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Old 09-08-2006, 03:16 AM   #1
Hippikos
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They're Back!

Five years after their removal from power: The Taliban are back.

Taliban Frontline now cuts half-way through Afghanistan.

US and UK led failed counter-narcotics policies are responsible.

Humanitarian crisis hits southern Afghanistan - extreme poverty, drought and hundreds of thousands starving in south.

LONDON � The Taliban have regained control over the southern half of Afghanistan and their frontline is advancing daily, warned The Senlis Council on the release of an evaluation report of the reconstruction of Afghanistan marking the five year anniversary of 9/11. The Report is based on extensive field research in the critical provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Herat and Nangarhar.

The Taliban frontline now cuts half-way through the country, encompassing all of the southern provinces. Senlis Afghanistan reports that five years after the 2001 US-led invasion, a humanitarian crisis of starvation and poverty has gripped the south of the country and that the US and UK-led failed counter-narcotics and military policies are responsible. The subsequent rising levels of extreme poverty have created increasing support for the Taliban, who have responded to the needs of the local population.

Taliban�s return to power is a direct consequence of the flawed approach that the US-led international community has taken in Afghanistan since 2001
�When you first came here we were so glad to see you. Now we have lived with you in our country for five years and we see you tell a lot of lies and make a lot of false promises,� says a former Mujaheedin commander from Kandahar quoted in the Report.

The US-led nation-building efforts have failed because of ineffective and inflammatory military and counter narcotics policies. At the same time there has been a dramatic under-funding of aid and development programs.

�Huge amounts of money have been spent on large and costly military operations, but after five years southern Afghanistan is once more a battlefield for the control of the country,� said Emmanuel Reinert, Executive Director of The Senlis Council. �At the same time Afghans are starving. The US has lost control in Afghanistan and has in many ways undercut the new democracy in Afghanistan. I think we can call that a failure, and one with dire consequences which should concern us all. The US policies in Afghanistan have re-created the safe-haven for terrorism that the 2001 invasion aimed to destroy.�

Emergency Food Aid needed now: �Children are dying here�

Due to lack of funding from the international community the Afghan Government and the United Nation�s World Food Programme are unable to address Afghanistan�s hunger crisis. Despite appeals for aid funds, the US-led international community has continued to direct the majority of aid funds towards military and security operations.

�The United Nations World Food Programme has been forced to cancel plans to provide more than 2.5 million Afghans with urgent food aid,� said Reinert. �Unless these needs are met, this will have dire consequences for millions of Afghans.�

Hunger and the insurgency: Hunger Leads to Anger

�Five years after 9/11, Afghanistan is still one of the poorest countries in the world and there is a hunger crisis in the fragile Southern part of the country,� said Reinert. �Remarkably this vital fact seems to have been overlooked in funding and prioritisation of the foreign policy, military, counter narcotics and reconstruction plans.

Relieving poverty, which should have been the main priority, has not received the attention it so desperately needed. Consequently the international community has lost the battle for the hearts and mind of the Afghan people.

The Report reveals that makeshift, unregistered refugee camps of starving children, civilians displaced by counter narcotics eradication and bombing campaigns can be found on the doorstep of new US and UK multi million dollar military camps.

�I took my child to the graveyard, my child died of hunger. There are children dying here,� said a man in one of these camps in Kandahar Province.

�Hunger leads to anger,� said Reinert. �Farmers who have had their poppy crop eradicated by the US and UK led eradication campaign now see their children facing starvation.�

These camps also accommodate families who have left their home due to violence and fighting. Some are there because their homes have been destroyed by coalition forces� interventions in the �war on terror� and the current heightened counter-insurgency operations.

A man in a camp in Lashkar Gah is quoted in the Report as saying, �After the bombing I moved to Lashkar Gah�I am afraid and terrified.� There have been no official camps established to provide for civilians who left their villages due to US bombing campaigns.

Hunger has led to anger against the rich foreign community the Afghans see in their country. This and the crop eradication policies provide a perfect breeding ground for the Taliban propaganda against the foreign presence in Afghanistan.

US and UK-led failed counter-narcotics policies are responsible for the hunger crisis and the return of the Taliban

By triggering both anger and a hunger crisis in southern Afghanistan, US and UK-led counter-narcotics policies are directly responsible for the breakdown in security and the return of the Taliban.

