Rene — Afghans Fed Up With Government, US
Topic(s): Afghanistan | Comments Off on Rene — Afghans Fed Up With Government, USAfghans Fed Up With Government, US
Published on Sunday, September 7, 2008 by Associated Press
by Kathy Gannon
GHANI KHIEL, Afghanistan – The bearded, turbaned men gather beneath a
large, leafy tree in rural eastern Nangarhar province. When Malik
Mohammed speaks on their behalf, his voice is soft but his words are
harsh. Mohammed makes it clear that the tribal chiefs have lost all
faith in both their own government and the foreign soldiers in their
country.
Afghans prepare graves for people killed by a US airstrike on Azizabad
village in Herat province. The US-led coalition in Afghanistan said
that its investigation into a controversial missile strike thought to
have killed 90 civilians had found that only seven non-combatants died.
(AFP/File/Reza Shirmohammadi)Such disillusionment is widespread in
Afghanistan, feeding an insurgency that has killed 195 foreign soldiers
so far this year, 105 of them Americans.
“This is our land. We are afraid to send our sons out the door for fear
the American troops will pick them up,” says Mohammed, who was chosen
by the others to represent them. “Daily we have headaches from the
troops. We are fed up. Our government is weak and corrupt and the
American soldiers have learned nothing.”
A strong sense of frustration echoed through dozens of interviews by
The Associated Press with Afghan villagers, police, government
officials, tribal elders and Taliban who left and rejoined the
religious movement. The interviews ranged from the capital, Kabul, to
the rural regions near the border with Pakistan.
The overwhelming result: Ordinary Afghans are deeply bitter about
American and NATO forces because of errant bombs, heavy-handed searches
and seizures and a sense that the foreigners do not understand their
culture. They are equally fed up with what they see as seven years of
corruption and incompetence in a U.S.-backed government that has
largely failed to deliver on development.
Even with more foreign troops, Afghanistan is now less secure.
“It certainly is a mess. Security is the worst that it has been for
years. Corruption is out of control. It impacts every single Afghan,”
says Doug Wankel, a burly 62-year-old American who coordinated
Washington’s anti-drug policy in Afghanistan from 2004 until 2007 and
is now back as a security consultant. “What people have to understand
is that what ordinary Afghans think really does matter.”
The fear and fury is evident among the neighbors at Akhtar Mohammed’s
walled home deep within Nangarhar province, reached by a dirt road
along a dirty brown canal. A dozen men lie on traditional rope beds
beneath a thatched roof. Some wear the full-bodied beard of the devout,
with a clean-shaven upper lip. Others have dyed their gray beards a
flaming orange with henna to show that they have made the pilgrimage to
the holy site of Mecca.
They live barely an hour’s drive from an errant bombing last month that
hit a wedding party and killed about 50 people. Khiel Shah says his
home was raided two months earlier, and troops killed his nephew, a
high school student.
An old man sits by moaning, “No, no, they weren’t Taliban. They were
going to the bathroom. They weren’t even carrying guns.”
Villagers want to know why people who give false information are not
arrested, and they say American soldiers still can’t sift the good
intelligence from the bad.
“But now this is seven years. I am hopeless. They haven’t learned until
now,” says Akhtar Mohammed.
NATO’s top Gen. David D. McKiernan blames civilian deaths on insurgents
who hide among the population. But the problem could also be one of
strategy, says Robert Oakley, a former U.S. ambassador and National
Security Council staff member.
“There is a contradiction between wanting to minimize Afghan civilian
casualties and minimizing U.S. military casualties,” he says. “For the
former, we should go on the ground. For the latter, go in from the air.”
An air strike in Herat province about two weeks ago killed dozens of
people. A U.S. investigation concluded that most were Taliban, but the
Afghan government and the United Nations say up to 90 civilians died,
including children.
Villagers say the U.S. does not understand how complex alliances,
violence and even drugs play out in their culture. The eyes of elderly
Malik Bakhtiar well with tears as he recalls his brother’s arrest by
U.S. troops for apparently running a drug laboratory in his home. In
certain regions of Afghanistan, people grow opium for their livelihood.
