[Afghan News] February 16, 2012

[یاسمینه]

After Scuffle at Afghan Embassy, a Spotlight on Connections
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG The New York Times February 16, 2012
WASHINGTON — If war is what happens when diplomacy fails, what results when diplomats themselves fail to be, well, diplomatic with one another? At the Afghan Embassy in Washington, the answer was a punch in the face.
Last week, after an argument over who was going to put together a filing cabinet and where it would be placed, an Afghan Embassy staff member who handles relations with Congress decked a colleague who handles the mission’s administrative affairs, current and former diplomats said.
No lasting damage was done, except maybe to the career of the aggressor. Yet even that is not a certainty — the puncher, Haroon Aloko, is the son of Afghanistan’s attorney general. The Foreign Ministry said he was called back to Kabul for “discussions,” but an embassy staff member said he was still in the United States, waiting for the incident to blow over before resuming his duties. The staff member did not want to be named for fear of damaging his career.
“This man, he assaults people. But he is not fired,” the staff member said. “This is our most important embassy in all of the world, but we are living with thugs. You see why I would want not to have my name involved?”
On its own, a single office scuffle is unlikely to change Afghanistan’s trajectory as it grapples with the United States’ slow disengagement. But the punch and the Foreign Ministry’s cautious reaction offer a reminder of a rampant problem for Afghanistan: nepotism that runs up and down the government, from teaching appointments in rural schools to posts at the country’s well-appointed embassies in Western capitals, like the Afghan mission in the Kalorama neighborhood of Washington.
The perception that the best jobs — as well as the most lucrative business deals — go to those with the best connections has sharply undermined popular support for the Afghan government.
As for the matter at the Afghan Embassy in Washington, the Foreign Ministry said it was under control. “The important thing is that this was dealt with immediately,” said Janan Mosazai, the ministry’s spokesman. He emphasized that Ambassador Eklil Hakimi was not involved — Afghan news reports initially indicated that he was the one who had been slugged — and that the envoy quickly informed Kabul about the incident.
Mr. Aloko did not respond to calls or text messages to his American cellphone seeking comment.
Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.

US and Afghan governments begin three-way peace talks with Taliban
February 16, 2012 | FoxNews.com
The U.S. government has launched into three-way peace talks with the Afghan government and Taliban, a senior military official in Afghanistan told Fox News.
The talks come as Afghan President Hamid Karzai also visits Pakistan in a bid to press for that country's cooperation. Pakistan is vital because the leaders of both the Taliban and the affiliated Haqqani network are thought to be based in the country and in contact with Pakistani intelligence officials.
The senior military official said the three-way talks are just one of several developments officials are monitoring.
"The talks are something we, of course, are conscious of and are watching, but there are other issues that we are interested in resolving, such as detention facilities control, night operations and the future growth of the Afghan Army," the official said. "These are all ongoing."
The United States may be looking to wind down the military operation in Afghanistan at an accelerated pace. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said this month that he hopes U.S. and NATO forces can "transition from a combat role" by mid-to-late 2013. U.S. and NATO forces face a 2014 withdrawal deadline.
An Obama administration official told Fox News that "an Afghan peace process" is key to the overall strategy in the war.
"Insurgencies generally end with a political settlement and we believe Afghanistan needs a political process to help put an end to this conflict," the official said. "Our military campaign has set the conditions for initial reconciliation discussions to begin taking place."
The official, while not going into detail, said "the government of Afghanistan has been kept fully informed of our discussions."
The official said the conditions are clear -- the Taliban must "break from Al Qaeda, abandon violence, and abide by the Afghan Constitution, including its provisions on respect for the rights of all Afghans, including women and ethnic minorities."
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the three-way talks. Karzai, whose government was left out of recent talks, told the Journal he thinks most Taliban members are "definitively" interested in a settlement.
"People in Afghanistan want peace, including the Taliban. They're also people like we all are," Karzai said.
He added: "There have been contacts between the U.S. government and the Taliban, there have been contacts between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and there have been some contacts that we have made, all of us together, including the Taliban."
The Taliban have recently been opposed to dealing with the Karzai government.
Retired Gen. Bob Scales, a Fox News military analyst, expressed reservations about the talks but said the weak Afghan government needs to find a way to separate the most "radical" elements of the Taliban from the rest in order to seek stability before NATO withdraws.
"The only chance the government's got of achieving stability in the country is to, if you will, break the Taliban apart," Scales said Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has detailed part of its plan for eventually shifting away from a combat mission to one focused on training and advising Afghan forces as they gradually shoulder more of the combat burden.
The Army on Wednesday identified five U.S.-based brigades, as well as an Army reserve organization, that will be reconfigured and sent to Afghanistan between April and August to "generate, employ and sustain" Afghan forces.
Fox News' Justin Fishel and Ed Henry and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

