Rohan Pearce
In the lead-up to Afghanistan's September parliamentary elections, additional foreign troops, most likely including Australians, are being deployed to prop up the central administration of President Hamid Karzai.
Karzai relies on US-led forces for his grip on power — even his bodyguards are from the US — along with a shifting series of alliances with reactionary, fundamentalist warlords.
A June 9-10 Brussels meeting of the defence ministers of NATO's member states decided to send an extra 2000 troops, noting that NATO would provide "security assistance" to 50% of Afghanistan's territory. The deployment will bring the total number of troops in the so-called International Security Assistance Force to around 10,000, and is the latest evidence that the fall of the Taliban regime in November 2001 didn't signal a conclusive victory for the US-led invasion. The US has around 10,000 combat troops in Afghanistan.
The troops may be joined by between 250 and 700 Australian soldiers, the June 16 Australian reported. On June 21, Australian defence minister Robert Hill said: "I think what's been achieved in Afghanistan is tremendous, but it needs to be consolidated ... Whether Australia makes another contribution is something that cabinet will have to decide in due course."
The troops occupying Afghanistan continue to be in the line of fire from a variety of armed groups. A June 21 Radio Free Europe report noted that "since the spring thaw in March, fighting in the south and east of Afghanistan has increased dramatically". US and Afghan officials claim that "260 suspected militants and 29 U.S. soldiers have been killed in clashes during the last three months. More than 30 Afghan police and soldiers also have been killed, along with more than 100 civilians." Although most skirmishes and bombings are blamed on Taliban forces or members of Al Qaeda, attacks are also carried out by rival warlords, opium magnates and other armed groups and individuals.
A June 10 article in the liberal Christian Science Monitor explained that "in Afghanistan, where warlords have become politicians, personal vendettas and political killings have taken place under the guises of the Taliban and Al Qaeda insurgency. 'A lot of the country is still in the hands of warlords and local commanders and when the central government tries to replace or rearrange them, there is some sort of violent backlash,' says a high-ranking Afghan security official."
In May, a Newsweek report on the mistreatment of copies of the Koran at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, triggered massive protests, some of which were met with violent repression by the government. The protests were initially led by students in Jalalabad in the country's east but spread to Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, and other areas throughout the country.
During a May 11 press conference in Brussels, Karzai adamantly, although unconvincingly, insisted that the protests were not a product of "anti-American sentiment", but only a protest over the alleged "desecration of the holy Koran in Guantanamo". "It is also a manifestation of democracy. Afghanistan is now a democratic country. People can come out and protest and demonstrate and express themselves" Karzai said according to Radio Free Europe.
However, Karzai also claimed that "Afghanistan, as [a] democratic state, is not yet ready with institutions to handle [protests]" and so the US-led foreign forces occupying Afghanistan need to remain.
Afghan security forces killed a number of protesters during the demonstrations, including four protesters in Jalalabad who were allegedly shot by police when they prevented US troops returning to their barracks in the city. Those arrested during Jalalabad's protests allegedly include three members of socialist group Left Radicals of Afghanistan.
A May 17 analysis by Michael Weinstein for the Power and Interest News Report assessed that the protests showed "discontent with Karzai and his Western backers runs deeper in Afghan society than the 'remnants' of the Taliban". Although the Newsweek story provided the spark for the protests and riots, the ongoing US military presence and Washington's plans for permanent military bases on Afghan soil, which would help the US to encircle Iran, one of the nations that remains on Washington's hit-list of rogue countries. The May 13 New York Times quoted one of the student protesters in Kabul: "The students are calling in one voice: we don't want American bases in Afghanistan."
A Joint U.S.-Afghan Declaration for Strategic Partnership signed by US President George Bush and Karzai on May 23, declares that "U.S. military forces operating in Afghanistan will continue to have access to Bagram Air Base and its facilities, and facilities at other locations as may be mutually determined and that the U.S. and Coalition forces are to continue to have the freedom of action required to conduct appropriate military operations based on consultations and pre-agreed procedures". In short, the Afghan government has agreed that US military forces in Afghanistan can do whatever they please.
From Green Left Weekly, June 29, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.