June 17, 2008	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 12, 1429

WASHINGTON, June 16: There is not a Pakistani miscreant behind every tree in Afghanistan, says a US general, Daniel McNeill, who commanded Nato forces in that country until last week.

At a recent news briefing in Washington, the former Nato commander conceded that even if the border with Pakistan was “absolutely” closed; it will not end insurgency in Afghanistan.

“Look, our Afghan brothers often utter that all their problems have to do with Pakistan. And you and I know – if you’ve travelled in that region, you know that’s not accurate,” he said. “There’s not a Pakistani miscreant behind every tree in Afghanistan. It’s simply not so.”

Further elaborating his point, the general admitted: “And if you absolutely could – and I don’t think you can – close the border, you’d still have some interior problems in Afghanistan that would have to be dealt with. There are still insurgents there.”

Such admissions by senior US officials – particularly those who have served in Afghanistan – are rare. Usually, they prefer to blame Pakistan.

“It is an easy option,” says a senior Pakistani diplomat who deals with US officials on the Afghan issue. “The other option is to acknowledge that things are not good in Afghanistan. But with thousands of US and Nato troops stationed there, saying so would amount to admitting your own failures and nobody likes to do that.”

Such admissions may be rare but there is a growing realisation in Washington that the Afghan government is not functioning the way it should.

The New York Times reported this weekend that both US and European officials are growing increasingly frustrated with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The report said that US officials are particularly frustrated with his refusal to arrest drug lords who are running the country’s opium trade, which is widely believed to have fuelled the Taliban resurgence.

Gen McNeill also referred to this problem in his briefing, saying that the illegal drug trade was the lifeline of insurgency in Afghanistan. “I became of the belief that illegal cultivation of poppy there was the insurgency or the insurgency was the illegal cultivation of poppy,” he said. “And it’s something the Afghans have to take on. I don’t think the international community can do this for them.”