The not-so-great game

..and
Uzbekistan lie to the north, Iran the west, Pakistan to the south and the People’s
Republic of China to the east.
If you didn’t live there it would have little to recommend it and a large
percentage of the population has become refugees from decades of conflict –
mostly fleeing into Pakistan.
Currently a large Western International force (nominally NATO, but with Australians
and New Zealanders there as well) is engaged war against local ‘insurgents’
with the intention of “bringing stability to the country into which a
strong somewhat liberal and democratic state can take root.”
An election has just taken place, one noted for its corruption and industrial
strength vote-rigging, which may result in the re-election of a government whose
support doesn’t extend beyond the borders of the capital of Kabul. This
government is led by President Karzai, a small part-time leader of the anti-Soviet
Jihad from a noble Pushtun family, who was installed as the country’s
leader in 2001. He has achieved little, blithely unperturbed by the spread of
narco-corruption – illegal opium represented $3.4 billion in exports in
2008 – and aligning himself with assorted unpleasant tribal warlords.
The current government came into existence after the US led Operation Enduring
Freedom had resulted in the overthrow of the Taliban in October 2001. The Taliban
were sheltering Osama Bin Laden, whom the Taliban described as their “guest”.
Washington blamed Bin Laden for masterminding the 9/11 suicide attacks on the
World Trade Centre and Pentagon. The Taliban, one of the Afghan Mujahideen,
had controlled most of Afghanistan since 1996. However their extreme Islamic
policies, especially towards women, the destruction non-Islamic art such as
the two immense 4th and 5th century statues of the Buddha in Bamian, as well
as supplying most of the opiates reaching Europe, had already placed them outside
the pale.
In the context of Afghan history, the rise of the Taliban – though not their
extremism – is unsurprising. Afghanistan is a devoutly Muslim nation—90%
of its population is Sunni Muslim. The Northern Alliance, with whom the US has
made common cause, represents the 10% of the population who are Shiite
The Afghan Mujahideen, loosely-aligned Afghan opposition groups, initially fought
against the incumbent pro-Soviet Afghan government during the late 1970s.
The Mujahideen insurgency fought against the Soviet and Afghan government troops
started on Christmas Eve 1979 when 100,000 Russian troops crossed the border
to support the liberal but Marxist PDDP government. After the Soviet Union pulled
out of the conflict in the late 1980s the Mujahideen fought each other in the
subsequent Afghan Civil War.
The Mujahideen had been largely financed, armed and trained by the CIA during
the Carter and Reagan administrations – ably assisted by the governments of
Saudi Arabia, China, several Western European countries, Iran, and the military
regime in Pakistan. The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was the
intermediary used in the majority of these activities to disguise the sources
of support for the resistance.
So far the Pentagon have spent an astounding $US60 billion in Afghanistan and
plan to spend a further $US20 billion, increasing the size of the Afghan army
and police from 90,000 to 250,000. Given their current ineffectuality this money
will be wasted as the $US15 billion spent so far have been near useless. Men
simply decline to fight except to defend their homes. It does mean, however,
that this must be one of the few conflicts where the US has armed and trained
both sides.
But there is a fundamental flaw to the allied current policy in Afghanistan
– the Afghans do not have the idea of the concept of nationhood as understood
by the United States. It is a tribal geographic area home to a large number
of different ethnic, linguistic, and tribal groups. Afghanistan’s tribalism
has existed for centuries and the creation of a centralised government, while
appealing to the allies, has the appearance (supported by evidence of cronyism
and corruption) of one tribe gaining power over the others.
Rivalry and even armed hostilities have traditionally been common between and
within many of these groups. Ethnicity and tribalism have both served to divide
Afghans of different groups from each other and to unite Afghans with similar
backgrounds
There are over 100 tribes, ethnic groups and sub-groups that recognise no man-made
national boundary only ethnic family.
The only time it is possible to unite the country is against a common foe (as
both the Mujahideen and Taliban demonstrated. The common foe is increasingly
becoming the allied forces themselves.
The failure to recognise that there is no winnable current strategy may lead
to another Vietnam-like scenario with the escalation of resources and troops.
Increased fire-power and aerial attacks have proved counter-productive and the
civilian casualties are far too high and alienate the Afghans more from the
liberators who were originally welcomed with open arms. The cultural insensitivity
of the allied forces, where the casual detention of thousands of Afghan men
on no good evidence, the misdirected air strikes that have destroyed wedding
parties and sleeping villagers are now a focus for Afghan resentment. This plays
into the hands of a resurgent Taliban who have been supported for all these
years by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence.
Having gracelessly engineered an exit from Iraq, we seem too eager continue
another even more unwinnable conflict in Afghanistan, where the problems are
even more intractable.
The Economist quoted the police Chief of Garmser, Colonel Ghooli Khan, as saying
of the Afghan people, “They do not like the British or the Americans.
They just want peace”
Afghanistan which has been for centuries the playing board of the major powers’
“Great Game” may have to be left to the Afghans themselves to sort
out. The just might do a better job without any outside interference.
Dr Abdullah, one of the contenders in the recent elections said, “We have
insecurity in this country. We have bad government. We have corruption. We have
narcotics. We have a war. We have an insurgency.”
Strangely I don’t think that he said “Thank you”