In this bulletin:

• Afghan governor survives bomb blast, three cops killed
• Taliban Threaten Phone Companies
• Gen.: Attacks down sharply in E. Afghanistan
• Afghan child, woman killed in U.S.-led operation
• Denmark loses another soldier in Afghanistan
• Afghan Pres. Karzai holds first Cabinet meeting outside Kabul
• Afghan Foreign Minister visits Norway
• Afghan drug body hit by UK funding reversal
• UK mining companies decline to tap Afghan wealth
• Post-war Afghanistan sees more local-made products
• Winter cold devastates livestock sector
• Afghan 'blasphemy' reporter alleges flawed trial

Afghan governor survives bomb blast, three cops killed

February 24, 2008 - GARMABAK, Afghanistan (AFP) - A roadside bomb tore through a convoy carrying the high-profile governor of a southern Afghan province Sunday, missing the official but killing three policemen, the governor said.

The newly laid mine struck the lead vehicle in a convoy that was taking Kandahar governor Asadullah Khalid to a meeting with tribal elders to discuss an opium poppy eradication campaign, the governor told AFP.

"It was a new mine. Three of our policemen were martyred and two others wounded," Khalid said.

Khalid's own vehicle was not touched by the blast in Garmabak district, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of Kandahar city in an area that has experienced a wave of attacks by Taliban militants.

An AFP reporter travelling with Khalid said he saw the bodies of three policemen. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast.

Kandahar is the birthplace of the extremist Taliban movement that swept to power in 1996 and was later ousted in a US-led invasion in late 2001 for not handing over Al-Qaeda leaders after the 9/11 attacks.

A week ago, the province became the site of the worst suicide attack in Afghanistan's history, a suicide bombing that Khalid said killed about 100 people at a dog-fighting event on the outskirts of Kandahar city.

Khalid's convoy was also the target of a bomb blast nearly two weeks ago. The explosive struck one of the vehicles just outside the city, wounding three policemen.

Roadside and suicide bombings are a hallmark of the Taliban insurgency, which was at its deadliest last year and saw near-daily attacks.

More than 6,000 people were killed in the violence in 2007, most of them rebels but also hundreds of civilians.

Meanwhile, the US-led force that is hunting Taliban militants said a woman and a child were found dead in a compound where soldiers had carried out a raid on a rebel commander Saturday.

Several rebels were also killed in the engagement, it said. Scores of civilians have been killed in the cross fire between troops and Taliban rebels.

Taliban Threaten Phone Companies

By NOOR KHAN – KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban militants threatened Monday to blow up telecom towers across Afghanistan if mobile phone companies do not switch off their signals for 10 hours starting at dusk.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujaheed said the U.S. and other foreign troops in the country are using mobile phone signals to track down the insurgents and launch attacks against them.

The Taliban have "decided to give a three-day deadline to all mobile phone companies to stop their signals from 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. in order to stop the enemies from getting intelligence through mobile phones and to stop Taliban and civilian casualties," Mujaheed told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.

"If those companies do not stop their signal within three days, the Taliban will target their towers and their offices," he said.

There are four mobile phone operators in Afghanistan, but employees at the companies would not immediately comment.

Mobile phones were introduced to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. They have become the principal means of communication and one of the fastest-growing and most profitable sectors in the country's economy.

Militants have threatened mobile phone companies in the past, accusing them of collusion with the U.S. and other foreign military forces.

Communications experts say the U.S. military has the ability, using satellites and other means, to pick up cell phone signals without the phone company's help. Cell phones periodically send signals to the network even when they are not making calls.

Mujaheed said the Taliban have contacted all the companies, but none has agreed to the militants' demands. His claim could not be independently verified.

Gen.: Attacks down sharply in E. Afghanistan

By Alisa Tang, Associated Press February 24, 2008

CAMP BLACKHORSE, Afghanistan — Militant attacks in eastern Afghanistan are down sharply compared with a year ago, a top U.S. general said Sunday.

Army Brig. Gen. Joseph Votel said aggressive military operations, improved Afghan governance and outreach to tribal elders have given U.S. and Afghan troops the upper hand heading into this spring, when militant activity is expected to undergo an annual post-winter spike.

“I think if there’s going to be an offensive in the spring — the offensive is going to be ours, led by the (Afghan National Security Forces),” Votel told reporters at Camp Blackhorse, an Afghan army base east of Kabul.

There have been 36 attacks so far this month in the eastern Afghanistan region where U.S. forces are based. That number is on pace to be 35 percent below the total last February of 110, according to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force.

ISAF has tallied 25 roadside bomb attacks in that region so far this month, compared with 62 last February. Border attacks have dropped from 24 last year to six this year.

Votel said the joint forces will be “better poised” to deal with the insurgency this spring because of the high number of insurgent leaders killed or captured within the last year and because tribal elders are “beginning to see the value of embracing their own government.”

The U.S. says more than 50 militant leaders have been killed in the last year.

The joint U.S.-Afghan forces have stayed connected with the people by keeping up winter operations, meeting with key tribal leaders and providing humanitarian assistance, Votel said.

About half of the insurgency-related violence in the region is in Kunar province, Votel said, attributing the fighting to poor governance. A newly appointed Kunar governor and better trained Afghan forces will improve the situation.

“We are stronger than the enemy,” said Brig. Gen. Rahim Wardak, the commander of the Afghan army’s 201st corps. “We have the capability to destroy the enemy and create a good environment for peace for the Afghan residents in the area.”

In the latest violence, coalition forces killed several insurgents and two civilians after militants barricaded in a mud-brick home fired on the troops in the southern province of Helmand, the coalition said Sunday.

The troops were looking for a Taliban leader in Kajaki district when they came under fire, a statement said.

“While coalition forces conducted a search of the building during one operation, armed assailants who were barricaded in separate rooms engaged coalition forces with small-arms fire and hand grenades. The assailants were killed when coalition forces responded in self-defense,” said coalition spokesman Army Maj. Chris Belcher.

The coalition statement said “a number of insurgents” were killed, as were a woman and child who were in one of the rooms the militants were attacking from.

“It is a deplorable yet common tactic of insurgents to place innocent women and children in harm’s way,” Belcher said.

Two individuals, suspected of having ties with the Taliban, were detained in the operations, the coalition said.

