[Afghan News] April 24, 2012

[یاسمینه]

Afghan Stability Undermined by Pakistan, General Says
Bloomberg By Viola Gienger Apr 24, 2012
Hard-won stability in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province is undermined by the Pakistan Army’s failure to help stem the flow of arms coming into the area and drugs going out, a U.S. general said.
“Everything is good, but it’s not irreversible,” Marine Corps Major General John Toolan said in an interview in Washington yesterday after appearing before the Atlantic Council, a policy research group. He ended a one-year tour last month as the commander in charge of the NATO coalition’s southwestern regional command responsible for Helmand.
Toolan’s prognosis highlights the risks as the U.S.-led coalition turns its attention to eastern Afghanistan and prepares to withdraw more forces this year. President Barack Obama plans to cut U.S. troops by 23,000 more this year in preparation for handing control to Afghan authorities by the end of 2014.
With reductions planned by other countries in the 50-nation coalition, about 108,000 personnel will be left until a next round of cuts. The number of U.S. Marines in Helmand is due to drop to 7,000 by October from about 20,000 now, Toolan said in the interview.
“We need to maintain the pressure,” Toolan told the Atlantic Council audience. “The insurgency in the south is the greatest threat to the government of Afghanistan.” Haqqani Network
The guerrillas known as the Haqqani network, who mainly operate in the country’s east from havens across the Pakistani border, have received attention beyond their potential longer- term impact on Afghanistan, Toolan said. The Haqqanis mainly operate to maintain themselves rather than to achieve any grander designs, he said.
“As the insurgency goes, the Haqqani network goes,” Toolan said. “If you can keep a lid on the insurgency, the Haqqani network is not going to be as all-powerful as some people talk it up to be.”
In Helmand, the need to place forces at the border detracts from efforts elsewhere in the province to compensate for a weak central Afghan government and drug-fueled corruption, Toolan said.
“I know for a fact that drugs are moving out through Pakistan and lethal aid is coming in on a regular basis,” Toolan told the Atlantic Council. “I have had no support from 12th Corps,” the Pakistan Army unit in charge of the area across the border, he said.
He said he tried to organize meetings with the corps to discuss the issue. “There always seemed to be something that interfered,” he said. Pakistan’s Response
A spokesman for Pakistan’s embassy in Washington, Nadeem Hotiana, said coordination on common threats has occurred in regular three-way talks among border officials from his country, Afghanistan and the coalition led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
“There are certain trilateral meetings where such issues can be discussed,” Hotiana said yesterday in an interview, declining to comment further.
Pakistan sees it in its own interest to cooperate on narcotics trafficking and the cross-border arms trade because they threaten everyone involved, said another Pakistani official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he isn’t authorized to comment publicly. Pakistan’s military makes sincere efforts within its limitations, the official said.
The U.S. and Pakistan have struggled to rebuild relations, dashed every few months by a confrontation. In January 2011, a CIA employee shot dead two Pakistani men in Lahore. U.S. special operations forces killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May during a raid conducted without notice to Pakistan in its army garrison town of Abbottabad. In November, helicopters of the NATO coalition in Afghanistan inadvertently killed 26 Pakistani troops at the border. Poppy Cultivation
In Helmand Province, corrupt Afghan officials and security forces and the continuing financial temptations of poppy cultivation also endanger efforts by the coalition and legitimate local authorities to win over the population from the Taliban, Toolan said.
“If the central government of Afghanistan doesn’t stay strong, then there are individuals in the central government who can significantly hurt the progress that’s been made,” the general said.
The answer may be to more aggressively apply provisions of Afghanistan’s constitution that delegate authority to local officials, he said.
The Afghan army and police will continue to need robust backing from international forces through 2014, Toolan said. That includes intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance technology to supplement their human intelligence sources, as well as training in military medicine and even firing accuracy, he said.
The U.S. is deploying surveillance balloons with full- motion video to buttress the Afghan forces as the coalition draws back to an advising role, Toolan said. The police also need more training by experts in the field rather than the “dabbling” that coalition military forces are able to provide, he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Viola Gienger in Washington at vgienger@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net

Afghan-US Pact Will Not Apply Until Parliament Approves
TOLOnews.com Monday, 23 April 2012
The Afghanistan-US long-term strategic agreement will not be upheld if the Afghan Parliament does not approve it, officials said Monday.
Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul and National Security Advisor Rangin Dadfar Spanta went before the Afghan Senate and Parliament respectively to discuss the agreement, and both stressed that the country's lawmakers would have the final say.
Speaking before the Senate, Rassoul said the agreement will be valid for ten years and is not applicable unless approved by the parliament.
"The agreement is valid for ten years and it is extendable for another ten years if we want," Rassoul said. "But it's not applicable unless [Parliament] approve it."
Some members of Parliament (MPs) asked the government officials to provide a copy of the draft in order to discuss it within parliament.
"We have the right to see the draft - we need two or three months to discuss it," MP Daoud Kalakani said.
However, Spanta said the draft will be provided to the MPs only after it is signed by the both presidents, adding that this was also the case in the US.
When asked to explain this, he said the signing of the agreement by both countries' presidents was conditional on the agreement of their respective governments.
"When its signed by the US President, then we can provide the draft to you," he told the MPs.
Officials told TOLOnews that the Afghan-US strategic pact was rewritten 23 times during its 18 month-long negotiation period.
Rassoul told the Senate that the agreement acknowledged both countries as independent and equal, and it respected the sovereignty of Afghanistan.
"As per the United Nations mandate, Afghanistan and US will be considered as independent and equal countries after signing the agreement," he said.
"US will respect the national sovereignty and independence of Afghanistan and is committed to transferring security responsibility to the Afghan forces," he told the senators.
The agreement also says that Afghanistan should be named an "important Nato ally" and that the US is committed to training and equipping Afghan security forces for a decade after 2014.
It does not contain any dollar amount for how much the US will commit each year, despite earlier calls from President Hamid Karzai for this to be included in the agreement.
While the document does not specify what the US will provide in terms of ongoing security support, notably, there will be no permanent military bases, Rassoul said.
"The US has once again emphasised that it is not interested in having military bases in Afghanistan which might be seen as a threat to our neighbors," he told the Senate.
However, Spanta meanwhile told parliamentarians that talks about US permanent military bases were not off the agenda, and that this issue will be revisited a year after the strategic agreement is signed.
"After signing the strategic pact, a separate security agreement which will allow or not allow the existence of US permanent bases in Afghanistan will be signed after one year if agreed," Spanta said.
Afghan and US officials finalised the Afghan-US strategic pact on Sunday which is expected to be signed at the Chicago summit in May.
The agreement titled "Enduring Strategic Partnership Agreement between Afghanistan and the United States" was initialed "final" by Spanta and the US Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker during a ceremony at the National Security Council.

