Early Spring in Kabul?

[don]

Does this count as a moment in the Arab Spring ? What is certain is a single event can trigger the release of volumes of bitter resentment . . . .

2 U.S. Officers Slain; Advisers to Exit Kabul Ministries

By GRAHAM BOWLEY and ALISSA J. RUBIN

KABUL, Afghanistan — Two American officers were shot dead inside the Interior Ministry building here on Saturday, and NATO responded by immediately pulling all military advisers out of Afghan ministries in Kabul, in a deepening of the crisis over the American military’s burning of Korans at a NATO army base.

The order by the NATO commander, Gen. John R. Allen, came on the fifth day of virulent anti-American demonstrations across the country, and it was a clear sign of concern that the fury had reached deeply into even the Afghan security forces and ministries working most closely with the coalition.

Although there was no official statement that the gunman was an Afghan, in an e-mail sent to Western officials here from NATO headquarters the episode was described as “green on blue,” which is the military term used here when Afghan security forces turn their weapons on their Western military allies.

The killings, which happened within one of the most tightly secured areas of the ministry, add to the drumbeat of concern about a deepening animosity between civilians and militaries on both sides that had led to American and coalition forces being killed in increasing numbers even before the Koran burning ignited nationwide rioting. And the pullout from the Afghan ministries suddenly called into question the coalition’s entire strategy of joint operations with Afghan forces across the country, although General Allen said NATO was still committed to fighting the war in Afghanistan.

“I condemn today’s attack at the Afghan Ministry of Interior that killed two of our coalition officers,” General Allen said in a statement. The military had not yet found the person who carried out the shooting, he said, adding: “The perpetrator of this attack is a coward whose actions will not go unanswered. We are committed to our partnership with the government of Afghanistan to reach our common goal of a peaceful, stable and secure Afghanistan in the near future.”

The killings on Saturday are only the latest chapter in the deteriorating relations between the Afghans and NATO, including an Afghan soldier’s recent killing of French troops that prompted the French to move up their withdrawal date, and outrage over a video that showed four American Marines urinating on bodies said to be those of Taliban fighters.

The Koran burning, however, has taken the animosity to a new level, eroding further the already attenuated trust between the Afghans and Americans. On Thursday, two American soldiers were shot to death by a member of the Afghan Army at a base in eastern Afghanistan, as protests about the Koran burning were raging outside the base.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/wo...ef=global-home

[photon555]

Re: Early Spring in Kabul?

If these people want to live in a hellhole of a country, I don't see why we should spend our blood and treasure to convince them our way is better. Pull out now and let them fight it out. At least whlie they are fighting amidst themselves they are less likely to come over here and mess with us. I really think trying to change centuries of barbarism is a lost cause. Besides it's really impossible to fight for freedom for somebody else anyway. If they aren't willing to pay the price they won't be able to keep it even if it's given to them.

[fengguo1]

Re: Early Spring in Kabul?

If these people want to live in a hellhole of a country, I don't see why we should spend our blood and treasure to convince them our way is better. Pull out now and let them fight it out. At least whlie they are fighting amidst themselves they are less likely to come over here and mess with us. I really think trying to change centuries of barbarism is a lost cause. Besides it's really impossible to fight for freedom for somebody else anyway. If they aren't willing to pay the price they won't be able to keep it even if it's given to them.

I don't think there was ever an invitation from the Afghans for the US to come and provide freedom and democracy. Traditionally Afghans are tribal people - deeply suspicious of all foreigners, no matter what their intentions are.

[KGW]

Re: Early Spring in Kabul?

But it's the "White Man's Burden" since he alone knows better.

If these people want to live in a hellhole of a country, I don't see why we should spend our blood and treasure to convince them our way is better. Pull out now and let them fight it out. At least whlie they are fighting amidst themselves they are less likely to come over here and mess with us. I really think trying to change centuries of barbarism is a lost cause. Besides it's really impossible to fight for freedom for somebody else anyway. If they aren't willing to pay the price they won't be able to keep it even if it's given to them.

[don]

Re: Early Spring in Kabul?

Kipling's "White Man's Burden" was written to welcome the United States to the Colonial Game. At the time the entire world, with the exceptions of Afghanistan and Ethiopia, were colonized by Europe, the US and Japan. Once their global Manifest Destiny was fulfilled, there was nothing left then to turn on each other in 1914.

Blast Injures U.S. Soldiers as Riots Rage in Afghanistan
By GRAHAM BOWLEY and ALISSA J. RUBIN

KABUL, Afghanistan — A grenade thrown by Afghan protesters wounded at least six American service members in northern Afghanistan on Sunday, officials said, as new details emerged in the investigation of the shooting death of two American officers within the Interior Ministry building the day before.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/wo...ef=global-home

[don]

Re: Early Spring in Kabul?

Kabul on razor's edge
By M K Bhadrakumar

The killing in Kabul on Saturday of two high-ranking American military officials - a colonel and a major - serving with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will prompt a paradigm shift in regional security. Afghanistan surges as still America's number one "hot spot", over-shadowing Syria and Iran.

If President Barack Obama thought it was time for the United States military to "pivot" toward the Asia-Pacific, it has been delusionary thinking. The Taliban retain a big say still in the upcoming campaign for Obama's re-election bid; the strategy of peace talks with the Taliban will need a close look.

The prospects of the United States establishing military bases in Afghanistan look very doubtful in the backdrop of the tsunami of anti-Americanism sweeping through Afghanistan. And, in immediate terms, what happens to the drawdown of the US troops?

