[Afghan News] September 11, 2012

[یاسمینه]

As troops move out, economy slows in Kabul
USA TODAY By Carmen Gentile, Special for USA TODAY 10/09/2012
KABUL - Mohammed Nabi stares out the window of his floor tile shop across a busy highway at the construction scaffolds rising around partially built apartment complexes and office buildings.
The scene in the Afghan capital appears to be evidence of bustling enterprise, until one sees that the scaffolds have no workers. They left several months ago and have not returned, says Nabi, whose own business is seeing a slowdown.
"We now realize that most of our business was dependent on foreigners," he says of the shop he started six years ago to provide goods to military bases and foreign organizations that brought thousands of foreigners to Kabul. "No more," he says despondently.
Since the U.S.-led invasion of 2001, Afghanistan witnessed rapid economic growth because of enormous flows on economic aid and military spending from Western nations there to combat the Taliban.
Afghanistan's economy grew by 9% per year, well above comparable nations, according to the World Bank report, "Afghanistan in Transition: Looking Beyond 2014." Construction and service industries grew fastest; mobile phone penetration went from less than 1% of the communications market to more than 50%.
But the basic flaws of Afghanistan's economy remain, analysts say, and may overwhelm the nation when the Western militaries withdraw most of their forces as currently planned by the end of 2014.
Graft remains a serious problem. Afghanistan is near the bottom of Transparency International's 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index. Opium poppy crops, which fuel the country's heroin trade, account for nearly half of agricultural production. Three-quarters of the country's 31 million people are illiterate. Little has been done to exploit the country's natural resources of gold, copper and natural gas.
The more than $6 billion a year Afghanistan receives from foreign governments in civilian aid (excluding military spending) represents nearly 40% of gross domestic product.
"International experience and Afghanistan's own history show that an abrupt cutoff in aid can lead to fiscal crisis, loss of control over the security sector, collapse of political authority, and possibly civil war," according to the World Bank.
Economist and former Afghan transport and civil aviation minister Hamid Ullah Farooqi says the capital and the entire country for that matter is ill-prepared to make the transition from a war-time economy to one driven by the private sector.
Farooqi says foreign aid is already slowing, as are the jobs on which Afghans working for NATO and international aid groups have grown to depend. Even with outside assistance, unemployment is more than 30%, he says.
"Most of the young, educated Afghans that work for foreigners will soon be out of work," Farooqi says. "And I don't see any means of creating new positions for them."
Land and property values are already in decline, as fewer foreigners rent homes used for work and living. In recent months, more and more "for rent" signs have popped up around the city. But Kabul city officials are more optimistic than many businesspeople.
Abdul Wahid Wahid, a deputy for the municipality of Kabul, says there are a number of reasons why some projects remain unfinished.
"There has been some stoppage of work," Wahid concedes, "but there can be a lot of reasons why," saying land disputes, common in Afghanistan, could be the culprit for some stoppages. Other reasons include "bad accounting" on the part of inexperienced financiers unfamiliar with the costs of raising a building.
Despite the stoppages and already apparent economic slump felt by Kabulis, Wahid says he is confident that the capital's economy will adjust to the departure of foreigners and their aid money.
"The arrival of the foreigners is like waves rocking a ship," Wahid says. "When the waves are gone, the ship resumes its course."
Residents of Kabul are worried that a diminished economy could bring about the return of the Taliban to the capital, which fell to the hardline Islamists in 1996 and remained under their rule until the U.S.-led invasion following the 9/11 attacks.
"Right now we are living day-to-day," says Noor Ali Hassani, 62, who owns a small motorcycle repair shop.
Hassani says business is significantly slower than it has been in the recent past.
"I think it has to do with the recent suicide bombings and attacks." he says, referring to an attack this summer in which eight Afghans were killed when a bomb blew up under a bridge. "People are afraid to go out as much."
His assistant, Mohammed Ibrahim, agrees.
"Every day the economy is getting worse," Ibrahim says, blaming security concerns and government corruption.
A barber, Delawar, who like many Afghans goes by a single name, says his business will suffer if the Taliban retakes power.
"If the Taliban return, then every man will have to grow his beard again," says Delawar as he finishes a customer's haircut. "Then what will I do?"

Legal Proceedings Brought Against Afghan TV Channels
By RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan September 10, 2012
KABUL -- The Afghan Ministry of Culture and Information has brought legal proceedings against two popular entertainment television channels.
The ministry said Setara TV and Saba TV had broadcast "inappropriate" content, including "revealing" foreign music videos.
The ministry said the content violated a new media law, which bans programs that are deemed an affront to Afghan culture.
The ministry did not provide further details, including whether the channels would stop broadcasting while proceedings were under way.
In related news, Afghan journalists have boycotted sessions of the lower house of parliament, saying the sessions were being censored by the government.
Previously, journalists viewed sessions from behind a glass partition while they received a live feed.
Reporters say they now receive a distorted feed that cuts out controversial remarks and incidents involving lawmakers.

