Tweet
Six Children Are Killed by NATO Airstrike in Afghanistan
New York Times By TAIMOOR SHAH and ROD NORDLAND November 24, 2011
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Six children were among seven civilians killed in a NATO airstrike in southern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said Thursday.
The deaths occurred on Wednesday in the Zhare district of Kandahar Province, an area described by coalition forces as largely pacified in recent months, and two insurgents were also killed, the Afghan officials said.
A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, Master Sgt. Christopher DeWitt, said the authorities were aware of the strike and had sent a team to the district to investigate. He said the assistance force had not previously issued a news release on the deaths.
Zalmai Ayoubi, a spokesman for the governor of Kandahar, said that a NATO reconnaissance aircraft spotted five militants planting mines in the village of Siacha, in the Zhare district, on Wednesday. The plane targeted the insurgents, killing two and wounding a third, and then pursued the other two suspects as they carried their wounded comrade away.
“The plane chased them, the insurgents entered a street where children were playing and, as a result of its shooting, seven people have been killed, including six children, and two girls also have been injured,” Mr. Ayoubi said. The victims were members of two families.
Abdul Samad, an uncle of four of the children who were killed, disputed the government’s version of the attack. He said his relatives were working in fields near their village when they were attacked without warning by an aircraft.
His brother-in-law, Mohammad Rahim, 50, had his two sons and three daughters with him. They were between 4 and 12 years old and all were killed, except an 8-year-old daughter who was badly wounded, Mr. Samad said.
“There were no Taliban in the field; this is a baseless allegation that the Taliban were planting mines,” Mr. Samad said. “I have been to the scene and haven’t found a single bit of evidence of bombs or any other weapons. The Americans did a serious crime against innocent children, they will never ever be forgiven.”
American soldiers have destroyed numerous dwellings in Zhare to deny insurgents hiding places, and they have also built new roads across farmland because existing ones were so heavily mined. Residents were quickly compensated by the military, however, and in recent months the area, one of several districts near the city of Kandahar that were once Taliban strongholds, has been relatively quiet.
The area is also known as the ancestral home of the Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar.
Taimoor Shah reported from Kandahar, and Rod Nordland from Kabul, Afghanistan.
U.S. commander readying request for more troops to advise Afghans
Marine Gen. John R. Allen wants 1,700 more military personnel to lead hundreds of new advisor teams to be assigned beginning next year to Afghan units battling the Taliban insurgency, officials say.
Los Angeles Times By David S. Cloud November 25, 2011
Washington - The U.S. commander in Afghanistan has prepared a request for more troops to serve as advisors for Afghan military units, a sign that Washington and its allies are trying to speed up the hand-over of combat operations to the Afghans as they prepare to withdraw, U.S. and NATO officials said.
The stronger emphasis on training may keep more U.S. troops on bases next year and help reduce U.S. military casualties before presidential elections next November. President Obama's Afghan policy is already an issue.
Marine Gen. John R. Allen, who took command in Afghanistan last summer, wants 1,700 more military personnel — mid-level officers and senior enlisted troops leading hundreds of new advisor teams to be assigned beginning next year to Afghan units battling the Taliban insurgency, the officials said.
It will take time to identify the right mix of troops, and Allen's request has yet to be submitted to the Pentagon. The move is part of a major retooling of Afghanistan strategy under discussion by Obama and his national security team, aimed at ensuring Afghan forces are ready to take on the militants by 2014, when the last U.S. combat units are scheduled to pull out.
Allen and other senior U.S. military officers generally support the idea of pushing the Afghan army into the lead sooner. Aides say it makes sense to test how well it performs while large numbers of U.S. troops still can come to Afghan soldiers' assistance if necessary.
Moreover, support for keeping combat troops in Afghanistan for three more years has withered in other North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries. This has added impetus to the White House drive to speed up the transition to Afghan forces.
In some ways, Obama is attempting to follow the model he set in Iraq, when he changed the U.S. military mission to emphasize training of Iraqi forces. In August 2010, he announced that the Iraqi military had lead responsibility for the nation's security. U.S. casualties in Iraq have plummeted, and the last U.S. combat troops are scheduled to be withdrawn next month.
"Our top priority right now is building" the Afghan army and police, said a senior U.S. general involved in the discussion. But "it's a perilous path we're on right now.... The Afghans can't carry the load by themselves."
Obama has ordered the withdrawal of 30,000 U.S. troops by September. That will leave about 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta hinted at the Obama administration's new thinking during a news conference last week with the Canadian defense minister in Halifax, Canada.
"We're trying to get the Afghan army, the Afghan police, to assume more of the responsibilities with regards to combat operations," he said. "That's going to depend a lot on Gen. Allen and working with ISAF to determine how best to make the transition from a combat role to an advise-and-assist role," he said, referring to NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
Administration officials said the White House planned to formalize the shift to a more advisory role at a NATO summit that Obama is playing host to in May in Chicago.
At last year's NATO summit in Lisbon, Obama and other NATO leaders agreed to begin handing control of areas with low insurgent activity to Afghan military units. Afghan troops have since assumed control in some parts of the country, and U.S. forces plan to turn over more areas next month.
But the NATO plan called for waiting until 2014 to give Afghan forces responsibility for all combat operations. White House aides and other governments with troops in Afghanistan are now increasingly worried about that timetable.
By waiting so long to give Afghan troops the lead in areas where the insurgency is strongest, the plan magnified doubts about whether Afghan soldiers could assume the combat burden once U.S. forces finally left.
"We want [Afghan forces] to be in the lead. It's part of the current plan and the whole intent is to morph over time," a senior NATO officer in Afghanistan said. "But we have to figure out what trainers and advisors will be required. They're doing the math now."
U.S. military officials have cautioned the White House not to expect too much of the Afghan units, many of which are beset with operational and personnel problems.
Even with hundreds of additional U.S. advisor teams, American infantry and special operations units will need to lead some of the fighting for the next three years, especially in eastern Afghanistan, where the insurgency remains strongest, the officers said.
Fighting in Afghanistan typically tapers off in winter, when conditions can make it difficult for insurgents as well as regular military units to move. If the transition to a role that emphasizes advising and training starts late next year, that would be after the U.S. and its allies have had another full season to try to further weaken the insurgents.
Although 1,700 advisors may not sound like a large deployment, Allen has emphasized that he wants combat-experienced troops who could handle being assigned to an Afghan unit as part of a small team, potentially far from other U.S. troops. That may not be easy.
It may take months for the Pentagon to identify enough experienced officers and senior sergeants and train them to serve as advisors. When U.S. commanders made a similar request to beef up Iraqi forces in 2004, the Pentagon resisted and sent support troops and officers who had never seen combat.
David Barno, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who led U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005, said delay in pushing Afghan troops into the lead would force U.S. units to do the heaviest fighting themselves.
