Mortar guy said:
This is getting comical! I have posted several times refuting key parts of your arguments but you simply refuse to acknowledge my arguments. I suspect that that has something to do with the fact that I speak from experience, having been an advisor to Karzai's government and tend to back my arguments up with facts and evidence.
This is the first time you’ve presented an argument to us on this thread backed up with specific “facts and evidence”. And, we reply to your points below (your comments in
italics, our original comments in
yellow, and our replies in regular type):
We wrote:
- Stop allying with warlords, who are also fundamentalist and anti-women (a key demand of RAWA, an Afghan women’s group whose views members of this forum have so far refused to engage, despite previous citations in our posts).
This is a black and white generalization. Since 2002, the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan has gone to great lengths to eliminate warlord influence from Afghanistan. The Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration program and the current Disarmament of Illegally Armed Groups program are both targeted at removing the teeth from warlords. Furthermore, the more notorious warlords have been marginalized politically with almost none still serving in high levels in government. In fact the "warlords" (a highly generalized and subjective description) you speak of are a broad group including some who fought nobly in defence of their people (the Massouds of the world) to some who were down right evil people (the Dostums). What is more, Karzai's cabinet is made up of a broad spectrum of Afghans from all ethnic groups and with a large representation of women. Most are educated and even enlightened leaders who want peace and prosperity for their people (I know this because I have met several of them, have you?) Just so you know, RAWA doesn't know everything and shouldn't be your only source!
With all due respect, a group of Afghan women, who are the targets and survivors of warlord/Taliban attacks, have a bit more credibility about Afghanistan than a foreign military officer who advises a US puppet. RAWA has clearly named the warlords propped up by the Afghan government you defend: http://www.rawa.org/events/march8-07_e.htm
RAWAs assertions contrast starkly with yours: RAWA talk from personal experience about the attacks on women by warlords who are within the current government, and you are making excuses for those warlords and the government. Your reply is actual proof of the complicity with warlords, insofar as you dismiss the point of view of a group of Afghan women who have bravely spoken out against fundamentalists (and have suffered the brutal consequences). Your dismissal of RAWA, in defence of Karzai, is stunning, in the context of the incredible struggle that RAWA has fought for women’s rights.
We wrote:
- Stop propping up a US-imposed puppet (Hamid Karzai). Canadian civilian and military officials currently serve as his advisor.
You realize he was elected by the Afghan people right? You realize that before he was elected he was chosen by a Jirga of elders from across Afghanistan right? You realize that both of these events were UN supported and were deemed legitimate by several monitoring bodies? What are you suggesting, that the US rigged both the Jirga and the election right under the noses of the UN, EU and several other monitors!?
Yes, Karzai was “elected”, in the context of a US-led invasion and occpuation. The Jirga was called under those auspices. Moreover, the election was criticized widely for intimidation and fraud. Here are a few sources to consider:
http://www.rawa.org/election.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20091-2004Oct9.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0817-01.htm
Consider this from the New York Times on October 1, 2004:
“These days, Mr. Bush and other administration officials often talk about the 10.5 million Afghans who have registered to vote in this month's election, citing the figure as proof that democracy is making strides after all. They count on the public not to know, and on reporters not to mention, that the number of people registered considerably exceeds all estimates of the eligible population. What they call evidence of democracy on the march is actually evidence of large-scale electoral fraud.”
Certainly, as a Canadian Major who advised Hamid Karzai, you have a clear self-interest in pretending that his power is legitimate.
No doubt, “Hamid Karzai is the democratically elected President of Afghanistan” is one of the main talking points all CF officers learn. On-the-ground, we would hazard to guess that most Afghans understand that Karzai would not be in power without US-led intervention, and if he wasn’t pliable to their interests. That doesn’t mean Karzai doesn’t at times disagree, or pretend to disagree – this is a neo-colonial relationship after all – but he’s acceptable to the predominant American interests, which is why he’s kept in power.
So what if Canadians serve as his advisor. You do realize that he can and does reject our advice, right? You do realize that we are there advising him because he views Canada as a friend of Afghanistan and a country that can be trusted to give impartial, disinterested advice, right? Do you even know what kind of advice we're giving him? I'll give you a hint: it's not political advice and we don't tell him how to run his country.
“Advising” the Karzai government is complicity with that government. Would we think any less of the people offering official “advice” to any government?
You ask if we “even know what kind of advice we’re giving him?” Of course we don’t. Can you be specific? As a CF Major, what kind of advice did you offer Karzai or other members of his government? Please be specific. If you believe in your work, and your mission, you certainly would have nothing to hide in this regard.
We wrote:
- Spend money to pay genuine reparations to Afghan civilians – who have been killed in the thousands – by Western armed forces (predominantly killed by US forces, but also by Canadian Forces). Provide not token and condescending funds, but substantial funds to repair the damage that Western policy has caused in Afghanistan for decades.