U.S., Afghans in Taliban Talks
Karzai Says Secret Three-Way Negotiations Over Peace Settlement Have Begun
Wall Street Journal By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV And MATT MURRAY FEBRUARY 16, 2012
KABUL - The U.S. and Afghan governments have begun secret three-way talks with the Taliban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai told The Wall Street Journal, disclosing an important breakthrough in efforts to end the 10-year war.
Mr. Karzai, whose government had protested being left out of recent talks between Washington and the insurgents, added he believes most Taliban are "definitively" interested in a peace settlement.
"There have been contacts between the U.S. government and the Taliban, there have been contacts between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and there have been some contacts that we have made, all of us together, including the Taliban," Mr. Karzai said in the interview Wednesday in his office at the Arg Palace in Kabul.
He declined to specify the location of the talks or go into further detail, saying he feared that could damage the process.
Mr. Karzai's remarks suggest progress in tentative peace efforts as President Barack Obama begins withdrawing forces and prepares for the transfer of security responsibilities to Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
U.S. officials cautioned against reading too much into what came out of the three-way session, which was held in the past month to prepare the ground for further contacts.
Taliban spokesmen couldn't be reached to comment.
Meetings between Taliban emissaries and the U.S. in recent months have centered on opening a Taliban office in the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar, and on confidence-building measures such as a possible transfer to Qatar of Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, U.S. and Taliban officials said.
A senior Obama administration official said the U.S. had assured Mr. Karzai that "all we were interested in was seeing if we could open the door for Afghan-to-Afghan talks."
These contacts began gaining traction about a year ago, after U.S. and German diplomats secretly met an aide to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, U.S. officials said.
The U.S. has been regularly briefing Kabul about these discussions, Mr. Karzai said. Until now, however, the insurgents have declared publicly that they won't negotiate with Mr. Karzai's "puppet regime."
Mr. Karzai on Wednesday brushed off those denials. "We were talking to the Taliban, we were talking to the senior-most of them," he said. "We keep hearing in the press from time to time that the Taliban do not want to talk to us, but that's someone making a statement."
Afghan officials said just weeks ago they were unhappy with Qatar's prominent role in the initial talks, and feared Kabul would be marginalized.
Mr. Karzai said the U.S. has now accepted his government's views and conditions, including a demand for representation in negotiations, and has conveyed them to Qatar and the Taliban.
"We have now reached an agreement," Mr. Karzai said. "That means what we want has been put into action by the U.S. government, and what we want has been seen as being right."
Significant hurdles to any possible deal remain, the largest being what Kabul and Washington say is Pakistani support for Afghan militant groups.
Mr. Karzai said he will ask for Islamabad's help in the peace outreach at a summit on Thursday in Pakistan with the Pakistani and Iranian presidents.
"Pakistan's cooperation would make the whole matter easier for us, for the Taliban, and for the U.S.," he said.
Pakistan's foreign minister said on a recent Kabul visit that she backs an Afghan-led peace process with the Taliban.
Mr. Karzai said he has seen no indication that the Pakistani intelligence service is ready to reduce its backing for the Afghan insurgency. Pakistani intelligence officials have denied fomenting attacks in Afghanistan.
Afghan efforts to open contacts with the Taliban were dealt a blow in September with the assassination of the top Afghan negotiator, former President Burhanuddin Rabbani. Afghan officials blamed the killing, by a purported Taliban emissary who arrived from Pakistan, on Pakistani intelligence. Pakistan denied the charge.
The latest round of talks is taking place after U.S. officials said they verified the bona fides of their Taliban interlocutors, and after the Taliban's leadership officially confirmed the group is talking with the U.S.
Mr. Karzai said separate negotiations with the U.S. on a strategic partnership agreement—which would establish a long-term American role in Afghanistan—don't contradict his peace quest, despite Taliban assertions they will keep fighting as long as a single foreign soldier remains on Afghan soil.
The Taliban, Mr. Karzai added, might even accept, in the framework of a peace agreement, a deal with the U.S. that allows for the long-term presence of American troops.
"People in Afghanistan want peace, including the Taliban. They're also people like we all are. They have families, they have relatives, they have children, they are suffering a tough time," he said. "There are a lot of people in the Taliban who are the sons of the soil, and who do not want this country, the people of this country, to suffer."
In the partnership talks with the U.S., friction persists over Mr. Karzai's demands the U.S.-led military coalition end night raids on Afghan homes, and that the U.S. transfer all Afghan prisoners to Afghan custody.
Coalition officials explain that while they are moving to address Mr. Karzai's concerns, doing so will require strengthening Afghan security forces first.
Mr. Karzai insisted the deal with the U.S. won't be signed unless his conditions on night raids and detentions are accepted.
"This is no longer related to the war on terror. This is an issue of Afghan sovereignty, and a partnership can only be signed between two sovereign entities," Mr. Karzai said.
Mr. Karzai, however, also indicated flexibility on the issue of immunity for American service members in Afghanistan, a deal-breaker in last year's attempts to negotiate a similar agreement between the U.S. and Iraq.
"That's an issue that we can discuss," Mr. Karzai said, adding: "We want a partnership with America. And we will do all we can to make that possible."
During the interview, Mr. Karzai reminisced about his "warm" relationship with President George W. Bush, and described Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney as a "good man" of whom he has "a fairly strong favorable opinion."
The Afghan leader added he had no intention of interfering in the election.
Mr. Karzai, whose presidential term runs out in 2014, reiterated that he won't seek another mandate, something prohibited by the constitution.
He also moved to squelch speculation he may seek power in another role, such as the currently vacant seat of "father of the nation," a position provided for in Afghanistan's constitution but without specific authority.
"That's not the right thing," he quipped. "We shouldn't have too many fathers for this nation."
Mr. Karzai also said he would advise his brother Qayyum, described by Western diplomats in Kabul as a leading potential successor, against running for the Afghan presidency in 2014.
"Whatever he does he'll be accused of having my backing," Mr. Karzai said, adding that it would be better for Afghanistan to have a next president with a different surname. —Adam Entous in Washington and Dion Nissenbaum and Maria Abi-Habib in Kabul contributed to this article.

Envoy: Pakistan Not Taking Sides in Afghanistan Peace Efforts
VOA News February 16, 2012
Pakistan's new ambassador to the United States, Sherry Rehman, says Islamabad will support Afghan-led peace initiatives but will not align itself with any particular side in the conflict.
During a conference in Washington on Wednesday at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Rehman said Pakistan is “not seeking to support, bolster or play strategic games with any group in Afghanistan.”
She said that during Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar's last visit to Afghanistan, equal time was given to all ethnic and insurgent groups, including the Northern Alliance.
“It's import for Afghanistan to lead this the way they want, because otherwise peace will not be sustainable, not durable, and, as I said, Pakistan can't afford another civil war in Afghanistan.”
Rehman's comments come as leaders from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran gather in Islamabad for a summit aimed at facilitating peace talks with the Taliban.
Meanwhile, on the topic of U.S. aid to Pakistan, Rehman said civilian and military aid to Islamabad has faced a series of delays and blockades. The envoy said a “long conversation” is needed on how aid is delivered as well as “the metrics of its success.” Rehman added that Islamabad is looking for preferential trade rather than aid right now.
“I would like to point out that the EU, with its far more complex architecture of bylaws, fine print, and coordination challenges, has come through with preferential trade alignments for Pakistan, as we speak. So the question is asked, what is our biggest ally doing for us while we stand on the front line? Ouch. Ouch.”
The United States has provided Pakistan with about $20 billion in military and civilian aid over the past 10 years, making it the third-largest recipient of U.S. security aid and reimbursements after Afghanistan and Israel.

Pakistani, Afghan presidents agree to deal with common challenges
ISLAMABAD, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai vowed to enhance bilateral interaction by pursuing an institutional approach to deal with the common challenges during their meeting held here on Thursday.
Karzai arrived here on Thursday morning for a two-day visit and the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran trilateral summit.
The two presidents identified terrorism and extremism as common challenges that require a common approach and close cooperation for effective handling, Pakistani presidential spokesman Farhatullah Babar told reporters.
Zardari said Pakistan has always desired a peaceful, stable and prosperous Afghanistan as it was in Pakistan's national interest.
He reiterated Pakistan's principled stand to support an Afghan- led and Afghan-owned political process of reconciliation and peace in the country.
Zardari described late top Afghan peace negotiator Burhanuddin Rabbani as a friend of Pakistan and an honest and serious interlocutor. He said the elements who do not want peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan were responsible for his assassination.
Zardari assured Pakistan's full cooperation in Afghan government's investigation into the assassination of Rabbani.
Zardari said the Pakistan was pursuing a consistent policy to strengthen Pakistan-Afghanistan bilateral relations in all spheres. He said Afghanistan was at the heart of the region and was playing a pivotal role in regional economic development.
The visit of President Karzai marks revival of high level contacts between the two neighboring countries that were suspended following the assassination of Rabbani in September last year at his home in Kabul.
Afghanistan accused Pakistan of being behind the murder committed by a suicide bomber but Islamabad denied the charge.
The spokesman said the two presidents discussed a range of issues including bilateral relations, regional situation, developmental projects in the region, Pakistan-Afghan Transit Trade Agreement, drug trafficking and border issues.
According to the spokesman, both of them emphasized the need for working together towards an enhanced bilateral engagement for deepening interaction in all areas. They vowed to focus on security, development, transit, trade, economic and investment linkages.
Both sides discussed ways to cooperate in infrastructure, energy connectivity and people-to-people contacts for mutual benefits, said the spokesman.