The US ambassador to Kabul, Ryan Crocker, was quick with the answer in an interview with the CNN on Sunday: "Tensions are running very high here. I think we need to let things calm down, return to a more normal atmosphere, and then get on with business."

Diplomats are paid to sound optimistic. But then, how sure are we that things are indeed going to "calm down" - and, more importantly, how long will the calmness of the cemetery last till the next funeral is held?

Crocker added, "This is not the time to decide that we are done here. We have got to redouble our efforts. We've got to create a situation that al-Qaeda is not coming back. If we decide we're tired of it, al-Qaeda and the Taliban certainly aren't." Hmm. Now we know Crocker was addressing the American public.

Obama was wrong to have left Afghanistan to the State Department and the late Richard Holbrooke's cronies to handle. Clearly, his "apology" for the burning of Korans by the US troops failed to impress the Afghans. More than 30 people have been killed in the violence, including half a dozen American soldiers. At least another six American military trainers have been injured.

The US consulate in the western city of Herat, which is dominated by the Tajiks, came under attack. US, French and Norwegian bases were attacked, including in a relatively calm region like Samangan province in the north. Protesters stormed the United Nations office in the northern city of Kunduz, which has a mixed population of Pashtuns, Uzbeks and Tajiks. No region of Afghanistan can be considered safe; not even Tajik-dominated Taloqan town in the approaches to the Badakhshan mountains in the east.

A host of political issues arises. The top US commander, General John Allen threatened that Saturday's killings were the action of a "coward who won't go unpunished". But that is neither here nor there, and is primarily meant for the consumption of the NATO troops. Washington has to walk a thin line between forcefully acting but not over-reacting.

Dying for the religion

On the other hand, Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich mocked Obama for so quickly making an "apology" over the Koran burning incident and ignoring the random killing of Americans by rogue elements in the Afghan army. The American troops also needed to be held back from indulging in "revenge killings".

Allen personally rushed to one American forward base in Nangarhar province to calm the troops. We are not quite there where the epic film on the Vietnam-War era Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola was set. But one can almost hear Ride of the Valkyries playing over the American chopper loudspeakers.

Significantly, it was only Sunday that Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai broke his silence and called for calm. He waited wisely for the protests to run their course. Finally, Karzai told a press conference that the protests showed Afghan people were ready to die for their religion. He called for the American soldiers who burned the Koran to be punished and promised to take it up with Obama.

Obama phoned Allen after Saturday's killings, but didn't call Karzai. Karzai too let Defense Minister Abdul Wardak call his US counterpart Leon Panetta and handle it as a "mil-to-mil" affair. Pentagon has called off Wardak's consultations with Panetta in Washington on Thursday.

Washington seems to feel Karzai should have acted earlier to smother the protests. United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded on Saturday that the protests "must stop". To be sure, the deaths in the afternoon on Saturday makes the volatile relationship between Washington and Kabul even more complicated.

There is going to be pervasive doubt in the American mind about the Afghan soldier. An armed Afghan in a military base becomes a potential suicide killer. A senior Afghan general told the BBC, "The virus of infiltration has spread like a cancer and it needs an operation. Curing it has not helped." The entire project of "capacity-building" of the Afghan security is in disrepute.

A normal working relationship between the US and Afghan forces is not going to be easy in this climate. Which means the Pentagon's "surge" and the follow-up strategy of the troop drawdown and handing over of security responsibility to the Afghan forces and the ending of the NATO combat mission by 2014 - all of that lies in tatters.

Washington and London almost instantly decided to pull out their mentors and advisers attached to Afghan government ministries and establishments. But the impasse means paralysis in effective coordination work in ongoing security operations, technical support and intelligence sharing, which will only deepen the uncertainties.

NATO allies are also watching. The Germans summarily shut down their base in Taloqan in northeastern Afghanistan. Each NATO member country will be prompted to explore how to minimize the risk of its young men and women perishing in a senseless war. French President Nicolas Sarkozy already threatened once that he is scooting and had to be persuaded to change his mind. A tricky time lies ahead for Obama as NATO gears up for its 60th anniversary summit in Chicago in May.

Time to leave

Obama has a big decision to take regarding the peace talks with the Taliban, who have openly claimed credit for the killing in Kabul. Obama set free his "Afghan experts" in the late Holbrooke's team to knock at every door and look behind every bush, seeking out Taliban emissaries who could be somehow engaged in peace talks. Clinton's brilliant coinage - "Fight, talk, build" - says it all.

The Taliban have heartily co-opted the Clinton plan - apparently, far better than the Americans could imagine. Spokesman Mullah Qari Mohammed Yousef Ahmadi revealed the interesting possibility in an interview with the Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat just this week that Taliban were considering opening more "political offices" after the one in Qatar in response to invitations received from Saudi Arabia, Libya, Turkey, Egypt "and elsewhere". The more, the merrier.

Where is it all leading? In retrospect, the unilateral US involvement in the Afghan reconciliation process was a mistake. The US's role should have been limited to rendering assistance to intra-Afghan negotiations.

However, wait a minute. Did the Taliban really do it? The colonel and the major were shot point blank in the back of their head at their workplace in one of the most secluded and protected compounds in the whole of Afghanistan. The room had CCTV cameras and special locks.

The killer obviously had the highest grade of security clearance to get into that room. International Security Assistance Froce spokesman General Carsten Jacobsen said, "The questions are how he [assailant] could make it into this part of the Ministry of Interior, which is so highly secure, what motivated him or her to do this act - to kill people in cold blood."