Afghan authorities have pleaded with international forces to coordinate closely with their Afghan counterparts to prevent civilian casualties, but Taliban militants often fight from villagers’ homes, putting civilians at risk. International forces accuse the insurgents of using women and children as human shields.

A freshly planted roadside bomb, meanwhile, hit a vehicle convoy carrying the governor of Kandahar, killing three policemen and wounding two others, said Governor Asadullah Khalid. He was not hurt in the attack.

The convoy was returning from a mission to conduct poppy eradication in Maiwand district, Khalid said. Two suspects were arrested, said Mohammad Nabi, a police official.

Southern Afghanistan, the world’s largest opium producing region, has been at the front line of battles between insurgents and foreign forces in recent years.

Afghan child, woman killed in U.S.-led operation

KABUL, Feb 24 (Reuters) - An Afghan woman and child were killed during a U.S.-led operation against Taliban fighters in the southern Helmand province, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

A number of insurgents were also killed in the operation in Kajaki district of the province on Saturday, it said in a statement.

"A search of the site after the exchange revealed a dead female and child in one of the rooms the assailants used to engage coalition forces," it added blaming the Taliban for placing women and children in "harm's way".

The statement did not say if there were any casualties among coalition forces.

Civilian casualties are a sensitive issue for foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan and President Hamid Karzai's government, as it feeds anger among already frustrated Afghans.

More than 520 civilians were killed last year alone during operations by NATO and coalition troops hunting the Taliban, aid groups say.

More than 50,000 foreign troops are stationed in Afghanistan. Coalition forces overthrew the country's Taliban government in 2001 after it refused to hand over al Qaeda chief, Osama bin Laden, architect of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Spearheading an insurgency backed by al Qaeda, the Taliban are largely active in southern and eastern areas close to the border with Pakistan.

Civilians are also often killed in Taliban attacks against the government and foreign troops. The violence in the past two years has been the bloodiest since the Taliban's ouster.

In the latest suspected Taliban attack, three policemen died on Sunday in the southern province of Kandahar when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, an official there said. (Writing by Sayed Salahuddin; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Denmark loses another soldier in Afghanistan
25 Feb 2008, 0540 hrs IST , AFP

COPENHAGEN: Denmark lost its 10th soldier in Afghanistan when a 21-year-old was killed accidentally during training in southern Helmand province, the Danish military said.

"The accident happened while soldiers of the mechanised infantry company... were preparing for a night exercise at Camp Bastion," a statement from the military said.

His death, which the army described as "tragic," brought to 10 the number of Danish soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2002, including six who died in action.

Most of the 550 Danish troops in Afghanistan are deployed in Helmand and are under British command.

An insurgency led by the Islamist extremist Taliban movement -- who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001, when they were ousted by a US invasion -- has been growing in the past two years with a spike in suicide attacks and roadside bombings.

A US-led coalition works alongside a larger NATO-led force and the Afghan military against the Taliban. The international effort involves troops from nearly 40 countries.

Afghan Pres. Karzai holds first Cabinet meeting outside Kabul

The Associated Press, Monday, February 25, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan: President Hamid Karzai took his ministers to eastern Afghanistan on Monday for the first of a series of mobile Cabinet meetings that will be held in a different province each month.

Karzai chaired the meeting in Jalalabad, the capital of the eastern Nangarhar province, said government spokesman Asif Nang.

"This is the first time in decades that a regular Cabinet meeting has been held in a province," Nang said, adding that similar meetings will be held monthly in one of the country's 34 provinces.

Security was tight in Jalalabad as Karzai and his ministers met with more than 100 tribal leaders and provincial council members in the Nangarhar governor's office. Hundreds of Afghan security forces conducted patrols and set up roadblocks around the city.

The decision to take the entire Cabinet outside Kabul signals Karzai's attempt to reach out to the provincial governors and authorities, who help to extend the reach of his government in the provinces.

The meeting also comes ahead of the country's next presidential election. Karzai's first five-year term ends in 2009. He has yet to announce whether he will run again but is widely perceived by Kabul's diplomatic community as preparing for a campaign.

Afghan Foreign Minister visits Norway

Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta has begun a two-day visit to Norway. He will have talks with his Norwegian counterpart, Jonas Gahr Stoere.

He will also be meeting Prime Minster Jens Stoltenberg and have discussions with Defence Minister Anne-Grete Stroem-Erichsen.

In an interview with Aftenposten, Spanta says that the Norwegian soldiers deployed in Afghanistan are needed in order to prevent terrorists from using Afghanistan as a base. - We are fighting a common enemy, he says.

Afghan drug body hit by UK funding reversal

By Jon Boone in Kapisa province - February 25 2008

The Afghan ministry set up to tackle the drugs trade is facing a staffing crisisafter the UK, on the instructions of the Kabul government, withdrew funding for salaries.

The best-educated workers at the fledgling ministry of counter-narcotics, which is intended to play a key role in reducing the country's poppy crop, have been looking for other jobs after pay for senior staff dropped from $1,500 (€1,011, £762) to $200 a month. The ministry said 30 senior workers had left since November when pay was cut.

One official, a senior aide to counter-narcotics minister General Khodaidad, said he could no longer afford the rent on his Kabul flat and was trying to find an information technology job in one of the NGOs in Kabul, which pay far more than government jobs. Other staff members claim to have received no pay since November.

Britain, "lead sponsor" of anti-drugs efforts in Afghanistan, withdrew its subsidy as part of a process designed to bring pay into line with other ministries. Gen Khodaidad said the move would "obviously affect the work of the ministry" and called for greater international funds to be made available.

An official at the British embassy in Kabul accepted that the changes had created difficulties for the ministry but said the UK was committed to supporting Kabul's efforts to create a sustainable public pay structure.

The reform process, which was intended to increase public sector pay overall and reduce government corruption, has proceeded so slowly that senior staff have suffered big pay cuts.

Speaking in Kapisa province, Gen Khodaidad said Afghanistan's efforts to reduce opium and heroin production were also hampered by the web of ministries and agencies involved in tackling the issue.

The country's narcotics economy has grown in strength in the six years since the overthrow of the Taliban regime, which had successfully banned poppy cultivation in 2000.

Last year Afghanistan produced its biggest harvest, with output up 17 per cent on 2006. It has also moved into the lucrative business of refining raw opium into heroin inside its own borders.

