The war in Afghanistan

Last chance in Kabul

The election was a disaster. Hamid Karzai must reform quickly if he wants to save his country, and himself

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Readers' comments


Mike Rudd

The amount of thought,commitment and planning that has gone into this war in Afghanistan, is totaly dipressing, But even at this late stage it is possible to win here,
Not only is it possible it is essential, If we allow Afghanistan to fail Pakistan will soon follow, and that will leave us with a problem so terrible it is not to be contanplated.
To win firstly we must show that we have the wish to win, and not sending enough troops with the correct equipment dooms us to failure,
It would help if our allies in this venture could be persuaded to pull their weight, if not then then The US and those of us that will pull their weight will be forced to go it alone, (a thought for those that want the EU to form their own Armed forces, stop wasteing your time)

That this is going to take a long time is expected, we have to deny the Taliban acess to finance which firstly means we have to purchase the whole Opium crop, it will be cheaper than the price paid in our countries for the finished product. We also have to give a huge push towards education of all children (or at least all those we can reach).

If we were to leave now or before a reasonably decent administration is formed we would deserve all the disasters that would follow


We're fighting two wars in Afghanistan, the war on the Taliban-Al Queda coalition and the War on Drugs. Right now most of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan. Better to back off on the War on Drugs than to give the Taliban a pass. We have a chance of beating the Taliban. In the end, we'll need a negotiated peace with heroin. Medicalization could work. Thinking that we can win a war against a plant that could outlive the US by a million years is certainly hubris.

It was our retreat in Somalia that inspired Bin Laden to take us on. We have to assume that another retreat would inspire others.


Russia went into Afghanistan in 1979, after a rebellious change in government, and it was at the request of the Afghans who could not manage the mujahedin. As it happened, the Russians couldn't manage them either, being unsuited for that kind of warfare.

But the real problem was that the Western powers, primarily the US, couldn't keep their noses out of anything involving the 'other superpower'. That's why they went into Vietnam as well.

The real tragedy is that those two powerful countries fought a war by proxy on someone else's territory, doing untold and semi-permanent damage to the people and their country.

Russia may not have been blameless, but it sure wasn't all their fault. Where do you suppose Osama Bin Laden came from? The US and the CIA hired him to wage their war against Russia in Afghanistan. They trained him and his army, supplied him with weapons and paid him a lot of money.

If the US had just stayed out of it, things would never have become so wretched as they have. But the US has done that kind of thing many times before. Remember, they financed the 'Contras' in Nicaragua in the same way. They didn't like the leader so they essentially sent in the CIA to train and finance and supply a guerilla war - in someone else's country, leaving the casualties for them.

That's the standard practice: let's you and him fight.

So many of the tragic countries in the world today have the same history - the 'democratic' West sowing seeds of destruction in places where they don't belong, interfering in situations that are none of their business.

Moreover, Afghanistan has always been tribal. There are Pashtuns, but Uigurs and a dozen other peoples there, and government has always been fractious. Instead of teaching them how to live in peace, we taught them how to kill each other.

And why would we want to believe that we could impose a voting democracy on such a fractured country? It never had any hope of working, just like Iraq.

Where did we get the idea that 'our' way is the only way? Why do we persist in forcing our political systems on the rest of the world?


watchingchina writes:

"What would have happened if nobody had ever invaded Afghanistan?"


Ask the Soviets. They clearly started this maelstrom of instability in the region.


Since NATO troops are in Afganistan the economy grew strongly ,due to more freedom , help from many countries , technical assistence and restarting of commercial activities.
Unfortunately the biggest problem of Afganistan are the corruption united with a too strong centralism that makes the democracy ineffective , then comes the Talibans .
Afganistan has many commodities and could let transit of the Central Asia gas to Pakistan and India , but without peace and democracy can not be economical progress.The miners go to Mongolia and other countries,the pipelines bypass Afganistan : Central Asia sells gas to China .
It is up to Afgan people to decide : if they want a better life for their children they have to use everything to advance the pacification , build institutions (the old one are obsolete and are causing the long Afgan mess ) and infrastructures .


Yonkers, New York
06 November 2009

At this juncture, any effort to save Afghanistan from its headlong downward spiral appears realistically futile. Its descent into anarchy and chaos is so far gone that there is nothing any nation can do now to help it--not the U.S., not Europe, not both together.