UN chief urges Afghanistan to prioritize anti-drugs effort
VIENNA, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday urged the Afghan government to prioritize efforts to eradicate illicit drugs in the war-torn country, warning "time is not on our side."
"Drug trafficking and transnational organized crimes undermine the health of fragile stats, weaken the rule of law and hinder our attempts to meet the Millennium Development Goals," Ban said in his address to the Third Ministerial Conference of the Paris Pact held in Vienna.
Citing Afghan Opium Survey 2011 released by UN anti-crimes agency, Ban told partners of the Paris Pact that poppy cultivation has increased by 7 percent and opium production has increased by 61 percent in the past year.
"We cannot expect stability when 15 per cent of Afghanistan's Gross Domestic Product comes from the drugs trade," Ban said, adding "We cannot speak of sustainable development when opium production is the only viable economic activity in the country."
"Time is not on our side.. above all, the Afghan Government must prioritize the issue of narcotics," he said.
Ban also urged "law enforcement agencies to work harder on eradicating crops, eliminating laboratories, keeping precursors from entering the country, and inhibiting drug trafficking."
He warned that there can be no real success without reducing the demand, calling for the international community to stand with Afghanistan in the fight against drugs.
The Paris Pact meeting, meant to review steps taken to reduce production and trafficking of opiates from Afghanistan, drew senior officials from more than 50 countries. Among them were Alain Juppe, Foreign Minister of France, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

High-level drug meeting focuses on Afghanistan
Associated Press By GEORGE JAHN Feb 16, 2012
VIENNA - Representatives from dozens of nations are supposed to focus on the menace of drugs in Afghanistan when they meet Thursday in Vienna. But with powerful foreign ministers among those attending, Syria is expected to dominate talks on the sidelines.
Named for the agreement that created it nine years ago, the Paris Pact meeting is meant to review steps taken to reduce production and trafficking of opiates from Afghanistan. It will look at ways to block financial flows from the illicit drug trade, choke the flow of chemicals used to make heroin and strengthen local initiatives to help combat drug abuse by Afghans.
But the meeting has no enforcing powers, and international attempts to reduce the Afghan drug problem have had little success.
A January report by the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime said revenue from opium production in Afghanistan soared by 133 percent last year to about $1.4 billion, or about one-tenth of the country's GDP, after the crop recovered from a 2010 blight and returned to previous levels.
A copy of the Vienna meeting's final declaration obtained in advance by The Associated Press reflects realities, saying that Afghanistan's drug problem "continues to be a serious concern."
"Illicit traffic in opiates, including heroin, is a growing problem," says the document, adding that revenues it generates fuel "corruption, organized crime and in some cases ... terrorist activities and insurgency."
Some high-level delegates have already announced that they will huddle on ways to end Syria's violence on the sidelines of the drug meeting.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters Wednesday that he will meet with French counterpart Alain Juppe to be briefed on a French plan to set up humanitarian corridors in Syria that are free of violence. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is also attending the conference, along with government ministers from Iran and Afghanistan.
The United States will be represented by Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns.

