[NYTr] Afghanistan: Some Notes on the Occupation

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Steven Robinson - activ-l - Nov 26, 2007

New Socialist
http://www.newsocialist.org/index.php?id=1457

Afghanistan: Some Notes on the Occupation, the Environics Poll 
and the Prospects of Negotiations with the Taliban

By Hamayon Rastgar

The US-led Western adventure in Afghanistan seems to be stumbling
towards failure.

With every passing day it appears that the Americans and their allies
are stuck in a fatal military quagmire; their political and military
weaknesses and limitations have been exposed by their inability to
defeat an armed resistance which is intensifying daily. The Western
alliance has demonstrated serious difficulty harmonizing its military
action and unifying its political purpose. And the opposition to the
war amongst the people of Western countries involved in Afghanistan has
been growing. All signs indicate that not only are the occupying powers
unable to resolve the crisis in their favour, but that their troubles
are going to intensify in the coming years.

The continuous brutalities of war and occupation, the broken promises,
the corruption of the puppet regime, and people's mounting miseries
under the occupation have increased resentment towards the occupying
forces and their puppet government in the country. This constant unrest
and turbulence is spreading across the cities and villages in
Afghanistan. The occupying authorities and the puppet regime have both
realized the direness of the situation and have recognized that they
are now unable to defeat their armed opposition militarily. This is why
they are appealing to the insurgents for a negotiated end to the armed
resistance. Some circles in the West-and also within Afghanistan-have
shown interest and hope in current rumors of ongoing negotiations
between the Taliban and the Karzai government.

These negotiations however, lead nowhere. The Taliban has already
rejected the possibility of negotiations and accommodating the
government before the withdrawal of occupying troops. Furthermore, even
if Karzai would utilize his relations with certain elements within the
Taliban and bring them under the umbrella of the puppet government,
this would not end the conflict. There are already many ex-Taliban
members and leaders in the puppet government. First and foremost the
head of current puppet regime, Karzai himself, is a former Taliban
member. Mullah Salaam Rocketi, a renowned Taliban military commander,
is in the parliament of the puppet government. Maulawi Ahmad Mutawakil,
a senior leader in the Taliban movement and its minister of foreign
affairs, is living in Kabul under Karzai's auspices. Maulana Zaeef, the
senior Taliban member and their ambassador to Pakistan, is also living
in Kabul. The case of Maulawi Ahmad Mutawakil is the most interesting
of these, since he always gives pro-Taliban interviews to TV and radio
channels. Due to these official interviews one might possibly wonder if
he is the Taliban's unofficial representative in Kabul. Increasing the
list of the above-mentioned Taliban members within the puppet regime,
or as respected guests in the affluent Kabul neighborhoods, is not
going to change things much. We can even imagine ailing Taliban
commanders taking advantage of Karzai's "kindness" and arriving for
physical checkups and treatments under the guise of a peace process.
But the war itself will continue.

The continuation of war in Afghanistan and the increasing death toll
for the occupying troops is exacerbating opposition to this war in
Western countries. The populations' antipathy for war efforts may make
it significantly difficult for the Western governments to continue their
mission in Afghanistan. Already many of the NATO countries are shying
away from taking their troops to the battlegrounds of southern
Afghanistan. It is possible that, if the armed resistance spreads
further across Afghanistan, the alliance of Western countries will
crumble and many of the thirty-six countries with troops in the country
will abandon the Americans and a few other Anglo-Saxon nations.

Even now popular opposition to the war is on the rise in all countries
with troops in Afghanistan. The imperialists are trying to change this
situation in their favour by arguing that their presence in Afghanistan
benefits the native population. They have just celebrated a public
opinion poll in Afghanistan that shows that a majority of people in
Afghanistan is supporting the presence of Western troops in their
country. There are numerous reasons to doubt this poll as a dubious
attempt to convince the people in Western countries of the justness of
the war in Afghanistan. One is that this poll was conducted by an
organization (Afghanistan Centre for Social and Opinion Research) that
receives its funding from USAID. Thus, due to the ideology of this
funding source, it is entirely possible the poll would produce results
that really accord with the interests of the donor institution.

Additionally, anyone familiar with the situation in Afghanistan would
know that it is very difficult to conduct public opinion polls in the
way that, for example, they would be conducted in advanced capitalist
countries. Afghanistan is a semi-feudal country where a majority of
people lives in the countryside. The system of communication and
transportation is very limited or non-existent in many parts of the
country. Therefore, it would be very difficult to reach a significant
portion of the population. Afghanistan is also in a war situation,
where armed insurgency and opposition to the government and the
occupying powers has ended the control of government and occupying
forces in many places. Thus, it would be impossible for pro-government
pollsters to travel to those places.

It is most likely that the organization funded for manufacturing the
poll has conducted their operation in the cities in Afghanistan, where
only 20 percent of the country's population reside. Most probably the
pollsters have also not bothered to pay a trip to poor neighborhoods,
preferring to ask questions in the safe environment of the unofficial
"green zones" in some cities and thus meeting their quota of 1600
people. In such circumstances the polls would indeed produce a result
that would be sweet on the ears of General Rick Hillier, Stephen
Harper, George W. Bush, and their ilk. Or if the results were not
really appealing, one could simply adjust a few statistics, as is
usually done.

The poll was an attempt to boost support for the war. With the
intensification of the war, the governments who have joined George W.
Bush's war on Afghanistan are finding themselves in serious trouble.
The coming winter might slow down the insurgency and the war, but the
start of the spring might bring even a deadlier year for the occupying
troops. A possible failure for the mission is clearly in sight. This is
question now: will the policy makers in the West come to their senses
and withdraw in a way in which limited harm is done to the people in
Afghanistan? Or will they escalate their atrocities within Afghanistan
and spread their war beyond this country's borders, pushing the world
towards even more hazardous disasters? We should not take the ruling
classes of the Western imperialist countries lightly: they can always
increase repression and use coercion instead of consent-even against
their own people-and commit mass murders abroad.

Only strong and dynamic social movements in opposition to war,
occupation and imperialism can change things for the better in
Afghanistan and elsewhere.

[Hamayon Rastgar is an Afghan-Canadian and a member of
Afghanistan-Canada Research Group (ACRG). He traveled to Afghanistan,
along with Mike Skinner also a member of ACRG, in the summer of 2007
and spent three months in the country doing research. ]