The last presidential election was a disaster of epic proportions. It was completely rigged in favor of Hamid Karzai; the United Nations group which oversaw the elctions made that abundantly clear. And that explains why Mr. Abdullah Abdullah refused to go into a runoff against Mr. Karzi; he sees a runoff as an exercise in futility.

With Mr. Karzai back on the saddle, is it reasonable to expect him to cleanse the Aegean stables where his government had wallowed all these years of corruption? Is it reasonable to expect his government to overcome anytime soon its deeply-seated ineptitude and dysfunctionality and, all of a sudden, turn corruption-free and effective?

I say, borrowing the memorable words of the Bard, that that is "a consummation devoutly to be wished."

What to do? The Afghan people say, loud and clear, that they want U.S. and NATO forces to get out of Afghanistan. The U.S. and Europe will need to heed their appeal, if not their demand. Let them sort things out for themselves. Leave them alone.

Mariano Patalinjug


@ watcingchina:

You echo my very sentiments to a tee!

The blood-dripping, opium-grabbing, power-hungry hands of the Ugly American (read: CIA & Co Unlimited), are to be found all across Afghanistan, as the plundering continues unabated.

Of course, all in the (un)holy name of 'fighting terrorism' & 'spreading democracy', needless to say!

And sadly, the world slumbers on...


Presumably, NATO and allies are in the business of getting some stable authority in Afghanistan and one in Pakistan to arrest/kill fanatical murderers. Lies like "having a military mission" or "improving government legitimacy" are trivial by comparison. Pity Iraq is the closest model, and a devout failure.


If there was anybody even half as strong and brave as President Najibullah, Afghanistan would not be in such a big mess today. He stood his ground for three years after the russians left, alone in the face of incredible challenges and happens to be one of the most popular figures among the common people in Afghanistan today.

Lets not deny people the credit they rightly deserve.


Dear Economist;

I just thought of another question: If planting poppies and selling opium is such a bad idea today, why was it such a good idea not so long ago for the UK so deeply invested in selling (in fact, forcing) opium onto China?

Or maybe I'm reading the wrong article. Maybe this is somehow related to your other piece about the wonders of capitalism and democracy and how that particular combination always produces the finest results, free from the 'fermenting fearsome fortresses of shameless repression.'

Or, maybe I'm just naive and don't understand. Maybe you could just send a few B-52s my way, and explain democracy and capitalism to me in a way that I will be sure to understand.


This "President of Kabul-istan" can't even maintain security around the Presidential Palace, so how on Earth can he bring Peace, Security & Stability to Afghanistan?

It's no Wonder the People are looking more & more to the so-called "Taliban" ( a RIDICULOUS term used to describe all the Insurgents ) for Salvation!

This Hand-Picked President (thank you GWB), was Joke from the Start. Eight Years after that Disastrous/Fateful decision to INVADE & OCCUPY was carried out, it's no longer funny!!

Karzai & his Corrupt Cronies may have less time on their hands than they think, regardless of what President Obama or NATO finally decide to do........

Peace, Love & Respect.


"Ever more Westerners understandably ask why their compatriots must keep dying to prop up the inept and corrupt Mr Karzai."

Well, maybe it's because "his brother, Ahmad Wali, is both a drugs lord and in the pay of the CIA."

Does anybody wonder why Karzai's opponent, Mr. Abdullah, suddenly decided he wasn't interested in the leadership race that he by all accounts actually won?

I wonder if Karzai and his brother and the CIA and Hillary Clinton convinced him to withdraw.

Actually, I think a more interesting and useful article would be titled:


For a start, we would have no Karzai, no CIA, no Osama Bin Laden, no 9-11, a whole lot less terrorism and who knows what else.

I wonder if the 'shamelessly oppressive' Western Leaders have any regrets about ever becoming involved in all of this.


Can anyone enlighten me on Karzai's achievements/accomplishments in all the years he has desparately clung to power?

Other than going thro' the motions of governing the country to American orders, what has he done for his people??

I seriously doubt he'll do any different, anytime in the future either.

My heart goes out to the Afghani people, trapped as they are in a living hell-on-earth.


Afghanistan loves to potray corruption as out of their hands.
Corruption when money supports a government, or corruption when USA pulls the plug is all corruption blamed on the USA.

Even from any Afghan view, few reasons remain for success.
1. hate toward USA is a twin to Isreal.
2. Afghan politics ending: by both success against corruption (1 by 1) or failure of government (everyone).
3. also, USA's society controls ending before bankrupt, unlike past super powers controled by a few who were too proud to quit.

