CHINA CONFIDENTIAL
Monday, October 20, 2008
Tory MP Warns Afghanistan 'Spiralling Down'
Foreign Confidential....
From David Davis, a British politician just back from a 10-day fact-finding trip to Afghanistan, comes more evidence of a looming disaster. The Conservative MP writes in The Independent:It is time to face facts in Afghanistan: the situation is spiralling downwards, and if we do not change our approach, we face disaster. Violence is up in two-thirds of the country, narcotics are the main contributor to the economy, criminality is out of control and the government is weak, corrupt and incompetent. The international coalition is seen as a squabbling bunch of foreigners who have not delivered on their promises. Although the Taliban have nowhere near majority support, their standing is growing rapidly among some ordinary Afghans.
In Kabul, foreign delegations huddle behind concrete and barbed wire, often with the Afghans' main roads shut. That causes jams throughout the city, exacerbated by convoys of armoured four-wheel drives loaded with bodyguards that push their way through the traffic. These vehicles carry warning signs telling ordinary Afghans that the occupants reserve the right to shoot anyone who comes within 50 metres. Afghans veer between resentment of the high-handed foreigners and fear of the Taliban, who appear to be inexorably seizing the provinces around the city.
In Britain's area of responsibility, Helmand, the governor admits the Taliban control most of the province. While we were, properly, celebrating the delivery of the turbine to the Kajaki dam, we were being forced out of one of the richest poppy growing areas, and the Taliban fought their way to within 12km of Lashkar Gar, the provincial capital. Time after time, our soldiers win tactical victories, only to have the advantage lost because of a lack of coherent international strategy.
The regime we are defending is corrupt from top to bottom. While the President's brother faces accusations of being a drug baron, some three-quarters of the Afghan National Police actively steal from the people. The irony is that Afghan expectations of government are traditionally low, and their faith in President Hamid Karzai was initially high.
The government appears to have been run for the financial benefit of 20 families. From the allocation of mineral rights to the awarding of contracts, ministers frequently intervene to favour families and friends. Even more disturbing, the beneficiaries of this corruption are old-time warlords and faction leaders responsible for past atrocities. Today, they operate with impunity, even over acts of violence and attempted murder. Many public officials, from police chiefs to governors to ministers, have acquired multi-million dollar fortunes in office.
This angers the ordinary Afghan, whose family may have to get by on £10 a week. The government exercises enormous patronage through the appointment of officials, most notably governors and police chiefs. A chief of police post in a district which includes a narcotic trafficking route can sell for $150,000. The new chief recovers his "investment" by demanding a cut in the proceeds of corruption from his juniors. At the bottom of this pyramid, officers make money out of ordinary Afghans by exacting "tolls"at roadblocks and by straight theft and extortion. An Afghan trying to take produce from Lashkar Gar to Kandahar will typically pay at 12 roadblocks – destroying any value he might gain from growing anything other than opium.
It can be worse. An Afghan doctor was stopped and arrested by police, who demanded a $20,000 ransom – a fortune. He borrowed the money and paid. The alternative was death.
For an ordinary Afghan trying to scratch a living out of the arid soil, this must be almost unbearable, particularly so when he sees rapists and murderers, even failed suicide bombers, released without charge after payment of a bribe.
That is the regime we are defending and are perceived to be supporting.
The Taliban play on this. They offer a system of courts which is fast, decisive, and effective. An Afghan living in a non-Taliban part of a southern province, who has a dispute – over property, immigration rights, or a criminal matter – is quite likely to go to the Taliban area and ask them to arbitrate. They will summon both parties, hear their petitions, spend a few days collecting evidence – and then issue, and enforce, a judgement.
They can be vicious and evil at times. They hanged an old woman for the crime of talking to a foreign development officer. They behead people who oppose them or help Nato. These executions are carried out in town centres, where they strike most terror.
Click here to continue.
Opinion: On Obama and Race
Dateline USA....
The mainstream media are all wet. Obama hasn't been hurt by the racial issue; it has helped him tremendously.
In fact, Obama's American black identity made his political career possible. The Candidate of Change owes the black community--and Reverend Jeremiah Wright--a huge debt.
Think about: if Obama was not viewed as a black American, he would be seen as rootless and mysterious, an Ivy League-educated, multicultural stranger with a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas, a grandmother in Hawaii, and a stepfather in Indonesia. Part Muslim, part atheist ... a man with two or three passports ... in other words, a cosmopolitan wanderer seemingly connected everywhere but actually nowhere.
Obama's essential rootlessness accounts for his decision to join Wright's controversial church. The pastor was an influential, Chicago-based black nationalist. His militancy offered Obama a shield; his congregation, a vital sense of belonging. For Obama to succeed politically, he had to reinvent himself as a black American. He needed Wright's support and guidance.
If Obama wins the election, the great irony will be that America's first black American President will be someone who was not born into the black community but chose to join it. Given America's racist history, perhaps it had to be that way--perhaps in a weird way Obama's unusual background and mysterious origins made him uniquely acceptable to white American voters following the bitter disappointments of the Bush years. We'll know soon enough.
Obama's accomplishments, intelligence, and skills can't be denied. Having come from nowhere and done the impossible, he is poised to win the election.
To paraphrase John McCain, whom this reporter supports, while Obama's critics can't wish him luck, they should wish him well--for America's sake.
At the end of the day, we are all Americans; our country, the greatest democracy on earth, is still humanity's last, best hope; and the next President simply must do well. There is no alternative....
-Andre Pachter
EDITOR'S NOTE: Is McCain coming back? Chris Cillizza writes in The Washington Post:Amid the wall-to-wall coverage of Barack Obama's $150 million fundraising take in September and the endorsement of the Illinois senator on Sunday by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, the campaign of his Republican opponent -- John McCain -- believes the media is missing one critical thing: the Arizona senator is making up ground.
McCain advisers insist that since last Wednesday's final debate in New York, their candidate has slowly but surely cut into Obama's edge -- carving a double-digit lead down to the mid-single digits in both national polling and surveys conducted in key battleground states.
While the final debate was widely cast by the media -- and by a series of instant reaction polls -- as a win for Obama, McCain's senior strategy team argues that it was, in fact, a critical turning point in their favor in the contest.
"That debate injected taxes, ideological difference and abortion" into the dialogue, said a McCain operative granted anonymity to speak candidly about strategic matters.
The result, according to the source, was significant gains for McCain among white men -- those with and without a college degree -- as well as with "soft" Republicans (a term to describe voters with only a loose party affiliation) and voters who consider life issues as central to their vote for president.
The bump-up in support from white men -- an absolutely critical demographic for McCain if he hopes to come from behind -- also explains the relentless focus on "Joe the Plumber" a.k.a. Joe Wurzelbacher, a man made famous by his confrontation with Obama last week.
Click here to continue.
Monday, 20 October 2008
Posts
