Global Health Nexus

Aids in Afghanistan - (2)

The Lancet has a recent article on the subject: Responding to HIV in Afghanistan:

Averting large numbers of HIV infections through harm reduction programmes will not only save lives but also makes sound development policy, even for a resource-constrained country such as Afghanistan. Because much HIV-related mortality occurs in adults in their productive age, the short-term and medium-term economic consequences for infected individuals, partners, and households are severe.14–15 Although application of estimates from other regions and countries to the Afghan context is difficult, prevailing urban wages and health-care expenditure patterns in Afghanistan,16,17 combined with standard mortality estimates by duration since infection,18 suggest that even if Afghanistan and international donors spend up to $2000 per HIV infection averted, the total economic returns (both private and public) on such an investment would be large—possibly as high as 300% per infection averted. This estimated return takes into account only the costs of wages foregone and of health and home care. The economic benefits would presumably be even higher if the subsequent detrimental outcomes to children and others in a household that suffers an HIV-related death are also included.

FURTHERMORE:

Another Lancet article Health and Money in Afghanistan written on the eve of the Presidential elections in 2004.

Our original post on this subject Aids and Opium Production in Afghanistan from June 15.

Potential political negotiations in Afghanistan?

The great Barnett Rubin had a post over at the Informed Comment Global Affairs blog yesterday that I would think would be of interest to many a concerned Canadian given the fact that we have now lost 70 soldiers and one diplomat in Afghanistan, and there is a serious debate ongoing in our country over the legitimacy and future of the Canadian involvement in the NATO mission there, with many domestic political implications.

Rubin's post has two subjects. The first has to do with the arrest and deportation of former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif upon his return to Pakistan and how it relates to the present political crisis developing in that country.

But the second part has to do with the potential beginning of political negotiations between the Afghan government and the 'Taliban' - a development which would and could directly impact the violence levels and status of combat in the area- Kandahar province - where Canadian troops are fighting and where Canada is in charge of the Provincial Reconstruction Team.

Rubin writes:

The violence continues in Afghanistan, of course, despite the same type of statistically induced optimism as in Iraq on the part of US military commanders. The new British government, however, having conducted its review of Iraq and Afghanistan policy, decided to pull out of Basra and reportedly has told Washington that in Afghanistan, we are "winning the battles but losing the war.” Apparently the glass is half empty and getting emptier.

But a small item deserves to be watched: according to AFP a "senior Taliban spokesman" told their correspondent, "For the sake of national interests ... we are fully ready for talks with the government." This follows by one day yet another public offer of negotiations from President Hamid Karzai.

This could be another soon-to-be-denied random report. But it occurs in a context where Karzai has repeatedly offered such negotiations with no apparent hindrance from Washington.

At the August Afghan-Pakistan Peace Jirga in Kabul, the participants decided to constitute a smaller jirga of 50 (25 from each country) to "engage in "dialogue for peace and reconciliation with opposition." This jirga took place in part thanks to U.S. engagement, and senior officials have privately said they fully support this initiative. In Pakistan, Mawlana Fazlur Rahman, the leader of Jamiat-i Ulema-i Islam, the Deobandi party that is more or less the godfather of the Taliban, offered cautious support to the process. Fazlur Rahman had boycotted the Jirga on the grounds that the Taliban were not represented there, but he did not rule out joining the process in the future.

Fazlur Rahman has outlined what a settlement would look like. Last November in Peshawar, Ahmed Rashid and I heard him address a "Pakhtun Peace Jirga" organized by the Pashtun Nationalist Awami National Party. Fazlur Rahman, whose party had participated in Pakistani elections and has at times been an electoral ally of the PPP, said he "could not deny to others what I claim for myself." Just as JUI participated in elections in Pakistan, the Taliban could do so in Afghanistan, but not while they were labeled "terrorists" and foreign troops occupied the country.

That is the first and principal (though not sole) obstacle to negotiations: are the Taliban the organization that harbored the terrorists of 9/11, who therefore must, in President Bush's words, "share their destiny?" Or are they an Afghan armed opposition group that has not yet joined the peace process that started with the Bonn Agreement? Will returning Taliban be reintegrated or sent to Guantanamo?

If quoted correctly, the Taliban spokesman offered an interesting hint: he spoke of "national interests." This is not a term commonly employed by Bin Laden and Zawahari. There have been many signs, especially since the invasion of Iraq, that the Taliban have become radicalized and moved toward a global Islamism foreign to their origins. But Taliban ground commanders, like the mujahidin commanders of the 1980s (in some cases their fathers or uncles) sometimes make local deals for local reasons. President Karzai's spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, responded to the report with the standard formula, that "government's doors are open to anyone who agrees to obey the constitution and other laws of the country to join peace."