'The Majority of the Afghan People Support a Strategic Partnership With the U.S.'
Wall Street Journal FEBRUARY 15, 2012
Here are excerpts from the Wall Street Journal interview with Afghan President Hamid Karzai conducted by Yaroslav Trofimov and Matt Murray in Kabul, Feb. 15, 2012.
Let me start by asking you about the peace talks. Do you feel you are being left out of the process?
There was for a year forms of contact going on between the Taliban and U.S. government officials, which we knew about, which we were informed about, which we allowed to happen, with a view that at a certain time the Taliban and the Afghan government will also be talking. But when the issue of the office [of the Taliban in Qatar] came and the manner in which it was handled, we felt that we had a different opinion, and that opinion was conveyed clearly to the U.S. government when we were in Bonn for the Bonn conference [in Dec 2011]. Subsequently to that the U.S. government, having noticed our view on that, began to negotiate with us, and [U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc] Grossman came to Kabul. We told Mr. Grossman our views and conditions.
Those were taken and put forward to the government of Qatar and the Taliban, and then Mr. Grossman visited me when I was in Italy. We have now reached an agreement. That means what we want has been put into action by the U.S. government, and what we want has been seen as being right.
Can you elaborate a bit?
I wouldn't do that now, for fear of disclosing something that should take its time to unveil. But for now I can say, the difference of opinion that we had has been largely removed. I'm sorry for my lack of freedom here to go further.
One of the issues was the Taliban including the government in the talks.
That was never an issue anyway. We were talking to the Taliban, we were talking to the senior-most of them. Contacts at different levels, official, personal, all sorts . We keep hearing in the press from time to time that the Taliban don't want to talk to us, but that's someone making a statement.
Are you pretty satisfied with the outcome here?
We are right now satisfied with the description of objectives that we've had and with the agreement of the U.S. government and taking our point of view to the others concerned.
How much progress the talks have made?
There have been contacts between the U.S. government and the Taliban, there have been contacts between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and there have been some contacts that we have made, all of us together, including the Taliban, in a third location. A third location. I can go that far.
Does this mean you are persuaded that Mullah Omar and the Quetta Shura are interested in peace?
People in Afghanistan want peace, including the Taliban. They're also people like we all are. They have families, they have relatives, they have children, they are suffering a tough time. I'm inclined to say that yes, they do want peace.
You sound pretty optimistic.
I don't think I sounded very optimistic. I said I'm inclined. Choosing my words very carefully here.
Is the strategic partnership with the U.S. ultimately incompatible with peace with the Taliban?
No. No, it could be compatible with the peace process. The majority of the Afghan people support a strategic partnership with the United States.
Can the Taliban accept some U.S. presence here long term?
It wouldn't be right for me to say specifically "yes." With a general view of the Taliban, the kind of a deal they would not have a problem with it — once the peace deal works out. Now I don't want to be speaking for them. But that's my view as I see things.
Do you see the Taliban have shifted in a meaningful way its position and changed its view on the possibility of peace talks?
As Afghan people, as people who've suffered as well, like the rest of the country they want a future, and that future is a compelling reason for all to seek peace and to have stability, and to have freedom to move back into their own country. This is a statement of principle. I hope it is true. Time will tell.
Do you think the military campaign in the last year has influenced their thinking?
Perhaps that too, the military campaign, and also the fact that it's been an ongoing bleeding wound for all of us for a long time, and we want it healed now. There are a lot of people in the Taliban who are the sons of the soil, and who do not want this country, the people of this country to suffer.Circumstances arrived at them, and at the country, that forced some of them to take arms. The majority of them were of this kind.
The others who are associated with al Qaeda, or terrorist networks, or linked to or are under the influence of intelligence agencies, we are not talking about those. That's not where we are seeking peace. We are seeking peace with the thousands of Taliban who are the majority in the movement, who have been forced to take up arms either because of the misunderstanding or circumstances imposed on them or other conditions... Those are definitively willing to seek peace, and those are the ones that we are seeking to have peace with.
Where do the Pakistanis stand here?
The Pakistanis stand a fair deal in this, they have a place in this. Pakistan's cooperation would make the whole matter easier for us, for the Taliban, and for the United States. Therefore we have been seeking Pakistani assistance in the peace talks for Afghanistan for quite some time. Also because In particular today Pakistan itself is in serious danger because of the militant extremism, because of terrorism occurring there, it would only be wise for us, the two countries, to take the opportunity and work it out.
Does this suggest that the ISI is ready not to back the insurgency in any way?
To that question I would say: "I hope"
Do you have anything beyond hopes from the Pakistan side?
At this point I cannot see anything beyond hopes. I see signs, but I cannot see anything beyond hopes.
Sounds like you are hoping for regional, coordinated approach?
The war on terror, if this is a war on terror, can only be won by a sincere regional and international cooperation. All have to believe they have something at stake and work together. In the absence of this it will become political and interest-oriented. The worst thing for an effective war on terror is the suspicion of states about the objectives.
Where are you with the Americans on the strategic partnership? Do you have outstanding issues such as Bagram? Have you made progress on these issues?
These have been lingering for long. I wish there was better cooperation by the U.S. with us on the issues that we've had among us for at least eight-nine years: civilian casualties, attacks on Afghan homes, raids on Afghan homes, taking prisoners and keeping prisoners.
This is no longer related to the war on terror. This is an issue of Afghan sovereignty, and a partnership can only be signed between two sovereign entities. Without resolving these outstanding issues between us any partnership signed will not be between two sovereign states. Therefore I am working hard to bring this recognition in the U.S. government that the signing of the partnership must happen once we have dealt with this issue
Do you have any sense of flexibility from the U.S. side?
I see more recognition of it. I see words expressed in this connection, in this regard. But I will need to see action.
You have set a deadline on Bagram, on detainee transfers.
Yes. Something must happen. I hope so very, very much. That's my request. Something must happen for us to move forward. Something must happen. We cannot have foreign forces in our country keeping prisoners. Nothing justifies it. Not a UN resolution. Not a Security Council thing. Not a bilateral arrangement. Not the war on terror - so called. Nothing justifies it.
You don't buy the Leahy Amendment argument about torture in Afghan facilities?
Not at all. Not at all. We are a very humane government, and we are a lot more mindful of it, of torture, of human rights violations. I can certainly tell you that as the president of Afghanistan, as a president, I can certainly say that this issue is more on my mind perhaps than any other individual that I know. Therefore it's an issue for us that goes to the core of our feelings. We have suffered at the hands of foreigners and, unfortunately, some of our own. Severe violations. And we want it ended. We don't allow it. We don't like it. And one of the reasons, and one of the reasons, in addition to sovereignty, is exactly the issue of the rights of Afghan people...
You sound insulted by this argument.
The argument of human rights? Absolutely. Absolutely. We stand tall on this.
What would be the consequence of the U.S. not transferring th Bagram detainees?
If the United States is treating Afghanistan as a sovereign country it has to prove it. And the proof is here.
The U.S. Military is training more Afghans to do night raids.
Well, after a long time. I wish this had been done earlier. We raised these issues years ago. And due action was not taken, due notice was not made until I became public about this, until I raised a voice, and quite a vocal strong voice. Night raids may have caused the arrest of some bad elements but night raids have caused more suffering to innocent Afghan families. So this is an area where Afghanistan is alert and not willing to accept any more of it.
Does it make a difference - American or Afghan night raids?
The Afghans going to an Afghan home will be done in accordance to the Afghan Constitution and laws. They cannot just go and barge into somebody's home. No. We have suffered in this country because of that. From the Soviet time to the following years and that, for the Afghan people, the main wound in Afghanistan for the past 30 years is the neglect of Afghan homes, the sanctity of those homes.
What are your feeling about the issue of immunity for American troops. Americans ended up walking away from a special relationship with Iraq over this issue.
The immunity to US troops? Well that's an issue that we can discuss. We're not yet there. First we have to resolve these issues. We want a partnership with America. And we will do all we can to make that possible.
How do you feel broadly about your government's relationship with the United States?
Well, we are very grateful to the American people for the help that they've sent to Afghanistan. This country's doing a lot better today than it did 10 years ago. Never in the Afghan history have we had so good a country as we have today in terms of the physical buildup of it: Roads, education, health services, a better livelihood. That would not have been possible without the United States and without our other partners in the international community. So we are very, very grateful. Now, the problems that we have on the issues that we spoke about earlier are not denigrating, or reducing, or sending into oblivion, the support and the taxpayers' money that has been spent in Afghanistan. We are grateful for that. We recognize it. And we are eternally grateful for that — as a nation, as a people. So the description of the US-Afghan relations is one of gratitude to the American people and one of recognition of their assistance to Afghanistan. And, at the same time, one of asking for improvements in changes in bad
behavior where it occurs.
Were you surprised about Defense Secretary Panetta's comments about more forces withdrawing in 2013? How do you read it?
It doesn't make a difference for us. The withdrawal of US forces from 2013, or the beginning of withdrawal of US forces from 2013. This is our country. We have to protect our country. We have to provide for the security of our people. Now, if we can expedite the transition to 2013, we are actually thinking about this and quite aloud, about expediting the transition from 2014 to 2013. But we are not adamant or insistent upon it. I see nothing wrong in Sec. Panetta's statement. If it happens, good for us. If it doesn't happen, we can go along to 2014.
Did it surprise you?
No, it didn't surprise me. We have had so many surprises we no longer get surprised.
The perception is that you have had a very close relationship with President Bush. How would you compare the Bush era and the Obama era?
When President Bush and I began our relationship, this was a very rosy time. The United States has just arrived in Afghanistan in the form of a liberator of our country from the Taliban and al Qaeda, and our country was freed, with the help of the Afghan people and the international and American assistance. And the great expectation was there in the Afghan people for an Afghanistan that would be peaceful and growing, quick like a snowball, and in that environment we had a good relationship.
An added element to that was the warmth that President Bush gave to Afghanistan and the hospitality that the U.S. government provided to Afghanistan and to the Afghan people, and the First Lady's, Mrs. Bush, trips to Afghanistan, and the calls for education and the help that did arrive in Afghanistan. Matters that would make relationships difficult and hard began to arrive towards 2005-2006, and we did begin to talk about those issues, quite serious and, at times, quite heated. But the foundation was strong and one of trust. And that foundation allowed this difficult exchange to take place.
President Obama arrived when over civilian casualties over all these other issues of private security firms and civilian casualties and violations of Afghan homes and violations of Afghan laws had already made things tense. So it did not really begin with President Obama or the Democratic administration in Washington. I have tremendous respect for President Obama. He's a very nice person. Well intended. But things couldn't be as they were when we began with President Bush in 2002. That was a different beginning. This was the middle of the road almost. So it had to be different. It had to be tension ridden. And that's normal But it was a respectful relationship. There were mistakes made in the United States by certain officials, definitely, I don't know if that was the U.S. policy or if it was the officials who did that. But we ignored that for the larger good. The larger good is an Afghanistan that is stable and strong, an Afghanistan that is sovereign, and an Afghanistan that is allied and partnered with the
United States of America and with others.
Do you feel satisfied by the inclusiveness, by the respect you receive from the Obama administration?
Well there are certain issues that we still have to resolve and we are not satisfied on that. But generally, on all other issues, we do have a respectful relationship and a good relationship. There was Secretary Gates who continued under President Obama for three years. Highly respected person. Very capable person who listened, who understood. There is now Mr. Panetta whom I have a very good relationship with. Secretary Clinton has always been very respectful to the Afghan people and to myself as a person, and I know her now for quite some time. So there are people in that administration that we value highly, that we respect highly, it's not about individual relationships, it's about issues.
Have you followed the campaign, the statements that Republican candidates have been making?
No. We see that as domestic, and issues that normally take place in any election. The United States still has a bipartisan approach to Afghanistan, that both parties support their mission in Afghanistan and that whoever is in government the issues will be the same, and the problems will be the same, the understandings will be the same and the effort towards a better future will be the same.
(...)
Mr. Romney is a good man, I've met with him many times when he was governor of Massachusetts. Good man. I have a fairly strong favorable opinion of him - not that I want to intervene. That's not the purpose. Just by way of remark.
Let me ask you about your election in 2014. How do you envision electoral reform?
We want to have an election law that's suited well to the needs of the Afghan people, that brings us a transparent election, that brings us an election that cannot be fraudulent, or cannot be called fraudulent. We want it Afghanized for that reason. We've had our experience in past elections and we've learned our lessons. If you want to go further, you may go to read Kai Eide's book, the U.N. special representative's book during that election. Now he has spoken about it.
Are you getting pressure over the elections?
No not at all, we have not had any discussion on the election law or the election of 2014 as far as laws or the form of elections.
I can say in general terms we want the election to be Afghan owned, Afghan-law election. It has to be run through Afghan law suited to Afghanistan's condition and make sure that the election commission is free within the country and outside of the country from interferences from outside and within the country. For me the best example of an election commission and of a dignified election is that of India. That's my model. An Indian election commission that cannot be influenced politically by the government of the time, or the politics of the time or the politicians of the time, that they have the freedom to act. And themselves as the commission behave in accordance with the interests of the country and the laws concerning the election.
When will the law be unveiled?
The law is being worked out. I will not be able to talk about it until I see it and it will come to the cabinet and I will see it.
You said that it will resemble India's law.
Resembles in two ways: one, an election commission that is absolutely independent of political influence. Political influence from within, political influence from without, from outside. A fair commission that's Afghan and apolitical and focused technically on the elections, not political on elections. Second - an election law that enables the commission to conduct a fair transparent election where the Afghan people can cast their vote and be sure that that vote is respected. That a genuine vote isn't counted as a fraudulent vote and that a fraudulent vote is not turned into a genuine vote. That's roughly what we want.
You have said you will not be running again in 2014. Have you thought of serving in a different capacity, and what it might be?
The different capacity is that I'll be an ex-president of Afghanistan. I'll be ready for advice when I'm asked for it on my experiences. And I'll be an Afghan citizen trying to help the country move forward in ways that I can as a citizen.
There has been speculation about this post of father of the nation in the constitution. Is that possible?
No, I don't think so and I think that's not the right thing. We shouldn't have too many fathers for this nation. I think we should move ahead and have presidents and have ex-presidents just like what you did in the United States. And that's the best model for us, I believe the United States system of government is the best model for us. You don't have fathers for the nation. You have a George Washington who's respectable and he's not called the father of the nation is he? Not officially, not in the constitution, [but] in public opinion. That's fine. I wish I can get there. That's fine. But not an artificially created title in the constitution. That's not right for the country.
May your brother Qayyum possibly run? Have you thought about that?
As a citizen he has the right to run like all other Afghan citizens. But if he asked my opinion I wouldn't recommend it. I have my views on the future and the election. As a citizen he has the right, but if he asks my opinion on it I wouldn't recommend it. It's a difficult job.
Would it be good for the nation to have a different last name for the next president?
Probably good for the nation, because whatever he does he'll be accused of having my backing for it. I think the country should move forward in a democratic way, have a president that can serve it in a manner that will have the Afghan people feel that that's genuinely their elected representative.

