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Suicide bomber kills police in Afghanistan
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — At least 12 people were killed in bombings around Afghanistan on Saturday, including 10 policemen who died when a suicide bomber driving a motorcycle blew himself up in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province, officials said.
Kunduz provincial police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Husseini said the policemen, including the head of the provincial counterterrorism department and the traffic police chief, were killed at an intersection in Kunduz city. He said 14 other policemen and five civilians were wounded in the explosion.
Saad Mukhtar, the head of the Kunduz health department, confirmed the death toll.
Earlier on Saturday, a remote-controlled bomb planted on a bicycle exploded, killing one police officer and one civilian in the eastern city of Ghazni. Provincial police chief, Gen. Zirawer Zahid, said another five people were wounded.
Suicide attacks by insurgents have become a near daily occurrence around Afghanistan.
On Friday, a suicide car bomber killed five civilians and wounded another 25 in a botched attempt to hit a convoy of NATO supply trucks in eastern Afghanistan. The bomber missed the convoy, which suffered no damage. The attack took place in Tagab district of eastern Kapisa province.
Afghan Governor Positions for Presidency
Regional Leader, One of Most Powerful Outside Kabul, Seen to Have Near-Total Control, Denies Corruption Allegations
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV January 25, 2013, 8:10 p.m. ET The Wall Street Journal
MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan—Giant billboards of governor Mohammed Atta Nour far outnumber the portraits of President Hamid Karzai on the streets of Mazar-e-Sharif, the hub of northern Afghanistan.
In posters that hang over the metropolis he has governed for nearly a decade, Gov. Atta is shown saluting military parades, standing side-by-side with Afghanistan's national heroes and walking down red carpets.
Now, just over a year before Mr. Karzai's final term expires, Gov. Atta—arguably the most powerful Afghan politician outside Kabul—says he is also seriously considering a run for the nation's highest office.
"I told the president that, if there is a national understanding, a collective understanding by all Afghan leaders on a candidate, then I won't run," Gov. Atta said in an interview in his palatial office, after accepting visits from Afghan favor-seekers who approached him, bowing, to whisper requests into his ear. "But if the president makes a decision only with his own team, then I will be a candidate."
Mr. Karzai hasn't decided to support any candidate so far, according to his spokesman, though two of his brothers are seen as possible successors. However it pans out, Afghan and Western officials expect Gov. Atta to be a big player in shaping Afghanistan's post-American future once the U.S.-led coalition's mandate ends in late 2014.
Friends and enemies alike say Gov. Atta, 48 years old, has amassed near-absolute power here in the strategic Balkh province, which includes the industrial city of Mazar-e-Sharif and the busy border crossing with Uzbekistan that is a critical supply and exit route for the U.S.-led military coalition.
"No one here will ever complain about Gov. Atta, either because they're his people, or because they're too scared of him," said Abbas Ibrahimzada, an Afghan parliamentarian from Balkh and one of the region's most prominent businessmen. Mr. Ibrahimzada hastened to describe himself as Gov. Atta's friend, producing an album of photographs showing the two men together.
Over the past decade, almost all of Gov. Atta's political and business rivals here have fallen away—with some killed, some leaving the region and others joining his camp. Some leaders of the Pashtun ethnic community—Afghanistan's largest, but a minority group here—have accused militias reporting to Gov. Atta of assassinations linked to land seizures or political disagreements. Gov. Atta has denied these claims as baseless Taliban propaganda.
"If you oppose him, if you talk against him, and nobody listens to you—then what's the point of doing that?" said Hajji Akhtar Ibrahimkheil, a Pashtun former foe of Gov. Atta's who describes himself as the governor's supporter. He now heads the provincial Peace Council, a body charged with convincing insurgents to lay down arms.
Like all of Afghanistan's 34 provincial governors, Gov. Atta was appointed by Mr. Karzai and, in theory, serves at the Afghan president's pleasure. In practice, he has been the only regional leader to frequently ignore orders from Kabul. In the 2009 presidential elections, Gov. Atta—a former commander of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance—supported Mr. Karzai's main rival, fellow Northern Alliance leader Abdullah Abdullah.
Gov. Atta's rule over Balkh, a province that has attracted businesses from all over Afghanistan, has given him ample financial resources that could be put into campaigning for the next election, scheduled for April 2014, Western officials say. Once a sandal-wearing mujahedeen warrior with a long bushy beard, Gov. Atta can now be seen in pinstripe suits and designer Swiss watches, using a fleet of black Land Cruisers with identical "111" license plates.
Senior Afghan and U.S. officials say the governor has made money by appropriating land for development, taking customs revenues at the border and taking shares of local companies.
Gov. Atta says all of the allegations of corruption and wrongdoing against him are a conspiracy designed to weaken his electoral appeal ahead of the presidential race.
"The only province where all the laws are respected, the only province where every dollar and afghani of revenue collected goes to the central government, is here in Balkh," he said in the interview. "We are not putting our hands into people's pockets."
The same Afghan and Western officials who allege corruption also describe Gov. Atta as the linchpin of stability in Afghanistan's north. "Mazar has thrived under his leadership, and as a result it is one of the most—if not the most—stable cities in the country," a Western diplomat says.
U.S. officials echo that view, saying Gov. Atta, for his flaws, runs one of the most efficient administrations in a country that has long been ranked as one of the world's most corrupt.
Many citizens here agree. "In my home province, you can't venture out after dark. But here I can walk around at 10 p.m. with pockets full of cash," said Shah Mohammad Saifuddin, a native of the neighboring province of Takhar who owns a book store near Mazar-e-Sharif's famed Blue Mosque.
As president, Gov. Atta added, he would "make the rest of Afghanistan be like Balkh, with proper administration, reconstruction and security."
The U.S. has in the past placed high hopes on regional leaders who have been shadowed by corruption allegations but who could offer a firm grip on security, including Nangarhar province Gov. Gul Agha Shirzai, another presidential aspirant and a onetime favorite of U.S. military commanders.
In December, Kabul moved to shut down checkpoints allegedly collecting illegal taxes on behalf of Gov. Shirzai at the Pakistani border, following a Wall Street Journal Report on a U.S. government investigation of corruption in the province. Gov. Shirzai has dismissed the U.S. allegations as politically motivated.
Gov. Atta, an ethnic Tajik, would face an uphill struggle should he choose to run for president. The country's rulers, from the former royals to Taliban leader Mullah Omar to Mr. Karzai, have traditionally come from the Pashtun plurality. With his regional influence and financial muscle, though, Gov. Atta would be a formidable kingmaker in the unfolding struggle for power in Kabul.
On the existential issue facing the next Kabul administration—the war against the Taliban—Gov. Atta has already positioned himself as a hawk among hawks. Unlike other former anti-Taliban commanders from the Northern Alliance, who said they were encouraged by December's peace talks with Taliban representatives in France, Gov. Atta dismissed any negotiations with Mullah Omar's delegates as a "waste of time."
"Their interpretation of Islam is nothing other than killing, explosions and suicide bombings," he said in the interview. The talks have simply given a propaganda boost to the Taliban, he said, adding that the Afghan government's peace overtures so far have been a "unilateral process," with the Taliban failing to reciprocate with any signs of compromise.
The next Afghan administration's duty will be to continue the war against the Taliban, he added. "If the government can't do that, then the people of the North will not accept life under the Taliban and will use all their strength to stand up to the Taliban, as they have done before," Gov. Atta said. "And if a time comes when the Afghan army and police can't fight the Taliban, then the people of the North will take away their weapons to continue this fight."
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared January 26, 2013, on page A8 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Afghan Governor Positions for Presidency.
An Afghanistan Write-Off Isn’t an Option
New York Times By MICHAEL KEATING and MATT WALDMAN Op-Ed Contributors January 25, 2013
PRESIDENT Obama recently said that by the end of next year the war in Afghanistan “will come to a responsible end.”
A responsible approach must recognize the dynamics on the ground. Violence and predation in the country are deeply rooted. Even in the winter fighting “lull,” there are an average of 50 insurgent attacks a day across the country.
What is urgently required is a realistic assessment by the United States and its allies about the challenges ahead, a more political approach, and a commitment to remain engaged in Afghanistan well beyond 2014.
This will not be easy. Disillusionment about Afghanistan in Washington and other capitals is growing. The vast military and civilian enterprise — the United States alone has spent $83 billion in assistance since 2001 — has been shaped more by Western security imperatives than by an understanding of the country’s complex social fabric, political economy, or, for that matter, its peoples’ priorities.
The impact of civilian aid has been mixed. Significant progress has been made in areas such as infrastructure, girls’ education and health, but funds have also contributed to cronyism, corruption and insecurity.
Accelerated drawdown of international forces is ratcheting up anxiety both inside the country and in the region. Meanwhile, the Taliban remain strong; warlords are reported to be rearming; and many Afghans that can are leaving or getting their money out. More than 32,000 Afghans made asylum applications in 2012 — more than any other nationality worldwide.
Relapse into civil war would be disastrous — for the long suffering population and for the wider region.
The early 1990s provides a terrible precedent. Once the Russians withdrew their backing for Najibullah in 1992, his regime collapsed and the country descended into violent upheaval, causing thousands of deaths and disappearances.
A responsible international approach now is the best defense against a repeat of history. What is required above all is a multilayered political strategy that reduces uncertainty and fosters stability.
Only Afghans can reconcile their differences. But the international community can play a critical role in creating the conditions in which this can happen. It should be rooted in ground realities and Afghan interests. It must ensure that international policies do not unwittingly intensify local or national power struggles or undermine stability.
Insecurity and uncertainty are pervasive, rooted in lawlessness, abuse of power, and lack of economic opportunities for men and women. This is compounded by doubts among Afghans about the depth and durability of the West’s commitment to Afghanistan.
The international approach must seek to reinforce security in its broader sense, over the long term. A U.S.-Afghanistan security agreement would send an important signal to Afghans and to regional players that this time — unlike the 1990s — the West will not turn its back on Afghanistan. Aid must be used shrewdly to create jobs, especially for young people, and promote sustainable livelihoods. It must strengthen, not undercut, accountability in the government and its police and security forces.
A reduction in civilian aid is inevitable, and there is a strong case that more can be done with less. But large scale, uncoordinated cuts would be damaging, and reinforce unpredictability.
A stable political transition requires presidential elections in 2014 that are seen by Afghans as legitimate. Electoral complications abound: The lessons from the flawed 2009 elections must be taken on board, including by the international community.
Ultimately, there is a need for a more inclusive, functional and responsive political system that empowers citizens and entrenches checks and balances at the national level.
