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Panetta: US Winning War in Afghanistan
VOA News December 14, 2011
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday that the U.S.-led coalition is winning the war in Afghanistan as foreign troops continue to transfer security of the country to Afghan forces ahead of a 2014 deadline.
Panetta told U.S. troops stationed in the eastern Afghan province of Paktika that they face significant challenges in the “very tough conflict.” But he promised to establish a safe, self-governing country where the Taliban and al-Qaida cannot find refuge.
The defense secretary is on a two-day visit to Afghanistan to check on the progress of U.S.-led counterinsurgency efforts, which he says reached a “turning point” this year after a decade of fighting the Taliban.
Panetta is expected to meet later Wednesday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Secretary Panetta has been meeting with U.S. military commanders and Afghan officials to discuss the ongoing transfer of security to Afghan forces.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced earlier this year that 33,000 American troops would withdraw from the country by next October. All international combat troops are set to leave the country by 2014.
The second stage of security transition officially started last month, with Afghan forces set to take charge of six provinces, seven provincial capitals and more than 40 districts. The first stage of the transition began earlier this year.
The transition process has been complicated by worsening U.S. relations with Pakistan, after a NATO air strike last month killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the country's border with Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials have closed two supply lines into Afghanistan and forced U.S. troops out of a Pakistani airbase following the incident.
The top allied commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, said Tuesday he was making efforts at resolving the issue during his recent talks with Pakistani officials.
Panetta again said on Tuesday that the U.S. believes healthy U.S.-Pakistan relations are vital for ending the conflict in Afghanistan.
In the latest violence, Afghan officials say a local government official was killed after his vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the restive southern province of Helmand.
U.S. officials reported in October that the number of Taliban attacks in Afghanistan decreased for the first time in five years. However, the United Nations said earlier this year the number of civilians killed went up by 15 percent in the first half of 2011, with nearly 1,500 deaths due mostly to insurgent attacks.
Kabul Aid at Risk in Hospital Probe
Wall Street Journal By MARIA ABI-HABIB DECEMBER 14, 2011
KABUL - A U.S. congressman said funding for the Afghan government could be withheld if a congressional investigation finds no changes at Afghanistan's main military hospital following allegations of corruption and deadly neglect there.
Incidents of Afghan service members dying of neglect and starvation, and of being denied medication, at the American-funded Dawood National Military Hospital were first reported by The Wall Street Journal in September.
If the hospital hasn't reformed sufficiently, American funding could be cut, says Rep. Mike Coffman (R., Colo.), who requested the investigation.
The congressional inquiry, as well as investigating alleged Afghan corruption, will also look into whether U.S. military officers involved in oversight at the hospital have done enough to stop the abuses there.
"I strongly believe that this incident is not just an example of Afghan corruption but also of a failure of U.S. military leadership," Rep. Coffman said in an interview. "I'm worried that the incident will be covered up in that no U.S. military personnel will be held accountable for their lax oversight. By not holding anyone accountable we are encouraging the same pattern of corruption to occur again and again."
Rep. Coffman visited Kabul last month as part of the investigation into the hospital. He was unable to visit the facility because U.S. officials in Kabul cited security concerns, he says.
The hospital is under the command of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Training Mission-Afghanistan, which supervises the training and funding of Afghan security forces and provides U.S. mentors. A spokesman for the command said he couldn't comment on an ongoing congressional investigation.
The Pentagon continues "to produce documents on a rolling basis" about problems at the hospital, according to an aide to Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
The hospital's former Surgeon General, Gen. Ahmed Zia Yaftali, was accused by U.S. military officials of pilfering up to $153 million worth of U.S.-funded pharmaceuticals and failing to ensure that Afghan soldiers and police received basic medical care. Gen. Yaftali has maintained his innocence.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a decree replacing Gen. Yaftali last December, but he continues to collect a salary, mostly paid for with U.S. money, and hasn't been charged.
U.S. military officials alleged that the hospital's staff was selling U.S.-bought pharmaceuticals in Kabul's bazaars and replacing them with counterfeits. In dozens of surgeries, patients would be operated on without medication or sedatives, according to U.S. mentors.
Several other Afghan veterans died of starvation-related medical complications, including one who had been awarded a medal by the then NTM-A commander, Lt. Gen. William Caldwell.
The U.S.-led military coalition plans to withdraw most combat troops by 2014, and establishing a viable Afghan government to take over security responsibilities is crucial to facilitating the pullout.
Rep. Issa sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in October, informing him of the investigation and asking for documentation relating to the hospital.
The "inability of all parties to purge corruption from the Afghan government is a detriment to U.S. efforts," Mr. Issa wrote. "The ability of the Afghan people to place trust in their institutions—and by extension, the U.S. government—is the cornerstone of the counterinsurgency strategy."
Iran ready to help Afghan military: minister
TEHRAN, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said his country is ready to offer assistance to Afghanistan in its efforts to establish a more sophisticated military force, the local satellite Press TV reported on Wednesday.
Vahidi made the remarks in a meeting with visiting Afghan Deputy Defense Minister Mohammad Homayoun Fawzi in Tehran on Tuesday. It was the first meeting of Iran-Afghanistan joint defense cooperation commission.
Vahidi said the commission should assume an effective role in expanding mutual defense ties and reinforce the capabilities of Afghan defense forces, according to the report.
The West does not want Afghanistan to become a developed country, but the Afghan nation will not allow the U.S. forces to undermine their national sovereignty, Vahidi was quoted as saying.
Fawzi, for his part, pointed to the numerous common interests of the two nations and voiced Kabul's willingness to bolster mutual ties.
Iran's Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said Tuesday that the Islamic republic is against any treaty that would enable the U.S. forces to remain in Afghanistan.
Referring to the existence of foreign military as the cause of instability in the region, Salehi said Iran believes in the competence of Afghan forces in providing security for their own country.
Vahidi said in June that the U.S. military bases in Afghanistan were against its national integrity and the progress of the regional states.
US May Freeze $700 million in Aid to Pakistan
VOA News December 14, 2011
The U.S. Congress is expected later this week to pass a measure that would freeze up to $700 million in aid to Pakistan because of fears that Islamabad is not doing enough to combat the spread of homemade bombs.
U.S. lawmakers are concerned that militants in Afghanistan are using fertilizer produced in Pakistan to develop improvised explosive devices – one of the militants' most effective weapons against U.S.-led forces there.
State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said Tuesday that the proposed suspension would not automatically cut the funding, but will make it dependent on making progress with Pakistan on the issue of homemade bombs.
“We have not cut 700 million [U.S. dollars] in aid to Pakistan. What we have is something on the defense authorization bill, which is currently moving in the Congress, which would require the Department of Defense to continue providing a strategy on how we will use certain military systems and measure its progress, in particular, on progress that we are making on the IED issue.”
The aid suspension is part of a larger defense spending bill that U.S. lawmakers are expected to pass later this week.
Several Pakistani officials criticized the move on Tuesday, saying it would only lead to worse relations with Washington.
U.S.-Pakistani ties have suffered since a secret U.S. strike killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in early May.
Relations reached a new low following a NATO airstrike in November that killed 24 Pakistani troops along the border with Afghanistan.
In response to the airstrike, Islamabad ordered the United States to vacate a Pakistan airbase and has indefinitely closed the two main overland routes NATO uses to send supplies to Afghanistan.
But the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, said Tuesday that he achieved progress during talks with Pakistan on rebuilding cross-border security cooperation after the incident.
“I do have a sense of progress, and, in fact, I have had a conversation with [Pakistani] General [Ashfaq Pervez] Kayani. The intent of the conversation, the outcome of the conversation, was that we stated our mutual commitment to address any shortfalls that might have caused this event, but also to ensure that we work closely together, because the border is always going to be there.”
Allen said he spoke on the phone Monday with Pakistan's army chief Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.
Many in the U.S. have become increasingly frustrated with what they see as Islamabad's lack of cooperation in fighting Pakistani-based militant groups who attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Earlier this year, the U.S. suspended $800 million of the $2.7 billion in annual military aid it gives to Pakistan.
For U.S. Troops, Fighting Starts At Afghan Border
NPR By Quil Lawrence December 13, 2011
The mountains along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan would be cruel enough without the war raging on below — cliffs drop from 8,000-foot peaks that are spotted with only a few trees among the rocks.
But Afghanistan's eastern border has become the focus of the conflict as militants plot their attacks inside Pakistan, then slip across the rugged frontier to carry them out.
In Afghanistan's southeast Paktika province, Forward Operating Base Tillman looks across toward Pakistan over craggy peaks that American troops have nicknamed "Big Ugly" and "Big Nasty."
The base is named after Pat Tillman, who left a professional football career to join the U.S. Army. He was killed by friendly fire in 2004, farther north along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
At a recent ceremony, some of the soldiers pinned on the Combat Infantry Badge, a decoration that goes only to those who have seen the fighting up close. Lt. Christian Garrels grinned and then winced as his comrades shook his hand and punched the new badge on his chest — a tradition that leaves bruises.
It's a fair bet that all the soldiers at the base will be wearing the badge soon. FOB Tillman is perched along one of the main routes insurgents use to cross back and forth from Pakistan, Garrels says.
"Our company's mission is to interdict insurgent activity and also interdict insurgent movement," he says.
Blocking Militant Movement
Recent incidents along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border have put in sharp relief the importance of that fault line. Only a year ago, the focus of the war in Afghanistan was the Taliban heartland in the south of the country. Now, the battle line is drawn along both sides of the border, in more ways than one.
While American officials say they are winning every confrontation with the enemy, insurgents still pull off attention-grabbing attacks in major cities. Almost all of these attacks are planned in Pakistan and rely on an underground railroad through a few key provinces.
Taliban fighters, and their allies in the Pakistan-based Haqqani militant network, wind through the mountains on foot or mule or motorcycle, sometimes taking two days to reach towns inside Afghanistan, where they have safe houses. FOB Tillman is causing them some frustration, if the number of rockets and mortars that come crashing in is any indication.
