Raining on Karzai's Parade

I had a bad feeling this morning. It was my first full day back in Afghanistan, and I was eyeing the local television preliminary coverage of today's parade which celebrated the Mujahideen's victory over the Soviets. Karzai was there along with MPs, foreign dignitaries and top Afghan commanders. "You couldn't pay me enough to be there. There is no way to provide security at an event like this." I told an Afghan friend. "They've been working on security for a month" he told me. "It will be ok." A few minutes later, shots rang out, a few people seemed to slump in their seats and general chaos broke out. As news cut away from its live coverage and broadcast the same footage again and again, my friend laughed as he translated the words of the soldiers, picked up by the cameras. "Flee, flee!" they said in panicked voices.

A while later, a smiling Karzai came on national TV to assure the nation. His demeanor seemed downright wacky as he grinned into the camera, laughing at the end of his address as he reassured everyone that the Taliban attack had been foiled, making no mention of deaths and injuries inflicted. Later in the afternoon, as I sat in a compound under lockdown, talking heads, MPs and others on television speculated about how Taliban fighters, armed with guns and suicide vests could have gotten within a perimeter that was supposed to have been secured in advance. Trust in Karzai's government seemed to be non-existent. One MP and presidential candidate lambasted the Karzai administration for spending lavishly on the parade while ordinary Afghans struggle to buy food. Another MP demanded that Karzai remove his Ministers of Defense and Interior in the wake of this attack. Some claimed that the Taliban have infiltrated key ministries in the government and that this was an inside job (a claim that was also made after the attack on the Serena Hotel in January.) Others noted that the U.S. and NATO should have permitted the Northern Alliance to finish off the Taliban early after the start of the war.

The last point stuck with me. Of course, the Mujahideen and the Northern Alliance began as Islamic fighters, backed by the U.S. to fight and destroy the Soviets, and Pakistan's ISI cultivated the Taliban in Afghanistan with a nod from the West, so, to a large degree, the problems now engulfing this country are the result of foreign meddling. Still, I'm not sure that the decision to abandon an old ally was the best one in this case. Karzai's government is clearly weak and rife with corruption, and his performance on television today left many with the feeling that he is out of touch and failed to grasp the symbolic significance of this attack. Yet the U.S. been absolute in its backing of his government, which keeps the reigns of power away from the Northern Alliance, the group that helped the U.S. to drive out the Taliban. Pakistan, a key U.S. ally, clearly prefers to see its Pashtun brethren in power over the border, despite the bad blood between Karzai and Musharraf, and many of Afghanistan's educated elite here do come from the Pashtun south. Still the Pashtuns make a strange ally for the U.S., as extremism and deplorable violations of women's right are more rampant and virulent in the south than in other parts of the country.

Watching Karzai today, I couldn't help but wonder what might have happened if the U.S. had stayed out of Iraq and continued to use its resources here to back the Northern Alliance against Al-Qaida and the Taliban. Possibly, the Pashtuns in the south would have fought against the Northern Alliance. But, given the ties of some top Northern Alliance commanders to southern provinces and the distaste for the heavy-handed tactics of the Taliban even in the more conservative south, it is also possible that a broader coalition might have been achieved. In that case, the country might not be as divided as it is now, with Pashtuns in control of the government, and resentment growing among different ethnic groups. New elections will be held here in 2009, and Karzai has already indicated that he enjoys the taste of power. In surveying the political landscape here, the U.S. and its allies should take note of the strengths of a variety of factions within Afghan society and look to support and partner with candidates who have a better chance of uniting Afghans from different ethnic groups. As today's attacks underscore, Karzai's government has failed to bring stability and unity to a country in desperate need of both.

Comments

[Boobaloo]

YOu want Karzai...an American puppet and former oil executive, to bring stability to Afghanistan?

How about if you attempt intelligent analysis, I'll spot you.

[castrochavez08]

Yes, how far off the mark can one writer be? Karzai is the US puppet, former Unocal executive, tasked with the impossible job of seeing the pipeline from the Caspian sea through Afghanistan completed.

He must do this while people starve, the opium trade flourishes, and bombs fall from the sky, and the US "accidentally" drops weapons and food into taliban territory.

Sure blame Karzai, what a perfect fall guy he is being turned into.
He is being turned into a fall guy just like Pastor Wright is being turned into a nut. A mass media blitz on the truth. This article appears to be part of the smear job on the puppet Karzai.

[Arcy]

As the Soviets did, so did other empires before that, Afganistan is not a governable country. There are no easy answers, but maybe it is time to leave.

[Boobaloo]

Arcy: You think the Soviets went to Afghanistan to 'govern' the nation? Where do you get your stupidity CNN?

Easy answers?

The Zionist Neocons have their easy answer; destroy, divide and conquer while the dog wags his tail in Iraq and Iran.

[ruleoflaw66]

this seems to be hung up somewhere--let's try again...

"...lambasted the Karzai administration for spending lavishly on the parade while ordinary Afghans struggle to buy food."

While Karzai is undoubtedly just another corrupt pawn of our imperial military dictatorship and worthy of the same end all of our temporary chess men meet--think Noriega, Saddam, Marcos, etc--I have a hard time finding fault with his behavior given that our president grows fat on the death of thousands of young American troops, and lives in royal splendor while his economic policies have forced over 2 million Americans to lose their home in just one year. There's no dictator in the world that can hold a candle to the self serving greed and hunger for power of this administration.

So before condemning Karzai, you would do well to look at who is holding the other end of his leash.

[Demdem8]

I think the point of the article is that U.S. policy has been fatally flawed and that we've made a mess over there, once again blindly backing a group without understanding what we were actually doing - hardly an endorsement of Bush Administration policy - it sounds more like advice to the next administration about the effect of current policies.

[ruleoflaw66]

We agree, of course. But this line--Karzai's government has failed to bring stability and unity to a country in desperate need of both.--sounds like she's still dropping the mess at his feet, and you and I both know that it's tough for puppets to act in their own self interest.