International Herald Tribune

Just when things were looking up
By Barnett R. Rubin
Friday, November 23, 2007

STOCKHOLM:

The terrorist bombing in Afghanistan' s northern province of Baghlan on
Nov. 6, which killed more than 70 people, including 59 school
children,
reflects where Afghanistan stands today: The real progress the
country
has made over the past few years is under serious threat from
deteriorating security.

It happened when a parliamentary commission came from Kabul to mark
the
restructuring of a state-owned sugar mill. The mill is the type of
enterprise the government has identified as essential to escape from
poverty, insecurity, unemployment and drug trafficking.

Germany had provided technical assistance. The UN Food and
Agricultural
Organization had helped organize farmers to assure a steady supply of
sugar beet. A USAID-funded program helped the Afghan government
restructure the enterprise for privatization. The Afghan private
sector raised
€ ¦¤8 million of investment.

The delegation from Kabul included some of the brightest leaders of
the
Parliament, elected in the fall of 2005 after more than three decades
during which the country had no nationally elected bodies.

The chairman of the commission, Sayed Mustafa Kazemi, a former
minister
of commerce, was a political leader from the country's Shiite
minority
who had participated in the UN-sponsored Bonn talks in 2001. Those
talks resulted in the election which sent Kazemi to the Parliament,
enabling a member of a long-repressed minority to become a leading
opposition
spokesman. Kazemi was accompanied to Baghlan by parliamentarians from
all regions and ethnic groups.

In Baghlan, an ethnically mixed province, the delegation was greeted
by
officials and elders from all communities. Schoolchildren in national
dress assembled to welcome the delegation with songs.

The expansion of the school system was another proud achievement. Over
six million children were enrolled this year; for the first time in
Afghan history, half of the school-age population was in school.

As the children were about to start singing, an explosion, possibly
from a suicide bomber, tore through the gathering, killing Kazemi,
five
other parliamentarians, 59 schoolchildren, and several others,
including
teachers. It was the largest terrorist attack since the establishment
of Afghanistan' s new government in 2001.

The first suspicions fell on the Taliban, the ousted rulers of the
country, who have established secure base areas in Pakistan.
According to a
recent UN report, some elements of the Taliban have established
training bases for suicide bombers in Pakistan's tribal agencies,
where they
receive aid from Al Qaeda.

The Taliban has taken advantage of Washington's inattention and
Islamabad's collusion to reestablish much of the logistical base it
formerly
had in Afghanistan.

Taliban fighters are now less than an hour's drive from Kabul, the
capital. To erect new cellphone towers for the country's rapidly
growing
mobile telephone industry, companies have had to make deals with
Taliban
commanders throughout the south, east and much of the west of the
country.

Cellphone payoffs are not the only source of Taliban funding. Opium
production in Afghanistan has expanded by 40 percent this year and
has
become increasingly concentrated in areas under Taliban control.

U.S. pressure to introduce a Colombia-style program of aerial spraying
in insurgent controlled areas has been resisted by the Afghan
government - and by U.S. allies. The British in particular argue
that spraying
would do little to hinder the Taliban while driving farmers away from
the government and toward the insurgency.

In any case, a Taliban spokesman denied that the organization carried
out the Baghlan massacre. Indeed, the Taliban has avoided attacking
large gatherings of civilians, and has used suicide bombers largely
against
army and police recruits as well as NATO military contingents. The
bombing was more reminiscent of the tactics used by Sunni extremists
affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq.

But the tactics of some of the Taliban may be changing. A year ago, an
Iranian official warned me that Arabs were coming from Iraq to
Pakistan
and Afghanistan to train Afghans and Pakistanis.

He wanted to share information with the U.S. government, but because
of
the growing conflict between Washington and Tehran, he could speak
only to me, a private citizen. The purpose of such attacks, he said,
would
be to spark ethnic and sectarian conflict in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, that could work. In the aftermath of the bombing, some
supporters of Kazemi charged that he was the main target and that
those
responsible were members of another group fighting the government -
the
Hizb-i-Islami (Islamic Party) of Gulbuddin Hikmatyar, a long-time
client of Pakistan, once strongly supported by the CIA and now
allied to Al
Qaeda.

Other Kazemi's supporters charged that his assassination was part of a
larger plot. Government talks with the Taliban, they claimed, were
part
of a secret plan to form a Pashtun alliance backed by Pakistan and
the
United States to displace the largely non-Pashtun Northern Alliance,
which had received backing from Iran. Kazemi was regarded as one of
the
Afghan parliamentarians closest to Iran.

While these charges are probably false, they demonstrate how such
attacks can indeed provoke factional distrust and conflict.

The growing confrontation between the United States and Iran further
destabilizes Afghanistan. The United States and Iran jointly
supported
the Northern Alliance's coalition with President Hamid Karzai and
other
Pashtun elites in 2001. As Washington and Tehran have locked horns
over
Iran's nuclear program and Iraq, each has been working to solidify
its
alliances in Afghanistan.

The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard has warned that if
attacked
by the United States, Iran would unleash devastating attacks in both
Iraq and Afghanistan. "Afghanistan is a friend," said one Iranian
official. "But when survival is at stake, you may have to sacrifice
even your
friends."

