In this bulletin:

• World's first oil paintings in Afghan caves: expert
• Afghan Gov, U.N. makes joint appeal to help feed Afghans at risk
• Germany earmarks one million euros for Afghanistan winter aid
• Snow brings wonder, misery for homeless Afghans
• Afghanistan: Official Says Iranian Mines Found In Taliban Commander's House
• Number 10 rejects Karzai claims
• Coalition soldier dies in Afghanistan
• Karzai says war "engulfing region" around Afghanistan
• US military: Taliban spring offensive unlikely in Afghanistan
• We are not losing in Afghanistan
• Afghan Reporter's Death Sentence Draws Wide Condemnation
• Being in Afghanistan is dangerous; not being in Afghanistan is more dangerous
• US: Afghan air force not combat ready
• Pakistan's Musharraf says no US troops
• When Pakistan Sneezes, Afghanistan Catches a Cold
• Afghani play reveals theatre of war
• Afghanistan: UN urges review of death sentence against journalist
• Afghanistan sets up prison for women
• Critics blast Harper gov't over prison transfers
• Former CIDA head in Afghanistan dismisses Manley's development ideas
• Thank you, Manley

World's first oil paintings in Afghan caves: expert

Tokyo (AFP) - Forget Renaissance Europe. The world's first oil paintings go back nearly 14 centuries to murals in Afghanistan's Bamiyan caves, a Japanese researcher says.

Buddhist images painted in the central Afghan region, dated to around 650 AD, are the earliest examples of oil used in art history, says Yoko Taniguchi, an expert at Japan's National Research Institute for Cultural Properties.

A group of Japanese, European and US scientists are collaborating to restore damaged murals in caves in the Bamiyan Valley, famous for its two gigantic statues of the Buddha which were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

In the murals, thousands of Buddhas in vermilion robes sit cross-legged, sporting exquisitely knotted hair.

Other motifs show crouching monkeys, men facing one another or palm leaves delicately intertwined with mythical creatures.

The paintings incorporate a mix of Indian and Chinese influences, and are most likely to be the works of artists traveling on the Silk Road, which was the largest trade and cultural route connecting the East and the West.

The Los Angeles-based Getty Conservation Institute analysed 53 samples extracted from the murals. Using gas chromatography methods, the researchers found that 19 had oil in the paint.

"Different types of oil were used on the dirt walls with such a sophisticated technique that I felt I was looking right at a medieval board painting dating from 14th or 15th century Italy," Taniguchi told AFP.

The discovery would reverse common perceptions about the origins of oil paintings.

The technique is widely believed to have emerged in Europe leading into the Renaissance, which flowered from 1400 to 1600.

Italian artist and architect Giorgio Vasari first wrote of oil painting in his book, "The Lives of the Artists," in the mid-16th century.

Art historians, however, argue that 15th-century Flemish painter Jan van Eyck may have known of the technique because he had developed a stable varnish, although he kept it secret until his death.

"It was very impressive to discover that such advanced methods were used in murals in central Asia," Taniguchi said.

"My European colleagues were shocked because they always believed oil paintings were invented in Europe. They couldn't believe such techniques could exist in some Buddhist cave deep in the countryside," she added.

Painters of the Buddhist murals used organic substances -- including natural resin, plant gum, dry oil and animal protein -- as a binder, which even today is an important element in paint.

A binder keeps pigment particles together in a cohesive film and allows the paint to resist decay.

The researchers are trying to restore the murals amid international efforts to salvage what is left of Bamiyan.

The Taliban, ignoring global protests, dynamited the two 1,500-year-old statues, the world's biggest representations of the Buddha, in March 2001, branding them un-Islamic idolatry.

The regime was ousted later that year in a US-led military campaign after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Although oil was used in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, there currently exist no examples of their use in painting. The oil was used for medicine, cosmetics or to coat boats, Taniguchi said.

Taniguchi hopes the advanced techniques used to analyse the murals would be put to use in ruins of other ancient civilisations.

Other early civilisations including those in current-day Iran, China, Turkey, Pakistan and India may have used similar techniques as well but their ruins have not been subject to advanced, extensive research, she said.

"In analysing old murals throughout Europe and Central Asia, I look forward to throwing light on the roots of oil paintings," she said.

Afghan Gov, U.N. makes joint appeal to help feed Afghans at risk

 KABUL, Jan. 24, 2008 (Xinhua) -- The Afghan government and the United Nations on Thursday called for donation of 81 million U.S. dollars to help over 2.5 million Afghans hit by the rising price of staple foodstuffs over the coming five months, said a U.N. statement.

    The joint appeal by the Government of Afghanistan, the World Food Program (WFP), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) will meet the urgent food needs, the statement said.

    The appeal will also provide additional nutritional supplements to those most at risk and help people who are already suffering from severe malnutrition, it added.

    "This joint appeal is on behalf of 425,000 extremely poor Afghan families, who otherwise will be unable to meet their most basic need that of food especially during the current harsh winter months, until the next harvest season," said Bo Asplund, acting Special Representative of the Secretary-General.

    Asplund also urged all donors to respond generously to the appeal, to ensure that these families can feed themselves, and so that the most vulnerable, who are predominantly children and women, do not succumb to malnutrition.     

Federal Foreign Office to provide winter emergency aid for Afghanistan

Relife Web- Thursday, January 24, 2008
The Federal Foreign Office is donating 1 million euro to German aid agencies for urgent projects to deal with the winter emergency in Afghanistan. The country is currently in the grip of the harshest winter for more than a decade. People living in remote villages as well as returnees and internally displaced persons are particularly at risk.

Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier issued today (24 January) in Berlin the following statement:

"The harsh winter in Afghanistan is hitting hardest those who are most vulnerable. For many families living in remote areas it was impossible to make adequate preparations for the winter. The aid we are giving is sorely needed and will help them to survive. Particularly the children and the elderly are in dire need of our help."

Heavy snowfalls and extreme cold have left Afghanistan's western and northern provinces as well as the central highlands seriously short of supplies.

In winter many valleys in the central highlands are completely cut off, also from medical services. The Federal Foreign Office is funding six health stations there to provide basic medical services for over 100,000 people. The station staff bring in their supplies before the onset of winter and spend the winter months with the local communities they serve.

In cooperation with various aid agencies the Federal Foreign Office is supplying blankets, warm clothing and basic foodstuffs for those in need. Schoolchildren, too, are provided with warm clothing so they can continue their education in unheated classrooms.

This latest contribution brings the Federal Foreign Office's total humanitarian aid and humanitarian demanding funds for Afghanistan since 2001 to around 68 million euro.

Germany earmarks one million euros for Afghanistan winter aid

Berlin, Jan 25, IRNA - Germany's Foreign Ministry has allocated one million euros to German relief agencies for urgent and life-saving winter aid projects in Afghanistan which has been hit by one of the harshest winters over the past 10 years.