Afghan Minister Defends TV Head-Scarves Request
February 15, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghanistan's Culture and Information Ministry has defended its request that female television presenters wear head scarves and avoid heavy makeup, which one newscaster has warned will contribute to her feeling of "being caged."
The controversy arose after the ministry, acting on complaints that female presenters were not observing Islamic and cultural norms, made the request in a letter distributed to state and private media earlier this week.
The move was criticized by journalists and characterized by some as an effort by the Afghan authorities to placate the Taliban amid reported peace negotiations involving Afghan and U.S. officials with the Islamist group.
Culture and Information Minister Sayyed Makhdum Rahin said on February 15 that attempts by Western media to link the move to the reported talks were "disgusting and hateful."
Rahin, who has held his ministerial post since 2010, touted his ministry's accomplishments and vowed to defend them.
"We are proud of our achievements made during the past 10 years. We are prepared to make all sacrifices to protect them," Rahin said, adding that the protection of "free speech, women's rights, and human rights are some of those achievements."
Rahin said that female newsreaders should appear different from actresses in movies and television soap operas, and added that most private channels were in agreement on the need to observe Afghan cultural and religious norms.
Women Already Under Pressure
But Nasrin, a newscaster at Kabul's Ariana Television Network, told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that female presenters already faced a lot of family and societal pressure because of their high-profile jobs.
The additional restrictions, she said, would have a negative impact on their performance.
"Imposing more restrictions on presenters adds to their feeling of being caged," she said. "It prevents them from performing their jobs, such as reading news, well. And they will feel more uncomfortable."
Many of the country's private channels are operated by Saad Mohseni, one of Afghanistan's main media moguls. Mohseni says that one has to consider the pressure the minister faces in the current environment, in which religious conservatism has risen in the past few years.
Mohseni says that all of the female presenters working for the channels owned by his Moby Media Group, Lemar and Tolo TV, wear head scarves on the air. He suggests that the ministry's letter targeted a handful of channels that it deemed were "going overboard."
More than two dozen television stations have appeared in the decade since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan that toppled the hard-line Islamic Taliban regime.
While Afghan women have regained many fundamental rights, analysts say their plight remains severe and their future uncertain as the issue of negotiations with the Taliban gains traction
With agency reports