You do realize that we do this, right? You know that one of the principles behind our involvement in Afghanistan is the realization that our abandonment of Afghanistan in 1989 got us into this mess in the first place, don't you? I'm sure then that you also know that Afghanistan is the single largest recipient of Canadian aid money then too. Can we do more? Absolutely. However, don't even begin to suggest that this is a worthwhile proposal as anyone who knows anything about Canada's involvement would know this is already happening.
We mention “genuine reparations” and not “aid”. There’s a huge difference between the two (or, to mimic your tone for a moment: You do realize there’s a difference between “reparations” and “aid”, right?).
We wrote:
- Provide substantial funds to grassroots Afghan groups, and their allies, who determine their own needs, and not have those needs decided for them by NATO officers or Western bureaucrats. Stop making “aid” contingent on collaboration with NATO/US-led counterinsurgency. Stop pretending that PRT efforts are a substitute for genuine development as led and determined by Afghans themselves.
This is such an ignorantly rhetorical and polemical statement as to almost defy understanding. The first sentence is essentially a fundraising drive for your sole source of information on Afghanistan: RAWA. To suggest that aid should not be linked to the higher COIN strategy demonstrates two things. Firstly, it shows that you should read more books on COIN as economic development has always been an important tool of defeating an insurgency.
The “insurgency” you mention is not simply a “Taliban” insurgency, but also native Afghans who object to a foreign presence, or the nature of that foreign presence.
We appreciate your honesty in admitting that aid is linked to COIN strategies, and not some benevolent independent effort to actually “help” Afghans: "aid" is subject to the prerogatives of NATO counter-insurgency prerogatives.
Secondly, you really need to get your facts straight and stop making sweeping, generalized statements. The vast majority of Canada's aid does not go through the PRT but rather goes through CIDA to such projects as the National Area Based Development Program, the DIAG program, women's literacy and microcredit/micro finance initiatives. Finally, as someone who was present when both the Afghanistan Compact and the Interim Afghanistan National Development Strategy were developed, I can tell you that the Afghans are very much leading the development planning. Of course the donors have a say as its their money but the way it works is that donors essentially buy into programs initiated by the Afghan government rather than dictating programs to Afghanistan. It wasn't always that way but things are improving every month. You can't take what happened in 2003 and use that as an example of why things don't work today because things have changed dramatically.
Again, as you admit, Afghans can lead development or planning efforts only insofar as they collaborate with the prerogatives of COIN efforts. Your attitude in dismissing RAWA is instructive of how other independent Afghans would be treated if they offer to pursue development autonomously of COIN efforts.
We wrote:
- De-link genuine development and reconstruction from NATO-led counterinsurgency. To not do so destroys the credibility of the sometimes good-faith efforts of development workers.
Yet another generalized and vague statement. Independent NGOs are under no obligation to work with ISAF and often choose not to. To suggest that the COIN campaign and development are somehow seperate activities that can be de-linked displays a incredible misunderstanding of what is happening in Afghanistan and how COIN campaigns are prosecuted.
The problem here is that our “aid” and “development” efforts are linked to our COIN efforts. In other words, we expect “collaboration” (not independence) from Afghans who are recipients of aid. That’s a classic neo-colonial relationship.
We wrote:
- Allow freedom of movement for Afghan refugees to settle where they want to (instead, they languish in other poor countries like Pakistan and Iran, or resettled in Afghanistan with very few economic prospects). Western countries – Germany, Australia, Great Britain, Canada, and the United States – should offer full asylum to Afghan refugees (this is exactly what the family of Nasrat Ali Hassan -- the taxi driver killed by a CF soldier, demanded).
This is hypocritical and paternalistic in addition to being plain wrong. The vast majority of Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran have returned and there is an entire Ministry in the Afghan government that is responsible for resettling and assisting those people. However, what is interesting here is that your proposal is at odds with much of what you say in other posts. You suggest that we should let the Afghans sort things out and fend for themselves but then in the same post you suggest that the only hope for Afghan refugees is emigration to the sanctuary of the West. Please tell me this proposal is a test to make sure we're paying attention.
Would you like to reconsider your statement that “the vast majority of Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran have returned”? There has certainly been resettlement, but there are upwards of 2 million Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan. Consider this article: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0517/p07s01-wosc.html?page=1
Incidentally, the Block the Empire network is made up of individuals originally from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan (as well as many other countries), so we know a little something about what’s happening in that part of the world, and we have family and loved ones in that region (some of us were born and raised in that region).
The alternative we propose here – allowing Afghan refugees the rights and mobility that anyone holding a Canadian or EU passport might have – is serious. Why are you so dismissive of a suggestion that actually provides people with options in their life (ie. allows for their self-determination). Or do you prefer Afghans to always be in the position of deference to Western prerogatives, and the advice of Canadian Majors.
