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Afghans Say Presidential Election Date Is Set for April 2014
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG October 30, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai took a step toward fulfilling his pledge to hold Afghanistan’s presidential election on time, as officials said Tuesday that the vote had been officially set for April 5, 2014.
If the date holds, it will avoid a repeat of one of the first in a series of controversies to mar the last presidential election, originally set for May 2009. That election, however, was delayed until August, which pushed Mr. Karzai a few months past the official end of his constitutionally mandated five-year term.
The vote itself was then plagued by substantial fraud, much of it in Mr. Karzai’s favor. Widespread violence also kept many voters away from the polls, especially in southern and eastern Afghanistan, where the country’s largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns, dominates and the Taliban are strongest.
The president, opposition leaders and the Afghan government’s foreign backers have in recent months repeatedly said that they hope to avoid the same problems in 2014, though Western officials have expressed doubts about whether a truly clean and free election can be held given the level of violence in Afghanistan and the deep-rooted corruption within the government.
Noor Ahmad Noor, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission, confirmed the April election date after reports about it surfaced in the Afghan news media on Tuesday. The formal announcement of the April 5 election date had been set to come on Wednesday.
The political opposition, in welcoming an announcement, pressed the government to ensure a fraud-free vote. Specifying the date “is not enough,” said Sardar Muhammad Rahimi, a spokesman for the National Front of Afghanistan, an alliance of three major opposition political figures, each associated with one of Afghanistan’s smaller ethnic groups.
Among the opposition’s top concerns is the passage of a new election law that would mandate that two foreigners appointed by the United Nations sit on the country’s five-person Electoral Complaints Commission, which handles accusations of electoral fraud. Mr. Karzai has said foreigners are not needed and threatened to veto the law, which has passed Parliament’s lower house and is being considered by the upper house.
“We are worried that the government might interfere in the elections somehow and turn it to its favor,” Mr. Rahimi said, explaining why his political alliance wants the foreigners on the complaints commission.
There was no immediate reaction among Western officials or the international groups expected to help run and finance the election, including the United Nations. Some officials said they were caught off guard by the leaked announcement.
Another major concern among Afghans and the international community is that the election is to take place just as NATO’s combat mission here is drawing to a close. Given the concerns over a sharp rise this year in killings by Afghan soldiers and police officers of their coalition counterparts, there is speculation among Western officials here that the pace of the coalition military withdrawal could be quickened over the next year.
The latest insider attack apparently came on Tuesday when a man wearing an Afghan police uniform gunned down two British soldiers in the southern province of Helmand, Afghan and coalition officials said.
Muhammad Naim Baloch, the governor of Helmand, said the attack took place around noon in the Grishek district of the province, an area that remains thick with Taliban despite years of coalition offensives in the province aimed at rooting out insurgents.
He said in a telephone interview from Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, that it was not yet clear whether the attacker had fled or had been apprehended, though coalition officials said the assailant had indeed escaped.
Jamie Graybeal, a coalition spokesman, said the attack was under investigation. But he emphasized that the coalition could not yet confirm whether the attack was the work of an actual policeman or an infiltrator disguised as a policeman.
If the attacker is confirmed to have been a member of the police force, it would bring the official death toll in such insider attacks, also called green-on-blue attacks, this year to 53. Four additional Western deaths appear to have been the work of insiders but remain under investigation.
Sangar Rahimi, Jawad Sukhanyar and Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting.
A version of this article appeared in print on October 31, 2012, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: Afghans Say Presidential Election Date Is Set for April 2014.
Destroy Old Election Cards, Approve Foreign ECC Officials: CCPP
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Monday, 29 October 2012
Old election identification cards will be a major source of fraud in the 2014 presidential election and so should be destroyed, the Coordination Council of Political Parties (CCPP) in Afghanistan said Monday.
The council members emphasised the need to ensure that new electronic identification cards are distributed prior to 2014 to decrease the incidence of fraudulent voting – and increase the chance of a transparent and fair election.
"The old voting cards should be nullified because they are the source of massive fraud and forgery in the upcoming election," member of National Front Mohammad Natiqi said in a press briefing in Kabul on Monday, urging the government, international community and the country's election commission to prepare the new content for the voters and work on distributing new voting cards.
Another member of the council and the National Front Mohammad Asem said, "We see a more transparent election in the distribution of new voting cards. The government should take necessary steps in this regard."
The members also backed Parliament's decision to approve two foreign commissioners of the seven on the board of the Election Complaints Commission (ECC).
"Parliament, as the representative of Afghan people, has the right to approve the presence of two foreign election commissioners at the Election Complaints Commission," member of Hezb-e-Wadat Asadullah Sahadati said.
President Hamid Karzai has publicly spoken out against the parliamentary decision – yet to be approved by the Senate – to have two foreign commissioners on the ECC board, saying that it goes against Afghanistan's sovereignty.
Karzai's spokesman Aimal Faizi said just over a week ago that Afghanistan was capable of holding a transparent and fair election without the foreign oversight which should be seen as "outside" intervention in Afghanistan's political affairs.
Afghan pugilist triumphs in country's first pro boxing bout
By Mirwais Harooni
KABUL, Oct 30 (Reuters) - A joyous Kabul crowd invaded the ring to celebrate a local victory in Afghanistan's first professional men's boxing match, after Hamid Rahimi beat Tanzanian Said Mbelwa in seven rounds.
Afghan fighter Rahimi overcame Mbelwa on Tuesday evening to take the World Boxing Organization Intercontinental middleweight belt in the "Fight 4 Peace" in a city better known for gunfire and insurgent attacks than uppercuts and jabs.
Organisers hope to use the event, which drew around 1,500 people paying at least $100 for a ticket - more than a month's salary for most Afghans - to promote sport as a unifying force in Afghanistan after decades of conflict.
"This bout will give a lesson to the Taliban and other opposition of the government to stop fighting with weapons and that they can start fighting for power without violence," said 28-year-old Mohammad Asif Sahibi as he watched.
During their five years of rule in Afghanistan the Taliban, bitterly opposed to sport and entertainment, outlawed boxing as un-Islamic, but later allowed limited-contact fighting which prohibited strikes to the face.
Tuesday's contest, during which Rahimi's every swing was roared by a partisan, flag-waving crowd, began after a mullah recited verses from the Koran, a solo footballer showed off ball trickery, and martial artists staged a display of Thai boxing.
"Its aim is to change people's minds in order to keep them away from war and enmity," said Rahimi supporter Attah Mohammad Yousufzai, a finance manager for a logistics company in Kabul.
"It aims to show them how to fight and still love each other."
Rahimi took the belt on a technical knockout which ended a contest of few cleanly-landed punches, staged in a huge tent normally used for national gatherings of tribal elders but rigged with Las Vegas-style lights and a techno-pumping sound system for the bout.
"Today it's a start," Rahimi said after the fight. "This belt is not mine, this belt is Afghanistan's, it's yours. I love you." (Writing by Daniel Magnowski; Editing by Andrew Roche)
Faryab Bombing Blamed on Pakistan
TOLOnews.com By Shakeela Ahbrimkhil Monday, 29 October 2012
Reaction to Friday's suicide bombing in Faryab province continued Monday with international leaders sending letters of condolence to President Hamid Karzai as the head of the religious Ulema Council blamed Pakistan.
Karzai's office on Monday released a statement that it had received official letters of condolence from Turkey, Spain and France which strongly condemned the attack and conveyed their support at Afghanistan's efforts for peace.
It came after the head of Afghanistan's National Ulema Council, who went with Karzai to Faryab on Sunday to meet the families of the bombing's victims, accused Pakistan of planning such suicide attacks.
"We spread the Islamic religion to the others and they announce Jihad against us. They themselves have said that Jihad in Afghanistan is the defense of Pakistan," Qeyamudin Kashaf said Sunday, adding that suicide attacks went against the tenants of Islam.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission chief Mohammad Musa Mahmoodi said a complete investigation was needed.
"We want a full investigation of the incident and punishment of the perpetrators so that people know who was behind the attack," he told TOLOnews on Monday.
"The government should exclude any parties trying to misuse the peace efforts of the Afghan government for launching such deadly and horrifying attack," he added.
International Human Rights Watch (HRW) concurred with Mahmoodi, saying the incident might even be considered a war crime.
"This is a troubling incident obviously, and especially troubling because it comes on a religious holiday," HRW researched in Kabul Heather Barr told TOLOnews.
"The incident absolutely should be investigated to determine whether what happened was a war crime. Even during a war, people have a responsibility on both sides to protect civilians, to not intentionally target civilians. If there is going to be harm to civilians it should be less the military objective which is achieved by this attack than what happens during war," she said.
"So, it's very important that not just the Afghan government but also the international community, the United Nations and the Human rights commissions should try to understand what happened and see if there are people to blame that should be punished," Barr added.
Afghan lawmakers also condemned the attack on Monday with the Second Vice Speaker of Parliament Nehmatullah Ghafari saying they denounced the bombing in the strongest possible terms.
Paktika MP Nader Khan Katawazi reiterated calls for an investigation and suitable punishment.
"We seriously ask the Afghan government to do the same to those who launch such attacks," he said Monday.
Karzai also addressed a gathering on Sunday in his visit to Faryab, saying that whoever carried out the attack was the enemy of Islam and the enemy of the Afghan people's happiness.
Karzai mentioned that among the families he met was a child who lost a number of family members in the attack, pledging to support the surviving members of the family.
The child said to him that six of this family were killed and two children were injured, with him being the eldest now at home.
"How do I find food or an education?" Karzai said the child asked him.
But some Faryab residents criticised Karzai during his visit, saying that various insurgents had been released from prison and they had returned to carry out attacks, killing the innocent people.
Over forty people were killed and around fifty others injured in Friday's single-bomb suicide attack at the Eid Gah mosque in Faryab's capital Maimana city.
2 NATO Troops Killed in Apparent Afghan Insider Attack
VOA News October 30, 2012
NATO says a man wearing an Afghan police uniform has shot and killed two coalition troops in southern Afghanistan in the latest apparent "insider" attack.
The international coalition did not give further details, but Afghan officials said the attacker killed two British soldiers Tuesday in Helmand province.
The incident is the latest in a series of such attacks that threaten to seriously undermine trust between NATO and their Afghan counterparts, as foreign combat troops prepare to complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
At least 53 coalition service members have been killed this year by Afghan soldiers and police or militants disguised as security personnel. NATO commanders have attributed a quarter of the so-called "insider" attacks to Taliban infiltration.
Election date set
Separately, Afghan election officials say the country's next presidential election will take place on April 5, 2014.
The country's Independent Election Commission announced the date Tuesday, which was given as "Hamal 16, 1393," according to the Islamic calendar.
President Hamid Karzai is serving his second term and is constitutionally barred from running for re-election.
The upcoming vote is seen as a test of Afghanistan's young democracy, after the 2009 election was marred by allegations of voter fraud.
Taliban leader arrested in S. Afghan province: coalition
KABUL, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- A local Taliban leader was arrested in Afghanistan's Helmand province, 555 km south of capital Kabul on Tuesday, the NATO-led coalition forces confirmed.
"An Afghan and coalition security force arrested a Taliban leader in Helmand province today," the coalition said in a press release.