Capt. Brad Vance, the commanding officer on FOB Tillman, says it's not always clear where the rockets are coming from.
"The border has always been a point of contention because it's disputed. What the Afghans think about the border may not necessarily be what the Pakistanis think about the border. So, when indirect fire hits Tillman, it's very hard to tell which country it came from, who launched it," he says.
How the soldiers respond depends on where they think the rockets came from, says Vance. About once a month they consult with two Pakistani army officers stationed at the U.S. base in an effort to prevent incidents such as the one last month when U.S. helicopters apparently killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Road Still Far From Closed
The insurgents that make it past the border then have a relatively fast road to Kabul, and control of that route has become a major military objective. It passes north to Logar province, on the doorstep of the capital.
The governor of Logar, Atiq Lodin, met recently with Americans officials at a district center, where a small U.S. base sits adjacent to several municipal buildings.
Fighters come here from Pakistan, Lodin said, though he added that Afghan and American forces drove them out during the summer's fighting season.
But on Dec. 2, just days after the meeting, a truck packed with 14 tons of explosives rolled into the district center and exploded, demolishing several of the buildings and wounding scores, including one American.
NATO officials say they have captured members of the Haqqani group responsible for the attack. But it's clear that the route from Pakistan to Kabul is far from shut, according to Mawlawi Pir Rohani, a member of the High Peace Council from the border province of Khost.
All over Afghanistan, if a Taliban fighter knocks on a door and asks for shelter he will be taken in — either out of fear, or sympathy or anger at American forces occupying Afghanistan, says Rohani.
A week ago, a suicide bomber killed more than 80 people at a religious ceremony in Kabul, and investigations so far suggest he traveled the same route from Pakistan.
No decision on speeding up Afghan troop withdrawal in 2013
Meeting of National Security Council holds back from endorsing plans for swifter drawdown next year
Guardian.co.uk By Patrick Wintour Tuesday 13 December 2011
A special meeting of the government's National Security Council (NSC) has reaffirmed plans for all UK combat troops to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, but held back from endorsing plans for an additional withdrawal next year beyond the 500 troops already announced by David Cameron. The NSC also examined options for a swifter drawdown in 2013, but no decision was made.
The stocktaking session lasted two hours and focused on the chances of hastening a reconciliation between the Taliban and the Karzai government.
There had been options on the table to speed up troop withdrawals in 2013 on the basis that it might in turn expedite the process of reconciliation, as well as force the Afghan army to take further control of security in the country. Cost savings would also be made.
The extended meeting heard from three independent experts: Michael Semple, a Harvard professor and expert on Pashtun Afghans; Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow in foreign policy from the Saban Centre at the Brookings Institution; and Anatole Lieven, the chair of international relations and terrorism studies at King's College London.
Riedel chaired an interagency review of policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan for the White House that was completed in March 2009. Semple has long been an advocate of talking to the Taliban.
The prime minister's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Mark Sedwill, also addressed the meeting.
The presence of independent experts may have been designed to provide the NSC with a counterweight to the sometimes-Panglossian assessment by British military chiefs that victory is imminent.
There has been a widespread view inside government for more than two years that Nato military forces are unlikely to prevail – but, equally, that the Taliban cannot assassinate their way to victory.
Under proposals discussed at the meeting, the number of UK troops in Helmand province would be cut from 9,000 to 5,000 in 2013, and almost the same number would withdraw the following year – leaving a few hundred in Kabul when Nato ends its combat role in 2014.
But plans to speed up the pullout would be in defiance of Nato commanders leading the International Security and Assistance Force in Kabul. They have advised a more cautious approach, and are urging all Nato countries – most importantly the US – to delay any further troop withdrawals to the end of 2013 so Nato forces can contribute to another full "fighting season". The troop freeze is deemed important to keep the coalition from fracturing.
The possibility that US president, Barack Obama, might decide to speed up his own troop withdrawal plans next year was also discussed at the meeting, but the consensus is that, in an election year, Obama is unlikely to go against the advice of his military chiefs, who favour the current troop drawdown timetable.
Cameron's spokesman said no decisions on accelerating troop withdrawals were made, adding that the UK combat role will end in 2014.
Sedwill has predicted that in 2020 "Afghanistan will not be a safe haven for al-Qaida and whatever remains of the insurgency should no longer pose a mortal threat to the Afghan state. The lives of most Afghans will still be dominated by poverty rather than insecurity, illiteracy will still be high, and children will still be at risk from respiratory and diarrhoeal diseases which are responsible for the highest infant mortality rate in the world. But economic growth should be lifting more Afghans out of subsistence poverty."
Failed suicide attack targets Afghan airport
AFP 13/12/2011
A suicide attacker blew himself up in western Afghanistan on Tuesday after police stopped him from gaining access to an airport, a provincial governor said.
The suicide bomber was killed but there were no other casualties from the failed attack at the airport in Qala-i-Naw, the provincial capital of Badghis, Dilbar Jan Arman said.
"At around 11am (0630 GMT) a suicide bomber on foot tried to enter Qala-i-Naw airport, but was stopped by police," he said.
"He detonated his explosives. Nobody was killed or wounded in the incident."
Qala-i-Naw was one of the areas that Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced last month would be handed from NATO to Afghan security control as part of a phased exit of Western combat troops from the country by late 2014.
There is a contingent of Spanish troops stationed at the airport, which is also used for some domestic commercial flights.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. The Taliban were not reachable for comment.
The Afghan government is fighting a bloody war against a decade-long, Taliban-led insurgency with the help of around 140,000 international troops.
Known Afghan Taliban commander killed in Kandahar
KABUL, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- A known Afghan Taliban commander, namely Arab, was killed in a joint Afghan and NATO-led Coalition forces operation in country's Kandahar province on Tuesday, the provincial government said on Wednesday.
"Based in accurate intelligence reports, a joint unit of Afghan and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) forces carried out an operation on Tuesday afternoon in Zhari district to capture a known Taliban commander namely Arab," the local government said in a press release Wednesday morning.
A gunfight broke out as troops arrived in a compound in Pashmol area of the district, resultantly Arab and three of his men were killed in the province with Kandahar city as its capital, some 450 km south of capital city of Kabul, the release reads.
Arab was responsible for organizing attacks on security forces in Zhari district and surrounding areas besides terrorizing local people in the area, it added.
The Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant since the militant group announced it would launch a rebel offensive starting from May 1 against Afghan and NATO-led troops in Afghanistan.
The killing of the Taliban commander in Kandahar province, the birthplace of Taliban, is another setback for the Taliban as over 380 fighters of the outfit have been killed and nearly 500 detained by ISAF and Afghan army troops since beginning of November this year.
Currently around 130,000 NATO troops with majority of them Americans have been stationed in Afghanistan.
10 Taliban surrender to gov't in W. Afghanistan
HERAT, Afghanistan, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- A total of 10 Taliban militants gave up fighting and joined the government on Wednesday in Afghanistan's Herat province with Herat city as its capital, 640 km west of capital city of Kabul, said an authority.
"Ten armed Taliban including their commander namely Mullah Gul Ahmad laid down their weapons and joined government in Adraskan district of Herat province Wednesday morning," said a press release issued by provincial department of Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) here.
The former militants also handed over their weapons to NDS or intelligence agency officials and the efforts are underway to convince more militants lay down arms and join the government- initiated peace process, the release said.
The rebel Taliban, who launched in May this year a rebel offensive against Afghan and NATO forces, has not made comments yet.
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Politics won't determine Afghan drawdown: U.S. general
Reuters By Missy Ryan December 13, 2011
KABUL - The United States will make decisions about when and how fast to withdraw troops from Afghanistan based on military strategy rather than political mandates, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces there said on Tuesday.
The United States and its NATO allies are gradually drawing forces out of Afghanistan, and handing over security responsibilities to Afghan forces, as they seek to curtail their involvement in a long, costly war.
The United States plans to pull out 33,000 troops - that President Barack Obama deployed to Afghanistan in 2009-2010 - by next fall, and the White House has asked the Pentagon to look into further reductions.
But just how many soldiers will go home following the removal of Obama's "surge" troops is still unclear. U.S. Marine General John Allen rejected the suggestion of tensions between Washington and military commanders in Kabul on the question of how far and how fast reductions in the U.S. military footprint in Afghanistan should be.
"There is zero daylight between the commander of Afghanistan and the commander of chief on the strategy associated with this campaign," he told reporters accompanying Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on an unannounced visit to Kabul.
A Wall Street Journal article had suggested that Allen, who took command of forces in Afghanistan five months ago, was seeking to delay any further reductions until the end of 2013.
That position might put him at odds with the White House. Obama has promised to responsibly end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the U.S. military mission winds down this month.
His commitment to rolling back "the tide of war" that has placed great strain on U.S. finances and its military has been clear as he turns to the struggling U.S. economy ahead of 2012 polls. There has been widespread speculation that Obama will push ahead with a steady or perhaps even accelerated drawdown.
The Wall Street Journal said Allen's position was in keeping with an internal assessment from NATO leadership in Afghanistan that suggested cutting U.S. troop levels below 68,000 next fall could endanger supply lines and make it harder to protect bases.
"From my perspective there is no number; the president has not given us a number," Allen said. "What the president has given us is the opportunity to have a strategy-based discussion on the evolving environment in Afghanistan."
He rejected the idea that political pressures related to Obama's re-election bid might affect decisions on the drawdown.
"The evolving strategy will be the mechanism by which the troop drawdown will ultimately occur and so I just don't have that sense that there is a conversation under way that will accelerate this," he said.
AFGHANS IN THE LEAD
Despite ongoing violence and gloomy prospects for a hoped-for peace agreement between the Taliban and Afghan government, Western countries plan to remove most combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, when Afghan soldiers are due to be formally in charge of security across the country.
But the United States is expected to have some sort of troop footprint in Afghanistan after that date, likely focused on targeted operations against militants in the region.
