The suicide bombing at the Bagram air base in February graphically illustrated the deepening problems for the imperialist forces in Afghanistan. After five years of occupation they could not even protect the most heavily guarded base in the country when US Vice President Cheney was visiting. A report by the US Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said that the occupation was fuelling the Afghan resistance and that NATO operations were doing more harm than good. It criticised NATO for overestimating the number of resistance fighters it has killed and for blaming civilian deaths on the Taliban. The report admitted that most Afghanis were disillusioned with the occupation and that indiscriminate actions by the imperialist forces were ‘creating ten enemies out of one’.
At the end of February, a rally of 25,000 people in Kabul quickly turned into a demonstration against the occupation with chants of ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to the enemies of Afghanistan’. The CSIS report went on to criticise what it called ‘abusive elements’ in the Afghan government and police and among local commanders. It said the Afghan army ‘remains ineffective and is held in low esteem’ and that the legitimacy of the government has ‘deteriorated’. The outgoing commander of US forces, General Kark Eikenberg agreed that ‘a point could be reached at which the government of Afghanistan becomes irrelevant to its people’.
Such a point has probably already been reached, for the government and the Afghan security forces are riddled with bribery and corruption and dominated by warlords and drug barons. Ahmad Wali Karzai, younger brother of the puppet president Hamid Karzai, is himself one of the biggest drug barons. He shares in a heroin trade worth £1.6 billion a year: 50% of the total Afghan GDP. Poor Afghan farmers, who are having their poppy fields destroyed by the imperialist forces and their stooges, have nothing to fall back on. Some have to sell their children because they cannot afford to feed them. Even so, total opium production rose by 25% in 2005-6 and the area under production in 2006 increased by 61%. The eradication programme too is failing.
Imperialist troops from Iraq to Afghanistan
In an attempt to halt the deteriorating situation the US is sending another 3,200 troops, bringing its total to 27,000. They will be diverted from duties in Iraq, causing others to have their tour of duty extended by several months. Britain too is sending a further 1,400 extra troops, bringing its total in Afghanistan to 7,700, more than in Iraq. 600 troops will have to be withdrawn from Bosnia, and Defence Secretary Des Browne has admitted that Britain cannot sustain the extra troop deployment indefinitely. However, he also said the troops will stay until ‘the government of Afghanistan is able to deliver security and economic prosperity’. He did not suggest when that might be. Plans have also been announced to increase the Afghan army from 32,000 to 70,000 by 2008. Additionally, there are tens of thousands of US and British paid mercenaries in Afghanistan.
Despite renewed calls by Bush and Blair for further spending and military commitment by other NATO countries, most are refusing to respond. They will not even agree to supply extra transport aircraft and helicopters that the occupying forces require. France has opposed any idea that the new NATO rapid response force should be used in Afghanistan, saying it is intended for emergency actions only.
The imperialist forces are expecting a spring offensive from the Afghan resistance. The new head of NATO forces in Afghanistan, US General Dan McNeill, was critical of his British predecessor’s policy of establishing local peace deals and favours a more aggressive approach. British patrols will now extend to five provinces in the south and east and include the border with Pakistan.
In February, both Cheney and Labour Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett visited Pakistan’s President Musharraf to ‘persuade’ him to do more to prevent the Taliban and other Afghan resistance forces operating across the border from Pakistan. The border runs through mountainous terrain for 2,500km. Whatever new measures the imperialists employ they have little chance of cutting off fresh supplies and reinforcements to the Afghan resistance.
When the latest phase of the British occupation began just over a year ago the then Labour Defence Secretary John Reid suggested the British troops might come home without a shot being fired; since then they have used over 600,000 rounds of ammunition.
FRFI 196 April / May 2007