We would like to share this observation: anytime an Afghan shows independence from your CF talking points on Afghanistan (like the women of RAWA), or a proposal is made that provides for a huge measure of independence (like allowing Afghan refugees the mobility rights of Canadians, via residency), you dismiss them out-of-hand. That is highly instructive of what “independence” means in the NATO officer worldview.
We wrote:
- Listen to the voices of progressive Afghans themselves (not puppets who worked as consultants for Western corporations), who refuse to choose between one set of fundamentalists (the Taliban and their allies) or other fundamentalists (Bush, Karzai and their chosen warlords).
Again, a blanket statement that is condescending and insulting to the thousands of moderate Afghans who are striving for a better life. To make a generalized accusation that all consultants are puppets and all who work for the current Afghan government are fundamentalists is ignorant in the extreme. This statement more than any other shows your true colours and demonstrates for everyone to see that you are not interested in the reality of Afghanistan or the plight of her people. You have an agenda to push and that agenda is to get people you approve of into power in Afghanistan, nothing more. By suggesting that no one is listening to progressives is once again to show your lack of knowledge about how the Afghan government works and what is going on over there. I have attended meeting where the full spectrum of Afghan politics has been in attendence - from former warlords, to feministists, to former communists, to western educated refugees and all were given the opportunity to speak. And this was not just one meeting, I have been to dozens like that.
The pretence of democracy is not democracy. Glad to know that you attended meetings with “the full spectrum of Afghan politics”. Why do you defend a government that so clearly marginalizes so many of those voices then?
We wrote:
- Recognize that the entire insurgency against foreign troops can’t uniformly be dismissed as “Taliban”. A large part of the insurgency is an indigenous resistance to foreign invasion, particularly by the Pashtuns of the south. You can never defeat an indigenous Pashtun insurgency (to even think you can shows an astounding ignorance of the history and culture of Central and South Asia, repeating the mistakes of the Raj). The foreign presence provides a pretext for Taliban recruitment amongst the Pashtun.
The irony here is that the only person who seems to think we call the entire insurgency "Taliban" is you! Those of us who have been there or who are going know far better than you do that there are many factions with many interests. If you want to give us a history lesson about defeating the Pashtuns, maybe you should give us the whole lesson. The Brits had very little trouble defeating them in the Second and Third Afghan wars with relatively small forces. There is no such thing as an undefeatable tribe and Pashtuns are not all united against the coalition. In fact large Pashtun tribes or sub-tribes are either neutral or supportive of the Karzai government (Karzai himself being a Pashtun).
We insist on making a distinction between “Taliban” and the rest of the insurgency, because some members of this forum continue to insist that CF is fighting and killing “Taliban.” It’s clear that the insurgency against foreign troops is more complex than that.
Your reading of Central and South Asian history is somewhat quaint (ie. colonial); do you still refer to the 1857 Indian rebellion as “The Mutiny”. Terms like the “Second and Third Afghan wars” are imperial history (written by a certain school of British historians, and no doubt regurgitated at RMC). If you’re going to be active in a region of the world like South and Central Asia, it might be useful to try to understand history from the point of view of the locals. The point is that the British never brought the majority of Pushtun lands or peoples under their control. They’ve certainly written a lot of glorious “history” about their various “wars”, and the Afghan princes and kings they put into power or deposed. (Kind of like the contemporary history of putting Karzai into power, “democratically,” and the glorious war we’re now supposedly winning.)
But, this is all a distraction from the main point (which is not that the Pushtuns are an “undefeatable tribe” as you write; Pushtuns are a people of some 40 million living in Afghanistan, Pakistan and all over the world thru migration): the insurgency in southern Afghanistan is just as attributable to a long-standing Pushtun resistance to foreign meddling as it is to Taliban ideology.
We wrote:
- Recognize that Canada is ultimately losing the war (which O’Connor refuses to even call a “war”). 2500 troops in a vast area like southern Afghanistan is symbolic, not a real attempt to fight a counter-insurgency. Civilian deaths are rising, and the rules of engagement alienate Afghan civilians. As insurgents are killed, more are created (as General Leslie has acknowledged), so you can never win (which General Leslie illogically will never acknowledge).
We are? Because after Op MEDUSA and BAAZ TSUKA, we seemed to be winning. So let me see if I get this straight. You - a civilian who has never been to Afghanistan nor fought in any kind of war, are telling us - a group of people who take home paycheques based on their proficiency at all things military, that we're losing the war!? So by reading newspapers and endlessly quoting LGen Leslie out of context, you figure you're qualified to make this assessment?
Civilians are certainly entitled to question this war, and to have our opinions about it. You might disagree with our assessment, but please don’t question our ability to make it.
You state we “endlessly quote LGen Leslie out of context”. Can you be more specific?
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Valcartier 2007
www.valcartier2007.ca
