Afghanistan at the Tipping Point

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The tribal chiefs spoke primarily and most forcefully about the lack of security in the remote regions of Afghanistan. There can be no democracy without security, as they are quick to point out. They spoke of the desperate need among farmers to cultivate the illegal opium poppy because poor irrigation and a lack of subsidies makes for meager profits in growing legitimate crops, such as wheat. There can be no democracy without a legitimate economy.

But most of all, they railed against the U.S. forces in the area for being too aggressive and too reliant on poor intelligence estimates that result in them making serious—and deadly—mistakes, such as the killing of 19 civilians and the wounding of 50 others by U.S. Marines in a March 4, 2007 attack in the Nangarhar province. (The spring and summer of 2007 would be marked by a spate of attacks in which large numbers of civilians were killed. The rising toll of civilian casualties has undercut the U.S. and NATO mission significantly. In one incident, at the end of June 2007, 45 civilian deaths were reported in one weekend in the Helmand Province, according to The Independent of London. That same weekend, President Karzai spoke out forcefully against the rise in civilian casualties saying at a press conference, “Afghan life is not cheap, and it should not be treated as such.” For sure, there can be no democracy when innocent lives are taken and no one is taken to task in a court of law.)

The message of the maliks was sharpened by the fact that the gathering occurred amid the height of the Taliban’s spring offensive, in which it has engaged the American and NATO forces in firefights and suicide bombings. The Taliban resurgence has succeeded in taking effective control of several pockets in the four provinces that had representatives at the meeting, and what is described by Western diplomats as nearly full control of other provinces in the South, particularly Helmand. To borrow from Azoy’s buzkashi metaphor, there are some Afghans who are riding away from the U.S. and NATO troops and finding a preferred suitor in the Taliban because they offer more security and order.

One former Taliban leader who is now a member of parliament, Azbul Abdul Salam, described the reemergence of the Taliban with classic Pashtun simplicity: “They were in power and they want power back. It is not so complicated.” Through a translator, Salam spoke with me in Pashto as we sat inside the parliament building, in the grand lobby with its oil paintings of Afghan kings and nation builders. He is a big man with strong hands and a rugged face. He is more commonly known by his nomme de guerre, “Mullah Rocketi,” which would roughly translate into English as “Reverend Rocket.”

The name is a tribute to his skill in launching rocket attacks on Soviet troops as a mujahadeen and later, for the Taliban during the civil war. But Salam is one of those Taliban who crossed over to join parliament and supports building unity and democracy under the name of an Islamic state in Afghanistan. He maintains that he never endorsed the leadership’s decision to offer bin Laden support and that what happened on September 11th is a crime for which “those responsible will have to answer to God.”

Salam insists that the U.S., particularly the military, needs to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the Taliban. He also says that there are many who served in the Taliban government and who sympathized with the movement who now share in the new government’s goals of democracy building. Salam maintains that are many who saw the excesses and mistakes of the Taliban leadership, but still adhere to its core goal of building democracy within the context of the Koran and religious law.

He also believes the new government under Karzai should wake up to the fact that what Afghans want more than democracy is honesty in government and security in their villages. He said, “Why are people supporting the Taliban again in the south and the east? Because some government officials are corrupt and this makes the tribes unhappy with the government so they are switching sides. Under the Taliban we had problems for sure. But we also had no corruption and much security. Today, we have corruption and no security.”

At the Crossroads
Almost all sides in Afghanistan—from Western diplomats inside air-conditioned embassies in Kabul to senior representatives of the Karzai government to provincial leaders in gatherings like the one in April 2007—agree that these days, Afghanistan is at a tipping point.

The considerable success of the international community in building roads and schools and establishing a functioning parliament and a struggling, but well-intentioned army is imperiled. A lack of security fostered by a growing insurgency that combines a mixture of Afghan Taliban and foreign fighters coming across from Pakistan has persistently undermined the achievements that have been realized. As one U.S. official described the situation in Afghanistan: “We’re at an important crossroads.”

But, the American official hastened to add, “Impatience is our worst enemy. We have to recognize it is going to be a long, slow process. This place has had thirty years of being frozen in time, thirty years of warfare. You don’t turn that around overnight.”

Still, the tribal chiefs gathered in Jalalabad came together to assert a timeless truth of Afghanistan. That is, that any central government in Kabul, no matter which empire or Western power backs it, is doomed to fail if it does not hear the voice of the remote tribes and respond to their needs. And judging by this meeting, the U.S.-backed government in Kabul is not listening, at least not closely. Important provincial governors and Afghan leaders from Kabul were not the only missing persons. There were also no U.S. officials or representatives of the international community visibly present, certainly, in part, because of the security risks involved in such gatherings. As a result, there was little dialogue.

A colorful gentleman named Faisal Muhammad, 60, the malik of Ihtiram, a village in the Surkh Rod district of the Nangarhar Province, stole the show. Representing the province, he delivered a speech that combined poetry and humor. He played off the theme of “eradication,” the buzz word in Afghanistan for the government and international community’s effort to destroy the bumper crop of poppy, which was in full harvest as he spoke. The profits from the crop often end up funding the Taliban resurgence.

Next page: “Yes, we must eradicate so much,” noted Muhammad. “We must eradicate poppy. But we also must eradicate senseless bombing,” he said to thunderous applause in the auditorium.

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