‘Absurd’ Conspiracy Theories Prevalent in Afghanistan
February 19th, 2009Nato forces mistakenly supplied food, water and arms to Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan, officials today admitted.
Containers destined for local police forces were dropped from a helicopter into a Taliban-controlled area of Zabul province.
The coalition helicopter had intended to deliver pallets of supplies to a police checkpoint in Ghazni, a remote section of Zabul late last month.
By mistake they were dropped some distance from the checkpoint where it was taken by the Taliban, the Internal Security Affairs Commission of the Wolesi Jirga — the Afghan parliament’s lower house — was told.
Hamidullah Tukhi, a local politician from Zabul, told the parliamentary commission that the consignment had been taken by a local Taliban commander.
A Nato spokesman said the pallets were carrying rocket propelled grenades, ammunition, water and food.
—NATO Forces Supplied Food, Water and Arms to Taliban Forces in Southern Afghanistan
Via: Stars and Stripes:
To many in the Afghan capital, there’s an obvious explanation for the dramatic re-emergence of the Taliban — a force that seemed thoroughly dust-binned after the arrival of the world’s most powerful army seven years ago.
“Now,” as one 23-year-old Kabul shopkeeper, Qand Mohmadi, put it, “we think America is supporting both the Taliban and the Afghan government. That’s what everyone says.”
Indeed, the rumor of U.S. support for the Taliban is virtually ubiquitous in Kabul. And absurd as it might sound after a year in which American and other Western troops suffered record casualties in fighting with insurgents, many Kabul residents say they see at least a kernel of truth in the story.
“We don’t know for sure why they are doing it,” said Daoud Zadran, a middle-aged real estate broker. “Politics is bigger than our thoughts. But maybe America wants to build up the Taliban so they have an excuse to remain in Afghanistan because of the Iranian issue.”
Byzantine political conspiracy theories are nothing new in a region with little tradition of transparent government and where the arrival of international troops in 2001 was preceded by a long history of shadowy meddling by Western powers.
Still, the emergence of the rumor in what is easily Afghanistan’s most prosperous and best-educated city reflects a growing sense that the country is again sliding into chaos.
A public opinion survey released this month underscored plummeting public confidence in Afghanistan. Just 40 percent of those surveyed said they felt the country was heading in the right direction, down from 77 percent in 2005. Only 32 percent of Afghans said the U.S. was doing a good job in the country, compared to 68 percent three years ago, according to the poll.
The poll, conducted by ABC News, the BBC and ARD German TV, also showed falling support for the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. In 2005, 80 percent of Afghans said they supported the Karzai regime, but just 49 percent say the same thing now.
Meanwhile, a coordinated assault by Taliban gunmen and bombers that left at least 20 dead in Kabul on Wednesday again demonstrated that insurgents have been able to pierce the capital’s relative calm.
“People see that America is so strong and they wonder — why can’t it wipe out the Taliban?” said Col. Najeeb Ullah Samsour, one of Kabul’s district police chiefs, though he added that he personally gave little credence to the rumor of U.S. support for the insurgents.
“People are saying that for six or seven years we have all these international troops, but everything is getting worse … security, the economy, everything. So they think America must be supporting the Taliban.”
Security in Kabul remains ahead of most of the country, with the insurgency strongest in the south and the east.
“I think people feel they’re pretty secure in the city,” said U.S. Army Col. Chris Morgan, commander of Afghan Regional Security Integration Command—Kabul. “But nowhere in Afghanistan is completely safe, and you don’t have to go far outside Kabul to feel some tension.”
According to a study released in December by an influential British think tank, three of the four major routes leading to Kabul have been “compromised” by the Taliban, “closing a noose around the city and establishing bases close to the city from which to launch attacks inside it.”
The report, by the International Council on Security and Development, charted a dramatic rise in Kabul attacks, including kidnapping of Afghans and foreigners, bomb attacks and assassinations.
In recent interviews with Kabul residents, many blamed the lack of progress on Karzai, who is seen as increasingly weak and isolated ahead of this year’s planned presidential elections.
