Afghanistan in the Wake of WikiLeaks Leaks

In the wake of the release of 92,201 classified documents by WikiLeaks there have been a slew of articles pointing in the very direction I identified on this blog on November 2, 2009. Namely, that the war in Afghanistan is fraught with complexities beyond the control of the West.

A recent article by Thomas L. Friedman for the New York Times speaks to my point:

The case of the Great Game of Central Asia is a complicated mix of duplicitous players and failed strategies.

In an article for Toronto's Globe and Mail, Chris Alexander (former ambassador of Canada to Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan from 2005 until 2009) has written about the unstable nature of the relationship between the United States and Pakistan. Regardless of official pronouncements, Pakistan and Afghanistan are waiting and jockeying for position with the certain anticipation of U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The Pakistan army under Gen. Kayani is sponsoring a large-scale, covert guerrilla war through Afghan proxies – whose strongholds in Baluchistan and Waziristan are flourishing. Their mission in Afghanistan is to keep Pashtun nationalism down, India out and Mr. Karzai weak.

Chris Alexander's article made mention of a discussion paper written by Matt Waldman for Crisis States Research Centre. The Research Centre describes itself as "a leading centre of interdisciplinary research into processes of war, state collapse and reconstruction in fragile states."

Alexander's paper, The Sun in the Sky (html version or pdf version) meticulously highlights, through interviews with Afghani insurgent commanders and other first hand accounts, that Pakistan's intelligence service (the ISI) is firmly behind both the Taliban and an active party to the Afghan insurgency even as Pakistan receives billions in aid from the U.S. And the U.S., surely, cannot be blind to this duplicity...it is, to quote Taliban commanders, ‘as clear as the sun in the sky’.

And, from The New York Times comes this latest article, summarizing the farcical nature of the situation the U.S. and it's NATO allies face in Afghanistan.

"This report captured the circular and frustrating effort by an American investigator to stop Afghan police officers at a checkpoint from extorting payments from motorists. After a line of drivers described how they were pressed to pay bribes, the American investigator and the local police detained the accused checkpoint police officers." Here's a synopsis of one the U.S. Army reports leaked by WikiLeaks:

"While waiting,” the (U.S. Army) investigator wrote, “I asked the seven (Afhani) patrolmen we detained to sit and relax while we sorted through a problem without ever mentioning why they were being detained. Three of the patrolmen responded by saying that they had only taken money from the truck drivers to buy fuel for their generator.”
Two days later when the American followed up, he was told by police officers that the case had been dropped because the witness reports had all been lost.

Here's a lengthier excerpt from the NY Times article that screams, "get out while the getting is good."

The (leaked) documents show how the best intentions of Americans to help rebuild Afghanistan through provincial reconstruction teams ran up against a bewildering array of problems — from corruption to cultural misunderstandings — as they tried to win over the public by helping repair dams and bridges, build schools and train local authorities.

A series of reports from 2005 to 2008 chart the frustrations of one of the first such teams, assigned to Gardez, in Paktia Province.

An American civil affairs officer could barely contain her enthusiasm as she spoke at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new orphanage, built with money from the American military.

The officer said a friend had given her a leather jacket to present to “someone special,” the report noted. She chose the orphanage’s director. “The commander stated that she could think of no one more deserving then someone who cared for orphans,” it said.

The civil affairs team handed out blankets, coats, scarves and toys. The governor even gave money from his own pocket. “All speeches were very positive,” the report concluded. Read the Document »


DEC. 20, 2006 | PAKTIA PROVINCE
Civil Affairs Report: Not Many Orphans

The team dropped by to check on the orphanage. “We found very few orphans living there and could not find most of the HA [humanitarian assistance] we had given them,” the report noted.

The team raised the issue with the governor of Paktia, who said he was also concerned and suspected that the money he had donated had not reached the children. He visited the orphanage himself. Only 30 children were there; the director had claimed to have 102. Read the Document »


OCT. 16, 2007 | PAKTIA PROVINCE
Civil Affairs Report: An Empty Orphanage

Nearly a year after the opening of the orphanage, the Americans returned for a visit. “There are currently no orphans at the facility due to the Holiday. (Note: orphans are defined as having no father, but may still have mother and a family structure that will have them home for holidays.)”