The status of those Taliban leaders branded by the U.S. as harborers of al-Qaida and listed by the UN Security Council as terrorists subject to sanctions could pose an obstacle, as well as the question of foreign troops. But the internal ethnic cleavage and the regional situation will also complicate matters. Domestically, the former Northern Alliance leaders by and large have opposed any hint of dialogue with the Taliban. Significant sectors of the northern population retains memories of conquest and massacre by the Taliban. But their former political leader, former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, reportedly stated last week at a seminar in Peshawar that "Taliban should be given representation in the sub-jirga formed in line with the declaration of the joint Afghanistan-Pakistan Peace Jirga last month."

Regional resistance may be harder to overcome. Russia refuses to countenance the removal from the sanctions list even of the current Governor of Uruzgan Province, a former Taliban commander who has collaborated well with a Dutch NATO contingent and made the province more secure. Even as the U.S. has escalated claims that Iran is aiding the Taliban, Iranian diplomats privately warn the U.S. against making a political deal with the Taliban.

Such a deal could constitute a rough Afghan equivalent of U.S. policy in Anbar Province, Iraq. In 2001-2002, the U.S. cooperated with Iran to use the Northern Alliance to occupy the ground vacated by the Taliban and to bolster the authority of the new Afghan administration. While the Northern Alliance's ties to Iran are weaker and more purely pragmatic than those of Iraq's Shi'a leaders, Iran and the U.S. both see them as potential (though unreliable) Iranian assets in Afghanistan. Whether or not the U.S. has in view such a strategic shift toward "moderate" Taliban (I have no direct evidence of it), Iran will surely suspect that it does and react accordingly. In the context of rising tensions with the U.S. over Iraq and Tehran's nuclear program, such political changes could link the two wars even more closely, mostly (as usual) to the detriment of the aspirations of Afghans for a semblance of a normal life after decades of war.

It is worth exploring indications that those currently fighting the Afghan government, NATO, and US in Afghanistan are willing to adopt a national political agenda that could, in principle, be a subject of negotiation. But if Bin Laden's support base among Taliban in the tribal territories of Pakistan continues to grow, and if the Pakistani state continues to disintegrate, the incentives for maximalist positions will grow as well. If tensions between the U.S. and Iran escalate, the result may be reconfigured war rather than peace. And if the U.S. presses on with aggressive opium poppy eradication in southern Afghanistan, efforts at consolidating government authority in the vulnerable areas bordering what Rashid calls Pakistan's "badlands" may collapse.

Political negotiations are the only possible route for ending the fighting in the south of Afghanistan. But it would certainly be ironic if 'escalating tensions' between the U.S. and Iran not only torpedoed any hope of political negotiations with the Taliban, but actually triggered some kind of reversal where essentially present allies become enemies and enemies become allies, and NATO and American forces found them selves fighting alongside Pashtun allies (the Taliban are a Pashtun insurgency, and largely the creation of the Pakistani military Intelligence - the ISI) against Afghan militias aligned with Iran. But such is the nature of fighting a counterinsurgency, and things shift in Afghanistan all the time.

And the present much touted success of 'The Anbar model' in Iraq has all kinds of implications for the present Western military effort in the Middle East and Central Asia. The Sunni tribes who are now American allies in Anbar province in Iraq after all were once insurgents trying to kill them not that long ago. Kind of a case of the classic dictum of - 'if you don't negotiate with your enemies who else do you negotiate with?' - once again apropos. Not to mention 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'.

And as this guy was also once an Iraqi Sunni tribesman allied with the United States, as this guy was once considered by some a CIA asset, I certainly think there is much legitimacy to Senator Robert Byrd's question to General David Petraeus during the Senate hearings the other day that when it comes to the 'Anbar Model' is this another case of a 'short-term policy with still unforseen long term implications'?

But it does seem to be the kind of thing that is threatening to break out all over.

And I don't know what it means for the Bush Administration's 'Freedom Agenda' or the 'maximalist positions of the neoconservatives but if it brings down the violence, at this point - why not?

What's the alternative besides perpetual war?

Afghan Civilian Casualties

"While we rightly denounce the immorality of the Taliban, lets take a moment to look in the mirror.".

So writes Ira Chernus, a Professor of Religious Studies at the Univeristy of Colorado at Boulder, in this piece from commondreams.org - referring specifically to the recent change in NATO military strategy in Southern Afghanistan which has accompanied the change in NATO command there. Beginning in Febuary, American 4 Star General Daniel McNeil took over from General David Richards of the British Army, and in turn dramatically changed tactics. The leadership change also accompanied an increase in American troop presence. In response to the much ballyhooed threat of a Taliban "spring offensive" General McNeil - who was previously in Afghanistan as a 'participant/observer' in the setting up of the CIA Interrogation Center at Bagram Military Base - has now apparently greatly enlarged the use of NATO bombings as a tactic in the war against the Taliban, which is in turn, of course, greatly increasing the rate of Afghan civilian casualties. (And as confirmed in this Guardian story.) General Richards apparently advocated a softer approach when dealing with the 'insurgency' in the southern part of the country,while General McNeil has now earned himself the moniker of 'Bomber McNeil', among British troops and others.

