Is Pentagon strategy for Afghanistan unraveling?
By John Catalinotto
Since the U.S. attack that killed at least 48 Afghan
civilians and wounded 117 others July 1, two more events in
Kabul have reflected the unraveling of U.S. strategy in
Afghanistan.
On July 3, the first anti-U.S. protest took place in Kabul,
the Afghan capital, since the occupation. Some 200 people, many
of them women wearing traditional garb, marched through the
streets, halting traffic, to ask the U.S. to stop killing
civilians.
On July 6, Vice President and Public Works Minister Haji
Abdul Qadir was assassinated by gunfire in broad daylight in
downtown Kabul. Qadir was the only high official in the Afghan
government besides President Mohammad Karzai who is from the
Pashtun part of the population. Karzai has already asked for
help from the occupation forces to track down Qadir's
killers.
Both events are signs of growing instability in already
unstable Afghanistan. They have weakened the Karzai
government--a U.S. puppet regime--and aroused growing anger
against the U.S. role in the country.
They have also sparked a discussion among U.S. "Afghanistan
experts" over Washington's policies in the region that recalls
the discussion that took place when the U.S. began bombing last
October in an attempt to overthrow Taliban rule. At that time
analysts and journalists raised the specter of an Afghanistan
"quagmire" similar to the problems the USSR faced when its
military attempted to support a pro-socialist regime in Kabul
from 1980 to 1989.
But the Taliban ran an unpopular regime and was dependent on
support from Pakistan. Once that country deserted them, the
Taliban quickly collapsed before a U.S.-backed onslaught by
other reactionary Afghan forces led by the Northern Alliance.
It looked like an easy U.S. victory.
But that was only the first phase. Since that time the U.S.
has been unable to establish a stable government in Kabul that
can run the country. It has also failed to capture the leaders
of either the Taliban or of Al Qaeda, which was supposed to be
the object of U.S. aggression against Afghanistan.
In the meantime U.S. bombings--much of them conducted from
high altitude--have killed close to 4,000 Afghan civilians
along with four Canadian soldiers hit by error.
Kabul protest a warning
The Kabul protest was a relatively mild warning to
Washington. "We condemn terrorism," an organizer said outside
the UN compound. "We are not against the Americans, but it
doesn't mean they should drop bombs on residents, happy
ceremonies and sanctuaries instead of military targets. The
U.S. should get through to its officers that this kind of
incident could destroy relations and the trust between the two
nations."
Others were not so friendly. Jan Mohammed Khan, the governor
of Oruzgan province, where the civilians were killed, demanded
that the U.S. military hand over the "spies" who had provided
the information that led to the air attack on the village of
Kakrak.
"If Americans don't stop killing civilians, there will be a
holy war against them in my province. ... This has to stop, or
people will fight Americans just like they did Russians [in the
1980s]." Khan was himself appointed by the U.S.-backed regime
in Kabul.
Descriptions of the U.S.-caused terror show why this
sentiment is growing.
A farmer, Abdul Bari, while comforting his heavily bandaged
6-year-old nephew Ghulam, told the media: "Fifteen people from
my home are dead. My wife, my brother, everyone is dead. We
don't know why the Americans hate us."
What makes the U.S. actions even more galling is the public
attitude of the Pentagon. First U.S. officials denied a
massacre took place. Then they said they had no evidence that
so many people were killed. And they said that ground fire from
the village was threatening U.S. forces in the area.
Finally they admitted that U.S. fire killed civilians but
said that an Afghan had misinformed them as to who was in the
area.
The combination of the growing mass anger and the failure of
the central government to gel has reawakened critiques of U.S.
policy. A July 7 Washington Post article reports some of the
misgivings of U.S. military and foreign policy experts.
Think tanks debate policy
Robert Templer, Asia program director for the International
Crisis Group, said: "There are extraordinary levels of
discontent among the Pashtuns. It's hard to see a long-lasting
peace based upon the political arrangements that exist in Kabul
at the moment." Qadir's assassination won't help those
relations.
Templer has suggested the U.S. government stop chasing Al
Qaeda and Taliban forces and instead help solve other problems.
"I don't think the Taliban and Al Qaeda will be much of a
problem in the future, but everyone else [in Afghanistan] might
be," he said.
Another voice was Milton Bearden, a former CIA station chief
in Pakistan who helped organize reactionary forces against the
progressive Afghan government of 1978-1992 and the Soviet
Union. Bearden said the Bush administration should stop
bombing. "We're at a point where we have to decide what we're
up to there."
The United States could still lose the war in Afghanistan,
Bearden warned, "if the Pashtuns decide that we're the enemy,
or an occupying force."
What Bearden didn't say was that the U.S. is indeed an
occupying power. And if U.S. troops keep killing Afghan
civilians, more and more of the population will begin to
consider them enemies.
Reprinted from the July 18, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
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