Afghan's hate is as basic as their shared hate for much more than the day before 9/11.
They are in the middle of that hate...they have no ability to change anyone or any nation if they did everything the US demands.

The love of dollars we oddly see as loving the USA.
But that money drise up faster after buying Karzai--best possible choice for America.
The USA demands better action.
But less money is certain: both after success or after failure.
If failing their own people was easy, then failing the USA can easily begin by blaming the "evil one" as hate for the USA brings open arms to middle eastern neighbors.

Thankfully, the USA has a limit on money.
Even if today's politics followed a general to it's max, the house will not.
I think even the general now sees his goals needing to change.
The world sees such goals not worthy of the Afghan government they support.
The general has got to wonder if the blood of US soldiers will even help...even if he thinks their blood is OK to spend.

Cost is more than dollars.
But even dollars are used to put the blame on the USA:
USA money went away when Russia went away, so they (not me) set up the direction creating 9/11.
USA money put bad men into power (their fault, not Afghanistan).
USA money in forgotten war--(Iraq, Pakistan, India, all more important than Afghanistan anyway).
USA money not enough to win heart of terrorists.
USA money ends, so a lost cause to help their own people is blamed on the USA pulling the plug.
Dollars to support a corrupt government, or corruption following the end of dollars is a corruption that all gets placed on the USA.

Now, they see the dollars limited and a new heartless direction of drug money being the next future for Afghanistan.
And fact is, the technology given to fly Karzai out is only a payment away.
Oddly, the USA might even be the one that gives him a safe haven from those that want him dead for his turned back on his own people.
So his life will be secure in a plane just like the money securely deposited in other parts of the world.
His kin is already corrupt enough in drugs for a secured future after failure that stays in Afghanistan.
Oddly, today he is still important enough to be with the CIA pay roll for employment.

So many Afgans know their employment is at an end when weeded out on the basis of corruption or on the basis of a foreign nations failure. And they of course want the US failure as their reason for changing jobs.

That should not be a suprise.
It's nothing new for Afghanistan's history with super powers at war.


Note in my previous post Note that, in the Chinese analyst's report, there is a citation that the Japanese/Mitsubishi involvement dates from 1992. Also note the recent strength of development in the political Chinese-Japanese bilaterals and that the Japanese are now signalling the demise of the Trilateral Commission imperative in Japanese foreign policy.

The James A Baker institute US native strategy contributors (that work of which is made publicly available is plainly inhibited and and has become increasingly deceitful during the Central Asian campaign). In the Clinton and Bush jr era it was important to note the title of the work more so than such inhibited content. So it is that intent is plainly read in "UNLOCKING THE ASSETS:ENERGY AND THE FUTURE OF CENTRAL ASIA AND THE CAUCASUS".

Note that by more recent report no. 29, and in contrast to the reports of circa 1998, that the specific and predominant significance of Turkmenistan gas and oil has been erased as the war effort has threatened to spill from poor kids that need the army to obtain an eduction or to keep them from a future limited to burger flipping or unemployment and into the mainstream middle class as in Vietnam by way of tax or threat to kin. This ommission speaks, the resource hegemony imperative remains the same.

In the report the Pakistan route was costed at $2.70/barrell in '98 dollars and was cheaper than any other way out of there and better than many other source routes. Cruise missiles hit stated Bin Laden bases that same year.

And there is no need There was no "talk softly and carry the big stick" requesting handover of Bush Sr birthed Al Qaeda despite the concurrent UNOCAL negotiations. 9/11 retaliation followed

Finally note objective as read in the CV entry of

"report author Martha Olcott specializes in the problems of transitions in Central Asia and the Caucasus as well as the security challenges in the Caspian region more generally"

Martha claims not to be able access detail on the UNOCAL events.... hardly acceptable for someone of her specialty.

Geo-strategicaly note in the import-export table for Turkmenistan the absence of the USA. There is no identifiable economic or cultural stake for the USA or UK or Holland or France in central Asia beyond those of the CFR member oil companies of those countries and of the military projection to impose hegemony in that region, an objective explicitly claimed by Brzezinski during his ill discipline in the era of post Soviet euphoria and US hubris.


Karzai was an educated opportunist parachuted in by the CIA with a mobile phone on the basis of his ethnicity and pledged compliance. He had no political power base even among the Pashtun.