The arrested leader is believed to be involved in providing tactical guidance to Taliban senior leaders while facilitating the movement of improvised explosive device (IED) components to insurgent cell members, the release said without naming the arrested man.
The security force also detained a number of suspected insurgents as a result of the operation, it added.
In neighboring Kandahar province, 450 km south of Kabul, the joint forces captured a Taliban weapons and IED facilitator earlier Tuesday.
"The arrested facilitator is suspected of smuggling weapons throughout Kandahar province and acquiring homemade explosive and other IED-making materials for use in attacks against Afghan and coalition forces," it said.
The Taliban insurgents, who have been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, have yet to confirm the arrest of their men.
The insurgent group launched in May this year spring offensive against Afghan and NATO forces.
Saudi Arabia to build $100-million Islamic centre in Kabul
AFP 29/10/2012
KABUL - Saudi Arabia will build a massive Islamic centre complete with a university and a mosque in Afghanistan, an Afghan minister said Monday, describing the project as “grand and unique”.
Estimated to cost up to $100 million, the centre on a hilltop in central Kabul will house up to 5,000 students, Dayi-Ul Haq Abed, the acting Hajj and religious affairs minister told AFP.
It will be named after Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, the minister added.
“The agreement was signed last week in Jeddah. The construction will start next year, in couple of months or so,” Abed said.
The mosque, similar to the Faisal Mosque in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad that was also built by oil-rich Saudi Arabia in 1980s, will hold 15,000 worshippers at a time.
The minister said the centre will be run jointly by the Saudi and Afghan ministries of religious affairs. Other universities in Afghanistan are run by the higher education ministry.
Saudi Arabia was one of only three countries – along with Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates – that recognised the hardline Islamist Taliban regime during its rule in Afghanistan from 1996-2001.
The Taliban were overthrown in a US-led invasion shortly after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington for harbouring Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but have waged an 11-year insurgency.
The US and Nato still have more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan supporting the government of President Hamid Karzai, but they are due to pull out all combat forces by the end of 2014.
Shining a light on Afghan withdrawal
Australia has an obligation to stay the course long enough to give the Afghans the best chance to hold their own after we leave, DR JOHN BLAXLAND writes
Sydney Morning Herald By Dr John Blaxland Opinion October 30, 2012
Nearly 11 years have passed since Australian combat troops deployed to Afghanistan as part of the US-led coalition in the so-called ''global war on terror''. Plans are afoot for a draw-down in the coming months with an anticipated withdrawal of the bulk of combat troops by the end of 2014.
Critics talk about a ''messy end game to a failing war'' and of the war being one that ''no one really believes in'' while supporters portray optimistic pictures of successful missions. It is hard to get at the truth. Yet it is a vital issue that requires answers as the Australian government prepares more rotations of combat forces and as plans for the drawdown in 2013 and 2014 are formulated.
In considering the record so far and prospects for the drawdown, several questions need to be answered: how has the campaign in Afghanistan gone so far really? What can we expect as the withdrawal of Australian combat troops approaches? Is there any real chance of success (and how do we define success)? Has the ADF's leadership been true to its principles in offering firm and clear advice? Where does this leave us for the future?
One of the reasons why extreme black and white perspectives tend to feature on Australia's role in Afghanistan is because the story of Australia's war in the Middle East has not been told clearly and confidently. The media has been tightly constrained and the historical record is rapidly eroding, leaving diminished sources of material for objective analysis. Unlike for all of Australia's previous major conflicts, no official historian has been appointed yet to catalogue and describe Australia's part in the ''global war on terror'' in Afghanistan. Australia's contribution to the war in Iraq sits similarly uncatalogued by an official historian.
Confusion also arises between the US-led NATO-backed campaign in Afghanistan and the suggestion that Australia has its own campaign in Afghanistan. In fact there is only one campaign in Afghanistan and that is the campaign being conducted by ISAF. Australia's actions are a modest contribution nested within the overall campaign, and its success needs to be measured in relation to that overall campaign. That campaign includes a massive aid budget. The Government plans to provide $286 million over two years to continue Australia's contribution to developing local capacity in Afghanistan.
How the campaign has gone so far depends on who you ask. There is no question that the international force-contributing nations, including Australia, took their eyes off the ball after the initial successes with the ousting of the Taliban in 2002. But the apparent victory with thinly spread and high-tech-enabled special forces supported by northern Alliance Afghans (mostly Uzbeks and Tajiks rather than the Pashtuns from Afghanistan's south) encouraged a false sense of confidence. The problem was compounded by the fiasco for the United States in Iraq from 2003 onwards to which Australia contributed combat forces for the initial invasion phase; only to be drawn back in as the security situation deteriorated in 2006.
In the meantime, the Pashtun-dominated Taliban had reconstituted, reorganised and remerged from the borderlands of Pakistan to become a credible and clear threat to the Kharzai government, particularly in southern Afghanistan.
Critics argue that talk of training the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) is a politically expedient fiction to cover the fact that we are just hanging on until the United States starts to leave.
This is an unduly bleak interpretation. Of course, Australia is not going to operate in a major way in Afghanistan without allied support. But to conflate the ANSF training with the US presence is to miss the point. The training is genuine, it is carefully calibrated and it is not without meaning.
It is in accordance with a well thought-out and incremental plan that sees capabilities developed in the ANSF that they didn't possess beforehand. And Australia isn't the only country that signed up to this plan: it did so as part of the belated NATO/ISAF coalition strategy. In accordance with the plan, the ANSF capabilities are maturing. They are not likely to reach the standards of our own forces. But all they have to do is beat the highly-motivated but poorly-trained Taliban; and in almost every incident so far they have proved capable of doing so.
Another view is that we should not be taking risks with soldiers' lives that are not absolutely necessary to sustaining our presence.
This is a truism, but it belies the complexity of the situation faced in Oruzgan province. The run of losses in recent months is indeed hard to justify. While the losses are tragic and devastating to the families and friends of those concerned, relatively speaking Australia's losses have been comparatively light. In Afghanistan, Britain has suffered 433 deaths, Canada 158, France 88, Germany 56 and even New Zealand 10.
The United States, which has taken the lion share of the operational load, also has taken the lion's share of fatalities with 1,955 deaths.
For Australia it is useful to keep the casualties in historical perspective as well. The figures for Afghanistan are small when compared with the Vietnam War (over 500 deaths) the Korean War (340) or the world wars (over 60,000 in the WWI and nearly 40,000 in WWII). An interesting yardstick is Australian traffic deaths, which in recent years has averaged more than 1400 nationwide per year. Ask the families who have lost loved ones and they appear to be almost as one in arguing for staying the course. Ask the all-volunteer members of the Australian Defence Force involved in the war about the price and they remain resolute. The forces deployed are an inspiration.
Some say Defence has no coherent policy or capacity to develop one. In reality, decisions made by senior bureaucrats, military commanders and politicians today are built on a succession of decisions, some good, some bad, over the last 11 years that have placed us in our current predicament. An eventual history will show a process of incremental steps, a muddling through of hesitant and myopic horizons. But much of war history reads like that because it has the advantage of hindsight. The slate cannot simply be wiped clean or past decisions undone. In good conscience Australia has an obligation to stay the course, to give the Afghans the best chance, within realistic and affordable parameters, to establish themselves and to hold their own after we leave. To do otherwise would be to betray more than just the memory of the fallen, but the many who have identified with Australians in Oruzgan and elsewhere. The end result will not be perfect, nor is it reasonable for Australia to expect that it should be.
The tricky part will be arranging a graceful and successful exit once agreed-upon conditions have been reached. Australia has acres of equipment currently stored in Oruzgan and Kandahar. Tough decisions will have to be made about the exact sequencing of withdrawal of items of equipment from use. Here Australia's Vietnam experience is instructive. As the forces drew down in 1971, armoured vehicles and some combat forces were withdrawn early, leaving the remaining forces thinly stretched and poorly protected. The result was the enemy increased their combat action against the Australians and their casualty numbers surged. To avoid a repeat, significant ready reaction forces will have to remain on standby as non-essential elements are sent back home first. Conversely, care needs to be taken not to deduce too many inappropriate ''lessons'' from the Vietnam War. For instance, in hindsight we know that the North Vietnamese Army had about 20 divisions to invade South Vietnam when the US-led coalition withdrew. There
is no such coherent force poised on Afghanistan's borders. The notion that Afghanistan is simply going to fall to the fractious and distrustful components of the Taliban is on the extreme end of the spectrum of plausible outcomes.
The major parties on both sides of politics have maintained the commitment to Afghanistan as neither side can think of a better way to manage a graceful exit.
Both sides recognise the trade-off: incremental increase in the ANSF capabilities at the probable expense of a number of more Australian lives. The calculus is such that further incremental gains by 2014 are expected to give the ANSF a greater likelihood of survival and that additional investment will hopefully secure the significant down-payment in resources made by Australia and its coalition partners to date.
But as any honest futurist will admit, there is no way of knowing exactly how events will unfold once we leave: good, bad or indifferent.
It is not inconceivable, however, that a de-facto division of the country may emerge between the Pashtun south and the northern groups. The stronger we can make the ANSF before we leave the less likely is the scenario of being fulfilled. Besides, once we leave the Pashtun groups likely will splinter and dissipate their strength with infighting.
Dr John Blaxland is a Senior Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific.
Op-Ed: U.S. Isn't Losing War In Afghanistan
NPR October 29, 2012
In a piece in the Washington Post, retired Army officer John Nagl argues that the U.S. has forgotten what losing a war really looks like. Nagl talks about what's been accomplished in Afghanistan, and the concerns that remain.
NEAL CONAN, HOST:
And now the Opinion Page. Two more American service members were killed last week in Afghanistan by a gunman wearing an Afghan police uniform, the latest casualties from a series of so-called green-on-blue attacks. U.S. troops temporarily cut back on joint operations with Afghan security forces last month amid a flurry of questions about the goals of the mission in Afghanistan and the timing of the transition out. A recent poll from the Pew Research Center found that six in 10 Americans say U.S. troops should be removed from Afghanistan as soon as possible. Just over a third believe they should remain until the situation is stabilized.
In a piece in the Washington Post, retired Army officer John Nagl argued that the United States has forgotten what losing a war actually looks like. Despite the miasma of discontent with effort, he wrote, the United States and its many allies are not losing in Afghanistan. We'd like to hear from those of you who served in Afghanistan. Based on what you saw, what's been accomplished? What still worries you? 800-989-8255. Email: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's atnpr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl joins us now by smartphone from his home in Alexandria, Virginia. He's a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and Minerva Research professor at the U.S. Naval Academy. Nice to have you back on the program.
JOHN NAGL: It's great to be back, Neal.
CONAN: And I know Alexandria is near by the water. I hope you're dry.
NAGL: We are not dry, but we are not yet storm surged and not yet under water. So we're - the glass is still only half-full, which is good in this case.
CONAN: OK. If the United States, though, needs a reminder of what losing a war looks like, you say go back to 1975.