Allen said officials were discussing the NATO strategy for the coming years and suggested foreign troops would increasingly focus on advising Afghan forces that now number over 300,000.
"(The Afghan force) is moving to the fore," Allen said.
They are better trained and better equipped than for most of the last decade, but there are questions about how well they will be able to battle the Taliban on their own - and how long the West will be willing to underwrite their operations.
Afghanistan is not expected to be able to pay for its own police and soldiers for years to come.
Many U.S. officials also believe that even the best-laid plans in Afghanistan may be undermined with a change of course from neighboring Pakistan.
The situation along the Afghan border has grown even more tense following an incident late last month in which two dozen Pakistani soldiers were killed by NATO aircraft, infuriating Pakistan and prompting it to shut down supply lines key for NATO operations in Afghanistan. Details of the incident remain murky.
Allen said he spoke with General Ashfaq Kayani, the head of the Pakistani military, by phone on Monday.
"The outcome of the conversation was that we stated our mutual commitment to address any shortfalls that might have caused this event, but also to ensure that we work closely together because the border is always going to be there." He said the supply routes were not discussed.
Plan Afghanistan Can Work
Colombia's former president says that the U.S. counterterrorism model from Latin America can work in Central Asia -- but only if the civil sector gets involved.
Foreign Policy BY ALVARO URIBE VÉLEZ DECEMBER 13, 2011
In a recent piece in Foreign Policy, Paul Wolfowitz and Michael O'Hanlon advocate the "Colombia model" as a potential long-term strategy for Afghanistan. They note similarities between the ongoing security challenges in Afghanistan and those that Colombia dealt with over the past few decades. Like Afghanistan today, Colombia faced a multi-decade terrorist threat fueled by radical ideologies, drug profits, hostile neighbors, forbidding terrain, and a weak central government. Colombia, they argue, was able to beat back the threat though "a combination of brave actions by the Colombian military, some $7 billion in U.S. assistance, a relatively small number of U.S. military advisors and, particularly, the strong leadership of President Alvaro Uribe from 2002 to 2010."
There is much to recommend in the argument. Comparisons between countries as different as Colombia and Afghanistan are necessarily imperfect, but ongoing events have only strengthened the parallels between the two situations. The mission in Afghanistan suffers from the same pessimism and waning confidence that afflicted Colombia's counterterrorism efforts. By the late 1990s, many in the international community concluded that the Colombian government was incapable of ever dealing with narco-terrorism and several international agencies even assessed that Colombia was on the brink of becoming a failed state.
The current reconciliation talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban seem to be heading in the same direction as the peace process that the Colombian government initiated with FARC insurgents from 1999-2002. So long as the Colombian government proved incapable of securing key population centers and addressing terrorist sanctuaries, neither the FARC nor its far-right counterparts were willing to negotiate in good faith or agree to a ceasefire. The same is likely to be the case with the Taliban, Haqqani network, and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan.
Wolfowitz and O'Hanlon rightly credit improvements in traditional security capabilities, military and civilian assistance from the United States, and effective presidential leadership for Colombia's turnaround. But these factors alone could not have achieved the degree of progress the country witnessed. By 2010, for example, kidnappings were down 90 percent, the homicide rate fell by half, and tens of thousands of fighters were disarmed and demobilized, with some of the deadliest kingpins extradited to U.S. prisons.
A less recognized but equally important reason for Colombia's success is the role of the country's private sector and civil society. In some cases, the Colombian government was able to work in tandem with the private sector to undercut extremism. Together, we initiated a variety of public-private partnerships to address development needs, promote corporate social responsibility, and facilitate fraternal relations between labor and employers. In other cases, private activists undertook initiatives entirely independent of the government. A salient example is the work of Oscar Morales Guevara -- an unemployed engineer who started a Facebook group in 2008 called No More FARC. Four hundred thousand members joined online, who in turn rallied 12 million people to take to the streets in 20 cities around the world. It remains the largest anti-terrorism demonstration in history.
The mobilization of the country's private sector and civil society reflected a broader sea change that occurred in Colombian public opinion. Reformist sentiments allowed my administration to implement governance reforms and aggressive social justice policies that may have been politically unpalatable during my predecessors' tenures. Once security improved, it was Colombia's robust private sector and civil society that allowed the country to capitalize on these gains. Colombia's GDP and per capita income more than doubled by the time I left office, while the country took significant steps toward consolidating democracy.
In short, the Colombia model can work in Afghanistan, but only if accompanied by a broad mobilization of the Afghanistan's private sector and civil society. It will be particularly important for the international community to engage popular movements in tackling corruption and the rule of law. The Karzai government is more likely to implement governance reforms if a groundswell of popular support makes reform a winning political issue.
International assistance will be essential. In a recent survey by the Asia Foundation nearly half of Afghans polled remain optimistic about the country's direction -- in large part due to the success of ongoing reconstruction efforts. To complement large-scale economic development efforts such as the New Silk Road initiative, which aims at building trade ties in Central Asia, the international community should consider supporting smaller-scale private sector and NGO initiatives that could diminish the appeal of terrorist groups over the long-term. Recently, for example, I participated in the inaugural event of a new non-governmental initiative called The Concordia Summit which convened leaders from a variety of sectors to promote public-partnerships against extremism. The emergence of these types of organizations in Afghanistan could be the key to defeating the terrorist threat as NATO-led combat operations wind down and the country heads towards an uncertain political transition in 2014.
Graveyard of empiricism
Foreign Policy By Javid Ahmad and Dhruva Jaishankar Tuesday, December 13, 2011
As Yogi Berra famously put it, "It's déjà vu all over again." Amid a looming budget standoff, a presidential election cycle in full swing, and the popular dissatisfaction of both the left and the right, the United States has arrived -- yet again -- at a critical juncture in its war in Afghanistan, with key decisions being debated concerning the post-surge scenario and the prospects of political reconciliation with various militant groups. The tragedy is that, much like its previous iterations, the current round of the Afghanistan debate in Washington is riddled with a staggering number of mischaracterizations. While the Cold War produced a cohort of able Soviet specialists, the decade-long war in Afghanistan has so far failed to produce sufficient regional expertise in the United States (this reasonably comprehensive list, for example, identifies just 107 Afghanistan-watchers in the United States).
Consequently, a number of questionable assumptions about the Afghan people -- concerning their attitudes to foreigners, their history, their society, and their values -- go unchallenged. Historical analogies and socioeconomic data are regularly manipulated by various parties to validate their own biases and preconceptions, and readings of Afghan history are, when not completely erroneous, unapologetically Western-centric. For example, one common view that has gained circulation among think-tankers, policymakers, and congressional staffers is that a majority of Afghans are inherently hostile to the United States. Yet this viewpoint is not borne out by polling data, however imperfect. The last poll conducted by ABC News, the BBC and, ARD German TV, for example, says that nearly seven in 10 Afghans support the presence of U.S. forces in their country.
Another and perhaps more damaging misperception is of Afghanistan as the "graveyard of empires": a historically insignificant strategic backwater where great civilizations -- inevitably European ones -- ended up mired in ruinous war. But even a cursory examination of the region's history makes a mockery of this now entrenched concept. During his conquests, Alexander of Macedon spent about two years solidifying his control of what is today Afghanistan and Central Asia, referred to in his day as Bactria and Sogdiana. In fact, his army chose to reverse its course in today's Punjab, over 200 miles to modern Afghanistan's east, after the Battle of the Hydaspes. The 19th-century British Empire, despite an initial setback, won subsequent engagements against the Afghans in its bid to create a buffer zone to British India's northwest. And the defeat of the Soviet military in the 1980s was only made possible with American, Pakistani, and Saudi support.
The "graveyard of empires" canard also largely ignores non-Western history. Ancient and medieval Afghanistan was in fact at the heart of a number of major civilizations, including the Greek Bactrian states; the Kushan Empire, which was a contemporary of imperial Rome; and, from the 10th to 12th centuries, the Ghaznavid sultanate, whose rulers made regular military forays into the subcontinent. The great Mughal Empire, at its zenith perhaps the most prosperous realm on Earth, had its foundations in what is today's Afghanistan, when its progenitor Babur established a presence in the region between Kabul and Peshawar. Count, on top of all this, several centuries of sustained Persian rule over the region.
In addition to popular misconceptions of Afghan xenophobia and historical backwardness, arguments are regularly set forth about the incompatibility of Afghan society with democracy. Although Afghanistan does have a history of underdeveloped democratic institutions, there are many reasons to question this blanket assessment. Definitional problems certainly persist: For many rural Afghans, democracy connotes unlimited freedoms, rather than responsible and self-determined governance. During the 1970s and 1980s, Soviet forces and their Afghan clients often called themselves democrats, further adding to confusion about the term in the minds of many Afghans. At the same time, there are mechanisms -- shuras, jirgas -- that, though hardly Jeffersonian, are analogous to the town halls that formed the bedrock of early American democracy. In this year's edition of the reasonably reliable Asia Foundation survey of Afghanistan -- which polled 6,348 Afghans from all 34 provinces -- an overwhelming 69 percent of Afghans polled say they are satisfied with the way democracy works in Afghanistan.
Ethnic politics is another common source of confusion, with regular calls now heard in Washington for a soft partition of the state, creating a Taliban-dominated "Pashtunistan" separated from a confederation of provinces dominated by ethnic Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks. Soft partitions, which were also advocated in the case of Iraq not that long ago by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, may appear to be easy and seductive solutions to pacifying complex post-colonial societies overrun by civil war. But among other problems, they present a moral quandary, implicitly (though unintentionally) opening the door to ethnic cleansing. A cursory look at history tells us that the partition of mixed political entities has almost always been accompanied or preceded by ethnic cleansing or immense sectarian violence: Consider India, Palestine, Bosnia, or Cyprus. Afghanistan's population is heterogeneous, and given the commitment to establishing a pluralistic and democratic state, calls for the country's de facto or de jure partition appear both irresponsible and impractical.
