In this bulletin:

• Karzai condemns civilian deaths
• President Karzai Assigns an Inquiry Team to Investigate NATO’s Bombing
• 14 killed in roadside bombing in Afghanistan, as funerals continue for dead civilians
• General: Patience Needed in Afghan War
• Afghan drug trade hurts stability, General says
• Afghan leader seeks Pakistani politicians' help
• Afghan minister hails Tajik energy potential
• Ankara Rejects NATO Request to Move Beyond Kabul
• About 1,000 Polish troops to go to Afghanistan - minister
• Japan extends Afghanistan naval support mission
• Germany suspends two soldiers over Afghanistan skull scandal
• Sangin correction - International Security Assistance Force –Afghanistan
• NATO: Go big or get out
• Gross stupidity in Afghanistan
• Gunmen kill member of provincial council in N. Afghanistan
• Afghans need food, Ottawa told
• AFGHANISTAN: Italian Muslims To Appeal On Arab TV For Journalist's Release
• Jack Straw defends BBC Taliban interview
• On Canada in Afghanistan: 'It's not realistic to leave the dirty work to others'
• Ex-NATO softie (that's us) in an Afghan hard place
• Coalition forces help bolster Afghan economy by buying local water

Karzai condemns civilian deaths – BBC 10.27.06

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has strongly condemned the deaths of at least 12 civilians in a Nato air raid. Nato has confirmed that the civilians were killed in an air strike targeting Taleban militants in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday.

Mr Karzai said he would hold talks with international figures to discuss avoiding such events in future. Reports suggest at least 40 civilians died when a nomads' camp was hit in Kandahar province's Panjwayi district.

The Afghan president told a news conference foreign pilots did not always distinguish between Taleban fighters and civilians.

In some cases, foreign pilots even bombed members of their own forces, he added, referring to a so-called "friendly fire" incident in which a Canadian soldier was killed after US planes fired on Nato soldiers in September.

Nato has said 48 Taleban fighters were killed in three raids in Kandahar province on Tuesday, but the Taleban have denied losing any men.

Local police and officials confirmed more than 40 people were killed in one of the Nato raids, Afghan interior ministry spokesman Zmarai Bashiry told the BBC. Other local officials put the death toll at between 60 and 85.

Nato forces are the main component in Isaf, the international force deployed in Afghanistan. A spokesman, Capt Andre Salloum, told AFP news agency: "As soon as the battle ended, troops on the ground were able to identify 12 civilians."

Nato forces were working with the Afghan defence ministry to conduct further investigations, he added. Another Nato spokesman, Mark Laity, said the troops sought to take maximum care to avoid civilian casualties.

"We've got tight rules of engagement but sometimes things go wrong..." he said. "President Karzai quite understandably and correctly wants us to show maximum care - that's what we do."

Residents in Panjwayi say the bombing began on Tuesday and continued into the night, during the Eid al-Fitr festival marking the end of Ramadan. People told the BBC that the bodies of many locals had been pulled from the rubble of their homes and buried.

One local man who did not want to reveal his name said 20 members of his family had been killed and 10 injured. "Anyone can come here to see our homes and area. There are no Taleban here. We all are nomads living in tents," he said. "Each time they say that it was a mistake. They have destroyed us all in such mistakes. For God's sake, come and see our situation."

A team of tribal and community elders would hold an inquiry, Mr Karzai's office said. It said Mr Karzai's investigators would make suggestions on how to prevent such "unfortunate" incidents in future and ensure better co-ordination with foreign forces.

Mr Karzai has been under mounting pressure over civilian deaths and has urged foreign forces to exercise more caution. Last week, up to 21 civilians were killed in two Nato operations in Kandahar and neighbouring Helmand province.

Hundreds of people have been killed in Afghanistan this year, the bloodiest since the Taleban were removed from power by US-led forces in 2001.

President Karzai Assigns an Inquiry Team to Investigate NATO’s Bombing - Press Release - Date of Release: 26 October 2006

Arg, Kabul – H.E. Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, through a presidential decree assigned an inquiry team to fully investigate the reports of civilian casualties during NATO’s air operations in Panjwayi and Pashmul districts of Kandahar province.

This team is made up of tribal and community elders from various districts of Kandahar province and is headed by Al Hajj Mullah Naqeebullah Akhund, a senior Afghan figure from Kandahar province. The other members of the team include:

1. Alhaj Ali Ahmad Khan Aka 2. Alhaj Essa Jaan 3. Alhaj Agha Lalai 4. Alhaj Shahzahd Khan 5. Malem Nasrullah Khan Balouch 6. Hajji Nik Muhammad Khan 7. Neyaz Muhammad Khan Sarhadi

The team has been tasked to prepare a full and complete account of the incident and identify its causes and victims. The team will investigate the reports of civilian casualties and damages inflicted in this operation. They will also present their suggestions to the President on how such unfortunate incidents could be prevented in the future.

At the instruction of the President, this matter will be included in the agenda of the next meeting of the Policy Action Group which is going to be held on Monday. The meeting will discuss ways to prevent civilian casualties during anti-terrorist operations and ensuring better coordination between Government and NATO forces.

The meeting will be attended by the Afghan Government authorities and senior representatives of the international community. 

Office of the Spokesman to the President

14 killed in roadside bombing in Afghanistan, as funerals continue for dead civilians - Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan 10.27.06 - A roadside blast Friday ripped through a vehicle in southern Afghanistan, killing 14 villagers and wounding three as they traveled to a provincial capital for holiday celebrations, an official said.

The explosion in Uruzgan province came as funerals continued in neighboring Kandahar for some of the dozens of civilians reported killed this week during a NATO military operation against Taliban militants that has deeply angered locals.

Friday's blast went off near a village north of Tirin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan. Capt. Andre Salloum, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said it was caused by an anti-tank mine but it wasn't immediately clear if it was an old mine or newly planted.

The victims, from the village of Safid Shar, had been traveling in a pickup truck or small bus to Tirin Kot to celebrate the end of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.

Meanwhile, in the southern city of Kandahar, mourners attended a prayer ceremony in memory of some of the several dozen civilians who Afghan officials say were killed during NATO operations on Tuesday in the nearby Panjwayi district.

NATO said its initial reports found that 12 civilians were killed during three separate incidents, but Afghan officials estimated the number of civilians killed at between 30 and 80, including many women and children.

Fearful villagers on Thursday packed up vehicles and donkeys to flee the Panjwayi region, where NATO has been battling suspected Taliban militants.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly condemned civilian deaths caused by Western forces and only a week ago urged NATO to use "maximum caution" in its military operations after nine villagers were killed during another NATO operation in Kandahar.

Maj. Luke Knittig, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said up to 70 militants may have been killed in three separate clashes in Panjwayi. He said NATO precisely targeted militants using artillery fire and airstrikes and regretted any civilian casualties.

But villagers and local government officials denounced NATO and blamed the government for lack of security.

"Everyone is very angry at the government and the coalition. There was no Taliban," villager Abdul Aye said through tears at a mass funeral in Kandahar city on Thursday. He said 22 members of his extended family were killed.

