[Peace-discuss] And back in Afghanistan…

[Morton K. Brussel]

Afghanistan Five Years Later

By Mike Whitney

Al-Jazeerah, February 3, 2006

Five years after toppling the fanatical Taliban, Hamid Karzai is  
expected to sign an agreement for economic assistance with more than  
60 donor countries. The Afghanistan Compact is just the latest of  
many plans to restore security to the war-torn nation and revive the  
fragile economy. It is a poignant reminder that the Bush  
administration’s promises to rebuild the country and establish  
democracy have never been realized.

Afghanistan has been a policy disaster from the get-go. The country  
is ravaged by war and unemployment, security beyond the capital of  
Kabul is virtually nonexistent, and malnutrition rates are higher  
among children anywhere other than sub-Saharan Africa. Now, Karzai,  
who has seen his funding from the US consistently slashed year after  
year, must take his begging bowl to the world community; asking for  
the crumbs they can spare to bandage his failed-state together.

Afghanistan excels in one thing alone; the production and export of  
opium, a booming business which now provides 90% of the world’s heroin.

Is this what Bush had in mind when he promised Americans to rebuild  
and democratize the battle-scarred country; a modern-day drug-colony,  
occupied by legions of indifferent volunteers who rarely venture  
beyond their US controlled compounds?

His promise of a Marshall Plan was similar to all of Bush’s promises;  
just more hot air hissssssing from a punctured tire.

After overthrowing the Taliban Bush made this commitment to the  
people of Afghanistan:

“We know that true peace will only be achieved when we give the  
Afghan people the means to achieve their own aspirations…We're  
working hard in Afghanistan. We're clearing minefields. We're  
rebuilding roads. We're improving medical care. And we will work to  
help Afghanistan to develop an economy that can feed its people  
without feeding the world's demand for drugs…By helping to build an  
Afghanistan that is free from this evil and is a better place in  
which to live, we are working in the best traditions of George  
Marshall. Marshall knew that our military victory against enemies in  
World War II had to be followed by a moral victory that resulted in  
better lives for individual human beings.”

“Marshall Plan?” “Building roads?” “Improving medical care?”  
“Developing the economy?”

Bush’s penchant for hyperbole has not been lost on the Afghani people.

“The new Afghan government promised us new schools, clinics, water  
pumps, but it has done nothing at all. People are so disappointed. At  
least the Taliban would grade the roads, build madras’s, while this  
government has done nothing,” said Nyamatullah, Zabul tribal leader.

“Nothing at all” is a fitting summary of the Afghanistan failure. The  
Bush administration had no intention of rebuilding or democratizing  
the country, rather the full thrust of the American effort has been  
to paper-over the obvious deficiencies of the policy with glowing  
media reports. The western media has done an impressive job in  
convincing the American people that progress is being made in  
Afghanistan when, in fact, the country continues to languish in  
destitution and chaos.

On a recent trip, Secretary Rumsfeld said that Afghanistan was “a  
model” of a growing democracy.

“A model”?

The majority of the new Afghan Parliament is comprised of warlords  
and ex-Taliban fighters reintegrated into the system by a  
reconciliation program endorsed by the United States. This has  
weakened the central government and ensured that the countryside has  
remained under the control of the regional warlords. American puppet,  
Karzai has no power beyond the capital and must be protected by 40 to  
50 U.S. paid bodyguards at all times.

Is this Rumsfeld's model of democracy?

Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice is equally disingenuous in her  
praise of Afghanistan’s strides towards democracy:

“The transformation of Afghanistan is remarkable but incomplete, and  
it is essential that we all increase our support for the Afghan people.”

There’s been no “transformation” of Afghanistan. As the New York  
Times reports, “Afghanistan does not have a viable economy. Its  
government is largely reliant on foreign aid (while) it struggles  
with an insurgency”…… “The country of 25 million people has some of  
the worst economic and health indicators in the world. 6 million  
people rely on food aid, 80% of the people are illiterate, and there  
is virtually no industry.”

In the last year the resurgent Taliban have increased their attacks,  
further destabilizing areas in the south and prompting President  
Karzai to publicly announce that he would provide amnesty for Taliban  
chieftain Mullah Omar.

Have him “get in touch” if he wants to talk peace, Karzai said.

Karzai’s remarks show us how far we have come from the swagger and  
bravado of George Bush who promised to capture Omar “dead or alive”?  
Now even the closest colleagues of Bin Laden are being granted  
amnesty in an effort to quell the violence.

What does that say about the administration’s claim that “We will  
never deal with terrorists”?

Afghanistan is Bush’s dystopia, a failed narco-state run by American  
puppets, Islamic fundamentalists and human rights abusers. The  
corporate media has done the American people a grave disservice by  
characterizing this drug-dependent settlement as a burgeoning  
democracy. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Karzai regime  
has no popular mandate and will vanish in the first hours after the  
American occupation ends.

And, it should end immediately.

Like Iraq, American troops have become the impetus for hostilities;  
the focus of blame for the country’s grim predicament. The recent  
incident of American servicemen burning the corpses of dead Taliban  
soldiers has only exacerbated the tensions that naturally exist  
between native Muslims and their Christian occupiers. The cultural  
divisions, and the violence they incite, are the inevitable upshot of  
the imperial project.

The invasion of Afghanistan was sold to the American people by a  
silver-tongued executive and a battery of public relations  
fraudsters. 5 years later we can see that all the hype about  
“democratic revolution” and “liberation” was just baseless twaddle.  
The country is a basket-case and “ranks among the half-dozen poorest  
countries in the world”…. “with the highest level of malnutrition in  
the world at 70%.” (Jim Lobe)

This is Bush’s definition of success; endless bloodshed surrounded by  
grinding poverty.

The Bush administration will never rebuild Afghanistan. In fact, they  
are ideologically opposed to “nation building” as a waste of revenue  
that can be siphoned off to multinational corporations. So, too, they  
are against any form of governance that does not conform to the  
economic diktats of the central banks and their satellites at the  
IMF, World Bank, and the Federal Reserve.

Afghanistan illustrates the shortcomings of a foreign policy that  
depends entirely on war to achieve its objectives. Neither peace nor  
security can be achieved under occupation. America needs to withdraw  
its troops so that sovereignty can be restored, order can be  
reestablished, and the long march towards economic recovery can begin.
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