Afghanistan

From: The Economist Jan 31st 2008 SANGIN DISTRICT, HELMAND Far more than two sides to the conflict BEARDED like an Old Testament prophet, an old man tugs nervously at the sleeve of the British commander, Major Tony Chattin of the Royal Marines. The Taliban come from the north and fire from this treeline at your base, he murmurs. The tip-off in the fields south of the town of Sangin is spot on. An hour later soldiers are exchanging fire with Taliban fighters. British troops glean a lot of information from local people in Helmand, but it is hard to know what to believe. Major Chattin commands a new base nearby. He frankly compares himself to a man trying to work out his surroundings by feeling his way by touch in a darkened room. It might be a metaphor for the whole campaign, which is leading to so much soul-searching in the West. Two years into their deployment in Helmand, British forces are still learning. The war in Afghanistan is not against a monolithic Taliban movement. In much of the country it is entwined with older struggles rooted in tribalism. In Helmand a 20-year-old battle involves at least three main factions competing for control of the province's huge opium trade. The dominant grouping since 2001 has been that of the Akhundzada family, who are members of the Alizai tribe, and their various allies. Sher Mohammed Akhundzada was Helmand's governor till he was ousted in December 2005 under British pressure over his links to the drugs business. President Hamid Karzai has now called his ouster a mistake, citing the Taliban's successes in the area since then. It is true that Mr Akhundzada had kept the scale of the fighting in check. But the thuggery of his regime had also provoked widespread anger, and sowed the seeds for the Taliban's return. In Sangin, power after 2001 was in the hands a warlord from the Alikozai tribe named Dad Mohammad Khan and his family, allies of the Akhundzadas. Predatory rulers, they favoured their own tribal faction and that of the Akhundzadas, while marginalising other groups, notably the Itzhakzai tribe, which had enjoyed considerable local clout under the Taliban. In June 2006 40 members of Dad Mohammad's family were killed in a single day as the Taliban seized back control of the district. Few locals mourned their overthrow. The attackers were all Itzhakzais, according to other tribal leaders. It is not clear which affiliation mattered more: to the tribe, or to the Taliban. Sensitivity to Afghanistan's tribal complexity has become all the rage. The American army has deployed anthropologists to help its troops understand the shifting mosaic of tribal interest groups. In Parliament in December, Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, lapsed into Pushto when he talked about beefing up traditional Afghan arbakai (ie, tribal policing arrangements); he said Britain needed to understand the tribal dynamics. Easier said than done. A crude ethnic breakdownabout 40% of Afghans are Pushtun, 30% Tajiks, and the rest Hazaras, Turkmen, Uzbeks and othersmasks baffling complexity. One veteran says that to fight in Afghanistan you must approach every village as its own campaign. And that means understanding Pushtun tribal culture. There are some 60 Pushtun tribes and 400 sub-tribes, many at odds with each other. Since the 18th century, supremacy has been held almost continuously by the Durrani tribal federation. The NATO invasion of 2001, toppling the Taliban, enabled the three main Durrani tribes, the Popolzai (the tribe of President Karzai), the Barakzai and the Alikozai (Dad Mohammad's group), to reclaim their dominance. That angered both non-Durranis and some smaller Durrani tribes. For their part, the Taliban have always held themselves above tribal politics. Indeed, they regard tribal custom as a deviation from sharia law. But where individual tribes feel badly treated, the Taliban are willing allies. Intriguingly, provinces where tribal structures are strongest, such as Paktia, Paktika and Khost, have proved most resistant to Taliban encroachment. NATO commanders are now studying these areas hard. In Loya Paktia, as the region is known, the Taliban have struggled to gain ground against the ancient code of tribal behaviour known as Pushtunwali (literally, do Pushtun). It governs hospitality, honour and revenge. It has self-regulating systems of arbakai, tribal elders and arbitration. Loya Paktia remains startlingly egalitarian and determinedly suspicious of outsiders. Yet, tempting as it is to see such structures as the answer to the Taliban, Pushtunwali is also hostile to the central government and to Western ideals, particularly of education and sex equality. Feuds in Loya Paktia are still often settled by the exchange of women. Away from Loya Paktia, in the south, and notably in the Taliban heartlands of Helmand and Kandahar, the old tribal structures have eroded. Yet the drug-financed warlords who hold the balance of power are still rooted in the tribal system. This makes them hard to dislodge. But they in turn find it difficult to extend their power across tribal lines. The upshot is perpetually indecisive factionalism.