"Organizing the remaining U.S. force more clearly toward the advise-and-assist mission is needed sooner, not later," said Barno, now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank.
U.S. and other NATO units normally plan and lead major combat operations, usually with a "partner" Afghan unit. Afghan soldiers are brought on patrols and special operations raids in hopes they will improve their fighting skills.
In many cases, however, no U.S. advisors are assigned to help the Afghans conduct independent operations.
Bonn Conference Will Be Missed Opportunity for Afghanistan, Abdullah Says
TOLOnews.com Thursday, 24 November 2011
The head of the National Coalition of Change and Hope, Dr Abdullah Abdullah, said on Thursday that the Bonn conference in Germany could have been a great opportunity for Afghanistan but it is more likely to be a talking shop for government officials without any significant outcomes.
Dr Abdullah's main criticism is that the conference agenda has been prepared without the input of opposition parties.
The conference is scheduled for December 5 and the Afghan government expects to be able to extract commitments from the international community to help Afghanistan beyond 2014.
"If the Afghan delegation represented the Afghan people or if the past activities of Afghan government were satisfactory, the conference could have been in Afghanistan's favour," Dr Abdullah told reporters in Kabul.
He pointed out that the Afghan government failed to fulfill its promises to the international community and the Afghan people.
"My concern is about the outcome of the conference, and whether it will have a positive impact and improve Afghanistan's situation," Dr Abdullah added.
The coalition also set out various points that it hoped the conference would address regarding elections, good governance and strengthening the rule of law, and its disappointment in the lack of oppositions parties inclusion in the Bonn conference. Some of the NCCH's key points are as follows:
• Members of the Independent Electoral Commission must have the trust of the nation and must be elected in consultation with the NCCH and other political groups; they must believe in democratic principles and in the transparency and constitutional process of the elections.
• The international community should guarantee the independence and impartiality of the Independent Electoral Commission, the Electoral Complaints Commission, and the non-interference of the government in their affairs.
• According to the Constitution, the government cannot keep indefinitely in acting positions members of the Supreme Court, ministers, and heads of independent organizations who have failed to receive the confirmation of the parliament.
• Support for national reconciliation must not undermine justice and the achievements of the last ten years, particularly the legitimate rights of women and other citizens.
• Consultation with the NCCH in drafting the agenda of the Conference should have been considered as an important principle.
Afghan opium production to expand after troops exit
Reuters By Christine Kearney November 25, 2011
KABUL - Afghanistan's former anti-drug czar has warned that opium poppy cultivation will dramatically increase as foreign combat troops head home, with farmers and insurgents taking advantage of a withdrawal set to be complete by the end of 2014.
Insecurity in poppy growing regions in Afghanistan -- the world's leading producer of opium -- and the expectation among insurgents and farmers that the country will be under the full control of Afghan forces within years is driving production, ex-counter-narcotics minister General Khodaidad said."With the coming exit strategy for 2014, the whole thing will be completely out of control. All the provinces will go more and more back to poppy," Khodaidad said at his Kabul house.
The country's poppy economy, which is estimated to provide insurgents with between $100 million and $400 million in funding each year, grew significantly in 2011, as soaring prices pushed farmers nationwide to expand production.Land under poppy cultivation climbed 7 per cent from 2010 and the crop returned to three provinces in the north and east that had been declared "poppy-free," according to a joint report by the U.N. drugs agency and Afghanistan's counter-narcotics ministry released in October.
The report said poppy growth had increased after a disease shrank the previous year's harvest and pushed up prices for the drug that is processed into heroin, but Khodaidad said the unidentified disease was only a small factor.
"It is mostly due to security problems, corrupt officials and bad leadership in Afghanistan," said Khodaidad, who spent four years as minister for counter-narcotics and three as deputy minister. Parliament did not approve his reappointment in the position when it voted on the cabinet in 2010.
He is now unemployed but said he travels to international conferences to discuss Afghanistan.
Afghan security forces were not strong enough nor did they have the motivation to reduce poppy once foreign troops had left and in turn farmers did not trust them, Khodaidad said.
"They cannot protect the farmers," he said, referring to pressure on farmers in some insurgent-dominated areas to produce the lucrative and fast-growing crop.
"When there is no security there is poppy. When there is no law and order there is poppy. When there is corruption there is poppy," Khodaidad said.
Violence is at its worst in Afghanistan since U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban from power in late 2001, the United Nations and other agencies say.
INSURGENTS IN CONTROL
The country's current drugs minister promised in October a bigger push to punish farmers who grow poppy crops, but Khodaidad said anti-drug laws were not being enforced.
Farmers are being told by insurgents in less secure areas that they will run the country within years, replacing the current administration, the ex-minister said.
"The Taliban is stronger than this present government and that directly affects poppy cultivation," he said. "The Taliban explains to the farmer that the foreign troops are leaving and if you grow poppy, I am still here."
Government officials earning kickbacks on the crop do not want to reduce poppy farming either, he said.
And lack of coordination between the Afghan government, western anti-drug agencies and neighboring countries was also contributing to the rise in production.
Russia's top anti-drug czar last week called U.S. efforts to eradicate poppy "unsatisfactory" and said joint Russian-American drug raids, which appeared to tail off this year, were struggling to get quick military approval.
Foreign troops fighting the decade-long war against a Taliban-led insurgency have largely abandoned eradicating poppy crops themselves because of the hostility it generates among poor Afghan farmers whose support they are trying to win.
There is still a large foreign-funded push to wean farmers off poppy, a hardy crop that needs relatively little water, by offering incentives to grow legal crops like subsidized wheat and fertilizer.
But Khodaidad said it was now too late to try such tactics and that western countries should prepare for more highly addictive heroin flowing into their countries.
"We lost 11 years for keeping promises to the farmers and to the provinces that 'We are supporting you.' A lot of money came into controlling drugs in Afghanistan but it didn't go in the right direction," he said.
In Afghan North, US-Backed Militias Spur Local Backlash
Voice of America Bethany Matta November 24, 2011
Kunduz, Afghanistan - In an effort to counter a growing insurgency in northern Afghanistan, two U.S.-backed programs in Kunduz have recruited local militias to oppose Taliban militants in the area. But while the militias are better at fighting the Taliban on the battlefield, their methods turn local populations against them."I’m a farmer and work daily as a laborer," said one man in Kunduz who left his village for 11 months to herd sheep and make money in nearby provinces. "My mom, my two brothers and even my sister are disabled and my dad passed away last year. It’s only me to support the whole family.”
The farmer, who does not want to use his name, returned to his village recently. But the U.S.-backed security forces that the local residents call Arbakai were suspicious of his long absence. He says the commander demanded he sell half his land to pay them off, but he refused.