The Deep Divide Over Bagram Prison: Interview With Chris Rogers
September 10, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The United States has formally handed over control of Bagram prison to Afghan authorities. Yet despite this, U.S. officials say they still have the authority to "capture and detain" -- much to the dismay of the Afghan government, which has insisted that Afghans "on Afghan soil" can no longer be detained by the U.S. military. With disagreement over U.S. detention authority in Afghanistan continuing, RFE/RL's Frud Bezhan spoke to Chris Rogers, a human rights lawyer at the Open Society Foundation who works on civilian casualties and conflict-related detentions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
RFE/RL: The U.S. officially handed over control of Bagram prison to Afghan officials on Monday (September 10), ending the six-month transfer that began after an agreement was signed between the two countries in March. While some 3,000 detainees have been transferred to Afghan control, around 50 foreign prisoners and several hundred Afghans who were detained after the March agreement are still in American hands. Why is the issue still unresolved?
Chris Rogers: From our conversations with Afghan and American officials, it’s become very apparent that the two sides have very different views of what the Bagram handover means and what it will mean for the future of U.S. detention authority in Afghanistan. These questions remain unresolved and [touch on] some of the most fundamental issues that will be outstanding for several years; namely, what U.S. detention and military power will be in the sovereign nation of Afghanistan going forward.
RFE/RL: Afghan officials have said that no detentions will be carried out by the U.S. military in Bagram. Are there any loopholes in the handover agreement that give the U.S. some form of continued authority over the facility?
Rogers: I think one of the more important [loopholes] is the veto power the United States has over releases. The U.S. has to effectively approve individuals who are recommended or proposed for release by the Afghans. And so, in many ways, the Afghans do exercise an incredible amount of control over the process, prosecution, and review of these detainees' cases, but the United States has maintained some elements of power within the system from their perspective, to ensure that individuals who they deem security risks aren’t being released.
RFE/RL: You have said the partial handover of Bagram from U.S. to Afghan authority has created an internment regime which will allow the Afghan government to detain individuals without trial. Are there fears that this system will be subject to abuse?
Rogers: One of the biggest fears that we have is how this detention authority will be used in the future. There is nothing in the terms of the documents that created this regime that limit it either to a certain period of time or to U.S. detainees themselves. In conversations we have had with Afghan officials, they anticipate using this authority not just for the purpose of [the] handover of Bagram, but also in the country as a whole. This raises very serious questions about whether this is constitutional and whether it's a violation of Afghan domestic law.
RFE/RL: Do you think the creation of such a system of detention without trial could lead to greater risk of torture and abuse among Afghan inmates?
Rogers: Torture is a problem in Afghanistan, firstly, given that we do know that there is a risk of torture particularly amongst Afghan national security detainees. And secondly, knowing more broadly that when detainees lack basic due-process rights, particularly access to legal counsel and review of their detention by a court, this dramatically increases their risk of torture.
RFE/RL: One of the other unresolved issues over the handover is the situation of foreign detainees being held at Bagram. Is there a risk that these detainees could fall into indefinite detention, much like the detainees in Guantanamo Bay?
Rogers: The agreement does not cover what will happen to third-country nationals. The Afghan government has made it very clear that, while in the short term it seems as if they’re willing to tolerate the continued detention of third-country nationals by the U.S., in the medium term the U.S. cannot continue to operate a prison on Afghan soil. What we’re concerned with is, the longer time goes on and the continued failure of the U.S. to address these cases, it pushes detainees further into a situation of legal limbo and they end up in a situation very similar to those detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
RFE/RL: Why has the Afghan government pushed so hard to gain control over the Bagram detention facility? Does the handover mark a key victory for the unpopular government of President Hamid Karzai?
Rogers: In many ways, it symbolizes for the Afghan government and for the Afghan people an assertion of sovereignty. There were some very serious, credible allegations of torture and mistreatment in the earlier years in Bagram, and those are still imprinted in the minds of many Afghans. The Bagram system is not very transparent and [was indicative of] an incredible amount of secrecy and lack of due process being conducted by a foreign force on Afghan territory. And to many Afghans, this was an affront to national sovereignty and represented some of the grievances that they had with respect to international forces and the U.S. in particular.
RFE/RL: You have said that the differences between Kabul and Washington over the handover of Bagram shed light on broader, unresolved tensions between the two sides concerning Afghan sovereignty and U.S. strategic interests. In what other instances have we seen these tensions surface?
Rogers: The special operations and night raids. Those two issues are closely linked in many ways, but it has essentially to do with to what degree -- especially as we near 2014 -- the Afghans will be taking the lead and having control over military operations. To what degree the United States can continue to engage in military operations on its own. But I still think there are some serious questions to what degree the Afghan government has the final say on what kind of operations are conducted and how.

Issues Linger as Afghans Take Control of a Prison
New York Times By ROD NORDLAND September 10, 2012
BAGRAM, Afghanistan - It was supposed to be a ceremony to celebrate the full transfer of Afghan detainees and prison operations to Afghan control. But top American commanders were absent on Monday, hundreds of Afghan prisoners remained under American detention, and details of the deal remained in dispute.
Under the terms of a deal negotiated between the two governments six months ago, Monday was the deadline for authority to be transferred formally to Afghanistan for the Parwan detention facility, the American-built prison at Bagram Air Base.
During those six months, 3,000 prisoners were transferred from American to Afghan control, in what Afghan officials called a victory for Afghan sovereignty.
“It is a matter of pride for us to acquire responsibility for the prison,” said Nasrullah Stanikzai, the legal adviser to President Hamid Karzai, who has depicted the transfer as one of his government’s crucial accomplishments.
But about 600 newly captured prisoners remain under American control, according to Afghan officials, and there is lasting disagreement over how quickly they should be screened and turned over to Afghan custody. In addition, about 30 of the original prisoners were not handed over to Afghan authority, because of a dispute over whether the Afghans would continue to hold them without trial, as the United States had demanded and as stipulated under the detention deal.
As a result of the dispute, Lt. Gen. Keith M. Huber, the American commanding general of the prison, did not attend the transfer ceremony, which featured at least seven generals, two cabinet ministers and other dignitaries from the Afghan side. No one from the American Embassy or the State Department was present.
There were reports that General Huber was going to send his deputy, Brig. Gen. VeraLinn Jamieson, but she, too, was a no-show. The only Americans on the dais were the Parwan task force commander, Col. Robert M. Taradash, and his bodyguard.
“Today, I affirm that we have fulfilled the agreement,” Colonel Taradash said in a brief speech that drew polite applause. “We transferred more than 3,000 Afghan detainees into your custody” and made sure that those who were still a threat “would not return to the battlefield.”
American officials have been concerned that the Afghans would release detainees too readily, turning the prison into a revolving door and speeding captured insurgents back to the battlefield. A joint review board has sorted through their cases, recommending some for prosecution and others for release — reportedly, more than half of those reviewed. During the ceremony on Monday, 15 detainees were freed, without objection from the American side.
American officials say the transfer agreement calls for the Afghan government to continue to hold some detainees even if there is not a formal legal case against them, reviewing their cases administratively rather than judicially. The Americans say it is impossible to build legal cases against all prisoners arrested in battlefield conditions.
Afghan news media reported that a dispute over the practice led to a falling-out between Mr. Karzai and Gen. John R. Allen, the American military commander in Afghanistan, over the weekend and apparently prompted the downgraded American presence at the event on Monday.
“From now, no foreigners will have any prison in any place in Afghanistan,” said Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, the spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry.
Despite such vows, and whatever the amount of real control that the Afghans may have inside Parwan, the Americans are not going away soon. In addition to processing a steady stream of prisoners caught in night raids, the United States will continue holding 50 non-Afghan prisoners — mostly Pakistanis, but also some Arabs and Chechens — at the base, something the Afghans have not contested.
American military guards also remain a very real presence around the perimeter of the prison, even at gates to the Afghan section — despite the assertion of Col. Jalaludin Dehaty, the spokesman for the Bagram prison commander, who said, “You can enter now without ever seeing an American.”
At one of the Afghan gates, however, an American guard on duty, Staff Sgt. Michael Tantillo, said, “All of the gates remain dual service,” meaning that they will have both Afghan and American guards.
Inside the prison, Americans are still present in the completely Afghan-run section as well, Afghan and American officials said, though they say those Americans serve only as advisers.
The ceremony itself was dominated by sweeping oratory, echoing the emotion and urgency that Mr. Karzai has invested in the prison issue.
“This is an extremely important and historical day,” the acting defense minister, Enayatullah Nazari, said at the ceremony.
In a statement, Mr. Karzai said, “I consider the transfer of Bagram prison to the Afghan government a victory for the people of Afghanistan and a big step toward consolidation of the government’s sovereignty.”
Even that wording, however, showed another point of difference: the Americans built a new detention complex near the old Bagram Prison in 2009, and they refer to it as Parwan — after the province it is in, and apparently in an attempt to break the associations brought by accusations of waterboarding and deadly beatings at the old prison. Afghan officials still refer to the place as Bagram.
On the sidelines, Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi, the Afghan chief of staff, acknowledged that misunderstandings had arisen. “The interpretation of the memorandum of understanding is confusing; everyone is translating from their own version,” General Karimi said. “These are small issues in the relationship of the international community and the government that will be solved, no problem.”
Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting.