�Forced poppy crop eradication is an anti-poor policy,� said Reinert. �Poppy cultivation means survival for thousands of Afghans. By destroying entire communities� livelihoods, without any alternative plan for how the farmers would feed their families, the current eradication programmes are pushing farmers straight back into the arms of the Taliban.�

A worker in Kandahar city is quoted as saying �In the villages, they had their crops destroyed, there is no water, no jobs, nothing to do � isn�t it fair that they go and join the Taliban? Wouldn�t you do the same thing?�

The Wrong priorities since 2001

�Prioritising the �war on terror� over the �war on poverty� has recreated the exact situation it was intended to remove in southern Afghanistan,� said Reinert. �Right from 2001, the US-led international community�s priorities for Afghanistan were not in line with those of the Afghan population. It is a classic military error: they did not properly identify the enemy.�

An Afghan commander in Kandahar province is quoted as saying �The foreigners came here and said they would help the poor people and improve the economic situation, and they only spend money on their military operations. The poor people are poorer now than when the Taliban were the government. We don�t trust them anymore. We would be fools to continue to believe their lies.�

Military expenditure outpaces development and reconstruction spending by 900% - the wrong priority

82.5 billion USD has been spent on military operations in Afghanistan since 2002 compared to just 7.3 billion USD on development.

Focus on poverty relief and development could have created a solid foundation on which to re-build Afghanistan. Instead, the focus on �securing� Afghanistan with aggressive military tactics has led the Afghan population to mistrust the reasons for the large international military presence in their country.

The large numbers of civilian casualties and deaths have also fuelled resentment and mistrust of the international military presence.

�We have a saying about you now: Your blood is blood, our blood is just water to you,� the Report notes a former Mujaheedin commander from Kandahar as saying.

There were 104 civilian casualties in Afghanistan in the month of July alone.

Faced with the return of the Taliban, the US and the international community must immediately reassess entire approach in Afghanistan

�Emergency poverty relief must now be the top priority,� said Reinert. �Only then can we talk of nation-building and reconstruction. A complete overhaul of the failed counter-narcotics strategies is urgently needed. We must try and win back the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. The Taliban are advancing north every day. This should concern us all.�

Research for the Report was carried out throughout Afghanistan in the spring and summer of 2006 by Senlis Afghanistan teams of Afghan and international researchers.

Source
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Old 09-08-2006, 11:07 AM   #2
headsplice
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That's what happens when you pull out too soon. You make a mess.
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Old 09-08-2006, 11:16 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by headsplice
That's what happens when you pull out too soon. You make a mess.
Heh. Heh. That's what she said. [/Beavis]
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Old 09-08-2006, 02:25 PM   #4
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Just fuck'em and let them do whatever the hell they want, it shouldn't be our problem. If they attack us we beat the shit out of them, until that point let them rot until they realize that the Taliban isn't so great after all. I'm sick of watching us pay to support another little hellhole country that hasn't progressed past the dark ages yet.
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Old 09-08-2006, 07:47 PM   #5
xoxoxoBruce
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You can talk reason, logic, ideologies, religion, politics or semantics until you're blue in the face. You won't be heard over the grumbling of an empty stomach.
Satan himself would be welcomed bearing food.

It's not likely they will have "progressed past the dark ages" soon, considering they've been shot, bombed, shelled and mined, almost continually, for the past 30 years.

They're dirt poor farmers, in a tough climate, that have had their crops destroyed. No money, no food, nowhere to turn for help. Don't you think they would welcome anyone that promised to help them?

The Taliban wouldn't let the girls go to school, the boys play sports or the women go uncovered, but they would let them grow their crops. Sounds like a good deal to me, for a family that's starving.

Even somebody as unschooled in nation building as I am, saw this coming. When the US invaded Afghanistan, failed to commit enough troops, failed to seal the borders, let the bullys run off the playground instead of catching and punishing them, then rushed off to Iraq without finishing the job, even I knew this would come back to bite us.

Several months ago, Michael Yon confirmed it was coming, probably next spring, a big Taliban push to reclaim the country. Does that sound like an organization that's been whupped?
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Old 09-08-2006, 09:08 PM   #6
tw
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 9th Engineer
Just fuck'em and let them do whatever the hell they want, it shouldn't be our problem. If they attack us we beat the shit out of them, until that point let them rot until they realize that the Taliban isn't so great after all.
Wow. Perfect duplication of right wing rationalization that advocated what we now call Vietnam. Gen Curtis LeMay even insisted that we would "bomb them back into the stone age". I would have thought that by now, Americans were too smart to post this stuff. But then right wing extremism, promoting an agenda, returns alive and well.

