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Five Years Later: The Return of the Taliban
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After five years, the United States-led international reconstruction mission has failed Afghanistan and its people. An all-military approach and aggressive poppy crop eradication strategies led by the US and the United Kingdom have triggered a hunger crisis and accelerated the return of the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. The US and the UK are responsible for these humanitarian and security crises, which make Afghanistan a renewed menace for its own people and the world.
The 2001 liberation from the Taliban regime was a well-intentioned response to the threat Afghanistan, as a failed state, posed to global security. Although the US and its partners have deployed large and costly security operations, after five years Afghanistan is again a war zone, and southern Afghanistan has become, once more, the battlefield for the control of the country.
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The Taliban Frontline
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A Missed Opportunity to Engage Positively with a Muslim Country
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In 2001, following the attacks of September 11, Afghanistan emerged as a unique opportunity for the US-led international community to address the global threat of international terrorism at its core, and to simultaneously engage in positive cooperation with a Muslim country. The two missions went hand in hand. But priority was given to a narrow US militaristic agenda over cooperation and development. The fundamental problems of violence and extreme poverty have been left unaddressed, and the United States’ distraction with its Iraq military enterprise allowed these existing problems to flare up with greater energy.
Afghanistan is now crippled by instability and poverty, and is falling back into the hands of the Taliban. A pawn in the geo-strategic game of regional powers such as China and Russia, Afghanistan has become, under the influence of the Taliban, a major player in the anti-Western Islamic insurgency front now encompassing southern Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq. Originally open to the West, there is a growing perception among Afghans of an intensifying clash between their Muslim faith and the ‘Christian West’. Extreme poverty and reports of starvation strengthen the widespread view that the US-led international community is not concerned with poor Muslim societies. Despite goodwill, dated and ineffective ‘die-hard’ policies such as aggressive poppy crop eradication and a military-centric agenda have turned a reconstruction opportunity into a new, formidable threat.
Two parallel but intertwined crises – the return of the Taliban and hunger – have been identified as the drivers for the state of failure of today’s Afghanistan.
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TWO CRISES
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1. The US-led international community has lost - the Taliban are winning
The Taliban’s de facto military and psychological control of southern Afghanistan is rapidly spreading to the rest of the country. Indicators of today’s Taliban insurgency reveal well-organised and funded groups, which are being used in a complex proxy destabilisation effort by third-party nations and groups. An insurgency embedded in rural communities using lightweight high-technology such as satellite phones and global positioning system (GPS) give the Taliban a tactical edge over international military troops.
The Taliban already controls small towns and entire districts in southern Afghanistan; soon they will be running entire cities. The insurgency frontline, which now cuts through the centre of Afghanistan, is moving steadily northwards towards Kabul. Even Taliban attacks which lead to Afghan civilian victims play in favour of the insurgency, creating a strong sense of insecurity for which the US-led international community is held responsible.
Afghan perceptions of the West have crystallised around a `Muslim versus Christian’ grid, which also plays to the advantage of the Taliban who now paint themselves as a Muslim liberation movement similar to insurgent groups in Iraq and in southern Lebanon. Counter-productive policies like forced opium poppy eradication are a core factor in the increase of violence. They also provide a tactical advantage to the Taliban who present themselves as being on the side of farming communities who have suffered through the eradication of their poppy fields.
2. Hunger and starvation: The forgotten crisis of southern Afghanistan
With camps of internally displaced people, slums and makeshift villages – all of which can be found on the doorstep of new multi-million dollar military camps – starvation is the forgotten crisis of southern Afghanistan. Farmers who have had their poppy crop – their only viable livelihood – eradicated by force now see their children facing starvation.
The food shortage is triggering population displacements and large scale relocation to makeshift, unregistered refugee camps, yet Afghanistan’s development community is not given sufficient support from the international military to try to address the most urgent humanitarian needs in the South. The growing hunger crisis is not only proof of the failure of the delivery of primary aid, but it also provides another compelling case for the Taliban to demonstrate to local communities that the US-led international community has deserted them.
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THREE FACTORS
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Three underlining factors sustain these twin crises: the US-led international community’s over-militarised approach, counter productive drug policy responses and imbalanced international aid delivery.
The US-led international community is seen as an invading force, not one of stabilisation
Despite the deployment of extensive military operations over the last five years, the US-led International Community has failed to break the vicious circle of violence: military missions like the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) have prioritised the use of force before cooperation and development efforts. The US and its international partners like the UK and Canada have been pursuing the ghost of Al Qaeda instead of engaging with the realities of Afghanistan. The confusion between counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency has been made even worse by the overlaps between the recent NATO-ISAF deployment and on-going Operation Enduring Freedom activities in southern Afghanistan. As a result, the international military is perceived as essentially a force of invasion, rather than one of stabilisation. Little space is left for the credible delivery of development aid by the Karzai government and the international development community.