In my view, and the view of many others, this tactic will of course prove counterproductive, (to put it mildly), if it doesn't in fact evolve into something far, far worse than it is now. (Richard Nelville of counterpunch.org, even goes so far as to wonder whether General McNeil is a psychopath) It is also monstrously, enormously short-sighted. Whatever perceived military gains might be imagined or foreseen in using air power to in push back a Taliban 'spring offensive', (if there are any at all to be had), will be miniscule compared to inevitable evaporation of support for Western forces which will take place and is taking place among the Afghan civilian population; as well as the potential recruitment bonanza for the Taliban themselves. (or accurate the'Neo-Taliban' We always have to imagine ourselves in the shoes of the other. How can we expect Afghans to support a mission that is indiscriminantely killing civilians - their friends, families and neighbours? Only to then refer to such known inevitabilities as 'errant', and/or 'mistakes'? Such results are inherent to the choice of this policy, and everybody knows it. The rest is denial. (though never underestimate the power of denial) Its is simply not even remotely good enough to declare the Afghan conflict a just war, the good war and all that; support the troops and leave the table feeling just so comfortable in our self-satisfaction. And I speak as someone who initially supported this mission to Afghanistan, including Canadian involvement. We have to look at the consequences and the moral implications of the specific policies and tactics being advanced and pursued in our name. And the moral implications and limitations of this particular policy just cannot be overstated. Because the real reason for this policy is that it exists in compensation for the limitations of our seeking a military solution to this Afghan crisis in the first place. And the limitations of our attentions spans, moral imaginations, and our politics. There is no way out of political solution in Afghanistan, and even that may be next to impossible to come by in the years to come.

But the always excellent Tom Engelhardt of the always excellent TomDispatch.com gets far deeper into this than I ever could in his recent article calling for "and honest discussion" of the use of air power".

He writes:

American (and NATO) officials regularly make the point that the enemy's barbarism -- and from car-bombs to a six year-old boy sent to attack Afghan soldiers wearing a suicide vest, their acts have indeed been barbarous -- is always intentional; the killing of noncombatants by American planes is always an "inadvertent" incident, an "accident," and so, of course, the regrettable "collateral damage" of modern warfare.

Recently, however, in Afghanistan, such isolated incidents from U.S. or NATO (often still U.S.) air attacks have been occurring in startling numbers. They have, in fact, become so commonplace that, in the news, they begin to blur into what looks, more and more, like a single, ongoing airborne slaughter of civilians. Protest over the killings of noncombatants from the air, itself a modest story, is on the rise. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, dubbed "the mayor of Kabul," has bitterly and repeatedly complained about NATO and U.S. bombing policies. ACBAR, an umbrella organization for Afghan and international relief and human rights organizations, has received attention for claiming that marginally more civilians have died this year at the hands of the Western powers than the Taliban; and, most recently, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has made a "'strong' appeal to military commanders in Afghanistan to avoid civilian casualties."

In all of this, the weakening of the American and NATO position in Afghanistan, and of the American one in Iraq, continue to play crucial roles -- while these repeated air-power "incidents" lead into conceptual territory that is simply never touched upon in our mainstream media.

And writes further:

Air War: Afghanistan

Even from such a partial list (see article) -- undoubtedly lacking information from Iraq, where the air war has been notoriously overlooked by American reporters -- a pattern can be seen. But beyond the loss of innocent lives (always, when finally admitted, officially "regretted" by the U.S. military), why should any of this matter?

Let's start this way: Barring an unexpected change of policy, some version of this list of "errant" incidents, multiplied many times over, is likely to represent the future for both Afghanistan and Iraq. The obvious math of the military manpower situation in both countries tells us this is so -- as does history.

In Afghanistan this year, Taliban suicide attacks alone have increased by 230%, while Iraq-style roadside IEDs are also a growing threat. In eastern Afghanistan, where the U.S. leads NATO operations, "militant attacks" rose 250% compared to May 2006, according to the U.S. military. NATO and American troop levels, now somewhere in the range of 46,000-50,000 -- approximately 20,000 of whom are from European countries and Canada -- remain woefully inadequate for securing the country (if such a thing were even possible) and NATO casualties are on the rise.

Afghanistan, after all, is far larger than Iraq and is being garrisoned by a combined force less than a third the size of the occupying force in that country, which itself is universally considered inadequate to the task. It's a fair bet that the various European powers (and the Canadians) are wondering how they ended up in this distant war in a land that has historically been a graveyard for conquerors and occupiers. In Canada and various European countries, as casualties rise and success of any sort seems beyond reach, the Afghan deployments are becoming increasingly unpopular.