NAGL: Correct. So in Vietnam, of course, the United States lost, utterly and completely were forced out. And the photograph that most Americans remember is of helicopters departing from the roof of the embassy. The photos I remember are pushing perfectly good Huey helicopters off of aircraft carrier landing decks into the ocean to make room for more helicopters as the evacuation continued. And there is, I think, no risk that we will be forced from Afghanistan and that we will not be able to stay there to continue to pursue our interest in the region.
CONAN: That loss, of course, had other effects, mostly on the people of Vietnam and, of course, on the United States Army itself.
NAGL: And on the people of Cambodia, as well. I would argue that the Khmer Rouge came to power in no small part as a result of our failings in Vietnam. And so one of the points I wanted to emphasize in this article is that there is loose talk about losing a war as if we could do so, as if we could walk away from Afghanistan without concern for our interests, those of the Afghan people or those of the region. And I simply don't think that's the case.
CONAN: There is an image that many Americans have of what winning a war looks like. They think back to 1991, what we now call the First Gulf War.
NAGL: They do, and I actually was a part of that war. I had a tank platoon in the 1st Cavalry Division. And it was - it appeared to be, at least, clean and neat and simple. Of course, what historians are now beginning to recognize is that that war continued for the remainder of the decade and beyond. And so wars, I think, particularly wars against non-state actors like the ones we're facing in Afghanistan and Pakistan are unlikely to end, even as neatly as Desert Storm apparently did. These are long, protracted wars. The United States has interest. They are going to continue, and I'm afraid we're going to continue to pay a price in order to attempt to achieve them for many years still to come.
CONAN: Yet the public opinion polls we mentioned earlier, 60 percent of Americans think it's time to get out. Indeed, we should've gotten out before.
NAGL: I think one of the failings of both of the last two administrations has been a failure to explain to the American people how long this war against al-Qaida and its affiliates is likely to be, how deep and severe the problems are, not just in Afghanistan but particularly in Pakistan, and how those issues inside Pakistan in particular are going to remain a threat to the American people and to the free world for literally decades to come. So we haven't done a good job of explaining what it is we're trying to accomplish nor what our strategy is to achieve those goals.
CONAN: Yet, everybody is talking towards 2014 and the transition of the major combat role from U.S.-led forces and NATO forces to Afghan forces.
NAGL: And that transition, I argue, should happen and will happen. But what no one is talking about is 2015 and beyond. The United States and Afghanistan already signed a framework agreement which states that the United States will continue to provide security assistance to Afghanistan for at least a decade to come after that 2014 transition.
And it's my argument that that is very strongly in America's interest, that we need special forces and U.S. Air Force assets - including drone assets - to operate from Afghanistan in order to secure our interests in the region, many of them inside Pakistan, a state with which we are not at war. Pakistan is officially a U.S. ally. But, of course, we do conduct operations inside Pakistan against enemy interests both to Pakistan and to the United States.
CONAN: Yet doesn't this series of inside attacks, those green-on-blue attacks, people in Afghan army uniforms, boy, that reminds a lot of people of what the army of the Republic of Vietnam started to look like towards the end.
NAGL: I actually think that that's a disservice to the army of the Republic of Vietnam. By the end of the war in Vietnam, the South Vietnamese army was pretty strong, was capable, with U.S. assistance, particularly U.S. air power, of stopping the Easter Offensive in '72. And many people, myself included, believe that had the United States continued to provide air power, some advisors could have held in 1975, as well. So one of the points of comparison that is not helpful, actually, to those who advocate for continued interest in Afghanistan is that the Afghan army is not as good as the South Vietnamese army was by the end of our efforts there.
We started the efforts to raise the Afghan military comparatively late. We didn't put very much effort or very good effort into it for a number of years. Iraq really took all the oxygen out of the room and kept us from focusing on the war in Afghanistan. And these green-on-blue attacks in which Afghans in military uniforms attack U.S. and allied soldiers are a real threat to our strategy. So I'm not downplaying that at all. I find that extremely worrisome. I think what we're seeing now is mistakes of previous years coming home to roost.
CONAN: There is that, but there's also this - the fact that this war has already lasted longer than Vietnam. And it's not just a public opinion that's grown tired. Earlier this month, just a couple of days before you wrote your piece, the New York Times editorial argued it's time to pack up. It should not take more than a year, The Times editorial wrote. The United States will not achieve even President Obama's narrowing goals, and prolonging the war will only do more harm.
NAGL: In some ways, I published my piece in response to The New York Times piece. And I think what The New York Times failed to notice, failed to understand is that the American interests are going to demand that we have bases in the region for a number of years to come. So The New York Times knows well that Pakistan confronts a number of insurgencies, has a rapidly growing nuclear stockpile with uncertain-at-best controls over those weapons, as well the United States has real humanitarian interests in preventing Afghanistan from falling again into civil war.
Were any of those things do happen, were the United States to follow the principles The New York Times pointed out in that editorial, were the U.S. to withdraw completely, I think all of those things would happen. I think we'd see civil war inside Afghanistan. I think we'd be less able to confront terrorist insurgents inside Pakistan's borders, and I think that very, very bad things would be likely to happen as a result. And The New York Times would then write better op-eds wondering why it was that the United States' policy had failed so completely.
The fact is that we need bases inside Afghanistan. To operate from those bases, we need the Afghan government to hold together to at least a reasonable amount. And that's going to demand a continuing U.S. effort for many years to come.
CONAN: We're talking with John Nagl, who retired from the United States Army with the rank of lieutenant colonel, now a Minerva professor at the United States Naval Academy, non-resident senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. And we want to hear from those of you who served in Afghanistan: What's been accomplished? What remains to worry you? 800-989-8255. Email: talk@npr.org. Douglas is on the line with us from South Bend in Indiana.
DOUGLAS: Hello. How are you guys today?
CONAN: Good, thanks.
NAGL: Hey, Douglas.
DOUGLAS: When I served in Afghanistan, which was in 2008 and - through 2009, I was stationed in Kabul. I was with a command that was tasked with training the national army and the national police. I thought it was very advantageous what we were doing. We were, I think, doing very good work. We also were training their medics. It was a good experience, and I got a better understanding of what's going on there. And I think that probably things have changed somewhat since I've been there, like, there's been the surge and so on.
CONAN: Were you, at that time, concerned about the possibility that the people you were training would turn their weapons on you?
DOUGLAS: It never once crossed my mind at that time. I - maybe I was not paying attention, but I actually don't think that's the case. But I do think that they were very - the people I talked with - and I was with a unit that actually covered as far as what we call public affairs. Every indication I had when I was - when I went around to different training camps was that people were very happy to be doing what they were doing, and that we were helping them.
CONAN: John Nagl, given Douglas' experience - and I don't think he's alone in this - the very fact that this is being wrapped up so quickly, it's causing difficulties in screening out people who may be Taliban infiltrators. As you suggest, this is a highly challenging tactic that they're using. But they're not all Taliban.
NAGL: Oh, no, by no means. And it's important to remember the time at which Douglas had his experience. He was there in 2008 and 2009, as we were starting to put resources into raising the Afghan army, but we hadn't really redoubled our efforts yet. And I think it's important to remember how bad the situation in Afghanistan turned out to be. When President Obama took over in 2009, he ended up deciding to triple U.S. forces in Afghanistan over the course of his first year in office, over the course of 2009. And that really accelerated the training of the Afghan National Army. As a result of speeding up that process, some bad apples slipped through.
But I also think we're seeing indications that the Taliban has come up with a new strategy of infiltrating the Afghan security forces and having its operatives inside kill, attack American and NATO forces. And they're finding great success with it. It's such a successful strategy that I hesitate to talk about it, because it is a real threat to the center of gravity of the U.S. effort, which is U.S. public opinion in support of a continuing advisory effort for years to come.
CONAN: Douglas, thanks very much for the call.
DOUGLAS: Well, thank you.
CONAN: John Nagl is with us on the Opinion Page. There's a link to his piece, "Not Losing in Afghanistan," which ran last week in The Washington Post, at our website. Just go to npr.org and click on TALK OF THE NATION. This is TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News. And Jonathan's on the line with us from Cincinnati.
JONATHAN: Yes, sir.
CONAN: You're on the air. Go ahead, please.
JONATHAN: The main thing with the war in Afghanistan - I served from September of last year to March of this year and - and with the Afghan National Army, when we got there, they were brand new. They were new recruits. And the things that concerned us is we were fighting marijuana pretty much. They were getting high. They weren't going on patrols, and then we would - we'd give them a mission, and then we'd end up going out and doing it.
After that, we - they started giving all their uniforms over to the Taliban. They were related to a lot of Taliban, and it turns out in Helmand Province, were fighting uncles, brothers and, you know, other family members that are from the Afghan National Army or police.
And so by the end of my seven months, we actually had one really good police force in one small town called Shir Ghazi. But in other towns around that area, a lot of the police were actually Taliban, and we ended up having several IEDs planted by police and ended up killing several men in police uniforms. And it's just - it's really frustrating, because it seems like 10 years of war, you can't get any headway with them. And, you know, they're very slow to learn. They're just - they just like to relax, and it's a bit frustrating for us, because we're just taken all the weight.
CONAN: John Nagl, how do we change that situation?
NAGL: I think Jonathan is describing very accurately what happened as we rapidly expanded the Afghan security forces as we pushed into the areas in the south of Afghanistan, the south and east of Afghanistan where the Taliban is strongest, where large numbers of the population actually have relatives connected with the Taliban. And in some cases, they're hedging their bets. They've got one son fighting with the Taliban and another son inside the Afghan security forces.
And so Jonathan's experience hints at how long and how hard this effort is going to be if we're going to succeed in it, that the human capital inside Afghanistan is really severely stunted after literally 30 consecutive years of war, that the sanctuaries across the Durand Line inside Pakistan give real succor to the Taliban, give them strength and the ability to regenerate and mean that this is going to have to be a long-term effort if Afghanistan is going to stand against the Taliban.
CONAN: Jonathan, thanks very much.
JONATHAN: OK. Thank you, sir.
CONAN: And, John Nagl, you've said that the last two administrations have been - given short shrift to persuading the American people of the importance that this mission continue. How would - it's very barely been mentioned in the presidential campaign. How would you - what would you do to convince the American people? And again, looking at those opinion polls, you've got an uphill climb.
NAGL: Well, there's something quite ironic about all of this. As a former soldier myself, I strongly believe the American people should be engaged in their wars. They have been very supportive of the troops, even if they haven't understood the strategy or what's at stake. On the other hand, although the American people are not strongly in favor of continuing the war in Afghanistan - that's obviously an understatement - they aren't that concerned about it. And so the level of intensity isn't very high.
This gives whatever administration comes to power in 2013 a great freedom of action to do essentially what they want to do in Afghanistan, continue the effort there as both President Obama and Governor Romney have promised they are going to do.
So there isn't clash between the two parties on this issue. Both agree - both Governor Romney and President Obama agree with the current strategy. And my sense is that although the American people aren't happy about it, they're going to allow this to continue. They're going to focus on domestic issues, and the United States' defense establishment, the national security establishment, will be able to do what I believe it needs to do: maintain bases in the region, continue operations in the region, even understanding that it is going to continue to cost us some of our sons and daughters.
CONAN: John Nagl, thanks very much for your time today.
