[Peace-discuss] letters needed - US is the problem in Afghanistan

[Ricky Baldwin]

[Hey folks, this amazing article actually ran in
yesterday's News-Gazette - with a big photo.  I think
they deserve our appreciation for running it and our
comments re: this is why we must pull out now!  -RB]



September 8, 2003, Monday

For Afghans, the enemy isn't Taliban but U.S.-backed
warlords

By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan

Along a potholed road in eastern Afghanistan, Mohammed
Jan points through a cloud of dust at a line of
mansions that seem out of place in such
poverty-stricken surroundings.

"This is where the new, beautiful houses begin. They
belong to the commanders. Their money is from drugs,
from smuggling. They will never be caught. Their
soldiers are working with the Americans," says Jan,
himself a small-time opium grower. 

Nearly two years after the collapse of Taliban rule,
ordinary Afghans like Jan say they are losing faith in
the United States and its coalition partners.

They point to rampant corruption, President Hamid
Karzai's weak leadership and the behavior of
U.S-backed warlords whose private armies operate with
impunity throughout most of Afghanistan.

Their disillusionment is strengthening Taliban
holdouts whose attacks are getting bolder. Nowadays
the rebels don't fear being turned over to the
authorities; they say most villages give them food and
shelter.

"The big mistake is from the Americans. They want to
bring peace to Afghanistan with thieves and killers.
The Americans after two years have learned nothing,"
said Abdul Raouf, a car dealer in the eastern city of
Jalalabad. "Every day the situation is worse."

The American invasion of Afghanistan relied heavily on
local anti-Taliban forces, and it was inevitable that
these warlords, however unsavory, would continue to be
important forces in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and
the al-Qaida network that masterminded the Sept. 11
attacks.

But Afghans increasingly wonder whether the trade-off
was worth it.

"Everybody says warlords, but who are these warlords?
They are commanders, they are government ministers,"
said Raouf. "We didn't like the Taliban but there was
security then, there were laws. But now anyone with a
gun is the law."

Back at the mansions, in the province of Nangarhar, a
white marble watchtower peeks over the 10-foot-high
brick wall.

"Drug smuggler," Jan says. "That's a commander of
Hazrat Ali's. Are the Americans crazy? We Afghans know
who these people are and what they are doing. There is
no security, no development, but these people's
pockets are fat with money. We know that without the
Americans they would be nobody."

Hazrat Ali is military chief of Afghanistan's eastern
zone, a powerful man appointed by Karzai but aligned
with Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim.

The United States says it is committed to
strengthening the central government and is putting
more than $1 billion into extending Karzai's control
beyond Kabul, the capital to the whole Texas-sized
country.

U.S. officials insist that Jan's lament doesn't
reflect the full picture. They say some areas are more
secure, some less; some Afghans are optimistic, others
not. They point to the reconstruction projects that
are beginning, the road that links the capital to
Kandahar.

Reconstruction, the argument goes, is bound to be
slower in the east and south of Afghanistan, where
Taliban and al-Qaida fighters are being hunted.
Sometimes, Western diplomats say, solutions entail
messy compromises; when Karzai decided that the
governor of Kandahar, Afghanistan's second city, was
corrupt and ineffective, he removed him but made him a
government minister.

The opium industry, harshly suppressed by the Taliban,
has made a roaring comeback.

The United Nations says production in 2002 generated
up to $1.2 billion or almost a fifth of Afghan GDP.
Central Asian states and Russia are complaining
bitterly about the increase in Afghan drugs flowing
north.

Those benefiting most are the commanders aligned to
the government and working with the U.S.-led
coalition, say Afghans in eastern Jalalabad who spoke
to The Associated Press.

Commander Mustafa, a soldier of Zahir's and a partner
with the U.S.-led coalition, denies the allegation. In
an interview at his base near the border with
Pakistan, surrounded by a dozen men with kalashnikov
rifles, he said his men would seize and destroy any
drugs they found.

A U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity,
said the drug trade couldn't possibly flourish without
the patronage of government officials and military
commanders.

Human Rights Watch recently issued a 101-page report
warning that "Afghan warlords and political strongmen
supported by the United States and other nations are
engendering a climate of fear in Afghanistan." It
named a string of men in senior government positions.

This climate of fear, the advocacy group said,
jeopardizes efforts to adopt a new constitution and
hold national elections in mid-2004.

A disarmament campaign was to have begun July 1, but
the United Nations delayed it, demanding the Defense
Ministry first be reformed to reflect Afghanistan's
ethnic diversity. The United Nations wants sweeping
changes to take power away from Defense Minister
Fahim's private army.

Nearly two years since taking power, Karzai's limited
reach is allowing the corruption to flourish.

Several months ago, Karzai banned logging in eastern
Afghanistan, but it still flourishes in areas where
his appointees govern.

The rock-strewn road from Kunar in eastern Afghanistan
to neighboring Nangarhar province is bumper-to-bumper
with timber-laden 16-wheelers.

In Kabul, Afghan businessmen who have come back from
the United States to invest in their homeland are
disillusioned.

Abdullah Aziz, who returned to Afghanistan from
California where he has lived since 1978, said he went
to northern Kunduz province to retrieve his property.

He said he brought a letter from Karzai to the
governor. "He took the piece of paper and he said
'Karzai - he is no one here."'

Aziz is still trying to get his property.

###

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