Is Pentagon strategy for Afghanistan unraveling?
By John Catalinotto
July 18, 2002--Since the U.S. attack that killed at least 48 Afghan civilians and wounded 117 others July 1, two more events in Kabul have reflected the unraveling of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.
On July 3, the first anti-U.S. protest took place in Kabul, the Afghan capital, since the occupation. Some 200 people, many of them women wearing traditional garb, marched through the streets, halting traffic, to ask the U.S. to stop killing civilians.
On July 6, Vice President and Public Works Minister Haji Abdul Qadir was assassinated by gunfire in broad daylight in downtown Kabul. Qadir was the only high official in the Afghan government besides President Mohammad Karzai who is from the Pashtun part of the population. Karzai has already asked for help from the occupation forces to track down Qadir's killers.
Both events are signs of growing instability in already unstable Afghanistan. They have weakened the Karzai government--a U.S. puppet regime--and aroused growing anger against the U.S. role in the country.
They have also sparked a discussion among U.S. "Afghanistan experts" over Washington's policies in the region that recalls the discussion that took place when the U.S. began bombing last October in an attempt to overthrow Taliban rule. At that time analysts and journalists raised the specter of an Afghanistan "quagmire" similar to the problems the USSR faced when its military attempted to support a pro-socialist regime in Kabul from 1980 to 1989.
But the Taliban ran an unpopular regime and was dependent on support from Pakistan. Once that country deserted them, the Taliban quickly collapsed before a U.S.-backed onslaught by other reactionary Afghan forces led by the Northern Alliance. It looked like an easy U.S. victory.
But that was only the first phase. Since that time the U.S. has been unable to establish a stable government in Kabul that can run the country. It has also failed to capture the leaders of either the Taliban or of Al Qaeda, which was supposed to be the object of U.S. aggression against Afghanistan.
In the meantime U.S. bombings--much of them conducted from high altitude--have killed close to 4,000 Afghan civilians along with four Canadian soldiers hit by error.
Kabul protest a warning
The Kabul protest was a relatively mild warning to Washington. "We condemn terrorism," an organizer said outside the UN compound. "We are not against the Americans, but it doesn't mean they should drop bombs on residents, happy ceremonies and sanctuaries instead of military targets. The U.S. should get through to its officers that this kind of incident could destroy relations and the trust between the two nations."
Others were not so friendly. Jan Mohammed Khan, the governor of Oruzgan province, where the civilians were killed, demanded that the U.S. military hand over the "spies" who had provided the information that led to the air attack on the village of Kakrak.
"If Americans don't stop killing civilians, there will be a holy war against them in my province. ... This has to stop, or people will fight Americans just like they did Russians [in the 1980s]." Khan was himself appointed by the U.S.-backed regime in Kabul.
Descriptions of the U.S.-caused terror show why this sentiment is growing.
A farmer, Abdul Bari, while comforting his heavily bandaged 6-year-old nephew Ghulam, told the media: "Fifteen people from my home are dead. My wife, my brother, everyone is dead. We don't know why the Americans hate us."
What makes the U.S. actions even more galling is the public attitude of the Pentagon. First U.S. officials denied a massacre took place. Then they said they had no evidence that so many people were killed. And they said that ground fire from the village was threatening U.S. forces in the area.
Finally they admitted that U.S. fire killed civilians but said that an Afghan had misinformed them as to who was in the area.
The combination of the growing mass anger and the failure of the central government to gel has reawakened critiques of U.S. policy. A July 7 Washington Post article reports some of the misgivings of U.S. military and foreign policy experts.
Think tanks debate policy
Robert Templer, Asia program director for the International Crisis Group, said: "There are extraordinary levels of discontent among the Pashtuns. It's hard to see a long-lasting peace based upon the political arrangements that exist in Kabul at the moment." Qadir's assassination won't help those relations.
Templer has suggested the U.S. government stop chasing Al Qaeda and Taliban forces and instead help solve other problems. "I don't think the Taliban and Al Qaeda will be much of a problem in the future, but everyone else [in Afghanistan] might be," he said.
Another voice was Milton Bearden, a former CIA station chief in Pakistan who helped organize reactionary forces against the progressive Afghan government of 1978-1992 and the Soviet Union. Bearden said the Bush administration should stop bombing. "We're at a point where we have to decide what we're up to there."
The United States could still lose the war in Afghanistan, Bearden warned, "if the Pashtuns decide that we're the enemy, or an occupying force."
What Bearden didn't say was that the U.S. is indeed an occupying power. And if U.S. troops keep killing Afghan civilians, more and more of the population will begin to consider them enemies.
International Action Center
39 West 14th Street, Room 206
New York, NY 10011
email: iacenter@action-mail.org
En Espanol: iac-cai@action-mail.org
web: http://www.iacenter.org
CHECK OUT SITE http://www.mumia2000.org
phone: 212 633-6646
fax: 212 633-2889
To make a tax-deductible donation,
go to http://www.peoplesrightsfund.org