“A few days ago he arrested me again," he said. "He brought me to his camp, tied my hands and tortured me. Then he released his dog on me. The dog attacked me and bit my knee. He pushed me to the wall, my whole face was bleeding. “
Similar stories have become more common in Kunduz and neighboring provinces, where two U.S.-funded programs - the ALP, or, Afghan Local Police and CIP, or, Critical Infrastructure Program - recruit local militias to provide security for districts with a shortage of police officers.
Recruiting armed local residents for security has advantages: they are more effective at weeding out insurgents because they are from the area; and so they know the land and the residents.
In exchange for keeping the Taliban out, the militias are trained by U.S. special forces for a few weeks. The milita members are also provided with weapons and a salary of $150 a month.
Nibikichi is a CIP commander who oversees some 220 fighters known as Arbakai in the Qala-i-zal district. Some accuse him of widespread abuses including torture, unlawful imprisonment and imposing illegal taxes. He denies the allegations.
“If someone is complaining about me, he has to come and prove my guilt in front of the elders," he said. "If I am guilty, then the elders can hang me. Otherwise, if they are lying, the government should ask them to do the same.”
The militias now outnumber Afghan National Police in most districts by five to one, in some places the ratio is said to be even higher.
But as their numbers have grown, so have the abuses that government officials, political analysts and human rights groups had warned against.
“Originally people were in favor of the policy; they were protecting the area from the Taliban, but in the last few years there is no Taliban activity in the village," said Mirza Ali Tanai, a tribal elder from Kanam Village. "Because the Arbakai have abused the people so much and the government is not doing anything about it, the people now people now support the Taliban. It’s a threat to the government.”
Hayatullah Amiri, head of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission in Kunduz, says six cases of torture and murder have been referred to his office this year. But the overlapping security forces in the region make it difficult to prosecute those responsible.
NATO forces in Afghanistan largely agree. A spokesman said that people often confuse the Afghan local police for Arbakai. Nevertheless, he says the local police program has improved security in Kunduz. When abuses are reported, Afghan national police are required to investigate.
But far from Kabul, villagers say the local militias hold all of the power. The Kunduz laborer, like many others interviewed in the area, said they are scared and cannot complain or they will be arrested and tortured all over again. They say they will leave the area if they have to, or join the Taliban and fight back.
For Afghan Street Kids, Abuse Lurks On Every Corner
RFE/RL By Frud Bezhan November 24, 2011
Thousands of children roam the dusty streets and grimy alleyways of Afghanistan, working to earn desperately needed money for their families.
The sight of shabbily-dressed children, sometimes as young as three years old, is a common one around the military bases and shopping areas where they ply their trades under the blazing sun of summer or the biting cold of winter.
Many sell merchandise -- chewing gum, magazines, or even International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) memorabilia. Others polish shoes, wash cars or dispense good luck from a can of burning herbs known as an "espand."
Poverty and insecurity is forcing an increasing number of Afghan children to work and beg on the streets. And with the rising number of street kids -- estimated at 50,000 in Kabul alone, according to the United Nations -- comes an increase in cases of child abuse.
Sexual Assaults
Mohammad Yousif heads the Afghan nongovernmental organization Aschiana, which provides services, support, and programs to underprivileged children. He says his organization has witnessed a significant rise in the number of working street children who have been sexually assaulted.
Yousif says national surveys and documented cases are rare in Afghanistan, where rape and sexual abuse is a cultural taboo. But he maintains that the visible increase is a major cause for concern.
"The families don't want to make a lot of the cases public, [or go] to the media," he says. "It is not easy to know how many cases happen, but there is sexual abuse ongoing for the children without protection, and without support from the family, and without the support of the government." Yousif says the number of street children has risen from 38,000 in 2003 to over 60,000 this year, and attributes the spike to mass influxes of refugees fleeing Iran and Pakistan, drought, and insecurity, which has forced many families to leave their homes.
And in many cases, Yousif says, the burden of supporting the family has fallen on children.
That was the case for one 12-year-old boy from Kandahar, who declined to give his name when speaking to RFE/RL.
As a result of his family's tough financial situation, he has been forced to quit school and work on the streets.
Like a growing number of street children in Afghanistan, he says he has been sexually assaulted.
The boy claims to have been stopped one day by two policemen along the side of a road. He says they accused of stealing 20,000 afghanis (approx. $415), bundled him into a police car, and whisked him away.
"But before we reached the district center, the driver took a turn and went on another road to where the police commander was," he says.
"He told me that I hadn't stolen any money and that I was brought there to be raped. They threw me into a room. I told them what they were doing was not what a Muslim would do."
The boy says he was repeatedly raped by the three men, after which they abandoned him by the side of the road bloodied and in tears.
Endemic Poverty
Children are among the biggest victims of Afghanistan's endemic poverty.Thirty years of continuous war means that many children do not have fathers, or have fathers who are unable to work because of horrific injuries suffered in combat.
Moreover, their mothers are not able to work due to cultural constraints preventing them from working outside the home.
In Amin's case, his father was killed during the civil war when he was only a few years old. Although he was taken in by his relatives, he maintains that he must work to survive.
"I can't go to school because I'm an orphan," he says. "My father was killed by the Taliban. I have to work every day so that I have something to eat."
According to UNICEF, more than 30 percent of schoolchildren are working on the streets in Afghanistan and are often their family's sole breadwinners. This means that more than 3 million children are not receiving an education.
More fortunate children, like Hasib, who is eight years old, attend school in the morning and work in the evenings.
"I wake up early in the morning and go to school," he says. "I spend half of the day at school and the second half I sell tea on the streets. We don't have money at home. The money that I earn, we use to buy food."
Limited Access To Education
The international community has spent billions of dollars over the past decade to rebuild the country and improve the lives of Afghans.But Nader Naderi, a commissioner at the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, says that this money has not benefited the country's children.
"Children haven't benefited from the development and improvements other Afghans have witnessed," he says. "Many children are still deprived of basic education and are killed because of the fighting. The future of Afghan children, therefore, is a mixed picture of both hope and fear."
Yousif, meanwhile, says the Afghan government and the international community must invest more in education -- a step he hopes will decrease the number of street kids.
"Children should have access to education and vocational training," he says. "When they have skills and an education, in the future, their lives will be secure. No one will be able to abuse these children."
RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan contributed to this report
CIA officers mark death of spy with rare request
By KIMBERLY DOZIER
WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA officers are asking people to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of the first American killed in the Afghan war by donating to help the children of their fellow fallen.
Since the death in 2001 of CIA officer Mike Spann, a total of 23 stars have been added to the wall at the CIA's Langley, Va., headquarters that honors CIA operatives lost. Many were killed in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The clandestine world rarely breaks its silence, especially when it comes to family, but the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation notes about 56 children of those killed in the line of duty will need educational support over the next 17 years.
