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Officials say bomb kills 3 in southern Afghanistan
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Provincial officials say a suicide car bomber killed three civilians and wounded another six in Afghanistan's southern Uruzgan province.
Abdullah Himmat, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said Saturday's blast occurred near the police headquarters of Uruzgan's Dehra Wood district.
Fareed Ayal, a spokesman for the provincial police, says the car apparently detonated prematurely before it reached the gate of the headquarters.
Insurgents and Taliban fighters often use suicide bombers to target government buildings, convoys and foreign troops.
How to fight in Afghanistan with fewer U.S. troops
By David Barno and Matthew Irvine, Saturday, December 1, 2012 The Washington Post
Kimberly and Frederick W. Kagan’s Nov. 23 commentary, arguing for a force of 30,000 or more Americans in Afghanistan after 2014 [“What we’ll need in Afghanistan,” Sunday Opinion], is fundamentally wrong. Although their goals are sound — preventing terrorist attacks from the region on the United States — the writers’ logic and conclusions about the resources required are flawed. It is possible to protect U.S. interests across that region after 2014 with a force in Afghanistan of 10,000 or fewer American troops.
The United States has two vital interests in that part of the world: preventing terrorist attacks on this country and its allies, and preventing nuclear weapons or materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. Protecting these interests after 2014 will require the United States to be able to launch precision military strikes from this region. But it will not require tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
Scores of news reports describe robust U.S. counterterrorism campaigns across the globe. The United States employs drones, special operations forces and strikes with precision munitions across the Horn of Africa, in Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula, in the Philippines and probably in several other less public places. All of these nations also face some levels of deadly insurgent and terrorist attacks but counter them largely with their own forces, while small teams of Americans focus on counterterrorism and limited advisory missions.
In other words, the United States is already performing the very counterterrorism tasks required in Afghanistan across the globe without committing 15,000, 20,000 or 30,000 troops or the huge logistical and advisory overhead that the Kagans describe as vital. Moreover, in no other U.S. counterterrorism effort are the host-nation security forces the formidable size of the Afghan force — more than 350,000 soldiers and police.
After more than a decade of training and tens of billions of dollars of equipment, these Afghan troops should be fully capable of holding off roughly 30,000 Taliban. Defeating — or at least containing — the Taliban after 2014 is a job for Afghan forces, not Americans.
Although the U.S. surge produced many battlefield gains, it did not bring about any significant improvement in the country’s governance or pervasive corruption. These intractable shortcomings are unlikely to be affected by any number of additional U.S. troops before or after 2014.
The Kagans’ proposal for an open-ended commitment of more than 30,000 U.S. forces would conservatively cost taxpayers more than $30 billion a year. That would far exceed the combined current U.S. assistance to Israel, Egypt and Pakistan.
Defending our vital interests does not demand a long-term force of this size in Afghanistan, any more than it does today in Yemen, Somalia or Mali. What is required after 2014 is assured access to bases when needed, the maintenance of robust intelligence networks, a modest security cooperation effort and a small special operations force for counterterrorism and counter-proliferation response. Covert programs such as drones will continue to play important, less visible roles. And more robust mobile forces can remain on call outside Afghanistan, should circumstances warrant bigger strike operations of short duration.
Carefully limiting the tasks of U.S. troops inside Afghanistan could permit them to remain poised for missions in support of vital U.S. interests, rather than becoming drawn into securing supply routes, large bases and Afghan territory. A smaller, less conspicuous U.S. force would have the important advantage of being less obtrusive to the Afghan people and thus would be more likely to have the support of the Afghan government.
The Kagans’ logic for insisting on a slow drawdown is tenuous at best. The more troops we have in Afghanistan, the more casualties we will sustain. Those sacrifices would be painful but endurable if overall troop levels translated into lasting effects. But there is little evidence that maintaining 68,000 troops in Afghanistan for one or two more years, and 30,000 afterward, would ensure any lasting, measurable effects on the combat- readiness of Afghan forces, Taliban capabilities or terrorist havens in the region. A greater U.S. casualty toll is a high price to pay for such ephemeral effects.
At year 11 of our war in Afghanistan, it’s time to consider a smaller enduring U.S. presence as the new endgame. It’s also time to craft a steeper ramp to draw down the size of the U.S. presence. This would serve to both shift sizable Afghan forces more rapidly into the fight and to accelerate Afghan political leaders taking ownership of their war against the Taliban. The costs to the United States of supporting an endless ground war in Afghanistan are not merely unwarranted but strategically unwise. It’s time to consider all options.
Retired Army Lt. Gen. David Barno was overall commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005. He is a senior fellow and senior adviser at the Center for a New American Security, where Matthew Irvine is a research associate.
Read more on this issue: Kimberly and Frederick W. Kagan: Why U.S. troops must stay in Afghanistan Jackson Diehl:The red flags in Obama’s foreign policy Kurt Volker: What the U.S. risks by relying on drones David Ignatius: An embassy asks, Drones or diplomacy?
Afghan Taliban commander killed
Kabul, Dec. 1 (Xinhua-ANI): Afghan security forces raided a Taliban hideout in southern province of Uruzgan on Saturday, killing a key commander Mullah Nasir and arresting another commander Mullah Ghazi, police said.
"Afghan forces backed by the NATO-led coalition stormed a Taliban hideout in Charchino district at around 1:00 a.m. local time today, killing Taliban commander Mullah Nasir on the spot and arrested another commander Mullah Ghazi," provincial police spokesman Ayel Farid told Xinhua.
During the operation, two more Taliban militants were killed and two others arrested, he added. (Xinhua-ANI)
Pakistan 'walking the talk' on peace in Afghanistan
Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan's foreign minister, has presented a draft proposal of a partnership agreement to the Afghans
Jon Boone in Islamabad guardian.co.uk, Saturday 1 December 2012
Pakistan is "walking the talk" on peace in Afghanistan, the country's foreign minister claimed on Thursday.
Hina Rabbani Khar has long said that Pakistan will do whatever it takes to help bring the Taliban to the negotiating table – including the release of more insurgent prisoners held by Pakistan.
But given Pakistan's history of secretly backing the insurgency, which Islamabad has viewed as a useful ally to counter Indian influence in Afghanistan, many remain to be convinced of her sincerity.
On Thursday she made her latest effort to persuade Kabul, and the world.
During a rare visit by the Afghan foreign minister, Zalmai Rasoul, to Islamabad, Khar and her colleagues agreed a number of steps, all of which they hope shows Pakistan is playing the role of good neighbour.
In a joint statement released on Friday night, the two sides had agreed to the release of more prisoners, following the decision in mid-November to free more than a dozen Taliban held in Pakistan.
Afghanistan hopes the men, who were released unconditionally rather than into Afghan custody, will act as go-betweens in discussions between the insurgency and the government in Kabul.
President Hamid Karzai's government is particularly pressing for the release of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a former deputy head of the Taliban movement who was arrested in Karachi after holding talks with Kabul without the knowledge of Pakistan.
Also of great significance, a draft proposal of a long-term strategic partnership agreement was presented to the Afghan side. Concluding a partnership deal will be controversial in Afghanistan, where Pakistan is still widely hated.
In October Karzai sparked a row with Islamabad after he declared that the pre-conditions for any agreement would be that "terrorism is stopped, extremism is dismantled, anti-Afghan activities are stopped" and "destruction of Afghanistan is stopped".
Islamabad agreed to support an Afghan plan to host a conference of top Islamic scholars from Pakistan and Afghanistan who will mount a religious challenge to the Taliban, particularly its use of suicide bombers.
Both countries said they would extend an embryonic regional free trade agreement to Tajikistan, one of Afghanistan's northern neighbours. The hope is that transit trade running from the Pakistani sea ports on the Arabian Sea all the way to central Asia and beyond will enrich all the countries involved.
A Pakistani official described these as "positive measures" and a "big step, given some of the cynical questions that goes on".
For her part Khar dismissed any "historic hangovers of Pakistan having favourites or having any intention of having any control" in Afghanistan.