It is a long ago proven concept. Posted here so often and yet still some remain in denial. Planning for the peace is so essential as to start before war begins. And yet America, run by radical extremists, invades two nations and maintains only a military occupation. We did almost nothing to promote rebuilding of both nations. Some here even tried to claim rebuilding was ongoing all over Iraqi - when in reality so little was accomplished (but Haliburton got rich). Almost no rebuilding in Iraq was organized for seven months – thank you Bremmer and George Jr.

George Jr said repeatedly, "Americans do not do nation building." Such stupidity would recruit for the Taliban and would create a massive insurgency in Iraq. But again, "learning lessons from history" must be reposted again, and again, and again. No planning for the peace only creates more war. Listening to an idiot who says "Americans do not do nation building" is begging to make more enemies. Advocating same nonsense that Curtis LeMay advocated in Vietnam means deja vue complete with an American president who lies repeatedly and who should be considered for impeachment.
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Old 09-08-2006, 09:11 PM   #7
tw
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Quote:
Originally Posted by headsplice
That's what happens when you pull out too soon. You make a mess.
We never pulled out. We occupied as a military conquerer and violated basic principles so well proven in history. Even in the Cellar 6 and 9 months ago, the Afghan situation was bluntly obvious: November 2005 in Morality and February 2006 Bush's Shrinking Safety Zone .
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Old 09-08-2006, 10:14 PM   #8
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How am I spouting right wing rhetoric? I am completely opposed to any and all intervention in the region, none of the stabilization bullcrap that gets thrown around as an excuse. If they are willing to put up with Taliban regulations in return for stability than that's fine in my opinion, like you said a growling stomach speaks loudest. Even though any base of Taliban operations is far from a good thing they'll have a much harder time recruiting bombers if we don't play into their propaganda. Let that region sort itself out. If we find they're basing military operations there we should deal with it via special forces and a well maintained spy network left in place after our withdrawl. Funding isn't an issue for any Islamic group so long as we buy oil from Iran so it makes no difference if they make money off the poppy crop their, they'll have their funding one way or another.

This is not a war that can be fought with overt military action, but rather by human inteligence networks, special forces strikes, and assasinations. Bribes and political manipulation via propaganda will also get us much farther than artillery.

The number 1 rule in war is that you must find what your opponent finds most precious and destroy it. We need to work behind the curtains and in the shadows to undermine Islam's faith in its clerics if we want to come out on top.
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Old 09-09-2006, 06:20 AM   #9
tw
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Originally Posted by 9th Engineer
How am I spouting right wing rhetoric? I am completely opposed to any and all intervention in the region, none of the stabilization bullcrap that gets thrown around as an excuse.
Afghanistan was a war we were obligated to fight, that literally the entire world was willing to join us in fighting, and that means we are obligated to fix the country we broke. IOW America should have been doing nation building in Afghanistan.

Talk of attacks and beating the shit out of them solves nothing - especially when our objective should have been, "we broke it; now we fix it." In Afghanistan, I am at a complete loss for soutions. We have so screwed up a solvable problem that literally most of the country is in Taliban hands. Outside of cities, it appears most of the people are either indifferent to or support the Taliban. We did nothing for so long as to make ourselves undesirable. That makes it almost impossible to fix Afghanistan. We only had that first year to earn respect. We did nothing in 2002 and 2003. That is when Afghanistan was being lost.

I don't see anything practical that can fix this - another war where America will end up defeated. And unlike Iraq, this was the war we must and we could have won. Beating the shit out of anyone will not solve anything. Violence as a solution is the Curtis LeMay and MaggieL solution. But I admit with woeful despondance - we have lost a war that we were obligated to win.

Short of another massive hundreds of thousand man deployment, we cannot win this war a second time. We don’t have the local support we had then. We now have an enemy that is too smart this time to fight in the open. And to win the war, it must be completely accomplished in but months. Any longer will only mean the local population turns even more strongly against Americans.

My despondance is because are military is too threadbare to support a 250,000 or 500,000 deployment. And yet a massive deployment of that size to execute and complete a mission quickly is the only way that the Taliban can be stopped. A large part of that deployment would be to do the mission in months that we should have been doing in 2002 and 2003 (ie restore the water system in Kabul). George Jr will do only as he has done in Iraq – too few troops, no strategic objective, no exit strategy, a love of 'shock and awe' (that accomplishes nothing), a fear of nation building, and no grasp of this Afghanistan situation. Despondance because without a major policy change at the presidential level, then we have already been defeated in Afghanistan. No Curtis LeMay solution will change that. We lost because we did not plan for the peace.
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