Tags:
Journalism of Courage
If action in Iraq is to effect a regime change leading to reconstruction, surely the US is being incredibly impatient in not digesting all the lessons from the laboratory they created in Afghanistan. Clearly, Americans see Afghanistan as an expedition on the way to success. That probably explains why Zilmay Khalilzad, President Bush’s special envoy in Kabul, has been named special envoy to Iraq as well. President Hamid Karzai, too, sees himself quite unabashedly as a consequence of regime change after the ouster of the Taliban.
The reason why Americans must concentrate on Afghanistan are compelling. There is already considerable anxiety in Kabul that the war in Iraq might divert American attention. Indeed, the fear is commonly expressed that the US might just not have sufficient stamina to be involved in two gigantic reconstruction projects at the same time.
On this count the UN secretary general’s special representative in Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, is less sanguine than, say, Karzai is. The president has got telephonic assurances from President Bush, Prime Minister Blair and others that the international community’s resolve to navigate the Afghan experiment to its logical conclusion remains undiminished.
A nine-member committee is preparing a draft constitution which should be ready by March end. After amendments, the constitution (“preferably unitary” says Karzai) will be placed before a Loya Jirga, a grand assembly of Afghan elders, to be held in October. It is under the new constitution that elections will be held in June 2004. That is when all the landmarks set by the international conference in Bonn in January 2001 will have been reached.
The grand architecture is all very well, but the devil is in the detail.
Kabul is under a think blanket of snow stretching right up to the mountains that ring this once exquisite city. But a stroll exposes large potholes, slush, the disrepair left behind by 23 years of near continuous conflict. The snow-white landscape interspersed with vast tracts of slush is like a metaphor for the state of this country. The project of reconstruction is at such a nascent stage that the fear of the Americans departing is unnerving. The tall and friendly commando, one of the Special US Protection Force keeping President Karzai from harm’s way, puts it succinctly: “All of us will disappear from the map once the fireworks begin in Iraq.”
The central mosque near the Kabul money market fills up slowly for Friday prayers. “The Friday congregations across Afghanistan will be the gauge for public mood when bombs begin to fall on Baghdad,” says a diplomat. The mood could turn black with geometric progression if the Iraq war extends beyond one or two Friday congregations.
The calm is deceptive. The downtown vegetable and money markets do brisk business, but foreigners refrain from frequenting the chicken street lined with boutiques. Those desperately bored do venture out to the fancier kebab joints, the Indian restaurants and a new, authentic Chinese restaurant, where even American soldiers sometimes stop by for lunch. The bar has a dozen or so UN staff sipping beer and watching the Star network in Chinese. But the about 2,000 foreigners generally remain indoors after sunset.
Since December there have been a series of hit and run attacks on US positions along the border with Pakistan. Gen. Dan K. Mcneil, head of the coalition forces, has already said that attackers come from across the line and withdraw into Pakistan. There are reports that the Taliban, Al-Qaeda (even some Arab groups) and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar are regrouping clandestinely on both sides of the border.
US troops in the coalition forces have, step by step, spread out to over 25 locations around the country. To ensure security for these thinly spread out deployments, the Americans appear to have fallen back on the strategy of massive aerial retaliation in response to attacks on their patrols. Since information of civilian casualties is officially given only by the spokesmen of coalition forces at the Bagram airbase north of Kabul, unofficial figures given out by local warlords has greater currency among the people.
On February 11, a US picket was attacked in Bagran (not Bagram base) in southern Afghanistan. No one was seriously harmed. The Americans called in a B-52 to clean up the area. Since there are no strategic targets in Afghanistan, taking the air route for retaliation can only harm civilians.
While the official report at the Bagram base indicated no casualties, gossip stretching from military attaches of various embassies up to the Kabul marketplace referred to casualties ranging from 17 to 30. While official reports from Bagram make global news, it is the indigenously circulated gossip that tends to inform the average Afghan. This is the danger.
Tactical regrouping by the coalition forces is often circulated as “withdrawal”, fuelling rumours that the Americans are on the run.
The project to build a multiethnic Afghan National Army, trained by the Americans, has run into difficulties. Bulgarians have provided arms for training but there are no arms but for fighting. Demobilisation is proceeding at a snail’s pace. As against a projection of 7,000 troops that should have been trained by now, the figure has barely touched 3,000. Desertion rate is high. Defence Minister Mohammad Fahim sums it up nicely: “These boys have not operated under one unified discipline for decades. It is unrealistic to expect them to fall in line in such a short time.”
The popularity of the Americans and Pakistanis, indeed anyone who has been enmeshed in Afghanistan, is abysmally low. Almost by default, the Indian image is clean. Little wonder, Karzai broke protocol when he personally turned up to distribute some of the biscuits manufactured from the million tonnes of wheat gifted by India, and which had difficulty being transported through Pakistan. The Indian profile is gradually emerging.
But all eyes are on Iraq. Will the war encourage the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and Hekmatyar to stoke trouble inviting aerial retaliation on a large scale? It could get out of hand. If only the Americans had the patience to re-build Afghanistan as a showcase project. They will be so much more credible embarking on regime change and reconstruction elsewhere.
E-mail the Author