This week the International Monetary Fund said poppy production was worth $1bn to farmers. The value to the drug refiners and traffickers is far greater.

Counter-narcotics ministry officials said better news was expected this year, with more provinces set to be declared "poppy free".

However, they said choking cultivation in the province of Helmand, where the Taliban insurgency is at its most violent and production is at its highest, would be hard.

UK mining companies decline to tap Afghan wealth

The Times, February 25, 2008

Afghanistan has emerged as a new frontier in the rush to find mineral resources, but British mining companies continue to avoid the country.

Mohammad Ibrahim Adel, the Afghan Mining Minister, said last week that the country was sitting on enormous mineral wealth, including copper, iron, gold, coal and oil deposits. The Government hopes to entice foreign companies into the region and believes that mining will provide a way out of poverty for its people.

Despite the British involvement in removing the Taleban from power and the continuing mission to quell insurgencies within Afghanistan, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Xstrata have no plans to invest there.

Kazakhmys, which is listed in London but based in Kazakhstan, has looked at investing in Afghan assets but does not have operations there. The Western miners believe that there is too great a risk to their people and equipment to make an investment in Afghanistan worthwhile at present

The Chinese, who have no such concerns, agreed a $3billion (£1.5billion) investment in the Aynak copper field, 40km (25miles) south of Kabul, in December. The China Metallurgical Group (CMG) beat bids by Phelps Dodge, of the United States, Hunter Dickson, of Canada, and Kazakhmys to take control of the deposit. CMG has committed to employing thousands of Afghans to build a power station, roads and a railway line at the mine site.

Aynak is thought to hold one of the world's largest untapped copper deposits, with about 13 million tonnes of reserves. The Afghan Government is expected to receive $400million a year in production royalties.

Mr Adel said that geological surveys of 10 per cent of the country had revealed huge deposits of copper, iron, zinc, lead, gold, silver, gems, salt, marble and coal. He intends to hire private security companies to enable foreign investors to set up. He said: “In five years' time Afghanistan will not need the world's aid money. In ten years, Afghanistan will be the richest country in the region.”

Post-war Afghanistan sees more local-made products

By Abdul Haleem,  KABUL, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- "I am proud to sell products of our own country," said Mohammad Zalgai, a shopkeeper at a small market of Kabul, the Afghan capital.

    Busy piling up tins of cooking oil and ghee of different brands in front of his small shop, Zalgai said he prefers to sell those with "Made in Afghanistan" mark.

    Afghanistan, devoured by nearly three decades of war and civil strife, has made progress in several fields over the past few years, with international support, though it takes time for it stand on its own feet.

    Zalgai said he also sells Afghan-made soft drink and mineral water, including the popular Coca Cola, which was unthinkable during Taliban reign in 1996-2001.

    "Producing these products inside Afghanistan is a good omen forthe nation's future," the 39-year old noted.

    Established four years ago with initial capital of 15 million U.S. dollars, the local company Spinghar Gholi, meaning "White Mountain", came to be the first ghee and cooking oil producing firm in Afghanistan, said Hamid Akmal, an official with Afghanistan Investment Support Agency (AISA).

    After a suspension of around 15 years, the world-popular soft drink Coco Cola hit Kabul streets again in 2006 as a producing plant set up with initial investment of 25 million U.S. dollars was officially inaugurated by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. According to Akmal, the plant run by a local company has got another 12 million U.S. dollars more to expand its capability andsupply its product across the country.

    The past six years saw a growing number of small to medium size factories in Afghanistan, which produce ball point pens, soap, car battery, plug, sockets and dairy, etc.

    The dust-color barren land in the outskirts of Kabul has increasingly been the scene of dotted chimneys and lines of containers of unnamed plants.

    Though new and young, the growing manufacturing industry isreducing the country's dependence on foreign aid.Afghanistan's export in the first nine months of 2007 hadregistered 326 million U.S. dollars, a 15 percent year-on-yearincrease from previous 282 million dollars, Afghanistan ExportPromotion Bureau said.

    Moving towards reconstruction despite challenges of militancy,unemployment and poverty, Afghanistan has attracted over fivebillion U.S. dollar investment in six years, mostly from privatesector in construction field, said Omar Zakhilwal, director of thegovernment-backed AISA.

    Booming construction of star hotels and residential apartmentsin Kabul, among other key Afghan cities, with local orinternational money, changed the face of the war-wrecked land.

Winter cold devastates livestock sector

FARYAB, 24 February 2008 (IRIN) - Afghanistan's livestock sector has been badly shaken after unusually cold temperatures have killed more than 300,000 animals, causing fears of higher meat prices and increased food insecurity among the population.

"We don't have fodder for our sheep," Muhammad Amin, a local herder, told IRIN from outside the Ganj bazaar in the country's northwestern Faryab Province.

"Livestock prices have plummeted. As the sheep are hungry and in snow, we have no choice but to bring them here to sell," he said.

But for ordinary Afghans, many of whom keep livestock and are already living on the brink of poverty, selling their animals is proving difficult.

"I want to sell them, but there is no one to buy them," said Muhammad Sharif from south-central Ghor Province. "If I can't sell them they will die. This is the only income for my family. I have nothing else to feed them."

Afghanistan's Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) has reported that more than 316,000 animals nationwide have died since December after a cold snap saw temperatures drop below 20 degrees Celsius in some places.

In Badghis Province alone, over 24,000 animals have perished, devastating the livelihoods of local farmers. "I used to have 100 sheep, but now I have just 60; most of which are now sick," Assadullah, a local herder from Moqar District, said.

However, in the capital, Kabul, the repercussions of cold weather on livestock are still not being felt. "There is no shortage of animals here, but I've heard there is a problem in the north," Mohammad Gul said from outside the Kolola Pushta square livestock market. He added that livestock prices traditionally rise at this time of year due to heavy snows and the inability of farmers to bring their animals to market.

With so many animals dying over such a short period of time, the possibility of meat prices rising further is now greater.

"We are very concerned. Many of these farmers are already vulnerable. This will make them more vulnerable and more food insecure," Tekeste Tekie, country representative for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), told IRIN in Kabul.

In response, FAO, in collaboration with the Afghan government, has dispatched 20 metric tonnes (mt) of feed to Herat, one of the worst affected provinces.