"The harsh winter has affected the weakest of the weak. Many families in remote areas could not prepare themselves sufficiently for the winter," Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was quoted saying in a press release.

"We are providing an urgent contribution to ensure the survival. Children and older persons need now our help," he added.

As part of the German winter aid program, winter clothing, food items and blankets will also be delivered to Afghanistan.

Berlin is also financing six small medical clinics in remote mountain areas of Afghanistan. Germany has already provided 68 million euros in humanitarian aid and mine-removal projects since 2001.

Snow brings wonder, misery for homeless Afghans

KABUL, Jan 24, 2008 (Reuters) - The "strange white stuff" falling from the sky was a revelation for Abdullah's children but it only meant more misery.

The 50 year-old Abdullah lost three members of his family during fighting four months ago between Taliban insurgents and foreign forces in the Sangin district of the southern Afghan province of Helmand.

That was it for him. He packed up and brought his surviving family members up to the capital, Kabul, in search of security and a better life.

Now he's camped out with scores of other people living in tents and makeshift shelters on a wind-swept field on the western outskirts of Kabul where temperatures at one stage this week plunged to minus 26 Celsius (-15 Fahrenheit).

Abdullah's children, brought up in the warmer south, were amazed the first time they saw snow falling from the sky. "That was a new experience for them indeed," Abdullah told Reuters as he huddled in a blanket outside his tent.

But the "white stuff" heralded freezing temperatures. "I have never seen cold weather like this in my life. It's pretty bad here," said the gaunt, bearded man with piercing eyes.

Abdullah gets regular updates about the security situation back home in Sangin and while it is not good, he says he would never advise any of his old neighbours to follow him to Kabul.

"I tell them there is nothing for them here: no food, no firewood and not much aid". "We can't go back home because of the war but it is very difficult to stay here too," he says.

The severe winter across mountainous Afghanistan this year has killed several hundred people and about 40,000 cattle, according to government estimates.

The U.N. World Food Programme and the Afghan government on Thursday launched an emergency appeal for food for 2.55 million people.

"WFP and the government today urged the international community to fund a sharp increase in needed food assistance for poor persons and families in Afghanistan who cannot afford to pay soaring local prices for wheat, a staple of the Afghan diet," WFP said in a statement.

The agency called for immediate contribution of $77 million to supply 89,000 tonnes of food to the affected people until June 2008. The aid is on top of what WFP plans to distribute in 2008 for nearly 3.7 million people, the agency said.

Conflict has driven millions of Afghans from their homeland beginning when Soviet troops first invaded in the late 1970s. Most of them ended up in neighbouring Pakistan and Iran.

With the help of the U.N. refugee agency, many have come back since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban government in late 2001, but some have gone back.

And a surge in violence over the past couple of years, especially in the south, has forced a new wave of tens of thousands of people from their homes.

Most of them have moved to what they hope will be safer parts of Afghanistan and are thus classified as "internally displaced" people, not refugees.

As Abdullah spoke, several dozen people, most of them men, approached his tent thinking a reporter was from an aid agency and could bring them food or other supplies.

"Please put my name on your list too. We have nothing to eat or to warm ourselves," said one them, 23 year-old Azizullah. Azizullah said his father had recently died because of the cold and said many people had been falling sick.

With jobs practically non-existent and prices higher every day, some of the displaced have been resorted to begging on the streets for money, food or firewood, which is essential for cooking and heating the tents.

Afghanistan: Official Says Iranian Mines Found In Taliban Commander's House

By Ron Synovitz, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty January 25, 2008

An provincial police chief says authorities have discovered a weapons cache in western Afghanistan containing 130 land mines of different types that appear to have been imported from Iran.

The cache, discovered in Farah Province near the Iranian border, includes about 40 sophisticated remote-controlled mines.

Farah's provincial police chief, General Khailbaz Sherzai, told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan today that the cache was found in the house of a Taliban commander named Mullah Abdul Ghani.

"We discovered a cache containing a large collection of land mines -- antipersonnel and antitank mines -- in the Anardara district of Farah Province," Sherzai said. "They were recently brought from Iran and the man who was responsible for that has escaped. We completely destroyed the cache and the room it was contained in."

It is the latest in a series of weapons caches found in Afghanistan that the U.S. military, NATO, or the Afghan government has said were either made in Iran or transported through Iran and into the hands of Taliban militants.

Tehran has consistently denied sending weapons to the Taliban. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said Afghan officials have no evidence linking the Iranian government to weapons shipped to the Taliban.

In June, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said there is no evidence confirming any direct role of the Iranian government in smuggling weapons to the Taliban, and that militants could be using funds from the opium trade to purchase weapons from criminal groups.

But Gates has also said the large quantity of Iranian-made weapons discovered in Afghanistan during the past year makes it difficult to believe that the weapons are being smuggled without the knowledge of Iranian authorities.

In September, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said Washington had also complained to Beijing about Chinese weapons shipped to Iran that appear to be turning up in Afghanistan in the hands of Taliban fighters.

Independent analysts agree that it would be difficult to smuggle the volume of weapons now being found in western Afghanistan without the knowledge of some senior officials in Tehran.

Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist and author of the book "Taliban," insists he has no doubt that Iran has been involved in channeling money and weapons to various elements in Afghanistan -- including the Taliban -- for several years.

"They have long-running relations with many of the commanders and small-time warlords in western Afghanistan," Rashid told RFE/RL recently. "I think Iran is playing all sides in the Afghan conflict. If the Iranians are convinced that the Americans are undermining them through western Afghanistan, then it is very likely that these agents of theirs have been activated."

Alex Vatanka, the Washington-based Iran analyst for Jane's Information Group, says recent discoveries in Afghanistan of several large caches of Chinese and Iranian-made weapons suggests Tehran has had at least an indirect role.

Vatanka says drug traffickers and smugglers are not capable of sending to Afghanistan the volume of weapons that are turning up in the hands of Taliban fighters -- unless, he says, they have approval from at least one senior government official in Tehran.

President Karzai has generally downplayed suggestions of Iranian involvement in efforts to destabilize the government in Kabul, and instead stressed his

(RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan contributed to this report.)

Number 10 rejects Karzai claims

BBC News / Friday, 25 January 2008

Downing Street has hit back at claims by Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the arrival of British troops made security in his country worse.

The Times reported that Mr Karzai blamed inadequate troop numbers in the southern Helmand Province for helping the Taleban regain its control.

A Downing Street spokesman said he "wouldn't accept" UK presence had helped insurgents to take hold.

He said UK troops had "suffered losses" to aid Afghanistan's development.