The deaths in Panjwayi come only a month after NATO launched a major offensive there, during which more than 500 militants were killed, according to NATO.

Death tolls in remote military action in Afghanistan are difficult to accurately pin down, and estimates often vary widely.

NATO spokesman Knittig said that fighters in Panjwayi on Tuesday had attacked NATO forces, and that return fire was precisely aimed at those militants. Bismallah Afghanmal, a provincial council member, said fighters fled into civilian homes, which were then attacked by NATO forces. Karzai said he'd formed a seven-member investigative committee.

The worst previous reported incident of civilian deaths from foreign military action in Afghanistan came in July 2002, when a U.S. airstrike in Uruzgan province killed 46 civilians and wounded 117, many of them celebrating at a wedding party.

General: Patience Needed in Afghan War

The Associated Press - Thursday, October 26, 2006

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- The U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Thursday that NATO could be in for an extended stay in the central Asian nation and called on member nations to be patient.

Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry urged the global community to devote more resources to the rebuilding of the country as it struggles to contain a resurgent Taliban militia.

"We need perseverance," Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry told the Asia Pacific Summit in Vancouver. "We cannot win this in a year. We cannot win this in two years," he said via satellite from the U.S. Embassy in Vienna.

The conservative Canadian government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been calling on NATO to shoulder more of the burden of fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.

Eikenberry, addressing the two-day gathering of business and government leaders from North America and Asia, said that despite a need for more troops on the ground in Afghanistan, the allied presence there was greater than any rebel force.

"There is no place in Afghanistan that we will not dominate," he said. "The U.S. will maintain its role for the rebuilding of the army, although it's hoped NATO will expand its role."

That Afghan army was virtually nonexistent at the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2002 and now has some 35,000 troops, he said.

Afghan drug trade hurts stability, General says

Vancouver (Globe and Mail) -- Corruption and drug-trafficking stemming from Afghanistan's poppy crops pose the biggest threat to coalition efforts to nurture a stable government in the country, U.S. Lieutenant-General Karl Eikenberry said yesterday.

Speaking via teleconference from the U.S. embassy in Geneva to the Asia Pacific Summit in Vancouver, Lt.-Gen. Eikenberry -- commanding general with combined forces command in Afghanistan -- said the poppy-growing problem is big enough to warrant a strategy aimed at providing an alternative economy, not just alternative livlihoods for poppy farmers.

Afghan leader seeks Pakistani politicians' help - By Zeeshan Haider

ISLAMABAD, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai has written to influential ethnic Pashtun politicians in Pakistan asking for their support to stem a growing Taliban insurgency.

Karzai, a Pashtun himself, has sent letters to Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman, leader of the opposition in Pakistan's National Assembly and a leading pro-Taliban cleric, and to Pashtun nationalist leader Asfandayar Wali Khan, urging them to help restore peace in southern Afghanistan.

"He has asked me to use my influence to cope with the situation in eastern and southeastern parts of Afghanistan," Rehman told Reuters on Friday. "I have not yet responded to his letter and will do so after consulting my party leadership."

Despite the presence of almost 40,000 NATO and U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, thc country is suffering the worst period of violence since the Taliban was ousted from power by U.S.-backed forces in late 2001.

Rehman heads his own faction of Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, a party of Islamic clerics, which is part of the government in both North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan, the two Pakistani provinces bordering Afghanistan.

His party has influence among madrasas, or Islamic schools, that the Taliban movement sprang out of in the early 1990s. Pakistan and Afghanistan have been blaming each other for the growing challenge mounted by insurgents in the Pashtun belt straddling their long and porous border.

More than 3,000 people have been killed so far this year, including 150 foreign soldiers, and critics often refer to Karzai as the "mayor of Kabul" because of his government's lack of control over the rest of the country.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has warned that the insurgency could turn into "a peoples' war" unless Karzai, wins over the Pashtuns, and both governments fear ethnic nationalism could fuel ideas of a "Pashtunistan" state.

Karzai, and Musharraf, key allies of the United States in its war on terrorism, last month agreed to call tribal gatherings or jirgas on both sides of the border to win support against the Taliban, but no dates have been fixed.

Khan, head of the Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party (ANP), said Karazi wrote to him and spoke with him on Thursday. "Right now two forces are operating in the region. One is promoting war, hatred and isolation while the other is trying for peace and harmony," Khan told Reuters. "We are in the latter camp and I have assured Karzai that we are ready to play our role in making the jirga successful."

Pakistan has already started calling jirgas in semi-autonomous tribal areas to counter Taliban influence. Last month, a peace pact was signed at a jirga in North Waziristan and similar accords are expected in neighbouring South Waziristan and Bajaur, another tribal region to the northeast.

Afghan minister hails Tajik energy potential

Tajik Television first channel 25 October 2006 - The [second] Central Asia/South Asia electricity trade conference will be held in Dushanbe. It will be attended by representatives from the energy sector of a number of states in the region.

This afternoon, some of the visitors arrived in Dushanbe. During the important event, they will discuss projects being implemented in Tajikistan and will exchange views on prospects for the development of the energy sector along with discussion of some issues relating to the regulation of electricity trade between the region's countries.

[Passage omitted: Tajik Energy Minister Abdullo Yorov saying Tajikistan has huge energy resources]

[Correspondent] Afghan Energy and Water Minister Esmail Khan has shared his opinion on the [forthcoming] conference.

[Esmail Khan] With its great energy potential, Tajikistan can play a very important political role [in the region] both in terms of hydro-energy generation in Tajikistan and its export to Afghanistan and further to the fraternal country of Pakistan via Afghanistan. At the same time, Tajikistan can be a corridor for energy transit from Kazakhstan both to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The aim of our working visit here is to sign an important, fundamental and quadripartite agreement between four fraternal Muslim countries - Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan - with the purpose of [building] a power transmission line with a capacity of 1,000 MW [megawatts] from Tajikistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan.

[Correspondent] The conference is expected to open on 27 October. Tomorrow the participants will visit some major hydroelectric power stations of Tajikistan as part of the conference.

It should be recalled that this is the second conference; the first one was held in Islamabad of Pakistan in May this year.

Ankara Rejects NATO Request to Move Beyond Kabul
By Suleyman Kurt, Ankara - Thursday, October 26, 2006 zaman.com

Ankara has once more rejected a NATO request to contribute additional combat troops for Afghanistan. A high-ranking official from the Turkish foreign ministry told Zaman: “Our stance is very clear. A change in our task description is not likely at all.”

General James Jones, NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe, requested Turkey’s help once more.

After having sent the Turkish General Staff a letter on the issue, General Jones said, in a statement in Washington, that Turkish troops only operate in the capital Kabul and he had asked Turkey to lift this restriction.

Jones’s request would have placed Turkey in the ever-growing insurgency in southern Afghanistan. General Jones argued that the “restrictions” Turkey and other NATO members had insisted upon were causing the allied forces’ power to wane.

A debate on this subject is expected to come up during the NATO meeting next week in Brussels.

In an assessment of Jones’s statements, an official from the Turkish foreign ministry said: “A change in our task description is not likely at all… How many countries have contributed to Afghanistan the way Turkey has? We are a member of ISAF and have assumed overall command twice. Furthermore, our contributions to the PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team) are obvious. Other contributions made around Kabul are also known, in addition to the ones made in the educational and social sphere.”

