SIX YEARS AND LITTLE PROGRESS IN AFGHANISTAN

October 17, 2007

By Nick Gier, Professor Emeritus, University of Idaho (ngier@uidaho.edu)

Update on December 14, 2007: journalists on NPR's "The Diane Ream Show" reported that the Taliban and other militants now control more and more territory.  NATO forces are always able to take back towns, but they have no capacity to hold what they've taken.

The situation in Afghanistan, six years after the U.S.-lead invasion, is not looking very bright.  Instead of helping one weak government get back on its feet, the Bush administration is now responsible for two failed states that are now breeding grounds for Islamic militants, and in Afghanistan, the source of 93 percent of the world's heroin.

Fatalities for NATO troops have gone from 68 for 2002, the first full year of the war, to 192 already this year. Total American dead is 449 with 1,492 wounded.  The number of violent incidents per month has risen from 425 in 2006 to 550 in 2007.

According to Johnathan Steele of The Guardian, as many as 50,000 civilians may have died in this war, more and more being killed by NATO forces, particularly by air strikes. Some of the 5 million Afghanis who gratefully returned to their homes after the defeat of the Taliban are now leaving again.

Afghan farmers have just harvested the largest ever opium crop, from which the Taliban and drug lords have profited handsomely.  The opium trade accounts for a full one third of the Afghan economy. With this income the Taliban are able to bribe the local police and pay their soldiers twice as much as Afghan army recruits receive.

Just as cocaine eradication programs in South America have backfired, Afghan peasants, with no support for substitute crops, are drawn back to the profitable poppy and back to the Taliban.  The U. S. wants to use aerial chemical spraying, but European and Afghan leaders believe that this will further alienate the population.

British forces in Helmand Province, where most of the poppy fields are located, have been directed to destroy the crops, but resistance from local leaders, some of them opium traders themselves, has forced the British to essentially give up the task. Afghanistan is on the verge of becoming an ungovernable narcostate.

In addition to hit and run attacks, the Taliban have learned to employ another terribly effective weapon: the suicide bomber.  In 2002 there were only two such attacks, but in 2006 there were 123 and by October, 2007, the number of attacks were at 110.

Reconstruction money that should have gone to Afghanistan went to Iraq, where, because of mismanagement by Republican cronies, most of it was lost in projects that were not completed because of corruption and incompetence.  Afghanistan has received less U. S. reconstruction aid than any other recent nation building effort.  Each Afghani has received an average of $67 in aid compared, for example, to $249 per capita in Bosnia.

We had good reason to invade Afghanistan, because we knew that Osama bin Laden planned the 9/11 attacks, and we knew that he and his followers had sought refuge with the Taliban. Because of these facts we had strong international backing for this military operation and NATO is leading the effort there today.

Instead of finishing the mission with a focused effort to apprehend bin Laden, the U. S. pulled out troops and equipment to invade Iraq.  Furthermore, there was never an effort to pacify and secure the south where the Taliban had its base of support. An article in U. S. Today states that NATO forces are "walking up to a situation where they might fail because the U. S. didn't invest enough troops and money to create stability and a non-opium economy" (10/5/06).

Attacks near the border with Pakistan have tripled because the Taliban and Al Qaeda members have enjoyed safe haven in the lawless province of Waziristan, which now has the nickname Jihadistan.  The militants have also found friends in Pakistan's southwest region and the border town Chaman has become a major jihadi headquarters.

NATO forces have been successful in killing hundreds of Taliban fighters, but the survivors hide their weapons to fight another day along with eager new recruits.  In August, 2007, the Taliban reclaimed large areas of southern Afghanistan that NATO had cleared of insurgents last fall.  Poorly trained police, many also compromised by the drug trade, were not able to protect their towns.  Afghan police are being killed in greater numbers--379 in 2007-- than 257 the year before.

NATO commanders now realize that they have to follow the clearing of a village with improvement in security and living conditions or the militants will simply come back again.  This constructive policy may have come too late, just as it has in Iraq.

Nick Gier taught philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years.  Read or listen to his other columns at www.NickGier.com.