Afghanistan’s Karzai to Seek Lawmaker Backing for Securit
Bloomberg By Eltaf Najafizada Sep 10, 2012
The U.S. transfered control of its largest prison in Afghanistan for Taliban and al-Qaeda suspects to local officials, ceding authority over a facility where the burning of copies of the Koran sparked deadly protests.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai hailed the move in a statement “as an important step towards the recognition of Afghan national sovereignty.” The jail near the U.S.-run Bagram airfield near the capital, Kabul, houses more than 3,000 guerrilla fighters, General Zaher Azimi, a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, said by phone. Afghanistan has been supervising most of those held since a March handover agreement with the U.S., part of a larger pact governing security co- operation once American combat troops leave by 2014, he said.
The U.S. has suspended the transfer of some prisoners, among them foreign citizens, fearing they may be released by Afghan authorities that have criticized the long-term detention of suspects without charge, the Associated Press reported.
Karzai’s government has said U.S. control of the Bagram jail, at the center of abuse allegations by former inmates and the Afghan government, violated Afghanistan’s sovereignty and helped militants attract recruits. The jail is now officially known as the Parwan Detention Center, and is about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Kabul.
Protests over the burning of Korans taken from the prison library led to attacks on U.S. personnel in Afghanistan in February. Two American advisers were shot dead in the Interior Ministry Feb. 25, while nine Afghans were killed and two American soldiers wounded in a suicide car-bombing in eastern Afghanistan two days later.
The U.S. is seeking to engage the Taliban in negotiations to renounce violence and accept the Afghan constitution to better the chances of peace following the planned withdrawal of U.S. combat troops in 2014.
To contact the reporter on this story: Eltaf Najafizada in Kabul at enajafizada1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at phirschberg@bloomberg.net

Afghan Taliban claims it 'had no hand in the 9/11 incident'
Long War Journal By Bill Roggio September 11, 2012
The Afghan Taliban released a statement denying responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the US and claimed the group would not allow Afghanistan to be "be used to harm anyone." The Taliban made the claim despite the fact that the attacks on the US were approved by al Qaeda's top leaders in Afghanistan.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid released the announcement, titled "Statement Of Islamic Emirate On The Eleventh Anniversary Of The September," on Sept. 9, and it was obtained by the SITE Intelligence Group. The statement has not been released on the Taliban's official website, Voice of Jihad.
In the statement, the Taliban described the US and Coalition war as an "illegal and unjust crusade" and said "the Afghans have had no hand in the 9/11 incident and neither have you been able to provide any legitimate or logical proofs," according to SITE.
The Taliban attempted to convince the international community that Afghanistan would not serve as a launchpad for future attacks.
"Availing this moment, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan once again clarifies to the entire world including America that we are neither a threat to anyone nor will we let our soil be used to harm anyone," the Taliban said.
The Taliban's claim that it had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attack is fantastic, as Osama bin Laden, the slain emir of al Qaeda who ordered the attack, and his organization were based in Afghanistan when the attack took place. Bin Laden himself admitted in an interview that he helped plan the attack. A video of the interview was found in Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan after the US invasion [see PDF transcript here], and is believed to have been recorded in Kandahar province, where bin Laden had a compound.
In the interview, bin Laden admitted that he was "at a camp of one of the brother's guards in Kandahar" when the "brother" told him of the dream he had about an attack that seemed to describe 9/11. Bin Laden said he was "was worried that maybe the secret would be revealed if everyone starts seeing it in their dream" and ordered the brother not to discuss it.
Additionally, several of the 9/11 hijackers trained at the Khalden camp, a facility that trained al Qaeda, Taliban, and Pakistani terrorists. Khalden's trainers identified which recruits were best suited for Osama bin Laden's operations. Three of the Sept. 11 hijackers -- Mohamed Atta, the tactical commander, and hijackers Majed Moqed and Satam al Suqami -- were trained at Khalden. Other Khalden alumni include Ramzi Yusuf, Ibrahim Elgabrowny, Ahmed Ajaj, and Mahmoud Abouhalima, who were involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center; shoe bomber Richard Reid; Ahmed Ressam, the "millenium bomber"; and Zacarias Moussaoui, the "20th hijacker," who was arrested by the FBI prior to Sept. 11.
The Taliban's claim that it would not allow Afghanistan to be used for attacks against the international community also rings hollow. The Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani terror group closely allied to al Qaeda, has trained its operatives in Kunar province and then brought them to the Indian province of Kashmir and Jammu to wage jihad.
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which has integrated its operations with the Afghan Taliban in northern Afghanistan, plotted to conduct Mumbai-styled attacks in Europe in 2010. The operation was discovered and foiled when a German operative involved in the plot was detained in Afghanistan.
The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, which professes allegiance to the Islamic Emirate's of Afghanistan's emir, Mullah Mohammed Omar, executed the failed Times Square bombing in New York City on May 1, 2010. The bomb failed to explode due to a problem with the detonator.
The Taliban refused to hand over al Qaeda's top leaders after the Sept. 11 attack, and to this day has refused to denounce its support for the terror group. As recently as this February, Mujahid, the Taliban's spokesman, refused to renounce "international terrorism," much less acknowledge any willingness to sever links with al Qaeda.
Senior leaders of the Haqqani Network, a Taliban subgroup that operates in the east, have professed their support for al Qaeda. Siraj Haqqani, the operational commander of the network, released a training manual last fall that included portions praising al Qaeda and urging Haqqani Network members to support al Qaeda both locally and in its international operations.
Siraj's deputy, Mullah Sangeen Zadran, told As Sahab, al Qaeda's propaganda outlet, that "al Qaeda and Taliban all are Muslims and we are united by the brotherhood of Islam" in an interview in 2009. In July 2012, Sangeen called for foreign jihadists to join the Taliban's ranks and said they would take the jihad beyond Afghanistan.
And in February, Abdullah al Wazir, the Taliban's representative to jihadist forums, said said that the Taliban will not renounce al Qaeda and that al Qaeda operates under the "Military Command of the Islamic Emirate."
"They [al Qaeda] are among the first groups and banners that pledged allegiance to the Emir of the Believers [Mullah Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban], and they operate in Afghanistan under the flag of the Islamic Emirate," Wazir said.