Above all, political transition requires a more systematic and broad-based reconciliation process. Efforts remain fragile and inchoate. But Pakistan says it will support the process, the United States has backed the establishment of a Taliban office in Doha, and the Taliban say they are open to dialogue.
It is no mystery what needs to happen next: structured talks about core issues between all the parties to the conflict. Given the mistrust between the parties and complexity of the issues, it will require mediation. And the process must be as wide as it is deep: In due course that dialogue must be expanded to include all Afghanistan’s social and political groups, as well as its neighbors.
The United States and its allies can use their influence to help chart a way ahead and correct the corrosive sense of uncertainty. Drawdown must not mean write-off. There are no shortages of potential pitfalls, but progress is possible. It will require political acuity, honesty about the challenges ahead, and a shared determination to address them.
Michael Keating is a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, and former U.N. deputy special representative for Afghanistan (2011-12).Matt Waldman is a fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Eyeing rich bounty, China in line for Afghan role
By DENIS D. GRAY | Associated Press
KABUL (AP) — China, long a bystander to the conflict in Afghanistan, is stepping up its involvement as U.S.-led forces prepare to withdraw, attracted by the country's vast mineral resources but concerned that any post-2014 chaos could embolden Islamist insurgents in its own territory.
Cheered on by the U.S. and other Western governments, which see Asia's giant as a potentially stabilizing force, China could prove the ultimate winner in Afghanistan — having shed no blood and not much aid.
Security — or the lack of it — remains the key challenge: Chinese enterprises have already bagged three multibillion dollar investment projects, but they won't be able to go forward unless conditions get safer. While the Chinese do not appear ready to rush into any vacuum left by the withdrawal of foreign troops, a definite shift toward a more hands-on approach to Afghanistan is under way.
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EDITOR'S NOTE — This story is part of "China's Reach," a project tracking China's influence on its trading partners over three decades and exploring how that is changing business, politics and daily life. Keep up with AP's reporting on China's Reach, and join the conversation about it, using the hashtag (hash)APChinaReach on Twitter.
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Beijing signed a strategic partnership last summer with the war-torn country. This was followed in September with a trip to Kabul by its top security official, the first by a leading Chinese government figure in 46 years, and the announcement that China would train 300 Afghan police officers. China is also showing signs of willingness to help negotiate a peace agreement as NATO prepares to pull out in two years.
It's a new role for China, as its growing economic might gives it a bigger stake in global affairs. Success, though far from guaranteed, could mean a big payoff for a country hungry for resources to sustain its economic growth and eager to maintain stability in Xinjiang.
"If you are able to see a more or less stable situation in Afghanistan, if it becomes another relatively normal Central Asian state, China will be the natural beneficiary," says Andrew Small, a China expert at The German Marshall Fund of the United States, an American research institute. "If you look across Central Asia, that is what has already happened. ... China is the only actor who can foot the level of investment needed in Afghanistan to make it succeed and stick it out."
Over the past decade, China's trade has boomed with Afghanistan's resource-rich neighbors in Central Asia. For Turkmenistan, China trade reached 21 percent of GDP in 2011, up from 1 percent five years earlier, according to an Associated Press analysis of International Monetary Fund data. The equivalent figure for Tajikistan is 32 percent of GDP, versus 12 percent in 2006. China's trade with Afghanistan stood at a modest 1.3 percent of GDP in 2011.
Eyeing Afghanistan's estimated $1 trillion worth of unexploited minerals, Chinese companies have acquired rights to extract vast quantities of copper and coal and snapped up the first oil exploration concessions granted to foreigners in decades. China is also eyeing extensive deposits of lithium, uses of which range from batteries to nuclear components.
The Chinese are also showing interest in investing in hydropower, agriculture and construction. Preliminary talks have been held about a direct road link to China across the remote 76-kilometer (47-mile) border between the two countries, according to Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry.
Wang Lian, a Central Asia expert at Beijing University, notes that superpowers have historically been involved in Afghanistan because it is an Asian crossroads — and China would be no exception.
"It's unquestionable that China bears the responsibility to participate in the political and economic reconstruction of Afghanistan," he says. "A stable Afghanistan is of vital importance to (China). China can't afford to stand aside following the U.S. troop withdrawal and in the process of political transition."
A stable Afghanistan, Wang says, is vital to the security of Xinjiang, China's far west where Islamic militants are seeking independence. Some have gained sanctuary and training in Pakistan and along the Pakistan-Afghan border. Beijing fears chaos, or victory by the Taliban, would allow these groups greater leeway.
The U.S. is encouraging Beijing to boost its investment and aid in Afghanistan and backs its participation in various peace-seeking initiatives, including a Pakistan-Afghanistan-China forum that met last month for the second time.
Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai says there has been a greater sharing of intelligence between his country and China, and a joint U.S.-Chinese program to mentor junior Afghan diplomats. In one of the only cases of such cooperation in the world, the U.S. brought 15 diplomats to Washington, D.C., last month, after they had received similar training in China. Similar three-way programs are being developed in health and agriculture.
"Recently, China has taken a keener interest in the security situation and the transition process, and we are more than happy that this is increasing," Mosazai says. "It's certainly a change, a welcome change."
He adds that Beijing could play a crucial role in forging peace in Afghanistan because of its close relations to Pakistan, which has long-standing links to the Taliban, whose leadership is widely believed to operate from the country.
Davood Moradian, who heads the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies in Kabul, says the Chinese are treading carefully, realizing they lack expertise in a complex political landscape that has tripped up other great powers.
"The Chinese are ambiguous. They don't want the Taliban to return to power and are concerned about a vacuum after 2014 that the Taliban could fill, but they also don't like having U.S. troops in their neighborhood," he says.
Should the Chinese step into the peace process, either as a principal intermediary or through Pakistan, they could carry considerable weight.
"They are rare among the actors in Afghanistan in that they are not seen as having been too close to any side of the conflict. All sides are happy to see China's expanded role," Small says.
Though China doesn't want a Taliban takeover, Beijing regards the group as a "legitimate political force," says Small. Beijing was on its way to recognizing the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan before the 9/11 attacks that led to the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.
The Afghan government has backed off from earlier criticism that the Chinese were not contributing their share to security and reconstruction of the country.
"There was an attitude that the Chinese were just interested in profiting from other people's loss, the blood and sweat of American and other troops," says Moradian. "But that is changing."
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Associated Press reporters Yu Bing in Beijing and Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this story.
EDITOR'S NOTE _ This story is part of "China's Reach," a project tracking China's influence on its trading partners over three decades and exploring how that is changing business, politics and daily life. Keep up with AP's reporting on China's Reach, and join the conversation about it, using the hashtag (hash)APChinaReach on Twitter.
'Games Without Rules' dominate Afghanistan's tangled history
Afghan-American author Tamim Ansary tracks the past of his native country
Christian Science Monitor By Randy Dotinga, Contributing writer January 25, 2013
Tamim Ansary was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, to a father believed to descend from Arab brothers who conquered the city some 13 centuries ago. According to legend, their bodies remain to this day in a pair of hillside tombs where they have company in the form of spirits known as djinns. Considering that history, it's perhaps fitting that Ansary has spent much of his life trying to understand the ghosts that haunt the foreigners who endlessly try to run things in this great land. Ansary, who became an American author and educator, explores the tangled history of his home country in a gripping and enormously readable new book titled Games without Rules: The Often-Interrupted History of Afghanistan. I called Ansary in San Francisco, where he runs a writers workshop. We talked about Afghanistan's crucial role in the world, the unique ways of its culture and his advice for a president who will spend another four years trying to understand this most foreign of faraway countries.
Q: Why has Afghanistan been a hot spot for so long?
The geographical reason is because it's in the way for people for people going from one major spot to another. That was what defined Afghanistan: You had a Turkish civilization to the north, India to the south, Persia to the west. It was the place where all this overlapped, the place you had to pass through.
In many periods of its history, other cultures have gone through and dropped things off. They've found buried cities near Kabul with glass from Egypt, artifacts from China and carvings from Siberia, all these different things.
Q: How did Afghanistan lose its importance over time?
After the 1500s or so, when the West began its rise, the oceans became the highways of the world. Places like Afghanistan were far away from anything. After becoming a really cosmopolitan place, it transformed into this remote spot that no one ever went to until the British and Russians showed up over the past 200 years. Then it was back in play again.
Q: It's like Grand Central, isn't it?
It's a Grand Central that it's everyone has to pass through to get somewhere else. That's been both a blessing and a curse.
Q: Kipling came up with the term "The Great Game" to describe the battle between Britain and Russia over the fate of Afghanistan. That makes it seem like such a fascinating story, doesn't it?
It sounds like a whole lot of fun: "It's lighthearted, a great game! Ah! Good game, old chap!" It has resonance.
Of course, it wasn't fun at all.
Q: You write that another game, called Buzkashi, provides insight into an Afghanistan culture that's so mystified outsiders. It's still immensely popular today. How was this ancient game, which requires men to push a goat carcass across a goal, played in the past?
It's a game of northern Afghanistan and across the river into the lower states of Central Asia.
Sometimes the field would stretch for miles, or it might be a few hundred feet. There was a goal post at one end and another at the other end. There was any number of players, and there weren't teams. No place was out of bounds, and there were no spectators.
It's not exactly about winning. Nobody was counting how many times they'd won a game.
Instead, it was a platform for individuals to gain prestige, manifest their charisma and gain followers. It was about how you'd handled yourself during the game, manifesting your manliness, your courage, your honor.
Q: What do the ancient ways of Buzkashi tell us about Afghanistan culture?
In Afghan society, there was a similar process going on, in which people who emerged into power positions and became authorities and leaders as if they were playing a game of Buzkashi.
There were no rules. By manifesting their great qualities, they would acquire followers and bound their followers through a complicated unwritten ritual of being generous and incurring obligations.
Q: How does that contrast to the way things are done in places like the US?
From the very beginning, and in a way it continues to this day, the West has evolved toward a civil society with a bureaucracy.
In our world, the things that count are the titles that people hold. If you take a guy out of the job and put some other guy in the job, then he plays that role.
Q: Like when we change from one president to another. To borrow a phrase from history, "The king is dead, long live the king," right?
Yes. The assumption of the people from the outside is that if you establish one man on the throne and make him king, you can control the country.
But he's not king because he wears that crown. It's only if he's gone through that leadership process, which is never settled because people rise a little and drop a little. One day they are more of a leader, and one day they are less.
Q: What does this tell us about Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan?
A: The foreign community treats him like he's the ruler of Afghanistan.