Forced poppy crop eradication: an anti-poor policy
Southern Afghanistan was the target of extensive opium poppy eradication operations in the first half of 2006, which have resulted in the exacerbation of poverty and insecurity levels. Poppy crop eradication has resulted in a wave of starvation among destitute farming families across southern Afghanistan. In districts where control shifts daily between insurgents, international troops and the central government, forced eradication intensifies these power struggles. The US-inspired eradication policy has stirred up a hornet’s nest in southern Afghanistan: it has turned the people against the NATO-ISAF stabilisation effort and pushed them further into the arms of the Taliban. The poorest and most vulnerable farmers, who are most in need of international aid, fall victim to aggressive drug policies on many different levels: poor farmers must witness the destruction of their only viable survival strategy, they see their opium debt swell, and are obliged to pay bribes in order to buy protection from eradication.
Aggressive drug policies reinforce the perception among the local Afghan communities that the US-led international community and the central government are leading an “anti-poor” policy, providing once again an advantage to the Taliban who portray themselves as the protectors of the farming communities. Eradication leaves no psychological space for the development of alternative development projects. These failed counter-narcotics policies, led by the US and the UK, have undermined the ability of the Afghan government to develop its legitimacy with the rural population, the majority of the population in Afghanistan.
An artificial reconstruction agenda failing to address the real needs and perceptions of Afghanistan
Reconstruction priorities such as the establishment of democratic institutions, are based on a misconceived US agenda, leaving the real needs of Afghanistan unaddressed. To the real Afghanistan – that of displaced farming communities and starving, sick children – this reconstruction agenda has merely achieved a “fantasy Afghanistan”.
This artificial reconstruction agenda has not allowed the Afghan government to establish its legitimacy as the main aid and development provider to its people. In turn, successful ventures born through a colossal Afghan nation-building effort, such as the establishment of a democratic government through universal suffrage, are collapsing. The general population’s negative perceptions of the reconstruction efforts further undermine the delivery of aid projects, including those with proven positive effects.
Military and aggressive counter-narcotics priorities are the major obstacles to effective poverty alleviation; these flawed priorities have severed the vital links between the development community and the poor and sick populations they are trying to help. An overhaul of the reconstruction matrix is necessary to address the real needs of Afghan people.
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THREE RECOMMENDATIONS
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Three recommendations to send a strong signal on the “management change” of the Afghan reconstruction effort
Recommendation I: Make Emergency Poverty Relief a Top Priority
Poverty is the primary enemy of Afghanistan’s reconstruction, and must be defeated. As a beneficiary of international aid, Afghanistan receives the lowest amount of reconstruction financing compared to all other post-conflict nations, signifying a failure to recognise that Afghanistan is among the poorest of the poor nations. The US-led reconstruction agenda does not include a clear pro-poor emergency package similar to those implemented in African countries in times of humanitarian disaster.
There is an immediate need to launch humanitarian interventions throughout Afghanistan, with a special emphasis on the most disadvantaged communities, such as those in the poppy growing areas. The response to emergency crises like starvation is not only a humanitarian necessity – it represents an essential part of any stabilisation effort.
It is important to engage with communities on the ground, reflecting their priorities and real needs in national development policies. By integrating the development priorities and possibilities of the real Afghanistan, Afghans’ growing negative perceptions of the reconstruction process can be dispelled.
Recommendation II: A Complete Overhaul of Failed Counter-Narcotics Strategies
Effective counter-narcotics strategies are essential to Afghanistan’s recovery and as such must be aligned with fundamental humanitarian development imperatives. All aggressive poppy crop eradication, which attacks the livelihoods of poor, rural communities, must stop. Short-term aggressive strategies such as poppy crop eradication must be replaced by development-based interventions that provide adapted and long-term economic alternatives for rural communities.
The licensing of poppy cultivation, for example, can help meet farmers’ basic economic needs in the absence of other viable crops by maintaining their sole cash crop. Additionally, poppy licensing will channel a significant part of the opium production away from the illegal heroin circuit and towards a controlled market for morphine and codeine.
To have a long-term effect, alternative development approaches must take advantage of the pre-existing local resources in rural communities. For example, the strong traditional control structures available in Afghan villages and districts can provide the first enforcement level for the cultivation of poppy under a licensing system. Such grass-roots drug policy schemes will encourage the establishment of cooperative relationships between farming communities, the central government and its international partners. Current counter-narcotics strategies achieve the very opposite, by deepening mistrust between the rural communities of Afghanistan and central government officials.
Recommendation III: Military Strategies Must Take a Back-Seat and Provide Support to Development Interventions
The US’ focus on highly specialised security problems as illustrated by the ‘search and destroy’ Operation Enduring Freedom must take a back seat. There is an urgent need to refocus on the broader root cause of instability, by addressing the problem of poverty.
European countries’ experience with ‘hearts and minds’ missions and historic cooperation with Muslim communities uniquely positions them to re-direct and lead the stabilisation efforts in Afghanistan. Under European guidance, the international military coalitions should concentrate on facilitating the conditions for aid delivery to reach Afghanistan’s most remote communities. This would be the first step for rural communities to join the reconstruction effort.
International military operations must collaborate with the Afghan government at the strategic and tactical planning stage. This is essential to avoid any mis-targeting of civilians and to give a greater ownership of security efforts to the Afghan national government.
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