A New U.S.-Afghan Strategic Partnership: Should the Taliban Be Afraid?
By John Wendle time.com Monday, Apr. 23, 2012
Kabul - After many months of wrangling and negotiations between Washington and Kabul, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Afghanistan's National Security Adviser Rangin Dadfar Spanta initialed the draft of a strategic partnership agreement that promises American support for Afghanistan for 10 years following the planned 2014 withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops. However, like many recent agreements between the two countries, observers agree that although the document is being widely heralded, it will have little real impact and will remain a tool in a political shadow play.
"Our goal is an enduring partnership with Afghanistan that strengthens Afghan sovereignty, stability and prosperity and that contributes to our shared goal of defeating al-Qaeda and its extremist affiliates," U.S. Embassy spokesman Gavin Sundwall told TIME. "We believe this agreement supports that goal." He added that, "Both President Barack Obama and [Afghan] President Hamid Karzai have expressed their desire to have an agreement ready to sign before the NATO summit in Chicago [which begins May 15]." Sundwall tells TIME that the document will undergo an interagency review, a consultation with Congress as appropriate and a final review by the president. "Once these internal processes are complete, we expect to be in a position to sign the agreement," Sundwall says, though he could not comment on details of the agreement.
Because of the lack of details or teeth, observers say the draft has little substance. "It's an ineffectual PR move. They're trying to have it both ways — to have their cake and eat it too," a foreign observer says. "There seems to be some great optimism that this will convince other countries to pony up the money and take on more of the financial burden from the U.S. [to support the Afghan government and military]. But other countries will not be keen to whip out their checkbooks when the U.S. doesn't talk about exact financial commitments."
A U.S. official tells TIME that the signing "locks in" the text for now, but "the final text is pending the internal review processes of both countries." The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the deal "will provide the general framework governing our bilateral relationship with the government and people of Afghanistan going forward." He added that, "once agreed, specifics that go beyond the scope of the framework will need to be discussed and addressed in future memorandum of understanding, agreements or other arrangements as appropriate."
Even with no specifics, Afghan National Security Adviser Spanta announced that, "The document finalized [on Sunday] provides a strong foundation for the security of Afghanistan, the region and the world and is a document for the development of the region." Western diplomats have speculated that a more detailed security agreement would possibly come sometime next year, once European nations make it clear how much they can give to fund Afghan national security forces.
Still, the very presence of a draft agreement is important to the goals of both the U.S. and Afghan governments. The U.S. needs to show the American people it is working on an exit strategy while Kabul needs to reassure international donors there is a future in Afghanistan and the Afghan people that they will not be left to fend for themselves against the Taliban's expected attempt to take over after the 2014 pull out. The agreement could also be seen as a possible application of pressure against the Taliban, since many have speculated that they will wait for a U.S. withdrawal before staging a power-grab.
Also, it is remarkable that any sort of agreement has been reached at all after a year when relations between the two countries have been strained by U.S. troops mugging with the body parts of suicide bombers, urinating on the corpses of dead insurgents, burning Korans and massacring civilians coupled with Afghan troops killing their foreign mentors. Even in light of these hurdles, the draft comes on the heels of further movement in moving toward a post-U.S. Afghanistan, including memoranda of understanding for the handover of control of night raids to Afghan forces and a detention facility.
Yet, even this momentum is limited. Because the U.S. Congress must vote on yearly budgets, there is no way for lump sums of cash to be allotted in advance to the Afghan government to run its military and ministries — even within the framework of this strategic partnership agreement. Though Karzai called for just that last week — asking the U.S. to make a written commitment to pay a minimum of $2 billion to support the Afghan military. A $2.7 billion a year price tag has also been discussed. It is round figures like these that Western leaders will try to hash out at the Chicago NATO summit. It is estimated that it will cost about $4 billion a year to support the 352,000 strong national army and national police — of which the Afghan government will contribute around $500 million a year.
And while these figures are orders of magnitude smaller than the $110 billion to $120 billion the Congressional Research Service says the U.S. has spent in Afghanistan every year since the troop surge began in 2010, no specific amounts have been set by Sunday's draft signing — which makes many observers wonder at the purpose of such an announcement. "My sense is that it will soon become clear where the U.S. stands and that this is quite a noncommittal agreement," says long-time Afghanistan observer and expert Martine van Bijlert, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network. "This agreement won't convince the Taliban or anyone else that there's going to be solid and sustained U.S. support, or clarify what that support will be. It is quite clear that the U.S. and other countries are quite conflicted and this agreement does nothing to clarify what their stance is."
The foreign observer amplified this analysis, saying, "The agreement coming through doesn't surprise me. The Bagram [detention facility] and night raids memoranda of understanding were where Karzai got almost everything he wanted and the U.S. gave and gave. This is the agreement where the U.S. gave nothing, in spite of Karzai's statements a few weeks ago about how much he wanted specific figures — which it sounds like he got none of." The source added that, "In terms of what this agreement says about the U.S.'s commitment to continuing financial support, it doesn't give us any information. It leaves the U.S. free to provide a lot of support, or very little, as it sees fit, year-by-year. Basically, it's an agreement to be friends. And without any other details, does it send a clear message to Pakistan and Iran? Does it send a clear message to the Taliban? Does it send a clear message to the U.S.'s partner nations? I don't think so. And without these details there's no difference in the relationship between the U.S. and Afghanistan today than there was yesterday."

Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan to Ink Agreement on Refugees
Fars News Agency April 24, 2012
TEHRAN (FNA)- Afghanistan's Refugees and Repatriation Deputy Minister Samad Hami announced on Tuesday that Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan are due to sign an agreement on issues related to the Afghan refugees.
"Based on the agreement, the Afghan refugees can remain in Iran and Pakistan until 2017," Hami said in a press conference in Kabul.
According to the Afghan official, the new agreement underlines that his countrymen should not be expelled from Iran and Pakistan forcefully.
He said that 930,000 Afghans are living in Iran under the support of the UN and 1,400,000 reside in the country as refugees and are not supported by the world body.
Iran has called on the international community to strengthen support for Iran for hosting Afghan refugees and provide repatriation support for the refugees.
Voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees from Iran has slowed in recent years in the face of poor security and economic conditions in Afghanistan, which Tehran blames on the US-led invasion of the country in 2001.
Earlier this year, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Representative in Iran Bernard Doyle lauded the country for its efforts and effective measures in supporting the Afghan refugees residing in Iran, and underlined that Tehran has shown a kind and humanitarian behavior towards the Afghan nationals.
"Iran has well fulfilled its humanitarian duties in this regard," Doyle said in a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi in June.