NAGL: It's good talking to you, Neal,
CONAN: Retired Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl joined us from his home in Alexandria, Virginia. Again, there's a link to his Washington Post piece "Not Losing in Afghanistan" on our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.
We also continue to watch the effects of Hurricane Sandy. Stay with NPR News for the latest on the storm as it makes it way towards the East Coast. It's the TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan, in Washington.
The Siren Call Of Central Asia
Tajik City Spells Fun, Relatively, for Afghans
Wall Street Journal By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV October 29, 2012
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - When Afghan entrepreneur Sardar Ali comes here for business, he tells his relatives he is going to India.
"Tajikistan's reputation is not so good in our country," Mr. Ali says sheepishly. "Everyone thinks you are only going to Dushanbe for girls."
Capital of the poorest former Soviet republic, Dushanbe is no fleshpot like Bangkok or Las Vegas. Once called Stalinabad, this predominantly Muslim city of crumbling neoclassical buildings has just a handful of discreet nightclubs and bars.
But to residents of next-door Afghanistan, one of the most conservative Islamic societies where sexes rarely mix and alcohol is illegal, Dushanbe's limited attractions loom larger than life—more a reflection of Afghanistan's repressed mores, perhaps, than of Dushanbe's actual vices. In Kabul conversations, mention of Dushanbe elicits rolled eyes and knowing smirks. It has become a byword for sin city.
"When people get bored in Kabul, they say, 'Let's go to Tajikistan,' " says Mohammad Younus Weyar, director of a construction company in Kabul and an occasional visitor to Dushanbe. "Tajikistan is very green and very clean. But they are not going there for the green grass and clean air. Most people are only going there for the bad things."
When a batch of Afghan government employees came for training to Dushanbe earlier this year, the first thing they asked their Western sponsor was where they could find women for sex, a Western official in Dushanbe says. The official says he had to explain that prostitution in Tajikistan is illegal—and then attempted to limit hanky-panky by placing the visitors two to a room.
Whether Dushanbe's reputation is earned or not, Tajik officials are eager to capitalize on it.
Afghan tourists—numbering some 10,000 last year—are the most numerous visitors from beyond the former Soviet Union, says Davlat A. Khabibov, chairman of Tajikistan's Association for the Development of Tourist Industry and until last year head of the government's Department of Tourism. That is even though Afghans typically pay some $500 to receive a Tajik visa, most of that paid to intermediaries.
"The Russian tourists come here for climbing, the Westerners for hiking in the mountains," Mr. Khabibov says. "The Afghans, they come for entertainment."
Attractions include a new restaurant complex called Kabul One, as well as Ninth Wave, which Dushanbe taxi drivers describe as a strip joint favored by Afghan visitors. On a recent night in its hall, built to resemble a clipper ship, a few dozen customers rhythmically clapped as an Iranian singer, wearing an ankle-length dress and a tall hairdo, primly delivered 1970s Persian love songs.
Dushanbe is one of the few places where Afghans—especially government officials—can feel rich. At outdoor beer gardens, stout waitresses ferry foamy glasses of beer that cost the equivalent of a few cents per pint.
"The Tajiks always welcome the Afghans—they don't have much revenue in their own country," says Mr. Weyar, the Kabul entrepreneur. "Everyone there knows that tons of money has come to Afghanistan, even though most of it has gone to wrong people's pockets."
Afghans who don't speak a foreign word can get by: Tajik and Afghanistan's Dari language are closely related. "We are the same as the Tajiks," says Abdulla Baryalai, an Afghan native who runs a grocery store in Dushanbe. "Same language and same culture."
Regarding culture, many Tajiks demur. There are no burqas in sight on Dushanbe streets. Young couples hold hands in a park just off the city's main boulevard—something unthinkable in Afghanistan, where honor killings are common for the suspicion of illicit romance. Dushanbe remained quiet even as Muslim countries around the world were rocked by last month's wave of violent protests against a video mocking Prophet Muhammad.
Even Tajikistan's Islamists are eager to distance themselves from their Afghanistan counterparts.
"Seventy years within the U.S.S.R. and then 20 years of independence have left their imprint," says Muhiddin Kabiri, chairman of Tajikistan's Islamic Revival Party, the country's largest opposition force and post-Soviet Central Asia's only legal Islamist movement. "Our understanding of religion is more tolerant, more peaceful. We have a completely different society."
Case in point was the Simin nightclub. Outside, a notice warned patrons against violence, video-recording or the wearing of Central Asian traditional dress. Inside, bathed in blue neon and gyrating by a pole on a largely empty floor, was a dancer in a top and miniskirt.
Barman Sahib Nurbayev marveled at the whiskeys and cognacs that the club's Afghan guests tend to order, speculating darkly on the source of their cash.
"They spend the kind of money that we don't even see in our dreams," he said.
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com
Isaf Mandate Does Not Allow Cross-Border Action: Katz
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi Monday, 29 October 2012
The Nato-led international forces (Isaf) in Afghanistan cannot take military action against any cross-border incursions into the country because this was excluded from the Isaf mandate at the start of the Afghan war in 2001, an Isaf spokesman said Monday.
Brig Gen Gunter Katz said that the proposal of the Afghan delegation at the first Bonn Conference in 2001 which sought to obligate Isaf to defend Afghanistan from any foreign threats was never accepted by the United Nations.
"In the first Bonn conference in December 2001 there was a proposal of the Afghan delegation to include the protection of the border of Afghanistan in one of the annexes.
Actually this annex was part of the Bonn proposal however, this annex never made it into our mandate that we received from the United Nations," Katz said at the press conference in Kabul.
The Isaf mandate obliged the Nato-led forces to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for terrorists again, Katz said.
His comments come after both countries have increasingly blamed each other of harbouring insurgents who conduct attacks on the other side of the border.
The Afghan government has also accused Pakistan military of shelling some of its eastern provinces and has requested Isaf's assistance in stopping the attacks.
Katz emphasised that the ongoing cross-border attacks between both Afghanistan and Pakistan is a matter of concern for Isaf and negotiations are underway to tackle the issues.
"It remains a matter of concern that there is cross-border of activities on both side of the borders and we understand that there is a need to step up the fight against the terrorism and extremism in the border area," Katz said.
"We will continue to discuss this issue together with the Pakistani military and the Afghan Army," he added.
Katz also noted that peace and stability in Afghanistan depends on the positive engagement of both Afghanistan and Pakistan to take necessary action against the insurgent safe havens on both sides of the border region.
Bamyan Airports to Expand for Larger Aircraft, Tourism
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi Monday, 29 October 2012
Northern Bamyan province is upgrading two airports to allow for larger aircraft to fly in and out of the province in a bid to allow for more tourism in the area, the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation said.
The expansion of the two airports – one in the provincial capital Bamyan City and one 35 kilometeres west of that, Shebartu Airport – will be respectively funded by the Japanese government and the Afghan government.
Transport and Aviation minister Dawood Ali Najafi told TOLOnews that at present the runway of Bamyan City airport is not tarred and only small aircraft can land and take-off, but this will change under the new plan.
A development project funded by Japan and worth about US$15 million is underway to modernize the terminal, the watchtower, and other facilities including the runway, he said.
The upgrade of the systems – both installation and development – is expected to take about a year, he added.
Shebartu Airport is also being renovated in a three-year project to expand its length to three thousand feet and width to two hundred feet with the capacity to take any aircraft.
The Afghan government is footing the initial cost of the expansion with 10 million Afs (US$200,000), Najafi said.
"The tourism industry is one of the most important sources of income for Bamyan residents and improving the facilities in air transport will provide more traffic for foreign tourists to come and so develop the tourism industry in Bamyan," he said.
"Once we complete the airport development project after a year, the tourism will be develop by itself in this province," he added.
Tourism is the main source of income for Bamyan residents after agriculture and livestock. The government believes that the construction of airports with greater aircraft capacity will play an important role in further developing the tourism which will allow for more sustained economic growth in Bamyan.
Lack of Govt Assistance Drives Us to Poppy: Helmand Elders
TOLOnews.com Monday, 29 October 2012
Helmand tribal elders on Monday said that the lack of a market for agricultural produce drives them to cultivate poppy despite knowing its links to the insurgency.
In a meeting with Helmand provincial government officials, the elders blamed the high levels of poppy cultivation in the province on lack of government support to develop markets for other produce.
Elders said, while admitting they knew the problems that came with the poppy trade, that they would never cultivate poppy if there were more government support.
"We know that narcotics are the friend of insecurity; anywhere you find narcotics, there is war, and also the young become [drug] addicts," said elder Hajji Barakzai from the Nad Ali district.
The UN Office of Drugs and Crime estimates that over 90 percent of the world's illegal opiates are supplied by Afghanistan with most production coming from Helmand.
In a UN report released in September, Afghan officials were quoted estimating that the Taliban earned about $100 million from the poppy economy in 2011-12, with the total drug crop estimated between $3.6 billion and $4 billion.
The governor of Helmand Mohammad Naim Baloch responded that efforts are being made to decrease poppy cultivation and accepts the complaints of the farmers.
"As you know, the cultivation and trafficking of narcotics is greater in our province than any other province," he told TOLOnews. "We are working on decreasing those figures."
The governor in turn urged the farmers to have closer cooperation with local officials on this matter to decrease cultivation and so ensure better security.
Calls for Investigation into Absent MPs
TOLOnews.com Monday, 29 October 2012
Afghanistan's parliament remained shut on Monday despite the Eid al-Adha religious holiday ending on Sunday as well as it being more than a week since the lawmakers left in droves to make the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca.
The lack of numbers for Monday's parliamentary session meant it was cancelled, triggering the MPs who were present to criticise their absent colleagues.
"We had to keep parliament's door closed today as well – this is an anguish for the people," said MP Gulalai Noor Safi on Monday.
Some of the MPs said their colleagues have taken their job "to pass the time" without any concern for the government of Afghanistan and called for an investigation into the absentees.
"On a day which might be of benefit to them [personally], 241 MPs will be present, but they would not attend the meetings on other days," said Parliament's Second Vice Speaker Neimatullah Ghafari.
MP Sheenkai Karokhil said those spending time outside the country should be investigated along with those spending enormous amounts of money at government expense.
"All international trips without any invitation are recreation and pastimes outside the country," she said. "There should be a list provided to identify those who have 100 to 200 guards and for what reason they are spend the country's money."
MP Ruqiya Nael said the investigation should specifically focus on those who went to Hajj.
"There should be a decision made for these one hundred – there should be an inspection into what they did and where they are, how they went for Hajj and from what source they covered their expenses," she said.
One MP added that the superfluous number of personal guards held by other MPs can increase the sense of insecurity in the city.
"There are people with rockets and machine guns on the streets who are of disturbance to others. They include the MPs as well who threaten people when they don't reach their goals or their aims," said Mirdadkhan Najrabi, MP.
Parliament has not convened since Wednesday October 17 because more than 100 lawmakers left Afghanistan to make the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
The excessive numbers were apparently not foreseen by the parliamentary administration or the Ministry of Hajj and Islamic Affairs, resulting in parliament being cancelled for lack of lawmakers since the sitting session of October 20 onwards.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG October 30, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai took a step toward fulfilling his pledge to hold Afghanistan’s presidential election on time, as officials said Tuesday that the vote had been officially set for April 5, 2014.
