Moscow's and Teheran's support for the Northern Alliance/the United Front (cf. James Risen, "Russians Are Back in Afghanistan, Aiding Rebels," New York Times, <http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/rusafg.htm>, 27 July 1998; BBC, "Russia Bolsters Northern Alliance," 22 Oct. 2001, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1612898.stm>; and "Military Assistance to the Afghan Opposition: Human Rights Watch Backgrounder," <http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/asia/afghan-bck1005.htm>, October 2001; and Barbara Slavin, "Iran Helped Overthrow Taliban, Candidate Says," USA Today, <http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-06-09-iran-taliban_x.htm>, 9 Jun. 2005) hardly elevates the Afghan War to a "US-Russia operation." That's a Moscow-centric point of view, which inflates Moscow's power to the level of Soviet grandeur. :-> It seems to me that's an index of the reduction of Russia to a regional player, down to the rank of India, Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.
Ramtanu Maitra foresees an Afghan nightmare for India: "According to New Delhi, the situation has become worse along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border than it was during Taliban rule. This area is under the control of anti-American and anti-Indian militia which are protected by the Pakistani army. US troops have no capability to break this stranglehold: Washington is dependent on Islamabad to produce an "extremist" as and when they choose" ("India's Afghan Nightmare," Asia Times, <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GF28Df01.html>, 28 Jun. 2005).
Moscow protests that it's an indispensable nation for Washington, but the protestation has yet to receive a hearty embrace: "[Andrei] Kokoshin [chairman of the Russian State Duma (parliament's lower house) Committee for CIS Affairs and Russian Diaspora Relations] said that the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, proposed to develop cooperation with NATO on the fight against terrorism, but proposals still did not receive the necessary support in the West" (RIA Novosti, "Expert: Russian-U.S. Cooperation Necessary for Combating International Terrorism," <http://en.rian.ru/russia/20050630/40822017.html>, 30 Jun. 2005).
>[lbo-talk] Re: afghan boogieman
>Chris Doss lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com
>Thu Jun 30 08:50:32 PDT 2005
<snip>
>Well, clearly, since US military plans are formulated all over the
>world, nuking Washington would have no effect!
No one has nuked anyone since Nagasaki, but the Pentagon was bombed by an airliner. What effect did it have on the US military, though?
>[lbo-talk] The Afghan War as a "Loss Leader"
>Dwayne Monroe idoru345 at yahoo.com
>Thu Jun 30 09:24:36 PDT 2005
<snip>
>Indeed, there may be rumblings of this ["the less kindly disposed
>the people of the region may be towards" foreign powers' presence
>such as US and other troops] afoot now. . . .
The New York Times today ran a front-page story focusing on the very rumblings that Dwayne mentions:
<blockquote>The loss of a military helicopter with 17 Americans aboard in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday comes at a time of growing insecurity here. For the first time since the United States overthrew the Taliban government three and a half years ago, Afghans say they are feeling uneasy about the future.
Violence has increased sharply in recent months, with a resurgent Taliban movement mounting daily attacks in southern Afghanistan, gangs kidnapping foreigners here in the capital and radical Islamists orchestrating violent demonstrations against the government and foreign-financed organizations.
The steady stream of violence has dealt a new blow to this still traumatized nation of 25 million. In dozens of interviews conducted in recent weeks around the country, Afghans voiced concern that things were not improving, and that the Taliban and other dangerous players were gaining strength.
An American Chinook helicopter that crashed on Tuesday was brought down by hostile fire as it was landing during combat in a mountainous border area, American military officials said Wednesday.
Afghans interviewed about the continuing violence also expressed increased dissatisfaction with their own government and the way the United States military was conducting its operations, and said they were suspicious of the Americans' long-term intentions.
"Three years on, the people are still hoping that things are going to work out, but they have become suspicious about why the Americans came, and why the Americans are treating the local people badly," said Jandad Spinghar, leader of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission in Nangarhar Province in the east, just across the Khyber Pass from Pakistan.
Poverty, joblessness, frustrated expectations and the culture of 25 years of war make for a volatile mix in which American military raids, shootings and imprisonments can inflame public opinion, many here say.
"Generally people are not against the Americans," Mr. Spinghar said. "But in areas where there are no human rights, where they do not have good relations and where there is bad treatment of villagers or prisoners, this will hand a free area to the Taliban. It's very important that the Americans understand how the Afghan people feel."
