Usual caveat re: the blinkers worn by the specific organization in question, but still worth at least looking at (even if just to pick it apart) - like, for example, if corruption is such a big issue, how will a government run licensing scheme guarantee no drug money to bad guys??? Highlights are mine.
The next two months will be ‘make or break’ in southern Afghanistan as threat of a major spring offensive from Taliban looms
The cities of Lashkar Gah and Kandahar are in the sights of the Taliban
Poppy crop eradication has started this year, sparking a new wave of violence –eradication will further fuel Spring offensive as anger mounts already
Senlis Council news release, 14 Feb 07
Article Link -
Latest Report
LONDON - A ‘make or break’ situation is facing the international community in southern Afghanistan in the coming months, with the threat from the Taliban of a major spring offensive against international forces. Musa Qala fell two weeks ago – the Taliban now have the big towns in their sights and anyone who can leave has already left. The latest Field Report from The Senlis Council, Counter Insurgency in Afghanistan: Losing Friends and Making Enemies concludes that
the international communities’ own policies are responsible for the dramatic loss of support for the Karzai government and international presence in the southern provinces of Afghanistan over the past year - and for the rise in the insurgency.
“With our own policies, we have created our own enemies,” said
Norine MacDonald QC 
, Founding President of The Senlis Council, who has lived and worked in Afghanistan for the past two years. “The policies implemented by the international community have created these resentful and poor young men who cannot feed their families, and they are now being easily recruited by the Taliban. Through these misguided policies, the international community has turned southern Afghanistan into a recruitment camp for the Taliban”.
One insurgency – two types of insurgents
“Although the insurgency in southern Afghanistan is extremely complex, it can be divided up into two basic groups,” said MacDonald. “
There is a core Taliban insurgency which has ties to the Global Jihad, Al Qaeda movement, and a ‘Grassroots’ Taliban insurgency which is driven by extreme poverty.” Recruitment to the grassroots insurgency has exploded in the last year because the local population is becoming increasingly poor, more desperate and more resentful of the international community’s actions. “The Taliban are a very competitive employer, offering wages with which no other employer can compete,” said MacDonald. “They are able to recruit so easily because people cannot feed their families.” The Taliban offer up to $12 a day against the $2 a day for a soldier in the Afghan Army.
Legitimate Grievances must be addressed to calm the insurgency
“There are many legitimate grievances of the local Afghan population which could be simply and inexpensively dealt with.” said MacDonald. “New Taliban recruitment could be avoided by simply showing local communities that the international community is in Afghanistan to help, leaving the ‘Global Jihad Insurgents” as the only legitimate enemy.”
Legitimate grievances include the large numbers of civilian deaths, injuries and displacements caused by fighting; forced poppy crop eradication while many farmers are still fully dependent on poppy crops to feed their families; the lack of food aid and humanitarian assistance; the overall lack of development; the perception that the Karzai government is a puppet regime; the lack of public facilities such as hospitals and schools and the perception that the international community does not respect the culture and traditions of Afghanistan.
Reality check: the need to re-assess counter-insurgency in Afghanistan
Humanitarian aid, development and institution building have been under-funded and neglected during five years of international presence in Afghanistan. “This is a blatant disregard of the established counter insurgency theories, which advocate a complete package of diverse development based interventions such as medical assistance and education, in addition to the necessary military responses,” said MacDonald. For example, no provision has been made for treating the large numbers of civilian casualties which occur due to fighting and bombing in the southern provinces. According to Case Study also released the Senlis Afghanistan today, the two hospitals in Kandahar and Lashkar Gah are in a state of total disrepair and wholly unequipped to deal with any emergency war zone trauma or the widespread malnutrition now found in the area.. (These two hospitals of 600 are also the only health care facilities for a population of about 4 million)
“The people of Afghanistan have become the unwilling victims of a war which is not their own,” said MacDonald. “Proper provision has not been made according to the Geneva Conventions for civilian casualties in a war zone where international troops are actively fighting. These people feel that they have been abandoned by the International Community. The hospitals have no equipment, no medicines, no blood, no heating. For the most part, civilians injured in the bombing campaigns are abandoned by the international community.” The case study which accompanies the report provides examples of the unnecessary suffering caused by the lack of facilities and investment. One 8 year old girl died from burns at the hospital in Helmand in January for the lack of about £20 pounds worth of medicine. She also died after three days of agony due to lack of any medicinal painkiller –
a tragic irony for someone who comes from the place in the world which produces the raw materials for essential painkilling medicines.