Just as there are several peculiar narratives about Afghan society and history in steady circulation, there is also growing skepticism about the United States' ability to prosecute the Afghanistan war, with enormous divergences between official U.S. and Afghan perspectives. One reason often cited for limiting the United States' involvement is the financial burden that the Afghanistan war represents in an era of austerity. But according to the Congressional Research Service, the war in Afghanistan will cost the United States an estimated $114 billion this year, a mere 3 percent of the federal budget, and a much smaller fraction of the American economy. This appears to be a small investment relative to the importance to American foreign policy and national security of getting Afghanistan right.
Some commentators make the argument that the Afghanistan war is a sideshow to other forms of security competition, particularly in East Asia -- that, in essence, the continued U.S. involvement in Afghanistan distracts from looming threats to U.S. security posed by other great powers such as China. This is questionable for at least two reasons. Firstly, other major powers -- including China, India, Russia, and Iran, all of whom see Afghanistan as part of their extended neighborhoods -- are closely watching developments affecting the U.S. position there. American success or failure will resonate in Moscow and Beijing, as well as New Delhi and Tehran. Secondly, the United States is not confronted with a binary choice between prosecuting the Afghanistan war and retaining a military presence against major state threats. The United States has faced multiple security challenges before; the resources required to tackle them are quite different from one another; and U.S. military resources dedicated to securing Europe and the Asia-Pacific region have been steadily declining regardless of investments in Afghanistan.
Finally, it is widely believed today in Washington that the Taliban enjoy popular public support, particularly among the ethnic Pashtun population of Afghanistan. If true, it is certainly not reinforced by extant survey data. Nor is the Afghan public weary of the United States' intensified involvement. According to the Asia Foundation survey, a plurality of Afghans (46 percent) believes that the country is headed in the right direction, compared with 35 percent who believe otherwise. What is even more encouraging, only 11 percent of Afghans have sympathy for armed opposition groups, half the proportion who expressed similar sentiments two years ago. In that same period, those who have "no sympathy at all" for the Taliban have almost doubled to 64 percent of the population. Despite frustrations with the ability of the current government to deliver, Afghans express optimism about democracy as a principle, associating it most closely with peace and freedom. The United States, such polls clearly reveal, should not fool itself with undue pessimism. Its efforts are gradually beginning to bear fruit.
Currently, Afghanistan's fledgling state, though challenged frequently by security, governance, and development problems, has an elected government and an international presence to contribute to the work of nation-building. Despite the ongoing insurgency, widespread corruption, and the daily risk of arbitrary or extrajudicial killing, the Afghan people continue to strive for normalcy in their day-to-day lives and hope for peace and prosperity in the future. With that in mind, the pontification of a few pundits and the exigencies of near-term politics should not lead to poor or rash decision-making. A balanced view of Afghan public opinion, history, culture, and politics -- and, just as importantly, of the United States' ability to shape these factors in advancing its national security interests -- is crucial as Washington debates a decision that will have important regional and international implications for decades to come.
Javid Ahmad, a native of Kabul, is program coordinator and Dhruva Jaishankar is program officer with the Asia Program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington, D.C. The views reflected here are their own.
The Bookseller of Kabul author cleared of invading Afghan family's privacy
Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad, who spent months with bookseller Shah Muhammad Rais, tells of relief over ruling
Guardian.co.uk By Alexandra Topping Tuesday 13 December 2011
It provided a compelling picture of the life of an Afghan family living under the tyranny of the Taliban and became the bestselling nonfiction book in Norwegian history, before being denounced as inaccurate and invasive by its main characters.
But an appeal court in Norway overturned a previous ruling and cleared the author of The Bookseller of Kabul and her publisher, Cappelen Damm, of invading the privacy of the family she lived with and wrote about, and concluded that the facts of the book were accurate.
Åsne Seierstad, a Norwegian freelance journalist who wrote The Bookseller of Kabul after spending months living with Afghan bookseller Shah Muhammad Rais and his two wives, told the Guardian on Tuesday she was relieved that the eight-year legal battle that followed the book's publication was over. "The judgment means a lot. As a journalist being accused of invading someone's privacy, there is always a risk that it will stick to your name," she said. "If my name had not been cleared, it would have been difficult, perhaps impossible, to continue as a journalist."
Suraia Rais, the second wife of the real-life bookseller, whom he married, according to the book, when she was a girl of 16, filed the complaint against Seierstad. In a previous hearing, the Oslo district court ruled that Seirstad had invaded Rais's privacy, but on Tuesday Norway's supreme court cleared the author of any wrongdoing. In a statement Seierstad's lawyer Anne Gaustad said the court had concluded "the family was well aware of the nature of the book project", adding that Seierstad was found "not to have acted negligently, and the content of the book was essentially deemed true".
Seirstad said the legal process that had required her to defend "every single part" of the book had been a time-consuming process. "It makes you reflect on how careful you have to be as a journalist. I can have one of these cases, but I cannot have two," she said. "The judge ruled that I was not uncareful. Now, if anything, I am overly careful."
Seierstad met Rais after entering Kabul with the Afghan soldiers of the Northern Alliance two weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks. She got to know the bookseller, who sold books previously banned by the Taliban, at the Intercontinental Hotel. Changing his name to Sultan Khan in the book, she painted a picture of a local hero who risked his life to continue working in the face of huge adversity and danger, but also of a ruthless patriarch who virtually enslaved his wives and children.
Following publication of the book, Rais flew to Norway, hired a lawyer and began a media campaign to repudiate Seierstad's version of events. He accused her of treachery, of humiliating him, his family and Afghanistan as a nation.
Seierstad said she was no longer in touch with Rais or his family, but had no regrets about writing the book. "I never expected anything like this," she said. "There is nothing I would change – to change it I would have had to write a totally different book."
The book had justified itself, she added. "It is now translated into 42 languages, it is read across the world, it is on university reading lists – it has proved itself," she said. "The book came after the fall of the Taliban, it says something about Afghan family life. Those kind of stories – what happens behind the scenes on a TV screen – are important."
The fact that her subjects were not at peace with the manner in which they were portrayed was not "ideal", she added. But she was confident that she had presented the family in a "respectful" way. "I have admiration for [Rais] and the fact he continued to sell his books. He is an Afghan hero and I think I portrayed that, but he is also an Afghan patriarch," she said. "Journalism is about going out and making choices. It's my book, it's my decision."
Asked what impact the experience had made on her, Seierstad said: "I learned many lessons about how the world works. It is also important to think that what you write has to pass a second test – am I comfortable with the people I am writing about reading what I have written? Have I been fair? But on the other side, you have to stand by your choices and your angle because that is journalism."
Little Recourse for Afghan Domestic Abuse Victims
Laws are in place to protect women from domestic violence, but are rarely used to punish abusive husbands.
IWPR By Mina Habib 13 Dec 11
Zahra struggled for four years to conceal the violent truth about her daughter’s marriage. Twenty-year-old Nafisa’s husband would beat her repeatedly and throw her out of the house, while her mother Zahra did everything she could to keep the batterings a secret.
It was only when Nafisa arrived at her parents’ home with a large black eye that her father realised what was going on and took action to safeguard her.
With the help of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, AIHRC, Nafisa is currently seeking a divorce, but the circumstances of her story are depressingly common.
A United Nations report issued last month noted that domestic violence cases often end up being thrown out, or else being sent for mediation when criminal prosecution would be more appropriate.
When cases do get as far as the legal system, the perpetrators often walk free, while abused women may themselves be punished under the loose category of “moral crimes” that include – for women – attempting to escape one’s home.
“As long as women and girls are subject to violence with impunity that violates their human rights, little meaningful and sustainable progress for women’s rights can be achieved,” Georgette Gagnon, human rights director at the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, said in a statement.
The UN says Afghan prosecutors need to make much more effort to hold violent husbands to account.
The report comes ten years after the Taleban government was ousted and mechanisms to ensure the rule of law and observance of women’s rights were put in place.
In the 12 months to March 2011, the AIHRC recorded 2,229 acts of violence against women that could have been dealt with as criminal offences. Yet prosecutors only brought charges in seven per cent of these cases, and convictions were secured in just four per cent of the total.
According to Afghanistan’s ministry of women’s affairs, 2,400 new cases of violence against women were recorded between April and September this year.
In 2009, Afghanistan acquired a new law on domestic violence, outlawing child and forced marriage, assault and rape.
However, Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, says judges are only invoking the law in a small proportion of cases involving violence against women.
“There is a very long way to go before Afghan women are fully protected from violence,” she said in a statement.
Hakima, a 70-year-old resident of Kabul’s Khair Khana district, said husbands did not even need a pretext to assault their wives – it was just the done thing, a way of imposing their authority.
“If a man doesn’t beat his wife, his relatives call him a weakling,” she added.
Fawzia Amini, director of the legal department at the women’s affairs ministry, suggested that changing social values were also a factor, as conservative-minded husbands tried to restrict their wives from claiming basic rights.
“When women are informed about and demand their rights, their men oppose this, and arguments lead to violence,” she said.
Parwin Rahimi, head of women’s rights at the AIHRC, said poverty, unemployment and illegal drug use all contributed to violence – in a general atmosphere of impunity.
Keramatollah Sediq, head of Islamic studies at the Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs, said domestic violence occurred because people were unaware of the rules and traditions of Islam. This ignorance led them to hold “absurd” beliefs, he said.
Since the problems seem as great as ever, some commentators are asking why the substantial investment in women’s rights groups and programmes has failed to yield greater results.
Faisal Amin, a social sciences lecturer at Kabul University, said the campaign against domestic violence tended to focus on Kabul, and even there it was limited in scope. Speeches on television and radio were not going to stop men beating their wives, he added.
“The business of eradicating violence against women must be brought out from under the control of a few popular women in Kabul. And more work needs to be done with men,” he said, calling for awareness-raising campaigns in the mosques, and enforcement of the law.
“These things will definitely have positive results,” he said.