To me, it seems that even as all the elections are going on, as cabinet ministers are being appointed, there's a whole other system, a kind of alternative universe. He's not just discharging his duties. He's busy politicking in the old Afghan way, building his network. He's trying to establish himself as a leader in that other sense.
Q: What do Afghans misunderstand about us?
There is some sense in which Afghans don't understand that the West has values.
They see how Western people operate: that they have money, they're efficient, they get things done and they don't squander a lot of time managing social relations in every interaction.
But they don't get that the West has all these unwritten hidden rules that we don't even think about.
There are do's and don'ts, and we know what they are. But when a man from that society comes to this society and sees women on the streets, not being covered up and dressed to be attractive, they think that means they're available and there are no rules. We know that's not the case.
Q: What's behind that perception of women?
Our sense of gender relations is based on a long evolution of a concept of individuality. We have ingrained in our deep psyche that every individual is a person and has rights.
Afghanistan has a psyche that you're only an individual within a collective, a family, a clan, a tribe.
Q: What would you tell President Obama if you had his ear about Afghanistan?
The way they have been operating, people shuffle in and out of Afghanistan maybe on a six-month basis. I feel that something is lacking. There should be a reliance on people who have a longer term commitment to working with Afghanistan.
And when they do cultural training, it should acquaint people with the broad framework of Afghan culture.
I've been asked to do some workshops with soldiers, who really wanted a list of rules. I say, "You'll never learn enough of these things to pass as an Afghan. They'll give you a pass on shaking with the wrong hand. But you need to know what's private and public, and the underlying basis of all of these ideas about men and women."
Q: What's an example of things people should understand?
You need to understand what people think of the Koran.
The Koran is not religious material, it's not a book. It's completely different from the writings of a saint or of a prophet: It's incarnation of god in the material realm. If you understand what they think that is, you don't have to memorize all the rules. You can act toward it in the way that seems appropriate.
Q: What do you see in Afghanistan's future?
When Afghanistan finds its way to its national identity, it's probably not going to be a modern secular country in which there's a separation of church and state.
But it's much more important for that country to have a stable daily life for the people, a sense of cultural sovereignty over its own fate, and a system of governance, rule and law that people can embrace as their own.
As long as one faction pushes against the foreigner, it disrupts the process. But I believe when Afghanistan gets to that, if it gets to that, then we'll actually see the progress that we'd like to see.
Selling little girls to pay back debt
CNN By Samuel Burke January 25th, 2013
The mother of a little Afghan girl cannot even turn to face her daughter. She looks down in shame as she explains why she must hand the girl over to drug lords.
The father of the girl has done what many Afghan farmers must do to finance their opium farms: borrow money from drug traffickers. But the Afghan government and international forces’ attempt to halt the opium trade has quashed the father’s poppy business, and with it, his ability to pay back the lenders.
The drug lords have taken him hostage to extract a payment.
“I have to give my daughter to release my husband,” the mother explains with the girl at her side. She looks no older than six.
Ninety percent of the world's opium – the raw source of heroin – comes from Afghanistan. Growing poppy there has been a lucrative industry.
The Afghan government has been cracking down and destroying illegal crops, leaving many farmers in the same horrifying situation as the family forced to use their own daughter as collateral for the loan.
“They’re way more dangerous and powerful than the Taliban,” one father of two kidnapped children says about the drug lords. He looks at a text messaged picture of his daughter being held in captivity as the captors demand $20,000 from the man over the telephone.
These tragic stories are documented in PBS’ award-winning Frontline film, "Opium Brides,” which was made by investigative Afghan reporter Najibullah Quraishi and producer Jamie Doran.
Quraishi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that when the families give up their children, they are often taken to other countries, like Pakistan or Iran, where they are used for transporting drugs or put into sex slavery.
The film traces another story of an ill-fated Afghan farmer. “It just seemed too awful to be true,” producer Jamie Doran told Amanpour about that man’s plight. “[He] couldn't pay the traffickers back and refused to give his daughter away. And we actually have the entire film of him being beheaded with a penknife. That's what they do if you refuse to hand over your daughters.”
The reporter behind the film says the government is aware that it is destroying families’ lives along with their crops, but policymakers have yet to come up with a solution to safeguard the farmers’ families while trying to end the opium trade.
One little girl who was lucky enough to escape her captors recounts just how horrible the conditions were. “They wouldn't allow me to change my clothes. They wouldn't give me soap to wash them. My clothes became worn out on my body. They did every possible cruelty to me. I really fear that those smugglers will take me again.”
Even if the girls do escape, they often have nowhere to go while they search for their families. The filmmakers did find one halfway house, but it was only enough for about 30 girls.
The filmmakers believe there are many hundreds, if not thousands of girls on the run from the traffickers.
“The role of NATO and the United Nations is fascinating in this situation,” Doran said. “The U.N. and NATO ISAF will tell you it's not their responsibility nor do they advocate the destruction – the eradication of the poppy. But they supply the protection for the police to actually do it. So they're saying on one hand, 'we have nothing to do with this.' But the Afghan police couldn't do without NATO support.”
But Doran points out that the root of the problem is the opium drug users. “I don't know if there's a solution because the world demands poppy cultivation for its heroin addiction. So you know, maybe the blame shouldn't just be put onto the Afghan government. Maybe we should be looking inside ourselves a little more,” Qaurishi said.
The looming fear is that this horrendous situation could worsen when international troops leave Afghanistan in 2014.
Afghan returnees find helping hand at home
DW 25/01/2013
Afghan refugees are increasingly returning home from Iran, complaining of a lack of prospects and discrimination in their host country. A German organization in Herat is offering a new start, and a new future, to many.
It's loud in the workshop. The numbing sound of an electric machine rings out from some part of the factory floor. A group of young men have their heads together around a table, peering over an array of light bulbs and electrodes in suspense.
When the bulbs finally light up, one young man, Farid smiles. Like many of his contemporaries, the 20-year-old is on an eight-month apprenticeship as an electrician in the west Afghan city of Herat. It's all been made possible by the German development organization Help.
Farid could never have dreamt of an apprenticeship like this in Iran, where he lived for five years as a refugee. There, he had no work and there was no help from the state.
"Despite the lack of security in Afghanistan, I am happy to be back in my own country," he said. "The German organization helps us, the unemployed youth. Because of this training, we will be able to find a job later and, what's more, we are also able to do our bit to rebuild our country."
Improving outlook for returnees
About three million Afghans are currently living in Iran. Most are refugees, many of them children or juveniles. They live in difficult circumstances and are discriminated against, according to Help's Regional Director for Iran and Afghanistan, Alfred Horn.
In Iran, Afghan children cannot go to school because, unlike Iranian children, they would have to pay - and work is hard to come by. Afghans are hired only rarely, Horn maintains.
"Two or three years ago, it was still possible to find work in Iran, but that's no longer the case," said Horn. "The Iranian government has cut back on all the subsidies and prices have tripled. Many Iranians are unemployed as are most of the Afghans. A lot of Afghan refugees want to go home."
Without any training, most returnees must work as day laborers, Horn says.
"However, if they get trained with marketable skills then, in out experience, they have a 75 percent chance to find a good job."
Some 1,000 returnees, male and female, have trained with Help. Germany and the European Union have made 1.5 million euros available for the project every year. Since the project began in 2005, the organization has trained more than 5,000 people - a quarter of them female.
In the technical training center in Herat, male apprentices can learn to become carpenters, plumbers, bag makers and barbers. Young women can become beauticians, seamstresses and rug weavers. One of the teachers, Ustad Ghulam, has trained about 300 plumbers over the last five years. The trainees, he observes, are very motivated. “Since I have been here, not one of the students has failed.”
Chances on the labor market
Ghulam is convinced that the training project is having an effect and offers an opportunity to reintegrate into society. "Half of the graduates now earn more money than I do," said Ghulam. "Many of them work on the nearby ISAF air force base at Shindand. Others are taking part in building projects in Herat or have businesses in the city. They are very good at their trades and we still continue to work with them."
Some graduates, however, complain about the poor labor market in many manual occupations. Arif Jalali, a bag-making instructor, explains that the bags that his students produce must be priced to compete with cheaper Chinese products. He claims that most of the bags are sold in Herat are Chinese and are of poor quality.
"Of course, people buy the cheaper products, because they can afford them. The Afghan products don't sell."
Earning the trust of others
Because of this problem, Help is keen to give Afghan producers the chance to market their goods on a long-term basis.
The office in Herat stays in close contact with Afghanistan's Labor Ministry and the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations and is supported by both. Horn said that women could greatly benefit from the program.
"When selecting applicants, we give preference to women and the disabled," explained Horn. It's not unusual for this to attract criticism from local and religious authorities. Horn has a way of dealing with this. “You have to talk to the eldest and say to them: 'You want your own women to be able to learn something too. You want them to be able to cook and to look after your children well. That is what we are teaching them. Part of it is that they should be able to read and write.'"
He said the project was usually accepted if it was sold in the proper way. Just how much trust Horn has accrued, meanwhile, is plain to see in the fact that he has been made an honorary citizen of the city of Herat.
Afghan Officials Criticize U.N. Report on the Abuse and Torture of Detainees
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN January 25, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - A United Nations report, endorsed by the international military command, about torture and abuse in Afghan-run detention facilities, has reopened fissures with American forces and underscored the Afghan government’s sensitivity to being seen as a country that permits torture.
Within three days of the report becoming public, President Hamid Karzai appointed a commission to look into its findings. The National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence agency, which was strongly criticized by the report, took its case public, inviting Afghan television reporters to see some of the detention centers and talk to detainees.
Mr. Karzai’s spokesman said the government was especially perturbed by the endorsement of the report from the International Security Assistance Force because the military has had a program of reviewing Afghan detention facilities for the past year. If it had concerns, he said, the military should have raised them sooner.
“ISAF is regularly visiting Afghan prisons run by the Interior Ministry and N.D.S.,” said Aimal Faizi, the president’s spokesman. “They are coming weekly and after each visit they write a note in the logbook,” he said.
“If there’s a problem, why aren’t they saying it when they visit? This raises the question, why are they raising their voices now?”
In response, a spokesman for the international military command referred to a letter written by Gen. John R. Allen, the ISAF commander, that was in an appendix to the United Nations report. In it, General Allen said that he and his deputy had written to Afghan government ministers about 80 cases of abuse. In some cases, he wrote that he made pleas to remove individuals who were involved in the abuse, but that only one detainee had been removed. Mr. Faizi said he was not aware of the letters.