Spann was part of a small group of CIA paramilitary officers who went into Afghanistan just 16 days after the al-Qaida attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Less than two months later, the CIA along with U.S. Special Forces Green Berets and a massive aerial bombing campaign helped Afghan militias drive out the ruling Taliban.
Spann was killed when hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners, guarded by just a handful of Afghans, tried to escape from a fortress jail in Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan.
Spann is survived by his wife, Shannon, a retired CIA officer, and three children.
U.S. Easing Out Of Nation-Building Business
NPR By Alan Greenblatt November 24, 2011
Nation-building has gone out of style.
The U.S. effort in Afghanistan has lasted a decade, and it's been nearly as long in Iraq. Now, there's little appetite in American political circles for large-scale attempts to build up the economies or political institutions of other countries.
Most U.S. troops will be pulled out of Iraq by the end of the year. And the Obama administration has been careful not to take on responsibility for rebuilding Libya after the NATO bombing campaign that helped drive Moammar Gadhafi from power.
Given the federal government's budget problems, skepticism about nation-building has become bipartisan. At Tuesday's GOP presidential debate on national security, several candidates expressed doubts about foreign assistance in general and nation-building in particular.
"We have spent $1.4 trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan," says Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "There's just not support for the U.S. to take the lead on anything huge anytime soon."
Exporting U.S. Values
The concept may have gone out of fashion, but that doesn't mean it will remain dormant forever. Nation-building has been a recurrent feature of American foreign policy throughout U.S. history, University of Texas historian Jeremi Suri writes in his new book Liberty's Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building From the Founders to Obama.
Nation-building is about more than trying to strengthen civic institutions or promote economic development in another country, Suri argues. It has to do with creating a sense of national identity and purpose that transcends divisions along racial, ethnic or sectarian lines.
The American view of nationhood has to do with a set of values — such as free markets and democracy, as opposed to the European notion that nations are defined by ethnicity and territory — what Germans call Blut und Boden, or blood and soil.
In that sense, the U.S. sometimes seeks to have its own experience mirrored in other places. And for that reason, nation-building is something built into America's political DNA, suggests Odd Arne Westad, a professor of international history at the London School of Economics.
"It has to do with values that are universal — that are not just feasible in the U.S.," Westad says. "That is one reason for the United States trying to get these things to rise in other countries."
Shining A Light
There has been a debate throughout American history over whether the U.S. should promote its values abroad through active engagement, including nation-building efforts, or tend more to domestic affairs so as to provide a bright example for other nations to follow. At Tuesday's GOP debate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum repeatedly invoked the latter idea, saying America should be a "shining city on the hill."
"We forget sometimes that we have a name brand in this world and I have seen it shine, living overseas," former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a former ambassador to China, said at the debate. "And when our light shines based on the values that we live up to and represent, it moves people, it moves countries, it moves events like nothing else can."
But nation-building has to do not only with the positive promotion of values overseas, Suri says, but also fear. When the U.S. has felt threatened by terrorism, communism and earlier challenges, it has turned to nation-building efforts as part of its strategic hardware.
"Nation-building is the core way of thinking for Americans when we're confronted by threats and areas [of the world] that are causing us harm," Suri says.
Perennial Part Of The Tool Kit
For that reason, the desire to engage in nation-building sometimes recedes, as it appears to be doing currently, but it never goes away entirely.
In the wake of the U.S. engagements in places like Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo, George W. Bush ran for president in 2000 on a platform that specifically disavowed nation-building. Yet the concept became central to his response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"Bush came in denying it and then embraced it, and it became a pillar of his foreign policy," says David Ekbladh, a Tufts University historian. "It's one thing that's always there in our tool kit, no matter how much we deny it."
Seeking New Partners
With defense and foreign aid spending under significant pressure, the U.S. may not take the lead anytime soon on a new, bilateral nation-building effort. European allies, who are also in financial straits, will not be eager to try rebuilding or reshaping other countries, either.
But the U.S. will continue its efforts to influence the economic and political courses of other countries. "We do nation-building but we don't call it that — we call it capacity building," says Zenko, the Council on Foreign Relations fellow.
George Washington warned against foreign entanglements, and many in Congress today seem to share that concern. President Obama's decision last month to send 100 troops to Uganda to help combat the Lord's Resistance Army, a guerrilla force, came in for heated questioning.
The U.S. may turn increasingly to international organizations, including the United Nations, the Organization of American States and the African Union, to take the lead on nation-building or capacity-building projects, Zenko suggests.
"The leading from behind, as much as people don't like it because it appears that America doesn't have sovereignty, is the future," Zenko says.
Always Makes A Comeback
Suri's book says that the idea of nation-building may encounter periods of retrenchment, but it always makes a comeback.
Analysts don't expect either Obama in his second term or any Republican who might be elected next year to actively seek opportunities to engage in nation-building.
But even leaders who don't like the idea have sometimes been driven by events to embrace it, says Alan Kuperman, a public affairs professor at the University of Texas.
The desire to stabilize a hostile country quickly gives rise to all sorts of issues regarding development and other issues.
"If you'd asked **** Cheney on Sept. 10, 2001, if he supported nation-building, he would have said, 'Are you on crack?'" Kuperman says. "But all of a sudden, he became a big nation-builder."
Afghan police trainees cost Dutch '500,000 euros each'
BBC News 24 November 2011
The cost to the Netherlands of training Afghan police this year is more than 500,000 euros (£430,000; $670,000) per officer, a Dutch newspaper reports.
De Volkskrant cited figures from the Dutch defence ministry and Afghan police showing a 2011 budget of 105m euros to train 189 police officers.
Similar sums have been allocated over the next three years to the training mission in Kunduz, north Afghanistan.
Costs include security for the 225 Dutch trainers deployed.
The Netherlands has made a commitment to training Afghan police officers since ending its official military peacekeeping role last year.
Nato trainers spend about $3.5bn on Afghan police training annually, according to a report to the UK's House of Lords earlier this year.
The police force, which currently numbers about 130,000, has been widely criticised for its inefficiency, suffering from poor discipline and morale, and basic handicaps such as illiteracy. 'True bill unknown'
In July, Dutch trainers began their mission in Kunduz, protected by a military contingent which includes four F-16 combat jets.
Afghan sources told De Volkskrant that police trainees had spent just 12 hours in the classroom but Dutch defence sources pointed out that trainers spent time on patrol with the recruits.
While the 2011 budget includes start-up costs, the 2012 and 2013 budgets are both set at 109m euros, and that for 2014 - 94m.
The Netherlands has a total of 545 personnel deployed in Afghanistan, most of them in Kunduz.
Speaking to De Volkskrant, Ko Colijn, director of the Netherlands Institute of International Relations (Clingendael), said the true bill for the training mission would not be known until the mission ended.
However, he suggested it was "no higher than that for other countries".