If the date holds, it will avoid a repeat of one of the first in a series of controversies to mar the last presidential election, originally set for May 2009. That election, however, was delayed until August, which pushed Mr. Karzai a few months past the official end of his constitutionally mandated five-year term.
The vote itself was then plagued by substantial fraud, much of it in Mr. Karzai’s favor. Widespread violence also kept many voters away from the polls, especially in southern and eastern Afghanistan, where the country’s largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns, dominates and the Taliban are strongest.
The president, opposition leaders and the Afghan government’s foreign backers have in recent months repeatedly said that they hope to avoid the same problems in 2014, though Western officials have expressed doubts about whether a truly clean and free election can be held given the level of violence in Afghanistan and the deep-rooted corruption within the government.
Noor Ahmad Noor, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission, confirmed the April election date after reports about it surfaced in the Afghan news media on Tuesday. The formal announcement of the April 5 election date had been set to come on Wednesday.
The political opposition, in welcoming an announcement, pressed the government to ensure a fraud-free vote. Specifying the date “is not enough,” said Sardar Muhammad Rahimi, a spokesman for the National Front of Afghanistan, an alliance of three major opposition political figures, each associated with one of Afghanistan’s smaller ethnic groups.
Among the opposition’s top concerns is the passage of a new election law that would mandate that two foreigners appointed by the United Nations sit on the country’s five-person Electoral Complaints Commission, which handles accusations of electoral fraud. Mr. Karzai has said foreigners are not needed and threatened to veto the law, which has passed Parliament’s lower house and is being considered by the upper house.
“We are worried that the government might interfere in the elections somehow and turn it to its favor,” Mr. Rahimi said, explaining why his political alliance wants the foreigners on the complaints commission.
There was no immediate reaction among Western officials or the international groups expected to help run and finance the election, including the United Nations. Some officials said they were caught off guard by the leaked announcement.
Another major concern among Afghans and the international community is that the election is to take place just as NATO’s combat mission here is drawing to a close. Given the concerns over a sharp rise this year in killings by Afghan soldiers and police officers of their coalition counterparts, there is speculation among Western officials here that the pace of the coalition military withdrawal could be quickened over the next year.
The latest insider attack apparently came on Tuesday when a man wearing an Afghan police uniform gunned down two British soldiers in the southern province of Helmand, Afghan and coalition officials said.
Muhammad Naim Baloch, the governor of Helmand, said the attack took place around noon in the Grishek district of the province, an area that remains thick with Taliban despite years of coalition offensives in the province aimed at rooting out insurgents.
He said in a telephone interview from Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, that it was not yet clear whether the attacker had fled or had been apprehended, though coalition officials said the assailant had indeed escaped.
Jamie Graybeal, a coalition spokesman, said the attack was under investigation. But he emphasized that the coalition could not yet confirm whether the attack was the work of an actual policeman or an infiltrator disguised as a policeman.
If the attacker is confirmed to have been a member of the police force, it would bring the official death toll in such insider attacks, also called green-on-blue attacks, this year to 53. Four additional Western deaths appear to have been the work of insiders but remain under investigation.
Sangar Rahimi, Jawad Sukhanyar and Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting.
A version of this article appeared in print on October 31, 2012, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: Afghans Say Presidential Election Date Is Set for April 2014.
Destroy Old Election Cards, Approve Foreign ECC Officials: CCPP
TOLOnews.com By Abdul Wali Arian Monday, 29 October 2012
Old election identification cards will be a major source of fraud in the 2014 presidential election and so should be destroyed, the Coordination Council of Political Parties (CCPP) in Afghanistan said Monday.
The council members emphasised the need to ensure that new electronic identification cards are distributed prior to 2014 to decrease the incidence of fraudulent voting – and increase the chance of a transparent and fair election.
"The old voting cards should be nullified because they are the source of massive fraud and forgery in the upcoming election," member of National Front Mohammad Natiqi said in a press briefing in Kabul on Monday, urging the government, international community and the country's election commission to prepare the new content for the voters and work on distributing new voting cards.
Another member of the council and the National Front Mohammad Asem said, "We see a more transparent election in the distribution of new voting cards. The government should take necessary steps in this regard."
The members also backed Parliament's decision to approve two foreign commissioners of the seven on the board of the Election Complaints Commission (ECC).
"Parliament, as the representative of Afghan people, has the right to approve the presence of two foreign election commissioners at the Election Complaints Commission," member of Hezb-e-Wadat Asadullah Sahadati said.
President Hamid Karzai has publicly spoken out against the parliamentary decision – yet to be approved by the Senate – to have two foreign commissioners on the ECC board, saying that it goes against Afghanistan's sovereignty.
Karzai's spokesman Aimal Faizi said just over a week ago that Afghanistan was capable of holding a transparent and fair election without the foreign oversight which should be seen as "outside" intervention in Afghanistan's political affairs.
Afghan pugilist triumphs in country's first pro boxing bout
By Mirwais Harooni
KABUL, Oct 30 (Reuters) - A joyous Kabul crowd invaded the ring to celebrate a local victory in Afghanistan's first professional men's boxing match, after Hamid Rahimi beat Tanzanian Said Mbelwa in seven rounds.
Afghan fighter Rahimi overcame Mbelwa on Tuesday evening to take the World Boxing Organization Intercontinental middleweight belt in the "Fight 4 Peace" in a city better known for gunfire and insurgent attacks than uppercuts and jabs.
Organisers hope to use the event, which drew around 1,500 people paying at least $100 for a ticket - more than a month's salary for most Afghans - to promote sport as a unifying force in Afghanistan after decades of conflict.
"This bout will give a lesson to the Taliban and other opposition of the government to stop fighting with weapons and that they can start fighting for power without violence," said 28-year-old Mohammad Asif Sahibi as he watched.
During their five years of rule in Afghanistan the Taliban, bitterly opposed to sport and entertainment, outlawed boxing as un-Islamic, but later allowed limited-contact fighting which prohibited strikes to the face.
Tuesday's contest, during which Rahimi's every swing was roared by a partisan, flag-waving crowd, began after a mullah recited verses from the Koran, a solo footballer showed off ball trickery, and martial artists staged a display of Thai boxing.
"Its aim is to change people's minds in order to keep them away from war and enmity," said Rahimi supporter Attah Mohammad Yousufzai, a finance manager for a logistics company in Kabul.
"It aims to show them how to fight and still love each other."
Rahimi took the belt on a technical knockout which ended a contest of few cleanly-landed punches, staged in a huge tent normally used for national gatherings of tribal elders but rigged with Las Vegas-style lights and a techno-pumping sound system for the bout.
"Today it's a start," Rahimi said after the fight. "This belt is not mine, this belt is Afghanistan's, it's yours. I love you." (Writing by Daniel Magnowski; Editing by Andrew Roche)
Faryab Bombing Blamed on Pakistan
TOLOnews.com By Shakeela Ahbrimkhil Monday, 29 October 2012
Reaction to Friday's suicide bombing in Faryab province continued Monday with international leaders sending letters of condolence to President Hamid Karzai as the head of the religious Ulema Council blamed Pakistan.
Karzai's office on Monday released a statement that it had received official letters of condolence from Turkey, Spain and France which strongly condemned the attack and conveyed their support at Afghanistan's efforts for peace.
It came after the head of Afghanistan's National Ulema Council, who went with Karzai to Faryab on Sunday to meet the families of the bombing's victims, accused Pakistan of planning such suicide attacks.
"We spread the Islamic religion to the others and they announce Jihad against us. They themselves have said that Jihad in Afghanistan is the defense of Pakistan," Qeyamudin Kashaf said Sunday, adding that suicide attacks went against the tenants of Islam.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission chief Mohammad Musa Mahmoodi said a complete investigation was needed.
"We want a full investigation of the incident and punishment of the perpetrators so that people know who was behind the attack," he told TOLOnews on Monday.
"The government should exclude any parties trying to misuse the peace efforts of the Afghan government for launching such deadly and horrifying attack," he added.
International Human Rights Watch (HRW) concurred with Mahmoodi, saying the incident might even be considered a war crime.
"This is a troubling incident obviously, and especially troubling because it comes on a religious holiday," HRW researched in Kabul Heather Barr told TOLOnews.
"The incident absolutely should be investigated to determine whether what happened was a war crime. Even during a war, people have a responsibility on both sides to protect civilians, to not intentionally target civilians. If there is going to be harm to civilians it should be less the military objective which is achieved by this attack than what happens during war," she said.
"So, it's very important that not just the Afghan government but also the international community, the United Nations and the Human rights commissions should try to understand what happened and see if there are people to blame that should be punished," Barr added.
Afghan lawmakers also condemned the attack on Monday with the Second Vice Speaker of Parliament Nehmatullah Ghafari saying they denounced the bombing in the strongest possible terms.
Paktika MP Nader Khan Katawazi reiterated calls for an investigation and suitable punishment.
"We seriously ask the Afghan government to do the same to those who launch such attacks," he said Monday.
Karzai also addressed a gathering on Sunday in his visit to Faryab, saying that whoever carried out the attack was the enemy of Islam and the enemy of the Afghan people's happiness.
Karzai mentioned that among the families he met was a child who lost a number of family members in the attack, pledging to support the surviving members of the family.
The child said to him that six of this family were killed and two children were injured, with him being the eldest now at home.
"How do I find food or an education?" Karzai said the child asked him.
But some Faryab residents criticised Karzai during his visit, saying that various insurgents had been released from prison and they had returned to carry out attacks, killing the innocent people.
Over forty people were killed and around fifty others injured in Friday's single-bomb suicide attack at the Eid Gah mosque in Faryab's capital Maimana city.
2 NATO Troops Killed in Apparent Afghan Insider Attack
VOA News October 30, 2012
NATO says a man wearing an Afghan police uniform has shot and killed two coalition troops in southern Afghanistan in the latest apparent "insider" attack.
The international coalition did not give further details, but Afghan officials said the attacker killed two British soldiers Tuesday in Helmand province.
The incident is the latest in a series of such attacks that threaten to seriously undermine trust between NATO and their Afghan counterparts, as foreign combat troops prepare to complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
At least 53 coalition service members have been killed this year by Afghan soldiers and police or militants disguised as security personnel. NATO commanders have attributed a quarter of the so-called "insider" attacks to Taliban infiltration.
Election date set
Separately, Afghan election officials say the country's next presidential election will take place on April 5, 2014.
The country's Independent Election Commission announced the date Tuesday, which was given as "Hamal 16, 1393," according to the Islamic calendar.
President Hamid Karzai is serving his second term and is constitutionally barred from running for re-election.
The upcoming vote is seen as a test of Afghanistan's young democracy, after the 2009 election was marred by allegations of voter fraud.
Taliban leader arrested in S. Afghan province: coalition
KABUL, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- A local Taliban leader was arrested in Afghanistan's Helmand province, 555 km south of capital Kabul on Tuesday, the NATO-led coalition forces confirmed.
"An Afghan and coalition security force arrested a Taliban leader in Helmand province today," the coalition said in a press release.