8 Taliban killed, 15 arrested in Afghanistan: gov't
KABUL, April 24 (Xinhua) -- Eight Taliban militants have been killed and 15 suspects arrested during cleanup operations in different Afghan provinces within the past 24 hours, the country's Interior Ministry said Tuesday morning. "Afghan National Police (ANP), army, NDS or intelligence agency and Coalition Forces launched six joint cleanup operations in Kabul, Nangarhar, Parwan, Kunduz, Helmand and Logar provinces over the past 24 hours, killing eight armed Taliban insurgents and detaining 15 other suspects,"the ministry said in a statement.
They also found and seized weapons, the statement said, without saying if there were any casualties on the side of security forces.
Taliban militants have yet to make comments.
Afghan forces and some 130,000 NATO-led coalition troops have intensified cleanup operations against Taliban and other militant groups throughout the country recently. Over 490 insurgents have been killed and more than 1,120 others detained across the country so far this year, according to the figures released by Afghan Interior Ministry.

Officials: U.S. troops have fired from base inside Afghanistan at Pakistan 4 times
CNN By Nick Paton Walsh April 23, 2012
FOB Tillman, Afghanistan - U.S. troops have fired into Pakistani territory at least four times in the last 10 months in cross-border skirmishes that they say are in response to shelling from inside Pakistan, CNN has learned.
The revelation is likely to stoke already tense relations between Pakistan and the United States, which hit a new low after a NATO airstrike last year killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the volatile border.
While the Taliban and Haqqani network, an Afghan militant group operating from Pakistan's Waziristan province, are generally believed responsible for cross-border attacks against troops, an Afghan army commander says Pakistani soldiers opened fire on him and his men as recently as April 14.
"When we went near the border, we were attacked with an anti-aircraft gun and mortars by the Pakistani army from their checkpoints. We are not only attacked from the Pakistani soil, but we are also attacked by the Pakistani army," Masoud Karimi, an Afghan army commander, told CNN.
"We just saw them with our own eyes that the Pakistani soldiers were firing at us and on the same day we reported to the Americans. But the Americans told us that it was from the other side of the border and they didn't have the permission to conduct operations ... there," he said.
Army Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, confirmed Afghan soldiers were involved in a cross-border clash that day. He did not specify who opened fire upon the Afghans.
U.S. troops do, however, sometimes fire back into Pakistan, as confirmed during a recent visit by CNN to Forward Operating Base Tillman in Afghanistan's rugged Paktika province.
The commander at FOB Tillman, located just a few kilometers from the Pakistan border, said he has fired across the border in response to being shelled from inside Pakistan.
Army Capt. Charles Seitz said he did not know the exact number of times he returned fire.
But when pressed by CNN, and asked whether it was correct to say that he had fired into Pakistan more than five times, he responded: "That sounds accurate."
The outpost is one of a handful along the Afghan-Pakistan border, and the captain's admission may indicate more cross-border violence than previously publicized.
Cummings, the ISAF spokesman, said troops at Tillman have fired into Pakistan four times since June 2011.
Pakistan is aware of the cross-border skirmishes.
Gen. Athar Abbas, a spokesman for the Pakistani military, said he did not know the exact number of times FOB Tillman fired into Pakistan, but that four sounded accurate.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said they try to liaise with Pakistani military forces first.
But that communication does not always happen, Abbas said.
He said that most of the time U.S. officials or NATO inform Pakistan before firing across the border, but sometimes they do not and Pakistani military checkpoints are hit.
Abbas said he was unaware of the April 14 cross-border clash.
FOB Tillman is named for fallen Army Spec. Pat Tillman -- the Arizona Cardinals linebacker turned soldier who was killed in a friendly fire incident in 2004 in Afghanistan, near the border.
Relations between the United States and Pakistan -- complicated at the best of times -- have become especially tense in the past year.
The deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers in November added to anger already felt by Pakistanis over the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden at a compound in Pakistan in May, and continued American drone strikes on targets in the nation.
Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, accused Pakistan's intelligence service of protecting the Haqqani network, calling it a "veritable arm" of the Pakistan spy agency. As a result, he said Pakistan bore some responsibility for the attacks.
The combined effect was a chilling of Pakistani cooperation with the United States.