“They don’t understand us,” Bakhtiar says. “Every house has a gun.
Every house has opium.”
Inside the walled compound of the Independent Human Rights Commission
in Kabul, workers are knee-deep in statistics that measure the
dissatisfaction of Afghans. An army of workers crisscrossed 33 of the
country’s 34 provinces and took the opinions of 15,200 people, mostly
in rural areas. The survey has not been released, but Ahmad Nader
Nadery, the commissioner, gave The AP a preview.
The survey, done annually for the past three years, shows a steady
deterioration in the social and economic stability of Afghans, Nadery
says. Average debt last year was $1,000 and is now 20 percent higher.
And up to 73 percent of Afghans say they cannot go to the government
for help unless they have money or power.
“Elders say when they go to government officials, they face
humiliation,” Nadery says in his cramped ground floor office.
Najib, a policeman who asks not to be identified beyond his first name
for fear of losing his job, reflects the general anger.
Since he joined Afghanistan’s police force in 2001, he has been
mistakenly bombed by a U.S. airplane that killed seven of his
colleagues. He has paid bribes to government officials, he says, and
taken bribes to balance his books. He recalls watching a friend buy a
police job for $2,000, and notes that posts with better opportunities
for bribery are available for upward of $10,000.
Corruption has made it easier for the Taliban to infiltrate police
ranks and carry out lethal attacks, according to Najib.
“The president is crying, but nothing has changed,” says Najib, who
still walks with a limp from the U.S. bombing. “People are unhappy, and
more and more it will become difficult for the Americans and good for
the Taliban. These people (U.S. troops) are not making one mistake, but
they are making one thousand mistakes and they are killing many people.”
In an exclusive interview with the AP, President Hamid Karzai said the
mistakes of troops are seriously undermining his government. But he
also spoke candidly about what he described as his failure and gave a
frank assessment of his track record, as he prepares to run for
re-election next year. He said he had achieved some but not all of his
goals for Afghanistan.
“Afghanistan does not have a properly functioning government yet,” he
said. “With regard to corruption, it’s a deeper problem, it’s an Afghan
problem. It’s the problem of an inefficient government machinery. …
It’s a problem of so much money coming into Afghanistan, it’s a problem
of the international presence.”
It is now so dangerous outside the capital that Afghans are afraid to
travel hundreds of miles of newly-paved roads, and most international
aid groups have forbidden their staff to do so altogether. Truck
drivers who have no choice often say thieves and thieving police are a
bigger worry than the Taliban.
“An Afghan trucker put it succinctly: ‘Forget the Taliban, our biggest
problems are with the police,'” says Seth Jones, an analyst with the
U.S.-based RAND Corporation and author of a report on the rise of
Afghanistan’s insurgency.
Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashery puts the corruption
level at barely 20 percent of the force, and says efforts are being
made to tackle it. But many Afghans think otherwise.
Kidnappings in Kabul are in the double digits this year, according to
the attorney general’s office, and Afghans suspect police involvement.
Most are for ransom rather than because of politics.
In the meantime, the Taliban is advancing.
Moiabullah, a black-bearded Taliban from the troubled province of
Ghazni, fled to Iran after the Taliban collapsed in 2001 but returned
several months ago.
“People are fed up with this government,” he says. “No one is working
honestly. If you provide a good life, factory or jobs, of course no one
will follow Mullah Omar (the Taliban leader).”
Out at the heavily fortified, sprawling U.S. military base at Bagram,
north of Kabul, Brig. Gen. Mark Milley says the Taliban and al-Qaida
are enemy number one, and corruption is enemy number two. But he claims
the troops are inching forward in bringing security to the country.
“The western forces, international forces, Americans in particular are
the most disciplined in our use of deadly force,” says Milley, the
deputy commanding general of operations. “We think we are succeeding.”
Back at the tribal council, or shura, in Nangarhar, the eldest of the
elders disagrees.
“It is a shame for them,” says Abdul Samad, a tall, lanky man in his
seventies with a silver beard on his gaunt face. “It was a good
opportunity after the Taliban. But it is gone.”