Increasingly, Afghans fear that their country's survival, too, is at
stake. In 2001, it seemed that all regional and world powers had
agreed
on a new political arrangement to stabilize Afghanistan, which
involved
supporting a broad Afghan coalition.

Now that coalition is close to the breaking point, both inside
Afghanistan and internationally. If it breaks further, all the sugar
mills and
mobile phones in the world will not save Afghanistan.

Barnett R. Rubin is director of studies and senior fellow at the
Center
on International Cooperation at New York University.

It is not mismanagement not greedy companies and corruption that is the problem here. The beginning and end of the problem is that you cannot engineer a preferred way of living in another country by invading it. All you will end up doing is destroying that country as the inevitable resistance to the occupation grows. The more you fight them the more enemies you will make. Learn from history - Millions of Vietnamese died because of war there, yet the resistance forces against the foreigners won. In Afghanistan the opium brings enough money to fund a resistance. Destroy the crop and the grower joins the resistance. How ruthless is the occupation prepared to get? When is it decided enough have died? Beware we don't support genocide or mass murder in the name of our "superior" value system.

It's not wasted if it goes to your friends. Dictatorships cost money.

Ramsay

Just a good thing we do not have any needy folks in our own country or any infrastructure that needs work done. If we were not in such great shape, thanx to Bushco, it would be disgusting, to say the least. Why don`t we pick another country to invade and nation-build, as it works so well for everyone.

Foreign aid:

Take from the rich countries' poor and give it to the poor countries' rich.

National Geographic and Lynn Cheney on some kind of humanity council together cheated the Afghanis out of millions for the gold treasure which will be displayed in the US in 2008. They did not get the kind of money that the Egyptian mummy exhibit brought and several archeologists quit over this basic theft while Afghans risked their very lives to preserve these gold treasures from the Taliban. Shame!! I can't wait to see how many people will picket the exhibit of National Geographic when it cruises around in 2008. I wrote them a letter and told them that museum goers are cultured and won't forget!!!

The Bush administration has been doing the same in Iraq. But let's call a spade a spade. Much is not profit at all but fraud and outright theft. These favored corporations are committing crimes that are bringing suffering and death. Don't forget that we've had a demonstration of how this works much closer to home, the Gulf Coast post Katrina. And it is ongoing. It isn't only the poor in Louisiana getting the shaft. There are tens of thousands of Mississippi's citizens still living in trailers too while the governor redirects the money for them to "port development."

Blowback,,,it will come, it will bankrupt us, it is bankrupting our soul, if the oil producing countries start taking only Euro's, it will be the end, Recession, Depression its all the same thing, 'cept the military petroleum complex will continue to extort, time to national ize the big ouinkers, pigs at the government trough, sucking it dry for the rest of america, while (making it safe),,,???(to plunder) by the very rich who have no loyalty to this country, truely they have their reward....this short life, but the next?? we shall see,,,laugh

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on 11-18-07 "Big Success or Sad Story" confirms such squandering of "reconstruction" funding to Afghanistan; a further travesty of development with mothers and newborns the victims...in the land of the highest maternal mortality in the world.

All this misery because the Taliban would not allow Unocal to build a pipeline across the country.

But the Unocal rep showed them!!!

Unocal rep at the time: Karzai

Foreign Aid: the act of distributing just enough assistance to keep the recipient returning for more indefinitely.

There is an Afghan who is doing a great deal of reconstruction for his country without the help of outside donors. He is well loved and respected in the Afghan community both in the US and in Afghanistan. Mr Ehsan Bayat is his name and check out his Foundation here:

http://bayatfoundation.org/press/main.php

The U.S elite are into the pacification business -not social progress.

Thus when our oligarchs prey upon a society, they organize it so its benefits rise to the top while the costs are "externalized" to the bottom and the natural environment.

To control those on the bottom, our oligarchs' overseers control the slaves using a wide range of carrots and sticks.

The lower an individual is located within the power pyramid, the more he or she is controlled using sticks. The higher an individual is located -more carrots.

Consumerism = carrots; repression, insecurity and hunger = sticks.

Either way, the slave or overseer are donkeys.
A proper revolution attempts to produce two results: 1. society is reorganized so more benefits go down while more costs go up 2. the members of a society go through a process of "de-donkeyfication."

Liberal = conservative = thief

PS ... don't expect the Democrats to change this. They play exactly the same game. Maybe with some different contractors with different political connections, but the overall theme is the same. Sell off anything of value that the state has, or just funnel our taxpayer dollars away, to their corporate partners in crime. In exchange they get the bribes, uh campaign contributions, that allow them to guarantee their seat in our rigged political process.

Examples: Clinton and Gore (he ran his 'reinventing government' program) pushed privatization of government services in their administration. And bills like the Telecom act of 1996 sold away the public's interest in a diverse and independent media to the big telecom companies. And of course enough Dems vote for the various bankruptcy bills, bills protecting big pharma from overseas competition, etc to keep the money flowing to corporate profits.

