Admission is the first step. [clip]
>At the end of August the Pentagon finally appeared to be getting the
>message. "I do think increasingly our focus is shifting to training
>the Afghan national army, supporting ISAF, supporting reconstruction
>efforts--those kinds of things that contribute to long-term
>stability," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told me in an
>interview at the Pentagon.
>
>Also, for the first time US officials appeared to be seriously
>concerned about lack of funds. "My single biggest concern is that the
>economic aid that was promised at the Tokyo conference, which I think
>is crucial not just for economic purposes but for political and
>security purposes, is just not coming through at the levels that were
>pledged," Wolfowitz said. The January Tokyo conference pledged $4.5
>billion for reconstruction, of which donor nations promised to give
>$1.8 billion this year. "Barely 30 percent of what was promised for
>this year has been delivered," Wolfowitz added. He said the United
>States now had no objections to expanding ISAF beyond Kabul and would
>urge the Europeans to step up aid deliveries.
>
>However, the Pentagon's apparent U-turn is only providing a
>halfway-house policy. It would like to see ISAF expand but wants
>others to do the job; Washington has ruled out using US troops as
>peacekeepers. It would also like others to provide more reconstruction
>money; in September several US officials, including Defense Secretary
>Donald Rumsfeld, harshly criticized the Europeans for their slowness
>in providing funds.
Rashid seems to be advocating more US involvement or at least money. Is this the consenus among anti-imperialists? Or is all this just evidence that the people of Afghanistan would have been better off under the Taliban and Pakistan, their sponsor? Also, aren't the Germans taking over peacekeeping?
>Yet Washington's own contribution has been half that of the European
>Union. So far this year the United States has given $300 million,
>nearly all of which has been spent. In contrast, Washington is
>spending an estimated $1 billion a month on the Afghan war effort--a
>fact that has been strongly criticized by the UN's special
>representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi; the EU envoy to
>Kabul, Francesc Vendrell; and Karzai.
These are hard times economically which is why the tax cuts for the rich should be undone. [clip]
>The war against terrorism has shown notable successes with the breakup
>of Al Qaeda cells and large-scale arrests in Karachi, Singapore and
>Buffalo in September alone. But the Afghanistan/Pakistan region is the
>key to insuring that Al Qaeda does not re-emerge as a military force
>under a new Islamist or nationalist guise. Everywhere else in the
>world, Al Qaeda operates underground and in secret. In Afghanistan it
>rockets US troops in broad daylight.
Hence the $1 billion a month on the war. But notice Rashid admits the war against terrorism has shown notable successes.
[clip]
>Clearly, President Bush's recent pledge that the United States, Saudi
>Arabia and Japan will provide $180 million to rebuild the key
>Kabul-Kandahar-Herat road, which cuts through the Pashtun belt,
>reflects Washington's awareness of the unrest in the south. Roads are
>certainly important, but the urgent need is for the United States to
>demonstrate that it wants to re-establish a central government with
>institutions, economic resources and military and political power that
>can give a sense of nationhood and a functioning state back to the
>Afghans. Only then can Al Qaeda and its allies be truly deprived of
>their former base for terrorism.
Isn't this old fashioned colonialism?
Peter