Why it's time for talks with the Taliban
The Taliban may not be as inflexible as feared. But we won't discover what they'd settle for until there is genuine dialogue
Guardian.co.uk By Matt Waldman Monday 10 September 2012
We should welcome the news that the Taliban are reportedly open to the idea of negotiating a general ceasefire and even a peace settlement. The peace process in Afghanistan is at risk from spoilers on all sides and fraught with challenges. But we owe it to the Afghan people, and to all those who have suffered in the conflict, to give it a try.
It would be a grave mistake to assume the Taliban would only settle for absolute power. Taliban leaders know they stand no chance of seizing power now or in the near future. They know that even coming close would reinvigorate and potentially augment the coalition of forces ranged against them. That could trigger a civil war, which they are anxious to avoid. Even if they could seize power, they would be pounded by drones, ostracised and dependent on Pakistan. The leadership craves the opposite: safety, recognition and independence.
The Taliban rose to power in the 1990s, promising to bring order in place of turmoil. But since 2001, the expectations of ordinary Afghans have changed. They not only want order and justice but reliable public services, basic freedoms and a say over their own affairs. Antediluvian theocracy has had its day, and thinking Talibs know it.
The Arab awakening has not gone unheeded. A Taliban think-piece leaked last year asked what kind of elections they should support and how the government should meet the people's needs. They yearn to be taken seriously as a credible, national political force.
The Taliban remain powerful in much of the country. But they have suffered big losses and are facing pressure, even armed resistance, from communities in provinces such as Ghazni, Laghman and Nangahar. The cohesion and discipline of the movement is under strain. And while the impending withdrawal of foreign forces will allow the Taliban to claim some sort of success, it also removes the movement's biggest single motivating force.
In addition to this, most Taliban leaders deeply resent their dependence on, and manipulation by, Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI. Having spent a decade or more in Pakistan, from where they run the insurgency, they hope to return in safety to their homeland.
The justification for military action against the Taliban in 2001 was the movement's sheltering of al-Qaida. Today, most of al-Qaida's leaders live in Pakistan, and most analysts see the Taliban's relationship with al-Qaida as fragile and insubstantial.
Last month Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, said: "The Islamic emirate of Afghanistan wants good relations and mutual interactions with the world [and] assures all the world that it will not allow anyone to use the soil of Afghanistan against any one." Or simply, we won't shelter al-Qaida again. We might not take his word for it, but it suggests there's a basis for discussion.
The Taliban are not monolithic; its fighters have varied motivations. Many fight because they believe the US seeks to conquer Afghanistan and subvert its religion or culture. Some are driven by the predation and degeneracy of the Afghan government and its warlord allies. Still others fight for personal, local or tribal reasons.
There are undoubtedly extreme elements within the movement. The Haqqani group, responsible for some of the most gruesome attacks in Kabul, is due to be designated a foreign terrorist organisation by the US.
The aggressive campaign of air strikes and night raids initiated by General Petraeus all but wiped out a generation of moderate insurgent commanders. But the fanatics are still a minority.
Broadly the Taliban want the withdrawal of foreign forces, a share of power and the implementation of sharia law. They probably seek a major role in justice and anti-corruption, and influence in social, religious and educational affairs. But what exactly their demands are, and whether they are compatible with human rights or the aspirations of the Afghan people, is impossible to say until a genuine dialogue is under way.
The new study by the Royal United Services Institute suggests the Taliban might even accept a ceasefire and the presence of US forces in a peacekeeping capacity. There are a range of interpretations of sharia within the movement. It may be that the Taliban's position on issues such as the constitution or girls' education is not as radical or inflexible as we fear.
Indeed, comparative studies show that insurgent or paramilitary groups tend to overstate their demands for propaganda purposes and to bolster morale, and that their goals often diminish over time, as with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation or Colombia's National Liberation Army.
Talks could help to break down some of the misapprehensions that have inflamed the conflict. As in many other insurgencies, talks might also help to reduce the frequency or intensity of violence. In the absence of talks there is little reason to expect anything other than protracted conflict. There may even be an escalation of violence as the Taliban and other power-holders vie to occupy the space created by Nato's hurried departure. And given the deficiencies of Afghan national security forces, we should expect expansion of Taliban control in the rural south, south-east and west. All this explains why all polls and field research indicate that a clear majority of Afghans, both men and women, favour talks.
It is hard to believe that seven years since major hostilities began there is still no substantive, regular dialogue between the principal parties.
Last year's progress has stalled due to differences over terms and preconditions relating to the establishment of a Taliban office, a US-Taliban prisoner exchange, and the opening of formal talks. Especially problematic is the Taliban's willingness to talk to the US first, and only later to the Afghan government.
The priority should be to open substantive, multiparty talks without preconditions.
But as the troops and aid flows recede, so does the international community's ability to influence the parties, establish a peace process and protect the gains made since 2001. The involvement of agreed mediators or facilitators, currently absent, could help to unblock talks.
No channel can succeed without Pakistan's support. Whether or not Pakistan has a seat at the table, its officials should ultimately be involved in talks. And as the dialogue strengthens, it should expand to involve northern and central Afghan political factions.
It should be supplemented by a broader reconciliation process involving representatives of all parts of Afghan society. Any future peace, whether achieved through a single settlement or patchwork of understandings, will only be sustainable if it reflects the aspirations of ordinary Afghans.

