Afghanistan is a permanent reminder of the reality behind NATO’s fine words over defence of democracy. The World Bank and the warlords are their apt representatives.
Lindsey German
Today the British commander in Helmand hands over to his US counterpart as some British troops withdraw from the province in Afghanistan that has been at the centre of British military operations since 2006.
When they were first deployed, the then Defence Secretary John Reid expressed the hope that troops would be able to leave there without a shot being fired in anger:
“We are in the south to help and protect the Afghan people construct their own democracy. We would be perfectly happy to leave in three years and without firing one shot because our job is to protect the reconstruction.”
It was a forlorn and foolish hope. Whereas before the deployment in Helmand five British troops had died over five years in Afghanistan, since then it has become a graveyard. The vast majority of the 448 British soldiers who have died in Afghanistan have died in Helmand.
It has come to symbolise the devastation and futility of a war that has left thousands of foreign troops and tens of thousands of Afghans dead, many more injured physically and mentally, millions displaced as refugees.
Afghanistan remains one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the world. It has suffered wars of one sort or another for 30 years.
Since 2006 there have also been air strikes, night raids, Drone attacks which have killed guests at weddings, shepherds and farmers, children playing. Meanwhile, more than ten times as much has been spent on the military occupation than in infrastructure in the country as a whole.
The billions the western powers have poured into Afghanistan to fund development and reconstruction have certainly achieved nothing for Afghan children, half of whom suffer irreversible harm from malnutrition.
Brigadier James Woodham, the final UK commander of Task Force Helmand, said recently that ‘history will judge’ the war in Afghanistan. It already has. And, as the extent of its failure becomes clear, widespread opposition to the war can only deepen, in both Britain and the United States, where Afghanistan is the most unpopular war in US history, supported by only 17% of Americans.
One example of the supposed springboard to an independent Afghanistan, following the withdrawal of foreign troops, is this week’s presidential elections, which are intended to mark the transition to an independent and unoccupied Afghanistan. They are unlikely to be a benchmark for those who champion democracy. As Patrick Cockburn writes:
Elections are now so fraudulent as to rob the winners of legitimacy. The April 2014 election is likely to be worse than anything seen before, with 20.7 million voter cards distributed in a country where half the population of 27 million are under the voting age of 18. Independent election monitoring institutions have been taken over by and are now under the thumb of the government.
It’s not just the corruption that is making a mockery of the votes. It’s also the candidates. Of the front-runners, one is a former foreign minister and adviser to the World Bank, Ashraf Ghani. No surprises there, although no benefits to the people of Afghanistan. But his running mate is General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the notorious warlord leader of the Northern Alliance who presided over the killing of hundreds of Taliban prisoners, many of whom suffocated while in captivity in metal containers without food and water.
“Faced with these multiple disasters,” says Cockburn again, western leaders simply ignore Afghan reality and take refuge in spin that is not far from deliberate lying.
Not least, David Cameron, who when visiting British troops in Afghanistan last December said they would leave the country with heads held high for a mission “accomplished” — the same words that George W Bush used in 2003 about the catastrophic Iraq war that went on to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, and the consequences of which are still killing thousands today.
Let’s remember that this has all been happening under the watchful eye of NATO, which has in the past decade increased its out of area operations to range from the North Atlantic to South Asia, taking in the Balkans on the way. Its return closer to home with its eastwards expansion towards Russia is of concern to all those who want to avoid future wars in Europe.
Afghanistan is a permanent reminder of the reality behind NATO’s fine words over defence of democracy. The World Bank and the warlords are their apt representatives.
Source: Stop the War Coalition