“Not one Turkish soldier can go to Afghanistan to directly fight against terror,” Turkey’s top military commander General Yasar Buyukanit declared when similar requests were made.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) divided Afghanistan into five command regions and moved its operational area into the south, which is far more dangerous than its former area of operations in central Afghanistan.

Assuming responsibility in the central region with France and Italy, Turkey will take over command of the region again in April 2007. Turkey will also establish a PRT, which will undertake missions in the Wardak province in southern Kabul.

About 1,000 Polish troops to go to Afghanistan - minister

PAP (Poland) 26 October 2006 - Defence Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said in the Sejm [lower house of parliament] on Thursday [26 October] that media reports that Poland would send 2,000 troops to Afghanistan were untrue. Only 1,000 Polish soldiers will be serving in one mission, he stressed.

Polish soldiers spend six months on the mission. And then there is the rotation of troops. So sending 1,000 soldiers for six months means that a total of 2,000 will go during a year, Sikorski said.

The minister added the cost of equipment maintenance was estimated at 22m zlotys and the cost of preparations, transport and accommodation of soldiers in Afghanistan at around 300m zlotys [approx. 90m US dollars] during 12 months.

On Wednesday Sikorski declared that he would suggest to the president and the Council of Ministers that the mission of Polish troops in Afghanistan should last 12 months. He added the decision would be taken by the president. At present there are 190 Polish soldiers in Afghanistan.

Japan extends Afghanistan naval support mission

Thu Oct 26, 2006 - TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan approved on Friday a law extending for another year a naval mission in the Indian Ocean that provides rear-guard support for U.S.-led military operations in Afghanistan.

The law was approved by the upper house of Parliament by a majority vote. It passed the more powerful lower house last week.

The law, which enabled Japan to send its navy to the Indian Ocean mainly to help refuel ships, first came into effect in November 2001 in the face of widespread opposition. It was the first dispatch of Japanese forces to a war situation since World War Two.

The legislation also set the stage for a separate, more controversial law allowing the deployment of Japanese troops to Iraq on a reconstruction mission that ended in July.

Shinzo Abe, who became prime minister a month ago, has promised to tighten ties with the United States, a key security ally, and work toward rewriting Japan's pacifist constitution.

Germany suspends two soldiers over Afghanistan skull scandal

Berlin (AFP) - Two German soldiers have been suspended following the publication of photographs of troops playing with a human skull in Afghanistan, Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said.

"Two soldiers have been suspended from their duties," the minister told journalists on Friday. They are being investigated on suspicion of disturbing the peace of the dead, which is a legal offence in Germany punishable by up to three years in prison.

The scandal broke on Wednesday when Bild newspaper ran pictures of Bundeswehr soldiers mounting a skull on a vehicle bearing the German flag and the name of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

It escalated on Thursday when a television channel aired similar pictures which it said were taken in Afghanistan in March 2004, a year later than those published in Bild.

The newspaper said on Friday that it had found more pictures which it planned to publish at the weekend. One allegedly shows a soldier pointing his gun at a skull.

German state prosecutors on Friday told Bild they were investigating criminal charges against seven suspects in total.

Jung has said most of the suspects had completed their tour of duty and left the army, but promised that those still with the Bundeswehr would be dismissed.

Bild published an interview with an unnamed soldier on Friday who admitted that he was one of the troops who had clowned for the camera with a skull on a road outside Kabul.

He claimed he had acted under pressure from his peers. "It was a stupid thing to do. I would rather not have been there," he said. "If you did not take part, it was like: 'You wimp, what is the matter with you?'"

He said they had found the skull in a gravel pit. "It was a big gravel pit, the kind from which Afghans take soil to make bricks," he told the paper. "The devil only knows how it got there. Perhaps dead bodies were dumped in the pit during the war."

He said it was common knowledge in the German contingent in Afghanistan that such incidents had taken place. "It was well-known among the lower-ranked soldiers. They found it quite funny."

The defence ministry on Friday confirmed that it was bracing for "a third wave of photographs" of soldiers posing with skulls.

But ministry spokesman Thomas Raabe said the Bundeswehr still believed that such misconduct was not common among the 2,800 German soldiers deployed in Afghanistan.

"We do not think this was very widely known. And we still think and we hope we will soon be able to prove that the majority of our nearly 3,000 men in Afghanistan are properly behaved," he told reporters.

Raabe said Germany was concerned that its soldiers and nationals could be targeted by insurgents because of the images.

"We realise there is a danger and we have spoken to the authorities in Afghanistan, and also to the Muslim community there and here (in Germany)," he said.

Germany is the second biggest contributor of peacekeepers to Afghanistan and holds the command of ISAF in the north.

Sangin correction - International Security Assistance Force –Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (27 October) – Recent media reports have contained significant inaccuracies about ISAF's position on the current situation in Sangin. These are based on an inaccurate interpretation of the ISAF weekly press conference on October 26. To make the position clear here is a transcript of the remarks made by NATO spokesman, Mark Laity on the issue:

Question: "How close are ISAF troops to coming to a similar arrangement in Sangin as they have come to in Musa Qala?"

Mark Laity: "It has been very quiet in Sangin as a result of discussions about trying to avoid incidents, and in principle ISAF is open to similar kinds of arrangements elsewhere. But no two situations are the same, and remember that such arrangements always involve three parties, which is ISAF, the Government and Tribal Elders. So it is quiet in Sangin, but it would be inappropriate to start getting into any detail about any future arrangements."

NATO: Go big or get out

COMMENT BY ROLAND PARIS - From Wednesday's Globe and Mail Oped

NATO has only two options in Afghanistan: make a major commitment of additional resources to Afghan reconstruction, or plan a phased withdrawal. As a major contributor of troops to this mission, Canada should press its NATO allies to face up to this difficult decision.

Canada's interest in Afghanistan is to prevent the country from becoming, once again, a major base for transnational terrorists who pose a threat to Canadians or our allies. That requires building governmental institutions that most Afghans view as legitimate and that are capable of maintaining a reasonable level of security in most parts of the country.

These are not impossible goals, and much has been achieved in the past five years. Presidential and parliamentary elections have been held, and some 1,000 schools, clinics and government buildings have been built. In real terms, the non-drug economy has grown at an impressive average of 15 per cent a year. Most Afghans do not want the Taliban back in power. And unlike Iraq, Afghanistan is not verging on civil war.

But recent trends are discouraging. A strengthened insurgency has made much of the country unsafe for civilian development personnel. Local warlords and drug traffickers are reportedly collaborating with the Taliban against the government. And ordinary Afghans are showing signs of mounting disaffection with their own government's inability to provide security and public services.

If these trends continue, the Afghan mission will fail. Defeat will come slowly, not on the battlefield but in the minds of Afghans, most of whom simply want security and opportunity for themselves and their families. If the legitimately elected government of Afghanistan and its foreign backers cannot provide such essentials, Afghans will look elsewhere.