Some foreign experts say there has indeed been a profound change to the way Pakistan approaches Afghanistan.
Shamila Chaudhary, a former White House national security adviser on Pakistan, believes the dramatic rise in militancy and terrorism inside Pakistan has forced the country's leaders to reappraise its support for the Taliban.
"Pakistan no longer trusts the Taliban – or any other entity for that matter – to solely protect its interests in Afghanistan," she wrote in a recent report.
The problem of internal militancy, Pakistani policy makers believe, will be "neutralised on its own once the Afghan Taliban joins a political process in Afghanistan", Chaudhary wrote.
Some top western diplomats who regularly meet with Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of the powerful army which has traditionally controlled foreign policy, say the new realism has also sunk in among military chiefs.
Deep scepticism remains, however. For many the fact the Taliban insurgency remains undiminished, with no steps having been taken to curb their activities inside Pakistan, is a clear sign that the double game is still on.
Or it suggests that the policy of providing sanctuary and support for the insurgency is so ingrained within Pakistan's spy service that Kayani cannot rein them in. Or both.
A western official in Kabul with close involvement in efforts to start a peace process said: "Kayani is in a tricky position – either he doesn't completely control ISI elements, which would be a damaging admission, or he does, in which case he is completely complicit."
When the Fighting Stops
For American soldiers accustomed to war, the coming peace may prove complicated. Many worry that they will never again experience the same sort of vividness and sense of mission.
Wall Street Journal By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS November 30, 2012
After surviving four tours of duty, a suicide bomb and a bullet wound to the chest, Sgt. Karl Martin wonders whether he'll ever again feel so intensely alive now that his war is almost over.
Sgt. Martin, a 27-year-old Marine, has been going off to fight his entire adult life, and, in frank moments, he admits he's going to miss it.
"In a way, it just feels like what I was supposed to do," he said at his base in Sangin, Afghanistan.
The sentiment is shared by his commander, Capt. Sean Ramirez, who said he felt aimless after returning home from Afghanistan last year. He hit the bars, played videogames and gained 20 pounds. He began looking for a way back to the war before it was over.
"When I was in Afghanistan as a platoon commander, I had a task. I had a purpose," said Capt. Ramirez, a 28-year-old from Lakeville, Pa., who led three dozen men in near-daily firefights. "Every day I knew what I was going to do."
The U.S. has withdrawn from Iraq and is winding down in Afghanistan, with a plan to pull out most troops by the end of 2014. Some 2.4 million Americans have served in the two conflicts, many deploying three, four or five times since the Sept. 11 hijackings triggered the U.S. engagement abroad.
For troops who grew up at war, the coming peace may prove complicated. Many combat veterans are only too glad to shed their uniforms. There is relief at making it back to the comfort of family and friends, to beer and baths.
But with peace looming, many others fear they will never again experience the vividness and sense of mission that war offers. There also are practical anxieties. Some worry about landing civilian jobs that pay less or offer fewer benefits than their military positions.
Capt. Ramirez dreads boredom most of all. He spent his second tour under attack almost every time he and his men left their Afghan outpost. "That was everything I wanted," he said. "An infantry platoon in the closest thing there is to a front line."
On the captain's current tour—his third—he and Sgt. Martin have been in Sangin, one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan. But it has been a disappointment and, Capt. Ramirez fears, a taste of what to expect in a peacetime military. Instead of patrolling fields along the Helmand River, he and his men have stayed largely in a secure base advising Afghan troops who do the fighting, a big step in the handoff of security responsibilities to Kabul.
During the many slow moments of his days, Capt. Ramirez adds to his iPhone list of future peacetime pursuits: cliff diving, big-game hunting, ice climbing, riding motocross and running with the bulls.
"The war's over," he said. "Now is the rest of my life going to have to be turbulent for me to enjoy it? I think so."
His commander in Sangin, Lt. Col. Tom Przybelski, has gone to extraordinary lengths to prolong his wartime service. He was on patrol in Fallujah, Iraq, in October 2006, when he approached a metal push cart in a field of rubble. Hidden inside was an artillery shell with a radio-controlled trigger. Lt. Col. Przybelski was 10 feet away when it exploded. Shrapnel and grit peppered his legs. Flying rocks pulverized his right eye and temporarily blinded his left.
His later nightmares weren't of the explosion but of the insurgent shelling that pounded the base as he lay naked and blind at the field hospital. He did sit-ups in his hospital bed to stay in shape.
He recovered vision in his left eye. Technicians at the Naval hospital in Bethesda, Md., painted a blue iris on a white plastic insert and taught him to position it convincingly in his empty right socket.
Gen. Michael Hagee, then-commandant of the Marine Corps, visited him at the hospital. "Keep leading Marines," Gen. Hagee told the colonel. Lt. Col. Przybelski recalled thinking that the remark "felt like an order or a request."
When the regimental commander, Brig. Gen. David Berger, later called Lt. Col. Przybelski into his office and asked about his plans, the colonel said he wanted to return to combat. It was, in part, because of the commandant's words. He also missed his job.
Gen. Berger, then a colonel, paused. "Well," he said, "an officer has to shoot, move and communicate."
Lt. Col. Przybelski, a 40-year-old native of Spartanburg, S.C., taught himself to shoot a rifle left-handed and to aim a pistol with his left eye. He passed the physical-fitness test and resumed long-distance trail running and solo winter camping, hobbies that forced him to rely on hard-earned skills.
Two months after he was wounded, he was back in Fallujah. "I wanted to come back to the war, to the most warlike piece of the war," he said. "I think a person misses the intensity, the seriousness of purpose, having the authority."
Sgt. Martin, who is from Chelsea, Ala., may feel more trepidation about returning to peacetime life than any of the other Marine advisers leaving Sangin this month after a yearlong tour.
The 6-foot, 175-pound sergeant with dirty-blond hair and a boxer's forehead was the high-school quarterback who dated a cheerleader. After high-school graduation in 2004, he waited tables at Applebee's and sold hunting and fishing gear at a sporting-goods store.
He was an easy catch for the Marine recruiter who worked out of a local strip mall, next to a barber shop, a nail salon and the Food Lion. The young man wanted to fight. "I just joined the Marine Corps to get over here," he said in his Alabama drawl. "I didn't join it to get an education." He married the cheerleader, Donna, in 2006, before he left for Iraq on his first tour.
The deployment was a letdown. His job was processing detainees.
On his second tour, to Fallujah in 2007, he saw his first firefights. But the deployment was marred when one of his Marines flipped a Humvee. Sgt. Martin was held responsible because his man didn't have a driver's license. The Marines docked him a month's pay and put a blot on his record.
Three months into the seven-month stint, he was driving through downtown Fallujah when a man wearing a vest filled with explosives walked up to Sgt. Martin's Humvee and blew himself up.
The sergeant suffered no visible injuries. But the next day his appendix ruptured, unleashing a wave of bacteria in his abdomen. The Marines concluded that the suicide attack and his burst appendix were unrelated. He underwent three operations and missed the rest of the tour.
Back at Camp Lejeune, N.C., he taught infantry skills to junior Marines but lost the job over an extramarital affair, a violation of military rules. His marriage survived. The Marines knocked him down from sergeant to corporal.
Sgt. Martin earned the rank back before he deployed to Afghanistan for his third tour at the end of 2010, with Kilo Co., 3rd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment. He led a squad of Marines in Marjah, a farm village crisscrossed by irrigation canals.
On Feb. 4, 2011, Sgt. Martin and his squad were walking on patrol when villagers, who had been going about their business, suddenly vanished from view. One man remained, talking on a cellphone, a likely spotter for insurgents. The patrol fired a small flare in the man's direction, and he fled.
Moments later, as the Marines angled across a field, they came under heavy fire. They were seeking cover in a dry irrigation ditch when the bomb exploded. It was a buried metal tube aimed along the irrigation ditch and loaded with explosives, bullets, ball-bearings and spark plugs.
