THE ninth international conference on Afghanistan in early December in Bonn was a useless talk-shop involving over 1,000 well-meaning but powerless delegates from 90 countries.
Pakistan was right to have refused to attend, not just because of the Nato killing of 24 of its soldiers, but because there was no point in listening to the banal offerings of those who went along for the ride.
Dozens of foreign ministers pontificated and, given their impractical platitudes, it is not surprising that confusion as well as chaos reigns in Afghanistan.
Concurrently, with the beginning of the Bonn jamboree, the deputy commander of foreign forces in Afghanistan, British Lt Gen James Bucknall, pronounced that “Having made this investment in blood, I am more determined ... We almost owe it to those who have gone before to see the job through ... If I didn’t think we could do this I would take a very different view but I am confident we can do it.”
What ‘job’ is he going to see through? Could it be the impossible job of making Afghanistan governable? Bucknall’s grasp of affairs was encapsulated by his pronouncement that “Kabul has about 20 per cent of the population and less than one per cent of total violence in the country. Not only is the seat of government unaffected, but Kabul is a flourishing capital city that is much safer than Karachi”.
Two days after this imbecilic declaration a “massive blast at the entrance to a shrine in central Kabul where Shiite Muslims had gathered to mark Ashura left at least 48 people dead”.
And Bucknall seems to have forgotten the hotel bombing of June 28 (22 dead); the storming of the British Council on Aug 19 (12); the attack on the US embassy on Sept 13 (25 killed, but no Americans, so the ambassador considered it “not a very big deal”); and the destruction of a bus carrying foreign troops on Oct 29 (13 corpses), none of which were indicative of Kabul being “a flourishing capital city”.
If these were “one per cent of total violence in the country”, what is the 99 per cent?
Nor is the general (doubtless to be ennobled on retirement as Lord Bucknall of Disneyland) alone in maintaining that every day in every way things are getting better and better in Afghanistan.
The US secretary of defence, the Wizard of Whiz, Leon Panetta, declared on Dec 14 that “we are winning this very tough conflict here in Afghanistan”, but that, of course, it’s all Pakistan’s fault that there are setbacks, because “we’ve got to make sure that if we’re gonna secure this country, the Pakistanis better damn well secure their country as well”.
This is an insult to over 3,000 Pakistani soldiers who have given their lives for the security of their country — and the interests of America.
Isaf, the absurdly named International Security Assistance Force, produces a daily update of its activities, written by people whose command of English is as original as Bucknall’s and Panetta’s is of reality. Nothing bad ever happens to Isaf, you understand, and all successes are ‘multiple’.
For example, on Dec 4 “multiple insurgents were killed and two were wounded during a coalition air strike in Tagab district”, while in Kandahar the “security force detained multiple suspected insurgents”. Not to be excluded from multiplicity, “a combined Afghan and coalition security force captured a Haqqani leader” who — wait for it — was “involved in multiple roadside bomb and small arms attacks against Afghan forces in Nagarhar [would that be Nangarhar?] province”.
My favourite, however, is the breathless and ungrammatical report on Dec 3 that “multiple weapons were seized to include five AK-47 assault rifles, a pistol, multiple grenades and a chest rack”? What? — No multiple chest racks?
On Nov 19, foreign troops killed two Afghan policemen. In Alice in Wonderland style, this was reported by Isaf as a “combined Afghan and coalition security force was fired upon by individuals at an Afghan National Security Force checkpoint ... Individuals at hasty an ANSF checkpoint [sic] engaged the security force with rocket-propelled grenades, mortar and small arms fire.
“The security force requested air support in an attempt to de-escalate the situation. After multiple [what else?] attempts to identify themselves as friendly forces, the security force was unable to stop the threat and engaged the checkpoint in self-defence, killing two individuals ... An investigation will be conducted”.
In other words, foreign soldiers called in gunships to help them wipe out Afghan policemen who most certainly had not engaged them with mortars and RPGs (it is absurd to suggest that this happened), and no action whatever will be taken against them for their killing of so-called allies.
If any investigation is held, its results won’t be made public. The Isaf account is an insulting fabrication from start to finish. There are countless episodes like this — as on Dec 17 when yet another bungled foreign ‘night raid’ killed the wife of Dr Hafizullah, the head of the anti-narcotics department in Paktia province. The Isaf version of that shambles is despicable.
The Afghan war is a disaster. Indeed, Afghanistan is a disaster. As President Karzai said on Dec 18 “we — the United States, Nato and Afghanistan government together — have not been able to provide the Afghan people with their individual personal security”. He has rarely uttered truer words. But Pakistan suffers, too, from the catastrophic effects of America’s war.
The writer is a defence analyst.