Having acknowledged that Afghanistan has reached a "tipping point," NATO now wants to accelerate reconstruction projects during the expected winter lull in fighting, and is looking for 2,500 additional troops.

But much more is needed. This mission is the most under-resourced international stabilization operation since the Second World War. For example, there were 20.5 international peacekeepers in Kosovo per 1,000 inhabitants, 19 in Bosnia, 10 in Sierra Leone and 3.5 in Haiti. The ratio in Afghanistan is a paltry 1 to 1,000. From the beginning, the operation has been hampered by a lack of international forces to help the Kabul government establish its presence throughout the country.

Afghanistan has also received less international aid per capita than many other war-torn countries, including East Timor, Bosnia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and the Solomon Islands.

But appeals for more troops and aid will only work if contributing governments are convinced that further sacrifices will make a difference. NATO is having trouble finding more soldiers, in part because its appeals are not accompanied by a new strategy or renewed commitment to the operation -- and the status quo is not inspiring confidence.

A new strategy is needed to reverse the slow slide in Afghanistan and to rally NATO members.

First, stop destroying opium poppy crops. Eradication is not working. Worse, it is alienating poor farming communities and fostering resentment against the government and foreign forces. Instead, we should explore ways of regulating (and perhaps even taxing) the opium trade, using a portion of production to reduce the global shortage of opium-based pain medicines.

Second, make police training a priority. Police are largely in the hands of local strongmen. Most are poorly equipped and organized, function on the basis of personal loyalty to a commander, and are accountable to no one.

Third, get serious about rooting out official corruption. President Hamid Karzai recently sidestepped a new process for vetting high-level police appointees by appointing a regional strongman, with links to organized crime, as police chief of Kabul. In the judiciary, too, unqualified people have been installed because they are loyal to various factions, undermining public confidence in the government.

Fourth, build an Afghan army that can stand by itself. Newly trained units are performing well, but the current plan is to train only 70,000 soldiers. This will almost certainly prove inadequate. There are already about 70,000 international and Afghan troops in the country (40,000 international forces and 30,000 Afghans), yet security remains a problem. Replacing NATO forces with Afghan recruits will produce an army of similar size but considerably less capacity. To stand on their own, Afghan forces will need to be much larger.

Fifth, the flow of Taliban fighters from their safe havens in Pakistan must be contained. Insurgencies with foreign bases have rarely been defeated. In September, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor proposed joint patrols of Canadian and Pakistani troops on both sides of the border, a proposal that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf summarily dismissed. NATO must speak with a single voice and privately make it clear to Gen. Musharraf that Pakistan's lucrative position as a close ally will be in jeopardy unless he does more to address Pakistan-based threats to Afghanistan.

NATO will need to refocus its efforts on all five elements of this strategy and make a major new commitment of diplomatic, military and development resources if it is to be successful in Afghanistan. The mission cannot be accomplished on the cheap.

If NATO chooses not to make this commitment, it should not wait around for conditions to worsen. It should withdraw, because the current course is a recipe for creeping defeat -- and that would do untold damage to the alliance.

This puts Canada in a difficult spot. Our troops are in the most strategically important and dangerous part of Afghanistan, committed until 2009. Yet, many NATO members are reluctant to contribute further to the mission.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he wants to restore Canada's position of leadership in world affairs. Now he has a chance to do so. His difficult task is to convince his fellow NATO leaders that the alliance needs to make a tough choice in Afghanistan: Go big, or get out.

Roland Paris is associate professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa and author of At War's End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict. He was a foreign policy adviser in the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Privy Council Office from 2003 to 2005.

Gross stupidity in Afghanistan

via Asia Times Online Wednesday, October 25, 2006 By Ajai Sahni South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal

The US-led coalition is unambiguously losing the war in Afghanistan, and it is important, at this stage, to reiterate the obvious, that is, precisely why the war was undertaken in the first instance: because of September 11, 2001, because of the al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan, and because of the assessment that the Taliban regime there had provided safe haven and operational facilitation to al-Qaeda for its planning and execution of the multiple and catastrophic strikes in the United States. The war was not merely punitive, it was intended to be preventive. It has proved a failure on both counts.

As with all the pertinent leaderships confronted with the possibility, if not imminence, of defeat, saving face has become infinitely more important than the original objectives of this war. It is useful to emphasize here that this was not a war of conquest, or even of "liberation" (despite the rhetoric of "Enduring Freedom"), but of defense. Its principal objective was to deny a base for future September 11s to be strategized, planned and executed.

But the Taliban and al-Qaeda have survived - albeit somewhat damaged - and, if current trends persist, will soon have the freedom, the power and the required setting to plan out their next wave of attacks against the West. And Western - particularly US - leaderships are squarely to blame for this. US diplomat Alberto Fernandez has spoken scathingly of the "stupidity in Iraq", but the stupidity in Afghanistan is far more manifest, and was considerably the more avoidable.

Warning of the dangers of defeat, Field Marshal Sir Peter Inge, the United Kingdom's former chief of the defense staff, noted, "I think we've lost the ability to think strategically." General David Richards, a British officer commanding North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops in Afghanistan, noted the "upsurge of violence along the eastern border with Pakistan" and warned that the situation was approaching a tipping point where a majority of Afghans would switch their allegiance to the resurgent Taliban if there were no visible improvements over the coming six months.

The outgoing British commander, Brigadier Ed Butler, described Taliban operations in Afghanistan as "more ferocious than anything in Iraq", and reports suggest that the Taliban were operating in battalion-sized units of 400 men, equipped with "excellent weapons and field equipment".

Distressed military commanders are increasingly advocating the "Musharraf model" of cutting deals with the Taliban, virtually to cede vast territories to the extremists on the perverse argument that the only way to restore security in the Pashtun south is a comprehensive accommodation with tribal leaders, mullahs, former mujahideen and the Taliban forces they are related to.

At the same time, General Richards concedes that Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf's deal with the Taliban in Waziristan is an integral part of the problem, and that "there has been an upsurge in terrorist activity inside Afghanistan since this agreement was reached". US military officials have confirmed that attacks on coalition and Afghan forces have tripled along the eastern border with Pakistan since Pakistani troops relinquished control of the area under the "peace agreement" with the Taliban.

Every single detail of what is occurring has been closely scripted, and Pakistan has been key to these developments from the very commencement of Operation Enduring Freedom to the present "reconquest" of nearly a third of Afghanistan by the resurgent Taliban. This, indeed, is the core of the enduring stupidity of US policy in the region: the utter and abysmal failure to see through Pakistani machinations, the continued and abject dependence on Pakistani "cooperation" to secure coalition objectives in Afghanistan, and the inability to comprehend the irreducible conflict of interests that excludes the very possibility of Pakistani good faith. US and coalition military commanders have repeatedly confirmed what Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly stated: that the "main problem lies inside Pakistan". Unfortunately, as one commentator has noted, "General Musharraf has played the Americans beautifully."

For nearly three decades now, Pakistan has remained the most active and aggressive player in the South Asian region, defining for itself a role that has substantially shaped the foreign-policy priorities and security concerns of all its neighbors to an extent far in excess of its size and strategic strengths. Islamist extremism and terror have remained the primary instruments of motivation, mobilization and execution of its policies of strategic extension. Covert asymmetric warfare and terrorism in Afghanistan are only one manifestation of this politics of violent disruption, and they remains central to the Pakistani vision.