The Interior Ministry is headed by Bismillah Khan, who hails from Panjshir. He used to be a stalwart of the erstwhile Northern Alliance with impeccable anti-Taliban credentials. And the ministry is crawling with "Panjshiris" (Tajiks) who are implacably opposed to the Taliban.

Significantly, Karzai refuses to point fingers at the Taliban or Pakistan. "Who has done this, and whether he is an Afghan or a foreigner, we do not know," he said cryptically on Sunday - despite the Interior Ministry's own instant finding that the murder was committed by a 25-year-old driver by the name of Abdul Saboor who hails from the Salaang Valley and who has absconded.

Abdul Saboor is a common Tajik name. Salaang lies in the approaches to the Panjshir Valley. The point is, many Northern Alliance groups too feel disgusted today with the American style of peacemaking.

Suffice to say, the ham-handed American methods in the past one year or so to directly (and secretly) engage the Taliban exacerbated the political fragmentation inside Afghanistan. Even Vice President Karim Khalili, who worked well with the Americans all through, sounded impatient on Sunday, "The [peace] process can lead to success if it is led in a transparent manner so that Afghans trust the process."

No doubt, the ground beneath the American feet in the Hindu Kush is shifting dangerously. The British, too, were unprepared for the insurrection in Kabul in November 1841. They failed to grasp the significance when the mob encircled the villa of Sir Alexander Burnes in Kabul. The British diplomat tried to offer money to the crowd but the residence was overrun and he and his brother were killed.

The British finally understood it was time to leave Afghanistan when their cantonment in Kabul was encircled a month later. By that time even an orderly retreat became problematic.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/NB28Df02.html

[Shakespear]

Re: Early Spring in Kabul?

Kipling's "White Man's Burden" was written to welcome the United States to the Colonial Game. At the time the entire world, with the exceptions of Afghanistan and Ethiopia, were colonized by Europe, the US and Japan. Once their global Manifest Destiny was fulfilled, there was nothing left then to turn on each other in 1914.

The best short version of Colonial history I have read. Right on Mark

[charliebrown]

Re: Early Spring in Kabul?

Sorry another Henley moment strikes ...

...
You can leave it all behind
and sail to Lahaina
just like the missionaries did, so many years ago
They even brought a neon sign: "Jesus is coming"
They brought the white man's burden down
brought the white man's reign.

Who will provide the grand design.
What is yours and what is mine.
There are no more new frontiers
We have go to make it here.

We satisfy our endless needs
justify our bloody deeds
in the name of destiny
and in the name of God.

D. Henley The Last Resort ...

[Polish_Silver]

Re: Early Spring in Kabul?

What is going on Iraq? Personally, I hope events make it clear that "operation Iraqi freedom" was a miserable failure.

The question is, can Americans learn from history?

[davidstvz]

Re: Early Spring in Kabul?

How did we accidentally burn a giant pile of Koran again?

[don]

Re: Early Spring in Kabul?

The US fans Afghanistan flames
By Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse

Is it all over but the (anti-American) shouting - and the killing? Are the exits finally coming into view?

Sometimes, in a moment, the fog lifts, the clouds shift, and you can finally see the landscape ahead with startling clarity. In Afghanistan, Washington may be reaching that moment in a state of panic, horror, and confusion. Even as an anxious US commander withdrew American and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) advisers from Afghan ministries around Kabul last weekend - approximately 300, military spokesman James Williams tells TomDispatch - the ability of American soldiers to remain on giant fortified bases eating pizza and fried chicken into the distant future is not in doubt.

No set of Taliban guerrillas, suicide bombers, or armed Afghan "allies" turning their guns on their American "brothers" can alter that - not as long as Washington is ready to bring the necessary supplies into semi-blockaded Afghanistan at staggering cost. But sometimes that's the least of the matter, not the essence of it. So if you're in a mood to mark your calendars, late February 2012 may be the moment when the end game for America's second Afghan War, launched in October 2001, was initially glimpsed.

Amid the reportage about the recent explosion of Afghan anger over the torching of Korans in a burn pit at Bagram Air Base, there was a tiny news item that caught the spirit of the moment. As anti-American protests (and the deaths of protestors) mounted across Afghanistan, the German military made a sudden decision to immediately abandon a 50-man outpost in the north of the country.

True, they had planned to leave it a few weeks later, but consider the move a tiny sign of the increasing itchiness of Washington's NATO allies. The French have shown a similar inclination to leave town since, earlier this year, four of their troops were blown away (and 16 wounded) by an Afghan army soldier, as three others had been shot down several weeks before by another Afghan in uniform. Both the French and the Germans have also withdrawn their civilian advisors from Afghan government institutions in the wake of the latest unrest.

Now, it's clear enough: the Europeans are ready to go. And that shouldn't be surprising. After all, we're talking about NATO, whose soldiers found themselves in distant Afghanistan in the first place only because, since World War II, with the singular exception of French President Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s, European leaders have had a terrible time saying "no" to Washington. They still can't quite do so, but in these last months it's clear which way their feet are pointed.

Which makes sense. You would have to be blind not to notice that the American effort in Afghanistan is heading into the tank.

The surprising thing is only that the Obama administration, which recently began to show a certain itchiness of its own - speeding up withdrawal dates and lowering the number of forces left behind - remains remarkably mired in its growing Afghan disaster. Besieged by demonstrators there, and at home by Republican presidential hopefuls making hay out of a situation from hell, its room to maneuver in an unraveling, increasingly chaotic situation seems to grow more limited by the day.