Don't expect reinforcements from NATO countries any time soon; while the U.S. Army and Marines, already stretched beyond capacity by the recent "surge" in Iraq, are probably incapable of reinforcing their Afghan contingent in any significant way. By elimination, this leaves one weapon in the American/NATO arsenal, air power, which is, in fact, ever more in use in response to a surge in Taliban ambushes and limited takeovers of villages (and even entire districts) in the Afghan south.

As the Europeans are well aware, air power -- given the civilian casualties that invariably follow in its wake -- is intensely counterproductive in a guerrilla war. "Every civilian dead means five new Taliban," was the way a British officer just returned from Helmand Province put it recently.

However, an air-power strategy fits American predilections to a tee. As a Reuters piece aptly headlined the matter, the Americans in Afghanistan are "hooked on air power." Americans have long been so. After all, with the singular exception of various Central American proxy wars during the Reagan years, air war has essentially been the American way of war since World War II. The Bush administration fought its Afghan War of 2001 largely from the air in support of the well-paid-off ground forces of the Northern Alliance, aided by Special Forces troops and lots of CIA money in suitcases. (In Iraq, of course, the invasion of March 2003 started with a massive air attack meant to "decapitate" Saddam Hussein's regime -- it did no such thing -- while having the side benefit of shocking-and-awing hostile states in the region.)

Even after American ground forces moved in, Afghanistan has never ceased to be an Air Force war. B-1 bombers have been called in relatively regularly there (unlike in Iraq) and air strikes in the Afghan countryside have become a commonplace. By November 2006, David Cloud of the New York Times -- who flew on a B-1 mission over the country (and noted that a similar flight the week he went up had "dropped its entire payload of eight 2,000-pound bombs and six 500-pound bombs after ground units called for help") -- reported that the use of air power had risen sharply there. More than 2,000 air strikes had been called in during the previous six months, with a concomitant rise in civilian casualties. In addition, the Air Force's full contingent of B-1s had been "shifted over the summer from the British air base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to a Middle Eastern airfield closer to Afghanistan," cutting mission flight time by a critical two hours.

Though no post-November 2006 figures are available, the recent spate of reported "incidents" confirms that missions have risen again this year, along with noncombatant deaths. According to Laura King of the Los Angeles Times, in a piece typically headlined, "Errant Afghan Civilian Deaths Surge": "More than 500 Afghan civilians have been reported killed this year, and the rate has dramatically increased in the last month." Local dissatisfaction and bitterness are also noticeably on the rise.

The Karzai government remains weak, ineffective, and corrupt, while Taliban strength grows in southern Afghanistan and across the border in the Pakistani tribal areas. There, for instance, Jane Perlez and Ismail Khan of the New York Times reported that, according to a secret document from the Pakistani Interior Ministry, "the Taliban have recently begun bombing oil tank trucks that pass through the Khyber area near the border on their way to Afghanistan for United States and NATO forces. A convoy of 12 of the trucks was hit with grenades and gutted on Thursday night in the third such incident in a month."

To all of this, air power is the "NATO" answer for the present and the future, the only answer in sight, however counterproductive it may prove to be.

According to a report in the British press, American General Dan McNeill, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, has already been dubbed "Bomber McNeill" (and it's not meant to be a compliment). Despite periodic "reviews of procedures," nor is his strategy -- call in the planes -- likely to change any time soon. The U.S. military (and NATO officials) have essentially confirmed this. Despite a growing chorus of criticism in Afghanistan (and among NATO allies), Army Brig. Gen. Joseph Votel has praised the "extensive procedures" in place "to avoid civilian casualties." "We think the procedures that we have in place are good -- they work," he told reporters. U.S. spokespeople have recently indicated that NATO is not about to "change its use of air power against the Taliban."

So, in Afghanistan, the future is already clear enough. More Taliban attacks mean more air strikes mean more dead noncombatants ("including women and children") mean more alienated, angry Afghanis in a spiral of devolution to which no end can yet be foreseen.

And finally:

Here's the simplest truth of air power, then or now. No matter how technologically "smart" our bombs or missiles, they will always be ordered into action by us dumb humans; and if, in addition, they are released into villages filled with civilians going about their lives, or heavily populated urban neighborhoods where insurgents mix with city dwellers (who may or may not support them), these weapons will, by the nature of things, by policy decision, kill noncombatants. If an AC-130 or an Apache helicopter strafes an urban block or a village street where people below are running, some carrying weapons and believed to be "suspected insurgents," it will kill civilians. The disadvantage of "distant war" is that you normally have no way of knowing why someone is running, or why they are carrying a weapon, or usually who they really are.