Interview: Robert Kaplan On How Geography Affects The Fate Of Nations
September 11, 2012 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
From Iran's glorious past as the ancient world's first superpower to Russia’s present and continuing obsession with protecting its territory, acclaimed American journalist and author Robert Kaplan’s latest book, "The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate" traces the history of the world's hot spots through their geographic advantages and disadvantages.
Kaplan looks at how countries' positions on a map have influenced their fate and explains how the lessons of the past can help prevent conflicts in the future. RFE/RL Washington correspondent Heather Maher interviewed Kaplan on the eve of the book's publication on September 11.
RFE/RL: You write that "geography is the backdrop to human history itself. . . . A state's position on the map is the first thing that defines it, more than its governing philosophy even." Why is geography so important in defining a state?
Robert Kaplan: Because it defines a state's position on a map. It defines its constraints and its opportunities. For instance, Great Britain is an island, it's a big island. So it didn’t have to fear land attacks on its borders. Therefore over hundreds of years, it could develop safely, internally, and that's one of the reasons why democracy developed.
Look at the map of the United States – look how indented and shattered the east coast of the United States is.
The northeast is filled with many, many good natural harbors. That’s one of the reasons why the 13 colonies could take shape. You look at the whole coast of Africa – it's so vast, but [has] relatively few natural harbors, which hindered development.
Look at Russia. Russia comprises half the lines of longitude of the world. Yet it has very few natural borders. It’s open to invasion from several points. This accounts for Russia's insecurity and suspicious national character.
RFE/RL: But then you also call maps "a rebuke to the very notions of the equality and unity of humankind, since they remind us of all the different environments of the earth that make men profoundly unequal and disunited in so many ways, leading to conflict, on which realism almost exclusively dwells." How can a map have so much power?
Kaplan: A map comprises a whole spate of generalizations. Maps can lie. The map of sub-Saharan Africa shows borders where maybe they should not be. Maps show the temperate zones slighter smaller in comparison to the northern latitudes, so that Greenland and Canada and even Europe look much bigger on a map than they actually are. Maps show us how every nation is in a different circumstance. It doesn’t have the same opportunities as every other nation.
Take the Benelux states of northwestern Europe. They have a sheltered, protected coastline open to the trade routes of the Atlantic. They’re filled with very rich, loess soil. They have protected forest openings. All these things encouraged development in an age of technologies like movable type, and when you compare it, say, to a landlocked country in Central Africa, you can see why development was quicker in Europe than in this part of Africa. In other words, states are not all born with the same opportunities.
RFE/RL: And that’s one of the harsh realities you say that the end of the Cold War led some people to ignore?
Kaplan: The Cold War blinded western thinkers to the realities of the map. It artificially divided Berlin. It artificially put Greece in with Western Europe, when in fact Greece was a poor Balkan and Mediterranean country with severe development problems stemming from Turkish and Byzantine despotism.
RFE/RL: You talk about the great historical lesson of "Munich" – what is that?
Kaplan:
The Munich analogy goes back to the 1938 conference in Munich between [British Prime Minister] Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler, where Chamberlain caved into Hitler’s demands. And that, of course, led to the overrunning of the Sudetenland, to World War II, etc. So the lesson of Munich is: "Stand up to dictators now, because if you don’t stand up to them today, they’ll take more territory and cause more havoc tomorrow."
In other words, intervene in Bosnia before it’s too late, overthrow Saddam Hussein before it’s too late, intervene in Syria before it’s too late.
The problem, as you’re probably aware, is the Munich analogy is one-dimensional.
It tries to fit every major decision into the decision that Chamberlain faced in Munich, and that cannot be correct.
That can only be part of the story.
RFE/RL: You write about how Russia’s lack of natural borders has fostered a national obsession with the need to control territory as a hedge against incursion. You quote historian G. Patrick March as saying Russia’s territorial vulnerability has given rise to a "greater tolerance for tyranny." Does this help explain some of the hard-line policies of President Vladimir Putin?
Kaplan: The Western media loves to hate Putin because he doesn’t configure to their garden- variety liberal ruler who gets applauded at fancy conferences. But in Putin what they should really see is not a totalitarian – just a normal, run-of-the-mill Russian semi-dictator, whose cynical neo-imperialism are the wages of a deep, deep geographical insecurity.
Putin looks out in Europe and sees what the tsars and commissars saw before him: an invasion route against Russia, a history of invasion against Russia by the Swedes, the Poles, the French, the Germans, the Lithuanians, etc., and therefore, just like the communist rulers before him, he wants buffer states.
He wants overwhelming influence in the Baltic States. He wants buffer states in Eastern Europe; he doesn’t accept the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. He knows he cannot reconstitute the Warsaw Pact, he knows he cannot take over the Baltic States, which are members of NATO. But he will try. He will keep applying pressure in various ways through gas pipelines, crime groups, cyberattacks, etc.
The same applies to his need for buffer states in Belarus and Ukraine. The same reason why he invaded Georgia in 2008 or that he wants influence in Central Asia -- although he lacks the military bandwidth to reconstitute the Russian empire there. Putin thinks like a traditional Russian ruler, because Russia is open at most sides to invasion. It is a great land power with no natural borders, and land powers are particularly insecure. They lack the security of sea powers, who are protected by oceans.
RFE/RL: You conclude something similar about Mesopotamia – that its modern tendency toward tyranny could be "geographically determined." You note that every Iraqi dictator going back to the 1950s "had to be more repressive than the previous one in order to hold together a state with no natural borders composed of Kurds and Sunni and Shi'ite Arabs, seething with a well-articulated degree of ethnic and sectarian consciousness."
Kaplan: Mesopotamia stands athwart historical invasion routes, whereas Egypt was protected in the north from the Mediterranean by a vast delta, and by deserts on either side of the Nile, so it could develop a cohesive civilization more or less free from outside invasion.
Mesopotamia was on everyone’s invasion route. Because the course of human history flows across the greater Middle East and Mesopotamia is right angled to that – it’s not along that. So this history of invasion, of suppression, has given Mesopotamia -- which is the basis for modern day Iraq -- a very suspicious national attitude.
It's given it a tendency to have dictators, harsh dictators, for the need of repression, because Mesopotamia encompasses several ethnic groups that have been in conflict with each other: Kurds in the Kurdish mountains to the north, Sunnis in central Mesopotamia, Shi’ites in South Mesopotamia.
These three warring groups, [and] the fact that it’s right angled to invasion routes, is one of the reasons why we’ve had a string of dictators in Mesopotamia, starting in 1958 [and] leading up to Saddam Hussein in the late 1960s, who have been particularly harsh.
RFE/RL: Explain what you mean when you say that Afghanistan and Pakistan’s geography binds them together?
Kaplan: Afghanistan and Pakistan share the same fate. That’s because there’s no real natural border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yes, Afghanistan more or less sits on high desert tableland, Pakistan is home to the steamy lowland Indus River valley. But the descent from the high tableland to the Indus River is so gradual that there is no really hard and fast border.
So borders [are] artificial and because of their artificiality, it’s very hard to police them. And in addition, you have the Pashtuns, a great Indo-Islamic people who live in large numbers on both sides of the border, not just on one side of the border -- making the border more artificial still. So the goal to kind of separate Afghanistan from Pakistan and create two well-functioning states has been and will be very hard to achieve.
RFE/RL: How hard? How does the course of events in their shared past inform what you see happening in their shared future, especially after the international forces withdraw from Afghanistan?
Kaplan: If you look at the map of Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent, what you see is that there is a real border not on the Afghan-Pakistan frontier but in the middle of Afghanistan itself.
And that border is the Hindu Kush Mountains. To the north of the Hindu Kush are the Tajiks and Uzbeks. To the south are the Pashtuns.
In the north, in northern Afghanistan, among Tajiks and Uzbeks and Turkmen, you have more or less peace. nYou have increasing trade and human contacts with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to the north.
In other words, a kind of greater Tajikistan, greater Uzbekistan may gradually form in the future, even as the southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan intermingle increasingly with the Pashtuns on the other side of the border inside Pakistan.
So the Afghan and Pakistani states may fade in terms of their identity and we may see like overlapping regions take hold. As the United States leaves, there will have to be some sort of dialogue, or conflict, between India and Pakistan, because India requires a non-hostile Afghanistan. So this area will be in turbulence for many years to come.
RFE/RL: What about America’s geographic position – you say it has benefited immensely from its two oceans.
Kaplan: Americans like to think they’re a great people because of who they are, because they’re a great democracy. But I would argue that Americans are a great people also because of where they happen to live: in the last, large, resource-rich part of the temperate zone. Not only that, but it’s a large swath of the temperate zone, with great inland waterways that, rather than the rivers in Russia -- which divide Russia because they flow north to south, [or] north, rather than east to west.
The waterways in the United States unite the continent from east to west. To the north, the U.S. is protected by the Canadian Arctic. There’s of course, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, which make the U.S. a virtual island, give it protection, but also clear pathways to trade with Europe and East Asia.
The only problem the U.S. has with its geography is the threat of Mexican demography to the south. The border with Mexico is fairly artificial. You’re dealing with a border between a First World country and a Third World country. You have Latinos on both sides of the border – many of the cities on the U.S. side of the border have large Hispanic populations -- so it’s the future of Mexico, which on the one hand is one of the largest economies in the world, [and] on the other hand, is undermined by drug violence and drug cartels -- it’s the future of Mexico that will help determine the future of the United States. The future of the United States may have a north-south orientation rather than the east-west, sea-to-shining-sea of patriotic myth orientation.
RFE/RL: You call Iran "the ancient world’s first super power" because of its locational advantage and its identity. What does that mean?
Kaplan: The Iranian state configures perfectly with the Iranian plateau. This sounds obvious, but actually, it’s not. It’s an unusual circumstance. Saudi Arabia does not configure with the Arabian Peninsula -- there are many other states on the Arabian Peninsula, too. Syria is artificial, Libya is artificial. There is nothing artificial about Iran. It’s the state on the Iranian plateau. And that plateau has to its north the Caspian Basin with all the oil and natural gas, and to the south, the Persian Gulf, with all the oil. So that the Iranian state, with the plateau, straddles the two great oil producing regions of the greater Middle East. To Iran’s north and east, all the roads are open to Central Asia -- no other Middle East state can say that. And to the west, all roads are open to Mesopotamia, to Iraq. So it’s a formidable geographical position.
And from that formidable and natural geographical position, Iran has developed, over the millennia, a great culture and great civilizations and empires. From the Medes, to the Parthians, to the Achaemenids, to the Sassanids, culminating presently with the Ayatollahs.
The problem with the Ayatollahs [is that] -- whereas previous Iranian civilizations have been culturally rich, eclectic, open minded, voluptuous even – this is a very lowering, oppressive, violence-prone reincarnation of former Iranian empires of old. It rules by suicide bombers and terrorists from the Mediterranean to western Afghanistan, and as I write in my book, it’s this lowering quality of the present Iranian regime which both announces its limitations and will signal its eventual downfall.
RFE/RL: What do you want readers of your book to come away with – what should they think about the geographic location of nations and fate, what has already happened because of that, and what might happen next?
Kaplan: The reader should come away [from] reading this book with the idea that geography is extremely important. Geography imposes constraints. It imposes limits to our behavior.
But as formidable as these limits are, there is still more than enough room for self-willed individuals, for human agency, to improve the world, to settle crises. In other words, it’s only by recognizing the limits, and what is arrayed against you, that you can then take action to overcome it.
This book shows you everything we need to overcome, but leaves the reader with hope -- that the lessons of geography should ultimately lead leaders to try to achieve a balance of power, and it’s from a proper balance of power that freedom and civil society can be extended.

