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Afghanistan Five Years Later
By Mike Whitney
02/02/06 "ICH"
-- -- Five years after toppling the fanatical
Taliban, Hamid Karzai is expected to sign an agreement for
economic assistance with more than 60 donor countries. The
Afghanistan Compact is just the latest of many plans to restore
security to the war-torn nation and revive the fragile economy.
It is a poignant reminder that the Bush administration’s
promises to rebuild the country and establish democracy have
never been realized.
Afghanistan has been a policy disaster from the get-go. The
country is ravaged by war and unemployment, security beyond the
capital of Kabul is virtually nonexistent, and malnutrition
rates are higher among children anywhere other than sub-Saharan
Africa. Now, Karzai, who has seen his funding from the US
consistently slashed year after year, must take his begging bowl
to the world community; asking for the crumbs they can spare to
bandage his failed-state together.
Afghanistan excels in one thing alone; the production and export
of opium, a booming business which now provides 90% of the
world’s heroin.
Is this what Bush had in mind when he promised Americans to
rebuild and democratize the battle-scarred country; a modern-day
drug-colony, occupied by legions of indifferent volunteers who
rarely venture beyond their US controlled compounds?
His promise of a Marshall Plan was similar to all of Bush’s
promises; just more hot air hissssssing from a punctured tire.
After overthrowing the Taliban Bush made this commitment to the
people of Afghanistan:
“We know that true peace will only be achieved when we give the
Afghan people the means to achieve their own aspirations…We're
working hard in Afghanistan. We're clearing minefields. We're
rebuilding roads. We're improving medical care. And we will work
to help Afghanistan to develop an economy that can feed its
people without feeding the world's demand for drugs…By helping
to build an Afghanistan that is free from this evil and is a
better place in which to live, we are working in the best
traditions of George Marshall. Marshall knew that our military
victory against enemies in World War II had to be followed by a
moral victory that resulted in better lives for individual human
beings.”
“Marshall Plan?” “Building roads?” “Improving medical care?”
“Developing the economy?”
Bush’s penchant for hyperbole has not been lost on the Afghani
people.
“The new Afghan government promised us new schools, clinics,
water pumps, but it has done nothing at all. People are so
disappointed. At least the Taliban would grade the roads, build
madras’s, while this government has done nothing,” said
Nyamatullah, Zabul tribal leader.
“Nothing at all” is a fitting summary of the Afghanistan
failure. The Bush administration had no intention of rebuilding
or democratizing the country, rather the full thrust of the
American effort has been to paper-over the obvious deficiencies
of the policy with glowing media reports. The western media has
done an impressive job in convincing the American people that
progress is being made in Afghanistan when, in fact, the country
continues to languish in destitution and chaos.
On a recent trip, Secretary Rumsfeld said that Afghanistan was
“a model” of a growing democracy.
“A model”?
The majority of the new Afghan Parliament is comprised of
warlords and ex-Taliban fighters reintegrated into the system by
a reconciliation program endorsed by the United States. This has
weakened the central government and ensured that the countryside
has remained under the control of the regional warlords.
American puppet, Karzai has no power beyond the capital and must
be protected by 40 to 50 U.S. paid bodyguards at all times.
Is this Rumsfeld's model of democracy?
Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice is equally disingenuous in
her praise of Afghanistan’s strides towards democracy:
“The transformation of Afghanistan is remarkable but incomplete,
and it is essential that we all increase our support for the
Afghan people.”
There’s been no “transformation” of Afghanistan. As the New York
Times reports, “Afghanistan does not have a viable economy. Its
government is largely reliant on foreign aid (while) it
struggles with an insurgency”…… “The country of 25 million
people has some of the worst economic and health indicators in
the world. 6 million people rely on food aid, 80% of the people
are illiterate, and there is virtually no industry.”
In the last year the resurgent Taliban have increased their
attacks, further destabilizing areas in the south and prompting
President Karzai to publicly announce that he would provide
amnesty for Taliban chieftain Mullah Omar.
Have him “get in touch” if he wants to talk peace, Karzai said.
Karzai’s remarks show us how far we have come from the swagger
and bravado of George Bush who promised to capture Omar “dead or
alive”? Now even the closest colleagues of Bin Laden are being
granted amnesty in an effort to quell the violence.
What does that say about the administration’s claim that “We
will never deal with terrorists”?
Afghanistan is Bush’s dystopia, a failed narco-state run by
American puppets, Islamic fundamentalists and human rights
abusers. The corporate media has done the American people a
grave disservice by characterizing this drug-dependent
settlement as a burgeoning democracy. Nothing could be further
from the truth. The Karzai regime has no popular mandate and
will vanish in the first hours after the American occupation
ends.
And, it should end immediately.
Like Iraq, American troops have become the impetus for
hostilities; the focus of blame for the country’s grim
predicament. The recent incident of American servicemen burning
the corpses of dead Taliban soldiers has only exacerbated the
tensions that naturally exist between native Muslims and their
Christian occupiers. The cultural divisions, and the violence
they incite, are the inevitable upshot of the imperial project.
The invasion of Afghanistan was sold to the American people by a
silver-tongued executive and a battery of public relations
fraudsters. 5 years later we can see that all the hype about
“democratic revolution” and “liberation” was just baseless
twaddle. The country is a basket-case and “ranks among the
half-dozen poorest countries in the world”…. “with the highest
level of malnutrition in the world at 70%.” (Jim Lobe)
This is Bush’s definition of success; endless bloodshed
surrounded by grinding poverty.
The Bush administration will never rebuild Afghanistan. In fact,
they are ideologically opposed to “nation building” as a waste
of revenue that can be siphoned off to multinational
corporations. So, too, they are against any form of governance
that does not conform to the economic diktats of the central
banks and their satellites at the IMF, World Bank, and the
Federal Reserve.
Afghanistan illustrates the shortcomings of a foreign policy
that depends entirely on war to achieve its objectives. Neither
peace nor security can be achieved under occupation. America
needs to withdraw its troops so that sovereignty can be
restored, order can be reestablished, and the long march towards
economic recovery can begin.
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