What's going on in Afghanistan?
 

I had hardly heard a word about Afghanistan in the year since this Iraq circus began. Last I heard, interm President Hared Karzai was starting an Afghani military.

According to Google news, there is both good and bad news about Afghanistan these days. The Loya Jirga (Legislative body) has recently met, and is attempting to decide upon a constitution for Afghanistan. The Pashtun (Karzai) are pushing a strong presidency, while many Tajiks (Northern Alliance) are seeking a parliamentary system. The presidential notion seems to have the upper hand for now. One quarter of the presidential nominees are women. On the other hand, the proposed constitution has been lambasted by an international thinktank (The Crisis Group) as being detrimental to democracy.

US officials boast of the success that all of the delegates of the Loya Jirga were able to make it to Kabul without dying.

Afghani officials hope that the successful capture of Saddam Hussein will lead to the capture of notorious Taliban officials such as Osama bin Laden, the leader of the Taliban (Mullah Omar) and the Taliban Prime Minister of Afghanistan. Sightings of ObL and Omar have been reported along with border with Afghanistan. Karzai has described at least one sighting as "reliable".

On the gripping hand, the Taliban seems to be coming back from the dead. They have adopted guerilla (these days, the word is terrorist) warfare tactics, and have recently introduced suicide bombings into their repitoire. Every news source describes the Taliban as "resurgent". Heroin production, once banned by the Taliban, is now used to generate funds to fight the interim government (which is starving for cash).

The UN is threatening to pull it's agencies out of Afghanistan if the United States cannot ensure their safety. According to Independent.co.uk, the Taliban has begun systematically killing aid workers. The threat to leave is 'understood to be a last-gasp attempt to halt Afghanistan's slide'. United Nations aid workers pulled out of the Taliban southeast months ago, and most have now been pulled back to Kabul. The once-worrisome process of retreating Alliance power to the capitol is nearly complete: the nation outside of Kabul is in a state of general lawlessness.

"US military officials in Afghanistan admitted the Taliban had adopted the same devastating roadside bombing technique employed by guerrillas in Iraq, from which the UN has already mostly withdrawn. "

Southeast (Pashtun) Afghanistan is infuriated, following another bungled military operation wherein 15 children were killed by US air strikes. The United States military recently launched it's largest offensive (in terms of soldiers [2000]) aganst the Taliban, but hundreds of soldiers have returned home to the United States.

I started writing that post cheerfully, having read about the meeting of the Loya Jirga and how they were planning the future of Afghanistan. Now I think that the situation there has soured.

Reading about the local's hopes for the Loya Jirga reminds me of my textbook's descriptions of the French Revolution.

According to the Independent, Rumsfeld's quarters in Kabul were hit by rockets while he was staying there last week, just like Wolfowitz's Rashid Hotel was hit with rockets by guerillas a few weeks ago in Iraq. Why hadn't I heard about that (the assault on Wolfowitz) on the Cellar?

People aren't sure whether Pakistan is helping or hindering the Taliban. I haven't heard much about Pakistan since we slighted and scorned Musharraf when he helped us during the war on Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has always been a savage, uncivilized, crude and unorganized bunch of people.

It will always be just that.

The Afghaniese are strongly tied to their 'land' but not their 'country' as Afghanistan never had true centralized leadership.

Unorganized? They seem to have a system of chiefs and barons.

Actually, thinking about it, it's not surprising that we managed to clear the ground of the Taliban so quickly. Machiavelli claimed that a state with many barons (warlords) would be easy to conquer initially, because you could be helped by a dissident baron or faction; but it would be very difficult to hold. So it's not surprising that we're having trouble keeping Afghanistan free of the Taliban.

(Heh -- Eisenhower said that American military interests did not extend as far as Afghanistan. Has every single group involved with the Communists tried and failed to work with the United States first?)

http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/asia/afghan-bck1023.htm


All you could want to know about Afghanistan.

I never saw what was there before, but the post that you have there now is indeed quite legible.

This article by the War Nerd at eXile.ru speaks well of the situation in Afghanistan.

(Oops -- I guess that this thread should have been started in Politics).

Idries Shah died before the whole Taliban-al-Quaeaeaadaea-Afghanistan thing hit the fan, but he's written a few pro-Afghani books. I'm mostway through <a href="http://ishkbooks.com/books/ADAF1.html">Adventures in Afghanistan</a>, which is circa the Afghan/Russian war. <a href="http://www.ishkbooks.com/database/KAKU1.html">Kara Kush</a>, while technically fiction, is supposedly based on Shah's <a href="http://www.clearlight.com/~sufi/shahobit.htm">own experience</a> in the war.

Just another perspective, particularly re: the "they've always been fags" bit.