Rewarding Afghanistan’s torturers?
CNN By Brad Adams, Special to CNN September 10th, 2012
Editor’s note: Brad Adams is the Asia Director at Human Rights Watch. The views expressed are his own.
The Afghanistan government appears to have a new policy for dealing with government officials accused of sadistic torture: it rewards them with job promotions.
President Hamid Karzai has announced that he will appoint Asadullah Khalid as chief of Afghanistan’s main intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security (NDS). Khalid is no garden variety spy chief. The current minister of border and tribal affairs and former governor of Kandahar and Ghazni provinces, he has been accused of running an unauthorized secret prison in Kandahar where torture was routine. Parliamentary confirmation is by no means a sure thing, but Karzai regularly circumvents parliament’s control over cabinet appointments by leaving government officials in an acting capacity for years.
“This will take the NDS back 10 years, to when they could do anything they wanted while everyone looked the other way, as long as they were killing Talibs,” a diplomat with many years’ experience in Afghanistan told Human Rights Watch. “If the U.S. doesn’t stand up and fight this, it will prove that they have lost all interest in human rights and the rule of law in Afghanistan.”
The appointment is especially worrisome since the NDS already has a long and well documented history of torture of detainees. A grisly 2011 United Nations report found that NDS agents routinely used torture to extract confessions or for punishment. Nearly half of all conflict-related NDS detainees interviewed by the United Nations reported they had been tortured in NDS custody. The alleged methods detailed are horrific: beatings with rubber hoses, electric cables, wires, and wooden sticks, often on the soles of the feet; hanging of prisoners by their wrists for long periods; electric shock; twisting of genitals; ripping out toenails; and prolonged standing.
The U.N. report forced NATO troops to temporarily suspend transfers of prisoners to the NDS facilities where the most serious torture was taking place. International law prohibits any country from handing over a prisoner where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being tortured. A U.S. law also prohibits U.S. funding to any unit of a foreign security force that has committed gross violations of human rights, unless effective measures are being taken to bring those responsible to justice.
The Afghan government reacted with fury and confusion to the U.N. report, simultaneously denying use of torture and vowing to end abuses. Since then, it has been hard to detect progress. Commanders at some facilities were moved, but prosecutions and firings of those responsible have been notably absent. “Some were transferred,” a senior international official told Human Rights Watch. “Some were promoted.”
Now, in an apparent attempt to surround himself with cronies, Karzai has also promoted Khalid. American, U.N., and Canadian sources have claimed that forces under Khalid’s command ran a secret prison when he was governor of Kandahar, employing many of the forms of torture detailed above. Khalid has also been accused of corruption, involvement in Afghanistan’s narcotics trade, and of ordering the assassination of U.N. staff members. He has been described by a U.S. official as a “bag man” handing out money for votes as part of Karzai’s 2009 re-election effort.
Khalid has in the past denied all wrongdoing, but many of these allegations were corroborated in a 2008 report by Canada’s Military Police Complaints Commission. Canadian authorities interviewed detainees and documented multiple cases of torture. Canada’s deputy ambassador to Afghanistan testified about serious abuses linked to Khalid.
The appointment of Khalid marks a new low in a long list of rights abusing appointments by President Karzai. Khalid’s appointment occurred just ahead of the September 10 ceremony marking the Afghan government’s assumption of control of the US detention center in Bagram, north of Kabul. The facility contains what the US and Afghan governments contend are the highest value insurgents captured on the battlefield. The perceived value of these prisoners as sources of intelligence on the Taliban and other insurgent groups puts them at high risk for torture, and this appointment drops them in Khalid’s hands.
The U.S. and other troop-contributing nations have collaborated closely with the NDS since 2001, sharing intelligence, conducting joint investigations, and cooperating in custody and interrogation of prisoners. The NDS receives significant support, financial and otherwise, from partner countries, primarily the United States, which helped rebuild Afghanistan’s intelligence services after the fall of the Taliban and has had a very close relationship with the NDS since.
Afghan activists are rightly angry and fearful about Khalid’s appointment and what it means for their country before the international troop withdrawal over the next few years. The U.S., other key countries, and the U.N. need to speak out forcefully against Khalid’s appointment and make it clear to Karzai that it is unacceptable to put a known human rights abuser in a position of authority. If his appointment goes unopposed by the U.S. and other countries, that sends a message too, and raises serious questions about whether they really care about human rights in Afghanistan.