Mina Habib is an IWPR-trained contributor in Afghanistan.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
VOA News December 14, 2011
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday that the U.S.-led coalition is winning the war in Afghanistan as foreign troops continue to transfer security of the country to Afghan forces ahead of a 2014 deadline.
Panetta told U.S. troops stationed in the eastern Afghan province of Paktika that they face significant challenges in the “very tough conflict.” But he promised to establish a safe, self-governing country where the Taliban and al-Qaida cannot find refuge.
The defense secretary is on a two-day visit to Afghanistan to check on the progress of U.S.-led counterinsurgency efforts, which he says reached a “turning point” this year after a decade of fighting the Taliban.
Panetta is expected to meet later Wednesday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Secretary Panetta has been meeting with U.S. military commanders and Afghan officials to discuss the ongoing transfer of security to Afghan forces.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced earlier this year that 33,000 American troops would withdraw from the country by next October. All international combat troops are set to leave the country by 2014.
The second stage of security transition officially started last month, with Afghan forces set to take charge of six provinces, seven provincial capitals and more than 40 districts. The first stage of the transition began earlier this year.
The transition process has been complicated by worsening U.S. relations with Pakistan, after a NATO air strike last month killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the country's border with Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials have closed two supply lines into Afghanistan and forced U.S. troops out of a Pakistani airbase following the incident.
The top allied commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, said Tuesday he was making efforts at resolving the issue during his recent talks with Pakistani officials.
Panetta again said on Tuesday that the U.S. believes healthy U.S.-Pakistan relations are vital for ending the conflict in Afghanistan.
In the latest violence, Afghan officials say a local government official was killed after his vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the restive southern province of Helmand.
U.S. officials reported in October that the number of Taliban attacks in Afghanistan decreased for the first time in five years. However, the United Nations said earlier this year the number of civilians killed went up by 15 percent in the first half of 2011, with nearly 1,500 deaths due mostly to insurgent attacks.
Kabul Aid at Risk in Hospital Probe
Wall Street Journal By MARIA ABI-HABIB DECEMBER 14, 2011
KABUL - A U.S. congressman said funding for the Afghan government could be withheld if a congressional investigation finds no changes at Afghanistan's main military hospital following allegations of corruption and deadly neglect there.
Incidents of Afghan service members dying of neglect and starvation, and of being denied medication, at the American-funded Dawood National Military Hospital were first reported by The Wall Street Journal in September.
If the hospital hasn't reformed sufficiently, American funding could be cut, says Rep. Mike Coffman (R., Colo.), who requested the investigation.
The congressional inquiry, as well as investigating alleged Afghan corruption, will also look into whether U.S. military officers involved in oversight at the hospital have done enough to stop the abuses there.
"I strongly believe that this incident is not just an example of Afghan corruption but also of a failure of U.S. military leadership," Rep. Coffman said in an interview. "I'm worried that the incident will be covered up in that no U.S. military personnel will be held accountable for their lax oversight. By not holding anyone accountable we are encouraging the same pattern of corruption to occur again and again."
Rep. Coffman visited Kabul last month as part of the investigation into the hospital. He was unable to visit the facility because U.S. officials in Kabul cited security concerns, he says.
The hospital is under the command of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Training Mission-Afghanistan, which supervises the training and funding of Afghan security forces and provides U.S. mentors. A spokesman for the command said he couldn't comment on an ongoing congressional investigation.
The Pentagon continues "to produce documents on a rolling basis" about problems at the hospital, according to an aide to Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
The hospital's former Surgeon General, Gen. Ahmed Zia Yaftali, was accused by U.S. military officials of pilfering up to $153 million worth of U.S.-funded pharmaceuticals and failing to ensure that Afghan soldiers and police received basic medical care. Gen. Yaftali has maintained his innocence.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a decree replacing Gen. Yaftali last December, but he continues to collect a salary, mostly paid for with U.S. money, and hasn't been charged.
U.S. military officials alleged that the hospital's staff was selling U.S.-bought pharmaceuticals in Kabul's bazaars and replacing them with counterfeits. In dozens of surgeries, patients would be operated on without medication or sedatives, according to U.S. mentors.
Several other Afghan veterans died of starvation-related medical complications, including one who had been awarded a medal by the then NTM-A commander, Lt. Gen. William Caldwell.
The U.S.-led military coalition plans to withdraw most combat troops by 2014, and establishing a viable Afghan government to take over security responsibilities is crucial to facilitating the pullout.
Rep. Issa sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in October, informing him of the investigation and asking for documentation relating to the hospital.
The "inability of all parties to purge corruption from the Afghan government is a detriment to U.S. efforts," Mr. Issa wrote. "The ability of the Afghan people to place trust in their institutions—and by extension, the U.S. government—is the cornerstone of the counterinsurgency strategy."
Iran ready to help Afghan military: minister
TEHRAN, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said his country is ready to offer assistance to Afghanistan in its efforts to establish a more sophisticated military force, the local satellite Press TV reported on Wednesday.
Vahidi made the remarks in a meeting with visiting Afghan Deputy Defense Minister Mohammad Homayoun Fawzi in Tehran on Tuesday. It was the first meeting of Iran-Afghanistan joint defense cooperation commission.
Vahidi said the commission should assume an effective role in expanding mutual defense ties and reinforce the capabilities of Afghan defense forces, according to the report.
The West does not want Afghanistan to become a developed country, but the Afghan nation will not allow the U.S. forces to undermine their national sovereignty, Vahidi was quoted as saying.
Fawzi, for his part, pointed to the numerous common interests of the two nations and voiced Kabul's willingness to bolster mutual ties.
Iran's Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said Tuesday that the Islamic republic is against any treaty that would enable the U.S. forces to remain in Afghanistan.
Referring to the existence of foreign military as the cause of instability in the region, Salehi said Iran believes in the competence of Afghan forces in providing security for their own country.
Vahidi said in June that the U.S. military bases in Afghanistan were against its national integrity and the progress of the regional states.
US May Freeze $700 million in Aid to Pakistan
VOA News December 14, 2011
The U.S. Congress is expected later this week to pass a measure that would freeze up to $700 million in aid to Pakistan because of fears that Islamabad is not doing enough to combat the spread of homemade bombs.
U.S. lawmakers are concerned that militants in Afghanistan are using fertilizer produced in Pakistan to develop improvised explosive devices – one of the militants' most effective weapons against U.S.-led forces there.
State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said Tuesday that the proposed suspension would not automatically cut the funding, but will make it dependent on making progress with Pakistan on the issue of homemade bombs.
“We have not cut 700 million [U.S. dollars] in aid to Pakistan. What we have is something on the defense authorization bill, which is currently moving in the Congress, which would require the Department of Defense to continue providing a strategy on how we will use certain military systems and measure its progress, in particular, on progress that we are making on the IED issue.”
The aid suspension is part of a larger defense spending bill that U.S. lawmakers are expected to pass later this week.
Several Pakistani officials criticized the move on Tuesday, saying it would only lead to worse relations with Washington.
U.S.-Pakistani ties have suffered since a secret U.S. strike killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in early May.
Relations reached a new low following a NATO airstrike in November that killed 24 Pakistani troops along the border with Afghanistan.
In response to the airstrike, Islamabad ordered the United States to vacate a Pakistan airbase and has indefinitely closed the two main overland routes NATO uses to send supplies to Afghanistan.
But the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, said Tuesday that he achieved progress during talks with Pakistan on rebuilding cross-border security cooperation after the incident.
“I do have a sense of progress, and, in fact, I have had a conversation with [Pakistani] General [Ashfaq Pervez] Kayani. The intent of the conversation, the outcome of the conversation, was that we stated our mutual commitment to address any shortfalls that might have caused this event, but also to ensure that we work closely together, because the border is always going to be there.”
Allen said he spoke on the phone Monday with Pakistan's army chief Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.
Many in the U.S. have become increasingly frustrated with what they see as Islamabad's lack of cooperation in fighting Pakistani-based militant groups who attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Earlier this year, the U.S. suspended $800 million of the $2.7 billion in annual military aid it gives to Pakistan.
For U.S. Troops, Fighting Starts At Afghan Border
NPR By Quil Lawrence December 13, 2011
The mountains along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan would be cruel enough without the war raging on below — cliffs drop from 8,000-foot peaks that are spotted with only a few trees among the rocks.
But Afghanistan's eastern border has become the focus of the conflict as militants plot their attacks inside Pakistan, then slip across the rugged frontier to carry them out.
In Afghanistan's southeast Paktika province, Forward Operating Base Tillman looks across toward Pakistan over craggy peaks that American troops have nicknamed "Big Ugly" and "Big Nasty."
The base is named after Pat Tillman, who left a professional football career to join the U.S. Army. He was killed by friendly fire in 2004, farther north along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
At a recent ceremony, some of the soldiers pinned on the Combat Infantry Badge, a decoration that goes only to those who have seen the fighting up close. Lt. Christian Garrels grinned and then winced as his comrades shook his hand and punched the new badge on his chest — a tradition that leaves bruises.
It's a fair bet that all the soldiers at the base will be wearing the badge soon. FOB Tillman is perched along one of the main routes insurgents use to cross back and forth from Pakistan, Garrels says.
"Our company's mission is to interdict insurgent activity and also interdict insurgent movement," he says.
Blocking Militant Movement
Recent incidents along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border have put in sharp relief the importance of that fault line. Only a year ago, the focus of the war in Afghanistan was the Taliban heartland in the south of the country. Now, the battle line is drawn along both sides of the border, in more ways than one.
While American officials say they are winning every confrontation with the enemy, insurgents still pull off attention-grabbing attacks in major cities. Almost all of these attacks are planned in Pakistan and rely on an underground railroad through a few key provinces.
Taliban fighters, and their allies in the Pakistan-based Haqqani militant network, wind through the mountains on foot or mule or motorcycle, sometimes taking two days to reach towns inside Afghanistan, where they have safe houses. FOB Tillman is causing them some frustration, if the number of rockets and mortars that come crashing in is any indication.
