Afghan army soldiers take up position during an exercise in Kabul, Aug. 24. (Reuters File Photo)

Remember when peaceful, democratic, reconstructed Afghanistan was advertised as the exemplar for the extreme makeover of Iraq? In August 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was already proclaiming the new Afghanistan “a breathtaking accomplishment“ and “a successful model of what could happen to Iraq.“ As everybody now knows, the model isn’t working in Iraq. So we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that it’s not working in Afghanistan either.
The story of success in Afghanistan was always more fairy tale than fact--one scam used to sell another. Now, as the Bush administration hands off “peacekeeping“ to NATO forces, Afghanistan is the scene of the largest military operation in the history of that organization. Today’s personal email brings word from an American surgeon in Kabul that her emergency medical team can’t handle half the wounded civilians brought in from embattled provinces to the south and east. American, British, and Canadian troops find themselves at war with Taliban fighters--which is to say “Afghans“--while stunned NATO commanders, who hadn’t bargained for significant combat, are already asking what went wrong.
The answer is a threefold failure: no peace, no democracy, and no reconstruction.
Critics of American Afghan policy agree that the Bush administration, in its haste to take out Saddam’s Iraq, did things backward. After bombing the Taliban into the boondocks in 2001, it set up a government without first making peace--a scenario later to be repeated in Iraq.
Instead of pressing for peace negotiations among rival Afghan parties, the victorious Americans handed power to militia commanders who had served as America’s stand-in soldiers in its Afghan proxy war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Then the Bush administration staged elections for these candidates and touted the result as democracy. It also confined an International Security Assistance Force, made up largely of European troops, to the capital, creating an island of safety for the government, while dispatching warlords of its choice to hunt for Osama bin Laden in the countryside.
In the east and south--that is, about half the country--the Taliban never stopped fighting. Now, augmented by imported al-Qaeda fighters (“Arab-Afghans“) and new tactics learned from the insurgency in Iraq (roadside bombs or IEDs, suicide bombing), Taliban forces are stronger than at any time since the United States “conquered“ them in 2001.
According to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, most Afghans have long favored a process of amnesty and reconciliation; and President Hamid Karzai recently called on the Bush administration to change course and stop killing Afghans. But administration policy, recently reaffirmed in Kabul by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, calls for a fight to the last Talib.
Historically Afghans have selected and followed strong leaders; they expect a leader to deliver security, jobs, special favorsÉ something anyway. The Karzai government, confined to a self-serving American agenda that is often at odds with Afghan interests, has delivered nothing at all to the average Afghan, still living in abysmal poverty. In 2004, Afghans dutifully voted for Karzai as the instrument of American promises. By 2005, when Parliamentary elections were held, voters indicated that they were fed up with the same old candidates--all those militia commanders and Islamist extremists--and the same old hollow promises.
The sad part of the story is this. Despite the Bush administration’s sham “peace“ and fake “democracy,“ it might have made--might still make--a success of Afghanistan if only it delivered on that third big promise: to rebuild the bombed-out country. Most Afghans, after the dispersal of the Taliban, were full of hope and ready to work. The tangible benefits of reconstruction--jobs, housing, schools, health-care facilities--could have rallied them to support the government and turn that illusory “democracy“ into something like the real thing. But reconstruction didn’t happen. When NATO-led forces moved into the southern provinces this summer to keep the peace and continue “development,“ Lieutenant-General David Richards, British commander of the operation, seemed astonished to find that little or no development had so far taken place.
For that failure the U.S. is to blame. Until this year, the American-led Coalition assumed sole charge of “security“ operations outside Kabul, but it never put enough troops on the ground to do the job. (Sound familiar?) As a result, aid workers (both international and Afghan) lost their lives, and non-governmental aid organizations (NGOs) withdrew to Kabul, or like MŽdecins Sans Fronti�res, left the country altogether. Private contractors who remained in the field found themselves regularly diverting project funds to “security,“ so that, as in Iraq, aid money poured into operations that belonged in the military budget.
TOMDISPATCH.COM