U.S. soldier’s gift to Afghan workers at her base underscores divide
Washington Post By Greg Jaffe Tuesday April 24,2012
COMBAT OUTPOST SAYED ABAD, AFGHANISTAN - In a big war, Army Spec. Cherry Maurice believed that one small gesture could make a difference.
Temperatures at her mountain base plunged to 20 degrees below zero in January, and snow covered the ground. Maurice noticed that the eight Afghan workers on the outpost were coming to work in rubber flip-flops. The 35-year-old soldier labored with the men in the outpost’s kitchen, which is not much bigger than a walk-in closet. She dug into her personal savings and spent $135 to buy them eight pairs of boots.
“They are humans like us,” Maurice said of the Afghans. “And friendship means a lot to them.”
Maurice, who stands a little over five feet tall and favors shiny pink lip gloss, is one of the lowest-ranking and lowest-paid soldiers at this base in Wardak province, south of Kabul. Her life is a glimpse into the American-Afghan partnership at the bottom rungs of the U.S. military, where even the simplest acts of kindness do not easily translate across a wide linguistic and cultural divide.
Before joining the Army, Maurice earned a college degree and spent seven years working for a real estate company in Southern California. The housing market and her two-year marriage collapsed at about the same time.
She sold beauty products to salons for a few years before joining the Army last year. “Everyone was shocked,” she said. “To go from the beauty business to the Army is a pretty big jump.”
Her father, who served in the Air Force during the Vietnam era, tried to talk her out of enlisting. He worried that Maurice, who is petite with fine black hair and delicate, doll-like features, wouldn’t be able to compete physically with younger, tougher soldiers.
She trained as a truck driver, hoping that she would get out on the road in Afghanistan and possibly see some combat. Instead, she was assigned to a headquarters job monitoring radios on the outpost. Desperate to see Afghanistan, she volunteered to serve on a Female Engagement Team, a four-woman unit that patrols alongside male combat troops and tries to win over rural Afghan women. “I begged and pleaded for two months for that job,” she said.
Because her team is used only once or twice a month, Maurice spends most of her days working in the outpost’s kitchen, a steamy, gray metal trailer that smells of dirt, diesel exhaust and reheated cafeteria fare.
“What’s for lunch?” she chirped recently as she arrived for work.
“Food,” replied Spec. Tavon Terry, the cook.
She shot him a mock angry look.
“The same food we eat every day,” he clarified.
Harsh conditions
The hours in the kitchen are long, and the work, heating up tubs of food delivered to the base in clear plastic bags, can be stultifying. “I want to be out there,” Maurice said, gesturing to the snow-capped mountains and dun-colored valleys beyond the base’s cement walls and razor wire. She hopes that her engagement team will be used more as the weather warms.
Life is much harsher for the Afghan kitchen workers, who earn about $200 a month and are able to visit home only a handful of times a year. In September, a few months before Maurice arrived in Sayed Abad, a suicide attacker blew up a truck bomb at the outpost’s main gate, leveling the kitchen workers’ living quarters. Several quit their jobs.
Those who remained moved into hovels fashioned out of Hesco barriers — essentially reinforced containers filled with dirt — with sheets of plywood stacked on top.
When Maurice arrived at the outpost in December, temperatures plunged so low that the sludge froze in the base’s Porta-Johns and some of the diesel-powered generators locked up and quit. The Afghan kitchen workers heated their makeshift shacks by burning wooden pallets in rickety metal stoves.
Eager to connect with her co-workers, Maurice asked Safiullah Azizi, one of the Afghan interpreters on base, to help her buy them boots.
Azizi queried the kitchen workers about their shoe sizes, collected the money from Maurice and went to the local bazaar just outside the base to buy them. Because he was worried that the Taliban might recognize him, he covered his face with a scarf and put on sunglasses. In his wallet, Azizi carries a thumb-size photo of his older brother, who was killed two years ago while patrolling with the Marines in Helmand province.
“I told [the merchant] in the bazaar, if you give me shoes too expensive, you will be in trouble,” he said.
U.S. soldiers are issued rugged leather boots with thick rubber soles. In Afghanistan, American troops are permitted to purchase warmer and sturdier hiking boots. Azizi bought eight pairs of black vinyl boots with imitation-fur lining and gave them to the Afghans. Maurice passed along extra pairs of donated tube socks that she picked up from the base chaplain.
In the days and weeks after Maurice’s gift, relations between U.S. troops and Afghan personnel countrywide came under intense strain. In January, a video of Marines urinating on Afghan corpses surfaced on the Internet.
A few weeks later, U.S. troops at Bagram air base, near Kabul, accidentally burned several Korans, setting off riots and reprisals in which Afghan soldiers killed at least six Americans. Last month, a U.S. soldier allegedly shot 17 Afghan villagers to death.
The Koran burnings, in particular, remain a sore spot for the Afghan laborers at the Sayed Abad outpost. “We all wanted to quit,” said Mohammed Aziz, a 37-year-old kitchen worker. “The Koran is from our God. We stayed because their government apologized and we needed the money.”
Tension and goodwill
The Americans have been on edge, as well. One of the Afghan kitchen workers was fired for brandishing a knife at some of the soldiers in the chow hall, said Staff Sgt. Tawana Roberts, who runs the kitchen.
Despite the tension, there have been genuine moments of wordless warmth. Before Aziz went home on leave, the outpost’s American medics gave the kitchen worker vitamins for his pregnant wife and six children.
About once a week, Mohammed Ashraf, who runs the small bakery on the outpost, will knock on Maurice’s trailer door and invite her and the other soldiers from the kitchen to eat fresh Afghan bread made with garlic, sugar or a sweet cheese.
Ashraf, 45, communicates with the Americans using a worn paperback book titled “30 Days English.”
“Share food?” he asks, his black beard dusted with flour after a long day’s work.
Even if Maurice has already eaten, she will gather her friends and walk over to his dimly lit shop, which doubles as his bedroom.
“They have so little, but they will give it to you,” Maurice said of the Afghans.
The boots that Maurice purchased in January for the Afghan kitchen workers have gradually disappeared from the base. Several of the workers quit their jobs over the winter, alleging that the subcontractor who hired them did not pay them on time. The Americans said they are trying to get to the bottom of the complaint.
The remaining Afghans said they did not realize that Maurice had paid for the boots. Azizi, the interpreter, did not clearly tell the kitchen workers that Maurice, who makes about $24,000 a year, dipped into her personal bank account to buy them. Although he is a full-time interpreter, his English is not strong.
Maurice did not rush to take credit for the gift. She worried that she might be taken advantage of for having money and said she was reluctant to boast about her good deed.
The result: A critical aspect of the small, kind act was lost. The Afghan kitchen workers on the base stopped wearing the boots earlier this spring when they started to come apart at the seams. Today, most assume that the wealthy American government bought them poorly made shoes.
“We are happy for the shoes,” said Sher Ali, a 27-year-old kitchen worker. “But they did not last.”

US lessons in Afghanistan can aid Colombian troops
By LOLITA C. BALDOR | Associated Press
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta got a glimpse into how America's military's experience in Afghanistan is contributing to the U.S. counterinsurgency training in Colombia.
While the two conflicts are no perfect match, U.S. military and defense officials said they can learn from the Colombian's long and bloody campaign against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC. Likewise, Colombia can learn from U.S. experiences battling the Taliban's roadside bomb threat, which has been the No. 1 killer in Afghanistan.
Under a blistering sun, Panetta and his staff flew Monday to the Talemaida Army Base in the mountains outside Bogota, where U.S. trainers help instruct members of the Colombian special forces.
Panetta also announced during his visit to the base that the U.S. would facilitate the sale of 10 helicopters to Bogota — five Army Black Hawks and five commercial aircraft — to help Colombian forces in their fight against the FARC.
Out at the training grounds, a U.S. military officer participating in the program said U.S. special operators are sharing their 10 years of battlefield counterinsurgency experience. The Colombians, he said, can use many of the same techniques, particularly how to share intelligence, sustain and support troops on a long-term basis, and identify and counter improvised explosive devises.
The officer, who has served three tours in Afghanistan but spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said the guerilla, hit-and-run tactics of the FARC, who number about 8,000, are very similar to what the Taliban is doing now.
The FARC took up arms in 1964, and is the biggest of many outlaw groups that abduct people for financial, political and other ends.
As Panetta watched, six commandos descended from the sky, their blue and yellow parachutes billowing above them. The special operations forces demonstrated a raid on a building at mid-field, acting out the rescue of a hostage. Teams also slid down braided ropes from helicopters, gathered up someone acting as an injured person and pulled the stretcher back up. The helicopter flew away with the commandos dangling from the ropes.
Talemaida is the largest Colombian military base, and there is currently a brigade of special operations forces — or about 1,500 commandos — being trained there. The U.S. has about 180 U.S. military in the country, including trainers.
U.S. aid to Colombia's police and military has dropped over the past several years, from about $440 million in 2009 to $270 million in 2012, according to Adam Isacson, an analyst with the Washington Office on Latin America, which compiles such figures.
The country's difficult battle with the FARC has dragged on for nearly five decades, but officials now tout it as a success story.
And they suggest one parallel the U.S. can draw between this fight and the war in Afghanistan may be the value of patience in a counterinsurgency battle.
At a very broad level, said defense analyst Michael O'Hanlon, the Colombia fight shows that "not everything is a clean win and clean defeat."
Americans have become increasingly impatient with the deadly Afghan conflict that has dragged on for more than a decade. And there has been a growing drumbeat from both the public and Congress for the U.S. to get out of the war sooner than the administration's strategy, which calls for the exit of combat troops by the end of 2014.
The key to success is the ability of the U.S. and NATO to train the Afghan forces so that they can take over security of their own country.
O'Hanlon, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank, said Iraq's relatively rapid turnaround in 2007, after the surge of U.S. forces helped beat back the insurgency, "may have created some unfortunate impressions that are unrealistic to extend to other cases. Just because we're not attaining our preferred goals doesn't mean that we're wasting our time or that we're being defeated," he said.
As is the hope in Afghanistan, the U.S. helped train the Colombian forces over the years so that they could be capable of taking on the fight on their own.
Meanwhile, said O'Hanlon, the U.S. may be able to learn some of the Colombian's well-honed jungle warfare skills.
Despite battling the FARC and Taliban for many years, officials say they continue to learn new tactics that can be shared.
Still, there are differences between the two experiences — a key one being that the Colombians are fighting in their own country, and are not the unwelcome foreign forces that the U.S. military can sometimes be in Afghanistan. The Colombian forces are largely viewed as legitimate in the country.
"It's just a useful reminder of how it can take time and how sometimes the solutions you get are imperfect," O'Hanlon said. "We've got to be patient and sometimes lower standards a little bit for success."
Panetta's visit to Colombia came on the heels of the U.S. Secret Service sex scandal that erupted earlier this month during President Barack Obama's visit to Cartagena.
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Lolita C. Baldor can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lbaldor

