Afghan Journal

“Broken Afghanistan” hits back at Britain

New British Defence Secretary Liam Fox’s remarks describing Afghanistan as a broken 13th-century country have predictably touched off a firestorm of criticism both at home and in Afghanistan.  For a moment, though, if you drove around  Kabul’s dusty hillsides dotted with dirt-poor, crumbling dwellings and saw the war-ravaged capital’s ruins, you could  forgive Fox for thinking he was in a medieval-era country.

Indeed the criticism against him in Afghanistan is not so much about it being a broken country, but that who exactly is responsible.  Mandegar, a local  newspaper, kicked off its reaction with the headline : “Our 13th century society is the result of your colonialism.”  It reminds readers about the British wars in Afghanistan and how each time Afghans succeeded in driving them out of the country.  “We don’t need Britain in Afghanistan,”  the Arman e-Melli daily said.

Referring to Fox’s remarks that troops were not in Afghanistan to promote education, but rather to defend British streets, the newspaper said Afghans were very aware that the British involvement in south Asia throughout history was aimed at protecting its interests, often at great cost to the countries in the region.  It was a pity that Afghans were fighting each other, otherwise they would have lifted the country out of the “13th century”, the newspaper said.

Fox’s characterisation of Afghanistan was raised at a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the weekend, the Times said. It quoted an Afghan source as saying that the remarks showed Britain to be a “colonialist, orientalist and  racist country.”  In his defence,  Fox’s office has pointed to similar remarks made by Karzai in the past about the Taliban leaving behind a 13th or 14th century country.

Some people are saying it’s Britain that’s broken and is looking for a reason to leave Afghanistan.  British  soldiers are horribly over-extended, taking an ever higher number of casualties and the country can hardly afford the financial costs of keeping them there indefinitely, the Independent wrote.   On Monday, the British Defence Ministry announced that the army’s top bomb disposal officer had resigned , a move which the Sun newspaper said was prompted by concerns that a shortage of  trained bomb disposal experts was putting troops in Afghanistan under strain.

The price of failure in Afghanistan

On the eve of Hamid Karzai’s inauguration as Afghanistan’s president, the obvious question to ask is what happens if he, or more crucially his Western backers, fail to turn back a resurgent Taliban the second time around.

Steve Coll, journalist and president of the New America Foundation, sets out four consequences of failure in Afghanistan in a blog in The New Yorker, which speak to those especially in America who question its involvement in the first place in this far-off “graveyard of empires.”

A new ABC/Washington Post poll says 52 percent of Americans don’t believe the war is worth the costs.

Coll says: 

1) If the world were to give up on Afghanistan and the Taliban were to return to power, it would mean a re-run of the Civil War in the 90s, but this time on “steroids”. It is inconceivable that the Taliban could triumph in the country completely and provide a regime (however perverse) of stability and so you could have a rump Afghan government dominated by ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks find arms and money from India, Iran, and perhaps Russia, Europe and the United States. This would likely produce a long-running civil war between northern, Tajik-dominated ethnic militias and the Pashtun-dominated Taliban.

2) Success in Afghanistan would give momentum for a Taliban revolution in Pakistan. If the Quetta Shura regained power in Kandahar or Kabul, it would undoubtedly interpret its triumph as a ticket to further ambition in Pakistan. The Pakistani Taliban would likely be energized, armed and financed by the Afghan Taliban as they pursue their own revolutionary ambitions in Islamabad.

3) Increased Islamist Violence Against India : The probable knock-on effect of a second Taliban revolution Afghanistan would be to increase the likelihood of irregular Islamist attacks from Pakistan against Indian targets as they see to extend their influence. In time, democratic Indian governments would be pressed by their electorates to respond with military force, and the world would then have to deal with a fourth Indian-Pakistan war, this time both nations nuclear-armed.

from UK News:

Drawing the line against the Taliban

Fight them there or fight them here?

Former Foreign Office minister Kim Howells poses the question in the Guardian in a piece made grimly relevant by Wednesday's shooting dead of  five British soldiers by an Afghan policeman.

Howells says troops should be brought back from Afghanistan and that the billions of pounds saved should be used to beef up homeland security in Britain -- drawing the front line against al Qaeda around the UK rather than thousands of miles away in Helmand province.

He accepts that such an approach would result in "more intrusive surveillance in certain communities," a tacit acknowledgment that Britain's Muslims would be subject to greater scrutiny by police and intelligence services.

His "Fortress Britain" theory takes into account indications that a growing number of experts feel the war against the Al Qaeda's supporters the Taliban in Afghanistan is unwinnable.

It also makes the point that not all Al Qaeda training camps are in Afghanistan anyway.

Howells is Gordon Brown's intelligence and security watchdog and his theory goes counter to the prevailing wisdom in Washington and London, both of which are preparing to send more troops to Afghanistan.