Even before the report was made public, General Allen halted transfers of detainees to all of the facilities named in the United Nations report because under international human rights law it is prohibited to transfer any detainee to a government where there are “substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”
The report was based on interviews with 635 detainees in facilities around the country, and it found that half of them had experienced torture or abuse. Most of the ill treatment happened in facilities run by the police or the intelligence agency. At a few detention sites, the torture was so frequent that the United Nations report described it as “systematic.”
The Afghan government took particular exception to that terminology, Mr. Faizi said. “It is not the policy of the Afghan government to torture and it’s not systematic. It’s not to the extent that it says in the Unama report,” he said, referring to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.
Afghan officials at the Interior Ministry, which runs the police force, and at the intelligence agency agreed that there were cases of abusive treatment, but said more training and time was needed to persuade a few individuals to stop the bad behavior.
Shafiqullah Tahiri, the intelligence agency’s spokesman, defended the directorate’s detention facilities, saying that both international and Afghan human rights agencies and other observers had visited and had not expressed concerns.
Copies of notes from ISAF and the International Committee of the Red Cross, which were written in logbooks at the detention facilities and provided to The New York Times by Mr. Karzai’s government, were largely neutral, recording that a particular observer had been to the facility and that others would sometimes thank the government for access.
Human rights advocates contend that a note saying that an observer had visited a particular facility was fairly routine and that the Afghan government was evading the underlying point of the United Nations report.
“Allegations have come out repeatedly and have not been taken seriously,” said John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.
“The Afghans are responsible for knowing what’s going on in their own facilities; that’s their obligation, and they are either aware of it and do nothing about it or they are not aware and it’s a lack of oversight,” he said, adding that the ultimate solution was to empower the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission to take on an oversight and ombudsman role on behalf of detainees.
Azam Ahmed contributed reporting from Kabul.
Steeple, cross at U.S. Army base on Afghan frontier raise hackles
By Kari Huus, Staff writer, NBC News
U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan on Thursday ordered the removal of a steeple and crucifix erected over a remote American base in the Muslim country after a soldier deployed there noted that the symbols violated Army regulations, and could reinforce suspicions that the United States is fighting a holy war.
It is unclear how long ago the Christian symbols at the chapel at Forward Operating Base Orgun-E had been in place. In terms of religious displays, they are hardly ostentatious — a cross on a small rooftop steeple and cross-shaped windows in the doors. But Sgt. Joel Muhlnickel was alarmed by the symbolism at Orgun-E, especially the cross that rises up over the rooftops at the base.
"When I think of an army sporting a Christian cross, I think Crusades," Muhlnickel wrote on Facebook from Orgun — a message that was forwarded to NBC News by a third party. "Neither my country nor my army force me to swear allegiance to Odin, Jesus, Buddha or Horus. Freedom from religious oppression is pretty much the reason why the United States was founded."
"It is the sort of thing that provides a boundless bonanza of terrorist propaganda for the mujahedeen, the insurrectionists, the Taliban and al-Qaida that we are supposedly fighting to protect our national security," said Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the non-profit Military Religious Freedom Foundation. "The message of the cross on the chapel is basically putting out the message in Pashto, Dari and Arabic to please blow me up because I'm a latter day Christian crusader."
The U.S. military provides chapels for troops around the world and has thousands of chaplains deployed — the majority of them Christian, while there are also Jewish, Muslim and other faith leaders.
Chapels are set up even in outposts as far-flung as Orgun-E.
But Army regulations state that these facilities — usually nondescript temporary structures — are to be neutral gathering spaces, not dedicated to any one faith, except when being used for a specific worship service. Portable symbols, icons or statues can be used during religious services, but then must be removed or covered up for others who use the space.
"In general the chapels have to be ecumenical so they can be converted from one religion to another," said Elizabeth Hillman, professor of law at University of California Hastings College of Law and President of the National Institute of Military Justice. "To create permanent structures that evoke one particular religion — that is problematic.
"I would think that anything that would increase the vulnerability of a forward operating base is a problematic," Hillman added.
Muhlnickel raised his concerns through his chain of command, and then — unconvinced that it would result in action — turned to outside organizations, including the nonprofit American Atheists.
"Chaplains know the regulations very well," said Justin Griffith, an Army sergeant at Fort Bragg, N.C., and military director for American Atheists in his personal time. "Whoever authorized (the steeple and crosses) knew exactly what they were doing. It's intentionally disrespectful to the non-Christians in the U.S. military ... Put it in Afghanistan, the danger is very real, to personnel, even to Christians."
The Army, contacted by NBC on Tuesday morning, responded to queries Wednesday afternoon, saying the cross had been removed and boards had been placed over the cross-shaped windows while the base ordered new doors.
"The local command in Afghanistan is aware of this chapel and has taken appropriate action to ensure that it is changed into a neutral facility," said a statement from an Army Spokesman at the Pentagon.
Hours later, Orgun command sent out a memo throughout the base explaining that the chapel was to be brought into compliance by eliminating the crosses, and assuring soldiers that it would be handled in a respectful manner.
Griffith, an atheist who often calls out practices that he believes cross the line from the free exercise of religion to unconstitutional proselytizing or discrimination, has learned that his views are unpopular with many in the military. He's concerned about Muhlnickel suffering reprisal.
"Sgt. Muhlnickel’s efforts just put the pin back in the grenade," said Griffith. "The military now needs to protect him from any backlash ... and not punish him for speaking out against the dangerous 'crusader' symbolism."
In similar situations that have come to light, military commanders have ordered the removal of the religious symbols. In April 2012, when a Marine Corps squadron revived the "Crusaders" name with the shield and cross logo for fighter jets, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation challenged the move, citing constitutional and security concerns. The next month, the Marine Corps said that the squadron had converted back to the moniker "Werewolves," replacing the logos from the jets, uniforms, buildings and elsewhere.
A chapel at Camp Marmal, another U.S. base in northern Afghanistan, was ordered to remove a large cross from its chapel after complaints, Politico reported. A spokesman from the Pentagon agreed that the Camp Marmal cross had violated Army regulations.
Afghanistan, where the population is more than 99 percent Muslim, the tiny Christian population worships in secret, out of fear of attack by extremist Muslims. Christian evangelism is illegal in the country, and foreigners suspected of spreading Christian teachings have been deported by the government, and attacked and kidnapped by extremists.
I killed people in Afghanistan. Was I right or wrong?
Washington Post By Timothy Kudo January 25 , 2013
Marine Capt. Timothy Kudo, a graduate student at New York University, deployed to Iraq in 2009 and to Afghanistan from 2010 to 2011. Follow him on Twitter: @tkudo.
When I joined the Marine Corps, I knew I would kill people. I was trained to do it in a number of ways, from pulling a trigger to ordering a bomb strike to beating someone to death with a rock. As I got closer to deploying to war in 2009, my lethal abilities were refined, but my ethical understanding of killing was not.
I held two seemingly contradictory beliefs: Killing is always wrong, but in war, it is necessary. How could something be both immoral and necessary?
I didn’t have time to resolve this question before deploying. And in the first few months, I fell right into killing without thinking twice. We were simply too busy to worry about the morality of what we were doing.
But one day in Afghanistan in 2010, my patrol got into a firefight and ended up killing two people on a motorcycle who we thought were about to attack us. They ignored or didn’t understand our warnings to stop, and according to the military’s “escalation of force” guidelines, we were authorized to shoot them in self-defense. Although we thought they were armed, they turned out to be civilians. One looked no older than 16.
It’s been more than two years since we killed those people on the motorcycle, and I think about them every day. Sometimes it’s when I’m reading the news or watching a movie, but most often it’s when I’m taking a shower or walking down my street in Brooklyn.
They are not the only deaths I carry with me. I also remember the first time a Marine several miles away asked me over the radio whether his unit could kill someone burying a bomb. The decision fell on me alone. I said yes. Those decisions became commonplace over my deployment. Even more frightening than the idea of what we were doing was how easy it became for me. I never shot someone, but I ordered bomb strikes and directed other people to shoot.
Many veterans are unable to reconcile such actions in war with the biblical commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” When they come home from an environment where killing is not only accepted but is a metric of success, the transition to one where killing is wrong can be incomprehensible.
This incongruity can have devastating effects. After more than 10 years of war, the military lost more active-duty members last year to suicide than to enemy fire. More worrisome, the Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that one in five Americans who commit suicide is a veteran, despite the fact that veterans make up just 13 percent of the population.
While I don’t know why individual veterans resort to suicide, I can say that the ethical damage of war may be worse than the physical injuries we sustain. To properly wage war, you have to recalibrate your moral compass. Once you return from the battlefield, it is difficult or impossible to repair it.
VA has started calling this problem “moral injury,” but that’s as deceptive a euphemism as “collateral damage.” This isn’t the kind of injury you recover from with rest, physical therapy and pain medication. War makes us killers. We must confront this horror directly if we’re to be honest about the true costs of war.
I didn’t return from Afghanistan as the same person. My personality is the same, or at least close enough, but I’m no longer the “good” person I once thought I was. There’s nothing that can change that; it’s impossible to forget what happened, and the only people who can forgive me are dead.
I will never know whether my actions in Afghanistan were right or wrong. On good days, I believe they were necessary. But instead, I want to believe that killing, even in war, is wrong.
America will participate in other wars in my lifetime. But if the decision to do so is a collective responsibility, then civilians need to have a better understanding of the consequences. The immorality of war is not a wound we can ignore — as is painfully obvious with so many veterans committing suicide.
Civilians can comprehend the casualties of war because most people know someone who has died. But few know someone who has killed. When I tell people I’m a Marine, the next question many ask is: “Did you kill anyone?” To my ears, this sounds like: “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” They don’t realize they’re asking about an intensely private matter.
Many veterans I know are incensed by this question. It reinforces the isolation they feel in a society that doesn’t seem to care about Iraq or Afghanistan. But to me, it speaks to the fact that civilians’ curiosity about war overwhelms their understanding of it. Most Americans have little idea what war means. Our battles are fought with volunteers, making an intimate knowledge of war voluntary as well — and therefore avoidable.
Veterans are the only ones who can explain the ethical impact of war. For me, this means being open and honest about the deaths I caused and how they have changed me.
The question “Did you kill anyone?” isn’t easy to answer — and it’s certainly not one every veteran wants to. But when civilians ask, I think I have a duty to respond.
And if explaining what I did 6,000 miles away in a conflict far from the public’s consciousness makes the next war less likely, then maybe my actions weren’t in vain.
tim.kudo@gmail.com
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — At least 12 people were killed in bombings around Afghanistan on Saturday, including 10 policemen who died when a suicide bomber driving a motorcycle blew himself up in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province, officials said.