Army Aims To Use Words, Not Weapons, With Afghans
NPR By Blake Farmer September 10, 2012
The U.S. Army has been ramping up instruction in the languages of Afghanistan, even as troop levels in the country decrease in preparation for the U.S. troop withdrawal in 2014.
This year, key installations have added several hundred speakers of Pashto and Dari to their ranks, more than doubling the number of soldiers trained in the Afghan languages.
But it's not just the country's languages that are foreign to U.S. soldiers — it's the culture, as well.
On a recent day at Fort Campbell, which straddles the Tennessee and Kentucky state line, smiling men in long shirts and baggy pants spin in circles, following the leader on a small stage. It's an ancient attan dance, and important for soldiers to see, says Ahmad Dauodzai, a native of Afghanistan.
In modern renditions of the dance, rocket launchers are sometimes fired into the air. But, Dauodzai says, soldiers need not be afraid. "It's not a sign of war or hatred. It's a sign of love, reconciliation," he says.
Daoudzai and dozens of other Afghan natives have been hired as trainers for this immersion program, also being offered at Fort Carson in Colorado and at New York's Fort Drum.
The first few weeks of the course are spent learning the more than 40 letters in Pashto, one of Afghanistan's two official languages.
U.S. Army Pfc. Timothy Griffin has advanced beyond the basics and is now studying how to connect with Afghan people. The conversation style sounds a lot like that of the American South.
"You're constantly asking them how they're doing, how their family's doing, how their neighbor's doing, " Griffin says. "Just anything, [like], 'How's your car?' Ten minutes later, you get to the main point, which is 30 seconds long. That's a conversation."
Early in the war, this level of cultural immersion was largely left to the Army's elite Special Forces, who shouldered the task of training indigenous forces.
But in 2010, the military's top brass issued a directive that at least one American per platoon should be able to go beyond "hello" and "thank you."
And as training the Afghan troops has become an important component of the U.S. exit strategy, training Afghan forces — and the cultural understanding that requires — has become the job of 19-year-old privates as well, says Maj. Gen. James McConville of the 101st Airborne Division.
McConville himself has been learning Dari, the language of Afghan government.
"This will be my second time going back to Afghanistan," he says. "You start to realize, I would have been much more effective if I understood the language and understood the culture, and maybe some of the things that may offend them that may lead to some situations that are not in the best interest of either of our forces."
Last month, 12 U.S. troops were killed by forces dressed in Afghan uniform. The Pentagon believes the bloodshed is often a result of personal grievances and what it calls "social difficulties." Language training is hardly a direct response to the killings, but McConville acknowledges that it may help.
Pfc. Maxwell Murphy says spending so much time with his Afghan instructors is at least a start to helping bridge those tensions. "I'm sure that a lot of my comrades don't believe that they can trust [the Afghans]," Murphy says. "I mean, I don't totally believe that I can trust them all the time, too."
Once he's deployed, Murphy figures that if a uniformed Afghan does go rogue, he'll be tipped off before anyone else. U.S. soldiers, he says, aren't expected to know the language — meaning he may have an edge when Afghans speak with one another in their native language.
"You may pick up them saying things that they don't think that you'll know. So hopefully — maybe — we can catch some stuff before something happens," Murphy says.
Whether potential threats are coming from inside or outside a unit, military commanders are hoping soldiers like Murphy find a way to occasionally use their words instead of their weapons.

U.N. Expands Its Probe Into Funding Oversight
Wall Street Journal By DION NISSENBAUM September 10, 2012
WASHINGTON - The United Nations has expanded an internal examination into its largest global development program because of questions over the management of international aid funds in Afghanistan.
The U.N. Development Program's Afghanistan office used a recently established fund to hand out millions of dollars in donated money to Afghan ministries without proper oversight of how it was spent, according to a preliminary report by U.N. auditors.
In a majority of cases they examined, the auditors found "no evidence" that Afghan ministries receiving funds through the UNDP's so-called Policy Advisory and Development program spent the funds for the intended purpose. There were indications that ministry workers received excessive pay raises or double salaries, according to the report, which was completed in July and viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The preliminary summary didn't include detailed allegations about the program, which was established to support special projects at Afghan ministries. But the questions it raised were echoed in recent months by several past and present UNDP employees who have alleged in interviews that the program was used to spread cash to win favor inside Afghan ministries for U.N. initiatives.
The U.N. said the document reflected initial findings that were undergoing further examination. In some cases, it said in a statement, further investigation determined that some of the concerns about misallocated funds and high pay raises were unfounded.
The program was created in 2009 under the UNDP's then-director in Afghanistan, Manoj Basnyat, a long-time U.N. official from Nepal. Soon after arriving in Kabul, Mr. Basnyat and the UNDP established the fund, which handed out about $1 million a year to Afghan ministries.
The U.N. hasn't accused Mr. Basnyat of wrongdoing, and he hasn't addressed any allegations publicly. The U.N. declined to make him available for an interview and said it couldn't comment on personnel matters. The U.N. said it encouraged anyone with allegations of wrongdoing to contact it directly and said it maintains a "zero tolerance" anticorruption policy.
The Kabul office is working to phase out the Policy Advisory and Development program in the wake of the auditing questions, a senior U.N. official there said.
"It is not a slush fund," said the official. "My feeling is that it is a project that was weak in terms of the planning and reporting."
The UNDP has been at the center of a multibillion dollar effort to reform the Afghan government and rebuild the battle-damaged country. In part, it is supposed to serve as a model to Afghan politicians of efficiency and transparency.
But the UNDP became the focus of scrutiny this year amid allegations—by U.N. workers as well as by an international monitoring group—of corruption at a fund it oversees, the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan, a $1.4 billion pool financed by international donors to pay the salaries of the 150,000-member Afghan police.
This summer, the European Union blocked the release of $37 million in funds until the allegations are resolved. In June, the program removed five staff members, including the program's assistant director in Afghanistan. The U.N. didn't say why the workers were dismissed or put on administrative leave. The workers declined to comment or couldn't be reached.
U.N. investigators returned to Kabul over the weekend to continue their examination of the UNDP office in Afghanistan, U.N. officials said.
In April, Mr. Basnyat was replaced after more than three years as country director in Afghanistan by Alvaro Rodriguez, a longtime UNDP employee who had previously held the same position in Pakistan and Somalia. The switch took place under a routine U.N. assignment rotation and wasn't a result of the audit, according to U.N. officials. He is currently on assignment in New York, the U.N. said.
Last year, the UNDP presented Mr. Basnyat with its Julia V. Taft Award, given each year to its most outstanding country office. —Nathan Hodge in Kabul Afghanistan, contributed to this article.
Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com