The wave of shrapnel hit the first two Marines in the legs. Sgt. Martin was third in line. A bullet, shrapnel from the bomb, missed his body-armor chest plate, slammed into the flesh just beneath his left shoulder and pivoted into his lung. Air leaked out into his chest cavity, crushing a lung.
He started to radio for a medevac helicopter. The next thing he remembered was waking up in the operating room at a rear base.
After a week, he was moved to the Army hospital in Germany, where doctors kept the wound open to avoid infection. Weeks later, he arrived at Camp Lejuene. His wife, Donna, and his infant son, Mason, were waiting.
Mrs. Martin, age 27, worked from home handling payroll for an Alabama thrift-store company. After her husband's return, she learned to pull bloody packing out of his wound and stuff in fresh gauze with a long swab until the hole closed. It was "gross," she said. Sgt. Martin talked her through it.
Surgeons had cut away muscle under his Sgt. Martin's left arm, leaving it so weak he couldn't lift a soda can. He was also diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress. When he slept, his mind wandered back to the ambush, the ditch and the explosion. Military doctors recommended a discharge from the service.
Sgt. Martin, however, set a goal of returning to full duty by the time the men in his company returned home in July 2011. To avoid being discharged, he would have to run three miles in less than 33 minutes, do 100 sit-ups in two minutes and manage three pull-ups.
After his prescribed physical therapy, Sgt. Martin would hit the weight room on his own. Three days before his self-imposed deadline, he successfully completed the run and sit-ups. He also did 14 pull-ups.
A few days after the return of Kilo Co., Sgt. Martin joined the other men in formation outside the redbrick headquarters building at Camp Lejeune. As the formation broke up, Sgt. Martin made a beeline for the company commander, Capt. Justin Huber. "The best thing for me to do right now is get back out there," Sgt. Martin told him.
He learned he could return to Afghanistan as an adviser to the Afghan army and pitched it to his wife as a good career move. Sgt. Martin didn't mention his urge to get back to the fighting, but Mrs. Martin had suspected for months that he was itching for war. Still, she said, she was "quietly shocked" when he told her at the kitchen table that he was signing up for a one-year tour.
Mrs. Martin gave her husband a leather-bound journal. On the inside cover she glued a photo of Mason in a plaid shirt and blue-jean overalls. In neat printing she wrote: "So, here we go, Deployment #4. This is going to be the longest one yet, but I'm counting down the days until we're together again." She coated the sole of Mason's foot in black ink and stamped his footprint on the page.
In December 2011, Sgt. Martin returned to Afghanistan. From there, he addressed his journal entries to his wife. In January, he wrote how much he missed dressing Mason and fitting him in his high chair. "We should somehow live like I'm about to deploy so we don't take any moment for granted," he wrote.
On Feb. 3, he wrote: "What I can't believe is tmrw will be a year since I got hurt. If you told me that day I would be back here in Afghanistan I would have said, 'Yeah right, that's crazy and will never happen.' But I guess you never say never."
Over the summer, Sgt. Martin began planning his next career move in the Marine Corps, applying to teach again at the School of Infantry.
In September, he received an email from regimental headquarters informing him that the Marine Corps had rejected his application. The note cited a "pattern of misconduct"—in other words, the extramarital affair and the Humvee accident. It felt like a betrayal, Sgt. Martin said. After eight years, four tours and a Purple Heart, the Marine Corps didn't want him anymore.
He hesitated a day before he emailed Donna with the news. "It feels like I was just told I have Cancer and will die in a couple of years," he wrote.
Mrs. Martin felt sick to her stomach when she read the email. They had bought a house near Camp Lejeune, and a second son is due Dec. 26. She feared he would face a daunting civilian job market. Some 10% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were unemployed in October, compared with 6.3% of all veterans and 7.9% of the overall workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Mrs. Martin had been hoping for a promotion. "Why are they doing this to us?" she asked her husband. "What can you do so we can stay in the Marine Corps?"
Lt. Col. Przybelski and Capt. Ramirez pledged to help. Sgt. Martin appealed to the regiment's sergeant major, who made inquiries on his behalf. The message back: Sgt. Martin's Marine Corps career would be over when his enlistment ends next year.
During the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the military was hungry for experienced combat leaders, his commanders said, and Sgt. Martin could have easily re-enlisted a few years ago. Now the Marine Corps is shrinking to fit the new peace and will cut forces by 10% from its peak of 202,000. Under the circumstances, the sergeant major said, one blemish is too many.
"I want you to be mentally prepared in the event you are not retained," the sergeant major wrote to Sgt. Martin.
Soon, Sgt. Martin will begin hunting for a position in the workaday world to replace his $59,000-a-year job leading men into battle.
"Guys and girls back home go through the same thing every month," he said. "Seasons go by and they do the same thing. I guess that's something I'll have to get used to."
The Bank Bust That Nearly Took Down Afghanistan
By John Wendle time.com Nov. 30, 2012
Kabul - The lights blinked on and off in the newly remodeled basement of the Shah Bobo Jan Palace on the grounds of the Afghan Academy of Science, and then they finally died out. At the podium, the translator joked that if Kabul Bank, Afghanistan‘s largest private bank, had not needed to be bailed out by the government, the money could have been used to rebuild andrestore the city’s power grid.
Drawing a similar conclusion, a report on the Kabul Bank crisis released Wednesday by the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring & Evaluation Committee, also revealed new details about how a small group of men profited from fraudulent loans. It called out local authorities for succumbing to political pressure and the international community for not doing enough to stave off the catastrophe which led to a near-complete meltdown of Afghanistan’s banking system in 2010.
The report, partly compiled from the results of a nine-month-long audit conducted by Kroll, a global investigations firm, said that the crisis was brought on by a well-hidden Ponzi scheme. More than 92% of the bank’s loan book, or $861 million, was extended to 19 related individuals and businesses, which ultimately benefitted 12 people. The remaining $74 million was extended to legitimate customers in loans, the report said. The report noted that the failure of Kabul Bank and the subsequent government bailout represented around 5% to 6% of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product, making”Kabul Bank one of the largest banking failures in the world,” Drago Kos, the committee’s chair told TIME.
Kos’ committee went on to detail how the fraud was committed. According to its report, “The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Afghanistan was advised in late 2009 that Kabul Bank was moving money through food trays on Pamir Airway flights,” claiming that 10 Pamir Airways pilots were paid for the service. It also noted that the bank’s credit department “opened loan accounts for proxy borrowers on instruction from senior management, and forged supporting documents including applications, financial statements and registrations, and employed fake business stamps to lend authenticity to the documents.”
Beyond the $861 million, the committee’s report also said that there was an estimated $66.2 million in non-loan disbursements for lavish cars, shopping, travel and houses, as well as paying the salaries of non-existent employees. Ordinary Afghans had entrusted their deposits to Kabul Bank, convinced by a sweeping advertising campaign and good publicity surrounding the bank — which was touted by foreign donors and the Afghan government as proof that the country was modernizing and stable.
Kos says he and his colleagues found the political pressure and interference the most outrageous. “For example, we found out that the prosecution service prepared indictments in June 2011 and they sat on them and they sent them to the court in June 2012 – after one year. And what’s even worse is that the decision over who would and would not be indicted was taken at the political level,” Kos says.
The report outlined the political pressure that government officials faced in investigating the case. “Although there are legitimate capacity issues at the Attorney General’s Office that certainly contributed to the delay in investigation, the major factor impeding the criminal investigation process is political interference resulting in reluctance to pursue charges against some of the participants of the Kabul Bank fraud,” the report said.
Kos says there were institutional problems as well. “The problem is having institutions in place that do not know what their mandate is, which do not understand the meaning of the word ‘independence’ and which are coping with political interference all the time, that of course makes the situation unique for Afghanistan, but it is also a signal to other countries that if they do not fight each of those elements themselves, [...] the system will fail, and it has failed.”