Kunduz provincial police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Husseini said the policemen, including the head of the provincial counterterrorism department and the traffic police chief, were killed at an intersection in Kunduz city. He said 14 other policemen and five civilians were wounded in the explosion.
Saad Mukhtar, the head of the Kunduz health department, confirmed the death toll.
Earlier on Saturday, a remote-controlled bomb planted on a bicycle exploded, killing one police officer and one civilian in the eastern city of Ghazni. Provincial police chief, Gen. Zirawer Zahid, said another five people were wounded.
Suicide attacks by insurgents have become a near daily occurrence around Afghanistan.
On Friday, a suicide car bomber killed five civilians and wounded another 25 in a botched attempt to hit a convoy of NATO supply trucks in eastern Afghanistan. The bomber missed the convoy, which suffered no damage. The attack took place in Tagab district of eastern Kapisa province.
Afghan Governor Positions for Presidency
Regional Leader, One of Most Powerful Outside Kabul, Seen to Have Near-Total Control, Denies Corruption Allegations
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV January 25, 2013, 8:10 p.m. ET The Wall Street Journal
MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan—Giant billboards of governor Mohammed Atta Nour far outnumber the portraits of President Hamid Karzai on the streets of Mazar-e-Sharif, the hub of northern Afghanistan.
In posters that hang over the metropolis he has governed for nearly a decade, Gov. Atta is shown saluting military parades, standing side-by-side with Afghanistan's national heroes and walking down red carpets.
Now, just over a year before Mr. Karzai's final term expires, Gov. Atta—arguably the most powerful Afghan politician outside Kabul—says he is also seriously considering a run for the nation's highest office.
"I told the president that, if there is a national understanding, a collective understanding by all Afghan leaders on a candidate, then I won't run," Gov. Atta said in an interview in his palatial office, after accepting visits from Afghan favor-seekers who approached him, bowing, to whisper requests into his ear. "But if the president makes a decision only with his own team, then I will be a candidate."
Mr. Karzai hasn't decided to support any candidate so far, according to his spokesman, though two of his brothers are seen as possible successors. However it pans out, Afghan and Western officials expect Gov. Atta to be a big player in shaping Afghanistan's post-American future once the U.S.-led coalition's mandate ends in late 2014.
Friends and enemies alike say Gov. Atta, 48 years old, has amassed near-absolute power here in the strategic Balkh province, which includes the industrial city of Mazar-e-Sharif and the busy border crossing with Uzbekistan that is a critical supply and exit route for the U.S.-led military coalition.
"No one here will ever complain about Gov. Atta, either because they're his people, or because they're too scared of him," said Abbas Ibrahimzada, an Afghan parliamentarian from Balkh and one of the region's most prominent businessmen. Mr. Ibrahimzada hastened to describe himself as Gov. Atta's friend, producing an album of photographs showing the two men together.
Over the past decade, almost all of Gov. Atta's political and business rivals here have fallen away—with some killed, some leaving the region and others joining his camp. Some leaders of the Pashtun ethnic community—Afghanistan's largest, but a minority group here—have accused militias reporting to Gov. Atta of assassinations linked to land seizures or political disagreements. Gov. Atta has denied these claims as baseless Taliban propaganda.
"If you oppose him, if you talk against him, and nobody listens to you—then what's the point of doing that?" said Hajji Akhtar Ibrahimkheil, a Pashtun former foe of Gov. Atta's who describes himself as the governor's supporter. He now heads the provincial Peace Council, a body charged with convincing insurgents to lay down arms.
Like all of Afghanistan's 34 provincial governors, Gov. Atta was appointed by Mr. Karzai and, in theory, serves at the Afghan president's pleasure. In practice, he has been the only regional leader to frequently ignore orders from Kabul. In the 2009 presidential elections, Gov. Atta—a former commander of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance—supported Mr. Karzai's main rival, fellow Northern Alliance leader Abdullah Abdullah.
Gov. Atta's rule over Balkh, a province that has attracted businesses from all over Afghanistan, has given him ample financial resources that could be put into campaigning for the next election, scheduled for April 2014, Western officials say. Once a sandal-wearing mujahedeen warrior with a long bushy beard, Gov. Atta can now be seen in pinstripe suits and designer Swiss watches, using a fleet of black Land Cruisers with identical "111" license plates.
Senior Afghan and U.S. officials say the governor has made money by appropriating land for development, taking customs revenues at the border and taking shares of local companies.
Gov. Atta says all of the allegations of corruption and wrongdoing against him are a conspiracy designed to weaken his electoral appeal ahead of the presidential race.
"The only province where all the laws are respected, the only province where every dollar and afghani of revenue collected goes to the central government, is here in Balkh," he said in the interview. "We are not putting our hands into people's pockets."
The same Afghan and Western officials who allege corruption also describe Gov. Atta as the linchpin of stability in Afghanistan's north. "Mazar has thrived under his leadership, and as a result it is one of the most—if not the most—stable cities in the country," a Western diplomat says.
U.S. officials echo that view, saying Gov. Atta, for his flaws, runs one of the most efficient administrations in a country that has long been ranked as one of the world's most corrupt.
Many citizens here agree. "In my home province, you can't venture out after dark. But here I can walk around at 10 p.m. with pockets full of cash," said Shah Mohammad Saifuddin, a native of the neighboring province of Takhar who owns a book store near Mazar-e-Sharif's famed Blue Mosque.
As president, Gov. Atta added, he would "make the rest of Afghanistan be like Balkh, with proper administration, reconstruction and security."
The U.S. has in the past placed high hopes on regional leaders who have been shadowed by corruption allegations but who could offer a firm grip on security, including Nangarhar province Gov. Gul Agha Shirzai, another presidential aspirant and a onetime favorite of U.S. military commanders.
In December, Kabul moved to shut down checkpoints allegedly collecting illegal taxes on behalf of Gov. Shirzai at the Pakistani border, following a Wall Street Journal Report on a U.S. government investigation of corruption in the province. Gov. Shirzai has dismissed the U.S. allegations as politically motivated.
Gov. Atta, an ethnic Tajik, would face an uphill struggle should he choose to run for president. The country's rulers, from the former royals to Taliban leader Mullah Omar to Mr. Karzai, have traditionally come from the Pashtun plurality. With his regional influence and financial muscle, though, Gov. Atta would be a formidable kingmaker in the unfolding struggle for power in Kabul.
On the existential issue facing the next Kabul administration—the war against the Taliban—Gov. Atta has already positioned himself as a hawk among hawks. Unlike other former anti-Taliban commanders from the Northern Alliance, who said they were encouraged by December's peace talks with Taliban representatives in France, Gov. Atta dismissed any negotiations with Mullah Omar's delegates as a "waste of time."
"Their interpretation of Islam is nothing other than killing, explosions and suicide bombings," he said in the interview. The talks have simply given a propaganda boost to the Taliban, he said, adding that the Afghan government's peace overtures so far have been a "unilateral process," with the Taliban failing to reciprocate with any signs of compromise.
The next Afghan administration's duty will be to continue the war against the Taliban, he added. "If the government can't do that, then the people of the North will not accept life under the Taliban and will use all their strength to stand up to the Taliban, as they have done before," Gov. Atta said. "And if a time comes when the Afghan army and police can't fight the Taliban, then the people of the North will take away their weapons to continue this fight."
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared January 26, 2013, on page A8 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Afghan Governor Positions for Presidency.
An Afghanistan Write-Off Isn’t an Option
New York Times By MICHAEL KEATING and MATT WALDMAN Op-Ed Contributors January 25, 2013
PRESIDENT Obama recently said that by the end of next year the war in Afghanistan “will come to a responsible end.”
A responsible approach must recognize the dynamics on the ground. Violence and predation in the country are deeply rooted. Even in the winter fighting “lull,” there are an average of 50 insurgent attacks a day across the country.
What is urgently required is a realistic assessment by the United States and its allies about the challenges ahead, a more political approach, and a commitment to remain engaged in Afghanistan well beyond 2014.
This will not be easy. Disillusionment about Afghanistan in Washington and other capitals is growing. The vast military and civilian enterprise — the United States alone has spent $83 billion in assistance since 2001 — has been shaped more by Western security imperatives than by an understanding of the country’s complex social fabric, political economy, or, for that matter, its peoples’ priorities.
The impact of civilian aid has been mixed. Significant progress has been made in areas such as infrastructure, girls’ education and health, but funds have also contributed to cronyism, corruption and insecurity.
Accelerated drawdown of international forces is ratcheting up anxiety both inside the country and in the region. Meanwhile, the Taliban remain strong; warlords are reported to be rearming; and many Afghans that can are leaving or getting their money out. More than 32,000 Afghans made asylum applications in 2012 — more than any other nationality worldwide.
Relapse into civil war would be disastrous — for the long suffering population and for the wider region.
The early 1990s provides a terrible precedent. Once the Russians withdrew their backing for Najibullah in 1992, his regime collapsed and the country descended into violent upheaval, causing thousands of deaths and disappearances.
A responsible international approach now is the best defense against a repeat of history. What is required above all is a multilayered political strategy that reduces uncertainty and fosters stability.
Only Afghans can reconcile their differences. But the international community can play a critical role in creating the conditions in which this can happen. It should be rooted in ground realities and Afghan interests. It must ensure that international policies do not unwittingly intensify local or national power struggles or undermine stability.
Insecurity and uncertainty are pervasive, rooted in lawlessness, abuse of power, and lack of economic opportunities for men and women. This is compounded by doubts among Afghans about the depth and durability of the West’s commitment to Afghanistan.
The international approach must seek to reinforce security in its broader sense, over the long term. A U.S.-Afghanistan security agreement would send an important signal to Afghans and to regional players that this time — unlike the 1990s — the West will not turn its back on Afghanistan. Aid must be used shrewdly to create jobs, especially for young people, and promote sustainable livelihoods. It must strengthen, not undercut, accountability in the government and its police and security forces.
A reduction in civilian aid is inevitable, and there is a strong case that more can be done with less. But large scale, uncoordinated cuts would be damaging, and reinforce unpredictability.
A stable political transition requires presidential elections in 2014 that are seen by Afghans as legitimate. Electoral complications abound: The lessons from the flawed 2009 elections must be taken on board, including by the international community.
Ultimately, there is a need for a more inclusive, functional and responsive political system that empowers citizens and entrenches checks and balances at the national level.