The Times said Mr Karzai, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, told a group of journalists that "there was one part of the country where we suffered after the arrival of the British forces", referring to Helmand.

He said the mistake was allowing the US and the UK to replace the province's sitting governor. "Before that we were fully in charge of Helmand. When our governor was there, we were fully in charge. They came and said, 'Your governor is no good.'

"I said 'All right, do we have a replacement for this governor; do you have enough forces?'" Mr Karzai said.

"Both the American and the British forces guaranteed to me they knew what they were doing and I made the mistake of listening to them. And when they came in, the Taleban came."

But asked if the UK would accept that British troops' presence had allowed the Taleban back in, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokesman replied: "Of course we wouldn't accept that.

"We are working alongside the Afghan government in order to drive out the Taleban from Helmand."

He said the UK's strength in Afghanistan had been to "work with the Afghan government and to extend the authority of the Afghan government throughout the province to allow economic and political development".

"And it's to that aim that our armed forces have suffered losses and shown great bravery and determination."

He added that the UK was working closely with the Afghan authorities to resolve "political and economic and military issues in Helmand". Mr Brown and Mr Karzai are to meet in Davos later for talks.

The prime minister's spokesman said the meeting was expected to be brief and he stressed that the two leaders had long talks during Mr Brown's visit to Kabul last month.

Labour MP David Crausby, member of the Commons Defence Select Committee and who visited Helmand in September, told BBC Radio 4's The World at One that he agreed with Mr Karzai on troop numbers. But he added that the finger of blame should not be pointed at Britain or the US.

"That's been the fault of some of our Nato allies who haven't provided the sort of support that they really ought to supply, and they haven't supplied the right number of troops in the difficult areas of Afghanistan," Mr Crausby said.

"Britain's done more than its share of providing troops in Afghanistan and it's taken on a very different, difficult region in Helmand province."

Coalition soldier dies in Afghanistan

Associated Press January 25, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan - U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops clashed with insurgents while searching a compound near the Pakistani frontier on Friday, leaving one coalition soldier dead, a statement said.

Troops called in airstrikes, which "destroyed an insurgent cell" after the clash in Nari district of Kunar province, the coalition statement said.

The nationalities of the dead and three wounded soldiers were not released. Most of the troops in that area are American.

An Afghan soldier and an interpreter working for the coalition were also wounded, the statement said. It did not say how many suspected militants were killed.

U.S. troops are fighting Taliban and al-Qaida militants in the country's east, which borders Pakistan. The number of attacks in the Afghan border areas has decreased recently, as militants step up assaults on Pakistani forces across the frontier.

Also Friday, Britain defended its forces against comments by Afghan President Hamid Karzai in which he reportedly accused them of making the security situation in the country's volatile south worse.

According to The Times newspaper Karzai was quoted as telling journalists at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday that mistakes by Britain and the U.S. allowed the Taliban to make inroads in Helmand province.

"Both the American and the British forces guaranteed to me they knew what they were doing and I made the mistake of listening to them," Karzai was quoted as saying. "And when they came in, the Taliban came."

Karzai accused Britain and the U.S. of setting the security situation in Helmand back 18 months by dismissing the province's governor without having a proper replacement ready, the report said. He also said forces did not come to Helmand in sufficient numbers and did not have enough information about the province.

Britain's Foreign Office rejected the claim, saying its policy was to work in consultation with Karzai's government.

"Our strategy in Helmand has been to work with the Afghan government to extend their authority throughout the province, creating a secure environment which allows political and economic development," a spokesman said on condition of anonymity in line with ministry practice.

"Our armed forces have suffered losses and shown great determination and bravery to achieve that objective," the spokesman said.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was in Davos on Friday, has promised to provide long-term assistance to Afghanistan. Britain has about 7,700 military personnel there, most of them fighting a resurgent Taliban in the country's south.

An Associated Press count based on official figures found that more than 6,500 people — mostly militants — died in insurgency-related violence in 2007, the deadliest year in Afghanistan since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban.

Karzai says war "engulfing region" around Afghanistan

Wed Jan 23, 2008 2:46pm EST

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai said on Wednesday that violence was engulfing his region and called on countries to confront militancy with action not rhetoric.

"While Afghanistan is still a critical battlefield, a rapidly spreading war is engulfing the wider region," Karzai said in a speech to the World Economic Forum.

"Our strategies in this war have often been short-changed by a host of deceptive rhetoric," he said. "Governments in the region need to move beyond rhetoric and cease to seek the pursuit of interests in the use of extremist politics".

Karzai did not accuse any country by name, but his relations with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf have at times virtually broken down over Afghan complaints that Taliban insurgents operate from Pakistan's side of their common border.

Many al Qaeda and Taliban militants took refuge in the border areas after U.S.-led troops drove Afghanistan's Taliban government from power after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Afghanistan is now battling an intense Taliban insurgency while Pakistani forces are confronting pro-Taliban militants in different parts of the northwest, near the Afghan border.

Listing a series of attacks in both countries, including the assassination in December of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, Karzai said the "mutant of extremism" had been unleashed across the region.

"By all indications, the wildfire spread of terrorism across our region bodes terribly badly for the whole world".

Karzai called for a crackdown on militant sanctuaries and destruction of their infrastructure, finance and recruiting networks.

Afghanistan and Pakistan, both U.S. allies, have vowed in the past to work together against militancy but have taken few concrete steps.

Pakistan sent reinforcements on Wednesday to the South Waziristan border area where government forces are trying to wipe out the strongholds of a militant accused of being behind Bhutto's killing.

US military: Taliban spring offensive unlikely in Afghanistan

By David Montero - Christian Science Monitor- January 24, 2008

The Taliban are unlikely to launch a spring offensive in Afghanistan this year because all their energies will be focused in Pakistan, United States military officials said. But as that battle heats up, US officials added that they do not have enough intelligence on the ground in Pakistan.

Taliban and Al Qaeda militants have killed more than 600 people in Pakistan in recent months, making 2007 the deadliest year for militancy in Pakistan. Although Pakistan's military has 100,000 troops stationed along the border of Afghanistan, violent extremism has spread inland to large cities like Lahore, where a suicide bomber killed 25 policemen in early January. Pakistan's government and the CIA have also blamed Taliban militants, working with Al Qaeda, for the assassination in late December of Benazir Bhutto.

The deteriorating security makes Pakistan more of a viable target for the Taliban, US officials told the Associated Press.

Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and other militants are staying behind in Pakistan to fight the government there, contributing to a drop in cross-border infiltrations into eastern Afghanistan, a top US commander said Wednesday.

Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez said he does not expect insurgents to mount a spring offensive this year in eastern Afghanistan, once one of the most violent areas of the country.

"The enemy will try to take advantage of some of the challenges they are having over there (in Pakistan) right now," said Rodriguez, who commands US forces in eastern Afghanistan.

