Update on Afghanistan

[Mycroft]

Rikzilla brought this up in a recent thread, but I thought I'd give it a thread of its own.

From killing women who were not "properly" dressed to appointing women to cabinet positions is a huge leap in just a few short years.

Karzai appoints three women to Afghan cabinet

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has announced a new cabinet that excludes leading warlords and drug traffickers and includes three women for the first time in the Islamic country's history.

After 10 weeks of bargaining and hard politicking that followed his victory in the country's first democratic election, Mr Karzai retained many familiar faces but brought in technocrats to run ministries involved in rehabilitating the economy.

Analysts regard his cabinet list as the real test of whether he can bring in a new era of stability after a quarter-century of conflict.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...fg24.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/12/24/ixworld.html

The progress of liberalism marches on.

 

[sorgoth]

Nice... Now we sit back and watch, I guess.

Hope this works. Wouldn't it be great?

 

[Hutch]

The progress of liberalism marches on.

Well, Mycroft, I truly hope your optomism is correct, but appointing anybody to roles in the central government is only important if said central government can be effective for the entire country.

And that, my friend, is very very far from certain at this time.

 

[Bikewer]

The author of Imperial Hubris, "anonymous" Michael Scheuer, says that the war in Afghanistan is already lost. The Taliban and Al Qaeda forces simply retreated to their villages and mountain passes, suffering only minimal losses and keeping control of their weapons. We blew up a bunch of Soviet-era junk and moved into the cities.
The rural countryside was the powerbase of these people to begin with, and so it will remain. They refer to Karzai as the "Mayor of Kabul", and his influence outside of that immediate area is minimal.
The opium production already exceeds pre-Taliban levels.
He says there will be a Taliban-style government in power in Afghanistan within 10 years, and that the notion of an egalatarian, pro-Western democracy is anathema to the Islamic mind-set.
It will be interesting, but probably painful to watch.

 

[WildCat]

The author of Imperial Hubris, "anonymous" Michael Schaum, says that the war in Afghanistan is already lost. The Taliban and Al Qaeda forces simply retreated to their villages and mountain passes, suffering only minimal losses and keeping control of their weapons. We blew up a bunch of Soviet-era junk and moved into the cities.
The rural countryside was the powerbase of these people to begin with, and so it will remain. They refer to Karzai as the "Mayor of Kabul", and his influence outside of that immediate area is minimal.
The opium production already exceeds pre-Taliban levels.
He says there will be a Taliban-style government in power in Afghanistan within 10 years, and that the notion of an egalatarian, pro-Western democracy is anathema to the Islamic mind-set.
It will be interesting, but probably painful to watch.

Pardon for asking, but who is Michael Schaum and why do I care what he says? I never heard of him nor do I know his credentials.

The Taliban never had control of the country either, they simply were able to form loose alliances w/ local warlords. These alliances in Afghanistan have come and gone for hundreds (probably thousands) of years, whatever the Taliban achieved they would likely have lost within a few years anyway. To think they had a solid lasting grip on the country shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Afghani tribal history. "You can rent a Afghani, but you can't buy one" so the saying goes.

Growing opium in Afghanistan?! Next thing you'll be claiming the sun rises in the east. I have no idea why this is being brought up. Do you know how much marijuana is grown in the USA? Must mean the Federal gov't has completely lost control of the country, right?

The elections went off with much less violence and problems than anyone predicted. It's not going to instill a respect for the power of a central gov't that they never had in their entire history, but it has been a good start.

 

[a_unique_person]

Growing opium in Afghanistan?! Next thing you'll be claiming the sun rises in the east. I have no idea why this is being brought up. Do you know how much marijuana is grown in the USA? Must mean the Federal gov't has completely lost control of the country, right?

And I thought you didn't have a sense of irony, comparing the WOT to the WOD.

In comparison to the dope in the USA, opium is the primary export of Afghanistan.

 

[materia3]

Actually in the few years since we allegedly kicked out the Taliban Afghanistan has moved to the world's Number ONE producer of heroin. The U.S. DEA hasn't prepared a report on Afghan heroin production in the several years since we went in there. But the UN and other groups have been tracking the rise in the trade. If you visit the DEA's website you will be amazed to see nothing recent on Afghanistan and complete ignoring of the trade in Aghanistan but plenty of data on other regions.