The rationale and continuance of this strategy is now clearly visible in Pakistan's proxy "reconquest" of extended areas of Afghanistan through the Taliban. After September 11, and under US threat, Pakistan apparently disowned the Taliban and claimed to be enthusiastically "hunting" Osama bin Laden. In reality, a duplicitous policy of helping relocate al-Qaeda and allowing it significant operational space on Pakistani soil was combined by a pretended participation in the "war against terrorism".

Pakistan's "cooperation" in the "war on terror" has been, and remains, entirely coerced, except in the case of a handful of domestic sectarian terrorist groups and a few "renegades" who turned against the establishment in Pakistan. At the same time, Islamabad has helped the Taliban recover from the reverses of Operation Enduring Freedom and has enabled them to carry out a campaign of escalating terrorism in Afghanistan from bases and widely known operational headquarters in Pakistan - not just the "uncontrollable" areas of Waziristan, but also across North-West Frontier Province and northern Balochistan, where the writ of the Pakistani state is far less in dispute.

Over the past five years, the Taliban have successfully disrupted Kabul's influence in ever widening areas, and now, exhausted and desperate Western forces are striking deals with local Taliban commanders, and the idea of accommodating an oxymoronic "moderate Taliban" in Kabul is finding increasing support in Washington.

In essence, Pakistan has managed to wait out the storm, with its strategic tool, the Taliban, substantially intact. The calculation has always been that the US and Western powers will eventually lose patience in Afghanistan and return, in desperation, to the earlier "franchise" arrangement, restoring Pakistan and its Taliban proxies to influence over Afghanistan. The enemies of freedom, evidently, have had, and held on to, the capacity for strategic thinking despite the tremendous - and now evidently transient - reverses they suffered.

And their calculations are proving to be entirely correct.

A quick overview of recent developments in Afghanistan is edifying. More than 3,000 people had already been killed across the country in 2006, by October 10, according to an Associated Press count; this is more than twice the toll for the whole of 2005. Coalition fatalities in 2006 touched 172 by October 10, far exceeding the 130 coalition soldiers killed through 2005.

Taliban attacks have also become the more lethal, with an increasing number of suicide bombings decimating top Afghan officials, including associates and appointees of the beleaguered President Karzai. This year has already witnessed 91 suicide attacks in Afghanistan, with at least one every week, up from 21 suicide attacks in 2005, six in 2004, and just two in 2003, when the first such attacks in the country occurred. Suicide attacks this year have taken place not just in the Taliban strongholds in southern and eastern Afghanistan, but across the country, even in the relatively secure northern and western provinces.

Just counting September and October, the major targeted attacks have included:

October 15: Two gunmen on a motorcycle killed a Kandahar provincial council member, Mohammad Younis Hussein, outside his house.

October 14: The governor of the eastern province of Laghman escaped unhurt after a bomb exploded outside his compound.

October 9: The district police chief, administrator and intelligence chief were killed by a roadside bomb as they were on their way to investigate the overnight burning of a school in Khogyani district of the eastern province of Nangarhar.

September 26: A suicide bomber killed 18 people outside the provincial governor's compound in Helmand province. The governor escaped unhurt.

September 25: Gunmen on a motorcycle killed Safia Ama Jan, the director for the Ministry of Women's Affairs for Kandahar province. Jan, a leading women's rights activist, ran an underground school for girls during the Taliban's rule.

September 10: A suicide bomber killed Abdul Hakim Taniwal, governor of the eastern province of Paktia, outside his home. Another suicide bomber killed six people at his funeral the next day.

The Pakistan-Taliban strategy is clearly to deny access and disrupt the operation of coalition and government forces and officials, undermining the administration and relief efforts even in secure areas, to bring both Kabul and the international coalition to its knees - as has been the case with British forces at Musa Qala, a key forward base in Helmand province, who were forced into a humiliating "agreement" with "tribal elders" who "approached the Afghan government to negotiate a ceasefire between British forces and the Taliban in the area".

The Pakistani strategy and involvement is even visible in major Taliban reverses, such as the bloody confrontation with NATO forces in Panjwai district between September 4 and 17. NATO's Operation Medusa ended with nearly 1,100 of a 1,500-strong Taliban force - which reportedly "crossed over from Quetta waved on by Pakistani border guards" - dead, and 160 in NATO custody. Interrogation of the captured Taliban cadres has confirmed, in significant detail, the complicity and support of Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

Further confirmation of such support came from the sheer firepower that the Taliban forces brought to the battle: according to NATO's post-battle assessment, the Taliban fired an estimated 400,000 rounds of ammunition, 2,000 rocket-propelled grenades, and 1,000 mortar shells. Further, ammunition dumps unearthed after the battle exposed an additional stock of more than a million rounds.

An unnamed senior NATO officer, cited by Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan's foremost expert on the Taliban, noted, "The Taliban could not have done this on their own without the ISI." Rashid noted, "NATO is now mapping the entire Taliban support structure in Balochistan, from ISI-run training camps near Quetta to huge ammunition dumps, arrival points for the Taliban's new weapons and meeting places of the shura, or leadership council, in Quetta, which is headed by Mullah Mohammed Omar, the group's leader since its creation a dozen years ago."

Pakistan's military establishment, through the ISI, has long been the principal terrorist organization in South Asia. The Taliban - as is the case with the many named Islamist terrorist groups operating in India from Pakistani soil - is no more than an instrumentality, a proxy, an agent, of the ISI. Unless the West recognizes and addresses this reality, it will fail in Afghanistan, and will become the more vulnerable on its own soil to the rampage of Islamist terrorists.

The idea that Afghanistan and Iraq are America's "new Vietnam" is gaining wide currency, as failing coalition forces in both theaters flail about desperately for a face-saving exit strategy. What is often missed, however, is that the world and the ways of warfare have changed tremendously and irrevocably since the war in Vietnam.

The option simply to "declare victory and leave" no longer exists. If these theaters are ceded to the extremists, the war will simply move to Western soil. US President George W Bush has been wrong - and disastrously wrong - about a lot of things. But he is right when he says, "We're fighting the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan and across the world so we do not have to face them here at home."

If the Americans fail in Iraq, in Afghanistan or in Pakistan, they will have nowhere to hide.

Ajai Sahni is editor of the South Asia Intelligence Review and executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management.

Gunmen kill member of provincial council in N. Afghanistan

Xinhua 26 October 2006 - Unknown gunmen shot dead a member of the provincial council of Faryab province in northern Afghanistan, the provincial governor Abdul Latif Ibrahimi said Thursday.

"Two unidentified gunmen on a motorbike opened fire on Syed Noor Mohammad Agha, a member of Faryab's provincial council, killing him and injuring his guard on Wednesday," Ibrahimi told Xinhua.

The incident occurred in Koh-e-Sayad village of Shirin Tagab district when Agha was coming out from a meeting, the governor added. He did not say who were behind the incident.