He pointed out that the mission was important to the Netherlands' reputation for upholding the rule of law internationally
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
New York Times By TAIMOOR SHAH and ROD NORDLAND November 24, 2011
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Six children were among seven civilians killed in a NATO airstrike in southern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said Thursday.
The deaths occurred on Wednesday in the Zhare district of Kandahar Province, an area described by coalition forces as largely pacified in recent months, and two insurgents were also killed, the Afghan officials said.
A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, Master Sgt. Christopher DeWitt, said the authorities were aware of the strike and had sent a team to the district to investigate. He said the assistance force had not previously issued a news release on the deaths.
Zalmai Ayoubi, a spokesman for the governor of Kandahar, said that a NATO reconnaissance aircraft spotted five militants planting mines in the village of Siacha, in the Zhare district, on Wednesday. The plane targeted the insurgents, killing two and wounding a third, and then pursued the other two suspects as they carried their wounded comrade away.
“The plane chased them, the insurgents entered a street where children were playing and, as a result of its shooting, seven people have been killed, including six children, and two girls also have been injured,” Mr. Ayoubi said. The victims were members of two families.
Abdul Samad, an uncle of four of the children who were killed, disputed the government’s version of the attack. He said his relatives were working in fields near their village when they were attacked without warning by an aircraft.
His brother-in-law, Mohammad Rahim, 50, had his two sons and three daughters with him. They were between 4 and 12 years old and all were killed, except an 8-year-old daughter who was badly wounded, Mr. Samad said.
“There were no Taliban in the field; this is a baseless allegation that the Taliban were planting mines,” Mr. Samad said. “I have been to the scene and haven’t found a single bit of evidence of bombs or any other weapons. The Americans did a serious crime against innocent children, they will never ever be forgiven.”
American soldiers have destroyed numerous dwellings in Zhare to deny insurgents hiding places, and they have also built new roads across farmland because existing ones were so heavily mined. Residents were quickly compensated by the military, however, and in recent months the area, one of several districts near the city of Kandahar that were once Taliban strongholds, has been relatively quiet.
The area is also known as the ancestral home of the Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar.
Taimoor Shah reported from Kandahar, and Rod Nordland from Kabul, Afghanistan.
U.S. commander readying request for more troops to advise Afghans
Marine Gen. John R. Allen wants 1,700 more military personnel to lead hundreds of new advisor teams to be assigned beginning next year to Afghan units battling the Taliban insurgency, officials say.
Los Angeles Times By David S. Cloud November 25, 2011
Washington - The U.S. commander in Afghanistan has prepared a request for more troops to serve as advisors for Afghan military units, a sign that Washington and its allies are trying to speed up the hand-over of combat operations to the Afghans as they prepare to withdraw, U.S. and NATO officials said.
The stronger emphasis on training may keep more U.S. troops on bases next year and help reduce U.S. military casualties before presidential elections next November. President Obama's Afghan policy is already an issue.
Marine Gen. John R. Allen, who took command in Afghanistan last summer, wants 1,700 more military personnel — mid-level officers and senior enlisted troops leading hundreds of new advisor teams to be assigned beginning next year to Afghan units battling the Taliban insurgency, the officials said.
It will take time to identify the right mix of troops, and Allen's request has yet to be submitted to the Pentagon. The move is part of a major retooling of Afghanistan strategy under discussion by Obama and his national security team, aimed at ensuring Afghan forces are ready to take on the militants by 2014, when the last U.S. combat units are scheduled to pull out.
Allen and other senior U.S. military officers generally support the idea of pushing the Afghan army into the lead sooner. Aides say it makes sense to test how well it performs while large numbers of U.S. troops still can come to Afghan soldiers' assistance if necessary.
Moreover, support for keeping combat troops in Afghanistan for three more years has withered in other North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries. This has added impetus to the White House drive to speed up the transition to Afghan forces.
In some ways, Obama is attempting to follow the model he set in Iraq, when he changed the U.S. military mission to emphasize training of Iraqi forces. In August 2010, he announced that the Iraqi military had lead responsibility for the nation's security. U.S. casualties in Iraq have plummeted, and the last U.S. combat troops are scheduled to be withdrawn next month.
"Our top priority right now is building" the Afghan army and police, said a senior U.S. general involved in the discussion. But "it's a perilous path we're on right now.... The Afghans can't carry the load by themselves."
Obama has ordered the withdrawal of 30,000 U.S. troops by September. That will leave about 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta hinted at the Obama administration's new thinking during a news conference last week with the Canadian defense minister in Halifax, Canada.
"We're trying to get the Afghan army, the Afghan police, to assume more of the responsibilities with regards to combat operations," he said. "That's going to depend a lot on Gen. Allen and working with ISAF to determine how best to make the transition from a combat role to an advise-and-assist role," he said, referring to NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
Administration officials said the White House planned to formalize the shift to a more advisory role at a NATO summit that Obama is playing host to in May in Chicago.
At last year's NATO summit in Lisbon, Obama and other NATO leaders agreed to begin handing control of areas with low insurgent activity to Afghan military units. Afghan troops have since assumed control in some parts of the country, and U.S. forces plan to turn over more areas next month.
But the NATO plan called for waiting until 2014 to give Afghan forces responsibility for all combat operations. White House aides and other governments with troops in Afghanistan are now increasingly worried about that timetable.
By waiting so long to give Afghan troops the lead in areas where the insurgency is strongest, the plan magnified doubts about whether Afghan soldiers could assume the combat burden once U.S. forces finally left.
"We want [Afghan forces] to be in the lead. It's part of the current plan and the whole intent is to morph over time," a senior NATO officer in Afghanistan said. "But we have to figure out what trainers and advisors will be required. They're doing the math now."
U.S. military officials have cautioned the White House not to expect too much of the Afghan units, many of which are beset with operational and personnel problems.
Even with hundreds of additional U.S. advisor teams, American infantry and special operations units will need to lead some of the fighting for the next three years, especially in eastern Afghanistan, where the insurgency remains strongest, the officers said.
Fighting in Afghanistan typically tapers off in winter, when conditions can make it difficult for insurgents as well as regular military units to move. If the transition to a role that emphasizes advising and training starts late next year, that would be after the U.S. and its allies have had another full season to try to further weaken the insurgents.
Although 1,700 advisors may not sound like a large deployment, Allen has emphasized that he wants combat-experienced troops who could handle being assigned to an Afghan unit as part of a small team, potentially far from other U.S. troops. That may not be easy.
It may take months for the Pentagon to identify enough experienced officers and senior sergeants and train them to serve as advisors. When U.S. commanders made a similar request to beef up Iraqi forces in 2004, the Pentagon resisted and sent support troops and officers who had never seen combat.
David Barno, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who led U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005, said delay in pushing Afghan troops into the lead would force U.S. units to do the heaviest fighting themselves.