In 2006, some 2000 NATO bombing campaigns were executed over southern Afghanistan, causing an estimated 4000 civilian deaths and an untold number of casualties, for which there is practically no possibility of treatment. “The insurgency in southern Afghanistan has been fuelled by the neglect of the international community to address vital issues such as emergency treatment for victims of the international forces’ bombing campaigns, or the widespread starvation now present in Southern Afghanistan” said MacDonald.
Forced poppy crop eradication must stop.
Crop eradication is destroying livelihoods, creating even more poverty and has proved to be wholly ineffective – last year alone, cultivation was up by 60% despite large-scale crop eradication – yet it is the strategy that the international community, led by the United States, is still pushing for this year. By sitting back and allowing this destructive and counterproductive policy to be applied, the UK is complicit in a policy which is undermining its own military forces. “The international community has failed the Afghan government,” said MacDonald. “The Karzai government often bears the brunt for what are essentially failures of the international community
The increasing number of civilian deaths and injuries from the NATO bombing campaigns in the south has directly contributed to the disintegration of the local population’s support for the international community and their troops, and decreased support for President Karzai.” “This year’s crop eradication campaign has just started and promises to be even bigger than last year,” said MacDonald. “It has already brought with it new fighting – a foretaste of the carnage we can expect as the eradication unfolds this spring.”
Opium licensing – a practical solution for southern Afghanistan’s opium crisis
The Senlis Council has been working on a proposal to license the opium grown in Afghanistan. This would supply livelihoods for many of the rural communities, whilst at the same time providing much needed essential medicines such as morphine and codeine, for which there is currently a world shortage. Opium poppy is a very hardy crop and one of the only ones which can grow in the harsh climate of southern Afghanistan, especially under the current conditions of drought.
The Council is currently calling for the implementation of a series of pilot projects in Southern Afghanistan.
Development and aid must start to match military interventions to show support for the drought stricken, under-nourished local people and gain their support. The need is urgent, or their support will be lost to the insurgents, who are offering them food and money now.
Not only has the international community failed to deliver the necessary aid to Afghanistan, it has exacerbated the desperate situation of the people by unleashing a brutal bombing campaign, using the elimination of the Taliban as justification
Destruction is more extensive than reconstruction in southern Afghanistan
The Report notes that the mounting numbers of civilian casualties and deaths resulting from the bombings intended to root out the Taliban, combined with the increasing numbers of families fleeing their home villages because they have been caught-up in violence, intensifying the conflict in the south of the country, and have provided a perfect breeding ground for Taliban propaganda and Taliban recruitment. Two thousand six hundred bombing missions were flown this year under the instructions of the international community.
Recommendations
1) Immediate cessation of forced poppy crop eradication and bombing raids
2) Immediate widespread food aid An end to the strategy of fear and destruction – a full assessment on the nature and extent of the bombing campaigns
3) Compensation to civilian victims of bombings
4) Military paramedics and field hospitals to aid civilian war casualties
5) The rebuilding of existent hospitals and the construction of new ones
6) Compensation for and rebuilding of villages destroyed by the bombing campaign
7) A complete overhaul of failed counter-narcotics strategies – crop eradication must stop
8) Pilot projects for an opium licensing scheme for the production of medicine
9) Compensation to civilian victims of bombings
10) Development and aid investments equal to military spending
11) To create stability by applying a robust economic response the grassroots insurgency
12) To create a shared long term vision for Afghanistan and to
stop imposing ‘Western’ ideals.
The Economic Stablisation Process must provide an economic alternative to the young men to joining the ranks of the Taliban.The Economic Stablisation Process must provide an economic alternative to the young men to joining the ranks of the Taliban.
The Senlis Council is an international policy think tank with offices in Kabul, London, Paris and Brussels. The Council’s work encompasses foreign policy, security, development and counter-narcotics policies and aims to provide innovative analysis and proposals within these areas. The extensive programme currently underway in Afghanistan focuses on global policy development in conjunction with field research to investigate the relationships between counter-narcotics, military, and development policies and their consequences on Afghanistan’s reconstruction efforts. Senlis Afghanistan has field offices in the Afghan cities of Lashkar Gah and Kandahar.