It is the second deadly attack on a provincial council member over the past 10 days. Mohammad Yunis Hussaini, a member of the provincial council in the southern Kandahar province, was killed on Oct. 15 by militants.

Due to rising Taliban-linked insurgence, Afghanistan has plunged into the worst spate of violence this year after the Taliban regime was toppled down five years ago.

Over 2,500 people, mostly Taliban militants, have been killed in this volatile country this year.

Afghans need food, Ottawa told

Toronto Star 10/27/2006 By Bruce Campion-Smith

OTTAWA — Afghan children are "starving" in a refugee camp 15 minutes down the road from a Canadian military base and there's been no attempt to deliver emergency aid to help them, a frontline researcher says.

"I can't understand why no aid has been delivered," said Norine MacDonald, a Canadian lawyer who heads the Senlis Council, an international policy think-tank that aims to provide analysis, ideas and proposals on foreign policy, security, development and counter-narcotics strategies.

It is funded by the Network of European Foundations, a group of 11 trusts and charities, including the Children's Aid Foundation.

"It's a vicious circle — the military doesn't do aid and the aid (groups) can't get on the ground because of the security situation, so nothing happens. I just don't think that's acceptable," MacDonald said yesterday.

"We just can't keep on saying we can't do anything."

MacDonald, who has spent the last year living in Kandahar, came to the nation's capital to warn that widespread starvation in southern Afghanistan is claiming lives, provoking unrest and helping fuel the insurgency.

While Canadian development officials boast about providing microfinance loans and rebuilding infrastructure, Kandahar is facing a "starvation crisis" on a scale usually found in Africa, MacDonald told a news conference.

"They're getting it fundamentally wrong and the Canadian military, the young men and women who are fighting there, are paying the first price and Afghans are paying the second," she said. "If we don't change our policies now, right now, this month, next month, dramatically, we will suffer more losses and we will lose southern Afghanistan."

In a report released yesterday, the council urged Canada to deliver an emergency package of food and aid. The organization called on Canada to take the lead in getting NATO to rethink its plan to win over local residents.

Saying that Canada needs to "adopt" Kandahar, she urged Ottawa to encourage Canadian citizens and organizations to become involved in helping Afghans.

"In Kandahar, Canada is failing the very community whose support is essential for the success of our troops, making, in fact, the work of our troops more dangerous," she said.

"A new hearts-and-minds strategy is needed to meet Afghan people's most basic needs and regain their support."

MacDonald pointedly rejected the New Democrats' call to withdraw Canadian troops, saying that would offer a "gift" to Al Qaeda — a home for terrorism.

Defence officials were not able to comment yesterday.

CIDA officials pointed to this week's announcement by Josée Verner, minister of international co-operation, of nearly $5 million for emergency food aid for "tens of thousands of the most vulnerable families."

The emergency aid funding is earmarked to help the World Food Program to deliver food aid to 12,000 vulnerable families from Panjwaii and Zherai districts that were displaced from their homes by fighting. MacDonald, who travels extensively in southern Afghanistan accompanied by local Afghans, said that in recent months, there's been a "dramatic deterioration" in security.

"Kandahar is a complete war zone. The Taliban are winning the military battle there and the battle for the hearts and minds of local Afghans," she said.

Over the summer, refugee camps sprang up throughout Kandahar province housing people displaced by the fighting, by drought or who have lost their livelihoods because of the poppy eradication.

MacDonald says one camp housing about 1,000 families is just down the road from the Canadian base in Kandahar city that is home to the provincial reconstruction team — a group formed to help Afghans.

She says she last visited the camp in early September and was swarmed by "desperate" Afghans seeking food.

"As soon as we got out of our vehicle, they were asking for aid," she said.

"There were children half unconscious because of starvation ... 2-year-olds who couldn't stand."

Canadian soldiers in Kandahar told her they knew about the nearby camp but said they had no mandate to assist with the food crisis.

Prominent relief organizations have said they will not assist in reconstruction efforts in southern Afghanistan because they're uneasy with the military's own development efforts.

But MacDonald warned that the extreme poverty, if left unchecked, will turn local attitudes against the Canadians.

"People feel abandoned by the international community and Canadians whom they believed were there to help them," she said.

At the news conference, she displayed photos and video showing images of malnourished children she says were taken at the camps. "The people in those makeshift camps have not seen any aid from anyone," she said.

AFGHANISTAN: Italian Muslims To Appeal On Arab TV For Journalist's Release AKI - adnkronosinternational (Italy)

Ancono, 26 Oct. (AKI) - Italy's largest Muslim group, the Union of Italian Islamic Communities (UCOII), is planning to appeal for the release of the Italian photojournalist Gabriele Torsello who was kidnapped in Afghanistan, on the Arabic language satellite television channels, Al Jazeera and the US government-funded Al Hurra. UCOII also expressed its solidariety with the family of Torsello, a Christian who converted to Islam.

Torsello was kidnapped between October 12 and 14 while he was travelling from Lashkar Gah, the capital of the volatile Helmand province to neighbouring Kandahar - the two parts of the country where fighting between insurgents and NATO forces is fiercest.

"UCOII would like to express its solidarity and closeness to the family members of the reporter Gabriele Torsello and to the entire country," the group said in a statement released on Thursday.

"Honest journalists and voluntary workers in high risk areas, people who put their lives in danger to do good, merit that we all stand up for them. We firmly call for the release of the reporter Gabriele Torsello, without any pre-conditions," said the statement.

UCOII also announced a series of initiatives to secure Torsello's release.

"We will announce our appeal to all Afghans for the liberation of the hostage through the satellite channel Al Hurra on Friday at 4.00 pm," said the Italian Muslim group. The group also announced that on Saturday, at a day-long event to mark the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in the Adriatic port city of Italy, Ancona, a section will be devoted to "the cause of brother Torsello". The event, organised by UCOII and Torsello's family, will involve them recording an appeal which will then be aired on the Al Jazeera TV channel.

UCOII also said that they plan to make a special plea for Torsello's release in all mosques in Italy during Friday prayers this week.

After initially offering to hand over Torsello in exchange for the return of a Christian convert, Abdul Rahman, who has been granted asylum in Italy, last week the captors - who claim to be Taliban militia but whose identity has not been determined - said if that were not agreed to they would insist on a complete pullout of Italy's 1,800 troops in Afghanistan.

The kidnappers had warned they would kill the journalist by Monday midnight if the Afghan Christian convert Abdul Rahman was not handed over to an Islamic court for trial and Italian soldiers left Afghanistan.

Italian charity in Afghanistan Emergency, which is involved in talks for Torsello's release, said they had spoken with the abductors on Monday and they had guaranteed the photojournalist was in good condition.

Italian mediators, who have reportedly contacted the abductors through Emergency, are allegedly ready to grant humanitarian aid in exchange for his release.

Jack Straw defends BBC Taliban interview

Press Association 26 October 2006 - By Vivienne Morgan - The BBC's decision to broadcast an interview with a spokesman for the Taliban was vigorously defended today by Leader of the Commons Jack Straw.

Mr Straw said that he had seen the report and considered it ``good'' and ``informative''. ``It was important to see the nature of these people,'' he added.