Above all, political transition requires a more systematic and broad-based reconciliation process. Efforts remain fragile and inchoate. But Pakistan says it will support the process, the United States has backed the establishment of a Taliban office in Doha, and the Taliban say they are open to dialogue.
It is no mystery what needs to happen next: structured talks about core issues between all the parties to the conflict. Given the mistrust between the parties and complexity of the issues, it will require mediation. And the process must be as wide as it is deep: In due course that dialogue must be expanded to include all Afghanistan’s social and political groups, as well as its neighbors.
The United States and its allies can use their influence to help chart a way ahead and correct the corrosive sense of uncertainty. Drawdown must not mean write-off. There are no shortages of potential pitfalls, but progress is possible. It will require political acuity, honesty about the challenges ahead, and a shared determination to address them.
Michael Keating is a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, and former U.N. deputy special representative for Afghanistan (2011-12).Matt Waldman is a fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Eyeing rich bounty, China in line for Afghan role
By DENIS D. GRAY | Associated Press
KABUL (AP) — China, long a bystander to the conflict in Afghanistan, is stepping up its involvement as U.S.-led forces prepare to withdraw, attracted by the country's vast mineral resources but concerned that any post-2014 chaos could embolden Islamist insurgents in its own territory.
Cheered on by the U.S. and other Western governments, which see Asia's giant as a potentially stabilizing force, China could prove the ultimate winner in Afghanistan — having shed no blood and not much aid.
Security — or the lack of it — remains the key challenge: Chinese enterprises have already bagged three multibillion dollar investment projects, but they won't be able to go forward unless conditions get safer. While the Chinese do not appear ready to rush into any vacuum left by the withdrawal of foreign troops, a definite shift toward a more hands-on approach to Afghanistan is under way.
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EDITOR'S NOTE — This story is part of "China's Reach," a project tracking China's influence on its trading partners over three decades and exploring how that is changing business, politics and daily life. Keep up with AP's reporting on China's Reach, and join the conversation about it, using the hashtag (hash)APChinaReach on Twitter.
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Beijing signed a strategic partnership last summer with the war-torn country. This was followed in September with a trip to Kabul by its top security official, the first by a leading Chinese government figure in 46 years, and the announcement that China would train 300 Afghan police officers. China is also showing signs of willingness to help negotiate a peace agreement as NATO prepares to pull out in two years.
It's a new role for China, as its growing economic might gives it a bigger stake in global affairs. Success, though far from guaranteed, could mean a big payoff for a country hungry for resources to sustain its economic growth and eager to maintain stability in Xinjiang.
"If you are able to see a more or less stable situation in Afghanistan, if it becomes another relatively normal Central Asian state, China will be the natural beneficiary," says Andrew Small, a China expert at The German Marshall Fund of the United States, an American research institute. "If you look across Central Asia, that is what has already happened. ... China is the only actor who can foot the level of investment needed in Afghanistan to make it succeed and stick it out."
Over the past decade, China's trade has boomed with Afghanistan's resource-rich neighbors in Central Asia. For Turkmenistan, China trade reached 21 percent of GDP in 2011, up from 1 percent five years earlier, according to an Associated Press analysis of International Monetary Fund data. The equivalent figure for Tajikistan is 32 percent of GDP, versus 12 percent in 2006. China's trade with Afghanistan stood at a modest 1.3 percent of GDP in 2011.
Eyeing Afghanistan's estimated $1 trillion worth of unexploited minerals, Chinese companies have acquired rights to extract vast quantities of copper and coal and snapped up the first oil exploration concessions granted to foreigners in decades. China is also eyeing extensive deposits of lithium, uses of which range from batteries to nuclear components.
The Chinese are also showing interest in investing in hydropower, agriculture and construction. Preliminary talks have been held about a direct road link to China across the remote 76-kilometer (47-mile) border between the two countries, according to Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry.
Wang Lian, a Central Asia expert at Beijing University, notes that superpowers have historically been involved in Afghanistan because it is an Asian crossroads — and China would be no exception.
"It's unquestionable that China bears the responsibility to participate in the political and economic reconstruction of Afghanistan," he says. "A stable Afghanistan is of vital importance to (China). China can't afford to stand aside following the U.S. troop withdrawal and in the process of political transition."
A stable Afghanistan, Wang says, is vital to the security of Xinjiang, China's far west where Islamic militants are seeking independence. Some have gained sanctuary and training in Pakistan and along the Pakistan-Afghan border. Beijing fears chaos, or victory by the Taliban, would allow these groups greater leeway.
The U.S. is encouraging Beijing to boost its investment and aid in Afghanistan and backs its participation in various peace-seeking initiatives, including a Pakistan-Afghanistan-China forum that met last month for the second time.
Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai says there has been a greater sharing of intelligence between his country and China, and a joint U.S.-Chinese program to mentor junior Afghan diplomats. In one of the only cases of such cooperation in the world, the U.S. brought 15 diplomats to Washington, D.C., last month, after they had received similar training in China. Similar three-way programs are being developed in health and agriculture.
"Recently, China has taken a keener interest in the security situation and the transition process, and we are more than happy that this is increasing," Mosazai says. "It's certainly a change, a welcome change."
He adds that Beijing could play a crucial role in forging peace in Afghanistan because of its close relations to Pakistan, which has long-standing links to the Taliban, whose leadership is widely believed to operate from the country.
Davood Moradian, who heads the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies in Kabul, says the Chinese are treading carefully, realizing they lack expertise in a complex political landscape that has tripped up other great powers.
"The Chinese are ambiguous. They don't want the Taliban to return to power and are concerned about a vacuum after 2014 that the Taliban could fill, but they also don't like having U.S. troops in their neighborhood," he says.
Should the Chinese step into the peace process, either as a principal intermediary or through Pakistan, they could carry considerable weight.
"They are rare among the actors in Afghanistan in that they are not seen as having been too close to any side of the conflict. All sides are happy to see China's expanded role," Small says.
Though China doesn't want a Taliban takeover, Beijing regards the group as a "legitimate political force," says Small. Beijing was on its way to recognizing the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan before the 9/11 attacks that led to the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.
The Afghan government has backed off from earlier criticism that the Chinese were not contributing their share to security and reconstruction of the country.
"There was an attitude that the Chinese were just interested in profiting from other people's loss, the blood and sweat of American and other troops," says Moradian. "But that is changing."
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Associated Press reporters Yu Bing in Beijing and Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this story.
EDITOR'S NOTE _ This story is part of "China's Reach," a project tracking China's influence on its trading partners over three decades and exploring how that is changing business, politics and daily life. Keep up with AP's reporting on China's Reach, and join the conversation about it, using the hashtag (hash)APChinaReach on Twitter.
'Games Without Rules' dominate Afghanistan's tangled history
Afghan-American author Tamim Ansary tracks the past of his native country
Christian Science Monitor By Randy Dotinga, Contributing writer January 25, 2013
Tamim Ansary was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, to a father believed to descend from Arab brothers who conquered the city some 13 centuries ago. According to legend, their bodies remain to this day in a pair of hillside tombs where they have company in the form of spirits known as djinns. Considering that history, it's perhaps fitting that Ansary has spent much of his life trying to understand the ghosts that haunt the foreigners who endlessly try to run things in this great land. Ansary, who became an American author and educator, explores the tangled history of his home country in a gripping and enormously readable new book titled Games without Rules: The Often-Interrupted History of Afghanistan. I called Ansary in San Francisco, where he runs a writers workshop. We talked about Afghanistan's crucial role in the world, the unique ways of its culture and his advice for a president who will spend another four years trying to understand this most foreign of faraway countries.
Q: Why has Afghanistan been a hot spot for so long?
The geographical reason is because it's in the way for people for people going from one major spot to another. That was what defined Afghanistan: You had a Turkish civilization to the north, India to the south, Persia to the west. It was the place where all this overlapped, the place you had to pass through.
In many periods of its history, other cultures have gone through and dropped things off. They've found buried cities near Kabul with glass from Egypt, artifacts from China and carvings from Siberia, all these different things.
Q: How did Afghanistan lose its importance over time?
After the 1500s or so, when the West began its rise, the oceans became the highways of the world. Places like Afghanistan were far away from anything. After becoming a really cosmopolitan place, it transformed into this remote spot that no one ever went to until the British and Russians showed up over the past 200 years. Then it was back in play again.
Q: It's like Grand Central, isn't it?
It's a Grand Central that it's everyone has to pass through to get somewhere else. That's been both a blessing and a curse.
Q: Kipling came up with the term "The Great Game" to describe the battle between Britain and Russia over the fate of Afghanistan. That makes it seem like such a fascinating story, doesn't it?
It sounds like a whole lot of fun: "It's lighthearted, a great game! Ah! Good game, old chap!" It has resonance.
Of course, it wasn't fun at all.
Q: You write that another game, called Buzkashi, provides insight into an Afghanistan culture that's so mystified outsiders. It's still immensely popular today. How was this ancient game, which requires men to push a goat carcass across a goal, played in the past?
It's a game of northern Afghanistan and across the river into the lower states of Central Asia.
Sometimes the field would stretch for miles, or it might be a few hundred feet. There was a goal post at one end and another at the other end. There was any number of players, and there weren't teams. No place was out of bounds, and there were no spectators.
It's not exactly about winning. Nobody was counting how many times they'd won a game.
Instead, it was a platform for individuals to gain prestige, manifest their charisma and gain followers. It was about how you'd handled yourself during the game, manifesting your manliness, your courage, your honor.
Q: What do the ancient ways of Buzkashi tell us about Afghanistan culture?
In Afghan society, there was a similar process going on, in which people who emerged into power positions and became authorities and leaders as if they were playing a game of Buzkashi.
There were no rules. By manifesting their great qualities, they would acquire followers and bound their followers through a complicated unwritten ritual of being generous and incurring obligations.
Q: How does that contrast to the way things are done in places like the US?
From the very beginning, and in a way it continues to this day, the West has evolved toward a civil society with a bureaucracy.
In our world, the things that count are the titles that people hold. If you take a guy out of the job and put some other guy in the job, then he plays that role.
Q: Like when we change from one president to another. To borrow a phrase from history, "The king is dead, long live the king," right?
Yes. The assumption of the people from the outside is that if you establish one man on the throne and make him king, you can control the country.
But he's not king because he wears that crown. It's only if he's gone through that leadership process, which is never settled because people rise a little and drop a little. One day they are more of a leader, and one day they are less.
Q: What does this tell us about Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan?
A: The foreign community treats him like he's the ruler of Afghanistan.