"This is a reasonable amount because we need about one kilogramme of grain per day per cow or half a kilogramme for smaller animals," Tekie said, adding that the grain would be mixed with fodder herders already have. "Traditionally, Herat is not so cold, but this year it has been unusually cold – and people were less prepared this time around."

FAO is also in the process of sending 60mt of feed to Bamyan Province and has appealed to donors for another 1,500mt.

In addition, the agency is working towards procuring antibiotics to treat up to one million animals in those areas where animals have caught infectious diseases because of the cold.

MAIL has already made an urgent appeal for US$4 million for the country's affected livestock owners, but maintains that an additional US$15 million will be needed.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), this has been one of the harshest winters in 30 years in Afghanistan, with close to 900 winter-related human deaths in Herat, Farah, Badghis and Ghor provinces being reported.

With road access to many affected areas still blocked by snow, the true fallout of this year's winter is yet to be realised.

Afghan 'blasphemy' reporter alleges flawed trial

London (AFP) - An Afghan reporter who was sentenced to death for blasphemy alleged he was given an unfair trial in which he was unable to speak in his own defence, in an interview published Monday.

Speaking to The Independent from his prison cell in Mazar-I-Sharif, Perwiz Kambakhsh said: "There was no question of me getting a lawyer to represent me in the case; in fact I was not even able to speak on my own defence."

Kambakhsh, 23, was sentenced to death by a court in the northern Afghan province of Balkh last month, raising an outcry from international and Afghan media rights groups as well as the United Nations and several governments.

He had downloaded from the Internet and distributed among his fellow students articles that were said to question some of the tenets of Islam, including those related to the role of women.

"The judges had made up their mind about the case without me," Kambakhsh told the newspaper.

"The way they talked to me, looked at me, was the way they look at a condemned man. I wanted to say 'this is wrong, please listen to me', but I was given no chance to explain."

He said that he had not been given access to a lawyer in the weeks that followed his initial arrest in October 2007, though he was visited by his family.

Kambakhsh said that he had calculated the trial in which he was convicted had lasted a total of four minutes.

He said he hoped his appeal would be heard in the Afghan capital of Kabul because "I think I will get a better hearing there."

"I think if I put over my point of view then the judges will see I have done nothing wrong. But then I was entitled under the constitution to have a lawyer and put my defence the last time and that did not happen.

"I have heard that President (Hamid) Karzai has taken an interest in my case. He can reprieve me, but I do not know what kind of pressure he is under."

Afghan Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said earlier this month that Kambakhsh is unlikely to be executed.

According to The Independent, the 23-year-old shared his 10 by 12-metre (33 by 40-foot) cell with 34 others.

"Most of my fellow prisoners know now that I had not done anything so terrible to deserve this, and they have supported me," he said.

"Some of the guards have also been kind. There are still some extremists who insult me, but I am afraid they are the kind who will not change their minds."

Parliamentary debate over Afghanistan starts on conciliatory note

OTTAWA - Parliament has begun debating a motion to extend Canada's military mission in Afghanistan's dangerous Kandahar region until the end of 2011.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay adopted an unusually conciliatory tone as he kicked off the debate. He thanked the Liberals for working with the Conservatives to achieve a consensus on the difficult issue.

The motion under debate is a compromise unveiled by Prime Minister Stephen Harper last week in a bid to bridge the gap between Liberals and Tories on the mission's future.

It calls on NATO to provide 1,000 additional troops to rotate into Kandahar by next February and sets a firm 2011 exit date for Canadian soldiers in the volatile region.

U.S. military urges Canada to maintain combat role

Training, reconstruction, fighting are linked, leader of U.S. Central Command says

OMAR EL AKKAD – Globe and Mail February 25, 2008

OTTAWA -- A top U.S. military official cautioned yesterday, on the eve of a parliamentary debate on Canada's military mission to Afghanistan, that soldiers cannot separate the jobs of fighting Taliban insurgents, training Afghan soldiers and reconstructing the country.

Admiral William Fallon, head of U.S. Central Command and the officer responsible for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, would not say whether Canada's target of withdrawing from Afghanistan by 2011 was realistic. He did caution that the Taliban "pays close attention" to what happens in countries that supply troops to Afghanistan and gain confidence "if they perceive there's little commitment - or it's words and not a lot of action to back it up."

"And that's certainly not the mindset we want to leave them with," Adm. Fallon said on the CTV program Question Period, echoing controversial comments made by Canadian Chief of the Defence Staff Rick Hillier last week, who warned that the Taliban might step up attacks in Afghanistan to sway the political debate in Canada.

"We want them to have the idea that we're committed to helping this country of Afghanistan to achieve its potential," Adm. Fallon said.

"We have a large number of our forces there and we know that we need help from our good friends and allies, the Canadians being in the lead in the south, and so we're looking for commitment to be with us to help the Afghan people and to put this country in a position of stability and security."

Debate begins in the House of Commons today on a government motion to extend the military mission to southern Afghanistan from 2009 to 2011 and to change the focus of the mission from combat to training Afghan forces and providing security for reconstruction. The Liberals say that means an end to offensive operations to attack the Taliban, though military commanders would decide what fighting is needed.

MPs are expected to vote on the motion before Prime Minister Stephen Harper attends a NATO summit in Bucharest, at which he is seeking 1,000 more NATO troops to assist Canada in Kandahar province as well as helicopters and unmanned drones. Adm. Fallon would not comment specifically on the political debate in Canada over the Afghan mission, but disagreed with the idea that the combat portion is separable from the rest of the mission.

"You can't say, 'We're going to do this and not this.' You need a comprehensive and co-ordinated approach to this problem," he said. Afghanistan needs everything from good governance to roads and electricity, Adm. Fallon said, but work in those areas needs security and stability.

Late last week, General Hillier called on Parliament to show its support "overwhelmingly" to soldiers in Afghanistan, and implied that waffling on the issue could cost Canadian lives.

"I'm not going to stand here and tell you that the suicide bombings of this past week have been related to the debate back here in Canada. But I also cannot stand here and say that they are not," he said.

Some opposition MPs suggested that the general overstepped his bounds by making demands of elected officials.

"It is Parliament's determination to decide whether or not Canada engages in combat or war, and then the military follows the decisions of Parliament," NDP Leader Jack Layton said on Question Period yesterday. "That's fundamental in a democracy and I think Canadians hold that value very tenaciously."

Adm. Fallon said he's looking to get the Afghanistan mission done quickly, but done right.