Cup half full, half empty in Canada's Afghan development work
THE CANADIAN PRESS
By Stephanie Levitz
January 31, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan
You can give a man a fish and feed him for a day, the proverb goes, or you can teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime.
If that's the mantra of development work in Afghanistan, Canada's approach is failing.
Millions of dollars are eaten up by corruption and mismanagement, and even successful programs do not seem to have a long-term impact, according government documents, non-governmental organizations and a former aid official.
Nipa Banerjee said 50 per cent of the $300 million allocated during her three years as head of aid in Afghanistan for the Canadian International Development Agency brought little or no results.
"Fifty per cent had impact and the other 50 didn't," said Banerjee, who ran CIDA's office in Kabul from 2003 to 2006 and now lectures at the University of Ottawa.
"The 50 per cent that didn't were not in the social and economic sectors, but they were in the security sector, justice sector, the police - which have been failures."
Banerjee's estimates are mirrored in a recent review of CIDA programs, released in the fall of 2007.
Twelve of 27 projects CIDA had underway between 2004 and 2007 were reviewed in detail by independent professionals.
Half of them were described as having "significantly improved people's lives," but the remainder judged as mixed successes, mostly as a result of corruption and a dearth of skilled, knowledgeable people to carry out programs and keep track of spending.
The social and economic sectors Banerjee highlighted are where Canada has bought Afghanistan the proverbial fish - polio vaccinations for 350,000 children, 200 kilometres plus of paved roads, 1,200 wells, thousands of schools.
"Your baseline is so punishingly low that you are going to have areas of real forward motion," said Gerry Barr, head of the Canadian Council on International Cooperation, or CCIC.
"If you go from hundreds of schools to thousands of schools, it is intuitively powerful. You can say, yes that's good, plainly there is some change. But it still doesn't ... describe the broad challenge of development in Afghanistan."
The challenge is sustainable development - the fishing lessons. It is quite different from the aid to merely help people survive.
Most aid professionals note that some of the challenges in Afghanistan's development aren't CIDA's fault. They point to the many obstacles to rebuilding in a conflict environment.
"It's very difficult to do long-term development in a war zone," said Allan Sauder, the Canadian-based president of the Mennonite Economic Development Associates, a non-governmental organization that has spent years in Afghanistan.
"When people are facing that kind of insecurity in their lives, it is very tough to talk about developing business."
The Afghanistan Compact, signed in 2006 by 51 countries, lays out benchmarks of where the country should be by 2011 in areas such as security, governance and social development.
Progress is slow but Afghanistan's economy is growing, school enrolment has tripled since 2001, and healthcare outreach has cut in half the number of people dying from treatable diseases like tuberculosis.
The Canadian government tries to meet the benchmarks through funding and assistance from three areas:
-CIDA, which funds Afghanistan to the tune of $100 million a year through 2011;
-Department of Foreign Affairs, which has committed over $158 million through 2010;
-the military, which is spending $5.1 million on development projects this year.
More than 300 people work out of Canada's Provincial Reconstruction Team Base in Kandahar to implement that aid.
The bulk of Canada's assistance is delivered under an Afghan flag to shore up support for President Hamid Karzai's government. From the military perspective, that means using Afghan contractors to build things like wells or police substations.
"We are there as implementers, aids, facilitators as required, very often behind the scenes," said Lt.-Col. Bob Chamberlain, head of the PRT.
"Our real desire is that we don't take credit for what we're doing. We want Afghans at the end of the day to feel pride and sense of accomplishment."
Money from CIDA and Foreign Affairs is poured mostly into trust funds overseen by multilateral agencies, and then disbursed to Afghan government ministries.
Using multilateral agencies is how CIDA insists it can keep track of how the money is spent, as these agencies have strict reporting protocols.
It doesn't mean, however, the money is always being spent as it should.
Twelve million dollars for a confidence-in-government project called the Afghanistan Stabilization Program was redirected by CIDA when the World Bank reported problems with figuring out where the money was going.
The first two years of a $15-million payout to the National Area Based Development Program remains unaccounted for.
Banerjee said CIDA pulled out of a trust fund to pay the salaries of police officers when it became clear they weren't getting their cheques.
And no one has yet explained where the $900,000 promised to each of 17 districts in Kandahar province has gone since the military's massive Operation Medusa in 2006 that finally opened up parts of the province for development.