Once Americans find themselves engaged in a guerrilla war, the urge is naturally to bring to bear military strengths and limit casualties -- and the fear is always of sending American troops into an "urban jungle," or simply a jungle, where the surroundings will serve to equalize a disproportionate American advantage in the weaponry of high-tech destruction. In distant war, particularly wars where Americans alone control the skies and can fly in them with relative impunity, the trade-off is clear indeed: our soldiers for their civilian dead "including women and children."

This is not an aberrant side effect of air war but its heart and soul. The airplane is a weapon of war, but it is also a weapon of terror -- and it is meant to be. From the beginning, it was used not to "win over" enemy populations -- after all, how could that be done from the distant skies? -- but to crush or terrorize them into submission. (It has seldom worked that way.)

Then, there's another factor that has to be added in. What if you don't really care -- not all that much anyway -- who is running in the street below you?

Since 1945, American air power has regularly been used to police the imperial borders of the planet. It has, that is, been released against people of color, against what used to be called the Third World. (Serbia in 1999 was the sole exception to this rule.) As Afghan President Karzai put the matter in response to recent reports of civilian casualties in his country: "We want to cooperate with the international community. We are thankful for their help to Afghanistan, but that does not mean that Afghan lives have no value. Afghan life is not cheap and it should not be treated as such." (His bitter comment eerily reflects another from the Vietnam era, more than thirty years gone. "The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. Life is plentiful. Life is cheap in the Orient" -- so said former commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam General William Westmoreland in 1974.)

It may be that American administrations would have been no less willing to release their bombs and missiles on white noncombatant populations (as was the case with Germany in World War II); but it can at least be said that, for the last half-century-plus, air power has functionally acted as an armed form of racism, that the sense of "their lives" as cheaper, even if seldom spoken aloud, has made it easier to use the helicopter, the bomber, the Hellfire-missile-armed Predator drone. The fact is that air war always cheapens human life. After all, from the heights, if seen at all, people must have something of the appearance of scurrying insects. It is the nature of such war, and an ingrained racism, seldom mentioned any more, only adds to it.

Its an excellent article and I would encourage everyone to read it. TomDispatch often congratulate themselves on their coverage of the consequences of the use of Air Power in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well they should. It is a story that goes grossly undereported in the 'mainstream media'.

As the article mentions Afghan President Hamid Karzai has now ordered an investigation. And that Taliban suicide bombings, a tactic that didn't exist in the country before 2003 Iraqi invasion, are rising dramatically. Dramatically? A 230% rise in the last year according to the Engelhardt article. 230%!

230%! And so what are we to deduce from these numbers? Dear Reader, I'm no statistician but do you think its possible that there may be a correlation? Air Power seems like its remarkably effective against these kind of attacks - no? The question I always want to ask is how do you militarily initmidate people who are willing to blow themselves up? Why from thousands of miles up of course. Obvious enough. How about the guy who just lost his family to an 'errant' NATO bombing attack? How's he feeling? What do you suppose he's fixing to do? But of course none of this is our fault. We're just responding to Taliban hiding amongst civilian populations. No choice.

The Assassinations of high profile Women and female journalists in Afghanistan

Zakia Zaki

.

Here's a story I missed.

On June 6, 2007, Zakia Zaki, a radio reporter who headed the U.S. funded Radio Peace, a schoolteacher and headmaster of a school for girls in Parwan province was shot seven times as she slept. Three gunmen were believed to have executed the killing though no one has been arrested as of yet. "She was one of the few female journalists in the country to speak out during the Taleban's rule.". The New York Times picked up the story here. Her assassination comes only a week after another female journlist, 22 year old Shakiba Sanga Amaj, a news reader for the privately owned Shamshad TV channel - was also shot and killed in her home. (This one looks like it resulted from a hitman hired by the family from whom she spurned a marriage proposal) On May 18, 2005, Shama Rezayee (24) a former veejay for the show Pop, on Tolo TV - the most watched show on the most popular station in Kabul was also shot dead in her home. Her killing came a couple of months after she was fired from her jop by the station's managers. The channel had been under much pressure from critics who felt that Ms. Rezayee was portraying "unIslamic values". Then there was the killing last fall of Safia Amajan (65), the former Head of The Department of Women's Affairs in Kandahar province.

Reporters without Borders has a list of the number of reporters murdered in Afghanistan, by the year, since 2002 - here.

And in the Youtube video below is an interview from On The Map with Avi Lewis where Avi Lewis delivers a fair and sober interview, I think, with Ann Jones, an American who lived in Afghanistan for four years following 911 and who is the author of Kabul in Winter.

"When you hear about the democratic aspirations of the - fill in the blank - people, you can bet that the women's movement of that country is about to be invoked. Its invoked in Iran. Its invoked in Iraq. And it was certainly a 'cause celebre' in Afghanistan.", Mr. Lewis says, which I think is fair, since I have frequently done it myself. "A lot of progressive people were completely swept up by that idea.".