The arrested leader is believed to be involved in providing tactical guidance to Taliban senior leaders while facilitating the movement of improvised explosive device (IED) components to insurgent cell members, the release said without naming the arrested man.
The security force also detained a number of suspected insurgents as a result of the operation, it added.
In neighboring Kandahar province, 450 km south of Kabul, the joint forces captured a Taliban weapons and IED facilitator earlier Tuesday.
"The arrested facilitator is suspected of smuggling weapons throughout Kandahar province and acquiring homemade explosive and other IED-making materials for use in attacks against Afghan and coalition forces," it said.
The Taliban insurgents, who have been waging an insurgency of more than one decade, have yet to confirm the arrest of their men.
The insurgent group launched in May this year spring offensive against Afghan and NATO forces.
Saudi Arabia to build $100-million Islamic centre in Kabul
AFP 29/10/2012
KABUL - Saudi Arabia will build a massive Islamic centre complete with a university and a mosque in Afghanistan, an Afghan minister said Monday, describing the project as “grand and unique”.
Estimated to cost up to $100 million, the centre on a hilltop in central Kabul will house up to 5,000 students, Dayi-Ul Haq Abed, the acting Hajj and religious affairs minister told AFP.
It will be named after Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, the minister added.
“The agreement was signed last week in Jeddah. The construction will start next year, in couple of months or so,” Abed said.
The mosque, similar to the Faisal Mosque in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad that was also built by oil-rich Saudi Arabia in 1980s, will hold 15,000 worshippers at a time.
The minister said the centre will be run jointly by the Saudi and Afghan ministries of religious affairs. Other universities in Afghanistan are run by the higher education ministry.
Saudi Arabia was one of only three countries – along with Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates – that recognised the hardline Islamist Taliban regime during its rule in Afghanistan from 1996-2001.
The Taliban were overthrown in a US-led invasion shortly after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington for harbouring Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but have waged an 11-year insurgency.
The US and Nato still have more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan supporting the government of President Hamid Karzai, but they are due to pull out all combat forces by the end of 2014.
Shining a light on Afghan withdrawal
Australia has an obligation to stay the course long enough to give the Afghans the best chance to hold their own after we leave, DR JOHN BLAXLAND writes
Sydney Morning Herald By Dr John Blaxland Opinion October 30, 2012
Nearly 11 years have passed since Australian combat troops deployed to Afghanistan as part of the US-led coalition in the so-called ''global war on terror''. Plans are afoot for a draw-down in the coming months with an anticipated withdrawal of the bulk of combat troops by the end of 2014.
Critics talk about a ''messy end game to a failing war'' and of the war being one that ''no one really believes in'' while supporters portray optimistic pictures of successful missions. It is hard to get at the truth. Yet it is a vital issue that requires answers as the Australian government prepares more rotations of combat forces and as plans for the drawdown in 2013 and 2014 are formulated.
In considering the record so far and prospects for the drawdown, several questions need to be answered: how has the campaign in Afghanistan gone so far really? What can we expect as the withdrawal of Australian combat troops approaches? Is there any real chance of success (and how do we define success)? Has the ADF's leadership been true to its principles in offering firm and clear advice? Where does this leave us for the future?
One of the reasons why extreme black and white perspectives tend to feature on Australia's role in Afghanistan is because the story of Australia's war in the Middle East has not been told clearly and confidently. The media has been tightly constrained and the historical record is rapidly eroding, leaving diminished sources of material for objective analysis. Unlike for all of Australia's previous major conflicts, no official historian has been appointed yet to catalogue and describe Australia's part in the ''global war on terror'' in Afghanistan. Australia's contribution to the war in Iraq sits similarly uncatalogued by an official historian.
Confusion also arises between the US-led NATO-backed campaign in Afghanistan and the suggestion that Australia has its own campaign in Afghanistan. In fact there is only one campaign in Afghanistan and that is the campaign being conducted by ISAF. Australia's actions are a modest contribution nested within the overall campaign, and its success needs to be measured in relation to that overall campaign. That campaign includes a massive aid budget. The Government plans to provide $286 million over two years to continue Australia's contribution to developing local capacity in Afghanistan.
How the campaign has gone so far depends on who you ask. There is no question that the international force-contributing nations, including Australia, took their eyes off the ball after the initial successes with the ousting of the Taliban in 2002. But the apparent victory with thinly spread and high-tech-enabled special forces supported by northern Alliance Afghans (mostly Uzbeks and Tajiks rather than the Pashtuns from Afghanistan's south) encouraged a false sense of confidence. The problem was compounded by the fiasco for the United States in Iraq from 2003 onwards to which Australia contributed combat forces for the initial invasion phase; only to be drawn back in as the security situation deteriorated in 2006.
In the meantime, the Pashtun-dominated Taliban had reconstituted, reorganised and remerged from the borderlands of Pakistan to become a credible and clear threat to the Kharzai government, particularly in southern Afghanistan.
Critics argue that talk of training the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) is a politically expedient fiction to cover the fact that we are just hanging on until the United States starts to leave.
This is an unduly bleak interpretation. Of course, Australia is not going to operate in a major way in Afghanistan without allied support. But to conflate the ANSF training with the US presence is to miss the point. The training is genuine, it is carefully calibrated and it is not without meaning.
It is in accordance with a well thought-out and incremental plan that sees capabilities developed in the ANSF that they didn't possess beforehand. And Australia isn't the only country that signed up to this plan: it did so as part of the belated NATO/ISAF coalition strategy. In accordance with the plan, the ANSF capabilities are maturing. They are not likely to reach the standards of our own forces. But all they have to do is beat the highly-motivated but poorly-trained Taliban; and in almost every incident so far they have proved capable of doing so.
Another view is that we should not be taking risks with soldiers' lives that are not absolutely necessary to sustaining our presence.
This is a truism, but it belies the complexity of the situation faced in Oruzgan province. The run of losses in recent months is indeed hard to justify. While the losses are tragic and devastating to the families and friends of those concerned, relatively speaking Australia's losses have been comparatively light. In Afghanistan, Britain has suffered 433 deaths, Canada 158, France 88, Germany 56 and even New Zealand 10.
The United States, which has taken the lion share of the operational load, also has taken the lion's share of fatalities with 1,955 deaths.
For Australia it is useful to keep the casualties in historical perspective as well. The figures for Afghanistan are small when compared with the Vietnam War (over 500 deaths) the Korean War (340) or the world wars (over 60,000 in the WWI and nearly 40,000 in WWII). An interesting yardstick is Australian traffic deaths, which in recent years has averaged more than 1400 nationwide per year. Ask the families who have lost loved ones and they appear to be almost as one in arguing for staying the course. Ask the all-volunteer members of the Australian Defence Force involved in the war about the price and they remain resolute. The forces deployed are an inspiration.
Some say Defence has no coherent policy or capacity to develop one. In reality, decisions made by senior bureaucrats, military commanders and politicians today are built on a succession of decisions, some good, some bad, over the last 11 years that have placed us in our current predicament. An eventual history will show a process of incremental steps, a muddling through of hesitant and myopic horizons. But much of war history reads like that because it has the advantage of hindsight. The slate cannot simply be wiped clean or past decisions undone. In good conscience Australia has an obligation to stay the course, to give the Afghans the best chance, within realistic and affordable parameters, to establish themselves and to hold their own after we leave. To do otherwise would be to betray more than just the memory of the fallen, but the many who have identified with Australians in Oruzgan and elsewhere. The end result will not be perfect, nor is it reasonable for Australia to expect that it should be.
The tricky part will be arranging a graceful and successful exit once agreed-upon conditions have been reached. Australia has acres of equipment currently stored in Oruzgan and Kandahar. Tough decisions will have to be made about the exact sequencing of withdrawal of items of equipment from use. Here Australia's Vietnam experience is instructive. As the forces drew down in 1971, armoured vehicles and some combat forces were withdrawn early, leaving the remaining forces thinly stretched and poorly protected. The result was the enemy increased their combat action against the Australians and their casualty numbers surged. To avoid a repeat, significant ready reaction forces will have to remain on standby as non-essential elements are sent back home first. Conversely, care needs to be taken not to deduce too many inappropriate ''lessons'' from the Vietnam War. For instance, in hindsight we know that the North Vietnamese Army had about 20 divisions to invade South Vietnam when the US-led coalition withdrew. There
is no such coherent force poised on Afghanistan's borders. The notion that Afghanistan is simply going to fall to the fractious and distrustful components of the Taliban is on the extreme end of the spectrum of plausible outcomes.
The major parties on both sides of politics have maintained the commitment to Afghanistan as neither side can think of a better way to manage a graceful exit.
Both sides recognise the trade-off: incremental increase in the ANSF capabilities at the probable expense of a number of more Australian lives. The calculus is such that further incremental gains by 2014 are expected to give the ANSF a greater likelihood of survival and that additional investment will hopefully secure the significant down-payment in resources made by Australia and its coalition partners to date.
But as any honest futurist will admit, there is no way of knowing exactly how events will unfold once we leave: good, bad or indifferent.
It is not inconceivable, however, that a de-facto division of the country may emerge between the Pashtun south and the northern groups. The stronger we can make the ANSF before we leave the less likely is the scenario of being fulfilled. Besides, once we leave the Pashtun groups likely will splinter and dissipate their strength with infighting.
Dr John Blaxland is a Senior Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific.
Op-Ed: U.S. Isn't Losing War In Afghanistan
NPR October 29, 2012
In a piece in the Washington Post, retired Army officer John Nagl argues that the U.S. has forgotten what losing a war really looks like. Nagl talks about what's been accomplished in Afghanistan, and the concerns that remain.
NEAL CONAN, HOST:
And now the Opinion Page. Two more American service members were killed last week in Afghanistan by a gunman wearing an Afghan police uniform, the latest casualties from a series of so-called green-on-blue attacks. U.S. troops temporarily cut back on joint operations with Afghan security forces last month amid a flurry of questions about the goals of the mission in Afghanistan and the timing of the transition out. A recent poll from the Pew Research Center found that six in 10 Americans say U.S. troops should be removed from Afghanistan as soon as possible. Just over a third believe they should remain until the situation is stabilized.
In a piece in the Washington Post, retired Army officer John Nagl argued that the United States has forgotten what losing a war actually looks like. Despite the miasma of discontent with effort, he wrote, the United States and its many allies are not losing in Afghanistan. We'd like to hear from those of you who served in Afghanistan. Based on what you saw, what's been accomplished? What still worries you? 800-989-8255. Email: talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's atnpr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl joins us now by smartphone from his home in Alexandria, Virginia. He's a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and Minerva Research professor at the U.S. Naval Academy. Nice to have you back on the program.
JOHN NAGL: It's great to be back, Neal.
CONAN: And I know Alexandria is near by the water. I hope you're dry.
NAGL: We are not dry, but we are not yet storm surged and not yet under water. So we're - the glass is still only half-full, which is good in this case.
CONAN: OK. If the United States, though, needs a reminder of what losing a war looks like, you say go back to 1975.
NAGL: Correct. So in Vietnam, of course, the United States lost, utterly and completely were forced out. And the photograph that most Americans remember is of helicopters departing from the roof of the embassy. The photos I remember are pushing perfectly good Huey helicopters off of aircraft carrier landing decks into the ocean to make room for more helicopters as the evacuation continued. And there is, I think, no risk that we will be forced from Afghanistan and that we will not be able to stay there to continue to pursue our interest in the region.
