Chaos reigns in Afghanistan

by Abid Ullah Jan

03 February 2002

An American colonial shipwreck is looming before the world and the United Nations. The probability that the witch's brew of Afghan sell-outs will pluck a flower of colonial safety from the nettle of allied occupation, warlordism and grim ethnic enmities is submicroscopic. The dollar bonanza may not perform miracles for far too long. No one, however, dares to tell the world that imminently after the ramshackle interim six months administration of Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan will be staring at an abyss once again, and the abyss will stare back irrespective of multi-million dollars shopping of loyalties for the American picked Loya Jirga. The country will suffer, fracture and convulse as much due to direct American occupation as it has suffered due to its indirect interference.

“No one even talks about the actual situation,” gingerly complained a sceptical development professional from Europe while talking to this scribe upon his return from Kabul in Mid January 2002. “There is no peace, no security – not even in Kabul. Streets get deserted by 6 or 7 in the evening. Once I tried to go out and the soldiers of the Northern Alliance stopped our car, opened the door, pulled my clothes and demanded money, all the while saying: 'paisa,' 'paisa.' The Coalition forces control only parts of the city. Bagram airport has also been closed down for security reasons. I wonder how the donors would spend the already approved billions of dollars. I think it's a big game which we may never understand.”

A great conspiracy of silence is underway to hide the ongoing chaos in Afghanistan. The Western media is silent. Only those censored news reports pour out of Afghanistan, which could somehow prove the US successful despite all predictions of its fall to the contrary. The media is pleased to celebrate the American empire surviving the Afghan graveyard. Leading newspapers, like the New York Times, are silent about the death toll in Afghanistan as a result of the “war” so far. The media doesn't notice anarchy, lawlessness and humanitarian disaster under the nose of occupation forces in the country. Instead, the focus is on proving it “a merciful war” for it “may end up saving one million lives over the next decade,” (Nicholas D. Kristof, NY Times, Feb. 1, 2002).

It is interesting to note that despite the uncertain security situation and looting of the aid convoys, Unicef has vaccinated 734,000 children against measles over the last two months. This is certainly a commendable campaign in the present chaotic situation. But the timing of its launching would not go away without exposing the limitless double standards of the US, UN and American allies to the world. The New York Time proudly states, this is a campaign “in a country where virtually no one had been vaccinated against the disease in the previous 10 years.” The question is: where was Unicef during the past five years of relative peace and stability in 95% of Afghanistan? There is no doubt that the “vaccination campaign will save at least 35,000 children's lives each year.” However, what of the 35,000 multiplied by five dead children in the last five years due to deliberate negligence by the same agency?

The grief of parents sobbing as their children die of diarrhea is definitely every bit as crushing as that of parents who lose children to American bombs, but that is something the development agencies could do for the sake of humanity at any time during the most peaceful five years of the past two decades. Why shall the international humanists or the western analysts attribute the present efforts to the American victory and use them to glorify the most inhuman bombings of the human history?