How Afghanistan's Freezing Temperatures Mean Trouble After Things Thaw
TIME By John Wendle Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012
The mud walled hut in which four-month-old Khair Mohammad froze to death was covered by an emergency aid tarp sagging under the weight of the snow. Throughout the camp in Kabul, similar dwellings were blanketed in white. The snow fell in heavy, wet flakes and stuck to the bare heads and thin shoulders of the camp's children — many wearing only shirts and rubber flip-flops. The kids were running to collect blankets and clothes haphazardly dropped off by a disorganized jumble of foreign aid agencies, Afghan NGOs and businessmen and sympathetic foreigners reacting to the news that around two dozen children had frozen to death in the past month in the makeshift camps housing the thousands of people displaced by Afghanistan's war.
"Maybe tonight everything will be okay or maybe more children will die. It's the same thing, day in, day out," says Sayed Mohammad, Khair's father, struggling with frozen hands to secure a tent rope to a stake outside his dirt-floored house. "Sometimes we have food. Sometimes there is no food. Sometimes we don't have any heat. Sometimes it's snowing. We have no control. If we have one thing, then we don't have another," Sayed tells TIME. "We have no choice. Some days we have no dinner and we just sit and look at each others faces," says Sayed.
"When it snows, I get tears in my eyes thinking about how many more dead there will be," says Julie Bara, a water, sanitation and hygiene program coordinator for Solidarites International, a French group that has been working at the camps in Kabul. "The future for these children is the most uncertain."
Khair died late last week, making him the 17th child to freeze to death in the Nasaji Bagrami IDP camp in just 30 days. Though numbers remain vague because of deaths left unrecorded by families and officials, Kargar Nuragli, spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Health, told TIME that at least 24 children had died from the unusual cold snap and heavy snow that has blanketed Kabul in the past month. But Khair's death is only the latest tragedy to befall Sayed Mohammad's family. "We moved to this camp because of the war. Two of my children died in Helmand province and my father and brother were killed there. We had to. We didn't come here out of luxury," Sayed tells TIME.
Indeed, Kabul is a fragile bubble of safety and relative economic prosperity — along with other large Afghan cities like Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kandahar — in comparison to an impoverished countryside ravaged by a decade-long war. The only alternative would be camps in neighboring Pakistan or Iran — and the limbo of refugee existence. The plight of these Afghans will not get better when it gets warmer: there are other, larger problems that the issues in the camps only highlight.
Over more than 10 years of war the big cities have seen their populations of internally displaced people (IDP) and returnee refugees ebb and flow with the violence in the surrounding countryside. The numbers tell the story. Even as the fighting in southern Afghanistan stabilized, the IDP and refugee population in Kabul increased by around 5% in 2009, by about 10% in 2010 and by more than 23% in 2011. "The IDP population has been increasing exponentially since 2009. Just looking at the math, there could be a greater than 35% increase for 2012, taking the population to around 40,000," saysone aid worker who declined to be identified because of the delicacy of the politics involved. Right now there are 43 "informal settlements" around Kabul, totaling between 20,000 and 30,000 people according to two different censuses. And there are another 5,000 around the city limits.
And though recent media coverage of the wave of deaths of children under age five has spurred an increase in the amount of aid — organized or not — the government does not seem to have a solid, long-term plan to take care of "the poorest of the poor." What is more, the Afghan government fears that the availability of aid will only draw a wave of impoverished farmers to the relative safety of Kabul — a fear based on the experience of other humanitarian crises around the world. "The government is afraid," Dr. Mohammad Diam Kakar, director general of the Disaster Assistance Agency, tells TIME. "Abdul Karim Khalili, second vice president and director of the National Disaster Management Committee said at a meeting a few days ago that if we cannot find a solution and the IDPs will not go home, then, with the help they have received recently — which has been broadcast all over the world by the media — maybe we will receive more IDPs."
A spokesman for the Ministry of Refugees says that with international support, the government will provide people with land in any province and a two-room house. But where the money and land would come from — a sorely contested issue in a country with few documented land titles — is unclear. But the people at the camps know the score if they leave the bubbles of security and relative abundance of social services. "I went to the camps yesterday and they said they don't want to leave Kabul for any place," says Dr. Kakar. "They told me, 'we will not receive the support we are getting now from the government, the NGOs and the president if we go home. We will stay here.'"
But even the support the people get is not enough. "The future of these children will not be any different from how we live now. There are no schools. There are no clinics. They will be illiterate. They will be uneducated. They will have the same condition as us," says Wali Khan, an elder from Helmand who moved to the camp three years ago. And, observers agree, such a situation creates an opportunity for radical elements to gain a foothold in an already aggrieved population — the exact situation that led to the rise of the Taliban in the first place.
For their part, the Taliban made the point on a Twitter post that the recent deaths are "a sample of things which happen in areas ruled by ISAF." A spokesman for the group, Zabiullah Mujahed, says that, "if we come back into the power we will definitely have systems and programs to take care of people in any season," adding that, "We will take care of the needs of people very honestly without cheating or lying. We will not do as the current government is doing." But again, without having the infrastructure to collect taxes, the claims of both the government and the Taliban seem flimsy.
Back at the camp's whitewashed mud walled mosque a group of men huddled inside, their breath fogging the air. Most were visibly shivering. The Pashtuns are incredibly hospitable to guests and they apologized repeatedly for not offering a seat and a cup of tea, since the floor was only covered in a thin plastic prayer mat and there was no tea and no wood to make a fire. Shivering children stared in the door.
Standing in a huddle of shawls and turbans flecked in snow, the men told story after story of heartbreak, sorrow and death. Finally, a camp leader, Wakhil Mohammad Ibrahim, had had enough of the talk and issued a frustrated ultimatum to Afghan President Hamid Karzai — a challenge that illuminates the precarious knife-edge Afghanistan straddles just a few years from a international military withdrawal, one that could be accompanied by an exodus of aid agencies. "Under the Taliban we always got help. But now, we are here in Kabul and we are getting aid and we are getting help from a lot of countries and this son-of-a-bitch Karzai doesn't even care about us," Ibrahim says. The expletive is startling. The Pashtun use insults only when they are extremely agitated. "This is my message, this is my warning to Karzai: if you recognize us as Afghans, give us any job. We will do anything for our country, just provide us with the same condition the Taliban did when we were in Kandahar. If not, this country is yours. We will go to Pakistan, we will go to Iran and we will forget you."