Mr Straw was speaking after a senior Tory MP accused the Corporation of broadcasting ``unalloyed Taliban propaganda''. Julian Lewis attacked the timing of the piece and warned of its effect on the morale of British troops and their families.

His demand for a ministerial statement met with a cautious response from Mr Straw, who insisted that politicians must not interfere with the BBC's journalistic independence.

In the BBC2 Newsnight report, Dr Mahammed Anif, his face hidden by a veil, said the Taliban would throw foreign armies out of Afghanistan, and dismissed British and American claims to be rebuilding the country as an excuse to allow them to invade.

The BBC said he was giving his first broadcast interview as an official spokesman for the Taliban,

Other members of a Taliban group in Helmand province were also filmed vowing to fight to the death against the British troops who are fighting to bring security to the area.

Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox denounced the interviews as ``obscene'', and accused the BBC of broadcasting propaganda on behalf of Britain's enemies.

In the film, broadcast last night, a Taliban fighter who gave his name as Mullah Assad Akhond said: ``We see the English as our enemy since the time of the Prophet Mohammed. They are our enemies now and they were then. We will fight them to our death.''

Another, Hajimullah Wahidullah, warned that the group planned to step up suicide bombings, which until recently were unknown in Afghanistan.

The film also showed heavily armed Taliban militia, dressed in civilian clothes, speeding through the deserts in trucks and jeeps. The BBC insisted that it was ``entirely legitimate'' for it to broadcast the Taliban's views.

``Reporter David Loyn made the Taliban's intention to increase suicide attacks patently clear. BBC News also regularly reports on the British troops, and have interviewed their officers and soldiers on many occasions,'' it added.

Nevertheless, during exchanges in the Commons today, Mr Lewis, MP for New Forest East, demanded: ``May we have a statement from a defence minister about the decision of the BBC, at a time when our servicemen are fighting the most intensive campaign since the Korean war in Afghanistan, to broadcast unalloyed Taliban propaganda?''

He warned of the likely effect on morale of allowing the Taliban to air ``views that are well known and yet observe no normal recognised laws and customs of war''.

Mr Straw replied: ``I personally thought that it was a good report. It was informative. It was important to see the nature of these people.

``The difference is that in Taliban-controlled territory, anybody who steps out of line is killed. We are a democracy, and we are fighting for democracy in Afghanistan.''

And he warned: ``Whilst I am happy to pass on your concerns to the Director General of the BBC, I do so in a context in which one of the strengths of the BBC is independence of journalism and not to be influenced directly, particularly by ministers or by Members of this House.''

On Canada in Afghanistan: 'It's not realistic to leave the dirty work to others'

Not much goes over Paul Heinbecker's head. On that bright September morning five years ago, however, one thing did that forever changed his and everyone else's world.

"I was out jogging in Central Park," the former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations says, "and the first plane that hit the World Trade Center would have gone right along that trajectory."

Heinbecker was in the shower when the second one hit and his telephone immediately rang. Not that he will ever need a reminder, but it all came flooding back sharply this week as the repercussions of that event -- in particular the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq -- took a significant turn.

Suddenly, the President of the United States seems more than a tad uncertain, admitting, at least, that he's "not satisfied" with how things have gone.

The toll of American soldiers killed is heading toward the 3,000 mark. This month alone will see a hundred or more lost. Surveys are suggesting two out of three Americans are having second thoughts.

And now Hans Blix, the former United Nations weapons inspector -- the man who asked for more time before the U.S. coalition raced off to defuse those mythical weapons of mass destruction -- has called the invasion "pure failure."

It was Canada's Paul Heinbecker who worked hardest to bring about a UN Security Council compromise that would have given Blix that extra time.

For all we know, it might have changed the world as we now know it.

"Is that ever a good idea in retrospect," Heinbecker says while passing through Ottawa on his way home to Waterloo, Ont., where he is director of the Laurier Centre for Global Relations, Governance and Policy. “What we might have avoided . . ." he adds wistfully.

At the time, Heinbecker was pressing the Canadian case to avoid war, if possible, but he was also being "encouraged" by various officials in both the United States and British missions at the UN.

"Some of them," he says, "were worried then that this was a catastrophe unfolding."

Well, it's still unfolding. And though Canada was fortunate to avoid this impossible battle, it was already a part of the NATO-led involvement in Afghanistan.

Heinbecker, like almost all Canadians these days, has "cross-cutting" feelings about being there. A bit of certainty; a bit of uncertainty.

"Afghanistan is not Iraq," he says. "There was a legitimate basis for being there, and there remains a legitimate basis for being there. We're not dealing with an insurgency, as they are in Iraq."

While he, like everyone, despairs that more than 40 Canadians have already died in the fighting, he sees Afghanistan as forcing Canada to think, finally, about its place in the world.

"Everybody would be better off if it hadn't happened," he says. "But it's very, very important now that we face up to the world with our responsibilities and dispense with some of our notions."

One such notion, the old idea of peacekeeping, is finished. There are no more gentle tours. Today, there can be several parties involved, the lines unclear, and the goal is not only to stop the fighting, but to rebuild a country's institutions and lay the foundation for democracy.

"It's not realistic," Heinbecker says, "to leave the dirty work to others." The key to Afghanistan, he feels, is that there needs to be some sense that the administration in Kabul is up to succeeding if given the chance. He trusts this is the case.

Otherwise, Canada has to face the harsh reality that "we're putting our young people on the front lines." And the question that must still be answered, he says, is "How much success is necessary for the Canadian people to go on supporting it?"

These, after all, are wars of choice, not a war against such a force that the Canadian population will feel "if we don't lick them there, they'll be coming here."

The Liberals joined this mission and the Conservatives extended it, but the Canadian government -- no matter which face it has on -- has done a poor job, in Heinbecker's opinion, of communicating the reasons for being and remaining in Afghanistan.

"If the government is not leading the communications," he says, "then the returning coffins are going to be doing the communicating."

And that is pretty much what is now happening in the United States regarding Iraq.

Canada does not often have elections that involve foreign affairs, but it certainly has happened -- conscription in 1917, Bomarc missiles in 1963 -- and unless Canadians continue to support this dangerous mission in Afghanistan, Paul Heinbecker thinks the next federal election cannot help but be fought around that very issue.

And, he suggests, if Canadians stop supporting what one party started and another party (without much debate) extended, "then I suspect the Conservatives will wear it."

But it is not just politicians Heinbecker is talking to here. It is all of us.

"A Canadian," he wrote in a recent essay, "needs a wakeup call. As a nation, we have been in retreat from international responsibility for a generation."

Ex-NATO softie (that's us) in an Afghan hard place

JEFFREY SIMPSON - From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

You know things are getting worse in Afghanistan when U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insists they are getting better. “In Afghanistan, the trajectory is a hopeful and promising one,” the architect of U.S. military efforts in Iraq recently declared.

Everyone else says the reverse. A report from the German government to its parliament last month said, “The security situation has tangibly deteriorated since winter 2005-2006.” But will any country within NATO do anything about this deterioration?