"Organizing the remaining U.S. force more clearly toward the advise-and-assist mission is needed sooner, not later," said Barno, now a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank.
U.S. and other NATO units normally plan and lead major combat operations, usually with a "partner" Afghan unit. Afghan soldiers are brought on patrols and special operations raids in hopes they will improve their fighting skills.
In many cases, however, no U.S. advisors are assigned to help the Afghans conduct independent operations.
Bonn Conference Will Be Missed Opportunity for Afghanistan, Abdullah Says
TOLOnews.com Thursday, 24 November 2011
The head of the National Coalition of Change and Hope, Dr Abdullah Abdullah, said on Thursday that the Bonn conference in Germany could have been a great opportunity for Afghanistan but it is more likely to be a talking shop for government officials without any significant outcomes.
Dr Abdullah's main criticism is that the conference agenda has been prepared without the input of opposition parties.
The conference is scheduled for December 5 and the Afghan government expects to be able to extract commitments from the international community to help Afghanistan beyond 2014.
"If the Afghan delegation represented the Afghan people or if the past activities of Afghan government were satisfactory, the conference could have been in Afghanistan's favour," Dr Abdullah told reporters in Kabul.
He pointed out that the Afghan government failed to fulfill its promises to the international community and the Afghan people.
"My concern is about the outcome of the conference, and whether it will have a positive impact and improve Afghanistan's situation," Dr Abdullah added.
The coalition also set out various points that it hoped the conference would address regarding elections, good governance and strengthening the rule of law, and its disappointment in the lack of oppositions parties inclusion in the Bonn conference. Some of the NCCH's key points are as follows:
• Members of the Independent Electoral Commission must have the trust of the nation and must be elected in consultation with the NCCH and other political groups; they must believe in democratic principles and in the transparency and constitutional process of the elections.
• The international community should guarantee the independence and impartiality of the Independent Electoral Commission, the Electoral Complaints Commission, and the non-interference of the government in their affairs.
• According to the Constitution, the government cannot keep indefinitely in acting positions members of the Supreme Court, ministers, and heads of independent organizations who have failed to receive the confirmation of the parliament.
• Support for national reconciliation must not undermine justice and the achievements of the last ten years, particularly the legitimate rights of women and other citizens.
• Consultation with the NCCH in drafting the agenda of the Conference should have been considered as an important principle.
Afghan opium production to expand after troops exit
Reuters By Christine Kearney November 25, 2011
KABUL - Afghanistan's former anti-drug czar has warned that opium poppy cultivation will dramatically increase as foreign combat troops head home, with farmers and insurgents taking advantage of a withdrawal set to be complete by the end of 2014.
Insecurity in poppy growing regions in Afghanistan -- the world's leading producer of opium -- and the expectation among insurgents and farmers that the country will be under the full control of Afghan forces within years is driving production, ex-counter-narcotics minister General Khodaidad said."With the coming exit strategy for 2014, the whole thing will be completely out of control. All the provinces will go more and more back to poppy," Khodaidad said at his Kabul house.
The country's poppy economy, which is estimated to provide insurgents with between $100 million and $400 million in funding each year, grew significantly in 2011, as soaring prices pushed farmers nationwide to expand production.Land under poppy cultivation climbed 7 per cent from 2010 and the crop returned to three provinces in the north and east that had been declared "poppy-free," according to a joint report by the U.N. drugs agency and Afghanistan's counter-narcotics ministry released in October.
The report said poppy growth had increased after a disease shrank the previous year's harvest and pushed up prices for the drug that is processed into heroin, but Khodaidad said the unidentified disease was only a small factor.
"It is mostly due to security problems, corrupt officials and bad leadership in Afghanistan," said Khodaidad, who spent four years as minister for counter-narcotics and three as deputy minister. Parliament did not approve his reappointment in the position when it voted on the cabinet in 2010.
He is now unemployed but said he travels to international conferences to discuss Afghanistan.
Afghan security forces were not strong enough nor did they have the motivation to reduce poppy once foreign troops had left and in turn farmers did not trust them, Khodaidad said.
"They cannot protect the farmers," he said, referring to pressure on farmers in some insurgent-dominated areas to produce the lucrative and fast-growing crop.
"When there is no security there is poppy. When there is no law and order there is poppy. When there is corruption there is poppy," Khodaidad said.
Violence is at its worst in Afghanistan since U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban from power in late 2001, the United Nations and other agencies say.
INSURGENTS IN CONTROL
The country's current drugs minister promised in October a bigger push to punish farmers who grow poppy crops, but Khodaidad said anti-drug laws were not being enforced.
Farmers are being told by insurgents in less secure areas that they will run the country within years, replacing the current administration, the ex-minister said.
"The Taliban is stronger than this present government and that directly affects poppy cultivation," he said. "The Taliban explains to the farmer that the foreign troops are leaving and if you grow poppy, I am still here."
Government officials earning kickbacks on the crop do not want to reduce poppy farming either, he said.
And lack of coordination between the Afghan government, western anti-drug agencies and neighboring countries was also contributing to the rise in production.
Russia's top anti-drug czar last week called U.S. efforts to eradicate poppy "unsatisfactory" and said joint Russian-American drug raids, which appeared to tail off this year, were struggling to get quick military approval.
Foreign troops fighting the decade-long war against a Taliban-led insurgency have largely abandoned eradicating poppy crops themselves because of the hostility it generates among poor Afghan farmers whose support they are trying to win.
There is still a large foreign-funded push to wean farmers off poppy, a hardy crop that needs relatively little water, by offering incentives to grow legal crops like subsidized wheat and fertilizer.
But Khodaidad said it was now too late to try such tactics and that western countries should prepare for more highly addictive heroin flowing into their countries.
"We lost 11 years for keeping promises to the farmers and to the provinces that 'We are supporting you.' A lot of money came into controlling drugs in Afghanistan but it didn't go in the right direction," he said.
In Afghan North, US-Backed Militias Spur Local Backlash
Voice of America Bethany Matta November 24, 2011
Kunduz, Afghanistan - In an effort to counter a growing insurgency in northern Afghanistan, two U.S.-backed programs in Kunduz have recruited local militias to oppose Taliban militants in the area. But while the militias are better at fighting the Taliban on the battlefield, their methods turn local populations against them."I’m a farmer and work daily as a laborer," said one man in Kunduz who left his village for 11 months to herd sheep and make money in nearby provinces. "My mom, my two brothers and even my sister are disabled and my dad passed away last year. It’s only me to support the whole family.”
The farmer, who does not want to use his name, returned to his village recently. But the U.S.-backed security forces that the local residents call Arbakai were suspicious of his long absence. He says the commander demanded he sell half his land to pay them off, but he refused.
