By: Dr Barkat Charania & Chris Ryan
1.0 Status and analysis of present situation of component dynamic issues:
1.1 GENERAL:
· US has been in Afghanistan for the past 8 years, supported by UNO resolution 1386 0f 2001, also with a token support of NATO forces
· Taliban of 2001 have been defeated and a “democratic” government is in power for more than six years. President Karzai has been re-elected in recent elections, amid a lot of doubts and arguments, and he does not carry a lot of confidence of world governments because of many obvious reasons
1.2 AFGHANISTAN:
· It is claimed that high ranking Afghan government officials are directly or indirectly involved in narcotics and weapon business during past so many years, including personalities very near to president Karzai.
· There has been a lot of civilian casualties (there is no definitive estimate of this) which has disillusioned the Afghans on most part, causing them to react against NATO forces
· Afghans have always resented any foreign pressure or occupation as we can see from their history of last few centuries; they seem to perceive the NATO forces as occupying power
· Gen Mc Crystal has asked almost three months ago for about 40,000 more troops to control the situation and defend the Afghans and NATO forces present there
· US ambassador to Afghanistan, who is also a retired US general has strongly advised against sending more troops with many valid reasons.
· President Obama and his administration has been searching a way that may be acceptable to all and yet may be eventually be beneficial to US and NATO in particular and world safety and security in general
· If surge is decided upon, which it seems to be announced on Tuesday, December 1st, there will be 90% plus US troops and some may be from other NATO countries, totaling to about 30,000 or so.
· There is a Neo Taliban in large number, which mostly consists of Pushtuns, but are not the same as that of Mulla Umar’s people
· Afghanistan is land locked country with boarders meeting with all Muslim countries around, including Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, China and Pakistan (it is important to note that the adjoining Pakistani territory of that of almost self governing FATA area of Pakistan)
1.3 PAKISTAN:
· Presently Pakistan government is not at all stable at best
· Pakistan is a nuclear power and other nuclear powers are seemingly worried about the safety of the nuclear assets
· There is military operation underway for the past few months, first I Swat and now in FATA area, and since the journalists are not allowed, we need to believe the official reports that it is generally successful
· In the past few months the suicide bombings have increased. It seems to be happening almost every alternate day with a lot of casualties mostly aimed against the security forces but causing a lot of civilian losses
· There has been a regular claims that Al Qaeda and their high officials are in Pakistan, mostly in Quetta
· Baluchistan, of which Quetta is capital city is itself a separatist demanding province and unstable.
· Right from 1960, every government in Pakistan has conducted army operation in Baluchistan, and during last Musharraf government an old Baloch leader was killed by army
· Pakistan itself is rife with illiteracy, internal strife, corruption, and instability of the political government
· Constitutional crisis is about to happen with friction between the recently reinstated chief justice of supreme court and the president, who has been beneficiary of National Reconciliation Order (NRO) promulgated by Musharraf, but now has been seen as dead because that ordinance was not regularized and made into law by the constituent assembly within 120 days required in constitution and another 20 days grace period given by the supreme court. Hence anything is possible is in December 2009.
1.4 AL QAEDA and TALIBAN:
· Al Qaida, which had been organized in Afghanistan, consisting mostly of foreign nationals, and was given sanctuary by 2001 Taliban Government of Mulla Umar has mostly fled from there
· It seems that there are many satellites Al Qaeda cells in many places evident from the fact that many of their claimed attacks have been in so many varied countries including Western world.
· From what one reads and listens on medias, there are possibilities of these cells dormant, semi active, and active cells in many unforeseen places, which have no connection with Afghanistan
2.0 Look closely at Afghanistan:
2.1 Population and Geography of Afghanistan:
· Afghanistan is a most difficult mountainous region
· Population is sparsely located in valleys
· Communication is at best most difficult
· It has less than 30 million people with GDP of around $500 per year per person
· People are poor and uneducated
· It has an area of 250,000 sq miles with peaks reaching 25,000 ft and corresponding valleys.
· Since 1979, that is for over 30 years the people and country has seen nothing but civil wars and foreign occupation from one or other powers against the local people’s will and wish
· People are Muslims with simplistic religious education who will accept any and every doctrine put to them. Having not been literate enough and having been indoctrinated by different people at different times at times, like war lords before 1979, Russians “Godless atheist people” for ten years, by different war lords for another few years, by Taliban with a lot of fundamentalist and radical Islamic views until 2001, and since then by Hamid Karzai government with the help of war lords in different areas with superimposed NATO forces, which in many local eyes are “occupying non Muslim” forces
3.0 What options does President Obama have today?
· It seems that to ensure the safety and security of the civilian population of Afghanistan and our troops for a limited period of time, we shall need to increase the troops
· However, such a surge needs to be declared to be for a limited time, say for no more than three years during which the Afghan government and security forces should be trained and handed over the responsibility of their own safety
· The situation may be reviewed in intervening period to ensure that US does not leave the Afghanistan high and dry as they felt has happened after Russian occupation, but the time limits must be observes as strictly as possible.
· Maximum possible focus of attention may be kept onto Pakistan to ensure that the Al Qaeda spread and digging in and spread into to Pakistan may be controlled and at the same time the atomic assets may be kept under constant watch
· No long term or open ended promise of keeping NATO or US troops may be made, lest it turns out into another Vietnam.
· US may help Afghanistan to attain good governance of their own choice, which has always been historically decentralized. US or western powers should not insist on establishing Western form of democracy but certainly ensure to help attain best possible governance.
· Once this is decided the weapon culture and corruption due to it will change by itself.
· Heroine and poppy production may be controlled by two ways; a) by ensuring that the new Afghan authorities try and help farmers into alternative crop (this was ironically achieved in Mulla Umar’s time and has been proved to be possible), and b) Consuming western nations must create best measures to stop its import into their countries. If there is none or very few customers, the production will reduce automatically.
Newswire, a New Source for News
Newswire.net a wholly owned subsidiary of Extensions, Inc. (Symbol:EXTI) makes use of a patent-pending technology to harness the power of independent bloggers, writers and journalists and the extent of the internet to create a forum for all news stories, not simply the few that interest the main media outlets. Newswire seeks to be for the news world and for independent journalists what the Sundance film festival has become for cinematography and independent filmmakers. The technology used by Newswire will allow news stories with even the smallest niche audiences to find those readers, and give truly talented but underappreciated independent writers, bloggers and journalists an opportunity to make a real impact and to be part of a credible news organization.
To learn more on how to become a Newswire independent journalist visit http://www.newswire.net/about.php
To become a fan of Newswire on Facebook please visit www.facebook.com/pages/Newswire/99718418652