Afghanistan, the First Step

A year ago, Kandahar was cited as an example of Afghan renewal. Business had picked up, international aid had arrived at last, and the stores remained open in the evening. Today, writes a reporter from the Associated Press, it is a "ghost town". A large percentage of the population has fled. The Taliban rove around the capital of the Pashtoun province (the tribe of the president, Hamid Karzai). They launch suicide attacks, which causes some people to say that Afghanistan is quickly coming to resemble Iraq. They control surrounding villages, and burn the schools.

It was in one of these villages that a battle took place between the Taliban and American troops, last May. The former had threatened the population with death if they didn’t leave the region. An American air raid caused dozens of civilian victims.

The population scarcely believes that the replacement of the American command by NATO will change something. Except that it will permit the American leadership to implicate its allies by making them "co-manage" the mess that they have contributed to making of the country, a mess of which the "cost", if it has not yet reached the level reached in Iraq, becomes heavier each day with the multiplication of armed confrontations. Yesterday, once more, NATO announced that they had killed some 70 Taliban in the south of the country. Each day that passes sees the situation in the country enter more and more in contradiction with the fine declarations made originally by the White House : as liberator of the people, setting up democracy, etc.

This year, Afghanistan will produce a record crop of opium poppies, announces the anti-drug director seated in Kabul. A 44% increase since 2005, when Afghanistan furnished 90% of the world’s opium. This is a trade that enriches the lords of war, arms the tribal militias and the Taliban, which according to the Associated Press is interested now in its trade in dollars. This traffic, recognizes the president Karzai, feeds a corruption that eats away at the government and its institutions.

The method chosen by Washington is at the heart of the Afghan excesses. The U. S. strategists have chosen to back the warlords against the Taliban. It is they that have redirected the aid to their own profit. The operation "Enduring Freedom" failed to reestablish a state of law. The Taliban are once again a menace, and Ben Laden scurries between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Kabul was supposeed to be the first stage of a remodeling of the Great Middle East.

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