TIME – MIDDLE EAST BLOG 10/6/08 The Woe in Afghanistan

TIME – MIDDLE EAST BLOG

10/6/08

The Woe in Afghanistan

Is the war in Afghanistan becoming the woe in Afghanistan? Tuesday marks the seventh anniversary of the U.S. invasion of the country, and despite many successes, the trends are not looking good.

Scott Macleod

CNN's intrepid war correspondent, Nic Roberson, says that the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai has held talks with the Taliban. The Taliban, you'll recall, ruled the country and harbored al-Qaeda at the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The group is still run by Mullah Omar, son-in-law of Osama bin Laden. When President Bush was preparing the invasion that toppled Omar and directly led to Karzai's election as president, Bush condemned the Taliban regime, saying "it is not only repressing its own people, it is threatening people everywhere by sponsoring and sheltering and supplying terrorists. By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder." For good measure, Bush described life under the Taliban: "Women are not allowed to attend school. You can be jailed for owning a television. A man can be jailed in Afghanistan if his beard is not long enough."

If it has come to talking with the Taliban, the U.S.-led NATO effort to defeat the group and transform Afghanistan into an opium-free democracy is not going so well. The talks are being brokered by Saudi Arabian officials, which some of the neo-cons in the Bush administration loved to castigate, usually in anonymous comments, as little different in their fundamentalist policies than the Taliban themselves. A State Department spokesman indicated if it's OK with Karzai, it's OK with the U.S. The spokesman said that Taliban militants "coming out of the cold" should have a "place to go" provided they cut ties with al-Qaeda. That seems to be a curious distinction between the two groups that Bush resisted making when he called them partners in crime in 2001. Robertson reports that the Taliban is severing its ties with Bin Laden's outfit. That would be encouraging news, but we need more evidence for that.

Bringing in the Taliban in from the cold is hardly the only sign that things aren't going exactly as planned in Afghanistan.

British Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, who is handing over his command in Afghanistan, tells the London Times in today's edition that a military victory over the Taliban is "neither feasible nor supportable... What we need is sufficient troops to contain the insurgency to a level where it is not a strategic threat to the longevity of the elected Government."

Sherard Cowper-Coles, British Ambassador in Kabul, was even gloomier in his outlook as reported last week in a leaked diplomatic cable, according to the muckraking French publication Le Canard Enchaîné. Sir Sherard, a veteran UK diplomat who previously served as ambassador in sensitive spots like Israel and Saudi Arabia, reportedly said the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan "is destined to fail... The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption, and the government has lost all trust." According to the purported cable, Cowper-Coles felt the NATO troops were part of the problem, because they propped up an unpopular government and thus complicated a possible emergence from the crisis. In his reported view, the solution may well have to be an "acceptable dictator" in contrast with Bush's rosy vision of Afghan democracy. The British envoy, by the way, reportedly criticized both McCain and Obama for proposing more troops for Afghanistan, saying that "would identify us even more strongly as an occupation force." Reacting to the report, British officials publicly denied that the NATO mission is doomed to failure, or that the best solution is a dictatorship.

The New York Times today gives some credence to the British ambassador's purported concern about Afghan government corruption, publishing a report that suggests that the Afghan president's brother is a major Afghan drug dealer who is benefitting from Karzai's protection:

"The White House says it believes that Ahmed Wali Karzai is involved in drug trafficking, and American officials have repeatedly warned President Karzai that his brother is a political liability, two senior Bush administration officials said in interviews last week."

The Times story quotes the brother denying he is a drug dealer and claiming to be a victim of politics. Nonetheless, the Times goes on to say:

"United States officials fear that perceptions that the Afghan president might be protecting his brother are damaging his credibility and undermining efforts by the United States to buttress his government, which has been under siege from rivals and a Taliban insurgency fueled by drug money."

More dark news comes from the London Sunday Times, whose veteran foreign correspondent Christina Lamb published a devastating dispatch yesterday after a recent visit with British forces and diplomats in Afghanistan's Helmand region. With the Taliban in control just seven miles down the road, she wrote, diplomats at the major British base "mostly stay within the compound walls, producing power point presentations and meeting 152 six-month objectives." She continued, "A day spent in this Foreign Office fantasy land was reminiscent of a propaganda tour I was taken on by the Russians in the dying days of their occupation in the late 1980s."

Allow me to end where the war in Afghanistan started. Bin Laden Still Not Captured or Killed isn't a headline you can publish every day without seeming ridiculous, but it's OK once a year or so. Seven years and not one but two wars later, Bush hasn't managed to bring in the al-Qaeda villain "dead or alive" as he swore to do, and he'll probably hang up his badge three months from now with that mission unaccomplished, too.