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So, how is Afghanistan doing?
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Here's a foreign affairs quiz:
1. In the two years since the war in Afghanistan, opium
production has:
(A) virtually been eliminated by Hamid Karzai's government
and American forces.
(B) declined 30 percent, but eradication is not expected
until 2008.
(C) soared 19-fold and become the major source of the
world's heroin.
2. In Paktika and Zabul, two religiously conservative parts
of Afghanistan, the number of children going to school:
(A) has quintupled, with most girls at least finishing
third grade.
(B) has risen 40 percent, although few girls go to school.
(C) has plummeted as poor security has closed nearly all
schools there.
The correct answer to both questions, alas, is (C).
With
the White House finally acknowledging that the challenge in
Iraq runs deeper than gloomy journalism, the talk of what
to do next is sounding rather like Afghanistan. And that's
alarming, because we have flubbed the peace in Afghanistan
even more egregiously than in Iraq.
"There is a palpable risk that Afghanistan will again turn
into a failed state, this time in the hands of drug cartels
and narco-terrorists," Antonio Maria Costa, executive
director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime,
writes in a grim new report on Afghanistan.
I strongly supported President Bush's war in Afghanistan,
and I was there in Kabul and saw firsthand the excitement
and relief of ordinary Afghans, who were immensely grateful
to the U.S. for freeing them (a crucial distinction between
Iraq and Afghanistan, to anyone who covered both wars, is
that you never saw the same adulation among Iraqis). Mr.
Bush oversaw a smart war in Afghanistan, and two years ago
the crisp mountain air there pullulated with hope - along
with pleas for more security.
One day back then when I was thinking of driving to the
southeast, six Afghans arrived from there - minus their
noses. Taliban guerrillas had stopped their vehicle at
gunpoint and chopped off their noses because they had
trimmed their beards.
I stroked my chin, admired my own proboscis, and decided
not to drive on that road.
Every foreign and local official said then that Afghanistan
desperately needed security on roads like that one. But the
Pentagon made the same misjudgment about Afghanistan that
it did about Iraq: it fatally underestimated the importance
of ensuring security. The big winner was the Taliban, which
is now mounting a resurgence.
"Things are definitely deteriorating on the security
front," notes Paul Barker, the Afghan country director for
CARE International. Twelve aid workers have been killed in
the last year and dozens injured. A year ago, there was, on
average, one attack on aid workers per month; now such
attacks average one per day.
In at least three districts in the southeast, there is no
central government representation, and the Taliban has de
facto control. In Paktika and Zabul, not only have most
schools closed, but the conservative madrasas are regaining
strength.
"We've operated in Afghanistan for about 15 years," said
Nancy Lindborg of Mercy Corps, the American aid group, "and
we've never had the insecurity that we have now." She noted
that the Taliban used to accept aid agencies (grudgingly),
but that the Taliban had turned decisively against all
foreigners.
"Separate yourself from Jews and the Christian community,"
a recent open letter from the Taliban warned. It ordered
Afghans to avoid music, funerals for aid workers and
"un-Islamic education" - or face a "bad result."
The opium boom is one indication of the downward spiral.
The Taliban banned opium production in 2000, so the 2001
crop was only 185 metric tons. The U.N. estimates that this
year's crop was 3,600 tons, the second-largest in Afghan
history. The crop is worth twice the Afghan government's
annual budget, and much of the profit will support warlords
and the Taliban.
An analyst in the U.S. intelligence community, who seeks to
direct more attention to the way narco-trafficking is
destabilizing the region, says that Afghanistan now
accounts for 75 percent of the poppies grown for narcotics
worldwide.
"The issue is not a high priority for the Bush
administration," he said.
If Afghanistan is a White House model for Iraq, heaven help
us. |
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1+1=10
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After all isn't this the idea for Iraq. Maybe you are right the U.S should mind our own damn business and tell others to solve their own problems. The sad reality of being a large and powerful nation is that trouble finds you, even if you don't want it. What would any nation that was attacked directly do and the individuals who were responsible, as in the case of Al Qaeda were hiding out in Afghanistan . Note-why hasn't there been another attack on American soil by the big bad Al Qaeda, instead they choose to blow up innocent people in other part of the world, including their own "Muslim brothers" interesting isn't it.