When Ann Jones talks about "Feminists, the only people in the U.S. who had protested about the Taliban Government.", she is primarily referring to the Feminist Majority Foundation: (and) The Campaign Against Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan which was lead by Mavis Leno (the wife of Jay Leno) who were a big deal in the late 1990's and very successful - succeeding in completely reversing the American position on the Taliban during the Clinton Administration. They were often in alliance with RAWA: Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. Chris Johnson and Jolyon Leslie write in Afghanistan: The Mirage of Peace ( a book I have quoted before):

By late 1997 US attitudes to the Taliban had changed. In a testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations subcomitee in October 1997, Assistant Secretary of State Karl Inderfurth spoke of America wanting to see an Afghan government that was 'multi-ethnic, broad-based, and that observes international norms of behaviour'. Visiting an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan in November, US Secretary of State Madeline Albright put it more bluntly: 'I think it is very clear why we are opposed to the Taliban. Because of their approach to human rights, their despicable treatment of women and children and their general lack of respect for human dignity.

While officially the reasons for this change of heart were women, drugs and terrorists, in reality it was much more complex and multi-layered. Certainly the highly influential women's lobby had an effect. In a two-pronged campaign they targeted both UNOCAL and the president. The oil company was attacked in a high-proifile lobbying campaign that helped persuade them that the public relations costs of continuing to court the Taliban were not worth it, especially as the drop in oil prices was beginning to undermine the pipeline's financial viability. Clinton, with his career already rocked by the Lewinksy scandal, decided that he could not afford to alienate female voters further, especially after Hollywood's Liberal stars - key backers of the Democratic campaigns - made Afghan women's rights a cause celebre.

Ann Jones mentions Malalai Joya, a female MP in the Afghan Parliament who despite being 'the second highest vote-getter in her province' has now been kicked out of that Parliament for criticizing some members of Karzai's cabinet. Here is the website of her defense commitee , and here she is in an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now.

And finally, in memorium, here is a Youtube video about Zakia Zaki:

Aids and Opium Production in Afghanistan

A fascinating article from the March 19, New York Times by Carlotta Gall concerning the enigmatic rarely discussed, but potentually explosive subject of Aids In Afghanistan sure got me thinking. From the article:

Though 'the few official surveys' on the subject suggest the number (of confirmed AIDS cases) is quite low - 'there have been 69 recorded cases and just 3 deaths' - health officials warn that the incidence is 'much higher'. "The figure is absolutely unreliable, even dangerous", according to WHO consultant Nilufar Agamberdi. And there are many factors which potenitaly contribute to such a 'danger': A lack of education and government services, mass movements of people and a sudden influx of aid money, commerce and outsiders; also 'Afghanistan is surrounded by countries with fastest growing incidence of Aids in the world - Russia, China and India.'.

Dr. Muhammed Farid Bazger, an HIV/AIDS coordinater with the German aid organization ORA International 'conducted a survey of 126 women who worked in the sex trade. Only one was familiar with condoms, and only one had knowledge of HIV/AIDS. 71% of those surveyed were married, 45 were illiterate.'. And these are the prostitutes. He also related an absolutely harrowing, heartbreaking story about an 'unmarried man who returned from the Arabian Penisula infected with HIV. The man told his father, who, not understanding the consequences told others. Soon, villagers told the father he should kill his son. The son ended up in a brick cell in the family yard, with only a small opening where food was thrown in.'. The man was discovered and freed by Dr. Bazger and ORA international who subsequently made a documentary about him.

And then there are drugs.

As Miodrage Atanasijevic, a coordinator for the French aid group Doctors of the World, which runs a clean needle program in Kabul, said: 'It (AIDS) will become a huge thing. In this country you have a lot of drugs.'.

No kidding.

Now, as everyone is well aware Afghanistan is the largest producer of opium in the world. But just to provide some context and and sense of how this all works - consider the following from their excellent (and highly recommended) book The Mirage of Peace written by veteran aid workers Chris Johnson and Jolyon Leslie:

"The country's rise to this position is inextricably bound up with the course of the war. In 1979 it produced only a few hundred tons, by 2002 this had risen more than fifteen fold to 3400 tons, by 2003 it was 3600 tons (UNDOC 2003B) There are huge profits to made but, large though they are, they represent only 7 per cent of the estimated final street value of US $35 billion 9ATA 2004)

"(T)he country has long grown opium poppies, (but) prior to the Soviet invasion and the uprising it provoked, the amounts cultivated were small and production confined to just a few areas of the country. During the years of Soviet occupation, however, opium became an important source of revenue for the opposition and cultivation expanded. Once the Soviets had withdrawn, production increased still further, in part because foreign sources of money for arms were less easy to come by and drug profits were the obvious substitute. Commanders pushed farmers to cultivate poppy, while damage from the years of fighting reduced other income-generating opportunities. At the same time, Iran's ban of opium poppy cultivation in 1979 left a market gap just waiting to be filled.

