EDITORIAL : THE OUTLOOK, AFGANISTAN

               

 

Effort Oriented against Democratic Consolidation

Since democracy is the only solution to Afghan problems, any effort oriented against democratic consolidation in the country is to be deprecated as it catapults the country into a disastrous crisis. It is tantamount to depriving the nation and people of opportunities to shape their democratic future and the democratic future of the country.

Afghan history is a history of failures to modernize and develop. It cannot afford to go through another failure or reversal. Afghan people have given many sacrifices to bring down the oppressive and autocratic regimes. Getting to this point of history was not easy for the people of Afghanistan. A democratic path was carved out when the constitution was written down. It may-or does- need reforms but it must never be bypassed. The second cycle of Afghan parliamentary election was held on September 18, 2010. Both national and international observers hailed it as a success as Afghans ran it. But since president Karzai was not happy with failures/losses of his favorite candidates, he issued a decree to establish a special election court without any constitutional and legal base. The court was set up at the time when the game was over.

More than nine months after the conduct of parliamentary election, the court, which is against the constitution on its own, has now plunged the three branches of power into a deep crisis. Moreover, the Special Election Commission itself did not go through a transparent process to do the recount of the votes. One can just say that it was not even equipped with tools to do that professionally. All it seemed to have done is just preparing a list of favored candidates and unfavored members of parliament. By playing political games, president Karzai is undermining the credibility of judiciary as well.
In fact, Afghan people will lose their trust in the three branches of power as well as in the electoral processes if president Karzai continues to maintain the current muddied situation. He must be taking responsibility for the deteriorating security situation. The president must lead the country into peace but unfortunately instead he is creating further political instability. He needs to deal with widespread corruption in his administration instead of trying to unseat those elected representatives of the people that are not favored by him.

ANP, Problems Multiply Despite Huge Investment

In countries like Afghanistan only a professional and well-equipped police force can counter crimes including terrorism. A police force that is involved in crimes itself can not give any hope to a nation. "Police is for serving the people" is the motto of Afghan National Police (ANP) but the question is, "Is it competent enough to demonstrate its motto practically?" According to NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan (NTM-A), the United States and its allies have spent $6.1 billion on bolstering the capacity of Afghan Police. In the year 2011 – a year that is vital to Afghan forces and they will soon begin taking over the security responsibilities on their own – more than $11 billion is being spent to train and equip both Afghan National Army and Police. Despite low capacity, the Afghan National Army (ANA) has appeared as the most creditable institution in the post Taliban Afghanistan. However, serious concerns over the competency of ANP exist as their problems have multiplied over the past years.

The ANP stand accused of extorting money from drug smugglers, gunrunners, brothel owners and gamblers, in return for looking the other way. A UN commissioned survey report released in February portrayed that the police force is widely viewed by Afghans as corrupt and biased, underscoring doubts about a planned Nato handover. About half the 5,052 Afghans surveyed across all 34 provinces said they would report crime elsewhere. In addition to corruption that has rooted deep in ANP, high illiteracy rate, affiliation with insurgents, drug addiction, drop-out rates etc remain big challenges for the ANP to nurture as expected.

In order to stand strong and effective against the insurgents, in addition to training and equipping, a cleaning-up process should be started for the purpose of diminishing the pitfalls the ANP has at current. Police's role has become more prominent as the transition process is to kick off soon. With current standing, it is far difficult for the ANP to serve the people as they should, enforce law and protect the Afghan people against the insurgents – the problem is especially serious in remote districts and districts where Taliban has influential presence.

US New War Strategy

Obviously the assassination of Al-Qaeda's top leader, Osama bin Laden, largely affected US military policies in Afghanistan. It was far likely for President Barack Obama to scale down US military presence in such a level as he announced on June 22. i.e. 33,000, previously surged, US troops would leave Afghanistan by next September; if Al-Qaeda leader was alive. Thus, his murder, recognized as giant strategic success for Obama's administration, has accelerated an anti-war attitude among common people as well as officials alike.

But, seemingly, the consequence is not limited to above issues only. His dead has dealt far larger effect on entire war strategy in Afghanistan. There are approved allegations that US is directly involved in diplomatic measure with Top Taliban leaders. And, frequently, Taliban leaders also have voiced out that Kabul government is not the principle part in ongoing peace process negotiation, but it was US that they were negotiating with. Assuming the allegations true, the question would be raised that why, though top US commanders disagree with the plan and many analysts believe that ongoing situation necessitates stronger as well as longer presence, President Obama decided to pull out military in such a large extent, as many maintain?

Several factors can be assumed in this regard, like economic and financial problem at home, declining popularity of war in Afghanistan, coming Presidential election in America and etc. but there is another factor which is ignored somehow, and which is linked to Osama's murder. His dead has sparked a new notion among top US officials and the war strategy is going to be redefined. The notion is that operations as that held for his assassination should be stressed much rather than costly military involvement for cracking down lower layers of militants.

During past years, the US military operations was concentrated much on elimination of military strength of militants, but it was not successful as much as expected. Taliban leaders still continue to rigidness and inflexibility to compromise with Kabul government. The new notion or strategy concentrates much on militants' leaders, which far less frugal as well as, perhaps, effective forcing them to come to negotiating table. It is assumed that if top leaders of Taliban are threatened to death will help the ongoing peace process more effectively instead of waging costly war against common Taliban fighters. But whether the strategy proves effective, as many maintain, is quite early to judge.