CIDA officials were not available for an interview in response to these questions. They did not respond to a list of questions submitted at their request via e-mail, saying they did not have enough time.
Human capacity, the term given to the presence of a skilled and able workforce, is one of the biggest challenges facing development - there simply isn't enough of it in Afghanistan. CIDA and others have worked to try and restore the brain trust.
In a recent technical briefing, CIDA officials trumpeted legal training for 200 jurists through a program run by the International Development Law Organization.
But in CIDA's own evaluation report, the program was rapped on the knuckles for having shoddy accounting procedures and little long-term impact.
"Local commitment is weak," the report said.
"In general, outside this project, reforms in the justice sector will be profoundly difficult. There are non-functioning courts, alleged extensive corruption, and a widespread belief that the courts do not produce fair results."
CIDA also decided to grant $1.7 million to Women's Rights in Afghanistan Fund, a four-year project implemented by the Montreal-based group Rights and Democracy.
The money was provided to 16 projects designed to encourage the participation of women in Afghan civil society.
"While there were some successes, there were no significant organizational development results and the reporting was very weak," the evaluation report found.
The importance of working with local partners sometimes butts heads with CIDA's reporting requirements, said Razmik Panossian, director of programs for Rights and Democracy.
"CIDA has certain standards and when you are working in a war-torn country, with all of the challenges that (it) has with the current security situation, some of the things you really cannot meet all that easily," he said.
"If, for example, you have put together a literacy class in Kandahar for a group of underprivileged women, and that group is unable to report to headquarters what they have done in the logical framework analysis system that CIDA expects us to do, then as far as CIDA is concerned your reporting is weak."
Rights and Democracy said it has improved local capacity and CIDA has rewarded that with another round of funding.
Security remains a prime challenge.
The PRT was completely hamstrung until the military sent a force-protection unit in 2006. And though development is meeting with success in more peaceful parts of the country, Kandahar lags behind.
There are no systematic programs to address corruption at the national, provincial and local levels.
"Nevertheless, CIDA has kept at it," said Drew Gilmore of Development Works, a private company funded by CIDA to oversee projects in Kandahar. "Mistakes have been made, lessons learned and the slow, slow process of rebuilding the place is picking up steam."
"The CIDA people are focused and creative and really pushing the development to jump start projects."
Creative thinking is in part attributable to Stephen Wallace, the new vice-president of CIDA's Afghanistan Task Force, said Gerry Barr of the CCIC.
Barr said the formation of the task force and Wallace's appointment show a shift in approach. "More outreach to Canadian NGOs, more transparency, quicker, more responsive approach and that's all to the good," he said.
The report of the federal government's independent panel on Afghanistan, chaired by John Manley, suggested too much Canadian money was in international joint programs and not enough on quick-action projects defined by the Afghan leadership.
In part, that's what CIDA, through the UN, does with community development councils - locally-elected bodies who draw up lists of development priorities which are then approved and funded.
Over 19,000 such councils have sprung up throughout Afghanistan and more than 7,000 community projects have been completed.
The principle behind them is that if communities decide what they want, they'll make sure the projects work.
The councils are celebrated for giving women a voice in community development, bringing together leaders and helping people take ownership of development. All are important factors in long-term development, but there are still challenges.
Banerjee said the money isn't there to maintain the projects, only to get them off the ground.
And the evaluation report highlighted the high cost of overseeing them: 28 per cent of the funding for community development councils goes to consultants to oversee the projects.
"While it was too early to conclude that the relatively few livelihood projects are not sustainable, it would appear that their sustainability has not been the subject of much analysis," said the CIDA report.
One bright spot has emerged in international efforts to rebuild Afghanistan.
Small loans provided to Afghans to start their own businesses have been a runaway success, surpassing all expectations.
More than 300,000 people have benefited from the money, and 98 per cent of loans have been repaid.
Canada is the largest donor to the Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan, based on the Nobel-prize winning program in Bangladesh that has supported millions of small loans there.
Mennonite Economic Development Associates has contributed technical assistance to the program.
Sauder said the experience shows a need to combine both elements of the aid parable but with a twist: Canada should give the fish and allow Afghans to devise their own fishing lessons.