Sensitivity training

The Afghan War shouldn't be the world's most complicated subject to deal with. After all, the message is clear enough. Eleven years in, if your forces are still burning Korans in a deeply religious Muslim country, it's way too late and you should go.

Instead, the US command in Kabul and the administration back home have proceeded to tie themselves in a series of bizarre knots, issuing apologies, orders, and threats to no particular purpose as events escalated. Soon after the news of the Koran burning broke, for instance, General John R Allen, the US war commander in Afghanistan, issued orders that couldn't have been grimmer (or more feeble) under the circumstances. Only a decade late, he directed that all US military personnel in the country undergo 10 days of sensitivity "training in the proper handling of religious materials".

Sensitivity, in case you hadn't noticed at this late date, has not been an American strong suit there. In the headlines in the last year, for instance, were revelations about the 12-soldier "kill team" that "hunted" Afghan civilians "for sport," murdered them, and posed for demeaning photos with their corpses. There were the four wisecracking US Marines who videotaped themselves urinating on the bodies of dead Afghans - whether civilians or Taliban guerrillas is unknown - with commentary ("Have a good day, buddy… Golden - like a shower"). There was also that sniper unit proudly sporting a Nazi SS banner in another photographed incident and the US combat outpost named "Aryan." And not to leave out the allies, there were the British soldiers who were filmed "abusing" children.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how Afghans have often experienced the American and NATO occupation of these last years. To take but one example that recently caused outrage, there were the eight shepherd boys, aged six to 18, slaughtered in a NATO air strike in Kapisa Province in northern Afghanistan (with the usual apology and forthcoming "investigation," as well as claims, denied by Afghans who also investigated, that the boys were armed).

More generally, there are the hated night raids launched by special operations forces that break into Afghan homes, cross cultural boundaries of every sort, and sometimes leave death in their wake. Like errant American and NATO air operations, which have been commonplace in these war years, they are reportedly deeply despised by most Afghans.

All of these, in turn, have been protested again and again by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He has regularly demanded that the US military cease them (or bring them under Afghan control). Being the president of Afghanistan, however, he has limited leverage and so American officials have paid little attention to his complaints or his sense of what Afghans were willing to take.

The results are now available for all to see in an explosion of anger spreading across the country. How far this can escalate and how long it can last no one knows. But recent experience indicates that, once a population heads for the streets, anything can happen. All of this could, of course, peter out, but with more than 30 protesters already dead, it could also take on a look reminiscent of the escalating civil war in Syria - including, as has already happened on a small scale in the past, whole units of Afghan security forces defecting to the Taliban.

Unfolding events have visibly overwhelmed and even intimidated the Americans in charge. However, as religious as the country may be and holy as the Koran may be considered, what's happened cannot be fully explained by the book burning. It is, in truth, an explosion a decade in coming.

Precursors and omens

After the grim years of Taliban rule, when the Americans arrived in Kabul in November 2001, liberation was in the air. More than 10 years later, the mood is clearly utterly transformed and, for the first time, there are reports of "Taliban songs" being sung at demonstrations in the streets of the capital. Afghanistan is, as the New York Times reported last weekend (using language seldom seen in American newspapers) "a religious country fed up with foreigners"; or as Laura King of the Los Angeles Times put it, there is now "a visceral distaste for Western behavior and values" among significant numbers of Afghans.

Years of pent up frustration, despair, loathing, and desperation are erupting in the present protests. That this was long on its way can't be doubted.

Among the more shocking events in the wake of the Koran burnings was the discovery in a room in the heavily guarded Afghan Interior Ministry in Kabul of the bodies of an American lieutenant colonel and major, each evidently executed with a shot in the back of the head while at work. The killer, who worked in the ministry, was evidently angered by the Koran burnings and possibly by the way the two Americans mocked Afghan protesters and the Koran itself. He escaped. The Taliban (as in all such incidents) quickly took responsibility, though it may not have been involved at all.

What clearly rattled the American command, however, and led them to withdraw hundreds of advisors from Afghan ministries around Kabul was that the two dead officers were "inside a secure room" that bars most Afghans. It was in the ministry's command and control complex. (By the way, if you want to grasp some of the problems of the last decade just consider that the Afghan Interior Ministry includes an area open to foreigners, but not to most Afghans who work there.)

As the New York Times put it, the withdrawal of the advisors was "a clear sign of concern that the fury had reached deeply into even the Afghan security forces and ministries working most closely with the coalition." Those two dead Americans were among four killed in these last days of chaos by Afghan "allies." Meanwhile, the Taliban urged Afghan police and army troops, some of whom evidently need no urging, to attack US military bases and American or NATO forces.

Two other US troops died outside a small American base in Nangarhar Province near the Pakistani border in the midst of an Afghan demonstration in which two protestors were also killed. An Afghan soldier gunned the Americans down and then evidently escaped into the crowd of demonstrators. Such deaths, in a recent Washington Post piece, were termed "fratricide," though that perhaps misconstrues the feelings of many Afghans, who over these last years have come to see the Americans as occupiers and possibly despoilers, but not as brothers.

Historically unprecedented in the modern era is the way, in the years leading up to this moment, Afghans in police and army uniforms have repeatedly turned their weapons on American or NATO troops training, working with, or patrolling with them. Barely more than a week ago, for instance, an Afghan policeman killed the first Albanian soldier to die in the war. Earlier in the year, there were those seven dead French troops. At least 36 US and NATO troops have died in this fashion in the past year. Since 2007, there have been at least 47 such attacks. These have been regularly dismissed as "isolated incidents" of minimal significance by US and NATO officials and, unbelievably enough, are still being publicly treated that way.