American Taliban's Prayer Lawsuit Set for August
By CHARLES WILSON Associated Press April 24, 2012
INDIANAPOLIS - A judge has set a trial date for American-born Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh's lawsuit asking permission to hold daily group prayers in a highly restricted cell block at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind.
U.S. District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson scheduled the trial to begin Aug. 27. The site hasn't been determined.
The 31-year-old Lindh claims the prison's policy restricting group prayer in the unit where he's held violates his religious rights. The government contends the restrictions are necessary for security and don't violate inmates' rights.
Magnus-Stinson found in February that daily group prayers were part of Lindh's sincere religious beliefs, but that there were still questions regarding whether the prayer ban is necessary for prison security. She scheduled the trial earlier this month.

Afghanistan seeks Indian help in water infrastructure
Calcutta News.Net Tuesday 24th April, 2012 (IANS)
With long years of conflict reducing the area under irrigation, Afghanistan is looking for assistance from India and other "friendly countries" in building its water infrastructure and management, says visiting Energy and Water Minister Alhaj M. Ismail.
Ismail, who met Water Resources Minister Pawan Bansal during his visit earlier this month in connection with India Water Week, said Afghanistan wanted India to help it build capacities in the water sector, including training of technical staff.
"Our expectation from India is to build capacity of staff...helping (in) management of water resources in the country," Ismail told IANS in an interview. The minister said building of water infrastructure requires "enormous effort" due to 30 years of "destruction (war)" in Afghanistan.
"Not only India, other friendly countries could also help us," he said.
Ismail said surface water available in Afghanistan has been estimated at 57 billion cubic metres (bcm), of which only 24 bcm are being used inside the country.
"This is comparatively less. More than 60 percent flows outside the country," Ismail, who was on a visit to India, told IANS in an interview here.
He said three decades of "war" in Afghanistan had brought down the area under irrigation and the country was not yet self-sufficient in food. "Before war, irrigated land was 3.2 million hectares. Reliable irrigated land has reduced significantly to 1.9 million hectares," Ismail said.
"Irrigation and that too with storage schemes is the dire need of the time. The construction of additional storage structures for increasing reliability of water supply is indispensable," he added.
Ismail said only 30 percent of the country's estimated 30 million population had access to safe drinking water.
Per capita water volume, based on total storage of all reservoirs, has been estimated at 75 cubic metres in Afghanistan. In comparison, India's per capita water storage has been estimated at 213 cubic metres, that of Russia at over 6,000 cubic metres and of China at 1,100 cubic metres.
Ismail, who has received military training and faced arrest during the Taliban regime, said around 500 sites had been identified for small dams and work was being carried out on irrigation schemes.
He said nearly three-fourth of the population was engaged in agriculture, but shortage of water was forcing people to look for other jobs. He said crop productivity had also gone down due to neglect of irrigation infrastructure in the decades of conflict and insurgency.
On the Telma dam, which is being funded by the Indian government, Ismail said 70 percent physical work had been completed for construction. The power project is being executed in the Herat province of Afghanistan by the Water and Power Consultancy Services (India) Limited (WAPCOS).
He said Afghanistan lacked resources to build large-sized dams and the country will have to negotiate with its neighbours when such projects are taken up.
Both because of its geographic location and lack of capacity to harness water, much water from Afghanistan's river basins poured into Central Asia, Pakistan and Iran. Lack of capacity to regulate water resources has also meant that the country imports much of its power requirements.
Afghanistan, the minister said, has also been bearing the brunt of climate change.
"The weather has changed and there is less snowfall now. Many springs have dried up. There are frequent droughts. The season of rainfall has changed...Glaciers are melting," he said.
(Prashant Sood can be contacted at prashant.s@ians.in)