As Karzai Loses His Grip, A Familiar Face Looms Newsweek 01/26/2008 By John Barry and Michael Hirsh It wasn't long ago that Afghan president Hamid Karzai was seen as a dependable U.S. ally on par with Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf. But as Afghanistan has fallen into violent chaosalong with Pakistantensions have erupted between Karzai and the United States and Britain. One of the most worried U.S. officials is Zalmay Khalilzad, the Afghan-born ambassador to the United Nations, who is seriously considering running for Karzai's seat himself when the next elections are held in 2009, according to several U.N. and U.S. government officials. Last Friday, Karzai blocked the appointment of British politician Paddy Ashdown, the former U.N. High Representative for Bosnia, as envoy to Afghanistan. During a meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Karzai said that he and many Afghan parliamentarians did not want Ashdown in the post, according to a Western official briefed on the discussions who would only speak about them anonymously. Ashdown's formal role would have been to coordinate international relief programs. But American and British officials were hoping that Ashdown might also act as a kind of viceroy, bringing order to an Afghan government that finds itself besieged by a resurgent Taliban. Karzai's opposition grew as Ashdown sought to establish what his powers as "superenvoy" might be, one official said. "Karzai has been under a lot of pressure and criticism, and he might feel that he was being marginalized," says Jim Dobbins, the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. U.S. and British officials have grown increasingly disenchanted with Karzai, who is now viewed as isolated in Kabul and surrounded by corrupt or incompetent ministers. Things are not much better next door in Pakistan, where militant Islamist groups have grown bolder and the embattled Musharraf is under pressure to step down. Like Karzai, Musharraf has begun lashing out publicly against what he sees as Western interference. Khalilzad had a successful stint as U.S. ambassador to Kabul after the Taliban fell, helping to form the Karzai government and working with then Maj. Gen. David Barno, commander of U.S. forces, to pacify the country. He also served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq and was one of the principal drafters of a 1992 "grand strategy" for U.S. global dominance that became known as the "Pentagon paper." Even so, in a 2005 interview with NEWSWEEK, Khalilzad said that one thing he had learned during his term in Afghanistan was that its people "don't want to be ruled by a foreigner." Khalilzad has not directly denied that he is considering a run. His spokeswoman, Carolyn Vadino, told NEWSWEEK that "he intends to serve out his post as long as [President Bush] wants him in office. And then after that, he hopes to find a job here in the private sector in the U.S." But a senior Bush administration official who knows Khalilzad (and who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss Khalilzad's plans) said the U.N. ambassador was actively exploring a run. Kenneth Katzman, Afghanistan expert at Washington's Congressional Research Service, said that "most observers think he would stand only if Karzai decides not to run." During an interview this week with NEWSWEEK's Lally Weymouth (page 47), though, Karzai seemed to leave the door open for a re-election bid. HENDRICKS & ASSOCIATES 1853 Summerlands Cr. Orleans, Ontario Canada K1E 2Y3 Tel: (613) 824-7831 Fax: (613) 824-8653 Skype: larry.hendricks E-Mail hendricks@sympatico.ca Web Site http://www3.sympatico.ca/hendricks/