Yet not in Iraq, nor during the Vietnam War, nor the Korean conflict, nor even during the Philippine Insurrection at the turn of the twentieth century were there similar examples of what once would have been called "native troops" turning on those training, paying for, and employing them. You would perhaps have to go back to the Sepoy Rebellion, a revolt by Indian troops against their British officers in 1857, for anything comparable.

In April 2011, in the most devastating of these incidents, an Afghan air force colonel murdered nine US trainers in a heavily guarded area of Kabul International Airport. He was reportedly angry at Americans generally and evidently not connected to the Taliban. And consider this an omen of things to come: his funeral in Kabul was openly attended by 1,500 mourners.

Put in the most practical terms, the Bush and now Obama administrations have been paying for and training an Afghan security force numbering in the hundreds of thousands - to the tune of billions dollars annually ($11 billion last year alone). They are the ones to whom the American war is to be "handed over" as US forces are drawn down. Now, thanks either to Taliban infiltration, rising anger, or some combination of the two, it's clear that any American soldier who approaches a member of the Afghan security forces to "hand over" anything takes his life in his hands. No war can be fought under such circumstances for very long.

Apologies, pleas, and threats

So don't say there was no warning, or that Obama's top officials shouldn't have been prepared for the present unraveling. But when it came, the administration and the military were caught desperately off guard and painfully flatfooted.

In fact, through repeated missteps and an inability to effectively deal with the fallout from the Koran-burning incident, Washington now finds itself trapped in a labyrinth of investigations, apologies, pleas, and threats. Events have all but overwhelmed the administration's ability to conduct an effective foreign policy. Think of it instead as a form of diplomatic pinball in which US officials and commanders bounce from crisis to crisis with a limited arsenal of options and a toxic brew of foreign and domestic political pressures at play.

How did the pace get quite so dizzying? Let's start with those dead Afghan shepherd boys. On February 15th, the US-led International Security Force (ISAF) "extended its deep regret to the families and loved ones of several Afghan youths who died during an air engagement in Kapisa province Feb 8." According to an official press release, ISAF insisted, as in so many previous incidents, that it was "taking appropriate action to ascertain the facts, and prevent similar occurrences in the future."

The results of the investigation were still pending five days later when Americans in uniform were spotted by Afghan workers tossing those Korans into that burn pit at Bagram Air Base. The Afghans rescued several and smuggled them - burnt pages and all - off base, sparking national outrage. Almost immediately, the next act of contrition came forth. "On behalf of the entire International Security Assistance Force, I extend my sincerest apologies to the people of Afghanistan," General Allen announced the following day. At the same time, in a classic case of too-little, too-late, he issued that directive for training in "the proper handling of religious materials."

That day, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was on the same page, telling reporters that the burning of the Muslim holy books was "deeply unfortunate," but not indicative of the Americans' feelings toward the religious beliefs of the Afghan people. "Our military leaders have apologized... for these unintentional actions, and ISAF is undertaking an investigation to understand what happened and to ensure that steps are taken so that incidents like this do not happen again."

On February 22, an investigation of the Koran burnings by a joint ISAF-Afghan government team commenced. "The purpose of the investigation is to discover the truth surrounding the events which resulted in this incident," Allen said. "We are determined to ascertain the facts, and take all actions necessary to ensure this never happens again."

The next day, as Afghan streets exploded in anger, Allen called on "everyone throughout the country - ISAF members and Afghans - to exercise patience and restraint as we continue to gather the facts surrounding Monday night's incident".

That very same day, Allen's commander-in-chief sent a letter to Afghan President Hamid Karzai that included an apology, expressing "deep regret for the reported incident." "The error was inadvertent,'' President Obama wrote. "I assure you that we will take the appropriate steps to avoid any recurrence, to include holding accountable those responsible.''

Obama's letter drew instant fire from Republican presidential candidates, most forcefully former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who called it an "outrage" and demanded instead that President Karzai issue an apology for the two Americans shot down by an Afghan soldier. (Otherwise, he added, "we should say goodbye and good luck.")

Translated into Washingtonese, the situation now looked like this: a Democratic president on the campaign trail in an election year who apologizes to a foreign country has a distinct problem. Two foreign countries? Forget it.

As a result, efforts to mend crucial, if rocky, relations with Pakistan were thrown into chaos. Because of cross-border US air strikes in November which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, ties between the two countries were already deeply frayed and Pakistan was still blocking critical resupply routes for the war in Afghanistan. With American war efforts suffering for it and resupply costs sky-high, the US government had put together a well-choreographed plan to smooth the waters.

General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was to issue a formal apology to Pakistan's army chief. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would then follow up with a similar apology to her Pakistani counterpart.

Fearing further Republican backlash, however, the Obama administration quickly altered its timetable, putting off the apology for at least several more weeks, effectively telling the Pakistanis that any regrets over the killing of their troops would have to wait for a time more convenient to the US election cycle.

Trading apologies to Afghans for those to Pakistanis, however, turned out to mean little on the streets of Afghanistan, where even in non-Taliban areas of the country, chants of "Death to America!" were becoming commonplace. "Just by saying 'I am sorry,' nothing can be solved," protester Wali Mohammed told the New York Times. "We want an open trial for those infidels who have burned our Holy Koran."