CONAN: That loss, of course, had other effects, mostly on the people of Vietnam and, of course, on the United States Army itself.
NAGL: And on the people of Cambodia, as well. I would argue that the Khmer Rouge came to power in no small part as a result of our failings in Vietnam. And so one of the points I wanted to emphasize in this article is that there is loose talk about losing a war as if we could do so, as if we could walk away from Afghanistan without concern for our interests, those of the Afghan people or those of the region. And I simply don't think that's the case.
CONAN: There is an image that many Americans have of what winning a war looks like. They think back to 1991, what we now call the First Gulf War.
NAGL: They do, and I actually was a part of that war. I had a tank platoon in the 1st Cavalry Division. And it was - it appeared to be, at least, clean and neat and simple. Of course, what historians are now beginning to recognize is that that war continued for the remainder of the decade and beyond. And so wars, I think, particularly wars against non-state actors like the ones we're facing in Afghanistan and Pakistan are unlikely to end, even as neatly as Desert Storm apparently did. These are long, protracted wars. The United States has interest. They are going to continue, and I'm afraid we're going to continue to pay a price in order to attempt to achieve them for many years still to come.
CONAN: Yet the public opinion polls we mentioned earlier, 60 percent of Americans think it's time to get out. Indeed, we should've gotten out before.
NAGL: I think one of the failings of both of the last two administrations has been a failure to explain to the American people how long this war against al-Qaida and its affiliates is likely to be, how deep and severe the problems are, not just in Afghanistan but particularly in Pakistan, and how those issues inside Pakistan in particular are going to remain a threat to the American people and to the free world for literally decades to come. So we haven't done a good job of explaining what it is we're trying to accomplish nor what our strategy is to achieve those goals.
CONAN: Yet, everybody is talking towards 2014 and the transition of the major combat role from U.S.-led forces and NATO forces to Afghan forces.
NAGL: And that transition, I argue, should happen and will happen. But what no one is talking about is 2015 and beyond. The United States and Afghanistan already signed a framework agreement which states that the United States will continue to provide security assistance to Afghanistan for at least a decade to come after that 2014 transition.
And it's my argument that that is very strongly in America's interest, that we need special forces and U.S. Air Force assets - including drone assets - to operate from Afghanistan in order to secure our interests in the region, many of them inside Pakistan, a state with which we are not at war. Pakistan is officially a U.S. ally. But, of course, we do conduct operations inside Pakistan against enemy interests both to Pakistan and to the United States.
CONAN: Yet doesn't this series of inside attacks, those green-on-blue attacks, people in Afghan army uniforms, boy, that reminds a lot of people of what the army of the Republic of Vietnam started to look like towards the end.
NAGL: I actually think that that's a disservice to the army of the Republic of Vietnam. By the end of the war in Vietnam, the South Vietnamese army was pretty strong, was capable, with U.S. assistance, particularly U.S. air power, of stopping the Easter Offensive in '72. And many people, myself included, believe that had the United States continued to provide air power, some advisors could have held in 1975, as well. So one of the points of comparison that is not helpful, actually, to those who advocate for continued interest in Afghanistan is that the Afghan army is not as good as the South Vietnamese army was by the end of our efforts there.
We started the efforts to raise the Afghan military comparatively late. We didn't put very much effort or very good effort into it for a number of years. Iraq really took all the oxygen out of the room and kept us from focusing on the war in Afghanistan. And these green-on-blue attacks in which Afghans in military uniforms attack U.S. and allied soldiers are a real threat to our strategy. So I'm not downplaying that at all. I find that extremely worrisome. I think what we're seeing now is mistakes of previous years coming home to roost.
CONAN: There is that, but there's also this - the fact that this war has already lasted longer than Vietnam. And it's not just a public opinion that's grown tired. Earlier this month, just a couple of days before you wrote your piece, the New York Times editorial argued it's time to pack up. It should not take more than a year, The Times editorial wrote. The United States will not achieve even President Obama's narrowing goals, and prolonging the war will only do more harm.
NAGL: In some ways, I published my piece in response to The New York Times piece. And I think what The New York Times failed to notice, failed to understand is that the American interests are going to demand that we have bases in the region for a number of years to come. So The New York Times knows well that Pakistan confronts a number of insurgencies, has a rapidly growing nuclear stockpile with uncertain-at-best controls over those weapons, as well the United States has real humanitarian interests in preventing Afghanistan from falling again into civil war.
Were any of those things do happen, were the United States to follow the principles The New York Times pointed out in that editorial, were the U.S. to withdraw completely, I think all of those things would happen. I think we'd see civil war inside Afghanistan. I think we'd be less able to confront terrorist insurgents inside Pakistan's borders, and I think that very, very bad things would be likely to happen as a result. And The New York Times would then write better op-eds wondering why it was that the United States' policy had failed so completely.
The fact is that we need bases inside Afghanistan. To operate from those bases, we need the Afghan government to hold together to at least a reasonable amount. And that's going to demand a continuing U.S. effort for many years to come.
CONAN: We're talking with John Nagl, who retired from the United States Army with the rank of lieutenant colonel, now a Minerva professor at the United States Naval Academy, non-resident senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. And we want to hear from those of you who served in Afghanistan: What's been accomplished? What remains to worry you? 800-989-8255. Email: talk@npr.org. Douglas is on the line with us from South Bend in Indiana.
DOUGLAS: Hello. How are you guys today?
CONAN: Good, thanks.
NAGL: Hey, Douglas.
DOUGLAS: When I served in Afghanistan, which was in 2008 and - through 2009, I was stationed in Kabul. I was with a command that was tasked with training the national army and the national police. I thought it was very advantageous what we were doing. We were, I think, doing very good work. We also were training their medics. It was a good experience, and I got a better understanding of what's going on there. And I think that probably things have changed somewhat since I've been there, like, there's been the surge and so on.
CONAN: Were you, at that time, concerned about the possibility that the people you were training would turn their weapons on you?
DOUGLAS: It never once crossed my mind at that time. I - maybe I was not paying attention, but I actually don't think that's the case. But I do think that they were very - the people I talked with - and I was with a unit that actually covered as far as what we call public affairs. Every indication I had when I was - when I went around to different training camps was that people were very happy to be doing what they were doing, and that we were helping them.
CONAN: John Nagl, given Douglas' experience - and I don't think he's alone in this - the very fact that this is being wrapped up so quickly, it's causing difficulties in screening out people who may be Taliban infiltrators. As you suggest, this is a highly challenging tactic that they're using. But they're not all Taliban.
NAGL: Oh, no, by no means. And it's important to remember the time at which Douglas had his experience. He was there in 2008 and 2009, as we were starting to put resources into raising the Afghan army, but we hadn't really redoubled our efforts yet. And I think it's important to remember how bad the situation in Afghanistan turned out to be. When President Obama took over in 2009, he ended up deciding to triple U.S. forces in Afghanistan over the course of his first year in office, over the course of 2009. And that really accelerated the training of the Afghan National Army. As a result of speeding up that process, some bad apples slipped through.
But I also think we're seeing indications that the Taliban has come up with a new strategy of infiltrating the Afghan security forces and having its operatives inside kill, attack American and NATO forces. And they're finding great success with it. It's such a successful strategy that I hesitate to talk about it, because it is a real threat to the center of gravity of the U.S. effort, which is U.S. public opinion in support of a continuing advisory effort for years to come.
CONAN: Douglas, thanks very much for the call.
DOUGLAS: Well, thank you.
CONAN: John Nagl is with us on the Opinion Page. There's a link to his piece, "Not Losing in Afghanistan," which ran last week in The Washington Post, at our website. Just go to npr.org and click on TALK OF THE NATION. This is TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News. And Jonathan's on the line with us from Cincinnati.
JONATHAN: Yes, sir.
CONAN: You're on the air. Go ahead, please.
JONATHAN: The main thing with the war in Afghanistan - I served from September of last year to March of this year and - and with the Afghan National Army, when we got there, they were brand new. They were new recruits. And the things that concerned us is we were fighting marijuana pretty much. They were getting high. They weren't going on patrols, and then we would - we'd give them a mission, and then we'd end up going out and doing it.
After that, we - they started giving all their uniforms over to the Taliban. They were related to a lot of Taliban, and it turns out in Helmand Province, were fighting uncles, brothers and, you know, other family members that are from the Afghan National Army or police.
And so by the end of my seven months, we actually had one really good police force in one small town called Shir Ghazi. But in other towns around that area, a lot of the police were actually Taliban, and we ended up having several IEDs planted by police and ended up killing several men in police uniforms. And it's just - it's really frustrating, because it seems like 10 years of war, you can't get any headway with them. And, you know, they're very slow to learn. They're just - they just like to relax, and it's a bit frustrating for us, because we're just taken all the weight.
CONAN: John Nagl, how do we change that situation?
NAGL: I think Jonathan is describing very accurately what happened as we rapidly expanded the Afghan security forces as we pushed into the areas in the south of Afghanistan, the south and east of Afghanistan where the Taliban is strongest, where large numbers of the population actually have relatives connected with the Taliban. And in some cases, they're hedging their bets. They've got one son fighting with the Taliban and another son inside the Afghan security forces.
And so Jonathan's experience hints at how long and how hard this effort is going to be if we're going to succeed in it, that the human capital inside Afghanistan is really severely stunted after literally 30 consecutive years of war, that the sanctuaries across the Durand Line inside Pakistan give real succor to the Taliban, give them strength and the ability to regenerate and mean that this is going to have to be a long-term effort if Afghanistan is going to stand against the Taliban.
CONAN: Jonathan, thanks very much.
JONATHAN: OK. Thank you, sir.
CONAN: And, John Nagl, you've said that the last two administrations have been - given short shrift to persuading the American people of the importance that this mission continue. How would - it's very barely been mentioned in the presidential campaign. How would you - what would you do to convince the American people? And again, looking at those opinion polls, you've got an uphill climb.
NAGL: Well, there's something quite ironic about all of this. As a former soldier myself, I strongly believe the American people should be engaged in their wars. They have been very supportive of the troops, even if they haven't understood the strategy or what's at stake. On the other hand, although the American people are not strongly in favor of continuing the war in Afghanistan - that's obviously an understatement - they aren't that concerned about it. And so the level of intensity isn't very high.
This gives whatever administration comes to power in 2013 a great freedom of action to do essentially what they want to do in Afghanistan, continue the effort there as both President Obama and Governor Romney have promised they are going to do.
So there isn't clash between the two parties on this issue. Both agree - both Governor Romney and President Obama agree with the current strategy. And my sense is that although the American people aren't happy about it, they're going to allow this to continue. They're going to focus on domestic issues, and the United States' defense establishment, the national security establishment, will be able to do what I believe it needs to do: maintain bases in the region, continue operations in the region, even understanding that it is going to continue to cost us some of our sons and daughters.
CONAN: John Nagl, thanks very much for your time today.