The article is important news. But I disagree with the headline that says its 'squandered' into contractor profits. That wording leads to a misunderstanding of the true situation.

The true situation is that the fundamental purpose of the aid is to create contractor profits. The aid might be sold to the public for some altruistic reason. But the real reason its happening is to funnel taxpayer money to a contractor.

Its been said out here before, but read Naomi Klein's book "The Shock Doctrine". This general neocon\neoliberal style of government is all about taking taxpayer resources and converting them to corporate profits.

The 'reconstruction' process in Iraq is the biggest scam like this that they've run. Literally billions of dollars paid to contractors. And in the end, almost no money paid to Iraqis to do the work, and almost no useful work done. So it was really just a big funnel to send tax payer dollars to contractors with political connections. Unfortunately its cost the lives of thousands of Americans, as a useful reconstruction process that both put money and work into the Iraqi economy and also which truly rebuilt some useful stuff in Iraq would have been the best way to combat the Iraqi insurgency.

This is just the same scam on a smaller scale in a different place.

Shanti: The two most important O's: Oil and Opium. Wars for Opium have been waged for centuries. The oil is the latest addition. But soon the O's may be forgotten when WWW breaks out (World Water War).

ezeflyer: my father would love your 'joke'. Unfortunately, so would most of the citizenry of this country. Heavy sigh.

The U.S. foreign aid is an euphenism for foreign bribery. The so called drug war, in Afghanistan, is nothing more than keeping their bad guys from getting control of billions of $ in drug $ from our bad guys. A friend of mine was just there and that is the way he sees it.

Channel all the money through the government and make THEM accountable for how it is spent.

NMBill exactly the Afghan point of view was never incorporated into reconstruction. No one asked them what their needs are. Currently Kabul gets about 3 hours of electricity a day. My Afghan mother in law is often in the dark literally thanks to reconstruction failures.

It's just business. Conservative criminal business. In case you missed it, here again is a joke sent to me by a middle class conservative republican friend that gives us an idea of how conservative oligarchy stooges see liberals:

History lesson for today

For those that don't know about history…
Here is a condensed version…

Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.

The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:

1. Liberals
2. Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery.

That's how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement.

Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girlie-men or wussies. Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years Conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth; the elephant.

Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.

A few modern liberals like Mexican light beer (with lime added), but most prefer a chilled glass of Sauvignon Blanc,with passion fruit and kiwi aromas which are marked by grassy notes, then rounded out on the midpalate by peach flavors. Crisp and refreshing, with a hint of chalky minerality on the finish; or Perrier bottled water. They eat raw fish but dislike beef. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare.

Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, Ivy League professors, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated-hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink Sam Adams, Harpoon IPA or Yuengling Lager. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, and generally anyone who works productively.

Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America . They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

Here ends today's lesson in world history: It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above before forwarding it. A Conservative will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately to other true believers and to more liberals just to piss them off.

Here we are not allowing the Afghan people to have any say in WHAT they want!

The contractors are lined up just like a big funnel collecting all the money that's spent on aid.

MSM has been the tool that keeps us in the dark about what Afghan people say to each other in private. They see first hand how USAID works.

For countries not in the middle of a war, I agree with speakthetruth.

Afghanistan is just a plain wack job of foreign aid. First, a lot of the foreign aid is geared towards stopping dirt-poor farmers from being coerced by their local drug militias to grow opium poppies. I would say that the heroin dealers win 98% of these conflicts. They had a bumper crop this past year, didn't they?

So then, foreign aid is about spraying the fields and nearby villages with peasant-killing pesticides. Americans really know how to make themselves popular.

Next, we find that the Taliban have been winning. U.S. troops can travel anywhere in Afghanistan, but reports are that the Taliban have been re-establishing their control in Kabul's suburbs. The Taliban have already conquered western Pakistan. This makes foreign aid problematic. How does Halliburton build a girls' school in a hostile village? Not that any local girl will set foot in the school.

So, how does Halliburton do a farming or mining development favor for a local Afghani businessman so that the businessman can pay off a huge loan in 30 years? The answer is simple. Fantasyland! Halliburton still gets paid because it's not their loan.

Foreign aid in Afghanistan and Iraq has become a racket with all the money being filtered back to Washington based NGO's. This has set up unrealistic expectations in Afghanistan and Iraq as the people of these nations heard they would be given millions in aid moneys and are now quite angry that the money has not filtered down to benefit them. No one is monitoring the reconstruction contractors and they all got their moneys through connections to the administration. This article is long overdue as the Afghans have been complaining about this for years!

The War on Terra has largely been a vehicle for funneling taxpayer dollars into corporate pockets. If Congress had any spine at all, or any sense of moral decency, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act would be applied with extreme prejuduice to all and sundry who are profiting.

Hmmmm. That might just empty Washington D.C....

Foreign "aid" is part of the scam by the "investors" to skin the world's poor of whatever crumbs they might still be hanging on to. Give a loan with exorbitant interest rates and conditions that basically sell the country to the investors. Soon enough the investors own the country's resources, because the country cannot payback and defaults on interest payments. The "investors" standard defense is: why did the country accept our "aid" in the first place??