Gay Afghan men face exile or marriage in conformist masculine society
The fear and loathing of being gay in an Afghanistan where family is king is exposed by Hamid Zaher's memoirs
Guardian.co.uk By Nushin Arbabzadah Monday 10 September 2012
The first time he slept with a man, Hamid Zaher was a young Afghan with little experience of life outside the city of Kabul. His lover, an older, Pakistani man, happened to be just the right type – educated, mature and well-mannered.
The young gay Afghan met the older man by accident. Hamid, like most Afghans, had family in Pakistan and while visiting his sister there, one day he went for a stroll in a nearby public park. The other man just happened to be there, walking toward Hamid from the opposite direction.
In his brutally honest memoirs, Living in a Nightmare, Hamid writes about other, equally restless lone men, wandering about the park. He suspected that they, too, were looking for that forbidden love with another man.
The older man held the young Afghan's gaze as he walked towards him, getting closer and closer. He stopped when he reached Hamid and struck up a conversation. Soon after, intuition kicked in and the two men sought privacy on a bench hidden away from public view.
The older man complimented Hamid on his beautiful eyes and asked for permission to touch and kiss them. He cautiously stroked Hamid's face, and carefully watched the young man's reaction. Far from being appalled, Hamid was flattered and already melting. He soon found himself holding hands with and being kissed and caressed by the older man.
One thing led to another and for Hamid, this first experience of gay love felt just right. It was, after all, the realisation of what he had dreamed about since puberty.
"I feel sorry for all those men who die without ever having realised their dream of love with another man," Hamid writes in his memoirs.
Such men do exist in Afghanistan. More than often they are married and have children, leading a perfectly "respectable" life on the surface. But secretly, they yearn for this other love – the one that dare not speak its name.
Officially, Afghanistan is a strictly heterosexual, family-based society where sex outside the legal bounds of marriage is a crime punishable by imprisonment. But behind the clean-cut surface of respectability, there's a foggy underworld of chaotic sexuality with no clear rules and boundaries to protect the vulnerable, including gay men.
"We fall in love easily and give our heart and soul but only to be betrayed and ridiculed," writes one gay blogger from Kabul. He gives an example of the kind of fear and loathing existence that is part and parcel of being gay and Afghan.
The blogger's ex-boyfriend, who turned out to be an intelligence officer, finished their relationship with an action that reeked of self-hatred bordering on sadism. Upon ending the affair, the intelligence officer gave his ex's name and telephone number to all his male acquaintances, encouraging these random men to approach the former boyfriend for sex.
Needless to say, the emotional damage of such cruelty can be irreparable and yet it is a piece of cake by comparison with the danger to one's life that can accompany such forced public outing of a gay man. After all, if an Afghan man is outed as a homosexual (sometimes it's enough to just be labelled gay), he is considered a disgrace to his family and runs the risk of becoming a victim of "honour killing".
Family is king in Afghanistan – a mini-mafia structure that rules over life and death, providing protection for those who comply with its rules and punishing those who dare to stray from the rules. To be gay and Afghan means to live life in perpetual fear of discovery and betrayal, a paranoid existence spent in continuous terror of forced outing.
In addition to such soul-crushing anxieties, there's the tyranny of a conformist society with a stubborn image of the ideal manhood to which every male is expected to aspire. This ideal is represented by the figure of the strong and powerful patriarch.
To get married and have children is not enough to live up to this ideal. A man has to be tough and masculine, rich and powerful. More importantly, he has to father many sons and raise them as obedient foot-soldiers under his command. That's the kind of man who is envied in Afghan society. (The warlords, with their big bellies and long beards are all but a contemporary reincarnation of this traditional model of brutish, militant masculinity).
Needless to say, far from aspiring to this ideal, gay Afghan men dread the prospect of wedding, dodging the barrage of questions and postponing marriage as long as possible.
For Hamid Zaher, the first openly gay Afghan man, leading the fake, pretend life of a married heterosexual man was simply out of question. He fled Afghanistan, and endured years of horrific hardship in Iran and Turkey in order to escape the tyranny of Afghan conformism.
It's a conformism where married life is forced upon everyone, young boys and girls, homosexual men and lesbian women as well as those who simply have no interest in sexuality or in leading a typical Afghan family life.
Many Afghans don't flee because of politics, they flee their society and escape their culture, Hamid writes in his memoirs after meeting teenage runaway boys who fled Afghanistan to avoid marriage.
Hamid finally settled in Canada where he wrote his pioneering memoirs. It was there in Canada that he met online the man he would have become had he not fled Afghanistan. This other man, also gay, had succumbed to society, marrying and fathering four children.
"What bitter life it is to have just one longing and to never, not even for a day, have this longing fulfilled," wrote the other man from an office in Kabul. For Hamid, these words were enough to clarify which one of the two had made the right decision.

Afghanistan's First Football League to Release Draw Tomorrow
TOLOnews.com By Mir Sayed Sediqi Monday, 10 September 2012
The official draw for Afghanistan's first ever nationwide football premier league will be announced Tuesday night after two months of selecting players for the eight teams, Afghan Football Federation (AFF) officials said Monday.
The draw will divide the eight teams into two groups of four for the group stage of the Roshan Afghan Premier League's (APL) inaugural 16-match season.
The competition will kick off with the first match on September 18 and end October 19 with the Grand Final in Kabul's Afghan Football Federation stadium.
"The league will improve the quality of football in Afghanistan and will help to have a professional and well-trained national team in the future," the National Football Team head coach Yousuf Kargar told TOLOnews.
AFF officials reassured that there will be tight security at the live matches so spectators can watch the games at the ground without any security issues.
"The families can watch football from the ground in a secure environment," AFF deputy head, technical, Mohammad Yasin Mohammadi said. "Football has found fans within the families and they can let their kids play football."
The eight teams were selected during July and August from eight zones across Afghanistan: Greater Kabul, Centre, North East, North, South East, West, South West, East.
The selection process for each 18-man team was broadcast nationwide in the reality programme 'Maidan e Sabz' (Green Field).
Thousands of young men registered and attended try-outs for one of the top 30 spots in each zone. Those 30 men were then put through a series of physical and mental football skills tests, with their performance judged by former Afghan national team players and coaches. The group was further reduced down to 21 players.
The final 18-player team for each zone was voted on by a Green Field studio audience.
The league is fully supported by the international football federation FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) with all games played in accordance with the official FIFA and AFC rules and regulations, the AFF said.
All APL matches will be broadcast on Moby Group* television channels TOLO TV and Lemar and radio stations Arman FM and Arakozia FM, as well as being available via cable TV, and online coverage. Follow the competition via www.afghanpremierleague.com.

Lawmaker, Journalists End Hunger Strike Over Media Censorship
TOLOnews.com By Sharif Amiry Monday, 10 September 2012
Afghan lawmaker Baktash Siawash and several journalists have ended their hunger strike in protest of media censorship after they were promised their demands would be met.
Speaker of the Parliament Abdul Rauf Ibrahim told TOLOnews Monday that the strikers were told their demands would be discussed, and the strike had ended.
Ibrahim had called Siawash himself to tell him that all the issues and conflicts between the media and the parliament will be solved, and asked him to end the strike – offering him a bottle of water.
The group began the strike Monday morning to protest the Parliament's attempts to curb media freedom, but it was over by Monday evening at Ibrahim's request.
However, Parliament's Secretary General Khudai Nazar Nasrat warned Siawash and the other journalists that they may face legal action for incitement.
"I will introduce you to the Attorney General over incitement," Nasrat said.
Before starting the hunger strike, Baktash Siawash had said that he would continue the strike until all the problems of censorship and limitations on the media were removed by the parliament.
"I will continue my hunger strikes as long as the problems of the journalists and censorship continues," he told reporters at the front gate of the Afghan Parliament where he sat with the other strikers.
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are widely considered to be one of the main achievements of the Afghan government in the past decade, but recent moves to introduce more restrictions in the media law have shown that these gains may be weaker than they appear.

www.afghanistannewscenter.com