Capt. Brad Vance, the commanding officer on FOB Tillman, says it's not always clear where the rockets are coming from.
"The border has always been a point of contention because it's disputed. What the Afghans think about the border may not necessarily be what the Pakistanis think about the border. So, when indirect fire hits Tillman, it's very hard to tell which country it came from, who launched it," he says.
How the soldiers respond depends on where they think the rockets came from, says Vance. About once a month they consult with two Pakistani army officers stationed at the U.S. base in an effort to prevent incidents such as the one last month when U.S. helicopters apparently killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Road Still Far From Closed
The insurgents that make it past the border then have a relatively fast road to Kabul, and control of that route has become a major military objective. It passes north to Logar province, on the doorstep of the capital.
The governor of Logar, Atiq Lodin, met recently with Americans officials at a district center, where a small U.S. base sits adjacent to several municipal buildings.
Fighters come here from Pakistan, Lodin said, though he added that Afghan and American forces drove them out during the summer's fighting season.
But on Dec. 2, just days after the meeting, a truck packed with 14 tons of explosives rolled into the district center and exploded, demolishing several of the buildings and wounding scores, including one American.
NATO officials say they have captured members of the Haqqani group responsible for the attack. But it's clear that the route from Pakistan to Kabul is far from shut, according to Mawlawi Pir Rohani, a member of the High Peace Council from the border province of Khost.
All over Afghanistan, if a Taliban fighter knocks on a door and asks for shelter he will be taken in — either out of fear, or sympathy or anger at American forces occupying Afghanistan, says Rohani.
A week ago, a suicide bomber killed more than 80 people at a religious ceremony in Kabul, and investigations so far suggest he traveled the same route from Pakistan.
No decision on speeding up Afghan troop withdrawal in 2013
Meeting of National Security Council holds back from endorsing plans for swifter drawdown next year
Guardian.co.uk By Patrick Wintour Tuesday 13 December 2011
A special meeting of the government's National Security Council (NSC) has reaffirmed plans for all UK combat troops to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, but held back from endorsing plans for an additional withdrawal next year beyond the 500 troops already announced by David Cameron. The NSC also examined options for a swifter drawdown in 2013, but no decision was made.
The stocktaking session lasted two hours and focused on the chances of hastening a reconciliation between the Taliban and the Karzai government.
There had been options on the table to speed up troop withdrawals in 2013 on the basis that it might in turn expedite the process of reconciliation, as well as force the Afghan army to take further control of security in the country. Cost savings would also be made.
The extended meeting heard from three independent experts: Michael Semple, a Harvard professor and expert on Pashtun Afghans; Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow in foreign policy from the Saban Centre at the Brookings Institution; and Anatole Lieven, the chair of international relations and terrorism studies at King's College London.
Riedel chaired an interagency review of policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan for the White House that was completed in March 2009. Semple has long been an advocate of talking to the Taliban.
The prime minister's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Mark Sedwill, also addressed the meeting.
The presence of independent experts may have been designed to provide the NSC with a counterweight to the sometimes-Panglossian assessment by British military chiefs that victory is imminent.
There has been a widespread view inside government for more than two years that Nato military forces are unlikely to prevail – but, equally, that the Taliban cannot assassinate their way to victory.
Under proposals discussed at the meeting, the number of UK troops in Helmand province would be cut from 9,000 to 5,000 in 2013, and almost the same number would withdraw the following year – leaving a few hundred in Kabul when Nato ends its combat role in 2014.
But plans to speed up the pullout would be in defiance of Nato commanders leading the International Security and Assistance Force in Kabul. They have advised a more cautious approach, and are urging all Nato countries – most importantly the US – to delay any further troop withdrawals to the end of 2013 so Nato forces can contribute to another full "fighting season". The troop freeze is deemed important to keep the coalition from fracturing.
The possibility that US president, Barack Obama, might decide to speed up his own troop withdrawal plans next year was also discussed at the meeting, but the consensus is that, in an election year, Obama is unlikely to go against the advice of his military chiefs, who favour the current troop drawdown timetable.
Cameron's spokesman said no decisions on accelerating troop withdrawals were made, adding that the UK combat role will end in 2014.
Sedwill has predicted that in 2020 "Afghanistan will not be a safe haven for al-Qaida and whatever remains of the insurgency should no longer pose a mortal threat to the Afghan state. The lives of most Afghans will still be dominated by poverty rather than insecurity, illiteracy will still be high, and children will still be at risk from respiratory and diarrhoeal diseases which are responsible for the highest infant mortality rate in the world. But economic growth should be lifting more Afghans out of subsistence poverty."
Failed suicide attack targets Afghan airport
AFP 13/12/2011
A suicide attacker blew himself up in western Afghanistan on Tuesday after police stopped him from gaining access to an airport, a provincial governor said.
The suicide bomber was killed but there were no other casualties from the failed attack at the airport in Qala-i-Naw, the provincial capital of Badghis, Dilbar Jan Arman said.
"At around 11am (0630 GMT) a suicide bomber on foot tried to enter Qala-i-Naw airport, but was stopped by police," he said.
"He detonated his explosives. Nobody was killed or wounded in the incident."
Qala-i-Naw was one of the areas that Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced last month would be handed from NATO to Afghan security control as part of a phased exit of Western combat troops from the country by late 2014.
There is a contingent of Spanish troops stationed at the airport, which is also used for some domestic commercial flights.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. The Taliban were not reachable for comment.
The Afghan government is fighting a bloody war against a decade-long, Taliban-led insurgency with the help of around 140,000 international troops.
Known Afghan Taliban commander killed in Kandahar
KABUL, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- A known Afghan Taliban commander, namely Arab, was killed in a joint Afghan and NATO-led Coalition forces operation in country's Kandahar province on Tuesday, the provincial government said on Wednesday.
"Based in accurate intelligence reports, a joint unit of Afghan and NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) forces carried out an operation on Tuesday afternoon in Zhari district to capture a known Taliban commander namely Arab," the local government said in a press release Wednesday morning.
A gunfight broke out as troops arrived in a compound in Pashmol area of the district, resultantly Arab and three of his men were killed in the province with Kandahar city as its capital, some 450 km south of capital city of Kabul, the release reads.
Arab was responsible for organizing attacks on security forces in Zhari district and surrounding areas besides terrorizing local people in the area, it added.
The Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant since the militant group announced it would launch a rebel offensive starting from May 1 against Afghan and NATO-led troops in Afghanistan.
The killing of the Taliban commander in Kandahar province, the birthplace of Taliban, is another setback for the Taliban as over 380 fighters of the outfit have been killed and nearly 500 detained by ISAF and Afghan army troops since beginning of November this year.
Currently around 130,000 NATO troops with majority of them Americans have been stationed in Afghanistan.
10 Taliban surrender to gov't in W. Afghanistan
HERAT, Afghanistan, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- A total of 10 Taliban militants gave up fighting and joined the government on Wednesday in Afghanistan's Herat province with Herat city as its capital, 640 km west of capital city of Kabul, said an authority.
"Ten armed Taliban including their commander namely Mullah Gul Ahmad laid down their weapons and joined government in Adraskan district of Herat province Wednesday morning," said a press release issued by provincial department of Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) here.
The former militants also handed over their weapons to NDS or intelligence agency officials and the efforts are underway to convince more militants lay down arms and join the government- initiated peace process, the release said.
The rebel Taliban, who launched in May this year a rebel offensive against Afghan and NATO forces, has not made comments yet.
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Politics won't determine Afghan drawdown: U.S. general
Reuters By Missy Ryan December 13, 2011
KABUL - The United States will make decisions about when and how fast to withdraw troops from Afghanistan based on military strategy rather than political mandates, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces there said on Tuesday.
The United States and its NATO allies are gradually drawing forces out of Afghanistan, and handing over security responsibilities to Afghan forces, as they seek to curtail their involvement in a long, costly war.
The United States plans to pull out 33,000 troops - that President Barack Obama deployed to Afghanistan in 2009-2010 - by next fall, and the White House has asked the Pentagon to look into further reductions.
But just how many soldiers will go home following the removal of Obama's "surge" troops is still unclear. U.S. Marine General John Allen rejected the suggestion of tensions between Washington and military commanders in Kabul on the question of how far and how fast reductions in the U.S. military footprint in Afghanistan should be.
"There is zero daylight between the commander of Afghanistan and the commander of chief on the strategy associated with this campaign," he told reporters accompanying Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on an unannounced visit to Kabul.
A Wall Street Journal article had suggested that Allen, who took command of forces in Afghanistan five months ago, was seeking to delay any further reductions until the end of 2013.
That position might put him at odds with the White House. Obama has promised to responsibly end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the U.S. military mission winds down this month.
His commitment to rolling back "the tide of war" that has placed great strain on U.S. finances and its military has been clear as he turns to the struggling U.S. economy ahead of 2012 polls. There has been widespread speculation that Obama will push ahead with a steady or perhaps even accelerated drawdown.
The Wall Street Journal said Allen's position was in keeping with an internal assessment from NATO leadership in Afghanistan that suggested cutting U.S. troop levels below 68,000 next fall could endanger supply lines and make it harder to protect bases.
"From my perspective there is no number; the president has not given us a number," Allen said. "What the president has given us is the opportunity to have a strategy-based discussion on the evolving environment in Afghanistan."
He rejected the idea that political pressures related to Obama's re-election bid might affect decisions on the drawdown.
"The evolving strategy will be the mechanism by which the troop drawdown will ultimately occur and so I just don't have that sense that there is a conversation under way that will accelerate this," he said.
AFGHANS IN THE LEAD
Despite ongoing violence and gloomy prospects for a hoped-for peace agreement between the Taliban and Afghan government, Western countries plan to remove most combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, when Afghan soldiers are due to be formally in charge of security across the country.
But the United States is expected to have some sort of troop footprint in Afghanistan after that date, likely focused on targeted operations against militants in the region.