The New York Times reports that Rear Adm. William J. Fallon recently traveled to Pakistan to meet with Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Musharraf's successor as chief of the Army staff.

That meeting comes as US officials said that they do not have enough intelligence about Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a lawless zone where Al Qaeda and the Taliban have set up a new base.

The Associated Press reports: "There’s a gap in intelligence," [Dell Dailey, the State Department's counterterrorism chief] said during a meeting with reporters. "We don't have enough information about what's going on there. Not on al-Qaida. Not on foreign fighters. Not on the Taliban."

Dailey, a retired Army lieutenant general with extensive background in special operations, said the lack of information makes him "uncomfortable." Yet the solution to the problem rests mainly with the Pakistanis, who would likely see too much U.S. involvement as an unwelcome intrusion.

During his trip to Davos, Switzerland, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf tried to allay the heightened concerns. But he may have added to them by revealing that his soldiers on the border are not actively hunting for Osama bin Laden.

The New York Times blog "The Lede" quotes Musharraf as saying,

The 100,000 troops that we are using … are not going around trying to locate Osama bin Laden and Zawahri, frankly," Musharraf told a conference at the French Institute for International Relations. "They are operating against terrorists, and in the process, if we get them, we will deal with them certainly."

But that's not what the US government wants to hear. The New York Times reported in early January that concerns about catching Mr. Bin Laden have led the US military to consider plans for a covert push of its Special Forces inside Pakistan:

President Bush's senior national security advisers are debating whether to expand the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

In part, the White House discussions may be driven by a desire for another effort to capture or kill Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Currently, C.I.A. operatives and Special Operations forces have limited authority to conduct counterterrorism missions in Pakistan based on specific intelligence about the whereabouts of those two men, who have eluded the Bush administration for more than six years, or of other members of their terrorist organization, Al Qaeda, hiding in or near the tribal areas.

So far, Musharraf has been categorical in refusing any direct US intervention, which means that intelligence gathering will remain limited.

We are not losing in Afghanistan

BNA - Jan 24, 2008
 A top Bush Administration official said Wednesday that though the Taliban had gained strength in Afghanistan in recent past, but the terrorist outfit is nowhere near winning the war. He also said there is no solution to Afghanistan without Pakistan.

"I think the Taliban is a bit resurgent, but its not anywhere close to winning, said Lt Gen Douglas Lute, National Deputy Security Adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan in White House, where he is an assistant to the US President, George W. Bush.

Were not losing in Afghanistan. The Taliban is not winning. But, we have a lot of work to do, Lute said in an interview to the popular The Charlie Rose Show.

Citing an example, the White House official said: Weve never been beaten tactically in a firefight in Afghanistan. So whenever the Taliban makes contact with us and with our NATO allies, I would be quick to add, he loses, and he knows that. So he has gone to what we call asymmetric attacks, using roadside bombs. Suicide bombings are up in Afghanistan. He avoids contact with our military force.

Lute said: So its not enough to say for us that we win every fight, unless we can put those tactical military wins together with improved governance by the Karzai regime and improved, coherent reconstruction packages on the economic scene.

As such, he observed: We have a very important piece of the puzzle in place in Afghanistan and thats tactical dominance, tactical military dominance. Now weve got to couple it to the other pieces.

Lt. Gen Douglas Lute, who fought in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, said the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is different from the previous ones, which were conventional military conflict. That was easy compared to what our troops are doing today in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.

"Fundamentally, the insurgency in Afghanistan is a fight among Pashtuns, he observed. The Pashtun belt of people and tribes is divided by the Afghan-Pakistan border. So its not enough to argue that all the pieces are in place to win in Afghanistan, if in fact the Pashtun rebellion, the Pashtun insurgency resides just across the border in Pakistan, he said.

Now, increasingly, the Musharraf regime and the Pakistani people are witnessing this themselves, because some of the Pashtun fight inside Pakistan is now focused less on Afghanistan to the west and more to the east, into the settled areas of Pakistan, he said.

"So just like Afghanistan has an insurgency on its hands, so does -- so does Pakistan. So, these two are inextricably linked, he concluded.

Douglas said the bigger issue with regard to Pakistan, has to do with internal political stability and righting themselves politically, and then ultimately the security of nuclear weapons and Pakistan as a key and essential cornerstone of stability for that whole south-central Asian region.

Afghan Reporter's Death Sentence Draws Wide Condemnation

By Nora Boustany Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, January 25, 2008

A death sentence handed to a reporter in Afghanistan has prompted the United Nations and several press freedom organizations to urge the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to intervene in the case.

Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, 20, a reporter for the daily Jahan-e Naw and a journalism student at Balkh University, was arrested Oct. 27 in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif, an area where mullahs hold particular influence over law and cultural life.

His alleged offense was distributing to classmates a report, printed from a Web site, commenting on a Muslim woman's right to multiple marriages. The article, written in Farsi, which is close to the Dari language spoken in Afghanistan, questioned why men are allowed to have four spouses in Islam while women are denied the same right.

Without a lawyer to represent him, Kambakhsh was hustled Tuesday into a small hearing room where three judges and a prosecutor conducted a five-minute proceeding, according to his older brother.

He was then handed a piece of paper saying he had acted against Islam and should be executed, said the brother, Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, who visited him in prison Wednesday night.

"There was no defense lawyer, no human rights adviser, no family member, no discussion, nothing," Ibrahimi, a 26-year-old journalist, said by telephone from Mazar-e Sharif. "They did not let him explain. It was a joke."

On Thursday, the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan issued a statement saying: "The pressures for punishment, warnings to journalists, as well as the holding of this case in closed session without Mr. Kambakhsh having legal representation point to possible misuse of the judicial process. This would not serve the cause of justice."

Organizations such as the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders and the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting, which has offices in Kabul, the capital, said the charges against Kambakhsh are aimed at intimidating his older brother, Ibrahimi, who recently published an article implicating an Afghan legislator in a series of killings and kidnappings.

"This is a freedom of expression case," said Vincent Brossel, the Reporters Without Borders official in charge of the Asia-Pacific region. "Ibrahimi, who is the more senior and experienced journalist among the brothers, has been under threat for months. And the arrest and sentence was a way to gag him."

In Kabul, Jean MacKenzie, country director for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting, which trains Afghan journalists and for which Ibrahimi has written, told the Associated Press that the charges against Kambakhsh were fake.

"We feel strongly that this is a complete fabrication on the part of the authorities up in Mazar," she said.

A prosecutor in Mazar-e Sharif recently warned journalists not to express public signs of support for their imprisoned colleague.

Ibrahimi said he was still writing, but also moving constantly to avoid arrest.

"I am being careful and I am concerned, but I am working and doing my job," he said. "I may be risking death, but I should accept the challenge."