the much-publicized Manley report on Canada's role in Afghanistan has been released, and is available here for download. The report is available on the web site of the Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan, at http://www.independent-panel-independant.ca/main-eng.html , where Canadians are encouraged to register their comments and opinions on the mission. CAIDC members, as a group, are relatively well placed to offer such input.

A better way for Canada to help Flag-waving 'signature' projects have questionable value when programs designed and led by Afghans build much-needed loyalty for the government of Afghanistan, Nipa Banerjee writes. Nipa Banerjee, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Thursday, January 24, 2008 The Manley panel's recommendations on the continuation of Canada's armed presence in Afghanistan are not unexpected. The analysis with respect to the combat mission is sound, but the recommendations for how to improve Canada's contribution to development merit further debate. Of particular interest is the report's suggestion that Canada needs a "signature" development project such as a hospital. Politicians may like these sorts of flag-waving endeavours, but they are of questionable value. Email to a friend Printer friendly Font:****Canada's mission is to build peace and stability by enhancing the legitimacy and authority of the Afghan government across the country. Only this can rid the country of the chaos and turmoil caused by the Taliban. Such objectives require support on the security, governance and development fronts, and the key to success in these is leadership and ownership by the Afghan government. The national development programs designed and implemented by the Afghan government, which CIDA has supported, have generated positive results. They are beginning to improve the lives of Afghans, and are contributing to stability by building the people's loyalty to their own government. The beneficiaries of these programs support the Afghan government against Taliban incursions and protect villages from Taliban attacks, because the goods and services delivered through these national programs are considered public assets. Not a single school or road built by one of these national programs has been burned or sabotaged. Yet the Manley report recommends a shift to "bilateral project assistance." Traditional bilateral projects are designed and delivered by donor country contracts with private sector firms, and historically have attended much less to the needs of the citizens of the recipient country. In Afghanistan, any one Afghan-government identified program has earned more benefits for Afghans than all the CIDA-funded bilateral projects combined. In fact, there are examples of CIDA-funded non-government projects in Afghanistan with a Canadian mark on them that have failed dismally. A Canadian NGO created four female-operated radio stations, at a total cost of $3 million -- to what positive effect on women in Afghanistan remains unknown. Interestingly, almost all positive outcomes and achievements, noted by the commission in the report, involve national programs to which CIDA contributed. These did not flow out of bilateral projects. There is little evidence to support a conclusion that donor finances, when invested in such national programs, go astray just because these are managed by the Afghan government. One of the largest and most successful national programs is the National Solidarity Program. The World Bank addresses the accountability requirements for the donors in this program by retaining a full- time auditor/monitor. On the other hand, alleged corruption has not been rooted out from bilateral projects financed by some of the largest donors. The Canadian "signature" projects, such as a hospital in Kandahar, may warm Canadian hearts. But this will remain as an ostentatiously Canadian project, not something that will help enhance the visibility or presence of the Afghan government, or contribute to the achievement of our original objective of stabilization of Afghanistan. Instead, Canada should consider evidence-based programming. Past experience in fragile and conflict-ridden states includes plentiful examples of QIPs (Quick Impact Projects) turning into NIPs (No Impact Projects). This is because no matter how visible such quick action projects are, they are outcomes of disjointed and knee-jerk responses to issues that require strategic planning for sustainable long-term impact on security and stability. Email to a friend Printer friendly Font:****The quick action projects most often lack strategic vision. They do not promote the recipient government's fragile visibility and legitimacy and thus do not contribute to the state stabilization process. They might earn force or troop protection for a limited period, but they hardly contribute to longer term peace- and security-building. One such knee-jerk response proposed in the Manley report is the "possibility" of "a limited poppy-for-medicine project" -- a recipe for disaster in a country where growing of poppy is unconstitutional and where absence of the rule of law is such that the "limit" cannot be enforced. The one flaw in this report is its failure to recognize that the hearts and minds for which the battle is being waged are in Afghanistan, not Canada. A clear understanding of the objective of Canada's mission in Afghanistan will help stop the search for a project in Kandahar with a Maple Leaf pasted on its face. Nipa Banerjee served as the head of Canadian aid programs in Afghanistan (2003-06). She now teaches at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa. She is also a CAIDC Member.

Globe editorial

Searching for CIDA
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

January 23, 2008 at 6:29 AM EST

The question mark still hangs over the Canadian International Development Agency. Talk to CIDA, and you will hear all manner of good things about the work it is contributing to in Afghanistan -- more wells, better roads, greater literacy, reduced child mortality. But those who seek a clearer idea of what it can actually put its name to from the $1.2-billion Canada has pledged in Afghan aid between 2002 and 2011 are left exasperated.
Last summer, the international Senlis Council asked whether millions of dollars in aid was spent as CIDA intended. Yesterday, Senate defence committee chair Colin Kenny told CBC Radio that trying to get straight answers from CIDA is like grasping at air, and that when committee members went to Kandahar to see projects for which Canada could claim credit, and to ask village elders whether such projects were of value to them, the word from Ottawa was invariably that it was too dangerous to go into the field.
Yesterday's report from the panel led by former foreign minister John Manley makes the same point. CIDA staffers themselves have trouble visiting sites in Kandahar because CIDA's headquarters in Canada won't let them for security reasons. The panel urges CIDA to let the officials in Kandahar assess the risks. "It makes little sense to post brave and talented professional staff to Kandahar only to restrict them from making regular contact with the people they are expected to help."
As for the achievements of which CIDA boasts, it has to trust others for most of those. It spends less than 15 per cent of its money directly, for "locally managed quick-action projects" that immediately improve everyday life for Afghans or for projects readily identifiable as supported by Canada. The rest goes to multilateral agencies such as the Red Cross or to programs run by the Afghan government. The reality is that CIDA must take much of what those groups do on faith -- the wisdom and efficiency of the spending, or the amount that actually reaches intended recipients. If CIDA cannot get more heavily involved, or better investigate the projects it is funding, it might as well just pop a cheque into the mail. The Manley panel urges CIDA to direct more of its energy to projects of direct benefit to the Afghan people, such as a hospital or major irrigation project "identified with Canada and led by Canadians."

