generalspeaking

Thursday, April 19, 2012

'Brothers' Billing NATO

"You did nothing for Islam, you did not work for Afghanistan's independence and you did not work for its people, freedom and development. You worked to prolong a foreign presence, you gave foreigners an excuse to stay", Afghan President Hamid Karzai said, scolding his Taliban 'brothers', in a speech meant to commemorate 150 years since the birth of an Afghan reformer.

It was the Taliban insurgency he was addressing, imploring them to think of the good of their country. Their violent actions against the presence of NATO and ISAF troops, simply, he insisted, ensures that they will remain longer in Afghanistan, to try to ensure eventual stability. The Taliban, his brethren, whom he is prepared to negotiate with, to invite them into his government and parliament.

They are, in a very real sense, brothers, as Hamid Karzai names them to be. For most of the Taliban are recruited from among the hugely populous, ancient tribe of Pashtun. And Hamid Karzai's family also, is Pashtun by origin and heritage. They do have much in common. Hamid Karzai chose to represent his country through the Northern Alliance in direct confrontation with the Taliban.

And Western interests, backed by the United Nations and led by the United States and NATO, supported and elevated Hamid Karzai to the presidency of his country, and he chose among his parliamentarians former war lords whose record of corruption and abuse of human rights has not exactly been of sterling reputation.

And, of course, it is Hamid Karzai who went on rounds of Western capitals to implore them to remain steadfast with his 'democratic' government, and foursquare against the Taliban which in power oppressed the people of Afghanistan, committing no end of human rights infractions upon the population. And it is to these 'brothers' that he now claims responsibility for the ongoing presence of foreign troops.

His Taliban brothers, among other human rights abuses banned girls' education while they were in power. Their members throw acid in the faces of girls and their teachers to demonstrate how much they are reviled for choosing to educate themselves. They burn down schools that foreign human rights and NATO members have built. And they poison drinking water to teach Afghan schoolgirls a lesson.

Of course he is right in a very real sense. And of course what is occurring in Afghanistan is a war against the civilizing effects of Western values and culture making its incursion through concerns relating to violence against the West by the wildly militant religious aspirations of the fanatical Islamists that brought the West to Afghanistan to begin with. They honoured other 'brothers' who fought with them against the Soviet occupation and who later took the name al-Qaeda.

Pakistan's own viral ambitions to weaken the very prospect of an independent and socially, politically, economically advanced Afghanistan represents the fount of the problems that Afghanistan faces today. It is severely divided between those who aspire to make of themselves something approximating a modern society with Islam as its social-religious fulcrum, and the medievalist fundamentalist Islamists mired in the past.

Afghanistan has a need/hate relationship with the West. And the West has a conscience-stricken relationship with Afghanistan. A reflection of what usually pertains when a civilized group of countries comes head on to the ravening needs of a developmentally-delayed country with the background both share of a historical colonialist-occupying situation of blame-and-regret.

NATO countries are anxious now to finally withdraw from the sinkhole of backwardness that Afghanistan represents. They are fatigued from sinking treasury into the country in a quasi-successful attempt to civilize it, and they must answer to their populations with respect to the sacrifice of their military personnel losses - and the fact that Afghans chafe at their presence, deploring it.

Planning for the agreed upon final withdrawal in 2014, pledges of financial assistance to maintain Afghanistan's national military and police at a level that may ensure their promise to support themselves militarily, is a drawn-out process. Typically, only a handful of NATO members will pledge significant amounts of assistance. In practical terms it may be for naught in any event, for the Taliban will return.

As Poland commented, more of the burden should fall to Afghanistan's neighbours, and to countries that hadn't contributed to the military operation. There is a certain paradox at play here, that non-Muslim countries feel the full brunt of support of a fundamentally Muslim country in distress, in that condition largely because of the actions of another Muslim country, and threatened by other Muslim countries.

Yet at no time have any majority-Muslim countries stepped forward to make an attempt at 'normalizing' or 'civilizing' or practically aiding a member-Muslim country. And nor does Afghanistan appear to expect for example, the wealthy Gulf States to step forward to aid and assist his country financially.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is on record as having stated he 'wants at least $2-billion a year' from Washington, after 2014. (Karzai does have the U.S./Pakistan example to rely upon, where Pakistan receives billions annually from the U.S. Treasury for its duplicitous military.) For its part, the U.S. hopes to draw additional annual contributions valued at $1.3-billion from NATO allies and partners.

And NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen feels an annual cost of $4-billion represents "a good planning base", with which to fund Afghanistan after the 2014 NATO withdrawal. "I would expect NATO allies and ISAF (NATO-led international Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan) to commit themselves to pay a fair share of the total bill."

Labels: Afghanistan, Conflict, Pakistan, Security, Societal Failures, Traditions, United Nations, United States, Values