Julian Mercille, our colleague at University College Dublin, investigates the politics and conflict behind Afghanistan’s drug production and profits, involving not only the Taliban but also other Afghan groups, the US military, and NATO forces:
As United States President Barack Obama and his advisors debated future troop levels for Afghanistan – which resulted in the decision to send an additional 30,000 troops – a new report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) muddied the water on one of the most important issues in the debate – the effects of Afghanistan’s drug production.
The report, entitled “Addiction, Crime, and Insurgency: The Transnational Threat of Afghan Opium,” gives the false impression that the Taliban are the main culprits behind Afghanistan’s skyrocketing drug production. It also implies that drugs are the main reason why the Taliban are gaining in strength, absolving the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) of their own responsibility in fomenting the insurgency.
In fact, the United States and its Afghan allies bear a large share of responsibility for the drug industry’s dramatic expansion since the invasion. Buried deep in the report, its authors admit that reduced levels of drug production would have little effect on the insurgency’s vigor. Read the rest of this entry »
On Monday, President Obama’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, held a press briefing (the video has only just emerged on the Web). Its purpose was two-fold: 1) to prove that Holbrooke, who has effectively been banished from Afghanistan by the Karzai Government, still has some role to play in US policy and 2) to set up President Obama’s announcement next Tuesday, which will likely authorise some level of US military escalation, by explaining that the US is really, really serious about non-military measures and ensuring that the Afghan Government can eventually take over responsibilities.
Not sure this briefing succeeded on either count: Holbrooke now seems to be on the fringes of the Administration and the purported American programmes seem to have more style than substance: even the pro-Obama site that posted this could only point to this “highlight”: “The U.S. is pulling out from financing the heroin poppy eradication program, this will now be run by the Afghan government. The U.S. will instead put substantial effort and money toward rebuilding the agricultural sector. Afghans have traditionally been very productive farmers, and it would be wise to offer support in this area.”
AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: Thanks, P.J. I’m here to report on Secretary Clinton’s trip to Afghanistan, and also, since I haven’t been here since Pakistan, happy to talk about that too. Read the rest of this entry »
This may be one of the most depressing interviews I have read since the start of the Obama Administration. (And it will get worse later today — I have seen clips from a similar performance on NBC’s Meet the Press; we’re waiting for the full video and transcript.) The White House, amidst the political complexity of this week’s events in Afghanistan, put up two military men — Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and the US Ambassor to Afghanistan, General Karl Eikenberry — for set-up questions from John King.
The political knowledge in this exchange is almost vacant, with the platitudes about “democracy” (note Eikenberry’s excited spin that he couldn’t get the indelible ink off his finger) substituting for the serious issues about the election — today, there are reports that the declaration of the vote may be delayed because of fraud allegations — and the politics beyond it.
Instead the conversation turns to militarising the US involvement, with the question, “How many more troops?” And, of course, this is all rationalised by skipping over the Afghan people and referring to “Al Qa’eda” (who, I’ll note for the record, are not in Afghanistan but in another country).
KING: This is the “State of the Union” report for Sunday, August 23rd.
In Afghanistan today, both President Hamid Karzai and his top challenger are claiming victory in last week’s election, raising tensions, even though it could be weeks or more before the official results are certified. It is an uncertain military situation, as well, with fighting between U.S. forces and the Taliban intensifying. And fresh indications President Obama could soon be asked to commit more American troops.
Here to talk about this and other global challenges are the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen , and the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry. He joins us from Kabul.
And Mr. Ambassador, let me start with you. There are complaints, escalating complaints this Sunday about fraud in the elections. On the threshold question of will this balloting be credible, what is your answer?
EIKENBERRY: Well, John, it was an extraordinary two months that we’ve been through, with this being a very historic election. Afghanistan, the first time in the past 30 years that the Afghan people have led an election for their president, for provincial councils, very intense campaign that occurred over the last two months, all new in Afghanistan. Presidential televised debates, campaign rallies. A very civil debate that occurred over this time. Read the rest of this entry »
Richard Holbrooke, President Obama’s special envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, returned from a trip to those countries to give a press briefing on Wednesday. There is a lot here on a changing US approach to fighting the wars in the region through a combination of military and non-military measures. As The Cable notes incisively, Holbrooke effectively announced that the Bush Administration policy of destroying Afghanistan’s poppy production has been scrapped. The bigger question remains, however: can Holbrooke really overtake the perception of a military-first approach by Washington?
AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: Thank you. I’ll be happy to take your questions. Just identify yourself, please.
QUESTION: Dan Dombey, Financial Times. Following the funding commitments that the U.S. and its partners received for the Afghan national security forces expansion at the NATO summit, how well are you –
AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: What were the what commitments?
QUESTION: Funding commitments for the Afghan national –
AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: From who?
QUESTION: I – well, you had, I think, a couple of hundred million from Germany.
AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: You’re talking about new commitments?
QUESTION: The commitment for – to fund the expansion of the forces. I thought Germany made –
AMBASSADOR HOLBROOKE: I didn’t go to Europe to get more commitments. We – an expansion of the armed services and police of Afghanistan is obviously necessary. That’s hardly a secret. But my job on this trip wasn’t to go around getting new commitments. Read the rest of this entry »
The “lasting commitment” Washington war-time summit/photo-op between United States President Barack Obama and the AfPak twins, “Af” President Hamid Karzai and “Pak” President Asif Ali Zardari was far from being an urgent meeting to discuss ways to prevent the end of civilization as we know it. It has been all about the meticulous rebranding of the Pentagon’s “Long War”.
In Obama’s own words, the “lasting commitment” is above all to “defeat al-Qaeda”. As an afterthought, the president added, “But also to support the democratically elected, sovereign governments of both Pakistan and Afghanistan.” To have George W Bush’s man in Kabul and former premier Benazir Bhutto’s widow defined as “sovereign”, one would be excused for believing Bush is still in the White House. Read the rest of this entry »
Quick question: which of these three — President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari, President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai (pictured), or former President of the West Bank Mahmoud Abbas — should be feeling most secure this morning about support from Washington?
If you went for one of the two who are legally in office at the moment, you need to do some homework, maybe watching the entire 140 minutes of the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. On the other hand, if you voted for Abbas (something will not be occurring in Palestinian elections in the near-future), take a bow and join the Clinton/Gates team. Read the rest of this entry »
As the Summit of the Americas opens and after attention to drug-related violence and its political effects in Mexico, Mark Schneider of Global Post looks at another Latin American country where crime and drugs are unsettling the system.
Guatemala: the next to fall?
While U.S. attention has rightly been focused on Mexico’s drug wars — with high-profile trips by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before this weekend’s Summit of the Americas — Mexico’s southern neighbor is in far more serious danger of becoming a failed state. Reeling from gangs, corruption and pervasive poverty, Guatemala now faces well-armed, well-financed drug cartels.
Narco traffickers and organized criminals dominate an estimated 40 percent of the country, from the Mexican border to the Caribbean coast, as well as in the little-populated Mayan jungle and forest preserves of the Peten. Opium poppy fields grow freely. The major threat, though, comes from more than $10 billion in cocaine passing through Guatemala each year, with a tenth of the money laundered in the country and used to bribe officials.
The drug lords and their friends have become the self-ordained local governments and police, either directly or by buying off others. The Sinaloa Cartel, which has run cocaine trafficking in Guatemala for the past several years, is pitted against the Gulf Cartel newcomers. Their “Zetas” (paid assassins) are ratcheting up violence that inevitably hits “civilians.” Last year there were more than 6,200 homicides reported in Guatemala. Read the rest of this entry »
Julian Mercille, our colleague at University College Dublin, investigates the politics and conflict behind Afghanistan’s drug production and profits, involving not only the Taliban but also other Afghan groups, the US military, and NATO forces:
This may be one of the most depressing interviews I have read since the start of the Obama Administration. (And it will get worse later today — I have seen clips from a similar performance on NBC’s Meet the Press; we’re waiting for the full video and transcript.) The White House, amidst the political complexity of this week’s events in Afghanistan, put up two military men — Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and the US Ambassor to Afghanistan, General Karl Eikenberry — for set-up questions from John King.
Richard Holbrooke, President Obama’s special envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, returned from a trip to those countries to give a press briefing on Wednesday. There is a lot here on a changing US approach to fighting the wars in the region through a combination of military and non-military measures. 
Quick question: which of these three — President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari, President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai (pictured), or former President of the West Bank Mahmoud Abbas — should be feeling most secure this morning about support from Washington?
As the Summit of the Americas opens and after attention to drug-related violence and its political effects in Mexico, Mark Schneider of Global Post 
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