Abdullah Abdullah was an opportunist and the best English speaker among the Tajik/Uzbek Northern Alliance. He was Dell Dailey's go-to man representing the criminal war lords during the US military funded and equipped overthrow of the Taliban. These same criminal gang lords had wreaked terror upon the civilian population of the country and warred among themselves before the Taliban brought civilian order when they fought their way to power.

In 2006 Abdullah Abdullah came to the USA and made his pitch for power. He seeks to divide the country and to isolate the Pashtun with a US-India alliance. The US subsequently has bought this as a political option and put in place or politically bought enablers with India. One was the 180deg turn on the uranium supply policy with India, this turning was undertaken despite India not being a signatory to the NPT and without obtaining any Indian concession on IAEA inspections. Next the US reversed policy and announced significant advanced weapons system contracts with India. The US did this so fast that they forgot to tell their ally and major world uranium supplier Australia who has its own fears of India's build up of aggressive expeditionary forces including subs with nuclear offensive capability and aircraft carriers that have no place in a regional strategic defence strategy.

Afghanistan is itself a geo strategic location deserving of anglo led military aggression to impose hegemony purely due to its necessity for optimum logistical access to central asian energy resources. If the Pashtun cannot be suppressed sufficiently to secure the TAPI pipeline from Turkmenistan then Abdullah Abdullah pitches that, together with India and with their suppression of Kashmir that a North Eastern corridor could be secured with limited Pakistani transit territory controlled by political force upon the Pakistani's or more far fetched high cost alternates with the cooperation of the Chinese. The Uighur insurrection campaign narrative led for the US by the Dean of Yale Law School also features for the dirty actors, as do Galbraith and Holbrooke that have brought their pattern dirty trick book, the same that used for conflict accelaration plays in former Yugoslavia.

To read on Afghanistan it is best to start with Obama foreign policy campaign strategist Brzezinski.

State Dept and CFR Liberal Fascist narrative is pared away when historical quotes are read directly. Note that the US Mujahadeen sponsorship and arming pre-dated the Soviet invasion (Brzezinski "the trap") whereas popular reports have it as having been armed as a resistance movement post invasion.

The powerbase behind Brzezinski comes in his partnership with Rockefeller as founders of The Trilateral Commission and among the oil and finance membership of the CFR (from where most of the State Dept's liberal fascist narrative eminates ie: womens issues etc).

At least it beats the State Dept and CFR Liberal Fascist narrative reading direct quotes. Note the Mujahadeen sponsorship and arming pre-dated the Soviet invasion "the trap" whereas popular reports have it as having been armed as a resistance movement post invasion.

The best reading on Central Asia is from James A Baker Institute commissioned the reports obtained from Russian and Chinese experts for a few pieces of silver.


I think this article is well said; both Mr. Karzai and President Obama's prestige is on how Afghanistan turns out. If President Obama is about to invest the lives for 40,000 men and women to Afghanistan, he should know that their lives and effort should not be in vain. Mr. Karzai should be even more aware of that, as well


I find it extremely doubtful that Mr. Karzai should choose to change his spots. He has absolutely no incentive to. Unless there's some huge shift in the nature of American assistance to Afghanistan, in the form of hugely ramping up the level of effective civilian assistance in the form of infrastructure and health, there is no positive outcome possible for NATO troops in that country.

A sensible policy on the part of the NATO allies is to figure out how to start the process of withdrawal instead of committing more troops.


In the first place Mr.Karzai owes his position to US and its allies and not the scanty percentage of voters who backed him believing his abilities to bring about peace and stability.It is strange and paradoxical that so much attention is paid to prop and broadcast about an electoral process that was flawed from the word go.Kabul and its suburbs is where Karzai starts and ends as popularly elected head of state.Most of rural hinterland is blissfully unaware of or unconcerned about the concept of State,Law and Order,Authority and Control and other machinery that barely function,leave alone effectively.
It is now time for Mr.Karzai to identify the leaders of the clans,sects,sub-sects and so forth and commence meaningful dialogues to end discontent and hatred that it has bred.He should be among his people and not hob-nob with Western diplomats and leaders who have varying agendas concerning Afghanistan.
No time should be lost in making people understand that Mr.Karzai is lawfully and fairly the chosen leader and cooperating with him will bring in peace and order leading to stability and progress.



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