NAGL: It's good talking to you, Neal,
CONAN: Retired Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl joined us from his home in Alexandria, Virginia. Again, there's a link to his Washington Post piece "Not Losing in Afghanistan" on our website. That's at npr.org. Click on TALK OF THE NATION.
We also continue to watch the effects of Hurricane Sandy. Stay with NPR News for the latest on the storm as it makes it way towards the East Coast. It's the TALK OF THE NATION, from NPR News. I'm Neal Conan, in Washington.
The Siren Call Of Central Asia
Tajik City Spells Fun, Relatively, for Afghans
Wall Street Journal By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV October 29, 2012
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - When Afghan entrepreneur Sardar Ali comes here for business, he tells his relatives he is going to India.
"Tajikistan's reputation is not so good in our country," Mr. Ali says sheepishly. "Everyone thinks you are only going to Dushanbe for girls."
Capital of the poorest former Soviet republic, Dushanbe is no fleshpot like Bangkok or Las Vegas. Once called Stalinabad, this predominantly Muslim city of crumbling neoclassical buildings has just a handful of discreet nightclubs and bars.
But to residents of next-door Afghanistan, one of the most conservative Islamic societies where sexes rarely mix and alcohol is illegal, Dushanbe's limited attractions loom larger than life—more a reflection of Afghanistan's repressed mores, perhaps, than of Dushanbe's actual vices. In Kabul conversations, mention of Dushanbe elicits rolled eyes and knowing smirks. It has become a byword for sin city.
"When people get bored in Kabul, they say, 'Let's go to Tajikistan,' " says Mohammad Younus Weyar, director of a construction company in Kabul and an occasional visitor to Dushanbe. "Tajikistan is very green and very clean. But they are not going there for the green grass and clean air. Most people are only going there for the bad things."
When a batch of Afghan government employees came for training to Dushanbe earlier this year, the first thing they asked their Western sponsor was where they could find women for sex, a Western official in Dushanbe says. The official says he had to explain that prostitution in Tajikistan is illegal—and then attempted to limit hanky-panky by placing the visitors two to a room.
Whether Dushanbe's reputation is earned or not, Tajik officials are eager to capitalize on it.
Afghan tourists—numbering some 10,000 last year—are the most numerous visitors from beyond the former Soviet Union, says Davlat A. Khabibov, chairman of Tajikistan's Association for the Development of Tourist Industry and until last year head of the government's Department of Tourism. That is even though Afghans typically pay some $500 to receive a Tajik visa, most of that paid to intermediaries.
"The Russian tourists come here for climbing, the Westerners for hiking in the mountains," Mr. Khabibov says. "The Afghans, they come for entertainment."
Attractions include a new restaurant complex called Kabul One, as well as Ninth Wave, which Dushanbe taxi drivers describe as a strip joint favored by Afghan visitors. On a recent night in its hall, built to resemble a clipper ship, a few dozen customers rhythmically clapped as an Iranian singer, wearing an ankle-length dress and a tall hairdo, primly delivered 1970s Persian love songs.
Dushanbe is one of the few places where Afghans—especially government officials—can feel rich. At outdoor beer gardens, stout waitresses ferry foamy glasses of beer that cost the equivalent of a few cents per pint.
"The Tajiks always welcome the Afghans—they don't have much revenue in their own country," says Mr. Weyar, the Kabul entrepreneur. "Everyone there knows that tons of money has come to Afghanistan, even though most of it has gone to wrong people's pockets."
Afghans who don't speak a foreign word can get by: Tajik and Afghanistan's Dari language are closely related. "We are the same as the Tajiks," says Abdulla Baryalai, an Afghan native who runs a grocery store in Dushanbe. "Same language and same culture."
Regarding culture, many Tajiks demur. There are no burqas in sight on Dushanbe streets. Young couples hold hands in a park just off the city's main boulevard—something unthinkable in Afghanistan, where honor killings are common for the suspicion of illicit romance. Dushanbe remained quiet even as Muslim countries around the world were rocked by last month's wave of violent protests against a video mocking Prophet Muhammad.
Even Tajikistan's Islamists are eager to distance themselves from their Afghanistan counterparts.
"Seventy years within the U.S.S.R. and then 20 years of independence have left their imprint," says Muhiddin Kabiri, chairman of Tajikistan's Islamic Revival Party, the country's largest opposition force and post-Soviet Central Asia's only legal Islamist movement. "Our understanding of religion is more tolerant, more peaceful. We have a completely different society."
Case in point was the Simin nightclub. Outside, a notice warned patrons against violence, video-recording or the wearing of Central Asian traditional dress. Inside, bathed in blue neon and gyrating by a pole on a largely empty floor, was a dancer in a top and miniskirt.
Barman Sahib Nurbayev marveled at the whiskeys and cognacs that the club's Afghan guests tend to order, speculating darkly on the source of their cash.
"They spend the kind of money that we don't even see in our dreams," he said.
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com
Isaf Mandate Does Not Allow Cross-Border Action: Katz
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi Monday, 29 October 2012
The Nato-led international forces (Isaf) in Afghanistan cannot take military action against any cross-border incursions into the country because this was excluded from the Isaf mandate at the start of the Afghan war in 2001, an Isaf spokesman said Monday.
Brig Gen Gunter Katz said that the proposal of the Afghan delegation at the first Bonn Conference in 2001 which sought to obligate Isaf to defend Afghanistan from any foreign threats was never accepted by the United Nations.
"In the first Bonn conference in December 2001 there was a proposal of the Afghan delegation to include the protection of the border of Afghanistan in one of the annexes.
Actually this annex was part of the Bonn proposal however, this annex never made it into our mandate that we received from the United Nations," Katz said at the press conference in Kabul.
The Isaf mandate obliged the Nato-led forces to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for terrorists again, Katz said.
His comments come after both countries have increasingly blamed each other of harbouring insurgents who conduct attacks on the other side of the border.
The Afghan government has also accused Pakistan military of shelling some of its eastern provinces and has requested Isaf's assistance in stopping the attacks.
Katz emphasised that the ongoing cross-border attacks between both Afghanistan and Pakistan is a matter of concern for Isaf and negotiations are underway to tackle the issues.
"It remains a matter of concern that there is cross-border of activities on both side of the borders and we understand that there is a need to step up the fight against the terrorism and extremism in the border area," Katz said.
"We will continue to discuss this issue together with the Pakistani military and the Afghan Army," he added.
Katz also noted that peace and stability in Afghanistan depends on the positive engagement of both Afghanistan and Pakistan to take necessary action against the insurgent safe havens on both sides of the border region.
Bamyan Airports to Expand for Larger Aircraft, Tourism
TOLOnews.com By Rafi Sediqi Monday, 29 October 2012
Northern Bamyan province is upgrading two airports to allow for larger aircraft to fly in and out of the province in a bid to allow for more tourism in the area, the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation said.
The expansion of the two airports – one in the provincial capital Bamyan City and one 35 kilometeres west of that, Shebartu Airport – will be respectively funded by the Japanese government and the Afghan government.
Transport and Aviation minister Dawood Ali Najafi told TOLOnews that at present the runway of Bamyan City airport is not tarred and only small aircraft can land and take-off, but this will change under the new plan.
A development project funded by Japan and worth about US$15 million is underway to modernize the terminal, the watchtower, and other facilities including the runway, he said.
The upgrade of the systems – both installation and development – is expected to take about a year, he added.
Shebartu Airport is also being renovated in a three-year project to expand its length to three thousand feet and width to two hundred feet with the capacity to take any aircraft.
The Afghan government is footing the initial cost of the expansion with 10 million Afs (US$200,000), Najafi said.
"The tourism industry is one of the most important sources of income for Bamyan residents and improving the facilities in air transport will provide more traffic for foreign tourists to come and so develop the tourism industry in Bamyan," he said.
"Once we complete the airport development project after a year, the tourism will be develop by itself in this province," he added.
Tourism is the main source of income for Bamyan residents after agriculture and livestock. The government believes that the construction of airports with greater aircraft capacity will play an important role in further developing the tourism which will allow for more sustained economic growth in Bamyan.
Lack of Govt Assistance Drives Us to Poppy: Helmand Elders
TOLOnews.com Monday, 29 October 2012
Helmand tribal elders on Monday said that the lack of a market for agricultural produce drives them to cultivate poppy despite knowing its links to the insurgency.
In a meeting with Helmand provincial government officials, the elders blamed the high levels of poppy cultivation in the province on lack of government support to develop markets for other produce.
Elders said, while admitting they knew the problems that came with the poppy trade, that they would never cultivate poppy if there were more government support.
"We know that narcotics are the friend of insecurity; anywhere you find narcotics, there is war, and also the young become [drug] addicts," said elder Hajji Barakzai from the Nad Ali district.
The UN Office of Drugs and Crime estimates that over 90 percent of the world's illegal opiates are supplied by Afghanistan with most production coming from Helmand.
In a UN report released in September, Afghan officials were quoted estimating that the Taliban earned about $100 million from the poppy economy in 2011-12, with the total drug crop estimated between $3.6 billion and $4 billion.
The governor of Helmand Mohammad Naim Baloch responded that efforts are being made to decrease poppy cultivation and accepts the complaints of the farmers.
"As you know, the cultivation and trafficking of narcotics is greater in our province than any other province," he told TOLOnews. "We are working on decreasing those figures."
The governor in turn urged the farmers to have closer cooperation with local officials on this matter to decrease cultivation and so ensure better security.
Calls for Investigation into Absent MPs
TOLOnews.com Monday, 29 October 2012
Afghanistan's parliament remained shut on Monday despite the Eid al-Adha religious holiday ending on Sunday as well as it being more than a week since the lawmakers left in droves to make the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca.
The lack of numbers for Monday's parliamentary session meant it was cancelled, triggering the MPs who were present to criticise their absent colleagues.
"We had to keep parliament's door closed today as well – this is an anguish for the people," said MP Gulalai Noor Safi on Monday.
Some of the MPs said their colleagues have taken their job "to pass the time" without any concern for the government of Afghanistan and called for an investigation into the absentees.
"On a day which might be of benefit to them [personally], 241 MPs will be present, but they would not attend the meetings on other days," said Parliament's Second Vice Speaker Neimatullah Ghafari.
MP Sheenkai Karokhil said those spending time outside the country should be investigated along with those spending enormous amounts of money at government expense.
"All international trips without any invitation are recreation and pastimes outside the country," she said. "There should be a list provided to identify those who have 100 to 200 guards and for what reason they are spend the country's money."
MP Ruqiya Nael said the investigation should specifically focus on those who went to Hajj.
"There should be a decision made for these one hundred – there should be an inspection into what they did and where they are, how they went for Hajj and from what source they covered their expenses," she said.
One MP added that the superfluous number of personal guards held by other MPs can increase the sense of insecurity in the city.
"There are people with rockets and machine guns on the streets who are of disturbance to others. They include the MPs as well who threaten people when they don't reach their goals or their aims," said Mirdadkhan Najrabi, MP.
Parliament has not convened since Wednesday October 17 because more than 100 lawmakers left Afghanistan to make the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
The excessive numbers were apparently not foreseen by the parliamentary administration or the Ministry of Hajj and Islamic Affairs, resulting in parliament being cancelled for lack of lawmakers since the sitting session of October 20 onwards.
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