To me, it seems that even as all the elections are going on, as cabinet ministers are being appointed, there's a whole other system, a kind of alternative universe. He's not just discharging his duties. He's busy politicking in the old Afghan way, building his network. He's trying to establish himself as a leader in that other sense.
Q: What do Afghans misunderstand about us?
There is some sense in which Afghans don't understand that the West has values.
They see how Western people operate: that they have money, they're efficient, they get things done and they don't squander a lot of time managing social relations in every interaction.
But they don't get that the West has all these unwritten hidden rules that we don't even think about.
There are do's and don'ts, and we know what they are. But when a man from that society comes to this society and sees women on the streets, not being covered up and dressed to be attractive, they think that means they're available and there are no rules. We know that's not the case.
Q: What's behind that perception of women?
Our sense of gender relations is based on a long evolution of a concept of individuality. We have ingrained in our deep psyche that every individual is a person and has rights.
Afghanistan has a psyche that you're only an individual within a collective, a family, a clan, a tribe.
Q: What would you tell President Obama if you had his ear about Afghanistan?
The way they have been operating, people shuffle in and out of Afghanistan maybe on a six-month basis. I feel that something is lacking. There should be a reliance on people who have a longer term commitment to working with Afghanistan.
And when they do cultural training, it should acquaint people with the broad framework of Afghan culture.
I've been asked to do some workshops with soldiers, who really wanted a list of rules. I say, "You'll never learn enough of these things to pass as an Afghan. They'll give you a pass on shaking with the wrong hand. But you need to know what's private and public, and the underlying basis of all of these ideas about men and women."
Q: What's an example of things people should understand?
You need to understand what people think of the Koran.
The Koran is not religious material, it's not a book. It's completely different from the writings of a saint or of a prophet: It's incarnation of god in the material realm. If you understand what they think that is, you don't have to memorize all the rules. You can act toward it in the way that seems appropriate.
Q: What do you see in Afghanistan's future?
When Afghanistan finds its way to its national identity, it's probably not going to be a modern secular country in which there's a separation of church and state.
But it's much more important for that country to have a stable daily life for the people, a sense of cultural sovereignty over its own fate, and a system of governance, rule and law that people can embrace as their own.
As long as one faction pushes against the foreigner, it disrupts the process. But I believe when Afghanistan gets to that, if it gets to that, then we'll actually see the progress that we'd like to see.
Selling little girls to pay back debt
CNN By Samuel Burke January 25th, 2013
The mother of a little Afghan girl cannot even turn to face her daughter. She looks down in shame as she explains why she must hand the girl over to drug lords.
The father of the girl has done what many Afghan farmers must do to finance their opium farms: borrow money from drug traffickers. But the Afghan government and international forces’ attempt to halt the opium trade has quashed the father’s poppy business, and with it, his ability to pay back the lenders.
The drug lords have taken him hostage to extract a payment.
“I have to give my daughter to release my husband,” the mother explains with the girl at her side. She looks no older than six.
Ninety percent of the world's opium – the raw source of heroin – comes from Afghanistan. Growing poppy there has been a lucrative industry.
The Afghan government has been cracking down and destroying illegal crops, leaving many farmers in the same horrifying situation as the family forced to use their own daughter as collateral for the loan.
“They’re way more dangerous and powerful than the Taliban,” one father of two kidnapped children says about the drug lords. He looks at a text messaged picture of his daughter being held in captivity as the captors demand $20,000 from the man over the telephone.
These tragic stories are documented in PBS’ award-winning Frontline film, "Opium Brides,” which was made by investigative Afghan reporter Najibullah Quraishi and producer Jamie Doran.
Quraishi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that when the families give up their children, they are often taken to other countries, like Pakistan or Iran, where they are used for transporting drugs or put into sex slavery.
The film traces another story of an ill-fated Afghan farmer. “It just seemed too awful to be true,” producer Jamie Doran told Amanpour about that man’s plight. “[He] couldn't pay the traffickers back and refused to give his daughter away. And we actually have the entire film of him being beheaded with a penknife. That's what they do if you refuse to hand over your daughters.”
The reporter behind the film says the government is aware that it is destroying families’ lives along with their crops, but policymakers have yet to come up with a solution to safeguard the farmers’ families while trying to end the opium trade.
One little girl who was lucky enough to escape her captors recounts just how horrible the conditions were. “They wouldn't allow me to change my clothes. They wouldn't give me soap to wash them. My clothes became worn out on my body. They did every possible cruelty to me. I really fear that those smugglers will take me again.”
Even if the girls do escape, they often have nowhere to go while they search for their families. The filmmakers did find one halfway house, but it was only enough for about 30 girls.
The filmmakers believe there are many hundreds, if not thousands of girls on the run from the traffickers.
“The role of NATO and the United Nations is fascinating in this situation,” Doran said. “The U.N. and NATO ISAF will tell you it's not their responsibility nor do they advocate the destruction – the eradication of the poppy. But they supply the protection for the police to actually do it. So they're saying on one hand, 'we have nothing to do with this.' But the Afghan police couldn't do without NATO support.”
But Doran points out that the root of the problem is the opium drug users. “I don't know if there's a solution because the world demands poppy cultivation for its heroin addiction. So you know, maybe the blame shouldn't just be put onto the Afghan government. Maybe we should be looking inside ourselves a little more,” Qaurishi said.
The looming fear is that this horrendous situation could worsen when international troops leave Afghanistan in 2014.
Afghan returnees find helping hand at home
DW 25/01/2013
Afghan refugees are increasingly returning home from Iran, complaining of a lack of prospects and discrimination in their host country. A German organization in Herat is offering a new start, and a new future, to many.
It's loud in the workshop. The numbing sound of an electric machine rings out from some part of the factory floor. A group of young men have their heads together around a table, peering over an array of light bulbs and electrodes in suspense.
When the bulbs finally light up, one young man, Farid smiles. Like many of his contemporaries, the 20-year-old is on an eight-month apprenticeship as an electrician in the west Afghan city of Herat. It's all been made possible by the German development organization Help.
Farid could never have dreamt of an apprenticeship like this in Iran, where he lived for five years as a refugee. There, he had no work and there was no help from the state.
"Despite the lack of security in Afghanistan, I am happy to be back in my own country," he said. "The German organization helps us, the unemployed youth. Because of this training, we will be able to find a job later and, what's more, we are also able to do our bit to rebuild our country."
Improving outlook for returnees
About three million Afghans are currently living in Iran. Most are refugees, many of them children or juveniles. They live in difficult circumstances and are discriminated against, according to Help's Regional Director for Iran and Afghanistan, Alfred Horn.
In Iran, Afghan children cannot go to school because, unlike Iranian children, they would have to pay - and work is hard to come by. Afghans are hired only rarely, Horn maintains.
"Two or three years ago, it was still possible to find work in Iran, but that's no longer the case," said Horn. "The Iranian government has cut back on all the subsidies and prices have tripled. Many Iranians are unemployed as are most of the Afghans. A lot of Afghan refugees want to go home."
Without any training, most returnees must work as day laborers, Horn says.
"However, if they get trained with marketable skills then, in out experience, they have a 75 percent chance to find a good job."
Some 1,000 returnees, male and female, have trained with Help. Germany and the European Union have made 1.5 million euros available for the project every year. Since the project began in 2005, the organization has trained more than 5,000 people - a quarter of them female.
In the technical training center in Herat, male apprentices can learn to become carpenters, plumbers, bag makers and barbers. Young women can become beauticians, seamstresses and rug weavers. One of the teachers, Ustad Ghulam, has trained about 300 plumbers over the last five years. The trainees, he observes, are very motivated. “Since I have been here, not one of the students has failed.”
Chances on the labor market
Ghulam is convinced that the training project is having an effect and offers an opportunity to reintegrate into society. "Half of the graduates now earn more money than I do," said Ghulam. "Many of them work on the nearby ISAF air force base at Shindand. Others are taking part in building projects in Herat or have businesses in the city. They are very good at their trades and we still continue to work with them."
Some graduates, however, complain about the poor labor market in many manual occupations. Arif Jalali, a bag-making instructor, explains that the bags that his students produce must be priced to compete with cheaper Chinese products. He claims that most of the bags are sold in Herat are Chinese and are of poor quality.
"Of course, people buy the cheaper products, because they can afford them. The Afghan products don't sell."
Earning the trust of others
Because of this problem, Help is keen to give Afghan producers the chance to market their goods on a long-term basis.
The office in Herat stays in close contact with Afghanistan's Labor Ministry and the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriations and is supported by both. Horn said that women could greatly benefit from the program.
"When selecting applicants, we give preference to women and the disabled," explained Horn. It's not unusual for this to attract criticism from local and religious authorities. Horn has a way of dealing with this. “You have to talk to the eldest and say to them: 'You want your own women to be able to learn something too. You want them to be able to cook and to look after your children well. That is what we are teaching them. Part of it is that they should be able to read and write.'"
He said the project was usually accepted if it was sold in the proper way. Just how much trust Horn has accrued, meanwhile, is plain to see in the fact that he has been made an honorary citizen of the city of Herat.
Afghan Officials Criticize U.N. Report on the Abuse and Torture of Detainees
New York Times By ALISSA J. RUBIN January 25, 2013
KABUL, Afghanistan - A United Nations report, endorsed by the international military command, about torture and abuse in Afghan-run detention facilities, has reopened fissures with American forces and underscored the Afghan government’s sensitivity to being seen as a country that permits torture.
Within three days of the report becoming public, President Hamid Karzai appointed a commission to look into its findings. The National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence agency, which was strongly criticized by the report, took its case public, inviting Afghan television reporters to see some of the detention centers and talk to detainees.
Mr. Karzai’s spokesman said the government was especially perturbed by the endorsement of the report from the International Security Assistance Force because the military has had a program of reviewing Afghan detention facilities for the past year. If it had concerns, he said, the military should have raised them sooner.
“ISAF is regularly visiting Afghan prisons run by the Interior Ministry and N.D.S.,” said Aimal Faizi, the president’s spokesman. “They are coming weekly and after each visit they write a note in the logbook,” he said.
“If there’s a problem, why aren’t they saying it when they visit? This raises the question, why are they raising their voices now?”
In response, a spokesman for the international military command referred to a letter written by Gen. John R. Allen, the ISAF commander, that was in an appendix to the United Nations report. In it, General Allen said that he and his deputy had written to Afghan government ministers about 80 cases of abuse. In some cases, he wrote that he made pleas to remove individuals who were involved in the abuse, but that only one detainee had been removed. Mr. Faizi said he was not aware of the letters.