Some Good News from Afghanistan
With a new partnership agreement, the United States has a chance to wind down its mission with its interests intact.
Foreign Policy BY ZALMAY KHALILZAD APRIL 23, 2012
The past month's negative developments in Afghanistan -- Quran burnings, misconduct by U.S. soldiers, sophisticated insurgent attacks, and stagnant talks with the Taliban - have overshadowed a recent notable positive development in U.S.-Afghan relations: The imminent conclusion of the strategic partnership agreement that pledges U.S. support for 10 years after the withdrawal of most of its troops and establish ground rules for the future of security cooperation between the two countries.
The two principal sticking points -- night raids and U.S.-run prisons -- have now been resolved. U.S. President Barack Obama's administration will soon brief Congress on the agreement and Afghan President Hamid Karzai will seek the approval of his Parliament. Barring a last-minute glitch, the agreement will be signed before or during the NATO summit in Chicago next month.
The agreement designates Afghanistan as a "major non-NATO ally," making the country eligible for a variety of defense-related benefits vis-à-vis the US. The US will guarantee financial support for sustaining Afghan security forces while guaranteeing Afghanistan's security indefinitely. In exchange, Afghanistan will permit a U.S. military presence to remain in the country after 2014.
What that post-2014 presence will look like remains unclear. Most likely, the follow-on force will be comprised largely of Special Forces conducting counterterrorism operations. In the 12-month period following the signing of the agreement, U.S. and Afghan negotiators will try to address questions regarding the number of troops that will be allowed to stay, the type of missions they will pursue, and the legal immunity they will enjoy.
These negotiations could prove difficult. It was the issue of legal immunity for U.S. forces that ultimately derailed an agreement on keeping an American military presence in Iraq. Hostile Afghans and outside powers will try to use the negotiations to scuttle a long-term U.S. presence in Afghanistan as well.
Luckily, the political circumstances in Afghanistan are more favorable. Unlike Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his top officials, Karzai and most other Afghan leaders understand that the Afghan government will need to depend on U.S. military assistance for at least another decade. Notwithstanding his election-year rhetoric, Obama appears more interested in retaining a significant force in Afghanistan than he was in Iraq. Bases in Afghanistan are critical to targeting the al Qaeda leadership, which, while weakened, still operates from sanctuaries close to Afghan territory in Pakistan.
Besides laying the groundwork for a long-term U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, the agreement is potentially important for three reasons:
First, by resolving some of the most contentious issues in the U.S.-Afghan relationship, the agreement provides an opportunity for Obama and Karzai to reset relations and focus on building an enduring partnership between their countries. Relations between the two administrations have been in a state of crisis for the past three years. In recent weeks, the political distrust has seeped to the military-military level, culminating in the killing of several U.S. officers and soldiers at the hands of their Afghan colleagues. Popular support in the U.S. for the mission in Afghanistan has fallen to the lowest levels since 2001.
While several weeks of bad news was bound to decrease public support, Obama has exacerbated the problem. It has been more than a year since the president addressed the American people on the topic of Afghanistan -- a missed opportunity to explain the importance of the mission and highlight the very real progress that the coalition is making. Although the United States has more than 90,000 troops in Afghanistan, Obama has not visited Kabul for some 18 months. The strategic partnership agreement is a significant achievement that the president should trumpet, ideally with a trip to the country.
In Afghanistan, the agreement is likely to bolster confidence in the country's future, potentially curtailing the corruption that U.S.-Afghan tensions have fueled in recent months. Billions of dollars have left the country as government officials began to take precautions against the possibility of a cutoff in American support. Many Afghans also hedged their bets by reaching out to the Taliban and their outside supporters. The agreement, however, is only likely to produce lasting gains if the Karzai government and the U.S. team break the cycle of mutual recrimination and prioritize cooperation in tackling corruption. A cancer on the Afghan body politic, corruption perhaps more than any other problem, is hindering progress in promoting the rule of law.
The agreement could also encourage the Taliban to negotiate a settlement. Reports from Afghans who follow developments inside the Taliban suggest that Taliban leaders are divided on whether or not to pursue a peace deal with the Afghan government. Coalition military successes and tensions in the Taliban's relationship with Pakistan have encouraged some factions to seek a settlement. Other top Taliban leaders oppose negotiations, calculating that the impending U.S. withdrawal will shift the balance of power to their advantage, creating an opening for the movement to dominate Afghanistan again.
Negotiating a political settlement that is agreeable to the Taliban and Afghan government but also addresses core U.S. interests will not be easy. Divisions in Afghan society across ideological, ethnic, and sectarian lines have proven intractable in many ways. Regional players with influence among Afghan factions -- China, India, Iran, and Russia, for example -- are not on the same page. But the U.S.-Afghan agreement raises the cost for the Taliban of trying to wait out the clock, potentially presenting Washington and Kabul with an opportunity to secure greater Taliban buy-in for a negotiated settlement. To capitalize on the agreement, the United States will have to increase unilateral steps to restrain those who benefit from the status quo and are resisting a settlement.
Finally, the agreement could alter Islamabad's attitude. Pakistan has not moved against insurgent sanctuaries on its territory, assuming that a U.S. withdrawal is imminent. In the event of renewed civil war in Afghanistan, Pakistan would have to rely on proxies such as the Taliban and the Haqqani network to counter forces backed by India and Russia. A strategy of supporting insurgents could begin to backfire for Pakistan if the American presence succeeds in hardening Afghan forces.
The strategic partnership agreement comes at a time when Pakistan may be reconsidering its Afghanistan strategy. In talks with U.S. and Afghan counterparts, Pakistani officials not only have been more candid about Islamabad's links to the insurgency, I am told that in discussions with Americans and Afghans, they are emphasizing four points:
First, a Taliban victory in Afghan would not serve Pakistani interests, as it would create a possible sanctuary for the Pakistani Taliban. Second, Pakistani policy has produced resentment from both Afghans and insurgent proxies alike. Third, Pakistan is now willing to accommodate a longer-term U.S. presence in Afghanistan. And finally, the best outcome for Pakistan would be an inclusive Afghan government that does not pose a threat to Pakistan but can facilitate economic and regional cooperation.
Islamabad's recent change in tone is worth testing, particularly in light of Pakistan's severe financial problems. The country's low reserves to cover imports, for example, provide the international community with significant leverage.
Washington should pursue talks on two tracks. The United States should negotiate directly with Pakistan on an Afghan settlement. At the same time, efforts to pursue dialogue with the Taliban should continue in coordination with Afghan leaders. The dialogue could expand to include Pakistan, provided that both Pakistani civilian and military leaders are willing to play a cooperative role. The Obama administration has largely embraced this option.
Washington also needs make a concerted, multilateral effort to incentivize cooperation from Pakistan. While recognizing that its policies jeopardize the flow of U.S. economic and military assistance it has received since 9/11, Islamabad believes that it has other options -- China, Saudi Arabia, and perhaps even Russia.
Washington should accelerate bilateral talks with regional powers that share its interest in precluding civil war, eliminating al Qaeda and other terrorist sanctuaries, and enabling a stable drawdown of international forces. The United States should seek an understanding with these states on the basic contours of an Afghan peace settlement and steps needed to move forward. Assuming a basic confluence of interest, the Obama administration should push to establish a multilateral forum on AfPak issues that could include India, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, key European states, and Japan.
U.S. leverage in Afghanistan is likely to decline in the coming years -- a reality that makes it critical for the US to take advantage of the strategic partnership agreement. The key challenge in the next year is working with the Afghan government on tackling corruption, integrating the Taliban, and reaching an understanding with Pakistan. After a decade-long military campaign, prudent diplomacy could allow the United States to wind down the mission with its core interests secured.

Pakistan and Iran are accused of exerting influence on the Afghan media
DW 23/04/2012
Iran and Pakistan are accused of pursuing their own interests in Afghanistan by influencing the media. Hamid Karzai's government has now slammed the practice.
Afghanistan boasts some 170 private radio stations, 60 television channels and 100 newspapers and magazines. But few of them can finance themselves and much of the funding comes from abroad, as was recently revealed by a National Directorate of Security (NDS) report.
At a press conference, NDS spokesman Lutfallah Mashal was unusually concrete in his criticism. "For about a month now, the television channel Tamadon ("Progress") has been broadcasting reports, which supposedly tell the truth about crimes committed by NATO and US soldiers in Kandahar. But the fact is they have been made available to the channel by Iranian sources for propaganda purposes."
Mashal also accused Noor TV ("Light"), Shamshad, Kabul News, Mashaal TV ("Torch") of interfering in internal issues in Afghanistan and said the daily Ensaf newspaper ("Fairness") was the mouthpiece of a neighboring country, which most Afghans would understand as being Iran. Ensaf is always full of praise for the Iranian regime.
Mashal reproached media organizations for giving information and facts a spin in favor of the Taliban and fanning hatred of foreign troops in Afghanistan. He said Shamshad was employing Pakistanis illegally. "The program director and financial head are from Pakistan. Pakistanis decide on the topics. Our authorities don't really know who they are, whether they have a work permit or a valid visa."
Without naming Iran and Pakistan specifically, Mashal also said that "some of Afghanistan's neighbors" were against a long-term partnership between Kabul and Washington and "some enemies" were thus doing everything possible to turn Afghans against the US.
Channels reject allegations
The accused organizations have rejected the criticism. "Tamadon TV distinguishes, just as Muslim Afghans do, between the interests of foreigners and those of Afghanistan. Only those who, like monkeys, have no sense of reason or logic and only seek their own short-term advantages allow the topics of their programs to be decided by others," a spokesperson said.
Other channels were equally sharp in their rejection of the allegations. Most people in Afghanistan were not surprised by this but they were surprised by the government's open criticism.
Sediqullah Tauhidi from the Kabul-based organization Press Watch called on the government to act quickly: "If the current situation does not change these channels might be used to turn the people of Afghanistan against each other and this could result in a civil war."
Observers, however, do not expect the Afghan government to take any action against the broadcasters in the short term.
Author: Ratbil Shamel / act Editor: Grahame Lucas

