Afghanistan, Now Godforsaken/ US's campaign in Afghanistan obviously ended in a failure/pravda/06/21

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Afghanistan, Now Godforsaken
06/21/2003 12:26
US's campaign in Afghanistan obviously ended in a failure


News reported from Pakistan might be funny but it is rather sad indeed. Customs officials in Peshawar discovered about one ton of hashish in a batch of 271 washing machines that was to be send to Saudi Arabia. The origin of the drug is quite obvious: Afghanistan.

The Taliban regime was overthrown for about two years ago. Much could have been done within this period since the regime was done with. However it seems that none of the previously designed plans was put into practice. Talibs were not completely crushed and from time to time they organize sorties.

Recently, a 20-kilo bomb was found near the house of Afghanistan-s minister of defense; fortunately it was discovered and neutralized before detonation. A group of terrorists attacked an American military camp in the province of Uruzgan. The attack was repulsed and over 15 bandits were taken captive. There were no casualties among American soldiers. This attack is one of the numerous ones committed over the past several months.

The government headed by Hamid Karzai still controls just part of Afghanistan's territory. So-called field commanders who consider themselves heroes for overthrowing the Taliban regime have distributed the authority among themselves. It is not ruled out that only thanks to field commanders the regime was overthrown. Let's take General Rashid Dustum for instance; the man belongs to the anti-Taliban coalition and leads the Uzbek community in Afghanistan. All efforts that the central government made to control the local "princelings" failed. At that, the central government doesn't use force (in fact, it doesn't have any). It happens sometimes that the field commanders cannot be tempted to take governmental posts. Indeed, they don't find governmental positions in Kabul really attractive while control over a small province may guarantee wonderful life for them. Experts say that this year's yield of opium poppy will be unbelievably high in Afghanistan.

This may be a rash conclusion, but it seems that the Afghan campaign of Americans and their allies is almost over. At that, the campaign ended in an absolute failure. The same way as the government of Hamid Karzai, the coalition troops control just those areas where they are stationed. There are lots of problems with appropriation of financial aid to Afghanistan although much has been spoken on the issue. The country in its integrate form no longer exists: Afghanistan has split into dozens of semi-independent districts. In fact, now Afghanistan is in focus only when Talilbs organize another act of terrorism there. Is it possible that problems in Afghanistan are paid less attention to because there is practically no way to settle them?

Vasily Bubnov