failed to create stable civil institutions, a functioning government in Kabul and a sustainable economy based not on opium and foreign handouts but the mineral wealth estimated at $1 trillion that the Chinese and others are eyeing.
Despite a $55 billion aid component that concentrated on uplifting women, hundreds of schools remain closed under Taliban intimidation. And women continue to suffer increased violence with little or no protection under the law. There have been 52 murders of women and girls in the last four months alone, 42 of them honour killings, including that of a woman publicly executed not far from Kabul for alleged adultery.
We see such accounts as proof of how bad the Taliban are, which they are. But we are also so conditioned by official and media propaganda that we fail to see the bigger scandal: all this horror is happening right under NATOs nose.
When the industrialized worlds military failed to beat the ragtag Taliban, NATO sued for peace. But even that process has been derailed by the Taliban (who want some of their brethren released from Guantanamo Bay); by President Hamid Karzai (who does not want to be bypassed); and by Pakistan (which also wants a say in the final outcome). It seems that every party but NATO is calling the shots.
The 2014 exit plan is also up in the air.
It is not known how many NATO troops will be left behind and for how long (to ensure the Taliban do not overrun Kabul).
It is not known who will pay the $11 billion a year for the proposed 350,000-strong Afghan army and police. Thats three times the national yearly budget. This expenditure is in addition to the $16 billion for four years pledged at a recent donors conference.
With so much uncertainty, the Taliban and other militias are jockeying for control of parcels of Afghanistan in the same way that Iraqi factions did before the departure of American troops. Some Afghan groups are being armed by the U.S., just as some Iraqi groups were. Civil war looms, as it did in Iraq.
If and when such war breaks out, the Afghan army may split along ethnic lines, aiding the very prospect it is designed to avoid.
Americans are equally at bay in neighbouring Pakistan, the exile home of the Taliban and affiliated insurgents.
Just as NATO alienated ordinary Afghans, especially by friendly fire deaths of civilians, the Americans have alienated Pakistanis with similar killings of both civilians and Pakistani troops in cross-border drone and other air attacks. One such incident, the inadvertent killing of 24 soldiers in November, led to Pakistan blockading NATO supplies for landlocked Afghanistan from the Arabian Sea port of Karachi.
Pakistan demanded an apology. Barack Obama refused, fearing that Republicans would label him apologizer-in-chief in this election year. Pakistan wanted compensation for the land corridor given for free since 2001. Congress balked.
In the last seven months, the U.S. spent $700 million extra to airlift supplies through Central Asia.
Finally, Washington conceded the obvious: Pakistan is central to the Afghan mission. Not just for supplies going in but also for all the heavy equipment coming out post-2014. Pakistan also holds the key to bringing parts of the Taliban network to the negotiating table.
So, at last, Hillary Clinton said sorry. The U.S. agreed to release $1.2 billion in frozen military aid, and to repair roads and bridges.
But the U.S. wont stop the drone attacks. Theres no telling when the next civilian deaths would occur and prompt the next cries of Down with America.
The U.S., and therefore NATO, continues to lurch from crisis to crisis. It lashes out at the Taliban and Pakistan, both of which deserve much blame. But the larger truth is that NATO, including Canada, has failed in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
