Article: The Real Afghanistan

A lengthy but interesting article on what's happening in Afghanistan today. Some highlights from the article:

"Where was much of the money for reconstruction going, they asked, pointing to the Land Cruisers and the high-rent houses and offices of the expatriate population? Disarmament was a failure, . . . most militia fighters had simply concealed their best weapons and turned in old, ineffective ones. . . . There was no comprehensive plan to house and feed the millions of repatriated refugees. And though Afghans had turned out enthusiastically for their first-ever direct elections, they were disappointed to see US-backed warlords still ruling much of the country."

". . . members of the Bush administration had resolved to aerially eradicate poppy in Afghanistan . . . it seems unfair to target, manually or aerially, hundreds of thousands of small poppy farmers without ensuring that they have alternative means of survival, especially while warlords and corrupt government officials build up great fortunes out of the narcotics business."

'Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, have consistently refused to involve US troops in peacekeeping efforts in Afghanistan. More surprisingly, they opposed, until September 2003, expanding the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) beyond Kabul, especially in areas where, as the Human Rights Watch report for 2005 puts it, "there are no real governmental structures or activity, only abuse and criminal enterprises by factions." The eight-thousand-strong ISAF, which is under NATO command, will grow by a few more thousand soldiers as it expands across Afghanistan over the next three years. But its presence will still compare poorly with 40,000 NATO soldiers in Bosnia, which is one tenth the size of Afghanistan."

"No one among the thousands of Afghans detained by the US military at mostly unknown locations across Afghanistan since 2001 has been given prisoner-of-war status. . . . they have no access to legal counsel. Mistreatment during interrogation—beatings, sexual humiliation, and sleep deprivation—appears common. Eight Afghans have died in American custody. Last year, two of these deaths were ruled homicides by US military doctors at Bagram air base, near Kabul."

Full text of the article