Although Kos acknowledges that “the threat is getting smaller and smaller everyday” of similar institutions collapsing in Afghanistan, he still has deep-founded concerns about future stability in the country. “This case was a big blow to the trust of the people of Afghanistan in the government. You know, the level of trust here is already not the best. In cases like that, not only was there serious moral damage, but thousands of people felt, directly, because they were depositors in the bank, they felt the monetary consequences of it,” says Kos, adding that, “people are telling us that corruption has now reached such an extent that [life] was even better under the Taliban – its not security, it’s the corruption. So, this was really a big blow to all of the national and international efforts to build up the state.”
The report made 48 recommendations to improve all the sectors involved in the crisis, but even committee members are dubious thatthey will be implemented. “There is one simple reason for this,” says Yama Torabi, Ph. D., the head of Integrity Watch Afghanistan and a committee member, “the environment of impunity that we have in this country, for committing corruption and not being pursued by the courts, by the Attorney General’s office. That is something we need to address. If law enforcement does not work in this country, this is what we get. And it’s still continuing. We need tohave the law enforcement agencies take their responsibilities more seriously.”
When asked if he thinks these changes will take place after the report, Torabi says, “I have no hope that this will happen in the near future, but we’re working on it. We will try to see practical ways of doing it. Part of it is linked with the political will. The issue with the political will in Afghanistan is that we are extremely fragmented politically. [...] I don’t think we will get big changes before [2014], but who knows, I mean, these things can happen. Maybe some people will realize that you have to change things fundamentally in order to get there.”
Afghan girl beheaded after refusing man’s marriage proposal
By Jeff Stacklin The Lookout via Yahoo! News - Nov 30 10:52am
A 14-year-old Afghan girl was beheaded and killed in an attack by two men, one of whom apparently asked her to marry him.
The attack happened Tuesday, a day before new legislation was introduced in Congress calling on the U.S. government to take steps to help protect Afghan women and girls as the U.S. military prepares to exit Afghanistan.
Gasitina, a student, was beheaded in the Imam Sahib district of Kunduz province. The attack was initially reported by local media, and was confirmed by Amnesty International researcher Horia Mosadiq in an email.
The girl was fetching water when she was accosted, according to reports. The men, who have not been identified, were arrested by police. The girl and her parents had refused a marriage proposal by one of the men, according to the Amnesty International report.
This was the 15th deadly attack on a female victim in Kunduz in 2012, the human rights organization said.
"Amnesty International is very concerned about the violations against women in Afghanistan," said Cristina Finch, director of the organization's Women's Human Rights program.
Amnesty reported a similar incident in October, when a young woman was murdered and her throat slashed. In that case, the woman apparently refused to work as a prostitute.
Although it appears such attacks are increasing in frequency, it may be that the world outside Afghanistan is just beginning to hear about them, Finch said.
On Wednesday, Sen. Bob Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, and Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican from Texas, introduced the Afghan Women and Girls' Security Promotion Act. If passed in its current form, the bill addresses how women's security will be monitored as the U.S. military withdraws from the country.
The bill also calls for improved gender sensitivity among Afghanistan's national security forces and recruitment of women within the ranks of those forces.
Amnesty International USA's executive director Suzanne Nossel applauded Casey and Hutchison for introducing the bill.
"As the United States military transitions out of Afghanistan, Afghan women's human rights continue to be at grave risk and demand urgent attention," Nossel said in a statement. "The fate of women will be a crucial determinant of that country's prospects for a stable and prosperous future."
In a report on Afghan violence against women, Amnesty International wrote that one of the justifications of the U.S. military going into the country in 2001 was to ensure the protection of human rights, including women's rights.
"More than 10 years after the overthrow of the Taliban, modest advances have been made for girls and women in Afghanistan," the report said. "But much remains to be done. Peace talks between the Taliban, Afghan government and the U.S. jeopardize even these modest gains as the U.S. searches for a quick exit."
Disputed Ownership of Afghan Site Used by NATO
Officials say local men claimed rights over land because they knew it was prime real estate.
IWPR By Abdul Maqsud Azizi 30 Nov 12
Afghanistan - Afghan officials in Logar province, 60 kilometres south of the Afghan capital Kabul, say they have evidence that the purported owners of a piece of land currently used by NATO forces have no legal claims to it.
A former governor of the province also told IWPR that six individuals received a payment from international forces in 2009, and some of the money found its way into Taleban hands.
The Provincial Reconstruction Team, PRT, a joint military and civilian force based in the area, has a compound in a desert area known as Abchakan, just south of Logar’s main town Pol-e Alam.
International forces are planning to build an airstrip at the location, adding more buildings and roads.
Local officials say that six men from the area laid claim to a 53-square-kilometre area of land when they realised it was of interest to the PRT. In 2009, the six individuals received a payment of 2.6 million dollars, according to Atiqullah Ludin, who was provincial governor at the time.
IWPR understands that no further payments have been made since.
Ludin alleges that the men gave a fifth of the money to the Taleban, who have a strong presence in the province. (On this, see Taleban Justice Dominant in Logar Province.)
"In 2009, the intelligence agency in Logar reported to me that after the six men received 2.6 million dollars in rent for the first year from the Americans, they gave the Taleban 500,000 dollars,” Ludin said.
A spokesman for NATO forces in Logar, who asked to remain anonymous, told IWPR they were unable to give a statement on these matters for the moment, because they were still unclear about ownership of the land in question – whether it belonged to the state or to local residents. The PRT in Logar is run by the Czech military rather than the United States.
In April 2010, Abdul Hakim Sulaimankhel, chairman of the provincial council, wrote to governor Ludin saying, "The governor's office should immediately arrest those who have seized the Abchakan desert, and the money the six individuals have received from the Americans should be retrieved and deposited in the government treasury."
IWPR’s reporter spent a month trying to interview one of the men, Awal Khan, a tribal elder from the Abchakan area, and was eventually able to ask him a few questions about the money.
Awal Khan confirmed that he received 2.6 million dollars in rent for the first year, but refused to say what he did with it.
"If I have accepted money, it is rent for our property,” he said. Telling the reporter to “go away”, he said, “I know what I am doing, and I don’t care about anyone else.”
The head of the provincial agriculture department, Mohammad Humayun Omar, told IWPR there was no doubt the Abchakan land was government property, and he was aware that attempts had been made to appropriate it.
State-owned land is recorded by a properties agency that comes under Afghanistan’s agriculture ministry.
Ludin said the title deeds held by the six were invalid and did not have his approval. He said the document dated from before his time, when his predecessor Abdullah Wardak was governor.
"I have made no deal with the people of Abchakan on this matter. Anything that went on happened in Abdullah Wardak’s time, and I am completely unaware of it," he said.
Wardak was killed by a roadside bomb in 2008.
The governor’s own role has raised some questions. When he was first informed that a rent payment had been made in 2009, and was shown documentary proof that the area in question belonged to the state, he had four of the six men arrested.
A few days later, he ordered them to be set free. Local police confirmed to IWPR that the men were released on Ludin’s orders.
When IWPR asked him why he had done this, Ludin initially said the order came from the prosecutor’s office, not him. Shown a copy of the release order for one of the men bearing his own signature, he said, "I was only doing my duty."
Sayed Rahim, head of the provincial justice department then and now, says the blame for letting the men get away rests squarely with Ludin.
Ludin, however, insists he did nothing wrong, and that that allegations made against him were part of a conspiracy.
"I haven’t taken a bribe from anyone. I have only implemented the law," he said.
About 200 families live in the Abchakan area, and some received a share of the 2009 rental payment.
One farmer, Lotfullah, 36, told IWPR he was handed 18,000 dollars four years ago “because that was my share". Others got less – between 5,000 and 7,000 dollars – he said.
Lotfullah said that he had never seen that much money in his life, but that unfortunately, the windfall was never to be repeated.
IWPR approached Logar’s new governor, Mohammad Iqbal Azizi – appointed at the end of September 2012 – for his view on these matters, but was told he was not prepared to go into controversial matters that related to his predecessors.
Abdul Maqsud Azizi is an IWPR-trained reporter in Afghanistan.