After a Reassessment, NATO Resumes Sending Detainees to Afghanistan Jails
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN February 15, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan - A moratorium by NATO on transferring detainees to some of the Afghan government’s detention facilities has been lifted and transfers have resumed, NATO officials said Wednesday.
Last fall, the transfers were suspended in the wake of a devastating report from the United Nations that found evidence of routine human rights abuses and torture at 16 detention centers, including eight operated by the National Directorate of Security and eight operated by the police.
The United Nations report, which covered 47 detention facilities in 22 provinces, found that in some of them detainees were beaten with rubber hoses and hung from hooks, and that their genitals were twisted to extract confessions. The NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen, immediately halted detainee transfers to all Afghan facilities where the United Nations found abuses and put in place a remediation program.
Over the past four months NATO officials have assessed each of the jails named in the report and instituted a retraining program for the Afghan leadership at them, as well as the interrogators and guards. The Ministry of Interior and the National Directorate of Security, which run Afghan detainee operations, have cooperated, NATO officials said.
NATO said that it had resumed transferring detainees to 12 of the 16 detention centers, but that for four of them it was conditional, meaning that NATO could reverse that decision after further checks. Four places, including three where detainees reported routine abuse and in some cases torture, have not yet been certified for transfers.
The United Nations Convention Against Torture prohibits the transfer of a detained person to the custody of a state where there are substantial grounds for believing that the detainee is at risk of torture. There is also a United States law that prohibits assistance or training to the security forces of a foreign country if there is evidence of torture. Financing and assistance can continue, however, if serious remedial action is taken.
Typically when NATO troops arrest Afghans in the field, they hold them briefly for questioning and let them go if they are deemed to have no connection to suspicious activities. If they do appear to have insurgent connections, NATO troops either turn them over to the Afghan detention system or, in rarer cases, send them to the detention facility operated by the United States in Parwan.
The moratorium on transfers has meant that more detainees have either been transferred to Parwan or been ferried to Afghan centers where there have not been accusations of abuse. Those Afghan facilities are often further afield, which means NATO soldiers are holding more Afghans for longer periods than before and more soldiers are involved in detention operations than in the past, said Maj. Carl ****, who is heading up the assessment and retraining effort.
Although NATO has little capacity to monitor all the detention facilities that it sends detainees to, if it hears of abuses from the United Nations or from the International Committee of the Red Cross it will halt transfers immediately until the facility has been investigated and if necessary, the problems have been resolved.
“As soon as there is reasonable doubt that there is inhumane treatment, we stop transfers,” Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, the NATO spokesman, said.
The process raises tough questions for the future. Since there are fewer NATO troops in the field, it will be harder for them to retain oversight of detention operations. But as long as there are any NATO troops there will still be the need to transfer detainees to the Afghans, General Jacobson said. There will be even more reliance in the future on reports by the United Nations and the Red Cross, he said.

As Wars Wind Down, What Are U.S. Security Needs?
NPR By Alan Greenblatt February 15, 2012
U.S. troops have already left Iraq, the war in Afghanistan is winding down, and there hasn't been a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 2001.
So is America now safe enough to scale back its emphasis on security? Or are the potential threats no less dangerous — just less obvious?
These questions are not just philosophical, but practical. They're also the underpinning of the current argument about what the level of defense spending should be.
Cuts, But How Big?
President Obama's new budget proposal, released Monday, depends on reductions in military spending for a lot of its projected deficit savings.
After a decade of sharp increases, the Pentagon budget would be cut by about 6 percent next year, compared to this year's spending levels. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said the Pentagon can absorb the current cuts and can meet the nation's strategic security needs with fewer troops.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, Panetta restated the Obama administration's position that it will focus more on Asia and the Middle East in the coming years.
But Panetta, the military brass and many Republicans are concerned that even larger cuts could be on the way and those could substantially weaken the military.
"It asks the men and women in uniform who have given so much already to give that much more, so that the president might fund programs the American people don't want and can't afford," Howard "Buck" McKeon, the California Republican who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, said in response to Obama's budget.
Underlying this political debate, however, is a deeper question. The U.S. has overwhelming military superiority and there is no immediate threat from abroad, so how vigilant and well-armed should the U.S. be to preserve national security?
In a forthcoming article in Foreign Affairs, Micah Zenko and Michael A. Cohen argue that threats to the U.S. are routinely overstated.
Wars are less frequent — and far less deadly — than they were even a few decades ago. The U.S. has built up a military apparatus that dwarfs any potential rivals — spending nine times as much as China on defense, for instance.
Even terrorist attacks pose little threat to most Americans, Zenko and Cohen argue. They are fellows, respectively, at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Century Foundation.
They note that in 2010, 13,186 people were killed in terrorist attacks worldwide, but only 15 of them were Americans. In other words, Americans face greater risk from drowning in a bathtub.
"The world that the United States inhabits today is a remarkably safe and secure place," Zenko and Cohen write. "It is a world with fewer violent conflicts and greater political freedom than at virtually any other point in human history."
Risky Assumptions
Nonetheless, many Americans, including many defense policymakers, continue to feel that the world is a threatening place.
To cite one example, the potential for Iran to build nuclear weapons and threaten its neighbors — notably Israel — has been the dominant foreign policy concern in recent weeks.
And the argument that the U.S. can feel safe and secure because its wars are winding down and there are no immediate existential threats is based on several "fallacies," says Peter Feaver, a political scientist at Duke University who worked on national security issues during the George W. Bush administration.
The first, he says, is that the future will not be as dangerous as the present. The next is that, because the U.S. has achieved clear military dominance, it can rest on its laurels and reduce its military strength.
Feaver dismisses the argument that it's a waste of money to chase after al-Qaida just because it hasn't been able to launch another attack of the scope of Sept. 11, 2001.
"Their failure to launch is partially a measure of the success of those [counterterrorism] efforts, rather than, as some observers erroneously argue, a sign that they weren't needed," he says.
It's like arguing because someone never got mumps, he never needed a mumps vaccine.
Preparing For Future Threats
Feaver says the third fallacy is the idea that certain conflicts or parts of the world have no bearing on U.S. security interests and can safely be ignored.
The dangers of such an attitude, he says, have been amply demonstrated by American inattention to Afghanistan in the 1990s, which allowed al-Qaida to create its safe haven there.
There's no telling what threats may loom larger in the future, says Nora Bensahel, a defense analyst at the Center for a New American Security. "That's kind of how history goes," she says. "Things come up and surprise you."
Consider China. It may pose no military threat to the U.S. now, but its ambitions even within its region may eventually conflict with American interests.
Protecting against such an eventuality will require advanced sea- and aircraft of a sort that take years to develop and build up, Bensahel says. You can't just start from scratch once the danger is clear and present.
"What happens if we don't invest now in the airplanes and ships that we need?" she asks. "We may wake up 15 years from now and find that China controls traffic in the South China Sea, for example, where the U.S. has enormous economic interests."
Levels Of Risk Tolerance
It's impossible to plan for every scenario. There's no amount of military spending that would keep the nation completely safe.
"We could spend the entire federal budget on the military and we wouldn't be able to eliminate every risk to U.S. national security," Bensahel says.
That leaves open the question of how much risk policymakers are willing to tolerate. That's inevitably a political question, Feaver says, and one that never gets fully resolved.
After the Cold War, Washington was too complacent about U.S. security, he says. After Sept. 11, many politicians exaggerated the threat that terrorism posed, he adds.
"The al-Qaida threat was and to a certain extent is very, very serious, but it was not the Soviet Union with tens of thousands of nuclear-tipped missiles on hair-trigger alert," Feaver says. "So it's a categorically different threat."
Preserving Power
Even Obama's budget, despite its significant cuts, assumes U.S. troop levels will remain higher than they were before 2001. Figuring out just how much military force and spending is enough is going to remain a primary argument in Washington.
It's "preposterous" to worry that the U.S. can't afford to cut defense spending because of threats that might arise years down the road, says Jack Snyder, an international relations professor at Columbia University.
On the other hand, Snyder says, a good deal of the security the U.S. enjoys today is the byproduct of its military resolve.
U.S. strategy hasn't always been flawless, he says, but the country has made it clear it won't tolerate aggression across internationally recognized borders — and has had the wherewithal to back that policy up.
"War is less likely and the U.S. is certainly more secure now than it has been in a long, long time," Snyder says. "But some of the reasons for the decline of war have to do with the power of the United States and the other liberal advanced democracies."