And his response was subdued compared to that of Mohammed Anwar, an officer with the US-allied Afghan police. "I will take revenge from the infidels for what they did to our Holy Koran, and I will kill them whenever I get the chance," he said. "I don't care about the job I have."

A day later, when Anwar's words were put into action by someone who undoubtedly had similar feelings, General Allen announced yet another investigation, this time with tough talk, not apologies, following. "I condemn today's attack at the Afghan Ministry of Interior that killed two of our coalition officers, and my thoughts and prayers are with the families and loved ones of the brave individuals lost today," he said in a statement provided to TomDispatch by ISAF. "We are investigating the crime and will pursue all leads to find the person responsible for this attack. The perpetrator of this attack is a coward whose actions will not go unanswered."

Allen also took the unprecedented step of severing key points of contact with America's Afghan allies. "For obvious force protection reasons, I have also taken immediate measures to recall all other ISAF personnel working in ministries in and around Kabul."

Unable to reboot relations with allies in Islamabad due to the unrest in Afghanistan (which was, in fact, already migrating across the border), the US now found itself partially severing ties with its "partners" in Kabul as well. Meanwhile, back home, Gingrich and others raised the possibility of severing ties with President Karzai himself. In other words, the heat was rising in both the White House and the Afghan presidential palace, while any hope of controlling events elsewhere in either country was threatening to disappear.

As yet, the US military has not taken the next logical step: barring whole categories of Afghans from American bases. "There are currently no discussions ongoing about limiting access to ISAF bases to our Afghan partners," an ISAF spokesperson assured TomDispatch, but if the situation worsens, expect such discussions to commence.

The beginning of the end?

As the Koran burning scandal unfolded, TomDispatch spoke to Raymond F Chandler III, the Sergeant Major of the US Army, the most senior enlisted member of that service. "Are there times that things happen that don't go exactly the way we want or that people act in an unprofessional manner? Absolutely. It's unfortunate," he said. "We have a process in place to ensure that when those things don't happen we conduct an investigation and hold people accountable."

In Afghan eyes over the last decade, however, it's accountability that has been sorely lacking, which is why many now in the streets are demanding not just apologies, but a local trial and the death penalty for the Koran burners. Although ISAF's investigation is ongoing, its statements already indicate that it has concluded the book burnings were accidental and unintentional. This ensures one thing: those at fault, whom no American administration could ever afford to turn over to Afghans for trial anyway, will receive, at best, a slap on the wrist - and many Afghans will be further outraged.

In other words, twist and turn as they might, issue what statements they will, the Americans are now remarkably powerless in the Afghan context to stop the unraveling. Quite the opposite: their actions are guaranteed to ensure further anger among their Afghan "allies."

Chandler, who was in Afghanistan last year and is slated to return in the coming months, said that he believed the United States was winning there, albeit with caveats. "Again, there are areas in Afghanistan where we have been less successful than others, but each one of those provinces, each one of those districts has their own set of conditions tied with the Afghan people, the Afghan government's criteria for transition to the Afghan army and the Afghan national police, the Afghan defense forces, and we're committed to that." He added that the Americans serving there were "doing absolutely the best possible under the conditions and the environment."

It turns out, however, that in Afghanistan today the "best" has not been sufficient. With even some members of the Afghan parliament now calling for jihad against Washington and its coalition allies, radical change is in the air. The American position is visibly crumbling. "Winning" is a distant, long-faded fantasy, defeat a rising reality.

Despite its massive firepower and staggering base structure in Afghanistan, actual power is visibly slipping away from the United States. American officials are already talking about not panicking (which indicates that panic is indeed in the air). And in an election year, with the Obama administration's options desperately limited and what goals it had fast disappearing, it can only brace itself and hope to limp through until November 2012.

The end game in Afghanistan has, it seems, come into view, and after all these fruitless, bloody years, it couldn't be sadder. Saddest of all, so much of the blood spilled has been for purposes, if they ever made any sense, that have long since disappeared into the fog of history.

the VP assured us this was only one complex of many . . .

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/NC01Df02.html

[charliebrown]

Re: Early Spring in Kabul?

[don]

Re: Early Spring in Kabul?

the Pakistan Complication remains - lily pads become sticky - drowning raises its ugly head . . .

The US military's top transport commander says overland cargo routes through Pakistan must be reopened to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for the United States to complete its pullout from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

Pakistan closed overland cargo routes for NATO supplies in November 2011 amid deteriorating relations with the United States and the NATO alliance.

US General William Fraser told the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 28 that the so-called Northern Distribution Network, which passes through Central Asia, was unable to handle the large number of shipments or all of the types of cargo that need to be moved out of Afghanistan to keep the withdrawal on schedule.

Fraser said existing agreements with Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan allowed equipment that is now in Afghanistan to pass through their territory as the war draws down - but not any weapons.

He said the US military was exploring routes to move non-lethal supplies and some types of armored vehicles through those countries.

His remarks suggest that lightly armored US Humvee vehicles relied upon by US troops in Afghanistan - and possibly Bradley armored personnel carriers - could pass through Central Asia without violating existing agreements if they are stripped of their guns.

But an alternative solution likely would be needed to bring out the heavily armored M1A1 Abrams tanks deployed in Helmand Province in early 2011.

Fraser also said Russia and Uzbekistan had endorsed transit routes for withdrawing equipment.

Tajik route

In Tajikistan, Defense Ministry spokesman Farhod Ibodulloev told RFE/RL's Tajik Service on February 29 that Fraser visited Dushanbe last week for talks with Defense Minister Sherali Khayrulloev.