This report was produced as part of IWPR’s Afghan Critical Mass Media Reporting in Uruzgan and Nangarhar project.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Provincial officials say a suicide car bomber killed three civilians and wounded another six in Afghanistan's southern Uruzgan province.
Abdullah Himmat, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said Saturday's blast occurred near the police headquarters of Uruzgan's Dehra Wood district.
Fareed Ayal, a spokesman for the provincial police, says the car apparently detonated prematurely before it reached the gate of the headquarters.
Insurgents and Taliban fighters often use suicide bombers to target government buildings, convoys and foreign troops.
How to fight in Afghanistan with fewer U.S. troops
By David Barno and Matthew Irvine, Saturday, December 1, 2012 The Washington Post
Kimberly and Frederick W. Kagan’s Nov. 23 commentary, arguing for a force of 30,000 or more Americans in Afghanistan after 2014 [“What we’ll need in Afghanistan,” Sunday Opinion], is fundamentally wrong. Although their goals are sound — preventing terrorist attacks from the region on the United States — the writers’ logic and conclusions about the resources required are flawed. It is possible to protect U.S. interests across that region after 2014 with a force in Afghanistan of 10,000 or fewer American troops.
The United States has two vital interests in that part of the world: preventing terrorist attacks on this country and its allies, and preventing nuclear weapons or materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. Protecting these interests after 2014 will require the United States to be able to launch precision military strikes from this region. But it will not require tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
Scores of news reports describe robust U.S. counterterrorism campaigns across the globe. The United States employs drones, special operations forces and strikes with precision munitions across the Horn of Africa, in Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula, in the Philippines and probably in several other less public places. All of these nations also face some levels of deadly insurgent and terrorist attacks but counter them largely with their own forces, while small teams of Americans focus on counterterrorism and limited advisory missions.
In other words, the United States is already performing the very counterterrorism tasks required in Afghanistan across the globe without committing 15,000, 20,000 or 30,000 troops or the huge logistical and advisory overhead that the Kagans describe as vital. Moreover, in no other U.S. counterterrorism effort are the host-nation security forces the formidable size of the Afghan force — more than 350,000 soldiers and police.
After more than a decade of training and tens of billions of dollars of equipment, these Afghan troops should be fully capable of holding off roughly 30,000 Taliban. Defeating — or at least containing — the Taliban after 2014 is a job for Afghan forces, not Americans.
Although the U.S. surge produced many battlefield gains, it did not bring about any significant improvement in the country’s governance or pervasive corruption. These intractable shortcomings are unlikely to be affected by any number of additional U.S. troops before or after 2014.
The Kagans’ proposal for an open-ended commitment of more than 30,000 U.S. forces would conservatively cost taxpayers more than $30 billion a year. That would far exceed the combined current U.S. assistance to Israel, Egypt and Pakistan.
Defending our vital interests does not demand a long-term force of this size in Afghanistan, any more than it does today in Yemen, Somalia or Mali. What is required after 2014 is assured access to bases when needed, the maintenance of robust intelligence networks, a modest security cooperation effort and a small special operations force for counterterrorism and counter-proliferation response. Covert programs such as drones will continue to play important, less visible roles. And more robust mobile forces can remain on call outside Afghanistan, should circumstances warrant bigger strike operations of short duration.
Carefully limiting the tasks of U.S. troops inside Afghanistan could permit them to remain poised for missions in support of vital U.S. interests, rather than becoming drawn into securing supply routes, large bases and Afghan territory. A smaller, less conspicuous U.S. force would have the important advantage of being less obtrusive to the Afghan people and thus would be more likely to have the support of the Afghan government.
The Kagans’ logic for insisting on a slow drawdown is tenuous at best. The more troops we have in Afghanistan, the more casualties we will sustain. Those sacrifices would be painful but endurable if overall troop levels translated into lasting effects. But there is little evidence that maintaining 68,000 troops in Afghanistan for one or two more years, and 30,000 afterward, would ensure any lasting, measurable effects on the combat- readiness of Afghan forces, Taliban capabilities or terrorist havens in the region. A greater U.S. casualty toll is a high price to pay for such ephemeral effects.
At year 11 of our war in Afghanistan, it’s time to consider a smaller enduring U.S. presence as the new endgame. It’s also time to craft a steeper ramp to draw down the size of the U.S. presence. This would serve to both shift sizable Afghan forces more rapidly into the fight and to accelerate Afghan political leaders taking ownership of their war against the Taliban. The costs to the United States of supporting an endless ground war in Afghanistan are not merely unwarranted but strategically unwise. It’s time to consider all options.
Retired Army Lt. Gen. David Barno was overall commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005. He is a senior fellow and senior adviser at the Center for a New American Security, where Matthew Irvine is a research associate.
Read more on this issue: Kimberly and Frederick W. Kagan: Why U.S. troops must stay in Afghanistan Jackson Diehl:The red flags in Obama’s foreign policy Kurt Volker: What the U.S. risks by relying on drones David Ignatius: An embassy asks, Drones or diplomacy?
Afghan Taliban commander killed
Kabul, Dec. 1 (Xinhua-ANI): Afghan security forces raided a Taliban hideout in southern province of Uruzgan on Saturday, killing a key commander Mullah Nasir and arresting another commander Mullah Ghazi, police said.
"Afghan forces backed by the NATO-led coalition stormed a Taliban hideout in Charchino district at around 1:00 a.m. local time today, killing Taliban commander Mullah Nasir on the spot and arrested another commander Mullah Ghazi," provincial police spokesman Ayel Farid told Xinhua.
During the operation, two more Taliban militants were killed and two others arrested, he added. (Xinhua-ANI)
Pakistan 'walking the talk' on peace in Afghanistan
Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan's foreign minister, has presented a draft proposal of a partnership agreement to the Afghans
Jon Boone in Islamabad guardian.co.uk, Saturday 1 December 2012
Pakistan is "walking the talk" on peace in Afghanistan, the country's foreign minister claimed on Thursday.
Hina Rabbani Khar has long said that Pakistan will do whatever it takes to help bring the Taliban to the negotiating table – including the release of more insurgent prisoners held by Pakistan.
But given Pakistan's history of secretly backing the insurgency, which Islamabad has viewed as a useful ally to counter Indian influence in Afghanistan, many remain to be convinced of her sincerity.
On Thursday she made her latest effort to persuade Kabul, and the world.
During a rare visit by the Afghan foreign minister, Zalmai Rasoul, to Islamabad, Khar and her colleagues agreed a number of steps, all of which they hope shows Pakistan is playing the role of good neighbour.
In a joint statement released on Friday night, the two sides had agreed to the release of more prisoners, following the decision in mid-November to free more than a dozen Taliban held in Pakistan.
Afghanistan hopes the men, who were released unconditionally rather than into Afghan custody, will act as go-betweens in discussions between the insurgency and the government in Kabul.
President Hamid Karzai's government is particularly pressing for the release of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a former deputy head of the Taliban movement who was arrested in Karachi after holding talks with Kabul without the knowledge of Pakistan.
Also of great significance, a draft proposal of a long-term strategic partnership agreement was presented to the Afghan side. Concluding a partnership deal will be controversial in Afghanistan, where Pakistan is still widely hated.
In October Karzai sparked a row with Islamabad after he declared that the pre-conditions for any agreement would be that "terrorism is stopped, extremism is dismantled, anti-Afghan activities are stopped" and "destruction of Afghanistan is stopped".
Islamabad agreed to support an Afghan plan to host a conference of top Islamic scholars from Pakistan and Afghanistan who will mount a religious challenge to the Taliban, particularly its use of suicide bombers.
Both countries said they would extend an embryonic regional free trade agreement to Tajikistan, one of Afghanistan's northern neighbours. The hope is that transit trade running from the Pakistani sea ports on the Arabian Sea all the way to central Asia and beyond will enrich all the countries involved.
A Pakistani official described these as "positive measures" and a "big step, given some of the cynical questions that goes on".
For her part Khar dismissed any "historic hangovers of Pakistan having favourites or having any intention of having any control" in Afghanistan.