Even before the report was made public, General Allen halted transfers of detainees to all of the facilities named in the United Nations report because under international human rights law it is prohibited to transfer any detainee to a government where there are “substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.”
The report was based on interviews with 635 detainees in facilities around the country, and it found that half of them had experienced torture or abuse. Most of the ill treatment happened in facilities run by the police or the intelligence agency. At a few detention sites, the torture was so frequent that the United Nations report described it as “systematic.”
The Afghan government took particular exception to that terminology, Mr. Faizi said. “It is not the policy of the Afghan government to torture and it’s not systematic. It’s not to the extent that it says in the Unama report,” he said, referring to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.
Afghan officials at the Interior Ministry, which runs the police force, and at the intelligence agency agreed that there were cases of abusive treatment, but said more training and time was needed to persuade a few individuals to stop the bad behavior.
Shafiqullah Tahiri, the intelligence agency’s spokesman, defended the directorate’s detention facilities, saying that both international and Afghan human rights agencies and other observers had visited and had not expressed concerns.
Copies of notes from ISAF and the International Committee of the Red Cross, which were written in logbooks at the detention facilities and provided to The New York Times by Mr. Karzai’s government, were largely neutral, recording that a particular observer had been to the facility and that others would sometimes thank the government for access.
Human rights advocates contend that a note saying that an observer had visited a particular facility was fairly routine and that the Afghan government was evading the underlying point of the United Nations report.
“Allegations have come out repeatedly and have not been taken seriously,” said John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.
“The Afghans are responsible for knowing what’s going on in their own facilities; that’s their obligation, and they are either aware of it and do nothing about it or they are not aware and it’s a lack of oversight,” he said, adding that the ultimate solution was to empower the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission to take on an oversight and ombudsman role on behalf of detainees.
Azam Ahmed contributed reporting from Kabul.
Steeple, cross at U.S. Army base on Afghan frontier raise hackles
By Kari Huus, Staff writer, NBC News
U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan on Thursday ordered the removal of a steeple and crucifix erected over a remote American base in the Muslim country after a soldier deployed there noted that the symbols violated Army regulations, and could reinforce suspicions that the United States is fighting a holy war.
It is unclear how long ago the Christian symbols at the chapel at Forward Operating Base Orgun-E had been in place. In terms of religious displays, they are hardly ostentatious — a cross on a small rooftop steeple and cross-shaped windows in the doors. But Sgt. Joel Muhlnickel was alarmed by the symbolism at Orgun-E, especially the cross that rises up over the rooftops at the base.
"When I think of an army sporting a Christian cross, I think Crusades," Muhlnickel wrote on Facebook from Orgun — a message that was forwarded to NBC News by a third party. "Neither my country nor my army force me to swear allegiance to Odin, Jesus, Buddha or Horus. Freedom from religious oppression is pretty much the reason why the United States was founded."
"It is the sort of thing that provides a boundless bonanza of terrorist propaganda for the mujahedeen, the insurrectionists, the Taliban and al-Qaida that we are supposedly fighting to protect our national security," said Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the non-profit Military Religious Freedom Foundation. "The message of the cross on the chapel is basically putting out the message in Pashto, Dari and Arabic to please blow me up because I'm a latter day Christian crusader."
The U.S. military provides chapels for troops around the world and has thousands of chaplains deployed — the majority of them Christian, while there are also Jewish, Muslim and other faith leaders.
Chapels are set up even in outposts as far-flung as Orgun-E.
But Army regulations state that these facilities — usually nondescript temporary structures — are to be neutral gathering spaces, not dedicated to any one faith, except when being used for a specific worship service. Portable symbols, icons or statues can be used during religious services, but then must be removed or covered up for others who use the space.
"In general the chapels have to be ecumenical so they can be converted from one religion to another," said Elizabeth Hillman, professor of law at University of California Hastings College of Law and President of the National Institute of Military Justice. "To create permanent structures that evoke one particular religion — that is problematic.
"I would think that anything that would increase the vulnerability of a forward operating base is a problematic," Hillman added.
Muhlnickel raised his concerns through his chain of command, and then — unconvinced that it would result in action — turned to outside organizations, including the nonprofit American Atheists.
"Chaplains know the regulations very well," said Justin Griffith, an Army sergeant at Fort Bragg, N.C., and military director for American Atheists in his personal time. "Whoever authorized (the steeple and crosses) knew exactly what they were doing. It's intentionally disrespectful to the non-Christians in the U.S. military ... Put it in Afghanistan, the danger is very real, to personnel, even to Christians."
The Army, contacted by NBC on Tuesday morning, responded to queries Wednesday afternoon, saying the cross had been removed and boards had been placed over the cross-shaped windows while the base ordered new doors.
"The local command in Afghanistan is aware of this chapel and has taken appropriate action to ensure that it is changed into a neutral facility," said a statement from an Army Spokesman at the Pentagon.
Hours later, Orgun command sent out a memo throughout the base explaining that the chapel was to be brought into compliance by eliminating the crosses, and assuring soldiers that it would be handled in a respectful manner.
Griffith, an atheist who often calls out practices that he believes cross the line from the free exercise of religion to unconstitutional proselytizing or discrimination, has learned that his views are unpopular with many in the military. He's concerned about Muhlnickel suffering reprisal.
"Sgt. Muhlnickel’s efforts just put the pin back in the grenade," said Griffith. "The military now needs to protect him from any backlash ... and not punish him for speaking out against the dangerous 'crusader' symbolism."
In similar situations that have come to light, military commanders have ordered the removal of the religious symbols. In April 2012, when a Marine Corps squadron revived the "Crusaders" name with the shield and cross logo for fighter jets, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation challenged the move, citing constitutional and security concerns. The next month, the Marine Corps said that the squadron had converted back to the moniker "Werewolves," replacing the logos from the jets, uniforms, buildings and elsewhere.
A chapel at Camp Marmal, another U.S. base in northern Afghanistan, was ordered to remove a large cross from its chapel after complaints, Politico reported. A spokesman from the Pentagon agreed that the Camp Marmal cross had violated Army regulations.
Afghanistan, where the population is more than 99 percent Muslim, the tiny Christian population worships in secret, out of fear of attack by extremist Muslims. Christian evangelism is illegal in the country, and foreigners suspected of spreading Christian teachings have been deported by the government, and attacked and kidnapped by extremists.
I killed people in Afghanistan. Was I right or wrong?
Washington Post By Timothy Kudo January 25 , 2013
Marine Capt. Timothy Kudo, a graduate student at New York University, deployed to Iraq in 2009 and to Afghanistan from 2010 to 2011. Follow him on Twitter: @tkudo.
When I joined the Marine Corps, I knew I would kill people. I was trained to do it in a number of ways, from pulling a trigger to ordering a bomb strike to beating someone to death with a rock. As I got closer to deploying to war in 2009, my lethal abilities were refined, but my ethical understanding of killing was not.
I held two seemingly contradictory beliefs: Killing is always wrong, but in war, it is necessary. How could something be both immoral and necessary?
I didn’t have time to resolve this question before deploying. And in the first few months, I fell right into killing without thinking twice. We were simply too busy to worry about the morality of what we were doing.
But one day in Afghanistan in 2010, my patrol got into a firefight and ended up killing two people on a motorcycle who we thought were about to attack us. They ignored or didn’t understand our warnings to stop, and according to the military’s “escalation of force” guidelines, we were authorized to shoot them in self-defense. Although we thought they were armed, they turned out to be civilians. One looked no older than 16.
It’s been more than two years since we killed those people on the motorcycle, and I think about them every day. Sometimes it’s when I’m reading the news or watching a movie, but most often it’s when I’m taking a shower or walking down my street in Brooklyn.
They are not the only deaths I carry with me. I also remember the first time a Marine several miles away asked me over the radio whether his unit could kill someone burying a bomb. The decision fell on me alone. I said yes. Those decisions became commonplace over my deployment. Even more frightening than the idea of what we were doing was how easy it became for me. I never shot someone, but I ordered bomb strikes and directed other people to shoot.
Many veterans are unable to reconcile such actions in war with the biblical commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” When they come home from an environment where killing is not only accepted but is a metric of success, the transition to one where killing is wrong can be incomprehensible.
This incongruity can have devastating effects. After more than 10 years of war, the military lost more active-duty members last year to suicide than to enemy fire. More worrisome, the Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that one in five Americans who commit suicide is a veteran, despite the fact that veterans make up just 13 percent of the population.
While I don’t know why individual veterans resort to suicide, I can say that the ethical damage of war may be worse than the physical injuries we sustain. To properly wage war, you have to recalibrate your moral compass. Once you return from the battlefield, it is difficult or impossible to repair it.
VA has started calling this problem “moral injury,” but that’s as deceptive a euphemism as “collateral damage.” This isn’t the kind of injury you recover from with rest, physical therapy and pain medication. War makes us killers. We must confront this horror directly if we’re to be honest about the true costs of war.
I didn’t return from Afghanistan as the same person. My personality is the same, or at least close enough, but I’m no longer the “good” person I once thought I was. There’s nothing that can change that; it’s impossible to forget what happened, and the only people who can forgive me are dead.
I will never know whether my actions in Afghanistan were right or wrong. On good days, I believe they were necessary. But instead, I want to believe that killing, even in war, is wrong.
America will participate in other wars in my lifetime. But if the decision to do so is a collective responsibility, then civilians need to have a better understanding of the consequences. The immorality of war is not a wound we can ignore — as is painfully obvious with so many veterans committing suicide.
Civilians can comprehend the casualties of war because most people know someone who has died. But few know someone who has killed. When I tell people I’m a Marine, the next question many ask is: “Did you kill anyone?” To my ears, this sounds like: “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” They don’t realize they’re asking about an intensely private matter.
Many veterans I know are incensed by this question. It reinforces the isolation they feel in a society that doesn’t seem to care about Iraq or Afghanistan. But to me, it speaks to the fact that civilians’ curiosity about war overwhelms their understanding of it. Most Americans have little idea what war means. Our battles are fought with volunteers, making an intimate knowledge of war voluntary as well — and therefore avoidable.
Veterans are the only ones who can explain the ethical impact of war. For me, this means being open and honest about the deaths I caused and how they have changed me.
The question “Did you kill anyone?” isn’t easy to answer — and it’s certainly not one every veteran wants to. But when civilians ask, I think I have a duty to respond.
And if explaining what I did 6,000 miles away in a conflict far from the public’s consciousness makes the next war less likely, then maybe my actions weren’t in vain.
tim.kudo@gmail.com
www.afghanistannewscenter.com