And the good news never end!

[GePap]

OP-ED COLUMNIST
A Scary Afghan Road
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: November 15, 2003

Here's a foreign affairs quiz:


1. In the two years since the war in Afghanistan, opium production has:

(A) virtually been eliminated by Hamid Karzai's government and American forces.

(B) declined 30 percent, but eradication is not expected until 2008.

(C) soared 19-fold and become the major source of the world's heroin.

2. In Paktika and Zabul, two religiously conservative parts of Afghanistan, the number of children going to school:

(A) has quintupled, with most girls at least finishing third grade.

(B) has risen 40 percent, although few girls go to school.

(C) has plummeted as poor security has closed nearly all schools there.

The correct answer to both questions, alas, is (C).

With the White House finally acknowledging that the challenge in Iraq runs deeper than gloomy journalism, the talk of what to do next is sounding rather like Afghanistan. And that's alarming, because we have flubbed the peace in Afghanistan even more egregiously than in Iraq.

"There is a palpable risk that Afghanistan will again turn into a failed state, this time in the hands of drug cartels and narco-terrorists," Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, writes in a grim new report on Afghanistan.

I strongly supported President Bush's war in Afghanistan, and I was there in Kabul and saw firsthand the excitement and relief of ordinary Afghans, who were immensely grateful to the U.S. for freeing them (a crucial distinction between Iraq and Afghanistan, to anyone who covered both wars, is that you never saw the same adulation among Iraqis). Mr. Bush oversaw a smart war in Afghanistan, and two years ago the crisp mountain air there pullulated with hope — along with pleas for more security.

One day back then when I was thinking of driving to the southeast, six Afghans arrived from there — minus their noses. Taliban guerrillas had stopped their vehicle at gunpoint and chopped off their noses because they had trimmed their beards.

I stroked my chin, admired my own proboscis, and decided not to drive on that road.

Every foreign and local official said then that Afghanistan desperately needed security on roads like that one. But the Pentagon made the same misjudgment about Afghanistan that it did about Iraq: it fatally underestimated the importance of ensuring security. The big winner was the Taliban, which is now mounting a resurgence.

"Things are definitely deteriorating on the security front," notes Paul Barker, the Afghan country director for CARE International. Twelve aid workers have been killed in the last year and dozens injured. A year ago, there was, on average, one attack on aid workers per month; now such attacks average one per day.

In at least three districts in the southeast, there is no central government representation, and the Taliban has de facto control. In Paktika and Zabul, not only have most schools closed, but the conservative madrasas are regaining strength.

"We've operated in Afghanistan for about 15 years," said Nancy Lindborg of Mercy Corps, the American aid group, "and we've never had the insecurity that we have now." She noted that the Taliban used to accept aid agencies (grudgingly), but that the Taliban had turned decisively against all foreigners.

"Separate yourself from Jews and the Christian community," a recent open letter from the Taliban warned. It ordered Afghans to avoid music, funerals for aid workers and "un-Islamic education" — or face a "bad result."

The opium boom is one indication of the downward spiral. The Taliban banned opium production in 2000, so the 2001 crop was only 185 metric tons. The U.N. estimates that this year's crop was 3,600 tons, the second-largest in Afghan history. The crop is worth twice the Afghan government's annual budget, and much of the profit will support warlords and the Taliban.

An analyst in the U.S. intelligence community, who seeks to direct more attention to the way narco-trafficking is destabilizing the region, says that Afghanistan now accounts for 75 percent of the poppies grown for narcotics worldwide.

"The issue is not a high priority for the Bush administration," he said.

If Afghanistan is a White House model for Iraq, heaven help us.

From http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/15/opinion/15KRIS.html


Does anyone actually remember the last time they saw a news story on the TV about any of this? And yet what Paris Hilton does is big news...it's almost like 1989 all over again.

[Al B. Sure!]

what happened in 89?

[GePap]

After the soviets left, the US basically forgot about afghanistan and we moved on, giving little aid to at least try to set up a new stable post-communist government..and what followed was more civil war, the demolishing of Kabul, the eventual rise of the Taliban, so forth and so on.

[Evil Knevil]

It's funny that the Taliban were so demented, but at the same time they were the most stable Government Afghanistan ever had. Food was being harvested and buildings were being rebuilt. Pity they had to ruin it by 'hanging' TV's and making the football stadium into an execution ground.

Like I always say, legalise Heroin. It'll help our junkies *and* get Afghanistan back on its feet!

[uh Clem]

Rush Limbaugh's back out on the streets. Maybe that'll help.

[Jack_www]

I was thinking, instead of begging other nations to protect their own country, why dont the people of Afghanistan rise up and root out these terrorist?
Maybe everyone should leave the middle east and let the terrorist take over and see how they like it then.

[Jack_www]

THere wont be a democracy in the Middle East for some time to come no matter what any one does. The history and culture of the place I think is a major problem. If you look at nations like the UNited States and Britain, the people there did it themselves. Untill those people really want change and will stand against the terrorist and not support them and give in to their proganda things wont change.

[alva]

Food was being harvested

Although true,but, women who lost their husbands, or were alone for some other reason, were usually/often left to beg and die on the streets ( not that this kind of poverty doesn't exists in other countries )

[Jack_www]

Originally posted by alva

Quote:

Food was being harvested

Although true,but, women who lost their husbands, or were alone for some other reason, were usually/often left to beg and die on the streets ( not that this kind of poverty doesn't exists in other countries )

From what I heard the Talban did not allow women to work at all. So if a women lost their husban they were out on the streets with no way to make money. Some of these women they talk about in a newspaper article years ago, and they had university level education but could not work because of the Talban.

[alva]

Hmm, that's what I meant, yes. I Should have made it more obvious and clear.

[GhengisFarb™]

Afghanistan doesn't have lot of assets for production and export, their mineral resources were mined completely out thousands of years ago (that's where all the tunnels came from).

So kudos to them for building a viable opium industry!

Now they can add it to their other two exports, Dates and Nuts. I think Opium should prove far more profitable.

[Imran Siddiqui]

The opium boom is one indication of the downward spiral. The Taliban banned opium production in 2000, so the 2001 crop was only 185 metric tons. The U.N. estimates that this year's crop was 3,600 tons, the second-largest in Afghan history. The crop is worth twice the Afghan government's annual budget, and much of the profit will support warlords and the Taliban.

I'm confused by that statement. That Taliban banned opium production because they are diehand Muslims against drugs. So why is the increased opium yeild profits going to support the Taliban? One would think they'd reject the money, since they did so when they were in power.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by alva

( not that this kind of poverty doesn't exists in other countries )

Or still exists in afghanistan, for that matter...

[DanS]

One big counterpoint to this article is that Afghanistan no longer has 8 million refugees in neighboring countries. I'm guessing that as bad as it is there right now, it was much, much worse for most of the last 3 decades.

[Datajack Franit]

Pakistan, Afghanistan, just a different way of defining poverty according to the civilized world