"In the 1930's only three provinces grew poppy (even in 1994 it was grown in only eight), but by 2003 it had become an integral part of the rural economy with twenty-eight of the country's thirty-two provinces growing it. All ethnic groups were by now involved, and the exponential rate of expansion were reflected in the fact that thirty-one districts cultivated it for the first time in that year. New areas accounted for about 10 per cent of the cultivation, while the percentage of cultivation concentrated in the top five provinces fell from 95 percent in 2002 to 72 per cent in 2003. This broadening base and spread of networks and knowledge will make the job of eradication immeasurably harder, as it allows production simply to shift from one part of the country to another.

"For many poor people, poppy growing is not only the most profitable activity available, but also the only way of meeting their needs. In many ways it is a miracle crop. It matures quickly, allowing double cropping in many areas, it is more weather resistant than wheat, is easy to store, transport and sell. It is not only the profits that are important. Because opium can easily be stored it acts as a form of savings in a country that until recently was wracked with inflation; and because it is highly valuable, it can be used as collateral to gain access to credit in the absence of any formal banking system in rural areas. The rates are usurious, however, and can be repaid only in opium, leaving farmers trapped into growing more and more. Work done by UNODC showed that in 1998 over 60 per cent of the opium traders in the provinces of Qandahar, Helmand, and Nangarhar provided credits to farmers against opium production. Although the amounts loaned were limited, the repayments terms were harsh. Payments received in advance averaged just 42 per cent of the value of the opium at harvest time. This is the equivalent of an interest rate of 138 per cent for a loan obtained for just a few months. If the loan was not repaid at harvest time then rates doubled or tripled.

"The early years of the Taliban control saw the production of opium rise again with a crop of 4600 tons, some 70 per cent of global production. Then, in July 2000, the Taliban issued a decree banning the cultivation of opium poppy - though not, as was to be often pointed out later, its trade. The ban was too late to the 2000 harvest, but the following year cultivation fell to almost zero in the areas under Taliban control and total production for the country was only 185 tons, almost all of it in areas controlled by the Northern Alliance. Prices rose ten fold. However, while the Taliban had benefited from the opium trade, its structure remained essentially independent and they survived the ban without a problem; indeed there are those who have argued that they actually benefited from it as th resulting rise in prices allowed even greater profits to be made from trafficking.

"The economic rewards of growing poppy are indisputable, if all goes well. Hazarajat produces the best quality opium and, in 2002, a kilgoram fetched US $400 at harvest time, $500 by the end of the season. A small farm of one 'jerib' in size (don't ask me) could produce 5-6 kg. Even if the farmer paid for the labour this is a profit thirty times he could hope to gain by planting wheat.".

And yet, despte of all this, rates of addiction in Afghanistan were always relatively low. There are indications, however, that that seems to be changing. Again, Johnson and Leslie:

"People are also beginning to wake up to the looming public health crisis. So far, Afghanistan has been spared the major problems of drug addiction within its own borders but there signs that this is changing. The relationship between growing and consuming is by no means straightforward; Sunni communities in Badakhshan have been growing opium poppy for years with using it. But these are socially cohesive rural communities; for urban youth, caught between cultures and with no prospect of a decent job, the risks are obvious. Already, increasing rates of addiction are being reported in urban areas, mainly linked to the return of refugees who developed the habit in Pakistan and Iran. It is difficult to get accurate figures, but one estimate is that Kabul alone has at least 20 000 heroin addicts. Smoking is still the most common method of consumption but, according to drug experts, injection is catching up fast, with all the attendant fears.".

The Gall article suggests that Afghanistan might have about 'one million drug users' and that five years ago injectable heroin hit the streets of Kabul.'.

Johnson and Leslie:

"Already there are reports of increasing cases of Hepititus A and B, and unless actions is taken it can only be a matter of time before HIV rates start to rise and and Afghanistan faces an AIDS-related public health crisis. Resources for dealing with the problem are totally inadequate, with Kabul's only facility for treating drug users in Kabul having just ten beds for its six week in-patient programme.

Carlotta Gall writes that 'up unitl this year, the members of the (Afghan) AIDS team worked out of a shipping container on the grounds of The Ministry of Health.". But recently The World Bank had lent them 10 million dolars to help expand the program.

Conflict and Health has an article exploring 'whether differences in HIV awareness and knowledge exist between Afghan IDUs who were refugees compared to those never having left Afghanistan.'.

In light of this development - emerging rates of addiction and a potential HIVAIDS explosion in Afghanistan and the subsequent demands on presently non or scarcely existent social services and the further strain on impoverished families and communities - I guess the question that I would like to raise for larger consideration is whether or not opium production as it now exists in Afghanistan can be made to work as a means of for meeting social service needs in Afghanistan, and not just against them. Yes, I am talking about the incredibly rational proposal of licensing the opium crop in Afghanistan.