Tajik analysts say a new US-built bridge connecting the country with Afghanistan could be used to extract supplies. Ibodulloev said the two agreed that their existing agreement on transit of cargo allowed transport both to and from Afghanistan, and that no new treaty would be needed for the withdrawal of non-lethal equipment or some types of armored vehicles.

Tajik specialists note that the United States in 2007 completed a $37 million bridge across the River Panj linking northern Afghanistan to Tajikistan.

They say that bridge makes it possible to transport NATO cargo overland out of Afghanistan to French aircraft based in Dushanbe, to a German air base in Uzbekistan, or to Kyrgyzstan, where the US military leases part of Manas International Airport for its transport hub on the Northern Distribution Network.

Equipment also could be loaded onto railcars in Tajikistan for shipment across Russia to seaports in the Baltics.

At the February 28 hearing, Fraser also said every US flight that delivered supplies into Afghanistan was now being fully loaded with non-lethal cargo as part of the withdrawal, which aims to reduce US troop levels from a surge peak of 110,000 to 70,000 by the end of 2012.

Nevertheless, he said, the closure of overland routes through Pakistan that were used to ship much of the US military equipment into landlocked Afghanistan had already slowed the schedule for the drawdown.

British plans

Defense officials from the United Kingdom are also trying to develop new exit routes for bringing British troops and military cargo out of Afghanistan.

British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond was in Uzbekistan on February 29 for talks, after signing an agreement with Kazakhstan's government on February 28 for the air transit of military supplies and troops.

The British Defense Ministry says Hammond and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev also agreed to start negotiations on a land-transit agreement.

In Astana, Hammond said Britain faced a "major logistical operation" to take some 11,000 cargo containers and about 3,000 armored vehicles out of Afghanistan - and that Britain must "work with our partners in the region to do so."

Kazakh Defense Minister Adibek Dzhaksybekov said after his talks with Hammond on February 28 that "international military cooperation" was one of the most important and crucial components for "ensuring regional security".

British Armed Forces Minister Nick Harvey plans to follow up Hammond's negotiations with visits this week to Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

Written by Ron Synovitz, with reporting by RFE/RL's Tajik Service correspondent Iskandar Aliev
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/NC02Df02.html

[don]

Re: Early Spring in Kabul?

is the Battle of Algiers in the wings?

Army Sergeant Accused of Slaying 16 in Afghan Village

By TAIMOOR SHAH and GRAHAM BOWLEY

PANJWAI, Afghanistan — Stalking from home to home, a United States Army sergeant methodically killed at least 16 civilians, 9 of them children, in a rural stretch of southern Aghanistan early Sunday, igniting fears of a new wave of anti-American hostility, Afghan and American officials said.

Residents of three villages in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province described a terrifying string of attacks in which the soldier, who had walked more than a mile from his base, tried door after door, eventually breaking in to kill within three separate houses. At the first, the man gathered 11 bodies, including those of four girls younger than 6, and set fire to them, villagers said.

Coming after a period of deepening public outrage, spurred by the Koran burning by American personnel last month and an earlier video showing American Marines urinating on dead militants, the apparently unprovoked killings added to a feeling of siege here among Western personnel. And officials described a growing sense of concern over a cascading series of missteps and offenses that has cast doubt on the ability of NATO personnel to carry out their mission and has left troops and trainers increasingly vulnerable to violence by Afghans seeking revenge.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack, calling it in a statement an “inhuman and intentional act” and demanding justice. Both President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called Mr. Karzai, expressing condolences and promising thorough investigations. “This incident is tragic and shocking, and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan,” Mr. Obama said in a statement.

Residents of Panjway gathered outside the American military base there to protest the killings.

American officials in Kabul were scrambling to understand what had happened, and appealed for calm. Officials gave no details about the suspected killer other than to describe him as an Army staff sergeant who was acting alone. “The initial reporting that we have at this time indicates there was one shooter, and we have one man in custody,” said Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, a NATO spokesman.

In Panjwai, a reporter for The New York Times who inspected bodies that had been taken to the nearby American military base counted 16 dead, and saw burns on some of the children’s legs and heads. “All the family members were killed, the dead put in a room, and blankets were put over the corpses and they were burned,” said Anar Gul, an elderly neighbor who rushed to the house after the soldier had left. “We put out the fire.”

The villagers also brought some of the burned blankets on motorbikes to display at the base, Camp Belambay, in Kandahar, and show that the bodies had been set alight. Soon, more than 300 people had gathered outside to protest.

At least five other Afghans were wounded in the attacks, officials said, some of them seriously, indicating the death toll could rise. NATO said several casualties were being treated at a military hospital.

One of the survivors from the attack, Abdul Hadi, 40, said he was at home when a soldier broke down the door.

“My father went out to find out what was happening, and he was killed,” he said. “I was trying to go out and find out about the shooting but someone told me not to move, and I was covered by the women in my family in my room, so that is why I survived.”

Mr. Hadi said there was more than one soldier involved in the attack, and at least five other villagers described seeing a number of soldiers, and also a helicopter and flares at the scene. But that claim was unconfirmed — other Afghan residents described seeing only one shooter — and it was unclear whether or not extra troops sent out to the village after the attack to try to catch the suspect.

In a measure of the mounting levels of mistrust between Afghans and the coalition, however, many Afghans, including lawmakers and other officials, said they believed the attack had been planned and were incredulous that one American soldier could have carried out such an attack without help. In his statement, President Karzai said “American forces” had entered the houses in Panjwai, but at another point he said the killings were the act of an individual soldier.

