Afghanistan. an Unwinnable War?

Every so often you have to look at media produced outside of our little world. So it is that I came across this article about Afghanistan by Ulrich Fichtner in Der Spiegel. First of all, it’s written really well, a cut above the typical U.S. periodical. It is not an upbeat article. The basic point is that things are terrible there and we in the West are not getting the real story.

I learned more about Karzai from this one article than from many articles I’ve read in the past few years. One gets the impression that Afghans do not think highly of him. While they call him the mayor of Kabul, Fichtner describes him as a royal leader who asks his people to do the impossible. And he is the leader of a government which has many corrupt politicians.

One measure of how far we have come is that a comment from the retiring head of the NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Dan McNeil, that 400,000 troops are needed there has gone unreported here. Shinseki must be laughing.

Things are not getting better there. In 2007 1,479 bombs exploded along Afghan roads, five times the number in 2004. There were ten times the number of attacks and forty times the number of suicide bombings. In Helmand the governor reports that half of the districts in the province are not in his control, they are controlled by the Taliban or drug lords. And drugs are becoming more and more important, 93% of the heroin trade comes from here and production is up 17% this year. 10% of the population is engaged in the drug trade, including members of the police. Why not? They can make $4,700 per hectare with opium and $300 with wheat.

Some criminals are arrested and sentenced to long terms. The problem is Afghanistan does not really have a judicial system, so that people are released the day after they have been sentenced. But what should one expect when half of the prosecutors have not studied law.

Fichtner argues that this is a new type of international war. Many powers are involved – China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, Dubai, NATO. What would a loss mean to the future of NATO and the UN?

The Taliban has learned that they cannot go toe-to-toe with NATO. So, they play a game where they are in charge.

Fichtner writes of the province of Bamyam which is virtually unlivable, although it is home to 90,000. It’s in the mountains, so you can’t farm, even if you could the temperature is too cold. The province is inaccessible in winter and for some period in summer. The wealthy own a single mule. Don’t get really sick here or the chances are almost 100% that you can’t be treated.

It’s a country we can’t understand. They’ve been at war for decades. Do we have any real hope there?