Brossel and Ibrahimi said that in provinces far from Kabul, mullahs and a council of clerics are more powerful than the government. "We hope the power of international pressure on President Karzai will influence him to act," Brossel said.

Under the Afghan constitution, which acknowledges the precedence of sharia, or Islamic law, Kambakhsh could not be held for more than three months without charge.

According to Afghan law, defense lawyers may appeal the lower court's decision. Ibrahimi, who has consulted with mullahs, said he was told that his brother could have been released after three days if he had apologized.

Said Tayeb Jawad, the Afghan ambassador to the United States, confirmed that Kambakhsh has the right to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court. "This is just a recommendation by the council of clerics," Jawad said of the sentence, adding that he has taken the matter up with the foreign affairs minister. "It does not have binding power."

Being in Afghanistan is dangerous; not being in Afghanistan is more dangerous

BAN KI-MOON Secretary-General of the United Nations

Globe and Mail, January 24, 2008

Afghanistan is a potent symbol of the costs inherent in abandoning nations to the lawless forces of anarchy. That alone justifies international efforts to help rebuild the country. Lest there be any doubt, remember Sept. 11, 2001, and its worldwide reverberations. We learned then how a country, shorn of its civic institutions, becomes a vacuum to be filled by criminals and opportunists. In its chaos and poverty, Afghanistan became a home base for terrorism.

Must we learn that lesson all over again? The past six years have seen a massive international partnership to rebuild Afghanistan's state institutions. A modern constitution was adopted after widespread popular consultations. Presidential and parliamentary elections were held. Three million refugees returned from decades of exile. Clearly, a large majority of the population supports the international community's efforts on Afghans' behalf.

Yet, this progress is in jeopardy. Once again, the opportunists are on the rise, seeking anew to make Afghanistan a lawless place — a locus of instability, terrorism and drug trafficking. Their means are desperate: suicide bombs, kidnappings, the killing of government officials and hijacking of aid convoys. Almost more dismaying is the response of some outside Afghanistan, who react by calling for a disengagement or the full withdrawal of international forces. This would be a misjudgment of historic proportions, the repetition of a mistake that has already had terrible consequences.

The United Nations has been in Afghanistan for many decades. Our institutional memory stretches back to the traumas of the Taliban, and beyond to the era when rival militias battled one another for the meagre spoils of a country broken by civil war. Our hopes for the future look to a day when Afghan state institutions stand on their own, able to tackle with dignity the difficult tasks of reconstruction and development while providing security and justice within secure borders.

I believe that day is within reach. We cannot let it be lost to the inhuman violence of today's insurgents.

For all the frustrations and periodic setbacks, I am heartened by the strong and sustained international support given to Afghanistan. Security concerns notwithstanding, there has been obvious progress. Girls' school enrolment has increased dramatically in the past five years. Six million children are in schools today, compared to less than a million under the Taliban. More than five million children have been immunized against polio, crucial not only for them, but also for our fight to eradicate polio worldwide. Half a million Afghans have gained access to safe water.

New roads are helping farmers get produce to markets. Afghan farmers are meeting 95 per cent of the country's grain needs; in 2001, the figure was less than 50 per cent. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, created following the 2001 Bonn Agreement, now has nine provincial offices, actively promoting human rights. Under the Taliban, women's participation in public and political life was non-existent. Today, 28 per cent of the seats in parliament are held by women.

The United Nations, alongside national and international counterparts, non-governmental organizations and Afghan civil society, will continue to provide the Afghan government whatever assistance it needs to build on these achievements. Our collective success depends on the continuing presence of the International Security Assistance Force, commanded by NATO and helping local governments in nearly every province to maintain security and carry out reconstruction projects.

In December, the Afghan National Army, supported by ISAF forces, reclaimed the town of Musa Qala in the southern province of Helmand, occupied by insurgents since February of 2007, and a major poppy-growing area. Significantly, it was led by the Afghan army and carried out at the request of the local population. At long last, development work can begin anew in Musa Qala.

The Afghan government has far to go before it regains control of its own destiny. But that day will come. It is hard work. There is little glory. It requires sacrifices. And that is why we are there.

US: Afghan air force not combat ready

By PAULINE JELINEK,

Associated Press- 24 Jan, 2008

WASHINGTON - The U.S. general in charge of rebuilding Afghanistan's decimated air corps said Thursday that it will be at least 2013 before the force is ready to fly combat missions now done by foreign airmen.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Jay Lindell said the fledgling 8-year rebuilding program is suffering from a lack of aircraft and spare parts and a relatively old corps of Afghan pilots, some of whom haven't flown in 15 years. Afghanistan hasn't trained a new pilot since 1992, he said.

"It'll take many years to develop the Afghan air corps," said Lindell, who commands the 130-member U.S. and Canadian team assigned to the project.

"We're well on our way," he said, noting the program started last spring now has some two dozen planes and helicopters and that Afghans are flying daily supply and transport missions. He said those are the most urgent and critical needs right now of Afghan ground forces, who are taking on an increasing role in the battle against the Taliban.

The U.S. and NATO-led counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan depends heavily on Western air power to transport troops to remote battlefields and to target militants in bombing missions.

Afghan pilots "are picking up every day more and more of the mission" that foreign forces used to fly, Lindell said. But training in those transport missions — and others such as medical evacuations — will remain the focus for the next few years.

The force won't be trained until 2013 or 2014 to play combat roles such as providing close air support for the Afghan National Army soldiers, Lindell told Pentagon reporters via videoconference from Kabul.

The size of the fleet will build slowly to 61 aircraft by 2011, he said. The NATO-US training mission has set a goal of rebuilding the corps to 112 aircraft — including some two dozen attack planes — and a 7,400-person air force by 2015, he said.

"It's not just air frames that we have to acquire," Lindell said "It's obviously the training of the pilots in this close air support role."

Lindell said that although Afghan pilots are very competent and can fly the missions they are assigned, their average age is 43 and many are nearing mandatory retirement.

Some of the pilots now flying will have to be pulled off duty for English language lessons, as well, he said.

Lindell hopes next year to start training 48 pilots a year.

"We plan to bring this air corps up to date with Western technology and do business similar to how ... the U.S. Air Force (does) and teach them close air support so they can take over this mission in Afghanistan," he said.

Afghanistan once had a strong air force that included hundreds of helicopters and Soviet-built MiG-21 and Su-22 warplanes. But that fleet was devastated by two decades of war.

Calling the event the "birth of our air force," Afghan President Hamid Karzai last week opened a new $22 million U.S.-funded military hangar opposite Kabul's international airport.