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Beyond that, as the panel says, the government should "conduct a full-scale review of the performance of the Canadian civilian aid program." Some things are too important to be taken on faith.

Recommend this article?

Hubert LeBlanc, consultant

Berlin to probe report on ISAF's use of Afghan children to find land mines IRNA Jan 11, Berlin, Germany-Afghanistan-ISAF Germany's Defense Ministry has pledged to conduct a "thorough" investigation after a former German ISAF officer alleged that soldiers of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have repeatedly used Afghan children to detect land mines in the war-rigged country. Beate Spaethe told journalists in Berlin on Friday that all necessary measure would be undertaken to "thoroughly" probe the case. She stressed the German army was doing an "excellent job" in Afghanistan, triggering laughter among dozens of media representatives at the weekly government news conference. Unveiling his new book titled 'Final Station' in Berlin on Thursday, Achim Wohlgetan claimed that children were misused by ISAF forces to find land mines in the Kabul region in 2002. ISAF soldiers threw apples on an area and then waited to see what would happen. If the children were to run to pick up the apples, and there was no explosion, the area was declared safe, according to Wohlgetan. If the children did not run onto the area, the sphere was marked red and specialists were called in to defuse the land mines, Wohlgetan added. The German Defense Ministry has voiced serious questions over some of the allegations which Wohlgetan made in his book. He also claimed that German soldiers had operated outside the mandated area of ISAF in Afghanistan in 2002. The 41-year-old ex-German soldier quit military service in 2006 as a lower ranking officer. Some 3,500 German troops are deployed in mainly northern Afghanistan. Germany has faced intense pressure in recent months from its NATO allies, notably the US, Britain and Canada, to widen its military presence into southern Afghanistan where NATO troops are battling a revitalized Taliban insurgency. A spate of kidnappings of German nationals in Afghanistan has also negatively influenced public opinion about the western military campaign in the war-ravaged country. According to the latest opinion polls, most Germans oppose the western war in Afghanistan. HENDRICKS & ASSOCIATES 1853 Summerlands Cr. Orleans, Ontario Canada K1E 2Y3 Tel: (613) 824-7831 Fax: (613) 824-8653

Diplomats expelled 'at behest of the US' The Telegraph (UK) By Eleanor Mayne December 30, 2007 Two European diplomats accused of holding secret talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan were thrown out of the country following a complaint by the US, intelligence officials in Kabul have told The Sunday Telegraph. Mervyn Patterson, who is British, and Irish-born Michael Semple were flown out of Kabul on Thursday after the Afghan government accused them of "threatening national security". The pair had been working for the United Nations and the European Union respectively. But according to a senior Afghan intelligence source, American officials had been unhappy about meetings between the men and high-level Taliban commanders in the volatile Helmand province. The source claimed that the US alerted Afghan authorities after learning that the diplomats were providing direct financial and other support - including mobile phone cards - to the Taliban commanders, in the hope of persuading them to swap sides. "This warning came from the Americans," he said. "They were not happy with the support being provided to the Taliban. They gave the information to our intelligence services, who ordered the arrests." A government source in Kabul said there were close links between Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) and the US Central Intelligence Agency, adding: "The Afghan government would never have acted alone to expel officials of such a senior level. This was information that was given to the NDS by the Americans. " These claims will reinforce perceptions of a rift between the US and its international partners in Afghanistan, including Britain. Last year, US commanders expressed frustration with the British decision to withdraw from Musa Qala and allow tribal elders to strike a deal with the Taliban, who quickly reoccupied the town. The American embassy has strongly denied any involvement in the incident involving the two diplomats, saying it had "no knowledge" of their activities. Afghan officials, speaking anonymously, have accused the men of giving support to the Taliban in the form of money, food and phone cards for 10 months.