"My view is I'm not looking for a lifetime of employment certainly from my perspective and the forces that we have committed here. We're looking to try to get this mission done as quickly as we can, but to do it right, be effective in providing security and stability, and again I'm not looking for a 30-year commitment here.''

Adm. Fallon also presented a U.S. perspective on the war in Afghanistan - the perspective of a military official charged with overseeing two post-9/11 conflicts.

He conceded that suicide bombings are up in Afghanistan, "but then again I look at Iraq and what I've been dealing with over there, and there's no comparison in the magnitude of the number of events and so forth."

New Cdn civilian rep takes up post in Kandahar, promises greater co-ordination

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - As the military prepares for the spring fighting season in Afghanistan, a new front has also opened for Canada's aid efforts to the war-torn country.

Elissa Golberg assumed her post this week as the Representative of Canada in Kandahar, a senior diplomatic position that puts her in charge of all civilian efforts in the province.

"My role here is really to provide overall leadership and strategic direction to the civilians working in Kandahar province," she said at a photo opportunity with reporters in Kandahar on Sunday.

"And to work closely with Gen. (Guy) LaRoche, Col. (Christian) Juneau and the Canadian Forces team so that together the government of Canada can really advance a common initiative to underscore the work that we are trying to do to reinforce the government of Afghanistan's efforts to bring stability here."

The debut of Canada's newest diplomat in Afghanistan comes at a time where the province's governor has openly criticized coalition forces for ignoring Afghans and development work remains hampered by security concerns.

It also dovetails with the unveiling of a motion in Ottawa to reframe Canada's current mission in Afghanistan as one of training and development.

Golberg will oversee the work of people from the Canadian International Development Agency, the Department of Foreign Affairs, Corrections Canada and the RCMP, all of whom have teams in Kandahar.

CIDA currently has 10 people on the ground to the $39 million in aid devoted to Kandahar.

Overall, CIDA spends $100 on development in Afghanistan, funnelled almost entirely through international aid agencies and the Afghan government.

The recent Manley panel suggested that mechanism for aid delivery in Afghanistan was ineffective.

"This leaves little for locally managed quick-action projects that bring immediate improvements to everyday life for Afghans, or for 'signature' projects readily identifiable as supported by Canada," the report stated.

There have been some successes - a campaign to vaccinate thousands of children against polio has reached across the country and thousands of tonnes of food aid have been delivered to impoverished citizens.

Audits of CIDA projects however have also found millions of dollars missing or misspent and little hope for the sustainability of long-term projects.

Though the Canadian government says the mission in Afghanistan is a three-pronged approach of defence, development and democracy, it has had trouble connecting the dots in the past.

There is a tension in the field between military personnel and Canadian aid officials over the delivery of assistance to Afghans.

Recently, military personnel attempted to get aid for refugees at an internally displaced persons camp suffering from Afghanistan's unusually harsh winter.

The bureaucracy surrounding the provision of the aid ended with the military commander simply securing his own funding to buy tents for the affected people.

"I think Miss Golberg will enable us to improve the delivery of synchronized effort to the people of Kandahar," Juneau, who is deputy commander of Joint Task Force Afghanistan, told the news conference.

Afghans in areas considered relatively secure by Canadian forces often complain that promised reconstruction projects never materialize or that they never hear from Canadian aid officials.

Ensuring a better link between military and aid efforts will fall to Golberg, who was the executive director for the Manley panel.

She did not take questions at the news conference or outline her immediate priorities.

"Over the next couple of weeks we'll be having a lot of discussions, talking to a lot of people to see how we can further advance the work that we're doing here," she said. "Frankly, I'm just looking forward to getting on with the job."

She'll divide her time between the main Canadian base at the Kandahar Air Field and the Provincial Reconstruction Team base outside Kandahar City.

Golberg's post is not new. It was previously held, with a different title, by Michel de Salaberry. He left the position last fall.

Golberg, a Montreal native, 34, is already a veteran of the foreign affairs department, having worked there since 1996.

She helped co-ordinate Canada's aid efforts after the massive tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004 and has worked in Sudan, Kosovo and Lebanon.

Canada's ambassador to Afghanistan, Arif Lalani, said he'd worked with Golberg in the past and was excited to have her on the ground as his representative in Kandahar.

"It really represents the further evolution of our joined up efforts here to work together to deliver real results for the Afghan government and for Canadians," he said.

Security agencies arrest Mullah Obaidullah again

Daily Times - LAHORE: Intelligence agencies have once again arrested the Taliban Majlis-e-Shura’s former defence minister Mullah Obaidullah Akhund along with two other Afghan nationals from Lahore, along with two other Afghan nationals, intelligence sources told Daily Times on Sunday.

The sources revealed that Obaidullah had been arrested in 2006 in Quetta and was released after around nine months, after which he fled to in Afghanistan.

This time he arrived in Pakistan to generate funds, the sources said, adding that he, along with Pakistani allies, had visited several cities in this regard.

The sources revealed that Obaidullah had arrived in Pakistan in the first week of January 2008, and had contacted several influential personalities with links to banned militant organisations. During their visits, Obaidullah had, during rapid visits between cities, convinced several people to provide funding to support the Taliban’s cause, the sources added.

Later, after arriving in Lahore where he was residing in one of the city’s posh localities, the Afghans’ meetings with financially strong business personalities continued for the sake of generating funds. After a tip off, the group was arrested and shifted to an unknown location, according to the sources.

They said that Mullah Obaidullah had been the Taliban defence minister during 1996 till the US toppled the government in the fall of 2001.

He is a senior Taliban figure and is considered by American intelligence officials to have been one of the Taliban leaders closest to Osama Bin Laden, as well as part of the inner core of the Taliban leadership around Mullah Muhammad Omar. Obaidullah is a member of the Taliban Majlis-e-Shura, or executive council, and is thought to be third in command, they added.

Taliban Calls for Peace Talks With New Pakistan Government

Voice of America, 24 February 2008

Pakistan's Taliban militants say they are willing to talk with the parties expected to form the country's new government, but only if military operations against militants and terrorists end in the tribal regions.

Taliban spokesman Maulvi Omar made the statement during telephone calls with several news agencies Sunday.

Omar said the new government should avoid repeating the mistakes of Mr. Musharraf, who has been an ally of the United States in the war on terrorism.

