the weekend's LA Times Book Fair @ UCLA. Skylight offers
music books we've recommended to their usual and unusual
stellar selections, and we'll sell t-shirts. Come visit, listen to
good music while checking out books. We'll have leaflets on
our forthcoming Community College assembly shows and
more. And again we adjoin Matt Groening's Heidi-Ho/Bongo
booth, opposite the Powell library. Easy to find, and enjoy.
Ed
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100426/dreyfuss
Hamid Karzai's Rebellion
By Robert Dreyfuss
The Nation: in the April 26, 2010 edition
In the 1960s, Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane sang, in "White Rabbit,"
about when "the men on the chessboard get up and tell you where to go." Now,
in a surreal, through-the-looking-glass moment, President Hamid Karzai of
Afghanistan, the almost classic definition of a pawn, has done exactly that.
In a series of angry, frustrated outbursts, Karzai has declared that the
United States is acting like an invader and occupier, that "there is a thin
curtain between invasion and cooperation-assistance," that the heavy-handed
US and NATO military operations could transform the insurgency into a
"national resistance" and that he himself might throw in his lot with the
Taliban. He said, not without reason, that the Obama administration was
trying to undercut his efforts to reach a settlement with the Taliban. And
an Afghan who attended a meeting with Karzai told the New York Times, "He
believes that America is trying to dominate the region, and that he is the
only one who can stand up to them."
The idea that the urbane Karzai, educated in India, might join the Taliban
is highly unlikely. Installed in 2001 with US support, Karzai has acquired a
well-deserved reputation for tolerating rampant corruption and for making
power-sharing deals with violent warlords. And he was almost universally
accused of engineering widespread fraud during his re-election bid last
August. Still, he has a point, and although he is at best an imperfect
vehicle to represent nationalist opinion, Karzai is accurately reflecting
the feelings of an increasing number of Afghans about the US occupation, now
in its ninth year--feelings no doubt inflamed by recent Afghan government
allegations that US Special Operations forces tampered with evidence to
cover up their killing of civilian women near Gardez.
Karzai has also launched, apparently without US support, a significant peace
initiative. Earlier this year he unexpectedly declared that he would seek to
reconcile with top-level Taliban leaders, and he announced his intent to
convene a tribal jirga, or council, in May to discuss how to bring the
Taliban back into Afghan political life. In March Karzai met with
representatives of one of the three main insurgent groups, Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar's Islamic Party, whose delegates presented a peace plan predicated
on a negotiable withdrawal date for US and NATO forces. The plan, according
to the delegation, was also acceptable to the main Taliban leadership.
Despite the oft-repeated claim by US government officials that the war has
no military solution, Washington has offered little or no support for
Karzai's peace efforts. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, called Karzai's meetings with Hekmatyar's representatives
"premature." American officials have long insisted that US troops must first
deliver punishing blows to the Taliban before talks are considered. The
Pentagon has telegraphed its plans to launch an all-out offensive to seize
control of Taliban-dominated Kandahar beginning in June, following hard upon
its mini-offensive to oust the Taliban from Marja, a key district in Helmand
province.
But the news on the military front isn't good. Despite the trumpeting of the
supposed US victory in Marja--touted as the first concrete demonstration of
the effectiveness of the surge of 30,000-plus troops ordered by Obama in
December--the situation there is fast unraveling. The Taliban's shadow
governor for the region has come back, and the insurgents have "re-seized
control and the momentum," according to Maj. James Coffman, a US civil
affairs leader in the area. "The Taliban are everywhere," a tribal elder
told a reporter on the scene. The United States can't afford too many
victories like Marja.
Karzai reportedly opposed the Marja offensive. In early April he told tribal
elders in Kandahar--where his brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, heads the
provincial council--that he isn't enthusiastic about the planned US attack
there either. Ahmed Wali, a notoriously corrupt wheeler-dealer and reputed
drug kingpin, also maintains quiet links to Taliban officials. Such ties
would be important, perhaps crucial, if there is any hope of a negotiated
deal. But astonishingly, a US military officer recently threatened Ahmed
Wali with death if he's caught talking to the Taliban.
What does it mean when the president of the country the United States is
occupying says he might join the insurgency? What does it mean when a US
officer threatens to kill the president's brother for meeting with the
insurgents? What does it mean when the president opposes major military
offensives launched by the occupying power? Here's what it means: that the
US enterprise in Afghanistan is hopelessly misguided.
It's possible the United States is the only player that doesn't realize that
its strategy can't work. Karzai is angling for a deal, although whether he
can survive in a post-American Afghanistan is open to question. The Taliban
and their allies, including Hekmatyar's Islamic Party, are exploring their
options for a political accord. Likewise, India and Pakistan, the two key
outside players in Afghanistan's drama, are maneuvering to gain advantage.
Pakistan, of course, created the Taliban in the 1990s as a cat's paw for
extending influence in Afghanistan. Since then the Pakistani army and
intelligence service have maintained not-so-covert ties to the Taliban, and
they continue to see the organization as a potential ally even though they
have arrested some key leaders recently as a result of US pressure. India,
for its part, long supported Karzai's allies in the old anti-Taliban
Northern Alliance. But recently the startling news emerged that New Delhi is
making plans to open direct lines to the Taliban. That could mean India does
not want to cede to Pakistan the sole power to bring the Taliban to the
bargaining table.
In his December speech announcing the surge, Obama declared that US forces
would begin to withdraw in July 2011. Whether or not he holds to that date,
all of the region's players are making plans based on the notion that the
occupation can't last much longer. It certainly can't be sustained much
longer in the United States politically--the burden it places on the budget
in a time of economic crisis and vast deficits is too great, and the
likelihood of quick battlefield successes is diminishing. Though Obama has
already carried out two major reviews of Afghan policy, it's time for a
third. And this one has to center on the question of how to engage all of
the stakeholders in Afghanistan's tragedy in search of a political accord.
No comments:
Post a Comment