Allen said officials were discussing the NATO strategy for the coming years and suggested foreign troops would increasingly focus on advising Afghan forces that now number over 300,000.
"(The Afghan force) is moving to the fore," Allen said.
They are better trained and better equipped than for most of the last decade, but there are questions about how well they will be able to battle the Taliban on their own - and how long the West will be willing to underwrite their operations.
Afghanistan is not expected to be able to pay for its own police and soldiers for years to come.
Many U.S. officials also believe that even the best-laid plans in Afghanistan may be undermined with a change of course from neighboring Pakistan.
The situation along the Afghan border has grown even more tense following an incident late last month in which two dozen Pakistani soldiers were killed by NATO aircraft, infuriating Pakistan and prompting it to shut down supply lines key for NATO operations in Afghanistan. Details of the incident remain murky.
Allen said he spoke with General Ashfaq Kayani, the head of the Pakistani military, by phone on Monday.
"The outcome of the conversation was that we stated our mutual commitment to address any shortfalls that might have caused this event, but also to ensure that we work closely together because the border is always going to be there." He said the supply routes were not discussed.
Plan Afghanistan Can Work
Colombia's former president says that the U.S. counterterrorism model from Latin America can work in Central Asia -- but only if the civil sector gets involved.
Foreign Policy BY ALVARO URIBE VÉLEZ DECEMBER 13, 2011
In a recent piece in Foreign Policy, Paul Wolfowitz and Michael O'Hanlon advocate the "Colombia model" as a potential long-term strategy for Afghanistan. They note similarities between the ongoing security challenges in Afghanistan and those that Colombia dealt with over the past few decades. Like Afghanistan today, Colombia faced a multi-decade terrorist threat fueled by radical ideologies, drug profits, hostile neighbors, forbidding terrain, and a weak central government. Colombia, they argue, was able to beat back the threat though "a combination of brave actions by the Colombian military, some $7 billion in U.S. assistance, a relatively small number of U.S. military advisors and, particularly, the strong leadership of President Alvaro Uribe from 2002 to 2010."
There is much to recommend in the argument. Comparisons between countries as different as Colombia and Afghanistan are necessarily imperfect, but ongoing events have only strengthened the parallels between the two situations. The mission in Afghanistan suffers from the same pessimism and waning confidence that afflicted Colombia's counterterrorism efforts. By the late 1990s, many in the international community concluded that the Colombian government was incapable of ever dealing with narco-terrorism and several international agencies even assessed that Colombia was on the brink of becoming a failed state.
The current reconciliation talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban seem to be heading in the same direction as the peace process that the Colombian government initiated with FARC insurgents from 1999-2002. So long as the Colombian government proved incapable of securing key population centers and addressing terrorist sanctuaries, neither the FARC nor its far-right counterparts were willing to negotiate in good faith or agree to a ceasefire. The same is likely to be the case with the Taliban, Haqqani network, and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan.
Wolfowitz and O'Hanlon rightly credit improvements in traditional security capabilities, military and civilian assistance from the United States, and effective presidential leadership for Colombia's turnaround. But these factors alone could not have achieved the degree of progress the country witnessed. By 2010, for example, kidnappings were down 90 percent, the homicide rate fell by half, and tens of thousands of fighters were disarmed and demobilized, with some of the deadliest kingpins extradited to U.S. prisons.
A less recognized but equally important reason for Colombia's success is the role of the country's private sector and civil society. In some cases, the Colombian government was able to work in tandem with the private sector to undercut extremism. Together, we initiated a variety of public-private partnerships to address development needs, promote corporate social responsibility, and facilitate fraternal relations between labor and employers. In other cases, private activists undertook initiatives entirely independent of the government. A salient example is the work of Oscar Morales Guevara -- an unemployed engineer who started a Facebook group in 2008 called No More FARC. Four hundred thousand members joined online, who in turn rallied 12 million people to take to the streets in 20 cities around the world. It remains the largest anti-terrorism demonstration in history.
The mobilization of the country's private sector and civil society reflected a broader sea change that occurred in Colombian public opinion. Reformist sentiments allowed my administration to implement governance reforms and aggressive social justice policies that may have been politically unpalatable during my predecessors' tenures. Once security improved, it was Colombia's robust private sector and civil society that allowed the country to capitalize on these gains. Colombia's GDP and per capita income more than doubled by the time I left office, while the country took significant steps toward consolidating democracy.
In short, the Colombia model can work in Afghanistan, but only if accompanied by a broad mobilization of the Afghanistan's private sector and civil society. It will be particularly important for the international community to engage popular movements in tackling corruption and the rule of law. The Karzai government is more likely to implement governance reforms if a groundswell of popular support makes reform a winning political issue.
International assistance will be essential. In a recent survey by the Asia Foundation nearly half of Afghans polled remain optimistic about the country's direction -- in large part due to the success of ongoing reconstruction efforts. To complement large-scale economic development efforts such as the New Silk Road initiative, which aims at building trade ties in Central Asia, the international community should consider supporting smaller-scale private sector and NGO initiatives that could diminish the appeal of terrorist groups over the long-term. Recently, for example, I participated in the inaugural event of a new non-governmental initiative called The Concordia Summit which convened leaders from a variety of sectors to promote public-partnerships against extremism. The emergence of these types of organizations in Afghanistan could be the key to defeating the terrorist threat as NATO-led combat operations wind down and the country heads towards an uncertain political transition in 2014.
Graveyard of empiricism
Foreign Policy By Javid Ahmad and Dhruva Jaishankar Tuesday, December 13, 2011
As Yogi Berra famously put it, "It's déjà vu all over again." Amid a looming budget standoff, a presidential election cycle in full swing, and the popular dissatisfaction of both the left and the right, the United States has arrived -- yet again -- at a critical juncture in its war in Afghanistan, with key decisions being debated concerning the post-surge scenario and the prospects of political reconciliation with various militant groups. The tragedy is that, much like its previous iterations, the current round of the Afghanistan debate in Washington is riddled with a staggering number of mischaracterizations. While the Cold War produced a cohort of able Soviet specialists, the decade-long war in Afghanistan has so far failed to produce sufficient regional expertise in the United States (this reasonably comprehensive list, for example, identifies just 107 Afghanistan-watchers in the United States).
Consequently, a number of questionable assumptions about the Afghan people -- concerning their attitudes to foreigners, their history, their society, and their values -- go unchallenged. Historical analogies and socioeconomic data are regularly manipulated by various parties to validate their own biases and preconceptions, and readings of Afghan history are, when not completely erroneous, unapologetically Western-centric. For example, one common view that has gained circulation among think-tankers, policymakers, and congressional staffers is that a majority of Afghans are inherently hostile to the United States. Yet this viewpoint is not borne out by polling data, however imperfect. The last poll conducted by ABC News, the BBC and, ARD German TV, for example, says that nearly seven in 10 Afghans support the presence of U.S. forces in their country.
Another and perhaps more damaging misperception is of Afghanistan as the "graveyard of empires": a historically insignificant strategic backwater where great civilizations -- inevitably European ones -- ended up mired in ruinous war. But even a cursory examination of the region's history makes a mockery of this now entrenched concept. During his conquests, Alexander of Macedon spent about two years solidifying his control of what is today Afghanistan and Central Asia, referred to in his day as Bactria and Sogdiana. In fact, his army chose to reverse its course in today's Punjab, over 200 miles to modern Afghanistan's east, after the Battle of the Hydaspes. The 19th-century British Empire, despite an initial setback, won subsequent engagements against the Afghans in its bid to create a buffer zone to British India's northwest. And the defeat of the Soviet military in the 1980s was only made possible with American, Pakistani, and Saudi support.
The "graveyard of empires" canard also largely ignores non-Western history. Ancient and medieval Afghanistan was in fact at the heart of a number of major civilizations, including the Greek Bactrian states; the Kushan Empire, which was a contemporary of imperial Rome; and, from the 10th to 12th centuries, the Ghaznavid sultanate, whose rulers made regular military forays into the subcontinent. The great Mughal Empire, at its zenith perhaps the most prosperous realm on Earth, had its foundations in what is today's Afghanistan, when its progenitor Babur established a presence in the region between Kabul and Peshawar. Count, on top of all this, several centuries of sustained Persian rule over the region.
In addition to popular misconceptions of Afghan xenophobia and historical backwardness, arguments are regularly set forth about the incompatibility of Afghan society with democracy. Although Afghanistan does have a history of underdeveloped democratic institutions, there are many reasons to question this blanket assessment. Definitional problems certainly persist: For many rural Afghans, democracy connotes unlimited freedoms, rather than responsible and self-determined governance. During the 1970s and 1980s, Soviet forces and their Afghan clients often called themselves democrats, further adding to confusion about the term in the minds of many Afghans. At the same time, there are mechanisms -- shuras, jirgas -- that, though hardly Jeffersonian, are analogous to the town halls that formed the bedrock of early American democracy. In this year's edition of the reasonably reliable Asia Foundation survey of Afghanistan -- which polled 6,348 Afghans from all 34 provinces -- an overwhelming 69 percent of Afghans polled say they are satisfied with the way democracy works in Afghanistan.
Ethnic politics is another common source of confusion, with regular calls now heard in Washington for a soft partition of the state, creating a Taliban-dominated "Pashtunistan" separated from a confederation of provinces dominated by ethnic Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks. Soft partitions, which were also advocated in the case of Iraq not that long ago by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, may appear to be easy and seductive solutions to pacifying complex post-colonial societies overrun by civil war. But among other problems, they present a moral quandary, implicitly (though unintentionally) opening the door to ethnic cleansing. A cursory look at history tells us that the partition of mixed political entities has almost always been accompanied or preceded by ethnic cleansing or immense sectarian violence: Consider India, Palestine, Bosnia, or Cyprus. Afghanistan's population is heterogeneous, and given the commitment to establishing a pluralistic and democratic state, calls for the country's de facto or de jure partition appear both irresponsible and impractical.