Mr. Musharraf angered many Islamists by sending the army into tribal areas, near the border with Afghanistan, as part of a military offensive to flush out fighters connected to the al-Qaida terrorist network.

Hundreds of people have died in attacks linked to the militants over the past year.

The Taliban statements came as leaders from the country's two main opposition parties, the Pakistan People's Party, once headed by the late former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N, continue talks on forming a coalition government.

Pakistan Taliban warn new government to keep clear

By Kamran Haider - ISLAMABAD, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Pakistan militants linked to al-Qaeda warned any incoming civilian government on Sunday they would strike even more viciously if President Pervez Musharraf's U.S-backed war on terror continued in tribal areas.

Following last week's inconclusive election, several political parties are in talks to form a coalition strong enough for a ruling majority in the National Assembly. How they deal with militants will be one of their most pressing challenges.

The Pakistan Taliban have been blamed for the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 27, as well as killing hundreds in attacks over the past few years.

In northwest Pakistan on Sunday, militants attacked a security post, killing a policeman and two paramilitary servicemen and wounding six others, officials said.

Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for the Pakistan Taliban, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location that any new military operation in tribal areas would lead to more violence.

"Whoever makes the government, we want to make it clear to them we don't want fighting. We want peace, but if they impose war on us, we will not spare them," he said.

"We don't want political parties to repeat the mistake which Musharraf committed and follow a path dictated by the U.S."

On Sunday mainstream Islamists said they would wait and see what sort of government emerges before deciding on any agitation. "We'll give them a chance," Qazi Hussain Ahmed, head of the Jamaat-e-Islami, told a news conference in Islamabad.

Provisional results from the Feb. 18 election have been announced for all but 10 seats. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party leads with 87, followed by the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with 67.

The fate of Musharraf, a U.S. ally who seized power in a military coup in October 1999, could depend on what kind of coalition emerges, although his supporters, with 39 seats, could still have a say.

If the PPP and PML-N forge a coalition, as expected, it will be the first time in Pakistan's history the two main parties have come together.

Musharraf appeared to win some respite on Sunday from months of calls for him to step down when Amin Fahim, the PPP's choice for prime minister, told CNN there were no immediate plans to seek his removal.

Previously both the PPP and PML-N have called for him to quit or face impeachment. "We should not rock the boat at this time. We must have a civil transition of power," Fahim said.

Musharraf angered many Islamists by sending the army into tribal lands to flush out al-Qaeda and Taliban militants who took refuge there when U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Islamist parties ruled the border areas of North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan and were the main opposition in the National Assembly for five years until being swept away in last week's vote by liberal groups led by the PPP and PML-N.

The PPP and other parties have also been critical of extremists and militants and vowed to fight them. (Editing by David Fox and Mary Gabriel)

Choosing Which War to Fight

New York Times, 02/24/2008 By Helene Cooper

WASHINGTON - TWO weeks ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise trip to Afghanistan that was so cloaked in extra security and secrecy that reporters traveling with her weren’t told where they were going until her plane had taken off from London.

Arriving in Kabul, Ms. Rice’s entourage was immediately hustled across the runway to a gray C-17 military transport plane for a one-hour trip to Kandahar, where she stayed for less than three hours, never venturing off the airfield where NATO forces have their headquarters. Then it was back to Kabul for lunch with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, in his barricaded palace. A mere eight hours after landing in Afghanistan, Ms. Rice was gone. She had spent, all told, only six hours on the ground; her plane, with its distinct blue and white United States of America logo, made a swift, steep ascent, disappearing from rocket range within minutes.

The secrecy and security that surrounded Ms. Rice’s visit highlight a central question that has now thrust its way into this year’s presidential campaign: Six years after the United States invaded Afghanistan with the goal of rooting out Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the terrorist threat, Afghanistan remains a security danger zone for Americans, far more so than in 2002, the year in between the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

So, has Afghanistan now become a bigger security threat to the United States than Iraq?

The three leading contenders for the presidential nominations have staked out positions that differ radically, along party lines. All three say they believe that Afghanistan is an important security threat that needs to be addressed. But the Republican, John McCain, suggests that Iraq remains America’s bugaboo of security threats, while the two Democrats, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, appear to have moved on to Afghanistan. Both of them argue that focusing on Iraq gets in the way of a more serious threat in Afghanistan.

Senator McCain, the likely Republican nominee, makes a de facto argument that Iraq and Afghanistan are two sides of the same coin. “Senator Clinton and Senator Obama will withdraw our forces from Iraq based on an arbitrary timetable designed for the sake of political expediency and which recklessly ignores the profound human calamity and dire threats to our security that would ensue,” Mr. McCain said in a Feb. 7 speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Distilled to its simplest form, Mr. McCain’s argument is that withdrawing from Iraq would make Americans less safe in the long run, because a withdrawal would embolden Al Qaeda, put American interests at risk in the Middle East, and make an already volatile region less safe.

Senators Obama and Clinton have tacked in the opposite direction. Iraq, they argue, makes Afghanistan more dangerous. The Iraq war, Mr. Obama told an audience of supporters in Houston last Tuesday, “distracted us from the fight that needed to be fought in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda. They’re the ones who killed 3,000 Americans.” He has said that if elected, he would deploy at least two additional brigades in Afghanistan.

Senator Clinton, who has been to Afghanistan three times, holds a similar position, her aides say, except they say that she hasn’t specified how many additional brigades she would send to Afghanistan because she wants to further explore the security situation there first. Mrs. Clinton has proposed appointing a special envoy to deal with the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.

“There is a theater of war, that I would call AfPak, with two fronts — an eastern front and a western front,” said Richard Holbrooke, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations and a supporter of Mrs. Clinton’s. “I believe that we will look back ten years from now and say that AfPak was even more important to our national security than Iraq.”

For the Democrats, who have a base of support that clearly wants out of Iraq, framing the issue in terms of Afghanistan makes it a lot easier, politically, to pull out of Iraq. But leaving Iraq will be no easy thing. Experts who side with Mr. McCain argue that a quick American exit from Iraq could lead to a conflagration in the Middle East that could end up involving Saudi Arabia and Iran in a Shia-Sunni-Kurd war — a conflict that would have few winners and would likely produce an enormous number of civilian casualties.

