The alleged federal government says we're there to avenge the deaths of 30 Canadians at the hands of Al-Quada, even though such actions are exactly the kind likely to vastly INCREASE Arab hostilities, and that even the FBI has refused to link Al-Quada to 911. All of us who have studied the evidence with an open mind now know that 911 was largely the work of the Military Industrial complex in concert with "New World Order" crime syndicates. [See 911 Big Picture for overview]
How to lose a war - June 21, 2006
Foreign Affairs correspondent Christina Lamb
Remember, Afghanistan was supposed to be the war we were winning, the place Rumsfeld et al referred to as a model?
Well, today I followed some British soldiers up a dusty track, dodging the stream of green sewage, to see a school that left me completely shocked.
Inside the mud-walled compound, 3700 students have no building but study squatting on the ground inside baking hot tents.
There are so many that they attend in three shifts -- you see when politicians boast about 6 million children back at school what they don't tell you is that most are only going for two hours a day.
Saludin Ansari School is not in some remote province but in central Kabul.
Yet four and a half years after the fall of the Taliban, not only do they still have no buildings but no running water or electricity -- the one toilet is a foul-smelling hole.
"They treat the children like garbage", said Habibullah the Pashto teacher.
Remember how Bush and Blair promised that Afghans would never be forgotten again?
No wonder Kabul exploded into riots two weeks ago.
The British soldiers under Brigadier Nick Pope were visibly appalled by what they saw and promised they would do what they could to help, raising money.
A father himself, Brig. Pope was even moved to make a short Blairite speech on the importance of education.
Already they have plans for laying gravel paths and digging wells.
But he and his men will only be in Kabul nine months and it was clear from the headmaster's face that he had quite enough of foreigners promising things and doing nothing.
Between £5b and £10bn in aid has been spent on this country but as I said the other day, it is very hard to see where it has gone.
Even in Kabul, most people have no electricity or running water and there are heaps of garbage everywhere.
What do exist are things like American-funded Women's Centres -- empty buildings where no women attend - but look impressive on USAID websites.
This is not just the fault of the international community but also widespread government corruption -- a vehicle supplier told me yesterday it is now routine to be asked for "gifts" of between 20 and 30% on contracts.
One deputy minister turned down the $120,000 armoured Nissan for which the US was paying and demanded the top of the range $230,000 model because he wanted all the extras such as DVD and electric mirrors.
I cannot think of anywhere I have been where there is such a chasm between the reality on the ground and the claims of the international community inside their heavily-guarded air-conditioned compounds.
It is quite clear that the Taliban are the strongest they have been since their fall, taking over a number of districts not just in their southern heartlands but moving near Kabul, in places like Ghazni, only 100 miles south.
One Afghan friend was travelling up to Kabul on a bus through Ghazni when a passenger sat in the back suddenly walked to the front and changed the music tape for one of Taliban chants.
"There must have been more than 50 people on board yet nobody said a thing, we just all sat through it for two hours."
Lt General Eikenberry, the top US commander in Afghanistan admitted last month that in "several districts" in the south "it's fair to say the Taliban influence is stronger than it was last year".
But he insisted "I am confident the situation will improve by the end of the year".
As one Afghan watcher commented cynically "it usually does -- each winter".
So panicked are President Karzai and his government that they are even bringing back militia -- the very warlord-led groups who led to the emergence of the Taliban in the 1990s.
The official line is to call them "community police".
So that's alright then.
Rather than burying themselves in the sand, both the international community and the Afghan government should have seen the riots as a wake-up call.
As gunshots and burning raged for six hours, President Karzai was locked inside the palace terrified, not surprisingly given the number of his predecessors who have been murdered inside those walls.
Although it was on Afghan government advice, the failure of the British-commanded ISAF troops to come out on the streets to show their presence was taken very badly.
"What are they for if not to protect us?" asked an Afghan poet I had coffee with yesterday afternoon and whose mellifluous voice quoting Rumi I could have listened to all day.