After World War II, Italy became a leading economic and democratic power, a loyal and effective partner in the trans-Atlantic alliance, and a nation with a substantial pacifist culture as a reaction to the carnage of the global conflict. Unlike France and the United Kingdom, however, which have regularly assumed international military roles of leadership and projected power overseas, Italy has often been reluctant to do so.
With nearly 3,000 troops to be withdrawn from Iraq before year’s end, the offer by Prime Minister Romano Prodi for Italy to assume leadership of the multinational operation in Lebanon was a bold move elevating the stature of Italy and Prodi’s own government.
Although Italy has significant experience in peacekeeping, its leading a mission of this magnitude and complexity carries enormous risks and will prove demanding for a fragile government representing a coalition that won April’s election by the narrowest of margins.
Coupled with other domestic challenges, Prodi is confronted with an immense agenda. His 14-party ruling coalition includes elements and support ranging from the center of the political spectrum to the far left, with strong anti-war tendencies. Should the mission encounter difficulties in the complexities of Lebanon and the Middle East, particularly involving the use of armed force and its often unpredictable consequences, significant pressure from within the coalition could result in its potential collapse. This could lead either to an election or result in a grand centrist coalition designed to uphold Italy’s international credibility in a time of crisis.
In addition, questions remain as to whether the Italian public is ready and willing to support a long-term commitment in Lebanon. Although the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s and the ensuing peacekeeping operations were controversial during the reign of a center-left government, they involved a considerable collective effort by all Western powers. A sense of trans-Atlantic unity and responsibility ultimately prevailed.
A major factor to ensure success in a multinational Lebanon mission is continuity and consistency from the participating states.
Italy’s participation may potentially mark a historical change for Italian foreign policy demonstrated by a new-found long-term willingness to play a greater and more proactive role in the international community, particularly in the Middle East and the Mediterranean Basin. Italy’s aim is to contribute a significantly stabilizing influence and presence in an increasingly unstable region.
DAILYSTAR.COM.LB

A Kenyan registered cargo ship, Ronja, is the first ship to dock in Mogadishu's seaport in Somalia, loaded with goods and medical supplies for UNICEF, Aug. 24. (Reuters File Photo)

On Friday Somalia’s major port--in the capital, Mogadishu--saw an unusual scene: a cargo ship unloading there for the first time in more than a decade. The city’s international airport reopened last month. Yet so much bad news has emerged from Somalia since its collapse into anarchy in 1991 that few expect to hear anything positive. That may change. Events in Somalia could spark a war in the Horn of Africa. But there are signs of a better outcome as the country regains the trappings of a functioning society. Which way things go depends on how Somalia’s neighbours and the world react.
The worry is that the outsiders, through a mix of misunderstanding and malice, will block progress. The country is fractured, into near-independent Somaliland in the north and the chaotic south. But the three factions fighting for control in the south became two in June when an Islamic movement drove out the warlords who dominated Mogadishu. For all the talk of a Somali Taliban, a loose alliance of Islamic courts has brought a sort of order to southern and central Somalia. It faces the legitimate but impotent UN-backed government, based in Baidoa. A reconciliation between the Islamists and the weakened government could give the country a single source of authority and a prospect of development.
The UN is calling for talks. But two dangers lie ahead. The first is that the Islamists may fall further into the hands of extremists and fight on rather than talk. The second is that the interim government could break apart into violence.
Somalia’s neighbours, Ethiopia and Eritrea, are stirring the pot. Ethiopia backs the secular government and is sending in troops and weapons, enraging the Islamic courts and worrying the UN. Eritrea, which wants to confront Ethiopia over their ongoing border dispute, is said to have responded by selling arms to the Islamic courts. The danger of a conflagration in Somalia as a proxy for an Ethiopian-Eritrean war is acute. The US, whose intervention in Somalia in 1991 went so wrong, has not helped. It blundered by bankrolling Mogadishu’s warlords, while Britain offered more measured support for the interim government.
Recent US backing for a Somali defence force, as opposed to the divisive issue of foreign peacekeepers, suggests there may be a way forward. There is talk of an African peacekeeping force. But the answer to the country’s agonies must come from within. If its neighbours can be restrained from interfering and internal groups can be encouraged to collaborate, peace and progress might arrive unexpectedly and even quickly.
GUARDIAN.CO.UK