Licensing the poppy crop - good for Afghan and even global health? In my opinion - Yes.

The Senlis Council has already done much work and research on this subject, and it all makes for fascinating reading and contemplation, and with their sponsoring of conferences in both Ottawa and London, they are beginning to garner a good deal of attention. In their report on Licensing poppy for medicine in Afghanistan they make the following argument:

Resolving Afghanistan's opium crisis is the key to the international community's successful stabilization and development of the country. Yet, by over-emphasizing failed counter-narcotics strategies such as forced poppy eradication, the United States led international community has aggravated the security situation, precluding the reconstruction and development necessary to remove Afghan farmers' need to cultivate poppy. In 2006 Afghanistan produced 92% of the world's total illegal opium, directly involving at least 13% of the country's population.

A village-based economic solution to Afghanistan's poppy crisis in available, which links Afghanistan's two most valuable resources: poppy cultivation and strong local village control systems. This economic solution is the controlled cultivation of opium poppy for the village-based poppy for medicine model for for Afghanistan based on extensive on-the-ground research as a means of bringing illegal poppy cultivation under control in an immediate yet sustainable manner. The key feature of the model is that village cultivated poppy would be transformed into codeine and morphine tablets in Afghan villages. The entire production process, from seed to medicine tablet, can thus be controlled by the village in conjunction with government and international actors, and all economic profits from medicine sales will remain in the village, allowing for economic diversification.

The Senlis Council is calling for a 'pilot project', in one village, if not more, this 'planting season', to study and see how it goes.

And I guess my point is that some of these 'economic profits' could in turn be made available for the various social services needs as well; for things that are directly attributable to opium production like HIV treatment and drug addiction, (which are not only happening now, and will continue to happen, when the crop is illegal, but are, as we have seen, actually increasing), but even for other priorities like education, health care mine clearance, or even care for the disabled which in turn, could have the effect, as far as anyone knows, of bringing down the pool of potentially available suicide bombers, among other things. It may even help rein in endemic government corruption. And with a such Afghanistan based mechanism of self-financing, Afghans themselves could retain more control over how the proceeds are spent, and not drift further into debt, nor become as beholdent to the various bilateral and multilateral financing institutions, which subsequently in turn tend to control the nation's social and political priorities from afar.

Its not a 'panacea for all that ails Afghanistan' by any means, but it has much potential to be an improvement on the present course.

But the perhaps most important effect such a move could contribute to Afghan recovery and overall health would be a major draw-down in the level of violence, as ending a policy of prohibition usually does. Johnson and Leslie write about how opium production actually brought a level of statbility to some towns and villages because people were finally making a little money. And The Senlis Council is quite extensive on how the present state of 'illegal opium' production actually serves The Taliban, ( and the neo-Taliban) making it even more dangerous for the coalition troops, perpetuating the conflicts and putting local civilians at even greater risk. Licensing of the poppy crop could win us more allies. A 'U.S. style counter-narcotics strategy' is ultimately counter-productive, and actually makes us more enemies, severely damaging the larger cause of stabilizing the region, if that is indeed the point. (And I realize that the entire mission is one that has confused, and often divided Canadians, when they think about it at all.)

And lest anyone think that all of this is of an 'out-of-the-blue-never-been-done-before-pie-in-the-sky' kind of thing might be surprised to discover (as I was) that was, and is already the case in Turkey, which used to be the biggest supplier of opium/heroin but now is not. The Senlis Council provides a political history.

(Incidentally, I am having a hard time figuring just where this 'U.S. style counter-narcotics operation' in Afghanistan stands at the moment. Initially, after the Allied/Northern alliance retaking of the country I believe it was your typical American 'War-On-Drugs' style policy , complete with very lucrative contracts for private contractors like DynCorp. (not unlike Plan Columbia) But then apparently it began to evolve. With the U.S. considering going beyond just plowing fields under to actually spraying them. But then this policy development was being resisted by Afghan government, apparently, as well as other NATO allies. And now NATO appears to be backing off, (or not) telling Afghan local farmers that they would no longer be punished for growing opium poppy.', with the Afghan government now opposed, with Counter Narcotics minister Habibullah Qaderi stating that it was muddy(ing) 'the government's unambiguous anti-narcotics message'. So, like with a lot of things in Afghanistan, I am a little confused.)

FURTHERMORE:

Hitchens weighs in on all this, twice.

Anyone interested in reading any more on Afghanistan could do a lot worse than to read anything by Barnett Rubinthat they can get their hands on. He, to my knowledge, is the preeminent Afghan scholar in North America, if not the world.

Arthur Kent has been reporting from Afghanistan for over 27 years and I just kind of get kick out of him. And now anyone can watch his short documentary reports on the country at skyreporter.com. The almost poetic introduction is entitled 'Not just Guns and Warlords'. Absolutely.