Reflecting the shifting popular mood, President Hamid Karzai has publicly criticized the behavior of American troops and called for closer cooperation when Afghan homes are raided.
The Taliban's spring offensive has sounded an alarm for the United States military and the Karzai government, both of which had said that the Taliban were largely defeated and that the nation was consolidating behind its first elected national leader.
"We were wrong," a senior Afghan government official acknowledged, saying of the Taliban, "It seems they were spending the time preparing." He insisted on anonymity because of the delicacy of the subject within the government.
While the government blames the Taliban - and its backers in Pakistan and Al Qaeda - for the violence, the American military is frequently blamed by Afghans for drawing radical Islamic fighters to the country and then failing to control them.
"The Americans are the cause of the insecurity," said Abdullah Mahmud, 26, a law student in Kabul. "If they were not here, there would not be any insecurity. The money they are spending on military expenses - if they spent half of it on the Afghan Army and police and raised their skills, then there would not be any security questions."
Opponents of the government are calling for foreign troops and international aid organizations to leave Afghanistan, a call that has resonated with Afghans' spirit of independence. The government, though, is anxiously seeking assurances that the foreign troops and assistance will stay and help it through this latest wave of adversity.
During the anti-American protests that followed allegations that guards at Guantánamo Bay had desecrated the Koran, Kabul's students demonstrated against the establishment of permanent United States military bases in Afghanistan, said Muhammad Mir Jan, 25, a literature student. "Students support the current presence of troops because we need them now," he said, "but not a permanent presence."
An unemployed man sitting in a corner shop in Jalalabad with a group of friends said of the Americans, "They should go." But others demurred.
"No, I think the Americans should be here, because if they are not, the warlords would come back again and the poor people would not be able to survive in this country," said Samiullah, 27, who said he was applying for a job as a driver with a foreign group.
Abdul Zaher, 26, the owner of the shop, said, "They should not leave our country until they have rebuilt it."
Sayed Asadullah Hashimi, an assistant professor at Kabul University's School of Islamic Law, said, "Outside Kabul, two-thirds of the people think that the Americans came only to invade and occupy Afghanistan, and that is why day by day the tension is growing. The mood is worsening."
With parliamentary elections approaching in September, the issue of the American military presence is already emerging at the forefront of political debate. Foreign diplomats are forecasting that the election will deliver a Parliament divided on ethnic lines and largely anti-Karzai, with a strong element of jihadi leaders and Islamists.
President Karzai will have to change his cabinet, now largely made up of technocrats, to reflect the makeup of Parliament, said one diplomat, who asked not to be identified because of the political nature of his comments.
The current instability does not yet add up to a national uprising. The Taliban movement remains restricted to a narrow core of believers and a larger number who are motivated by money more than anything else, Afghan and foreign officials said. But they warned that it would be dangerous to ignore the signs of unrest.
Changes have often come suddenly in Afghanistan's turbulent history, frequently catching outsiders by surprise: the slaughter in the Khyber Pass of retreating British forces in the 19th century; the kidnapping and killing of the American ambassador in 1979; and the Russian debacle after 10 years of brutal occupation in the 1980's.
The airlift of foreign aid workers from Jalalabad after a day of rioting last month raised the specter of the Afghans turning against foreigners once more.
Afghans interviewed this week frequently warned that if the American forces did not show greater care, especially in their treatment of detainees and their families, the people could turn against them. "They should respect our culture and our religion and they will be successful," said Lal Muhammad, the senior partner of a real estate firm in the southern city of Kandahar.
His partner, Taher Shah, said the United States should not overestimate the extent of its own power. "The Americans are very powerful and they can control the government," he said. "But if the people don't like them, they will have to leave."
Foreign officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the issue, said much of the public disillusionment and frustration was traceable to a lack of governance - from the simple absence of government, to the failure to administer the law properly, to the corruption of the local police and the courts.
"Since 2002," one of the officials said, "we have been issuing warnings that the main threat was the failure to address profound governance problems, and if we did not take it seriously, grievances would start to stem from that." (Carlotta Gall, "Mood of Anxiety Engulfs Afghans as Violence Rises," <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/30/international/asia/30afghanistan.html>30 Jun. 2005)</blockquote> -- Yoshie
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