A disturbing report from Human Rights Watch shows that civilians are the main victims of the upsurge in Taleban and Al-Qaeda-led violence in Afghanistan. Terrorist attacks which target Afghan or multinational force bases in urban areas often cause large numbers of civilian casualties. Time and again, warplanes have struck with devastating force at Taleban targets, causing the loathsomely named “collateral damage” to many innocent bystanders. Worse still, such attacks have actually hit people who had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorists. The rising use of the suicide bomber also only increases the number of casualties among ordinary people.
Bad as it is in Afghanistan, the violence there is not to be compared with that in Iraq. It is not simply that foreign troops backed by a UN mandate are largely welcome among the Afghans. The Taleban and their allies among Bin Laden’s supporters are widely despised and discredited. Few Afghans want a return to the incompetent and vindictive government of Mullah Omar. There is also the important consideration that much, but unfortunately not all of the violence, is taking place in Helmand province, the Taleban’s heartland. The decision to take the fight to the region from which they draw their major support has probably put the Taleban on the back foot. Had multinational troops allowed them undisputed control of a major opium-producing region, the front line would have come closer to those parts of Afghanistan that are currently stable.
Nevertheless the resurgence of the Taleban in the last five years underlines the series of lost opportunities and the need to make more rapid progress in helping the democratically-elected Karzai government rebuild the country. The most calamitous lost opportunity was the US-led assault on Iraq. It immediately diverted resources and manpower away from the place where international terror had really made its home. If Bush had left Saddam alone and concentrated on helping Afghanistan, he would not only very likely still enjoy international support but Afghanistan would also be a very different place. To a large degree the Afghans have fulfilled their side of the deal struck in Bonn in 2001. Two loya jirgas approved an interim government and then a constitution. Presidential and parliamentary elections followed. But the promised flood of international aid and expertise has never materialized as it should have. Too many of the donors’ commitments made in Bonn remain unfilled. A common early excuse was the country’s inability to absorp large aid flows. Latterly, constant reference is made to the worsening security situation. What this ignores is that one is largely a consequence of the other. As this newspaper argued strongly at the time, the rebuilding of Afghanistan should have been a massive concurrent program in which the risk of corruption took second place to the greater risk of not getting the job done. Even the UN now admits that it has spent too much time and money on procedures and not enough on pressing the projects home. It is still not too late to change gear but things need to happen much sooner rather than later.