NATO Shows Confidence in Afghan Security Forces
By GRAHAM BOWLEY The New York Times April 23, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan — A week after a complex insurgent attack paralyzed the capital, NATO commanders on Monday offered a startlingly buoyant assessment of security gains across the country and of the readiness of the Afghan police and the army to take full control of their country as American and other international forces leave.
“By December 2014, the Afghan National Security Forces will be well able to take on the task of executing an ongoing counterinsurgency campaign,” a senior NATO official said at a news conference called under standing ground rules of anonymity. “We are very confident that we can hand off responsibility to them.”
The confidence the commanders laid out is at odds with both the unease many Afghans feel about the possible encroachment of insurgents as the foreign forces withdraw, and the reality in those stretches of rural territories the Taliban have claimed outside the main cities. But the assessment is in keeping with quiet comments made recently by NATO leaders that they wanted to get out a message that Afghan forces were performing well, a message that they said was being underplayed. The preparedness of the Afghan forces is an important plank of the Western coalition’s withdrawal plans.
Since the high-profile attacks in Kabul on April 15, in which Taliban suicide bombers and gunmen set siege to the diplomatic quarter and the Parliament for hours and struck in three eastern provinces, NATO and Afghan authorities have initiated something of a full-court press, emphasizing their view that Afghans played a central role in routing the insurgents.
On Monday, NATO portrayed a situation in Kabul and across Afghanistan in which Taliban activity is waning and security zones have been widened, even in former Taliban heartlands in the south. Even in Kabul, major events like the traditional council gathering called the loya jirga last fall went ahead without disruption, NATO said.
All this was possible, officials said, as a result of relentless pressure from coalition and Afghan troops and widening divisions and frictions within the insurgents.
Insurgent attacks were down 10 percent last year, compared with a year earlier, and officials expected the trend to continue this year. “The Afghans are really stepping up to the mark,” the senior NATO official said, but he offered no statistics on missions undertaken either solely or predominantly by Afghan forces.
Musa Mahmodi, executive director of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said that there were signs of improving security, including that the Taliban were weakened, but that the army still needed long-term support. “We should not get excited too soon,” he said. “There is still a situation that could be easily reversed.”
In particular, NATO’s confidence fails to address questions about whether the gains are real or whether insurgents are only waiting until international forces withdraw, and the signs that in some regions, especially in the volatile east, according to local residents and officials, the insurgents are winning.
In Nangarhar Province, for example, there are no-go areas that the Afghan police are unable to defend after dark, even close to the provincial capital, and coalition convoys are targets of militants using homemade bombs a short drive from military bases.
“The security situation is not satisfactory these days,” said Malik Tahir, a district elder. “It is even getting worse since the government started poppy eradication.”
In Kunar Province, Hajji Jumaddin, a tribal elder of Asmar district, said, “Having looked at the Taliban strength and power in recent months, I am not optimistic about the government’s success in Asmar district and surrounding districts.”
For Afghans living in other areas of the country, insecurity is a daily reality. They say that their lives will get worse after 2014, when American combat troops leave. At a leadership conference for Afghan women at the NATO base at Kabul International Airport on Monday, many women attending spoke of their fears.
While some said that security had improved, they all agreed there was a long way to go.
“In the capital of Farah, the situation is better for women, and in five districts they are good, but the other five districts are controlled by the Taliban,” said Liloma Sediqi, the head of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs office in Farah Province, in western Afghanistan, an area often thought of as stable.
“There is no education for women in those districts, and there are many challenges for women there,” she said.
A quiet, determined woman from Ghazni Province, Zainab Arab, 48, said she could not go out without her burqa because she works on a province-wide peace project financed by the United States Agency for International Development.
“As long as people don’t know about me, it is possible to work,” she said. “If people knew what I was doing, I could be killed.”
The number of coalition forces is due to fall to around 68,000 by the end of this year, from around 100,000 now, before all active combat troops leave by the end of 2014.
The next sections of the country to be transferred to Afghan control from NATO will be decided in the next three weeks; they will most likely include regions still afflicted by insurgents, reflecting confidence in Afghan forces, NATO officials said.
Alissa J. Rubin and Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul, and employees of The New York Times from Nangarhar and Kunar Provinces.

Why we went into Helmand
A Blair government insider assesses the flawed decision-making that led to the blithely optimistic British deployment in 2006
Guardian.co.uk By Julian Borger Monday 23 April 2012
The former Labour defence secretary, John Reid, is chiefly remembered by the public for something he never quite said - that he hoped British troops could go into Helmand "without a shot being fired". What he actually said on a visit to Kabul in April 2006 was: "We would be perfectly happy to leave in three years time without firing one shot." Not quite the same thing, but the myth does nonetheless encapsulate a deeper truth about the blithe optimism with which the Blair government sent the first deployment of 3,000 soldiers into Helmand in early 2006, just as the Taliban was beginning its resurgence.
One source who took part in the discussions leading up to that fateful decision told me that Reid asked a senior military advisor: "What if they don't like us there?", to which the insouciant reply was: "Don't worry. The people who don't like us are in Quetta and we'll see them coming across the desert."
Now Matt Cavanagh, a senior advisor to Gordon Brown and Des Browne at Treasury at the time of the fateful decision, has given an insider's account of the process in the new edition of the Royal United Services Institute's RUSI Journal (use the link saying: "click here to access the article").
Essentially, Cavanagh says that ministers, civil servants and generals fell victim to groupthink around a single idea: "that the deployment was going to happen one way or another, so we might as well get on with it".
This assumption sprang from Tony Blair's tendency to frame the decision in the abstract, in terms of the 'long struggle' against Islamic extremism, "thinking about Britain's place in that struggle alongside the US more than he did about Afghanistan or the plan itself". Blair was to host an international conference on Afghanistan in late January 2006, and it would have been "embarrassing" to turn up not having made up his mind on deployment.
Cavanagh says that actual knowledge of the realities of Helmand was extremely limited among the decision-makers in Whitehall at the time.
Worse still, what relevant knowledge did exist inside the system was often wasted. The military as well as politicians relied too heavily on the analogy with Northern Ireland and neglected the lessons of Iraq.
Cavanagh's account broadly supports the assertion made by Britain's former Afghan envoy, Sherard Cowper-Coles - and furiously denied by the top brass - that the military pushed for Helmand to expunge the shame of 'defeat' in Iraq, and to justify their budget requests.
It was obvious by the middle of the last decade that the MoD's long-running budget problems were growing more acute, and that a strategic defence review was overdue. Afghanistan was seen as an opportunity to make the financial case for defence, or for a particular service (the army), or a particular set of military capabilities.
Cavanagh concludes there is plenty of blame to go around, and does not spare himself. He notes that even a brilliantly-planned campaign in Helmand would not have made up for the bigger failings involved in the overall western strategy and in the Kabul government it was intended to support. That is small comfort, particularly as it is far from clear whether the lessons spelt out by Cavanagh have been learned.