Pakistan's Musharraf says no US troops

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press / January 25, 2008

DAVOS, Switzerland - Pakistan's president said Friday U.S. troops cannot do a better job than his forces in routing the Taliban and al-Qaida, and the United States should increase its presence in Afghanistan instead to deal with the growing insurgency there.

Pervez Musharraf reiterated that Pakistan opposes any foreign forces on its soil and said "the man in the street will not allow this — he will come out and agitate."

Musharraf was responding to a question about reports that the U.S. government was considering far more aggressive covert operations in Pakistan, and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates' offer Thursday to send a small number of combat troops to Pakistan to help fight the insurgency there if Pakistani authorities ask for help.

"This cannot be done by any U.S. force," Musharraf told several hundred VIPs at a breakfast on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum. "Please don't think that the U.S. forces have some kind of a magic wand and they'll come and lead to success."

"This environment is worse than what they're facing in Afghanistan. The mountains are higher, and there is no communications infrastructure," he said.

Musharraf said President Bush told him he respects Pakistan's sovereignty and "is not asking me, and he's the most important." He said he was sure the U.S. force commander "will say, please remain where we are by ourselves."

He stressed that there is "total" U.S.-Pakistani cooperation on military tactics and strategy on both sides of the border, and "good coordination" on intelligence.

"The problem is the media that keeps carrying on regarding the forces should go across the border. They wouldn't be able to achieve anything that we haven't been able to achieve, so let them handle Afghanistan," Musharraf said.

"They need more force there, by the way. So therefore, please add force there before you think of sending them across into our borders," he said.

"So there's no problem, and if ... we need something that we can get from the United States to assist us in our operations, and which will make us stronger, let me tell you that we ask for it and we get it," Musharraf said.

Musharraf is on a tour of Europe seeking to convince leaders there he is in control of the country and is committed to restoring full democracy eight years after he seized control in a military coup. He gave up his position as army commander in December as part of that transition.

While he has been focusing on diplomacy, Pakistan's army is increasingly engaged in combat with pro-Taliban militants along the border with Afghanistan.

When Pakistan Sneezes, Afghanistan Catches a Cold

As the death of Benazir Bhutto demonstrates, Pakistan and Afghanistan are joined together by more than geography.

Institute for War & Peace Reporting - By Wahidullah Amani in Kabul (ARR No. 280, 24-Jan-08)

Following last month’s assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, the situation in Afghanistan took a rapid downturn. Food prices escalated, security deteriorated, and fragile hopes of peace began to slip away.

Afghans who keep an anxious eye on the political horse-trading that goes on across the border had high expectations of Bhutto’s triumphant return to Pakistan in October, after her self-imposed eight-year exile.

At last, many said, political and military strongman Pervez Musharraf would be forced to share power, end martial law and institute some democratic reforms. Bhutto also made some strong statements about her commitment to stopping cross-border terrorism.

With her Pakistan People’s Party poised to win a significant victory in the parliamentary election scheduled for January 8, Bhutto was in line to regain her old job at the head of the government, despite legal impediments to her doing so.

Having served two terms as prime minister, she was constitutionally barred from doing so again. She was also facing prosecution in Pakistan on charges of corruption.

But under a deal with Musharraf, Bhutto returned with a clean slate, and the clear agenda of regaining her authority and influence.

Her December 27 assassination put paid to any such hopes. The parliamentary ballot has been postponed to February 18, and although Musharraf has shed his general’s epaulettes, he looks just as intent on retaining power as ever.

“Bhutto had stated that if she attained power, she would allow the American military to crack down on al-Qaeda and terrorism inside Pakistan,” said Professor Wadir Safi, a lecturer in international relations at Kabul University’s law faculty.

Afghanistan’s leaders have long claimed that Pakistan exports terrorism across its porous border. Pakistan’s unstable frontier areas lie in close proximity to Afghan territory, and there is mounting evidence that madrassas and militant training camps there preach jihad and prepare “holy warriors” for suicide missions on Afghan soil.

The presidents of the two nations have traded accusations over who is to blame for cross-border violence, but little has been done to address the problem.

Now, Safi predicts, “Bhutto’s death will prolong the war in Afghanistan.” One immediate effect of Bhutto’s assassination was that the Afghan economy took a blow.

With the mounting violence in Pakistan, food and other imports from that country have all but ceased. Pakistan has raised taxes on wheat exports, in an attempt to keep more foodstuffs available at home.

Since Afghanistan imports approximately 80 per cent of its wheat flour from Pakistan, this has caused a dramatic rise in the price of bread. The cost of a 100-kilogram sack of flour has more than doubled in recent weeks, from 1,300 to 2,800 afghani (56 US dollars).

As in many underdeveloped countries, bread is a diet staple in Afghanistan, and the crisis has hit most households hard.

Bhutto’s promises to crack down on terrorism raised a wry smile from many Afghans, who remember the former prime minister as the willing midwife of the Taleban movement in the early to mid-Nineties.

“Bhutto played a key role in the establishment of the Taleban movement, which came into existence during her premiership,” said Safi.

Bhutto was prime minister from 1988 to 1990 and from 1993 until 1996, the year the Taleban captured Kabul. Her government was one of only three to recognise the Taleban regime.

Paradoxically, this record gave more credibility to her more recent pledges to confront the militants, in Safi’s view.

“Bhutto’s pledges to eliminate the Taleban were of great importance, because she helped bring them into existence, and she knew all about their plans and actions,” he said.

Fazel Rahman Oria, editor of Erada daily, concurred on this point, saying, “Mrs. Bhutto had the honour of being the mother of the Taleban, while Nasirullah Babar, who was Pakistani interior minister at the time, was the father,” he said.

According to local political observers, Bhutto made a firm commitment to President Hamed Karzai during their last meeting - just hours before her death - to cooperate with the Afghan government in the fight against terrorism.

“It was difficult to believe her, however,” said Oria. “When she was prime minister before, she did not seem all that concerned with the difficulties facing the Afghan government.”

Oria voiced doubt that Bhutto would have been in a position to deliver had she won the post of prime minister.

“In practical terms, she could not have fulfilled those pledges, because a prime minister does not have the authority to do so,” he said. “It would take the army and the intelligence services to be able to do anything.”

Habibullah Rafi, a senior advisor at Afghanistan’s Academy of Sciences, agreed that the crisis in Pakistan would have grave consequences on his side of the border.

“Afghanistan has always been under the influence of its neighbour, and any deterioration in our situation has always been linked to Pakistan. But now Pakistan itself is experiencing a worsening situation,” he said.

Rafi places little stock in promises made by any leader in Islamabad.

“Musharraf, too, has made pledges, but nothing has come of them,” he said. “Therefore, we could not believe Bhutto, either. Promises made by Pakistani leaders will not do us any good until they change their policy regarding Afghanistan.”

Wahidullah Amani is an IWPR trainer, reporter and editor in Kabul.