Beyond that, the logistics of pulling out 130,000 troops from Iraq would be daunting, and it could take close to a year to get all the equipment out. Indeed, some military experts say that if the United States military was given a year to exit Iraq, it would be so consumed with the logistics that it wouldn’t be able to do anything else.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates entered the fray earlier this month, for a moment sounding almost like the (gasp!) Clinton and Obama camps by urging Europeans to draw a distinction between the wars. During remarks on his way to Munich to take the Europeans to task for not sending enough troops to support NATO in Afghanistan, Mr. Gates said part of the problem was that many Europeans were conflating Iraq with Afghanistan.

“I worry that for many Europeans the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are confused,” Mr. Gates said. “I think they combine the two.” It was an unusually candid acknowledgment from a senior member of the Bush administration that the war in Iraq had exacted a cost, in NATO’s chances for victory in Afghanistan. Many Europeans, Mr. Gates said, “have a problem with our involvement in Iraq and project that to Afghanistan, and do not understand the very different — for them — the very different kind of threat.”

The problem is, with the United States Army stretched thin in Iraq, the Bush administration has, thus far, been left to hector its NATO allies to send additional troops to handle the growing Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. And European populations generally disapprove of their troops being sent into harm’s way in Afghanistan. No surprise, given the opposition on the streets of Europe to the American invasion of Iraq. That’s what Mr. Gates means when he says that Europeans conflate the two: Why help the United States in Afghanistan, the European logic goes, when America would be able to handle Afghanistan much more easily if its G.I.’s weren’t bogged down in Iraq?

In any case, the dynamics of the two conflicts are not the same, many foreign policy experts stress. The rapidly deteriorating situation on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, the Musharraf government’s increased inability to confront Islamist insurgents in its border provinces, combined with the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan have turned AfPak into America’s No. 1 national security problem, these experts say, even as parts of Iraq seem to have quieted since more American troops were sent there last year. Conditions in Pakistan became even more volatile on Monday after the party of President Pervez Musharraf suffered a drubbing in parliamentary elections, leading some to question how long Mr. Musharraf will be able to cling to power and how much of his already diminished authority he can retain. And Pakistan, the experts say, is inextricably linked to Afghanistan.

“Losing Afghanistan would be far more consequential than losing Iraq,” says Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University professor who was an adviser on counterterrorism to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad in 2004. “If Pakistan, especially along the border, fell into complete disarray, the integrity of the Afghan country and its government will be even more threatened, and that would have far greater repercussions for us.”

New Pakistani Leaders, U.S., at Odds on Militants

The Wall Street Journal, 02/24/2008, By Yochi Dreazen in Washington and Zahid Hussain in Pakistan

Key Parties Seek Talks With Islamic Forces; Americans Urge Battle

The U.S. wants Pakistan to take stronger measures against Islamic militants who are threatening the stability of neighboring Afghanistan. But the country's new leaders are already signaling that they would prefer a softer approach.

With Pakistan being hit by a wave of suicide bombings and other attacks, including a car bomb Friday that killed at least 12 people, U.S. policymakers believe senior Pakistani military officials have come to see Islamic violence as a serious threat to the country's future and may now be willing to mount an aggressive campaign against the religious militants responsible for the bloodshed.

Pakistan's unpopular president, Pervez Musharraf, has expressed concern about the possible "Talibanization" of his country by al-Qaeda and Taliban militants and periodically ordered his military to battle the extremists.

But key officials in Pakistan's two main opposition parties -- the Pakistan People's Party, led by the widower of assassinated former Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto, and the Pakistan Muslim League of ex-Premier Nawaz Sharif -- say that they want instead to open talks with the Islamic militants operating along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

"We will use force wherever it is necessary, but will also use other means to veer them away from extremism," said Asif Ali Zardari, Ms. Bhutto's widower and the leader of the PPL.

The two parties swept to victory in the past week's parliamentary elections and are working together to form a new government. They spent Friday mulling candidates for prime minister.

The Bush administration is using the violence to prod Pakistan to take steps it has long resisted, like giving the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. Special Operations commandoes a freer hand to hunt Islamic militants within Pakistan and agreeing to have larger numbers of American military trainers deploy to Pakistan to help the country's army prepare for a long-term struggle against Islamic guerillas.

Pentagon officials have also publicly expressed a willingness to mount joint combat operations with the Pakistani military, should Pakistan request such assistance.

"If I was wearing a different hat and was in the Pakistani military, I would be deeply concerned about the unrest and the lack of stability and security that appears to be caused by Talibanization," said Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, who commands the Army's 101st Airborne Division, which is deploying to Afghanistan this spring.

The push comes amid mounting American concern about the situation in the largely lawless tribal regions along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, which have devolved into safe havens for Islamic militants carrying out attacks inside both countries. Senior American commanders had long worried that an unstable Afghanistan had the potential to spark unrest inside Pakistan but now worry just as much about instability inside Pakistan spilling over into Afghanistan.

U.S. officials worry that Pakistan's next government may try to back out of agreements Mr. Musharraf made with the Pentagon on operations in the tribal areas, including the mobilization of a tribal military unit and the aggressive use of American Predator drones to attack terrorist targets.

"We're not saying that the leader has to be Musharraf," said a U.S. official working on Pakistan. "But we're concerned that politics could end up distracting" Pakistan from the growing threat posed by the Taliban and al Qaeda.

The Pakistani armed forces have long believed that India posed the biggest threat to Pakistani national security, and senior Pakistani officials may be unwilling -- or unable -- to reorient their military towards a protracted conflict with Islamic militants inside their own borders.

"The Pakistani armed forces are trained to fight India and fighting pro al-Qaeda insurgents in the tribal areas is a completely new experience for them," a senior Pakistani official acknowledged.

James Dobbins, an analyst at the Rand Corp. who served as the Bush administration's first envoy to Afghanistan, said many Pakistani leaders fundamentally disagree with American officials about the magnitude of the threat posed by Islamic violence. "The popular attitude towards the attacks is that they are a reaction to the U.S. war on terror rather than an intended threat to the Pakistani sovereignty and government," he said.

Pakistani officials say that they have nearly 30,000 troops battling militants in northwest Pakistan and in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, as well as an additional 70,000 deployed on the entire 1,500-mile-long border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The size of that deployment, they argue, shows that the country is already serious about battling Islamic extremists.