Ousted, the men who rumbled the Afghan fantasy Afghanistans expulsion of a British and an Irish envoy is a disaster. No one knew the countrys needs better, says an ex-diplomat in Kabul The Sunday Times Rory Stewart December 30, 2007 Michael Semple and Mervyn Patterson, who have just been expelled from Afghanistan, were two of the best political officers in the country. It would seem that they have been expelled for precisely what made them uniquely useful to Afghanistan and the international community: their courage, relationships, energy and skills, which took them to the most remote and dangerous areas. I first met Semple at the beginning of 2002. The Taliban government had fallen a few weeks earlier, it was midwinter and I was in Chaghcharan, a town cut off by snow. A crowd of 100 watched a Hercules plane land and Semple emerge - a tall, broad-shouldered figure with a great shaggy light-coloured beard, dressed in local shalwar kameez. He proceeded to give a compelling speech about the new government in rapid, fluent, colloquial Dari with only a hint of an Irish accent. As I continued through the villages of the Sar Jangal valley, inaccessible by car, I found that almost every family knew and admired Semple. Later I carried greetings from villagers to him in Kabul, where he sat on his office floor, with a Thermos of tea and trays of nuts and raisins, receiving a succession of guerrilla commanders, farmers and new officials, teasing them about village politics and reminiscing about old adventures. He was then one of a group of highly experienced men, including Germans, a Dutchman, a Swede and a South African, employed by the United Nations to shape the new Afghan state. Over the following months he and most of his colleagues were replaced with less experienced foreigners, whose knowledge was less threatening. Yet since Semple and the others loved Afghanistan they found work as junior diplomats or in charities so that they could remain on the ground, and gradually everyone, from ambassadors to generals, began to court them again. By 2007 Semple had been working in Afghanistan for more than 20 years: through the Russian occupation, the civil war and the Taliban period. He had studied Afghan history and anthropology, visited all the remote provinces, often on foot or horseback, and knew thousands of Afghans. He was reappointed to a senior position in the European Union office and Patterson was a senior political officer in the United Nations mission. My last memory of these two Irishmen, one from the north and one from the south, is of them tumbling, dusty, out of the backs of jeeps at dusk and entering the mud streets of the old city, having just retraced the British retreat of 1842, and repeating the troubling, surprising and very funny conversations that they had held along the route. Their skills, and those of about half a dozen others, were the reason the political sections of the EU and the UN Afghan mission were the envy of all the embassies in the country. Just before Christmas they went to the town of Musa Qala in Helmand - a province that alone produces more than 50% of Europes heroin. It is the base for 7,000 British troops and the centre of some of the fiercest fighting. Musa Qala had been in the hands of the Taliban for most of the previous year and had just been retaken by foreign troops. Little was known about it. Journalists had been kidnapped in the area, soldiers had been killed and the road to Kandahar was so dangerous that even Afghans were reluctant to travel on it. The majority of the foreigners there could not speak any Afghan language and had little sympathy for Afghan traditional culture. They were imprisoned in a security cage that prevented them from spending a night in an Afghan house. The soldiers in Helmand were only on six-month tours; British diplomats could visit only on short day trips in armoured vehicles with large bodyguard teams. The visit of Semple and Patterson was, therefore, uniquely valuable. Here were two experts with the language, the cultural understanding and decades of intense experience who were able to try to make much-needed sense of this fractured, criminalised, semi-tribal, insurgent-haunted town. Such knowledge is vital not just for the international community but also for the Afghan government itself. Yet the Afghan government responded to their trip by declaring each of them persona non grata, by removing their diplomatic immunity and expelling them from the country. Diplomats are commonly expelled by hostile, paranoid regimes. British diplomats have been expelled from Russia for spying; from Uzbekistan for reporting on human-rights abuses and, longer ago, from Sri Lanka for reporting on fraud in a general election. Afghanistan, however, is not supposed to be a semi-hostile, illiberal or totalitarian nation. It is supposed to be a constitutional state with an elected parliament, financed with billions of dollars of international aid and supported by more than 40,000 foreign troops. There is supposed to be no difference between the Afghan government and its western allies. Why, then, would the Afghan government insult its closest and most powerful partners by expelling their senior diplomats? Why does the Afghan government not want highly informed foreigners to meet locals in Musa Qala? The unprecedented western investment in Afghanistan assumes that the Afghan government is serious about eliminating drugs and defeating the Taliban. Did Semple and Patterson discover something different? Or is the Kabul government simply fed up with foreigners who micromanage and second-guess their decisions? Whatever the reason, both Afghanistan and the international community lose by this expulsion. International policy in Afghanistan has long been surreally distanced from reality. Britain and its allies continue to throw immense numbers of troops and dollars in pursuit of grand fantasies. Their analysis too often mingles management jargon, misapplied analogy, moralistic rhetoric, impatience and fear. They have failed in their ambitions to eliminate poppy growing and opium production, to deliver development to insurgency areas and to defeat the Taliban. They are paralysed and are in danger of lurching from troop increases to withdrawal, from engagement to isolation. They need a modest and sustainable strategy which recognises that in Afghanistan all politics is local. Semple and Patterson know more than any other foreigner what Afghanistan is and what it is capable of, what it should and should not fear, what it can reasonably hope to achieve and what, on the other hand, does not matter. They have worked through decades of horror without losing their faith in Afghans or their sense of humour. Their practical knowledge is the only way of avoiding slick and dangerous decisions and supporting the slow process by which Afghanistan will become a more humane, prosperous and stable state. There is no shortage in Kabul of charmers with flattering analyses and tickets home. But there are few such genuine and constant friends of Afghanistan. Everyone will benefit from their return. HENDRICKS & ASSOCIATES 1853 Summerlands Cr. Orleans, Ontario Canada K1E 2Y3 Tel: (613) 824-7831 Fax: (613) 824-8653

