Friday, Sep 5, 2008
"I myself don't feel safe nowadays," Ahmad Takal, bureau chief of the U.S.-funded Radio Liberty in Afghanistan, tells Salon. Takal returned from exile in Pakistan in January 2002. "And it's getting worse. People ask, 'Why did they start and not finish the mission?'" He says that his fellow Afghans want more troops. "The U.S. military presence in Afghanistan is accepted widely by people," he says. "As I talk to people of different places in Afghanistan, people will support even hundred thousands of foreign or U.S. soldiers in their areas. They are tired from the war and warlords who fight everyday everywhere."
"People have concerns especially after the war started on Iraq," reports Dr. Iqrargul Saleem, coordination officer for the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR) in Peshawar, Pakistan. "They said that the United States will do again what they did before" -- abandon the country, leave them to the warlords -- "and the people are afraid of that."
Especially since these troops are not just resurgent Taliban and al-Qaida, but former Northern Alliance guerrillas armed by the U.S. military when looking for allies in its war against the Taliban. In southeastern Afghanistan, for example, Padshah Khan Zadran leads a tribe that disputes Karzai's legitimacy and backs it up with munitions. Zadran's tribe was a close ally of the U.S. during Operation Enduring Freedom; in March, the tribe twice clashed with U.S. forces.
"We defeated the Taliban by arming the warlords," Rubin says. The warlords, roaming the countryside unabated, are "once again terrorizing people and robbing them." The Pentagon has not authorized our soldiers to do anything about the warlords -- not even to disarm them, which is where Karzai has begun focusing his efforts.
How many men are in the warlords' militias? In his Senate hearing, Karzai took issue with Biden's estimation of 700,000. "The number, in real terms, probably can come down to about 100,000 forces," Karzai said. Still, the only opposition to these warlords is the the fledgling Afghan National army, made up of less than 3,000 Afghan soldiers recently recruited and trained -- many of whom have since quit because they haven't been paid in more than half a year.
Every day, Takal says, Afghans wait "for an action against the warlords, but they know nothing will happen. Some of them compare the security situation with the security during Taliban. They say at that time they could carry a bag full of gold or dollars to wherever they wanted without any threat to their life, but now even in the big cities, such as the capital, they don't feel safe. And some of them blame the U.S. for this."
Biden, for one, has been outspokenly pessimistic. "I think they [members of the Bush administration] have already given up the ghost in Afghanistan," Biden told reporters on Feb. 25. "They've basically turned it over to the warlords."
Biden was speaking not only of rogue warlords like Padshah Khan Zadran but also some who are part of the new Afghan government itself. Thus, "even when they don't [rob and steal], they're blocking political development," and in many cases they're also advocating more fundamentalist political views, Rubin reports.
"The Northern Alliance holds the majority power in the government," says Marina Matin of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan "The non-fundamentalist elements are still a minority." The Northern Alliance, which ruled from 1992 until 1996 -- when the Taliban were welcomed with open arms by the terrorized Afghan people -- "are as cruel and anti-democratic as the Taliban."
Take the fundamentalist Ismail Khan, governor of the northwest province of Herat. Saleem, of the ACBAR relief agency, says that the citizens of Herat constantly complain that Khan "is as bad as the Taliban was." According to Human Rights Watch, Khan -- who refers to himself as "the emir of Herat" -- has ordered political rallies shut down, dissidents arrested, and opponents beaten. He has created a climate of fear throughout the region and instilled a new religious police.
Radio Liberty is more than a little familiar with Khan. On March 19, reporter Ahmed Shah Behzad covered a ceremony for the opening of the regional office of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. Afterward, on the second floor of the human rights building, Behzad was only three questions into an interview with Ali Ahmad Jalali, the minister of the interior, when Khan interrupted them, called the reporter "shameless" and "brazen," and ejected him from the room. Herat's chief of national security beat Behzad in the courtyard of the human rights building.
How much does the Kabul government control anything? "Ali Ahmad Jalali is the minister of interior, but he was not able to stop Khan," Takal tells Salon.
According to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in April 2002, however, Khan is "an appealing person thoughtful, measured and self-confident."
Biden says he's talked to the administration of the horrible state of affairs in Herat and its response is confounding. "When I speak to members of the administration," Biden said in February, he's told, 'Things are all right in western Afghanistan -- Ismail Khan is in charge.'" Biden added sarcastically: "I find that very reassuring."
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