Some foreign experts say there has indeed been a profound change to the way Pakistan approaches Afghanistan.
Shamila Chaudhary, a former White House national security adviser on Pakistan, believes the dramatic rise in militancy and terrorism inside Pakistan has forced the country's leaders to reappraise its support for the Taliban.
"Pakistan no longer trusts the Taliban – or any other entity for that matter – to solely protect its interests in Afghanistan," she wrote in a recent report.
The problem of internal militancy, Pakistani policy makers believe, will be "neutralised on its own once the Afghan Taliban joins a political process in Afghanistan", Chaudhary wrote.
Some top western diplomats who regularly meet with Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of the powerful army which has traditionally controlled foreign policy, say the new realism has also sunk in among military chiefs.
Deep scepticism remains, however. For many the fact the Taliban insurgency remains undiminished, with no steps having been taken to curb their activities inside Pakistan, is a clear sign that the double game is still on.
Or it suggests that the policy of providing sanctuary and support for the insurgency is so ingrained within Pakistan's spy service that Kayani cannot rein them in. Or both.
A western official in Kabul with close involvement in efforts to start a peace process said: "Kayani is in a tricky position – either he doesn't completely control ISI elements, which would be a damaging admission, or he does, in which case he is completely complicit."
When the Fighting Stops
For American soldiers accustomed to war, the coming peace may prove complicated. Many worry that they will never again experience the same sort of vividness and sense of mission.
Wall Street Journal By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS November 30, 2012
After surviving four tours of duty, a suicide bomb and a bullet wound to the chest, Sgt. Karl Martin wonders whether he'll ever again feel so intensely alive now that his war is almost over.
Sgt. Martin, a 27-year-old Marine, has been going off to fight his entire adult life, and, in frank moments, he admits he's going to miss it.
"In a way, it just feels like what I was supposed to do," he said at his base in Sangin, Afghanistan.
The sentiment is shared by his commander, Capt. Sean Ramirez, who said he felt aimless after returning home from Afghanistan last year. He hit the bars, played videogames and gained 20 pounds. He began looking for a way back to the war before it was over.
"When I was in Afghanistan as a platoon commander, I had a task. I had a purpose," said Capt. Ramirez, a 28-year-old from Lakeville, Pa., who led three dozen men in near-daily firefights. "Every day I knew what I was going to do."
The U.S. has withdrawn from Iraq and is winding down in Afghanistan, with a plan to pull out most troops by the end of 2014. Some 2.4 million Americans have served in the two conflicts, many deploying three, four or five times since the Sept. 11 hijackings triggered the U.S. engagement abroad.
For troops who grew up at war, the coming peace may prove complicated. Many combat veterans are only too glad to shed their uniforms. There is relief at making it back to the comfort of family and friends, to beer and baths.
But with peace looming, many others fear they will never again experience the vividness and sense of mission that war offers. There also are practical anxieties. Some worry about landing civilian jobs that pay less or offer fewer benefits than their military positions.
Capt. Ramirez dreads boredom most of all. He spent his second tour under attack almost every time he and his men left their Afghan outpost. "That was everything I wanted," he said. "An infantry platoon in the closest thing there is to a front line."
On the captain's current tour—his third—he and Sgt. Martin have been in Sangin, one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan. But it has been a disappointment and, Capt. Ramirez fears, a taste of what to expect in a peacetime military. Instead of patrolling fields along the Helmand River, he and his men have stayed largely in a secure base advising Afghan troops who do the fighting, a big step in the handoff of security responsibilities to Kabul.
During the many slow moments of his days, Capt. Ramirez adds to his iPhone list of future peacetime pursuits: cliff diving, big-game hunting, ice climbing, riding motocross and running with the bulls.
"The war's over," he said. "Now is the rest of my life going to have to be turbulent for me to enjoy it? I think so."
His commander in Sangin, Lt. Col. Tom Przybelski, has gone to extraordinary lengths to prolong his wartime service. He was on patrol in Fallujah, Iraq, in October 2006, when he approached a metal push cart in a field of rubble. Hidden inside was an artillery shell with a radio-controlled trigger. Lt. Col. Przybelski was 10 feet away when it exploded. Shrapnel and grit peppered his legs. Flying rocks pulverized his right eye and temporarily blinded his left.
His later nightmares weren't of the explosion but of the insurgent shelling that pounded the base as he lay naked and blind at the field hospital. He did sit-ups in his hospital bed to stay in shape.
He recovered vision in his left eye. Technicians at the Naval hospital in Bethesda, Md., painted a blue iris on a white plastic insert and taught him to position it convincingly in his empty right socket.
Gen. Michael Hagee, then-commandant of the Marine Corps, visited him at the hospital. "Keep leading Marines," Gen. Hagee told the colonel. Lt. Col. Przybelski recalled thinking that the remark "felt like an order or a request."
When the regimental commander, Brig. Gen. David Berger, later called Lt. Col. Przybelski into his office and asked about his plans, the colonel said he wanted to return to combat. It was, in part, because of the commandant's words. He also missed his job.
Gen. Berger, then a colonel, paused. "Well," he said, "an officer has to shoot, move and communicate."
Lt. Col. Przybelski, a 40-year-old native of Spartanburg, S.C., taught himself to shoot a rifle left-handed and to aim a pistol with his left eye. He passed the physical-fitness test and resumed long-distance trail running and solo winter camping, hobbies that forced him to rely on hard-earned skills.
Two months after he was wounded, he was back in Fallujah. "I wanted to come back to the war, to the most warlike piece of the war," he said. "I think a person misses the intensity, the seriousness of purpose, having the authority."
Sgt. Martin, who is from Chelsea, Ala., may feel more trepidation about returning to peacetime life than any of the other Marine advisers leaving Sangin this month after a yearlong tour.
The 6-foot, 175-pound sergeant with dirty-blond hair and a boxer's forehead was the high-school quarterback who dated a cheerleader. After high-school graduation in 2004, he waited tables at Applebee's and sold hunting and fishing gear at a sporting-goods store.
He was an easy catch for the Marine recruiter who worked out of a local strip mall, next to a barber shop, a nail salon and the Food Lion. The young man wanted to fight. "I just joined the Marine Corps to get over here," he said in his Alabama drawl. "I didn't join it to get an education." He married the cheerleader, Donna, in 2006, before he left for Iraq on his first tour.
The deployment was a letdown. His job was processing detainees.
On his second tour, to Fallujah in 2007, he saw his first firefights. But the deployment was marred when one of his Marines flipped a Humvee. Sgt. Martin was held responsible because his man didn't have a driver's license. The Marines docked him a month's pay and put a blot on his record.
Three months into the seven-month stint, he was driving through downtown Fallujah when a man wearing a vest filled with explosives walked up to Sgt. Martin's Humvee and blew himself up.
The sergeant suffered no visible injuries. But the next day his appendix ruptured, unleashing a wave of bacteria in his abdomen. The Marines concluded that the suicide attack and his burst appendix were unrelated. He underwent three operations and missed the rest of the tour.
Back at Camp Lejeune, N.C., he taught infantry skills to junior Marines but lost the job over an extramarital affair, a violation of military rules. His marriage survived. The Marines knocked him down from sergeant to corporal.
Sgt. Martin earned the rank back before he deployed to Afghanistan for his third tour at the end of 2010, with Kilo Co., 3rd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment. He led a squad of Marines in Marjah, a farm village crisscrossed by irrigation canals.
On Feb. 4, 2011, Sgt. Martin and his squad were walking on patrol when villagers, who had been going about their business, suddenly vanished from view. One man remained, talking on a cellphone, a likely spotter for insurgents. The patrol fired a small flare in the man's direction, and he fled.
Moments later, as the Marines angled across a field, they came under heavy fire. They were seeking cover in a dry irrigation ditch when the bomb exploded. It was a buried metal tube aimed along the irrigation ditch and loaded with explosives, bullets, ball-bearings and spark plugs.