"At least they could have flown helicopters over. All they did was rescue their own people."
He did not have much kinder words for Karzai, criticising his weakness through an old Afghan proverb.
Remember, Afghanistan was supposed to be the war we were winning, the place Rumsfeld et al referred to as a model?
Well, today I followed some British soldiers up a dusty track, dodging the stream of green sewage, to see a school that left me completely shocked.
Inside the mud-walled compound, 3700 students have no building but study squatting on the ground inside baking hot tents.
There are so many that they attend in three shifts -- you see when politicians boast about 6 million children back at school what they don't tell you is that most are only going for two hours a day.
Saludin Ansari School is not in some remote province but in central Kabul.
Yet four and a half years after the fall of the Taliban, not only do they still have no buildings but no running water or electricity -- the one toilet is a foul-smelling hole.
"They treat the children like garbage", said Habibullah the Pashto teacher.
Remember how Bush and Blair promised that Afghans would never be forgotten again?
No wonder Kabul exploded into riots two weeks ago.
The British soldiers under Brigadier Nick Pope were visibly appalled by what they saw and promised they would do what they could to help, raising money.
A father himself, Brig. Pope was even moved to make a short Blairite speech on the importance of education.
Already they have plans for laying gravel paths and digging wells.
But he and his men will only be in Kabul nine months and it was clear from the headmaster's face that he had quite enough of foreigners promising things and doing nothing.
Between £5b and £10bn in aid has been spent on this country but as I said the other day, it is very hard to see where it has gone.
Even in Kabul, most people have no electricity or running water and there are heaps of garbage everywhere.
What do exist are things like American-funded Women's Centres -- empty buildings where no women attend - but look impressive on USAID websites.
This is not just the fault of the international community but also widespread government corruption -- a vehicle supplier told me yesterday it is now routine to be asked for "gifts" of between 20 and 30% on contracts.
One deputy minister turned down the $120,000 armoured Nissan for which the US was paying and demanded the top of the range $230,000 model because he wanted all the extras such as DVD and electric mirrors.
I cannot think of anywhere I have been where there is such a chasm between the reality on the ground and the claims of the international community inside their heavily-guarded air-conditioned compounds.
It is quite clear that the Taliban are the strongest they have been since their fall, taking over a number of districts not just in their southern heartlands but moving near Kabul, in places like Ghazni, only 100 miles south.
One Afghan friend was travelling up to Kabul on a bus through Ghazni when a passenger sat in the back suddenly walked to the front and changed the music tape for one of Taliban chants.
"There must have been more than 50 people on board yet nobody said a thing, we just all sat through it for two hours."
Lt General Eikenberry, the top US commander in Afghanistan admitted last month that in "several districts" in the south "it's fair to say the Taliban influence is stronger than it was last year".
But he insisted "I am confident the situation will improve by the end of the year".
As one Afghan watcher commented cynically "it usually does -- each winter".
So panicked are President Karzai and his government that they are even bringing back militia -- the very warlord-led groups who led to the emergence of the Taliban in the 1990s.
The official line is to call them "community police".
So that's alright then.
Rather than burying themselves in the sand, both the international community and the Afghan government should have seen the riots as a wake-up call.
As gunshots and burning raged for six hours, President Karzai was locked inside the palace terrified, not surprisingly given the number of his predecessors who have been murdered inside those walls.
Although it was on Afghan government advice, the failure of the British-commanded ISAF troops to come out on the streets to show their presence was taken very badly.
"What are they for if not to protect us?" asked an Afghan poet I had coffee with yesterday afternoon and whose mellifluous voice quoting Rumi I could have listened to all day.
"At least they could have flown helicopters over. All they did was rescue their own people."
He did not have much kinder words for Karzai, criticising his weakness through an old Afghan proverb.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/cupcakes_and_kalashnikovs/2006/06/how_to_lose_a_w.html
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