Afghani play reveals theatre of war

Elizabeth Prince - The daily Free Press- 24 Jan, 2008

The average Boston University student's knowledge of Afghanistan is probably restricted to something about the Taliban and that the United States has troops there. Beyond that, BU students and U.S. citizens may find they come up short.

Last night, about 70 students gathered in the Tsai Performance Center to learn more about the situation in Afghanistan by hearing a dramatic reading of William Mastrosimone's play, The Afghan Women. In a panel discussion following the reading, participants discussed the relevance of the play to today's political situation as part of the Howard Gottlieb Center's Ready to Vote initiative.

"Afghanistan gets very little play in the presidential debates," said panelist Nick Mills, a College of Communication journalism professor.

The panel allowed audience members to ask any unanswered questions they may have had and included Mills, College of Arts and Sciences international relations professor Charles Dunbar and CAS anthropology professor Tom Barfield.

Abdullah Osman, director of operations in Afghanistan for the International Orphan Care Organization, gave a speech before and after the reading.

"[The fighting in Afghanistan is] an issue that many people have forgotten because of the Iraq War," Gottlieb Center Research and Public Information Administrator Christopher Gately said. "It's highly relevant to students because if the draft was started, they'd have friends fighting."

Gately said the Ready to Vote initiative is an attempt to educate student voters on a range of issues, which include the situation in Afghanistan. The point, Gately said, is to prepare students for the election as well as talk about important issues.

The play provides a closer look at the struggle going on in Afghanistan. Its main character Malalai, played by College of Fine Arts School of Theatre alumna Emily Kaye Liberis, is an Afghan-American who runs an orphanage in the Afghan countryside.

When a rebel army commander and his troops exploit her orphanage, she stands up for herself and ultimately decide to murder the commander.

The play fleshes out many issues of life in Afghanistan, including the treatment of women, the importance of cultural heritage and the ramifications of violence.

"The Afghan women in this play represent the Afghan people struggling between the past and the future," author Mastrosimone, who attended the performance, said during the panel discussion.

While the panellists addressed a number of questions related to Afghanistan, they repeatedly stressed the importance of voting in the November presidential elections.

"One of the points [the panellists] made is that in Afghanistan, because the population is largely youth, everything is the hands of the young, and I think that should be an international sentiment," BU College Democrats President Rani Woods, a CAS senior, said.

Afghanistan: UN urges review of death sentence against journalist

UN News Center- 24 January 2008 – The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan ( UNAMA) today urged the country's authorities to review the death sentence imposed against Sayed Parwez Kambaksh, a journalist who this week was sentenced to capital punishment for blasphemy.

"The pressures for punishment, warnings to journalists, as well as the holding of this case in closed session without Mr. Kamabaksh having legal representation point to possible misuse of the judicial process," said the mission in a statement. "This would not serve the cause of justice."

The statement issued by a UNAMA spokesperson pointed out that Afghanistan's Constitution commits the country to upholding Islamic and universal human rights values, "which are clearly compatible.

The mission urged a "proper and complete review" of the case against Mr. Kamabaksh as it goes through the appeals process.

"Cases involving religion and freedom of expression occur in many countries and require care and sensitivity in their handling," the mission said.

Afghanistan sets up prison for women

Reuters - Thursday, January 24, 2008

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan launched its first prison for women in the capital Kabul on Thursday as part of a plan to build 15 such facilities, officials said.

Built with the assistance from Italy's government, the jail can accommodate 330 prisoners who currently languish in various prisons on numerous criminal charges.

Located near a residential area in a Kabul suburb, it is equipped and furnished with furniture, sewing machines and kitchen.

Abdul Salaam Esmat, the head of prisons and detention centres, said there were 275 female prisoners lodged in Afghan jails, along with their 175 children.

"Currently we are shifting 96 female prisoners and detainees from Pul-i-Charkhi prison to the new building", he said of the main prison which also holds suspected militants to the east of Kabul.

"We are planning to build 15 more separate detention centres for women prisoners and detainees in other provinces in the near future," he said.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi, editing by Sayed Salahuddin and Sanjeev Miglani)

Critics blast Harper gov't over prison transfers

Updated Thu. Jan. 24 2008 10:30 CTV.ca News Staff

The Harper government is under fire from critics who accuse it of being inept or misleading when it comes to the issue of the transfer of prisoners by Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.

A  federal court heard on Thursday that Canadian troops had halted the transfer of detainees to Afghan authorities in early November, one day after finding evidence of torture in an Afghan prison.

That came as a complete surprise to Canadians, human rights advocates, and politicians. Back in November, Maxime Bernier had said Canadian officials were concerned about a Taliban prisoner who alleged that he was tortured, but the foreign affairs minister did not mention that Canada had already halted prisoner transfers.

On Thursday, a federal official said that's because a Canadian colonel in Afghanistan made the decision and no one in the military told the government. Critics say that's hard to believe.

"I think there's been a complete lack of candour (by the Tories)," Bob Rae, the foreign affairs critic for the Liberals, told CTV Newsnet's Mike Duffy Live.

"The government knew what the decisions were on the ground. They must have been informed about them."

Critics say it's especially difficult to believe that the military would not have told the government about the change in policy because the issue of prisoner transfers was at the centre of a political firestorm at the time.

As late as the end of October, the Conservative government had questioned and even denied news reports that some prisoners captured by Canadians and turned over to the Afghans were abused. They suggested that the reports were unsubstantiated and part of Taliban propaganda.

But the opposition had hammered away at the issue in the press and in Parliament, and on Nov. 5, Bernier acknowledged that Canadians saw a Taliban prisoner with conditions that "concerned them."

On Nov. 6, the military stopped turning over prisoners to the Afghans and on November 14, Bernier admitted that torture allegations were in fact made. Critics now want to know why Bernier did not mention that prisoner transfers had by then already been halted for more than a week.

In a statement released Thursday, the Prime Minister's Office called the number of detainees and transfer of prisoners "operational matters."

"The government will not provide any comment on operational matters," said a PMO statement released Thursday.

Rae noted, however, the issue is far from an operational matter.

"The idea that you can brush this aside as some kind of an operational decision is frankly ludicrous. A decision as to what you do with prisoners is not an operational decision made on a day-to-day basis. It's a decision that's made as a matter of policy," he said.

Dawn Black, the NDP's defence critic, told Mike Duffy Live that she finds it difficult to believe that the military would not have informed the government about the change in policy.

"We live in a democracy where the government guides the policies of the Canadian Forces. It's not supposed to work the other way around," she said.

Responding to criticism by Rae and Black, Laurie Hawn, the parliamentary secretary to the defence minister, reiterated the PMO stance that the government does not "meddle, day-to-day, in the kinds of decisions (the military) is forced to make in a very tough situation, in a very tough part of the world."