Just as there are several peculiar narratives about Afghan society and history in steady circulation, there is also growing skepticism about the United States' ability to prosecute the Afghanistan war, with enormous divergences between official U.S. and Afghan perspectives. One reason often cited for limiting the United States' involvement is the financial burden that the Afghanistan war represents in an era of austerity. But according to the Congressional Research Service, the war in Afghanistan will cost the United States an estimated $114 billion this year, a mere 3 percent of the federal budget, and a much smaller fraction of the American economy. This appears to be a small investment relative to the importance to American foreign policy and national security of getting Afghanistan right.
Some commentators make the argument that the Afghanistan war is a sideshow to other forms of security competition, particularly in East Asia -- that, in essence, the continued U.S. involvement in Afghanistan distracts from looming threats to U.S. security posed by other great powers such as China. This is questionable for at least two reasons. Firstly, other major powers -- including China, India, Russia, and Iran, all of whom see Afghanistan as part of their extended neighborhoods -- are closely watching developments affecting the U.S. position there. American success or failure will resonate in Moscow and Beijing, as well as New Delhi and Tehran. Secondly, the United States is not confronted with a binary choice between prosecuting the Afghanistan war and retaining a military presence against major state threats. The United States has faced multiple security challenges before; the resources required to tackle them are quite different from one another; and U.S. military resources dedicated to securing Europe and the Asia-Pacific region have been steadily declining regardless of investments in Afghanistan.
Finally, it is widely believed today in Washington that the Taliban enjoy popular public support, particularly among the ethnic Pashtun population of Afghanistan. If true, it is certainly not reinforced by extant survey data. Nor is the Afghan public weary of the United States' intensified involvement. According to the Asia Foundation survey, a plurality of Afghans (46 percent) believes that the country is headed in the right direction, compared with 35 percent who believe otherwise. What is even more encouraging, only 11 percent of Afghans have sympathy for armed opposition groups, half the proportion who expressed similar sentiments two years ago. In that same period, those who have "no sympathy at all" for the Taliban have almost doubled to 64 percent of the population. Despite frustrations with the ability of the current government to deliver, Afghans express optimism about democracy as a principle, associating it most closely with peace and freedom. The United States, such polls clearly reveal, should not fool itself with undue pessimism. Its efforts are gradually beginning to bear fruit.
Currently, Afghanistan's fledgling state, though challenged frequently by security, governance, and development problems, has an elected government and an international presence to contribute to the work of nation-building. Despite the ongoing insurgency, widespread corruption, and the daily risk of arbitrary or extrajudicial killing, the Afghan people continue to strive for normalcy in their day-to-day lives and hope for peace and prosperity in the future. With that in mind, the pontification of a few pundits and the exigencies of near-term politics should not lead to poor or rash decision-making. A balanced view of Afghan public opinion, history, culture, and politics -- and, just as importantly, of the United States' ability to shape these factors in advancing its national security interests -- is crucial as Washington debates a decision that will have important regional and international implications for decades to come.
Javid Ahmad, a native of Kabul, is program coordinator and Dhruva Jaishankar is program officer with the Asia Program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington, D.C. The views reflected here are their own.
The Bookseller of Kabul author cleared of invading Afghan family's privacy
Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad, who spent months with bookseller Shah Muhammad Rais, tells of relief over ruling
Guardian.co.uk By Alexandra Topping Tuesday 13 December 2011
It provided a compelling picture of the life of an Afghan family living under the tyranny of the Taliban and became the bestselling nonfiction book in Norwegian history, before being denounced as inaccurate and invasive by its main characters.
But an appeal court in Norway overturned a previous ruling and cleared the author of The Bookseller of Kabul and her publisher, Cappelen Damm, of invading the privacy of the family she lived with and wrote about, and concluded that the facts of the book were accurate.
Åsne Seierstad, a Norwegian freelance journalist who wrote The Bookseller of Kabul after spending months living with Afghan bookseller Shah Muhammad Rais and his two wives, told the Guardian on Tuesday she was relieved that the eight-year legal battle that followed the book's publication was over. "The judgment means a lot. As a journalist being accused of invading someone's privacy, there is always a risk that it will stick to your name," she said. "If my name had not been cleared, it would have been difficult, perhaps impossible, to continue as a journalist."
Suraia Rais, the second wife of the real-life bookseller, whom he married, according to the book, when she was a girl of 16, filed the complaint against Seierstad. In a previous hearing, the Oslo district court ruled that Seirstad had invaded Rais's privacy, but on Tuesday Norway's supreme court cleared the author of any wrongdoing. In a statement Seierstad's lawyer Anne Gaustad said the court had concluded "the family was well aware of the nature of the book project", adding that Seierstad was found "not to have acted negligently, and the content of the book was essentially deemed true".
Seirstad said the legal process that had required her to defend "every single part" of the book had been a time-consuming process. "It makes you reflect on how careful you have to be as a journalist. I can have one of these cases, but I cannot have two," she said. "The judge ruled that I was not uncareful. Now, if anything, I am overly careful."
Seierstad met Rais after entering Kabul with the Afghan soldiers of the Northern Alliance two weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks. She got to know the bookseller, who sold books previously banned by the Taliban, at the Intercontinental Hotel. Changing his name to Sultan Khan in the book, she painted a picture of a local hero who risked his life to continue working in the face of huge adversity and danger, but also of a ruthless patriarch who virtually enslaved his wives and children.
Following publication of the book, Rais flew to Norway, hired a lawyer and began a media campaign to repudiate Seierstad's version of events. He accused her of treachery, of humiliating him, his family and Afghanistan as a nation.
Seierstad said she was no longer in touch with Rais or his family, but had no regrets about writing the book. "I never expected anything like this," she said. "There is nothing I would change – to change it I would have had to write a totally different book."
The book had justified itself, she added. "It is now translated into 42 languages, it is read across the world, it is on university reading lists – it has proved itself," she said. "The book came after the fall of the Taliban, it says something about Afghan family life. Those kind of stories – what happens behind the scenes on a TV screen – are important."
The fact that her subjects were not at peace with the manner in which they were portrayed was not "ideal", she added. But she was confident that she had presented the family in a "respectful" way. "I have admiration for [Rais] and the fact he continued to sell his books. He is an Afghan hero and I think I portrayed that, but he is also an Afghan patriarch," she said. "Journalism is about going out and making choices. It's my book, it's my decision."
Asked what impact the experience had made on her, Seierstad said: "I learned many lessons about how the world works. It is also important to think that what you write has to pass a second test – am I comfortable with the people I am writing about reading what I have written? Have I been fair? But on the other side, you have to stand by your choices and your angle because that is journalism."
Little Recourse for Afghan Domestic Abuse Victims
Laws are in place to protect women from domestic violence, but are rarely used to punish abusive husbands.
IWPR By Mina Habib 13 Dec 11
Zahra struggled for four years to conceal the violent truth about her daughter’s marriage. Twenty-year-old Nafisa’s husband would beat her repeatedly and throw her out of the house, while her mother Zahra did everything she could to keep the batterings a secret.
It was only when Nafisa arrived at her parents’ home with a large black eye that her father realised what was going on and took action to safeguard her.
With the help of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, AIHRC, Nafisa is currently seeking a divorce, but the circumstances of her story are depressingly common.
A United Nations report issued last month noted that domestic violence cases often end up being thrown out, or else being sent for mediation when criminal prosecution would be more appropriate.
When cases do get as far as the legal system, the perpetrators often walk free, while abused women may themselves be punished under the loose category of “moral crimes” that include – for women – attempting to escape one’s home.
“As long as women and girls are subject to violence with impunity that violates their human rights, little meaningful and sustainable progress for women’s rights can be achieved,” Georgette Gagnon, human rights director at the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, said in a statement.
The UN says Afghan prosecutors need to make much more effort to hold violent husbands to account.
The report comes ten years after the Taleban government was ousted and mechanisms to ensure the rule of law and observance of women’s rights were put in place.
In the 12 months to March 2011, the AIHRC recorded 2,229 acts of violence against women that could have been dealt with as criminal offences. Yet prosecutors only brought charges in seven per cent of these cases, and convictions were secured in just four per cent of the total.
According to Afghanistan’s ministry of women’s affairs, 2,400 new cases of violence against women were recorded between April and September this year.
In 2009, Afghanistan acquired a new law on domestic violence, outlawing child and forced marriage, assault and rape.
However, Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, says judges are only invoking the law in a small proportion of cases involving violence against women.
“There is a very long way to go before Afghan women are fully protected from violence,” she said in a statement.
Hakima, a 70-year-old resident of Kabul’s Khair Khana district, said husbands did not even need a pretext to assault their wives – it was just the done thing, a way of imposing their authority.
“If a man doesn’t beat his wife, his relatives call him a weakling,” she added.
Fawzia Amini, director of the legal department at the women’s affairs ministry, suggested that changing social values were also a factor, as conservative-minded husbands tried to restrict their wives from claiming basic rights.
“When women are informed about and demand their rights, their men oppose this, and arguments lead to violence,” she said.
Parwin Rahimi, head of women’s rights at the AIHRC, said poverty, unemployment and illegal drug use all contributed to violence – in a general atmosphere of impunity.
Keramatollah Sediq, head of Islamic studies at the Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs, said domestic violence occurred because people were unaware of the rules and traditions of Islam. This ignorance led them to hold “absurd” beliefs, he said.
Since the problems seem as great as ever, some commentators are asking why the substantial investment in women’s rights groups and programmes has failed to yield greater results.
Faisal Amin, a social sciences lecturer at Kabul University, said the campaign against domestic violence tended to focus on Kabul, and even there it was limited in scope. Speeches on television and radio were not going to stop men beating their wives, he added.
“The business of eradicating violence against women must be brought out from under the control of a few popular women in Kabul. And more work needs to be done with men,” he said, calling for awareness-raising campaigns in the mosques, and enforcement of the law.
“These things will definitely have positive results,” he said.
Mina Habib is an IWPR-trained contributor in Afghanistan.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com