Local Officials Play Truant in Afghan North
IWPR investigation finds that district government chiefs are rarely at their desks.
IWPR By Jawed Bakhtari 15 Feb 2012
Afghanistan - One morning in May, 21-year-old Atifa says her father, Ali Mohammad, raped her. She says her father returned from the local market in Alizai village, in the Balkh province of northern Afghanistan, and found her at home alone.
She says he took a rope lying in the courtyard, tied her up and assaulted her. According to Atifa, none of the neighbours came to rescue her despite her screams.
Atifa and her mother Sakina decided to report the incident to the local government. They prepared a complaint and visited the district government office in Chimtal every working day for three weeks, without success.
The district sub-governor, Gul-Ahmad Payman, is mandated with ensuring security and justice for residents.
The only answer offered to Atifa and Sakina on their frequent visits to his office was, “The sub-governor is not in his office, and nothing can be done until he is here.”
Payman argues that he would fall prey to the Taleban if he frequents his office too often.
In the meantime, hundreds of people wait outside offices seeking legal remedies for their problems, only to be let down at the end of the day.
Sub-governors are appointed representatives of the government for their respective districts. The Afghan government allocates them six bodyguards and a monthly salary of 450 US dollars, plus another 450 dollars a month for expenses, along with a car worth approximately 20,000 dollars.
The job description for sub-governors, developed by the Independent Directorate of Local Governance, IDLG, makes it clear that these officials, like all civil servants, must be in their offices from 8 am to 4 pm every working day to deal with public grievances.
But a recent investigation by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting in Balkh province showed that 12 out of the 15 sub-governors there rarely appeared at their workplaces in 2011 between March and August, even though Balkh is considered one of the safest provinces in Afghanistan in terms of security threats and Taleban presence.
Salaries for all civil servants are based on forms compiled by the administrative employees of district governments. Records indicate that all Balkh province sub-governors received their full monthly salaries from March 21 through September 21, 2011. The forms indicate that the sub-governors were in their offices every working day.
Mohammad Isaq Sarwari, the finance director for Balkh province, was asked why his department found that these sub-governors were eligible to receive their salaries when they had rarely appeared in their offices over six months.
“I don’t know about this. I don’t check whether the sub-governors go to their offices or not,” he replied.
Rais Khan-Jan, head of Baba-Avaz, a village in Sholgara district, says district sub-governor Nimatullah Masab visits his office only once a fortnight.
Over the last two years, local residents have sent six pages’-worth of complaints to Balkh provincial governor Atta Mohammad Noor, accusing sub-governor Masab of extorting money from people. To date, the Balkh governor has not replied to these complaints.
An IWPR investigation showed that the Sholgara sub-governor had purchased two houses in Mazar-e Sharif during the two years he has held the post. One of these houses is in Mazar’s Karte Zeraat neighbourhood and the other in Guzar-e Mirza-Ghasem. The two houses are worth an estimated 1.5 million dollars, according to a local real estate expert.
It took an IWPR reporter 30 days to arrange an interview with Masab. When he was finally reached at his house in Mazar-e Sharif, he was asked why he did not go to his office.
“It’s enough for me to appear once a month at my office,” he replied. He admitted that fear of the Taleban affected his attendance rate.
Aside from fear of the Taleban, sub-governors in Balkh province give other reasons for absence from their offices.
Shir-Mohammad Abu-Tariq, the sub-governor of Marmul, says he stays in Mazar-e Sharif because his wife and children don’t like Marmul. Kishindih sub-governor Abdul-Ghafur Hamrah says he does not like the district because it is surrounded by mountains. Kaldar sub-governor Abdul-Matin Khwaja-zada says the road between Mazar-e Sharif and Kaldar is long and in poor shape, so he does not want to go to the district every day.
Taimur-Shah Payiz, sub-governor of Balkh district, gives a totally different reason, arguing that his numerous contacts with politicians mean he has to spend a considerable amount of his time in Kabul.
Sub-governors in Balkh province, many of whom have ethnic and political affiliations with the provincial governor, do not seem worried about the prospect of a government agency looking into their attendance records.
Marmul sub-governor Shir-Mohammad Abu-Tariq was asked what problems his absence from the local government office might create for residents, and replied that he did not care about people and was not responsible for solving their problems.
“The governor in Mazar placed me here, and I am answerable to him,” Abu-Tariq said.
Abdul-Matin Khwaja-Zada, sub-governor of Kaldar district, was asked why the local government office closed while he went with his family on a fishing trip along the river Amu-Darya for several days. As the reporter left his house, Khwaja-Zada handed him a white envelope containing 200 dollars, requesting that the interview not be published. The reporter turned him down.
Zabihulla Akhtari, director of technical services in Balkh province, told IWPR that a recent examination by his agency concluded that ten sub-governors were inefficient, and that Balkh’s provincial governor had warned the sub-governors of Chimtal, Sholgara, Kaldar and Kishindih that if local people filed any more complaints against them, he would report them to the provincial prosecutor’s office.
Akhtari said his agency was aware that many Balkh sub-governors did not go to work. When they did, he said his office’s assessment was that up to 70 percent of the tax money they collected was not sent to the government treasury.
Recruitment and dismissal of provincial governors and sub-governors is one of the main tasks of the IDLG, established three years ago by the Afghan government.
“It is absolutely unacceptable for a sub-governor not to appear in his office,” IDLG director Abdul-Khaliq Farahi said when told that 12 sub-governors in Balkh had not been going to their workplaces for the last six months. Farahi blamed Governor Atta Mohammad for not supervising his sub-governors properly.
“Sub-governors failing to report at their offices must be immediately laid off and reported to the prosecution office,” Farahi said.
Atta Mohammad told IWPR that he “swears to God” that if a single one of the sub-governors fails to go to work, he will force him out of his position at once, even though he did not have the authority to do so.
Atta Mohammad said six sub-governors are under suspicion. “By not going to their offices, they create a distance between people and government,” he said in an interview.
When Atifa, the alleged rape victim, finally gave up on reaching sub-governor Payman, she and her mother went to district police headquarters and filed their complaint. Police were quick to arrest Ali Mohammad and put him in the district prison – only to release him five days later.
Atifa and her mother claim his release was due to pressure from the sub-governor. Ali Mohammad is, they say, an old acquaintance of the sub-governor, going back at least 20 years to the time of the anti-Soviet resistance.
Atifa now lives in a safe shelter in Mazar-e Sharif run by a private NGO with financial support from USAID. She says that when her roommates go to sleep, she takes out her embroidered handkerchief and wipes away her tears.
She states that one week before the alleged attack, she became engaged to a fellow villager, but that as soon as the man got wind of the accusation involving the father and daughter, he revoked the engagement.
Her father, Ali Mohammad, has now joined a village vigilante force. He has been given a Kalashnikov assault rifle by the Balkh police department, and stands guard at night from the rooftop of his house. The government pays him a monthly fee of 5,000 afghanis.
Atifa’s mother Sakina has taken refuge in her father’s home in Mazar-e Sharif because she fears her husband may try to kill her.
Jawed Bakhtari is an IWPR-trained reporter in Afghanistan.

www.afghanistannewscenter.com