A Dangerous Backslide
Age-old problems-and a new Taliban surge-are dragging the Afghans down
This fact has not gone unnoticed among American troops. During a recent breakfast meeting with soldiers in the 10th Mountain Division at Bagram Air Base, Spc. James Wright asked visiting Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey whether "there's any way we can generate more money towards Afghanistan." Harvey replied that Wright was echoing the concerns of Afghan President Karzai as well, that reconstruction funds were patched together in "pieces and parts." In the months to come, the Bush administration is likely to be seeking significant increases in U.S. funding for the Afghan Army, police, and reconstruction efforts, according to a senior State Department official. In the meantime, however, with things getting no better, people have started to hedge their bets. "They plan for the day that we leave,"says Rubin, "and that makes things much more difficult for us."
Nowhere is that more difficult than in southern Kandahar province, the crossroads of the Taliban's former heartland and the opium trade, which has been the site of some of the most tenacious Taliban fighting. It is in this region that insurgents have capitalized expertly on the fears of the Afghan population, says Seth Jones, a Middle East analyst at Rand. They may not hold territory in a conventional sense, but they wield influence in other ways. "They tell villagers, 'Karzai can't protect you; he can't promise you central services. The Americans have broken their promises.'" What's more, the Taliban has set up shadow governments "in most if not all of the provinces in the south," adds Jones. "And they're trying to convince the people to go to these shadow governments when there's trouble."
Last month, NATO's International Security Assistance Forces-which included most of the combat units from Canada's 2,200-strong contingent-fought back with an offensive dubbed "Operation Medusa." It was what commanders call the NATO alliance's first test of "ground resolve." The U.S. military reported more than 1,000 Taliban killed as they fought in a surprisingly conventional campaign. The offensive was widely considered a success for the alliance, but the U.S. military estimates that somewhere around 4,000 Taliban-about one tenth of whom have some sort of formal military training-remain. And despite tactical successes, there are still tensions within the 37-country coalition about restrictive rules of engagement-so-called national caveats. Jones ticked off a few during an address last week to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington: countries that don't allow their forces to be used at night, for example, or to be used in any fight that involves the Taliban-the later elicited gales of laughter at the council meeting.
Target: Canadians. The Taliban militias are well aware of the rifts, say military analysts, and plan to exploit them with further attacks throughout the winter, traditionally a timeout when snow blocks the mountain passes to sanctuaries in Pakistan. "It's part of an overall strategy to break the alliance," says Jones. "What you see in communiquÃÂÃÂÃÂés is that they view the NATO takeover as a very important window of opportunity." For Canada, which has lost 31 soldiers this year, antiwar sentiment at home is growing, and a measure to extend troop presence in Afghanistan was passed by only a thin majority of the national legislature."We've seen specific targeting of Canadians," says Jones. (The United States has lost 82 soldiers this year, and Britain 35.) And increased violence makes it tougher to persuade partner nations to contribute more troops to the cause.
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