Afghan Screams Aren't Heard
The Huffington Post By Kathy Kelly Co-coordinator, Voices for Creative Nonviolence 23/04/2012
Last weekend, in Kabul, Afghan Peace Volunteer friends huddled in the back room of their simple home. With a digital camera, glimpses and sounds of their experiences were captured, as warfare erupted three blocks away.
The fighting has subdued, but the video gives us a glimpse into chronic anxieties among civilians throughout Afghanistan. Later, we learned more: Ghulam awakens suddenly, well after midnight, and begins to pace through a room of sleeping people, screaming. Ali suddenly tears up, after an evening meal, and leaves the room to sit outside. Staring at the sky and the moon, he finds solace. Yet another puzzles over what brings people to the point of loaning themselves to possibly kill or be killed, over issues so easily manipulated by politicians.
I asked our friend, Hakim, who mentors the Afghan Peace Volunteers, if ordinary Afghans are aware that the U.S. has an estimated 400 or more Forward Operating Bases across Afghanistan and that it is planning to construct what will become the world's largest U.S. Embassy, in Kabul. Hakim thinks young people across Kabul are well aware of this. "Do they know," I asked, "that the U.S. Air Force has hired 60,000 to 70,000 analysts to study information collected through drone surveillance? The film footage amounts to the equivalent of 58,000 full-length feature films. The Rand Corporation says that 100,000 analysts are needed to understand 'patterns of life' in Afghanistan."
Hakim's response was quick and cutting: "Ghulam would ask the analysts a question they can't answer with their drone surveillance, a question that has much to do with their business, 'terror': 'You mean, you don't understand why I screamed?'"
Two days ago, Democracy Now interviewed Hakim about ongoing U.S. military occupation in Afghanistan.
"If we don't address the agreements that the U.S. and Australian governments and other governments are making for a long-term war strategy in Afghanistan," Hakim observed, "we are heading for an increase in violence in this part of the world, in South Asia, perhaps perpetual war, more serious than the Kabul attacks."
Analysts could better understand patterns of life in Afghanistan by mixing with Afghans in their homes and along their streets, unarmed.
The analysts would spend less tax-payer money but possibly obtain a genuine perspective on everyday life in Afghanistan. If they interacted with Afghan people instead of surveying them from the air, they'd be better equipped to study "terrorism," their supposed intent.
What if U.S. analysts could feel the frustration Afghans feel as convoys of trucks bearing fuel and food for U.S. soldiers drive past squalid refugee camps where children have starved and frozen to death (250 die of starvation every day; 40 have frozen to death since January 2012)?
Hakim again:
"They would understand quickly, even through cursory study by one 'non-analyst,' that Afghans are just as infuriated by U.S. soldiers urinating on corpses as U.S citizens are by their own police pepper-spraying college students.
They would understand that, just as U.S. citizens can't even imagine living under the barrel of the Mexican army, Afghan citizens, including of course those labelled 'insurgents', dislike foreign guns. No number of Special Ops forces staying on perpetually beyond 2014 can make Afghans like foreign guns. This is what the U.S. Afghan Strategic Partnership War Agreement will do with at least 4 billion U.S. tax payer dollars a year spent just on Afghan security forces."
Sixteen-year-old Ali understands that the agreement being readied for the NATO summit won't accomplish foreign troop withdrawal. This creates what for some is deadly distrust. Ali knows that a long-term foreign military means that the firing and killing will continue.
"It's tit-for-tat," says Hakim, "U.S. soldier-for-Talib, dollars-for-rupees, and all those insensible human decisions that occasionally make Ali cry. But, the military and militant apparatus does not have human ears. It has bombs. So, when the recent Kabul attacks were going on, as seen in the very human moments in the video clip, the Afghan youth crouching in the refuge of a room were assured and delighted to hear from Voices activists, from across the miles, calling to ask how they were.
'Ah! Someone cares. Someone listens.'
The monthly Global Days of Listening conversations which the youth have had with ordinary U.S., European, Middle Eastern and Australian citizens have helped change their lives person-to-person, overcoming the cold impersonal 'shoosh' of overhead rockets and under-running bloodshed.
Every day, Ghulam studies, cooks, washes the dishes and lives, very normally. But some nights, in the stupor of nightmares, Ghulam shouts subconsciously, out of ear-range to the million-dollar intelligence spies, 'What kind of world is this that still insists on signing war agreements?'"

Labour Ministry Identifies 130 Illegal Foreign Workers
TOLOnews.com Monday, 23 April 2012
The Afghan government has begun a new push to identify foreigners working illegally in the country, with 130 people detained so far in this regard.
The Afghan Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled said Monday it has identified and handed 130 foreign nationals over to the authorities to be dealt with regarding their lack of legal work documents.
It believes thousands more are earning a living in Afghanistan without the proper documentation, according to Ministry spokesperson Ali Eftekhari.
He said the Ministry has issued at least 18,000 foreign nationals with work permits, but thousands of others are entering Afghanistan's porous borders and working in a variety of fields.
"We have identified some foreign workers who have no working licenses in some media organizations, banks, universities, and private institutions," Eftekhari said at a press conference in Kabul.
"We have handed them over to the security organisations for further investigation."
According to the labor law in Afghanistan, all foreign nationals should obtain work permit from Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, otherwise they will be introduced to the security officials, he said.
Meanwhile, some political analysts have criticised the presence of foreign labourers in Afghanistan and said that many Afghans remain unemployed in the country while many foreigners are working in construction projects.
They have also broadly accused such workers of having links with terrorists and insurgent activities, putting more pressure on the Labour Ministry to identify illegal workers.

www.afghanistannewscenter.com