troung

Afghanistan close to anarchy, warns general
Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday July 21, 2006
The Guardian

The most senior British military commander in Afghanistan today described the situation in the country as "close to anarchy" with feuding foreign agencies and unethical private security companies compounding problems caused by local corruption.

The stark warning came from Lieutenant General David Richards, head of Nato's international security force in Afghanistan, who warned that western forces there were short of equipment and were "running out of time" if they were going to meet the expectations of the Afghan people.

The assumption within Nato countries had been that the environment in Afghanistan after the defeat of the Taliban in 2002 would be benign, Gen Richards said. "That is clearly not the case," he said today. He referred to disputes between tribes crossing the border with Pakistan, and divisions between religious and secular factions cynically manipulated by "anarcho-warlords".

Corrupt local officials were fuelling the problem and Nato's provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan were sending out conflicting signals, Gen Richards told a conference at the Royal United Services Institute in London. "The situation is close to anarchy," he said, referring in particular to what he called "the lack of unity between different agencies".

He described "poorly regulated private security companies" as unethical and "all too ready to discharge firearms". Nato forces in Afghanistan were short of equipment, notably aircraft, but also of medical evacuation systems and life-saving equipment.

Officials said later that France and Turkey had sent troops to Kabul but without any helicopters to support them.

Gen Richards will also take command of the 4,500-strong British brigade in Helmand province at the heart of the hostile, poppy-growing south of the country when it comes under Nato's overall authority. He said today that Nato "could not afford not to succeed" in its attempt to bring long-term stability to Afghanistan and build up the country's national army and security forces. He described the mission as a watershed for Nato, taking on "land combat operations for the first time in its history".

The picture Gen Richards painted today contrasted markedly with optimistic comments by ministers when they agreed earlier this month to send reinforcements to southern Afghanistan at the request of British commanders there. Many of those will be engineers with the task of appealing to Afghan "hearts and minds" by repairing the infrastructure, including irrigation systems.

Gen Richards said today that was a priority. How to eradicate opium poppies - an issue repeatedly highlighted by ministers - was a problem that could only be tackled later.

General Sir Mike Jackson, the head of the British army, said recently: "To physically eradicate [opium poppies] before all the conditions are right seems to me to be counter-productive." The government admits that Helmand province is about to produce a bumper poppy crop and is now probably the biggest single source of heroin in the world. Ministers are concerned about criticism the government will face if planting over the next few months for next year's crop - in an area patrolled by British troops - is not significantly reduced.

Kim Howells, the Foreign Office minister responsible for Afghanistan, told the Guardian that the immediate target had to be the biggest poppy cultivators and dealers who control the £1bn-plus Afghan drug trade.

The strategy should be: "Go for the fat cats, very wealthy farmers, the movers and shakers of the drug trade" and their laboratories, he said. Asked about the concern of British military commanders that by depriving farmers - and warlords - of a lucrative crop, poppy eradication would feed the insurgency, Mr Howells admitted: "It's a big problem for us."

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanista...3,00.html?=rss

__________________
To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

RambozoTheClown

Anarchy- Absence of any form of political authority.

many people have a skewwed view of anarchy.
this definition is largely what real anarchist's believe,
although ideas differ between each individual anarchist.
and more ideas & feelings are combined and added to the definition.
i know first hand considering i am an anarchist.

what afghanistan is close to is the brink of extinction.
unless something productive is done, very very soon.

Bluesman

Ooooo, I just KNEW you were an anarchist. How very INTERESTING and SHOCKING, and so AVANT GARDE.

Meh.

__________________
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

Officer of Engineers

MSgt,

Some tantalizing clues - Rambo, Seatlle, Anarchist, and a stupid clown.

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Chimo

Lunatock

That particular idiot's ip was in the two's & fours. This idot's ip starts at seventy something.

Confed999

Ummm, if you form any kind of political authority, it is no longer anarchy, it is what ever the type of political authority is termed as.

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

Confed999

If it is, he won't last long...

troung

Ban him...

Nope what would be more likely is the government falls, central authority disappears, the already weak state insitutions fall apart and are replaced by locally based ones, regional ethnic/tribal politics and warlords battle for control in the ruins of the ruins. Sort of a repeat of 1992.

Either one faction or coalition take over or in the end they all tire themselves out hold talks and put up a weak national goverment with the real power being held in the provinces. Rinse lather and repeat.

And even that is very far off at the moment.

But "extinction" just sounds so much smarter and explains far better what would likely happen...

Capital letters are a good thing to use...

RambozoTheClown

well something productive has been said, other than attacking me for who i am. and troung i would have to agree with what you have said.

Bluesman

He ain't Rambo. I bet we never agree on anything (unless the thread is about something universally acepted, like, oh, say, butter cookie supremacy as a baked good to rule the world), but this place wouldn't be any fun if we all just posted 'Good post, man!' after one of us found a cool news article or column we liked.

Rambo was a mere oxygen thief. This guy is an idealist.

Boy's wrong, be he's here to put his arguments out there. I say we pitch to him and see if he can hit.

troung

But in which sect of the Butter Cookie?

Ok.

RambozoTheClown

intense.

Bluesman

HAH!

My wife, the fabulously beautiful Lt. Bluesman, says I'm sometimes 'Sergeant Overkill', and she constantly cringes when I post, because she thinks I tee off on y'all too much.

But what does SHE know?

troung

Well great minds do think alike...