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News (Media Awareness Project) - Afghanistan: Afghanistan Three Years On
Title:Afghanistan: Afghanistan Three Years On
Published On:2004-10-09
Source:Japan Times (Japan)
Fetched On:2008-01-17 22:12:39
AFGHANISTAN THREE YEARS ON

WASHINGTON -- Three years after the Bush administration led a
remarkably quick and bold military operation to overthrow the Taliban
regime, how are things going in Afghanistan? The short answer is that
there has been considerable progress. But that is largely because
things were so bad under the Taliban, not because they are good now.

And unfortunately, the current "security-lite" strategy being followed
by the United States and its partners in the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization does not inspire confidence that Afghanistan will soon do
better.

In early November 2001, President George W. Bush promised at the
United Nations that "when that regime is gone . . . America will join
the world in helping the people of Afghanistan rebuild their country."
A year later, in October, he pledged a "full commitment to a future of
progress and stability for the Afghan people." However, the U.S. and
its allies have fallen short of the president's promises.

To be sure, some real achievements have been made. A horribly
oppressive regime is gone. Two successful loya jirga meetings have
resulted in the creation of an interim government and the ratification
of a new constitution. On Saturday the Afghan people will choose their
first democratically elected president, and the majority of eligible
Afghans have registered to vote.

Gross domestic product growth rates have been averaging 20 to 30
percent a year, markets in the north in particular are bustling, and
school enrollment is now 300 percent greater than before the war. Most
Afghans consider the overall security environment improved from the
recent past.

That said, Afghanistan remains a medieval-like fiefdom of warlords.
Some are more benign than others, but most are oppressive, none is
conducive to the creation of a healthy economy, and none has produced
a safe environment for their citizens. Militia forces total close to
90,000 members, and little progress has been made toward demobilizing
them.

Fortunately, official Afghan security forces are growing; as of Sept.
18, there were 15,000 troops in the Afghan Army, and as of Aug. 5 the
police forces were 22,300 strong. Some of these successfully resolved
a looming crisis in the western region near Herat this summer. But
most rural parts of the country, where 80 percent of Afghans live,
remain beyond President Hamid Karzai's control.

Continued attacks on aid and reconstruction workers have now driven
even groups notorious for their bravery like Doctors without Borders
to leave the country. Their departure is particularly tragic given how
poor humanitarian conditions remain in Afghanistan. About 70 percent
of the Afghan people continue to be malnourished, only 13 percent have
access to clean water and sanitation, and a mere 6 percent have
electricity.

Some 20,000 U.S. troops have been valiantly fighting an increasingly
bloody war against the Taliban in Afghanistan's south. Thirty
Americans have lost their lives in Afghanistan this year, after only
12 were killed in 2003 -- bringing the overall total of the last three
years to more than 100. Unfortunately, despite this sacrifice, the
Taliban appears to be reconstituting in places.

Indeed, according to a New York Times interview with an Afghan
intelligence chief on Aug. 1, the Taliban's strength in Afghanistan
may have grown by 50 percent since 2003. Thankfully, most parts of the
country are affected to just a limited extent by this, but as noted,
militias generally continue to hold sway elsewhere.

It has now been a year since the United Nations gave NATO the mandate
to expand its presence beyond Kabul. But troops making up the
International Security Assistance Force mission remain concentrated in
the capital; only a few dozen are now located in each of five
additional provinces. Although NATO has increased the number of ISAF
troops temporarily from 6,500 to 9,500 during the election period,
more troops need to be deployed on a more long-term basis to ensure
security in Afghanistan -- probably at least 20,000.

Largely because of the poor security situation, the Afghan economy is
not doing very well. It has improved since 2001, but it remains very
weak, with a per capita income of some $250 a year -- comparable to
the poorest countries in Africa. International assistance has been
flowing in to the tune of about $1 billion a year, but that is only
half what donors had promised, and hardly enough for a country ravaged
by war for three decades.

Much of what economic growth has occurred in Afghanistan has resulted,
directly or indirectly, from a big-time resumption of the drug trade.
Only four years after the Taliban had largely eliminated the
cultivation of opium, the country is believed to provide 75 percent of
the world's total supply. In 2003, revenues from the Afghan drug trade
equaled half of Afghanistan's nondrug GDP. In addition, heroin
trafficking is believed to be the principal source of funding for the
remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda still present in the country.

The Bush administration, its NATO allies and most of all the Afghan
people have much to be proud of in Afghanistan. But the glass is at
most half full. Afghanistan is a unified country in name and form
only; it remains factionalized, unsafe and poor.

The next U.S. presidential term will be crunch time. In all
likelihood, we will either declare victory and leave the place a
barely functioning entity, or we will commit to do the job right,
prevent the country from again becoming a sanctuary for terrorists,
and show Muslims that we really care about their well being.

Adriana Lins de Albuquerque is a senior research assistant and
Michael O'Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
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