“A few days ago he arrested me again," he said. "He brought me to his camp, tied my hands and tortured me. Then he released his dog on me. The dog attacked me and bit my knee. He pushed me to the wall, my whole face was bleeding. “
Similar stories have become more common in Kunduz and neighboring provinces, where two U.S.-funded programs - the ALP, or, Afghan Local Police and CIP, or, Critical Infrastructure Program - recruit local militias to provide security for districts with a shortage of police officers.
Recruiting armed local residents for security has advantages: they are more effective at weeding out insurgents because they are from the area; and so they know the land and the residents.
In exchange for keeping the Taliban out, the militias are trained by U.S. special forces for a few weeks. The milita members are also provided with weapons and a salary of $150 a month.
Nibikichi is a CIP commander who oversees some 220 fighters known as Arbakai in the Qala-i-zal district. Some accuse him of widespread abuses including torture, unlawful imprisonment and imposing illegal taxes. He denies the allegations.
“If someone is complaining about me, he has to come and prove my guilt in front of the elders," he said. "If I am guilty, then the elders can hang me. Otherwise, if they are lying, the government should ask them to do the same.”
The militias now outnumber Afghan National Police in most districts by five to one, in some places the ratio is said to be even higher.
But as their numbers have grown, so have the abuses that government officials, political analysts and human rights groups had warned against.
“Originally people were in favor of the policy; they were protecting the area from the Taliban, but in the last few years there is no Taliban activity in the village," said Mirza Ali Tanai, a tribal elder from Kanam Village. "Because the Arbakai have abused the people so much and the government is not doing anything about it, the people now people now support the Taliban. It’s a threat to the government.”
Hayatullah Amiri, head of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission in Kunduz, says six cases of torture and murder have been referred to his office this year. But the overlapping security forces in the region make it difficult to prosecute those responsible.
NATO forces in Afghanistan largely agree. A spokesman said that people often confuse the Afghan local police for Arbakai. Nevertheless, he says the local police program has improved security in Kunduz. When abuses are reported, Afghan national police are required to investigate.
But far from Kabul, villagers say the local militias hold all of the power. The Kunduz laborer, like many others interviewed in the area, said they are scared and cannot complain or they will be arrested and tortured all over again. They say they will leave the area if they have to, or join the Taliban and fight back.
For Afghan Street Kids, Abuse Lurks On Every Corner
RFE/RL By Frud Bezhan November 24, 2011
Thousands of children roam the dusty streets and grimy alleyways of Afghanistan, working to earn desperately needed money for their families.
The sight of shabbily-dressed children, sometimes as young as three years old, is a common one around the military bases and shopping areas where they ply their trades under the blazing sun of summer or the biting cold of winter.
Many sell merchandise -- chewing gum, magazines, or even International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) memorabilia. Others polish shoes, wash cars or dispense good luck from a can of burning herbs known as an "espand."
Poverty and insecurity is forcing an increasing number of Afghan children to work and beg on the streets. And with the rising number of street kids -- estimated at 50,000 in Kabul alone, according to the United Nations -- comes an increase in cases of child abuse.
Sexual Assaults
Mohammad Yousif heads the Afghan nongovernmental organization Aschiana, which provides services, support, and programs to underprivileged children. He says his organization has witnessed a significant rise in the number of working street children who have been sexually assaulted.
Yousif says national surveys and documented cases are rare in Afghanistan, where rape and sexual abuse is a cultural taboo. But he maintains that the visible increase is a major cause for concern.
"The families don't want to make a lot of the cases public, [or go] to the media," he says. "It is not easy to know how many cases happen, but there is sexual abuse ongoing for the children without protection, and without support from the family, and without the support of the government." Yousif says the number of street children has risen from 38,000 in 2003 to over 60,000 this year, and attributes the spike to mass influxes of refugees fleeing Iran and Pakistan, drought, and insecurity, which has forced many families to leave their homes.
And in many cases, Yousif says, the burden of supporting the family has fallen on children.
That was the case for one 12-year-old boy from Kandahar, who declined to give his name when speaking to RFE/RL.
As a result of his family's tough financial situation, he has been forced to quit school and work on the streets.
Like a growing number of street children in Afghanistan, he says he has been sexually assaulted.
The boy claims to have been stopped one day by two policemen along the side of a road. He says they accused of stealing 20,000 afghanis (approx. $415), bundled him into a police car, and whisked him away.
"But before we reached the district center, the driver took a turn and went on another road to where the police commander was," he says.
"He told me that I hadn't stolen any money and that I was brought there to be raped. They threw me into a room. I told them what they were doing was not what a Muslim would do."
The boy says he was repeatedly raped by the three men, after which they abandoned him by the side of the road bloodied and in tears.
Endemic Poverty
Children are among the biggest victims of Afghanistan's endemic poverty.Thirty years of continuous war means that many children do not have fathers, or have fathers who are unable to work because of horrific injuries suffered in combat.
Moreover, their mothers are not able to work due to cultural constraints preventing them from working outside the home.
In Amin's case, his father was killed during the civil war when he was only a few years old. Although he was taken in by his relatives, he maintains that he must work to survive.
"I can't go to school because I'm an orphan," he says. "My father was killed by the Taliban. I have to work every day so that I have something to eat."
According to UNICEF, more than 30 percent of schoolchildren are working on the streets in Afghanistan and are often their family's sole breadwinners. This means that more than 3 million children are not receiving an education.
More fortunate children, like Hasib, who is eight years old, attend school in the morning and work in the evenings.
"I wake up early in the morning and go to school," he says. "I spend half of the day at school and the second half I sell tea on the streets. We don't have money at home. The money that I earn, we use to buy food."
Limited Access To Education
The international community has spent billions of dollars over the past decade to rebuild the country and improve the lives of Afghans.But Nader Naderi, a commissioner at the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, says that this money has not benefited the country's children.
"Children haven't benefited from the development and improvements other Afghans have witnessed," he says. "Many children are still deprived of basic education and are killed because of the fighting. The future of Afghan children, therefore, is a mixed picture of both hope and fear."
Yousif, meanwhile, says the Afghan government and the international community must invest more in education -- a step he hopes will decrease the number of street kids.
"Children should have access to education and vocational training," he says. "When they have skills and an education, in the future, their lives will be secure. No one will be able to abuse these children."
RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan contributed to this report
CIA officers mark death of spy with rare request
By KIMBERLY DOZIER
WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA officers are asking people to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of the first American killed in the Afghan war by donating to help the children of their fellow fallen.
Since the death in 2001 of CIA officer Mike Spann, a total of 23 stars have been added to the wall at the CIA's Langley, Va., headquarters that honors CIA operatives lost. Many were killed in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The clandestine world rarely breaks its silence, especially when it comes to family, but the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation notes about 56 children of those killed in the line of duty will need educational support over the next 17 years.