The wave of shrapnel hit the first two Marines in the legs. Sgt. Martin was third in line. A bullet, shrapnel from the bomb, missed his body-armor chest plate, slammed into the flesh just beneath his left shoulder and pivoted into his lung. Air leaked out into his chest cavity, crushing a lung.
He started to radio for a medevac helicopter. The next thing he remembered was waking up in the operating room at a rear base.
After a week, he was moved to the Army hospital in Germany, where doctors kept the wound open to avoid infection. Weeks later, he arrived at Camp Lejuene. His wife, Donna, and his infant son, Mason, were waiting.
Mrs. Martin, age 27, worked from home handling payroll for an Alabama thrift-store company. After her husband's return, she learned to pull bloody packing out of his wound and stuff in fresh gauze with a long swab until the hole closed. It was "gross," she said. Sgt. Martin talked her through it.
Surgeons had cut away muscle under his Sgt. Martin's left arm, leaving it so weak he couldn't lift a soda can. He was also diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress. When he slept, his mind wandered back to the ambush, the ditch and the explosion. Military doctors recommended a discharge from the service.
Sgt. Martin, however, set a goal of returning to full duty by the time the men in his company returned home in July 2011. To avoid being discharged, he would have to run three miles in less than 33 minutes, do 100 sit-ups in two minutes and manage three pull-ups.
After his prescribed physical therapy, Sgt. Martin would hit the weight room on his own. Three days before his self-imposed deadline, he successfully completed the run and sit-ups. He also did 14 pull-ups.
A few days after the return of Kilo Co., Sgt. Martin joined the other men in formation outside the redbrick headquarters building at Camp Lejeune. As the formation broke up, Sgt. Martin made a beeline for the company commander, Capt. Justin Huber. "The best thing for me to do right now is get back out there," Sgt. Martin told him.
He learned he could return to Afghanistan as an adviser to the Afghan army and pitched it to his wife as a good career move. Sgt. Martin didn't mention his urge to get back to the fighting, but Mrs. Martin had suspected for months that he was itching for war. Still, she said, she was "quietly shocked" when he told her at the kitchen table that he was signing up for a one-year tour.
Mrs. Martin gave her husband a leather-bound journal. On the inside cover she glued a photo of Mason in a plaid shirt and blue-jean overalls. In neat printing she wrote: "So, here we go, Deployment #4. This is going to be the longest one yet, but I'm counting down the days until we're together again." She coated the sole of Mason's foot in black ink and stamped his footprint on the page.
In December 2011, Sgt. Martin returned to Afghanistan. From there, he addressed his journal entries to his wife. In January, he wrote how much he missed dressing Mason and fitting him in his high chair. "We should somehow live like I'm about to deploy so we don't take any moment for granted," he wrote.
On Feb. 3, he wrote: "What I can't believe is tmrw will be a year since I got hurt. If you told me that day I would be back here in Afghanistan I would have said, 'Yeah right, that's crazy and will never happen.' But I guess you never say never."
Over the summer, Sgt. Martin began planning his next career move in the Marine Corps, applying to teach again at the School of Infantry.
In September, he received an email from regimental headquarters informing him that the Marine Corps had rejected his application. The note cited a "pattern of misconduct"—in other words, the extramarital affair and the Humvee accident. It felt like a betrayal, Sgt. Martin said. After eight years, four tours and a Purple Heart, the Marine Corps didn't want him anymore.
He hesitated a day before he emailed Donna with the news. "It feels like I was just told I have Cancer and will die in a couple of years," he wrote.
Mrs. Martin felt sick to her stomach when she read the email. They had bought a house near Camp Lejeune, and a second son is due Dec. 26. She feared he would face a daunting civilian job market. Some 10% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were unemployed in October, compared with 6.3% of all veterans and 7.9% of the overall workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Mrs. Martin had been hoping for a promotion. "Why are they doing this to us?" she asked her husband. "What can you do so we can stay in the Marine Corps?"
Lt. Col. Przybelski and Capt. Ramirez pledged to help. Sgt. Martin appealed to the regiment's sergeant major, who made inquiries on his behalf. The message back: Sgt. Martin's Marine Corps career would be over when his enlistment ends next year.
During the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the military was hungry for experienced combat leaders, his commanders said, and Sgt. Martin could have easily re-enlisted a few years ago. Now the Marine Corps is shrinking to fit the new peace and will cut forces by 10% from its peak of 202,000. Under the circumstances, the sergeant major said, one blemish is too many.
"I want you to be mentally prepared in the event you are not retained," the sergeant major wrote to Sgt. Martin.
Soon, Sgt. Martin will begin hunting for a position in the workaday world to replace his $59,000-a-year job leading men into battle.
"Guys and girls back home go through the same thing every month," he said. "Seasons go by and they do the same thing. I guess that's something I'll have to get used to."
The Bank Bust That Nearly Took Down Afghanistan
By John Wendle time.com Nov. 30, 2012
Kabul - The lights blinked on and off in the newly remodeled basement of the Shah Bobo Jan Palace on the grounds of the Afghan Academy of Science, and then they finally died out. At the podium, the translator joked that if Kabul Bank, Afghanistan‘s largest private bank, had not needed to be bailed out by the government, the money could have been used to rebuild andrestore the city’s power grid.
Drawing a similar conclusion, a report on the Kabul Bank crisis released Wednesday by the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring & Evaluation Committee, also revealed new details about how a small group of men profited from fraudulent loans. It called out local authorities for succumbing to political pressure and the international community for not doing enough to stave off the catastrophe which led to a near-complete meltdown of Afghanistan’s banking system in 2010.
The report, partly compiled from the results of a nine-month-long audit conducted by Kroll, a global investigations firm, said that the crisis was brought on by a well-hidden Ponzi scheme. More than 92% of the bank’s loan book, or $861 million, was extended to 19 related individuals and businesses, which ultimately benefitted 12 people. The remaining $74 million was extended to legitimate customers in loans, the report said. The report noted that the failure of Kabul Bank and the subsequent government bailout represented around 5% to 6% of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product, making”Kabul Bank one of the largest banking failures in the world,” Drago Kos, the committee’s chair told TIME.
Kos’ committee went on to detail how the fraud was committed. According to its report, “The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Afghanistan was advised in late 2009 that Kabul Bank was moving money through food trays on Pamir Airway flights,” claiming that 10 Pamir Airways pilots were paid for the service. It also noted that the bank’s credit department “opened loan accounts for proxy borrowers on instruction from senior management, and forged supporting documents including applications, financial statements and registrations, and employed fake business stamps to lend authenticity to the documents.”
Beyond the $861 million, the committee’s report also said that there was an estimated $66.2 million in non-loan disbursements for lavish cars, shopping, travel and houses, as well as paying the salaries of non-existent employees. Ordinary Afghans had entrusted their deposits to Kabul Bank, convinced by a sweeping advertising campaign and good publicity surrounding the bank — which was touted by foreign donors and the Afghan government as proof that the country was modernizing and stable.
Kos says he and his colleagues found the political pressure and interference the most outrageous. “For example, we found out that the prosecution service prepared indictments in June 2011 and they sat on them and they sent them to the court in June 2012 – after one year. And what’s even worse is that the decision over who would and would not be indicted was taken at the political level,” Kos says.
The report outlined the political pressure that government officials faced in investigating the case. “Although there are legitimate capacity issues at the Attorney General’s Office that certainly contributed to the delay in investigation, the major factor impeding the criminal investigation process is political interference resulting in reluctance to pursue charges against some of the participants of the Kabul Bank fraud,” the report said.
Kos says there were institutional problems as well. “The problem is having institutions in place that do not know what their mandate is, which do not understand the meaning of the word ‘independence’ and which are coping with political interference all the time, that of course makes the situation unique for Afghanistan, but it is also a signal to other countries that if they do not fight each of those elements themselves, [...] the system will fail, and it has failed.”