When asked where detainees are being held now that Canada is no longer transferring them to the Afghans, Hawn said it was an "operational decision" of the military.

In court on Thursday, human rights groups sought a ban on transfers. But a federal lawyer argued it was a moot point because the transfers have been stopped. The government's lawyer was cut off by Federal Court Justice Anne Mactavish.

"Up until noon on Tuesday we thought there was a live controversy," she said.

Former CIDA head in Afghanistan dismisses Manley's development ideas

OTTAWA - The recent Manley commission report missed the point of development efforts in Afghanistan and sets out unrealistic expectations, says the former head of Canadian aid in Afghanistan.

Nipa Banerjee, who spent three years heading the Canadian International Development Agency's mission in Kabul, says the commission's recommended approach won't do much to add legitimacy to the government of President Hamid Karzai.

She also bristled at the suggestion by the panel, chaired by former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley, that development efforts have so far made little impact in the brutally impoverished country.

"I don't see how he can say we've been ineffective," said Banerjee, who recently left government to take up an academic position at the University of Ottawa.

The blue-ribbon panel recommended that Canada refocus its $1.2-billion aid-and-development effort on projects that address the immediate needs of Afghans, particularly in Kandahar.

The approach thus far has been to spend money on long-term, institution-building programs and to funnel the support through the government in Kabul.

A centrepiece of the report's development section suggested a so-called signature project, such as building a hospital. Such an initiative would be "identified with Canada and led by Canadians."

The idea is driven more by domestic politics than by solid development thinking, Banerjee said.

"That will definitely heighten the profile of Canada and it would probably gain public support at home in Canada, but if you look at the aim of development, it's to establish legitimacy for the (local) government and a Canadian signature project - with high profile - doesn't achieve that objective," she said Thursday.

Other international aid groups have been critical of the showcase project idea, but Banerjee says in the aftermath of the report's release, no one has discussed whether the notion is realistic.

"I don't think a signature project is possible; a large project is not possible in Kandahar because of the security situation," she said.

"At this time, I don't know which Canadian firm, like SNC Lavalin would go there and build a big dam."

The reference to a dam related to perhaps the biggest signature project in southern Afghanistan: the Kajaki dam in northern Helmand province, about 500 kilometres northwest of Kandahar.

The hydro-electric project, completed in the 1960s with U.S. government money, has provided power for most of the region. The British have fought a number of fierce battles this year to the secure the area around the dam from militants.

Banerjee was speaking on Parliament Hill on behalf of a group of young Canadians who've started a grassroots to campaign to drum up support for the mission.

Through a Web page and a Facebook site, Canadians for Afghanistan claims to be a broad, non-partisan coalition united in its support for the country's commitment to Afghanistan.

The group encourages members to write to media editors across the country as well as members of Parliament.

The Facebook site boasts 681 members and was set up by university students Josh McJannett of Toronto, and Mark Graham of Ottawa.

Although he admits the group is not particularly well-known, Graham told a news conference that the sudden exposure has nothing to do with the timing of the Manley report, which this week recommended Canada's combat role should be extended indefinitely under certain conditions.

Thank you, Manley

The Ottawa Citizen, January 25, 2008

John Manley's report on the Afghan mission does a service to Canada. Which must be the primary criterion for judging it regardless of the difficulties it creates for various politicians or, for that matter, columnists.

Yes, columnists. If Mr. Manley's Independent Panel on Canada's Future Role in Afghanistan had produced a comically feeble result, I'd have had a field day with, say, a report on Canada's Future Role in the European War, where Jack Layton proposes negotiating with the Nazis while Stéphane Dion wants to withdraw from Germany but invade the Soviet Union.

Instead, the panel's tough-minded, mostly sensible document also forces me to scrap plans for a Robson Report stating various frightfully obvious facts about Afghanistan. I'm not entirely sure why MPs needed the Manley panel to do so, although it probably has something to do with a lack of strategic culture in Canada. But state them it did, in a climate where doing so was a definite public service.

It thereby creates problems for a number of politicians, primarily Messrs. Dion and Layton. Gilles Duceppe's position on Afghanistan exists in a parallel universe and won't be much affected. But other people who say foolish things will now run a substantial risk of being swatted with this report, or pointedly reminded of Mr. Manley's accompanying remarks about the real Liberal foreign policy tradition.

There seems to be some dispute about who really said British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain viewed foreign affairs through the wrong end of a municipal drain pipe. But Canadian politicians with the equivalent contemporary failing, of viewing them through the wrong end of focus groups in swing ridings in Quebec and the Toronto suburbs, will find this report highly inconvenient. So let me again praise Mr. Manley for being willing to take on the job despite the clear risk of exactly that result.

Some commentators have emphasized the difficulties the report supposedly also creates for Stephen Harper, with its bluntness about conditions on the ground, our troops' equipment and the need to extract more help from our NATO allies other than Uncle Sam. I think they are mistaken for several reasons.

First, if the report had looked like a whitewash, it would have done the Tories no good. Second, the Conservative message, despite some cheerfully daft spin of which the report itself is not entirely innocent, has always been that the Afghan mission is a tough one and we must be resolute. (And if our weasely European allies don't send more troops by 2009, well, what did anyone expect?) Third, the call for more focus on humanitarian and technical aid offers a superb opportunity for what they called triangulation when Bill Clinton did it.

The Tories can now be seen to be making a reasonable accommodation with reality and finding a path between blind belligerence and craven surrender. Without even changing their policies. For I must underline here the problem of "missionaries and redcoats" that I have written about before. It is not our military but our humanitarian actions in Afghanistan that cause us the most trouble there.

If all we wanted was to safeguard our national security interests by keeping the Taliban out, we could just back local "warlords" with deep roots in the community, an attachment to the old ways and a casual attitude toward brutality. It would cost less money and fewer Canadian lives. Since we are not prepared to do so, we must recognize frankly that women's rights, democracy and economic modernization represent a far more dramatic threat to Afghan traditions, and the ideals of the Taliban, than sleazy deals with strongmen. We cannot relax our security efforts if we don't want to see teachers beheaded in front of their students for teaching girls to read. (See also my colleague Dan Gardner's remarks on trying to make Afghans stop growing opium poppies.)

It would have been foolish to talk of reconstructing the French economy and democratic system in 1944 without destroying our military foes. It is even more foolish in Afghanistan, where our aim is not to "reconstruct" but to transform, making it very different than it ever was before 1979, let alone 2001.

The Manley panel downplays this problem. But it does stress the need to walk the talk on our vaunted human security agenda, and its vigorous message of perseverance in the face of difficulties is good for Canada. If it also helps the Harper Tories, blame the other parties for taking silly positions on a serious topic.

[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.]