Where are you from? asked the American man as we boarded the airliner.
“I’m from New Orleans,“ I said, and I heard the “friendly“ fade in his Midwestern voice. “Oh,“ he replied. “Well, I hear things there are getting a lot better!“
Funny. I keep hearing that, too. But I decided to tell the truth about New Orleans: “No, that’s not true. Things are not getting better.“ His response was a long defense of President George W. Bush, followed by a diatribe on the incorrigible, intransigent corruption plaguing Louisiana in general and New Orleans in particular, which tells you how much of America views the tragedy wrought by Hurricane Katrina.
They think it’s our fault.
I explain: “The storm didn’t touch my Gentilly house. I didn’t lose even a roof shingle. The only window broken was the one FEMA broke, to see if there were any bodies in the attic. My house and thousands of other homes and everything inside and outside them were instead destroyed by the catastrophic flood that followed the day after the hurricane.“ He nods: “Yes, it was horrible when the water came in over the levees.“
I shake my head: “No, that’s the biggest lie. Almost everywhere there were earthen levees, the city didn’t flood. It flooded where they’d stopped building up earthen levees, and instead gave us a flimsy floodwall that the Army Corps of Engineers designed but knew was completely inadequate.“
The Midwestern man fidgets. But we’re in line and he cannot escape. “Well,“ he says, archly, “I heard that President Bush allocated all the money necessary for adequate floodwalls, and Louisiana spent it all on casinos.“
“Who told you that?“ I ask, incredulously. He shrugs: “I read it somewhere.“
“That’s so not true.“ He then blames former President Bill Clinton.
I know what he wants to hear. Midwestern man wants to hear that New Orleans is fine, we’re moving along, America’s strong, and Bush is a great, great president. But I’ve been out of my home for almost a full year now, with every possession I couldn’t fit into my car lost, my job gone, and my son’s school closed. I’ve been helped by strangers, friends, and family and
I ’m not complaining.
But I won’t lie, either.
“Things are going terribly wrong in New Orleans,“ I tell Midwestern man, “and it’s a huge failure of American government,“ I pause, “and your American town could be next.“ He changes the subject to Katrina’s real heroes--the many individuals who didn’t lose heart when they and all around them were losing everything--people rescued others, shared food and water, coaxed the helpless off roofs and out of attics and brought them somewhere safer. The real lesson of Hurricane Katrina? That we are all responsible for one another. This is the essence of our humanity. So why, a year after the storm, are we still in such a sorry way?
Because the heroic struggle by individuals was not matched in any way by either state or federal government--at any level.
Sarah Whalen
ARABNEWS.COM

In response to the Supreme Court’s June decision in Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld, the Bush administration has proposed a new Enemy Combatant Military Commissions Act. If passed by Congress, this act would revolutionize American jurisprudence.
The White House wants military tribunals hearing the cases of terrorism suspects to be able to use “coerced“ confessions. As Acting Asst. Atty. Gen. Steven Bradbury helpfully assured Congress last month, “there are gradations of coercion much lower than torture.“
Because many in the administration and Congress feel strongly that coerced confessions constitute the “best practice“ to get truth from people suspected of bad things, then, under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, American citizens should be permitted to use the same method to pry the truth out of their elected representatives.
One such method is waterboarding: strapping someone to a board and pushing him underwater to make him feel like he’s drowning. Since then-CIA Director Porter Goss assured Congress last year that this was a “professional interrogation method,“ not torture, citizens should be permitted to bring splintery planks, leather straps and water tanks to expedite discussions with any member of Congress who continues to insist that things are going swimmingly for the U.S. military in Iraq.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has during his tenure approved the use of a dozen extreme interrogation methods above and beyond those previously permitted by the Pentagon, including, but not limited to, hooding, disrobing, placing detainees in stress positions and exploiting their “fear of dogs.“ When the resulting Abu Ghraib photos leaked out in 2004, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) declared that he was more “outraged by the outrage“ than by the actual evidence of detainee abuse.
So: Inhofe should be blindfolded, put in a straitjacket and left in a room full of crazed chihuahuas until he explains why he believes that the U.S. military should not be constrained to follow the laws of the land, such as the Anti-Torture Act.
The iconic photo from the Bush/Rumsfeld interrogation era is that of the Iraqi detainee covered in a shroud, standing on a box, with wires attached to his body. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) spearheaded the coverup of the CIA’s use of secret prisons throughout Eastern Europe, so he could stand on his own box wired to an electric charge until confessing why he believes that the Geneva Convention prohibition on making detainees “disappear“ is null and void.
Exposure to extreme cold and heat is another method routinely used by U.S. interrogators. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) has been the biggest Democratic apologist for Abu Ghraib in the Senate, so perhaps he could be strapped to a block of ice until he explains how using “coercion“ helps the United States win hearts and minds in the Muslim world.
Some people may object, contending that waterboarding congressmen will tarnish the dignity of democracy. But this is rather quaint, considering everything Congress has already rubber-stamped.
COMMONDREAMS.ORG