Although Kos acknowledges that “the threat is getting smaller and smaller everyday” of similar institutions collapsing in Afghanistan, he still has deep-founded concerns about future stability in the country. “This case was a big blow to the trust of the people of Afghanistan in the government. You know, the level of trust here is already not the best. In cases like that, not only was there serious moral damage, but thousands of people felt, directly, because they were depositors in the bank, they felt the monetary consequences of it,” says Kos, adding that, “people are telling us that corruption has now reached such an extent that [life] was even better under the Taliban – its not security, it’s the corruption. So, this was really a big blow to all of the national and international efforts to build up the state.”
The report made 48 recommendations to improve all the sectors involved in the crisis, but even committee members are dubious thatthey will be implemented. “There is one simple reason for this,” says Yama Torabi, Ph. D., the head of Integrity Watch Afghanistan and a committee member, “the environment of impunity that we have in this country, for committing corruption and not being pursued by the courts, by the Attorney General’s office. That is something we need to address. If law enforcement does not work in this country, this is what we get. And it’s still continuing. We need tohave the law enforcement agencies take their responsibilities more seriously.”
When asked if he thinks these changes will take place after the report, Torabi says, “I have no hope that this will happen in the near future, but we’re working on it. We will try to see practical ways of doing it. Part of it is linked with the political will. The issue with the political will in Afghanistan is that we are extremely fragmented politically. [...] I don’t think we will get big changes before [2014], but who knows, I mean, these things can happen. Maybe some people will realize that you have to change things fundamentally in order to get there.”
Afghan girl beheaded after refusing man’s marriage proposal
By Jeff Stacklin The Lookout via Yahoo! News - Nov 30 10:52am
A 14-year-old Afghan girl was beheaded and killed in an attack by two men, one of whom apparently asked her to marry him.
The attack happened Tuesday, a day before new legislation was introduced in Congress calling on the U.S. government to take steps to help protect Afghan women and girls as the U.S. military prepares to exit Afghanistan.
Gasitina, a student, was beheaded in the Imam Sahib district of Kunduz province. The attack was initially reported by local media, and was confirmed by Amnesty International researcher Horia Mosadiq in an email.
The girl was fetching water when she was accosted, according to reports. The men, who have not been identified, were arrested by police. The girl and her parents had refused a marriage proposal by one of the men, according to the Amnesty International report.
This was the 15th deadly attack on a female victim in Kunduz in 2012, the human rights organization said.
"Amnesty International is very concerned about the violations against women in Afghanistan," said Cristina Finch, director of the organization's Women's Human Rights program.
Amnesty reported a similar incident in October, when a young woman was murdered and her throat slashed. In that case, the woman apparently refused to work as a prostitute.
Although it appears such attacks are increasing in frequency, it may be that the world outside Afghanistan is just beginning to hear about them, Finch said.
On Wednesday, Sen. Bob Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, and Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Republican from Texas, introduced the Afghan Women and Girls' Security Promotion Act. If passed in its current form, the bill addresses how women's security will be monitored as the U.S. military withdraws from the country.
The bill also calls for improved gender sensitivity among Afghanistan's national security forces and recruitment of women within the ranks of those forces.
Amnesty International USA's executive director Suzanne Nossel applauded Casey and Hutchison for introducing the bill.
"As the United States military transitions out of Afghanistan, Afghan women's human rights continue to be at grave risk and demand urgent attention," Nossel said in a statement. "The fate of women will be a crucial determinant of that country's prospects for a stable and prosperous future."
In a report on Afghan violence against women, Amnesty International wrote that one of the justifications of the U.S. military going into the country in 2001 was to ensure the protection of human rights, including women's rights.
"More than 10 years after the overthrow of the Taliban, modest advances have been made for girls and women in Afghanistan," the report said. "But much remains to be done. Peace talks between the Taliban, Afghan government and the U.S. jeopardize even these modest gains as the U.S. searches for a quick exit."
Disputed Ownership of Afghan Site Used by NATO
Officials say local men claimed rights over land because they knew it was prime real estate.
IWPR By Abdul Maqsud Azizi 30 Nov 12
Afghanistan - Afghan officials in Logar province, 60 kilometres south of the Afghan capital Kabul, say they have evidence that the purported owners of a piece of land currently used by NATO forces have no legal claims to it.
A former governor of the province also told IWPR that six individuals received a payment from international forces in 2009, and some of the money found its way into Taleban hands.
The Provincial Reconstruction Team, PRT, a joint military and civilian force based in the area, has a compound in a desert area known as Abchakan, just south of Logar’s main town Pol-e Alam.
International forces are planning to build an airstrip at the location, adding more buildings and roads.
Local officials say that six men from the area laid claim to a 53-square-kilometre area of land when they realised it was of interest to the PRT. In 2009, the six individuals received a payment of 2.6 million dollars, according to Atiqullah Ludin, who was provincial governor at the time.
IWPR understands that no further payments have been made since.
Ludin alleges that the men gave a fifth of the money to the Taleban, who have a strong presence in the province. (On this, see Taleban Justice Dominant in Logar Province.)
"In 2009, the intelligence agency in Logar reported to me that after the six men received 2.6 million dollars in rent for the first year from the Americans, they gave the Taleban 500,000 dollars,” Ludin said.
A spokesman for NATO forces in Logar, who asked to remain anonymous, told IWPR they were unable to give a statement on these matters for the moment, because they were still unclear about ownership of the land in question – whether it belonged to the state or to local residents. The PRT in Logar is run by the Czech military rather than the United States.
In April 2010, Abdul Hakim Sulaimankhel, chairman of the provincial council, wrote to governor Ludin saying, "The governor's office should immediately arrest those who have seized the Abchakan desert, and the money the six individuals have received from the Americans should be retrieved and deposited in the government treasury."
IWPR’s reporter spent a month trying to interview one of the men, Awal Khan, a tribal elder from the Abchakan area, and was eventually able to ask him a few questions about the money.
Awal Khan confirmed that he received 2.6 million dollars in rent for the first year, but refused to say what he did with it.
"If I have accepted money, it is rent for our property,” he said. Telling the reporter to “go away”, he said, “I know what I am doing, and I don’t care about anyone else.”
The head of the provincial agriculture department, Mohammad Humayun Omar, told IWPR there was no doubt the Abchakan land was government property, and he was aware that attempts had been made to appropriate it.
State-owned land is recorded by a properties agency that comes under Afghanistan’s agriculture ministry.
Ludin said the title deeds held by the six were invalid and did not have his approval. He said the document dated from before his time, when his predecessor Abdullah Wardak was governor.
"I have made no deal with the people of Abchakan on this matter. Anything that went on happened in Abdullah Wardak’s time, and I am completely unaware of it," he said.
Wardak was killed by a roadside bomb in 2008.
The governor’s own role has raised some questions. When he was first informed that a rent payment had been made in 2009, and was shown documentary proof that the area in question belonged to the state, he had four of the six men arrested.
A few days later, he ordered them to be set free. Local police confirmed to IWPR that the men were released on Ludin’s orders.
When IWPR asked him why he had done this, Ludin initially said the order came from the prosecutor’s office, not him. Shown a copy of the release order for one of the men bearing his own signature, he said, "I was only doing my duty."
Sayed Rahim, head of the provincial justice department then and now, says the blame for letting the men get away rests squarely with Ludin.
Ludin, however, insists he did nothing wrong, and that that allegations made against him were part of a conspiracy.
"I haven’t taken a bribe from anyone. I have only implemented the law," he said.
About 200 families live in the Abchakan area, and some received a share of the 2009 rental payment.
One farmer, Lotfullah, 36, told IWPR he was handed 18,000 dollars four years ago “because that was my share". Others got less – between 5,000 and 7,000 dollars – he said.
Lotfullah said that he had never seen that much money in his life, but that unfortunately, the windfall was never to be repeated.
IWPR approached Logar’s new governor, Mohammad Iqbal Azizi – appointed at the end of September 2012 – for his view on these matters, but was told he was not prepared to go into controversial matters that related to his predecessors.
Abdul Maqsud Azizi is an IWPR-trained reporter in Afghanistan.
This report was produced as part of IWPR’s Afghan Critical Mass Media Reporting in Uruzgan and Nangarhar project.
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