Still, Pakistani commanders acknowledge that their forces have struggled to oust the well-entrenched militants, who have inflicted heavy casualties on the Pakistani troops and shown resiliency in the face of Pakistani and U.S. strikes.

A senior Pakistani commander said that the army's morale had plummeted after a long series of tactical setbacks, including the killings of hundreds of troops by suicide bombers who struck their convoys, camps and mess halls, and the videotaped beheadings of some of the soldiers who fell into the hands of the militants. "This challenge cannot be met until the army's standing is restored," the officer said.

Charlie Wilson’s Warlords

Intellectual Conservative, 02/24/2008, By Ivan Eland

The problem with one-sided movies of historical events, such as JFK and Charlie Wilson’s War, is that they permanently emblazon in the public’s mind simple ideas about complex events that may be in dispute among historians.

Both the book and movie Charlie Wilson’s War glorify the “colorful,” liberal, Democratic congressman’s successful crusade to bludgeon the reluctant, neoconservative Reagan administration into dramatically escalating funding, arming, and training of radical Islamists fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Although the zestful life and escapades of Wilson make for an entertaining and true-to-(Wilson’s)-life movie, both the book and movie give short shrift to the dire, long-term policy consequences of Wilson’s and Reagan’s proxy war.

Hollywood had to use almost none of their usual poetic license to embellish reality to make the film interesting, because the raucous Wilson was more entertaining than fiction. For example, on a trip to conservative Islamic countries, he took along his own belly dancer, whose uniquely risqué American adaptation of the traditional art form raised eyebrows. And this was one of the tamer stunts the boozing, womanizing, and alleged drug-taking congressman pulled off. But entertaining exploits masked disastrous policy failure.

The danger of this movie resembles that of Oliver Stone’s 1991 film JFK, which took liberties with facts surrounding John F. Kennedy’s assassination to imply a conspiracy involving Vice President Lyndon Johnson. The problem with one-sided movies of historical events, such as JFK and Charlie Wilson’s War, is that they permanently emblazon in the public’s mind simple ideas about complex events that may be in dispute among historians.

Although the book version of Charlie Wilson’s War at one point acknowledges that the causes of the Soviet Union’s fall are still debated among historians, it then proceeds to enshrine the overall message that the reason the Soviet Union expired was that Wilson and Reagan gave the Soviets a costly, Vietnam-like quagmire in Afghanistan. Empires most commonly collapse because their economies can no longer support their expensive foreign escapades. Undoubtedly, the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was costly and may have quickened the “Evil Empire’s” demise, but the root cause was the nonviable and dysfunctional state-owned economy, in which the workers pretended to work at producing items that no one wanted to buy and the creaky state-owned industries pretended to pay them in worthless currency. After the Red Army left Afghanistan and the Soviet regime collapsed almost three years later, Wilson argued only that he had hastened its demise by five or ten years.

But at tremendous cost. As with many U.S. adventures overseas, funding non-communist forces — even though they happened to be Islamic radicals — to fight the Soviets seemed like a good idea at the time. Giving the U.S.S.R. its own military quagmire, in answer to the Soviets’ doing the same to the United States in Vietnam, was sweet revenge. Yet the main channel through which the Afghan Mujahideen got their American-funded arms and training was the Pakistani intelligence services. For their own purposes, Pakistani intelligence gave preference to arming and training the most radical Islamists, as opposed to Ahmad Shah Massoud, the best anti-Soviet fighter. Unfortunately, U.S. funds were used to train such Islamists in urban terrorist techniques. On 9/11, this training came back to bite the United States, because many of the hijackers were veterans of the Afghan War. Also, the Mujahideen’s victory over an occupying Soviet superpower emboldened the Islamists to attempt to defeat on its home turf the other superpower that was occupying and intervening in Muslim lands (the U.S. has had ground troops in the Persian Gulf since the end of the first Gulf War, and heavily supports autocratic and corrupt Arab governments and Israel). After 9/11, the United States tried to kill two of its favorite commanders in the Mujahideen: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who helped Osama bin Laden escape from Tora Bora when he was cornered during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and Jalaluddin Haqqani, who harbored bin Laden and is now a prominent Taliban leader.

Therefore, what seemed like sound policy at the time, giving the archrival Soviets a bloody nose in an insignificant backwater country, has inadvertently generated one of the few major threats to the U.S. homeland in America’s history: anti-U.S. Islamist terrorism. Of course, the Soviets had a plethora of nuclear warheads aimed at the United States, but even now, after the demise of the U.S.S.R., a semi-hostile Russia does still. Although this threat is existential, it has been managed by the two countries to reduce the chance of nuclear war.

Since most empires disintegrate due to financial problems, and because the dysfunctional Soviet economy made the U.S.S.R. especially susceptible to this fate, the United States, during the Cold War, might have been smarter to abandon its aggressive containment policy, which actively challenged potential Soviet inroads anywhere in the world. Instead, the U.S. could have concentrated on securing the centers of economic and technological power — in Europe and Japan — and let the Soviets have economic “basket cases” in the third world, such as Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Colombia, Laos, Cambodia, South Vietnam, and even South Korea (underdeveloped when North Korea invaded in 1950). In this alternate scenario, the Soviet Union and its empire likely would have collapsed — this time from the expense of occupying, funding, and administering these backwater countries — but the United States could have saved much blood and treasure that it expended during the Cold War.

It is ironic that during the Cold War, liberals like Charlie Wilson and neoconservatives like Ronald Reagan agreed on pursuing this costly and interventionist containment strategy. The venues in which they preferred to challenge the Soviets may have differed — the neoconservatives preferred the futile effort to support the Contras in Nicaragua, while the liberals preferred backing the Mujahideen in Afghanistan — but they had the same foreign policy. The interventionist consensus continued after the Cold War and ultimately led to the blowback of 9/11. It shouldn’t be any surprise that liberals and neoconservatives alike have opted for an interventionist foreign policy, since both support government activism at home (again, with differing preferences as to the areas of mischief). But unfortunately, 9/11 demonstrated that the cost of overseas meddling by Charlie Wilson, Ronald Reagan, and their liberal and neoconservative brethren in the state apparatus might be even higher than the cost which accrues from government intervention domestically.

Ivan Eland is a Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute, Director of the Institute’s Center on Peace & Liberty, and author of the books The Empire Has No Clothes, and Putting “Defense” Back into U.S. Defense Policy.

[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.]