What the world is not told is the fact that the present situation in Afghanistan is as worse as it was before the arrival of the Taliban in mid 90s. By using a good combination of bombs and dollars, the US has paved the way for its CIA-groomed Afghans to reach the Urg in Kabul. However, anyone hoping that the recently promised billions of dollars would help reconstruct Afghanistan is living in fools' paradise. Much of the promised funds would inevitably end up in the pockets of various warlords and tribal leaders whose loyalty has to be bought before convening any Loya Jirga for stamping the American designs. There is no one to tell the people that writ of the much wanted transitional government does not extend beyond a few blocks in Kabul. No one can muster enough courage to travel the road between Kabul and Jalalabad. Fighting between different Afghan groups is only reported when it is useless to hide. Mechanical failure in the American helicopters and feul tankers, like AK-130, is also on the rise. An American marine sergeant shot and killed by a 12-year-old boy is a clear indication of how much the Afghans love the Americans who have been bombing their homes, villages, convoys and even wedding parties, killing no less than 107 at one occasion. The longer the Americans prolong their occupation, the more would the stark realities dawn on the local population, the more would they turn against the Americans and the more casualties would they suffer. There is no one to tell the people some truth about the present American rule in Kabul. Initially a few photographers from AP and Reuters went in search of burqa-less women or uncovered women faces. Tired of that adventure now, they have failed to tell their public that very few women have discarded their burqa and that burqa was not the source of every problem under the Taliban. It is part of Afghan tradition. Since the Taliban left, at least 10 foreign journalists have been killed, and a Swedish woman journalist has been raped. There is nobody to register a complaint, much less investigate. Little or nothing like this occurred during the much-maligned Taliban rule. The present efforts are directed at recruiting more and more Hamid Karzais, none of whom have suffered pain for the country or even rubbed shoulders with the statesmanship and profundity pivotal to nation-building. What would one expect from them, when like Noriega and Saddam, their sole tutor has been the CIA and treachery, not the Enlightenment. Their throbbing loyalties are personal and purchasable, not national or ideological. All these factors add to further destabilise the shaky foundation of the American occupation.

Nation-building, they may call it, but it is not. Nation building demands sincere intentions and enlightened compromise by the concerned parties. It requires an educated public and free media to check exploitation and abuses by the powerful. As a biased interventionist, the US has already started playing tricks with what is dear to the people of Afghanistan. The only factor that forced them into war with the former Soviet Union was their love for Islam. Despite being the outsiders, the Americans are now raising objection to the 1964 constitution of Afghanistan. Article 2 of the constitution is being ridiculed for its declaring Islam as state religion. Article 8 is being criticised for it requires the king to embrace the Hanafi doctrine. A 1965 statue is being paraded as redundant as it prohibits defamation of Islam.

Undoubtedly, Afghanistan is incapable of self-rule. Nevertheless, it doesn't mean that impartial power brokers should start writing a constitution for the gullible Afghans and force odd things down their throat – things which the nation would not be able to digest. Nurturing Afghan institutions and customs should be independent of any outside interference. The impending disaster can be avoided only by pulling out all combat forces of the US led Coalition. Instead, the blue beret UN peacekeepers need to take over, restore Afghanistan's sovereignty and stay until the mores of locally acceptable government and the rule of law are widely inculcated without any biased interference from abroad. The experience of American spies among the UN forces in Iraq has reduced credibility of an impartial UN peacekeeping force; still there is no justification for the prolonged stay of hostile, combat forces in Afghanistan – particularly if bringing peace and stability is the actual objective. Any effort at hiding the ongoing chaos, uniting the Afghan nation with the force of American dollars or gallantry and muscle would be artificial. The dollars and the daisey cutters might temporarily dissolve the longstanding hatred and prejudices. Similarly, ordinary Afghans might remain in shock at their unimaginable loss due to the US imposed war. Both of these phenomenon, however, would not last long. The CIA-fed political grandees and their lackeys in Kabul insist they have learned from the sanguinary past. They have morphed into democrats and troubadours for the rule of law and national independence, turning Mir Jaffar and Mir Sadiq's story on its head. But, like the reports of peace in Afghanistan, the tale is too implausible to believe. At the same time, Afghanistan is far too stretched outside Kabul's boundary to be considered as non-existent and the misery of millions is too deep to disregard. Telling the truth might be a hard pill for the western media to swallow, but it needs to bring the fact before the world that prolonging occupation of Afghanistan is no guarantee to a legitimate and stable government. Let the world impartially facilitate the Afghan under the auspices of neutral peacekeeping forces to restore Afghan sovereignty and restore to Afghanistan the pre-October 7 normalcy.

Abid Ullah Jan is a columnist for The Statesman, The Nation, and the Pakistan Observer (Pakistan). He is also sub-editor for the Tribune International (Sydney, Australia), and is the Executive Director of the Integrated Regional Support Programme (IRSP)