Others called for calm. Abdul Hadi Arghandehwal, the minister of economy and the leader of Hezb-e Islami, a major Afghan political party with Islamist leanings, said there would probably be new protests. But he said the killings should be seen as the act of an individual and not of the United States.

“It is not the decision of the army officer to order somebody to do something like this,” he said. “Probably there are going to be many demonstrations, but it will not change the decisions of our government about our relationship with the United States.”

Elsewhere, news of the killings was spreading only slowly. Other than the protest at the base in Kandahar, there were no immediate signs of the fury that fueled rioting across the country after the burning of Korans by American military personnel in February.

Both the United States Embassy in Kabul, which immediately urged caution among Americans traveling or living in Afghanistan, and the military coalition rushed to head off any further outrage, deploring the attack, offering condolences for the families and promising the soldier would be brought to justice. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, the NATO spokesman, expressed his “deep sadness” and said that while the motive for the attack was not yet clear, it looked like an isolated incident.

“I am not linking this to the recent incidents over the recent days and weeks,” he said. “It looks very much like an individual act. We have to look into the background behind it.”

Adding to the sense of concern, the killings came two days after an episode in Kapisa Province, in eastern Afghanistan, in which NATO helicopters apparently hunting Taliban insurgents instead fired on civilians, killing four and wounding another three, Afghan officials said. About 1,200 demonstrators marched in protest in Kapisa on Saturday.

The quick American move on Sunday to detain the shooter could help to avoid a repeat of last month’s unrest. The reaction to the Koran-burning case revealed a huge cultural gap between the Americans, who saw it as an unfortunate mistake, and the Afghans, who viewed it as a crime and wanted to see those responsible tried as criminals.

Both the Afghans and Americans agreed on the severity of Sunday’s killings, and General Jacobson said the case would be aggressively pursued by American legal authorities.

Less clear, however, is the impact on continuing tense negotiations between the United States and Afghanistan on the terms of the long-term American presence in the country. The upheaval provoked by the Koran burnings led to a near-breakdown in strategic partnership talks between the Afghan and United States governments, although those negotiations appeared tentatively back on track after a deal struck Friday for the Afghans to assume control of the main coalition prison in six months.

The strategic partnership talks must still address differences over the American campaign of night raids on Afghan houses. It is unclear now what effect the latest episode will have on those talks — especially since the attack had some similarities to the night raids carried out by coalition forces in Afghanistan.

The shootings also carried some echoes of an attack in March 2007 in eastern Afghanistan, when several Marines opened fire with automatic weapons killing as many as 19 civilians after a suicide car bomb struck the Marines’ convoy, wounding one Marine.

Panjwai, a rural suburb of Kandahar, was traditionally a Taliban stronghold. It was a focus of the United States military offensive in 2010 and was the scene of heavy fighting. And in recent weeks, two American soldiers were killed by small-arms fire on the same day, March 1, in the area, and three died in a roadside bomb attack in February.

Taimoor Shah reported from Panjwai, and Graham Bowley from Kabul. Reporting was contributed by Sharifullah Sahak, Rod Nordland and Matthew Rosenberg from Kabul, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/wo...ef=global-home

[KGW]

Re: Early Spring in Kabul?

http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakuma...-your-welcome/

‘When you just outstay your welcome…’

I wrote in Asia Times hardly twelve days ago: “We are not quite there where the epic film on the Vietnam-War era Apocalypse Now by Francis Ford Coppola was set. But one can almost hear Ride of the Valkyries playing over the American chopper loudspeakers.”
Well, I can now hear that chopper. This morning before the crack of dawn, an American solider assigned to Afghanistan walked out unseen from his military base with his weapon and walked into the neighbouring Najibyan village in Kandahar’s Panjwayi district and went on a shooting spree at the Afghans and as of reports available, “at least 17″ civilians were killed and five others were injured. The morale of the American troops is breaking down.
They realise the Afghan people see them as occupiers and want them to just go somewhere else and leave their country alone. By the way, this is also the judgment of the outgoing British ambassador to Afghanistan, Sir William Patey, whose interview with the Sunday Telegraph, ironically, appeared only today.
To be fair, US president Barack Obama is getting the message that this western occupation of Afghanistan must end and the sooner it happens, the better. Amidst the cacophony over the situation around Iran and Syria, not many would have noticed Obama’s remarks — and his tone — when asked about Afghanistan in his press conference last Tuesday.
Obama stressed that the “combat role” of the NATO troops will end in 2014. He acknowledged that Karzai is “eager for more responsibility” to be handed over to the Afghan side. He said a “mechanism” will be found “whereby Afghans understand their sovereignty is being respected”. Obama pledged: “We are not interested in staying there [Afghanistan] any longer than is necessary to assure that al-Qaeda is not operating there, and that there is sufficient stability that it does not end up being a free-for-all.”
Mind you, he was replying to a couple of sharp questions on the recent Koran burning incident and the violent eruption of anger that followed.There was no passion in Obama’s voice — no conviction or faith. Just plain, unspeakable relief that it is ending, finally, and he can hope to put it all behind him, like Iraq.
The soldier in the remote base in Kandahar understands that he is going home in humiliation — and lying on his bed staring into the night around him, unable to sleep and to forget, he wondered why his friends and colleagues had to die in vain in a faraway inhospitable country. He decided to settle scores by himself.