Canada, with about 2,300 soldiers in Kandahar, finds itself on the sharp end of NATO's effort to stabilize Afghanistan. The British, Dutch and Americans are in neighbouring provinces, where serious violence has returned. These three provinces witnessed 85 per cent of the violence in the past year.

Everything is relative. All of Afghanistan can be considered dangerous in varying degrees. But the southern and eastern provinces, where the Canadians, Americans, British and Dutch are located, are far more dangerous than the rest of the country. There, the Taliban and drug lords are trying to take over.

The German government report accurately underlined that “by far the most suicide attacks have occurred in Kandahar province — in the northern region, there has to date been only one single attack.” In the north, violence is rooted in drugs and crime.

The report continued: “The situation in the south and east is quite different: Islamic indoctrination, ethnic and tribal links to various insurgent groups and dissatisfaction among the populace with poor governance by the local representatives of the central government, coupled with painfully slow economic reconstruction, provide a fertile source of support for the extremists, who pressure the population or even go in for large-scale intimidation.”

The military/strategic situation in the south and east is therefore much more difficult, complicated and consequential than elsewhere. The war in Kandahar is being fought against jihadism and warlordism, fuelled by money from Saudi Arabia, Pakistani connivance, al-Qaeda operatives, drug traffickers, corrupt Afghan officials and cabinet ministers, and fighters indoctrinated by the madrassas, the radical religious schools.

But efforts of the countries in the south, including Canada, to persuade other NATO countries to give more help in this small theatre of a much larger struggle are going nowhere. Germany, for example, recently reaffirmed its commitment to the Afghan mission, provided its troops stayed in the north, away from the serious fighting.

Germany, which is responsible for training Afghan police, has given large amounts of reconstruction aid. But its coalition government apparently could not persuade parliament to change the mission to redeploy more troops to help Canada and the other hard-pressed countries.

Germany's history still haunts the country when it comes to active military deployments. President George W. Bush has become so politically unpopular in Germany that any military action in concert with the Americans is deemed politically toxic.

Yesterday, the U.S. ambassador to Germany said: “I would very respectfully ask Germans . . . to reflect on whether the very narrow and very rigid restrictions put on the German troops make sense for NATO.”

Judging from recent long conversations with Germans visiting Canada, the answer will be no. Germany will contribute and serve — as long as no active military operations are required.

So if Canada and others look for more military help, it won't be coming from Germany or, it appears, from other NATO countries. Many have “caveats” on their troops that prevent them from fighting.

Other countries point to their deployments in Kabul and insist they're doing their part. And some point to peacekeeping in Lebanon, Congo and elsewhere. That the security situation in southern Afghanistan has deteriorated and that NATO's chances of failing this first mission outside Europe have thus increased do not impress the majority of NATO members.

How ironic then that Canada, long correctly considered a “soft” country within NATO, should find itself fighting a “hard” military campaign without prospects of help from other allies now gone “soft.”

Next month, Canada and its partners in the south will attend a NATO meeting in Latvia and ask (plead) for assistance for a mission that has become a lot harder. If the cold shoulder is given, as is likely, don't be surprised if support grows in Canada for bringing home the troops.

Coalition forces help bolster Afghan economy by buying local water
(AFP) 27 October 2006

KABUL - For the first time since deploying here five years ago, the US-led coalition is drinking Afghanistan’s water.

Since the international force arrived in 2001 to topple the Taleban, its thousands of mainly US soldiers have been drinking water from Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan at a cost of 58 million dollars a year, mainly in transport.

But starting this month the water bottles that are as ubiquitous as the soldiers’ guns have been coming from a gleaming new factory in a scruffy industrial park on the outskirts of Kabul.

It is a first for the coalition, which imports every other food item that passes the lips of the roughly 10,000 soldiers under its command.

Investors say it is also a tentative vote of confidence in Afghanistan’s stuttering post-Taleban economy.

The coalition awarded the contract to Afghan Beverage Industries (ABI), a subsidiary of a Dubai-based company, after testing its water not only for purity but also security against being poisoned.

The move was part of the force’s ‘Afghan First’ initiative launched in March to award more contracts to local suppliers.

Since then, the number of contracts awarded to Afghan-based firms has increased to 86 percent, from 58 percent, covering a wide range of services from buying tents to cleaning.

The aim, said coalition deputy commanding general Brigadier William Chambers, is to help ‘bolster the Afghan economy and build a more self-reliant country’. The water contract is also a great saving, costing about 600,000 dollars a month, or just over 10 percent of the cost of importing water.

Next on the shopping list: beverages from the new 25-million-dollar Coca-Cola bottling plant that formally opened last month, along with juices and baked goods if they meet US federal and military regulations, said Major David van Bennekum from Afghan First.

The 16-million-dollar ABI plant has been running for around three months and employs about 140 people with plans to expand to 240.

This seems tiny beside Afghanistan’s unemployment rate of roughly 30 percent, but it is an example others can follow, said Hedvig Christine Boserup, project manager for the Peace Dividend Marketplace that links Afghan producers with suppliers, and brought the coalition and ABI together.

‘It sends a signal to people in general that local procurement is possible, that there are quality products to be bought in Afghanistan,’ she said. This in turn could create jobs in the private sector as the public sector is trimmed back.

‘It really is one of the few possibilities to put money back into society and to create employment, particularly in Afghanistan where most of the structural reform is about cutting the public sector, making the ministries more efficient,’ Boserup said.

There are others on board -- the luxury Kabul Serena Hotel is buying vegetables from the eastern city of Jalalabad and pomegranates from Kandahar in the south.

The 37-nation, 31,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which brings in all its own food, is likely to follow suit, said Captain Stacie Shafran.

‘We want to tap into the Afghan population for different services and products,’ she said, adding: ‘This could extend to food and water.’ ISAF already uses some local services such as laundry, she said.

If all foreign forces here bought locally-bottled water, the cost would account for 0.5 to one percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product, estimated at six billion dollars, Peace Dividend Trust consultant Michel Richer said.

The move also shows some confidence in the future of the country which is trying to emerge from nearly 30 years of war but is being held back by a Taleban insurgency that has escalated this year.

‘If there were no confidence, we wouldn’t have invested,’ said ABI shareholder Zaher Yaqubie. ‘At the same time we should not take it easy and say everything is rosy and good. There are a lot of challenges ahead of us.’

Yaqubie’s main concern is security, a worry echoed in a recent survey of entrepreneurs carried by the Afghanistan International Chamber of Commerce, the group’s chairman Azarakhsh Hafizi said.

‘The second is corruption. The third is the high taxes on raw material, heavy and high custom duties, and lack of infrastructure like electricity, like roads,’ he said.

The investment climate could improve enormously if ‘bureaucracy, corruption and old laws’ were eliminated, Hafizi said.

‘Investment in Afghanistan is in the beginning, slowly, slowly we are getting going. If the security situation gets better, I hope we can have more and more investors here -- domestic people and also foreigners,’ he said.

[Disclaimer: The content of this news bulletin does not necessarily reflect the view or policy of the Afghan Government, unless specifically stated as such. The collection of articles and commentaries from Afghan and international news sources is provided for informational purposes, and accuracy of the news is the responsibility of the original source.]