Spann was part of a small group of CIA paramilitary officers who went into Afghanistan just 16 days after the al-Qaida attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Less than two months later, the CIA along with U.S. Special Forces Green Berets and a massive aerial bombing campaign helped Afghan militias drive out the ruling Taliban.
Spann was killed when hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners, guarded by just a handful of Afghans, tried to escape from a fortress jail in Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan.
Spann is survived by his wife, Shannon, a retired CIA officer, and three children.
U.S. Easing Out Of Nation-Building Business
NPR By Alan Greenblatt November 24, 2011
Nation-building has gone out of style.
The U.S. effort in Afghanistan has lasted a decade, and it's been nearly as long in Iraq. Now, there's little appetite in American political circles for large-scale attempts to build up the economies or political institutions of other countries.
Most U.S. troops will be pulled out of Iraq by the end of the year. And the Obama administration has been careful not to take on responsibility for rebuilding Libya after the NATO bombing campaign that helped drive Moammar Gadhafi from power.
Given the federal government's budget problems, skepticism about nation-building has become bipartisan. At Tuesday's GOP presidential debate on national security, several candidates expressed doubts about foreign assistance in general and nation-building in particular.
"We have spent $1.4 trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan," says Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "There's just not support for the U.S. to take the lead on anything huge anytime soon."
Exporting U.S. Values
The concept may have gone out of fashion, but that doesn't mean it will remain dormant forever. Nation-building has been a recurrent feature of American foreign policy throughout U.S. history, University of Texas historian Jeremi Suri writes in his new book Liberty's Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building From the Founders to Obama.
Nation-building is about more than trying to strengthen civic institutions or promote economic development in another country, Suri argues. It has to do with creating a sense of national identity and purpose that transcends divisions along racial, ethnic or sectarian lines.
The American view of nationhood has to do with a set of values — such as free markets and democracy, as opposed to the European notion that nations are defined by ethnicity and territory — what Germans call Blut und Boden, or blood and soil.
In that sense, the U.S. sometimes seeks to have its own experience mirrored in other places. And for that reason, nation-building is something built into America's political DNA, suggests Odd Arne Westad, a professor of international history at the London School of Economics.
"It has to do with values that are universal — that are not just feasible in the U.S.," Westad says. "That is one reason for the United States trying to get these things to rise in other countries."
Shining A Light
There has been a debate throughout American history over whether the U.S. should promote its values abroad through active engagement, including nation-building efforts, or tend more to domestic affairs so as to provide a bright example for other nations to follow. At Tuesday's GOP debate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum repeatedly invoked the latter idea, saying America should be a "shining city on the hill."
"We forget sometimes that we have a name brand in this world and I have seen it shine, living overseas," former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, a former ambassador to China, said at the debate. "And when our light shines based on the values that we live up to and represent, it moves people, it moves countries, it moves events like nothing else can."
But nation-building has to do not only with the positive promotion of values overseas, Suri says, but also fear. When the U.S. has felt threatened by terrorism, communism and earlier challenges, it has turned to nation-building efforts as part of its strategic hardware.
"Nation-building is the core way of thinking for Americans when we're confronted by threats and areas [of the world] that are causing us harm," Suri says.
Perennial Part Of The Tool Kit
For that reason, the desire to engage in nation-building sometimes recedes, as it appears to be doing currently, but it never goes away entirely.
In the wake of the U.S. engagements in places like Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo, George W. Bush ran for president in 2000 on a platform that specifically disavowed nation-building. Yet the concept became central to his response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"Bush came in denying it and then embraced it, and it became a pillar of his foreign policy," says David Ekbladh, a Tufts University historian. "It's one thing that's always there in our tool kit, no matter how much we deny it."
Seeking New Partners
With defense and foreign aid spending under significant pressure, the U.S. may not take the lead anytime soon on a new, bilateral nation-building effort. European allies, who are also in financial straits, will not be eager to try rebuilding or reshaping other countries, either.
But the U.S. will continue its efforts to influence the economic and political courses of other countries. "We do nation-building but we don't call it that — we call it capacity building," says Zenko, the Council on Foreign Relations fellow.
George Washington warned against foreign entanglements, and many in Congress today seem to share that concern. President Obama's decision last month to send 100 troops to Uganda to help combat the Lord's Resistance Army, a guerrilla force, came in for heated questioning.
The U.S. may turn increasingly to international organizations, including the United Nations, the Organization of American States and the African Union, to take the lead on nation-building or capacity-building projects, Zenko suggests.
"The leading from behind, as much as people don't like it because it appears that America doesn't have sovereignty, is the future," Zenko says.
Always Makes A Comeback
Suri's book says that the idea of nation-building may encounter periods of retrenchment, but it always makes a comeback.
Analysts don't expect either Obama in his second term or any Republican who might be elected next year to actively seek opportunities to engage in nation-building.
But even leaders who don't like the idea have sometimes been driven by events to embrace it, says Alan Kuperman, a public affairs professor at the University of Texas.
The desire to stabilize a hostile country quickly gives rise to all sorts of issues regarding development and other issues.
"If you'd asked **** Cheney on Sept. 10, 2001, if he supported nation-building, he would have said, 'Are you on crack?'" Kuperman says. "But all of a sudden, he became a big nation-builder."
Afghan police trainees cost Dutch '500,000 euros each'
BBC News 24 November 2011
The cost to the Netherlands of training Afghan police this year is more than 500,000 euros (£430,000; $670,000) per officer, a Dutch newspaper reports.
De Volkskrant cited figures from the Dutch defence ministry and Afghan police showing a 2011 budget of 105m euros to train 189 police officers.
Similar sums have been allocated over the next three years to the training mission in Kunduz, north Afghanistan.
Costs include security for the 225 Dutch trainers deployed.
The Netherlands has made a commitment to training Afghan police officers since ending its official military peacekeeping role last year.
Nato trainers spend about $3.5bn on Afghan police training annually, according to a report to the UK's House of Lords earlier this year.
The police force, which currently numbers about 130,000, has been widely criticised for its inefficiency, suffering from poor discipline and morale, and basic handicaps such as illiteracy. 'True bill unknown'
In July, Dutch trainers began their mission in Kunduz, protected by a military contingent which includes four F-16 combat jets.
Afghan sources told De Volkskrant that police trainees had spent just 12 hours in the classroom but Dutch defence sources pointed out that trainers spent time on patrol with the recruits.
While the 2011 budget includes start-up costs, the 2012 and 2013 budgets are both set at 109m euros, and that for 2014 - 94m.
The Netherlands has a total of 545 personnel deployed in Afghanistan, most of them in Kunduz.
Speaking to De Volkskrant, Ko Colijn, director of the Netherlands Institute of International Relations (Clingendael), said the true bill for the training mission would not be known until the mission ended.
However, he suggested it was "no higher than that for other countries".
He pointed out that the mission was important to the Netherlands' reputation for upholding the rule of law internationally
www.afghanistannewscenter.com