Here is the full report -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tom Body [mailto:plutob@shaw.ca] Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2007 12:49 PM To: Pamela Branch; Larry Hendricks Subject: Fwd: Is anybody listening? Begin forwarded message: From: Bob Boase Date: November 21, 2007 5:17:14 PM PST (CA) To: Bob Boase Subject: Is anybody listening? London, 21 Nov. (AKI) - The situation in Afghanistan has reached "crisis proportions" with the Taliban close to taking control of the capital, Kabul, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Senlis Council, an independent think-tank with a permanent presence in Afghanistan. The think-tank said that there is a "permanent Taliban presence" on 54 percent of the country. The security situation has reached crisis proportions. The insurgency now controls vast swathes of unchallenged territory including rural areas, border areas, some district centres, and important road arteries, said Norine MacDonald QC, president and lead field researcher of The Senlis Council. The report, entitled "Stumbling into Chaos: Afghanistan on the brink", said that Afghanistan was in danger of becoming a divided state and that the Taliban are the de facto governing authority in significant portions of southern Afghanistan. It is a sad indictment of the current state of Afghanistan that the question now appears not to be whether the Taliban will return to Kabul, but when this will happen said MacDonald. Their stated aim of reaching the city in 2008 appears more viable than ever, and it is incumbent upon the international community to implement a dramatic change in strategy before time runs out, she said. NATO has just over 40,000 troops operating in Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force. The United States and Britain are the largest contributors, with 15,000 and 7,700 soldiers, respectively. The report by the Senlis Council said that NATO countries needed to increase their presence in the country and suggested that the alliance double the size of its force in Afghanistan to 80,000 in order to deal with the Taliban threat. According to the think-tank, the Taliban have gained legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people because they have exploited public frustration over poverty and inflammatory US-led counter narcotics policies. In order to defeat the Taliban, the Senlis Council suggests that firstly NATO troop numbers have to be doubled to 80,000, with most of them coming from NATO countries and some 9,000 troops from Muslim countries. NATO countries cannot just restrict troops to fighting in the south or send insufficient troops as this would be "tantamount to abandonment of the [Afghan president Hamid] Karzai government and the Afghan people," said Macdonald. The Senlis Council also urged NATO forces "to urgently enter Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) which has become a training ground for the Taliban and al-Qaeda elements". "The Taliban have established firm roots across the border in Pakistan," said Macdonald. "President [General Pervez] Musharraf has been unable to deal with these bases, and as a result it is impossible to stop the growth of the insurgency in Afghanistan," she said. NATO troops in Pakistan are therefore urgently required to quell this growing threat, and ensure that this area is closed down as a home base for the Taliban and al-Qaeda." The think-tank also called for 'Combat Aid agencies' to be established, which would see the British and Canadian militaries in charge of the delivery of aid to warzones in the south. It also said that aid and development funding should match military funding. The delivery of food and development aid by the British and Canadian militaries would be a huge boost to the hearts and minds campaign of both governments in southern Afghanistan, said MacDonald. This would be an excellent counter-insurgency strategy strengthening ties with the local communities, which is the only viable way to defeat the insurgency in Afghanistan. No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.16.3/1144 - Release Date: 11/21/2007 4:28 PM