Soon after we successfully invaded Afghanistan the Head of the DEA made the rounds of the talk shows saying how we were going to take out the poppy crops and stem the heroin trade. The DEA even sponsored public service announcements linking narco trade to narco terroism and they had the proof to back it up. This soon came to an end and Hutchinson was told to stop talking about it. The PSAs stopped. And Asa Hutchinson was kicked upstairs.On January 23, 2004 former DEA Administrator Hutchinson was confirmed as Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security for Homeland Security where he could not damage or embarass Bush's deal with the drug lords. Bush appointed a new, more compliant DEA boss. Up to a year ago Geraldo Rivera and Bill O'Reilly regularly did segments about this heroin trade but there came a time when they stopped in the interests of supporting their candidate, GW Bush. There hasn't been a word about the heroin trade from any news outfits for close to a year. Even CBS gave up grousing about it. If anyone is wondering why so many cabinet level posts gave up their chairs, they have only to look to this moral lapse by Bush for the rationale.


All of Europe's and Russia (including the Ukraine) heroin comes from Afghanistan. On a local level authorities in New York also bust Afghan heroin smugglers here. One enterprising group smuggles it in as textiles or finished clothing or in carpets. The port of NY has more custom's auctions of oriental carpets than anywhere else in the world. After the dope is removed, the carpet shipments are rejected, payment withheld and these legitimate goods enter the auction market as unclaimed merchandise.

More than 90% of the country has opium under cultivation during the season. The irrigation systems provided by USAID are used for watering the poppy crops while what little land is supposed to be under cultivation for food crops is drought stricken with the country facing starvation as a result. Of course the drug lords can take some of their drug profits and use it to import food. But they don't. (how about a "Heroin for Food Program" ?)

Yes, there is progress in Afghanistan from the civilized world's point of view if and only if you are ready to accept the fact that it exists only in Kabul and no where outside of Kabul.

There is no relevant comparison between marijuana grown in the U.S. and Canada and the heroin produced in Afghanistan. Its a strawman.

Let's face it. Bush took the easy way out in Afghanistan making a deal with the drug smugglers and heroin interestsin exchange for what he thought would be the heads of the Taliban and AlQueda; he was given a hollow victory with some few hundred sacrificial show prisoners to stash at Gitmo. He got ripped off. The Taliban continues to operate and AlQueda is an international terrorist movement without borders.

UBL and other top AlqUEDA brass operate unabated, funded by the drug trade Bush allows to flourish. That's the supreme irony of Bush's miserably failed logistics.

Terrorists are ripping our guts out in Iraq, and would be doing so in Afghanistan if we didn't attack Iraq. They would be doing so in Saudi Arabia if we had kept our bases there but we were invited to leave by the Saudis and accepted that invitation.

The Northern Alliance, which was a prime mover/smuggler of drugs in Northern Afghanistan was even given a presence and seat at the table in Kabul. Another deal since the administration knew without giving business as usual assurances to the Northern Alliance they would have had a much tougher battle on their hands.

Curiously enough we don't hear a whole lot about the heroin addiction problem in Kabul including among our own troops weak enough to succumb and make the time pass more blissfully.

Neither Bush nor Cheney will answer questions about this subject. They studiously ignored direct questions in both the Presidential and VP debates. They ignored attempts by Tony Blair to deal with this and finally told him to shut up about it. He no longer brings it up so is now part of their drug deal.

What does this make Bush and company? It makes them the moral equivalent of the world's largest drug dealers. It also makes them hypocrites as they lock up drug offenders at home and pursue them in Asia and Latin America while instructing our forces and the DEA to have a strictly hands-off, no-go policy in Afghanistan. They killedBritainj's plan to provide a high value cash crop as a substitute for heroin: saffron which sells for several dollars a gram. A half gram retails for about five$ in
gourmet shoppes. Since there are 1,000 grams in a kilo, it is obvious this sells at a wholesale level obtained for a kilo of heroin. The only problem with this is that it is a legal crop and the drug smugglers and dealers can't benefit from this product in the way they can from heroin. So it was dead in the water and the impoverished Afghani farmer was the only one to suffer.

The time will come when Bush and Cheney will have to answer for the Afghani drug trade and it is apt to be the scandal that will bring down the man through whom god talks. I wonder if god told him to protect the heroin business.

Well that about sums up the issue concerning Afghan heroin. How anyone can honestly defend Bush (and I am otherwise pro Bush myself) on this score is beyond belief.

 

[Bikewer]

Sorry, got the spelling wrong. It's Scheuer. See post under "Imperial Hubris".