“I see no positive progress since the beginning of the Karzai government, even though we have support from all these other countries,” said one resident, Habib Rahman. “We see hundreds of promises every night on the TV, but we see nothing in reality.”
From a tarp-covered stall on a street corner, Mohmadi said he too saw little progress.
“There’s no jobs,” he said. “I graduated from the 12th grade, and now you see I am selling candy bars by the side of the road.”
Many blamed corruption, with some seeing the U.S. or at least western companies in league with pilfering Afghan officials.
“This government is so corrupt that if Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar were crossing the street together right outside, no one would call the police because they know the police would just take a bribe to let them go,” Rahman said.
But there’s also another theory about bin Laden.
“A lot of people say that Osama is really from America,” said Nasrallah Wazidi, shrugging noncommittally. “They say he’s just playing a role like a movie star.”
Research Credit: ltcolonelnemo
i’m sitting at my desk here in kabul and reading your post… thankfully, i have virtually no interaction with the military here, either afghan or coalition forces, so i am not in a position to comment on that aspect of things… i do, however, work very closely with a number of very intelligent, capable and well-connected afghans and i can say that u.s. support of the taliban has never been an item of discussion… that’s possibly because they consider it an out-of-bounds subject with someone like myself that is here working for an economic development contractor supported by usaid… speaking for myself, i certainly wouldn’t rule it out given that i see both iraq and afghanistan as terrific opportunities for large-scale theft of massive amounts of money…
i was asked by a friend in the states yesterday to comment on obama’s decision to increase troop strength here by 17,000… i’m certainly not any fount of wisdom about afghanistan, but i did offer my thoughts and i offer them to you as well…
for what they’re worth…
—–
just because i’m here doesn’t mean i’m any smarter than the average bear… however, here’s what i think needs to happen…
– stop the civilian deaths and, if, despite all precautions, they happen anyway, eat humble pie, apologize all over the place, and make reparations, even IF you think they might have been hostile elements…
– lower the boom on the afghan government and force them to stop funneling money to their cronies… the afghan people ain’t stupid… they can see what’s happening and are sick and tired of it…
– stop awarding massive amounts of money to u.s. contractors who either pocket most of it or waste it on showcase projects that do nothing except make somebody in d.c. feel good…
– refocus development efforts (such as i’m involved in) to actually build the capacity of the afghans to do for themselves instead of allowing the ex-pats to huff and puff and pretend we know it all and that the afghans are nothing but a bunch of dirtballs…
– if the u.s. is going to support someone for afghan president in the upcoming election, pick someone who is squeaky clean and can command the respect of the afghan people as well as hold his own in the world community… the average afghan desperately needs someone they think is looking after THEIR interests AND the good of the country as a whole…
– the troops, existing and incremental, need to be focused almost 100% on helping the folks in the countryside get re-established in being able to make a living… the farmers, goat and sheep herders have been devastated over 30 years of chaos, so that DOESN’T mean popping in out of the blue in choppers killing their poppy fields with herbicide and wiping out their only means of support… it means getting down in the dirt with them, helping them make a living out of raising and selling legitimate crops that will help feed the nation and reducing its dependence on imported foodstuffs from pakistan which is where most of the afghan food currently comes from…
– control the borders… besides insurgents coming in from pakistan, there are so many goods coming in uninspected and duty-free, it ain’t funny… afghanistan could damn near become self-supporting just from customs duty enforcement alone, but because there are so many palms being greased up to and including those at the ministerial level in charge of customs duty enforcement, everyone just turns a blind eye…
– get cracking on developing cross-border trade and, yes, you idiots, this means with iran on the western side of the country… there are only two remotely accessible ports, karachi in pakistan and bandar abbas in iran… everything’s now coming through karachi… also, build a railway spur from herat up to turkmenistan to open up access to the larger railway and road network through central asia east to china and west to the urals, eastern europe and beyond… build a decent relationship with uzbekistan so that the bridge across the river from mazar e sharif can be more than just decoration…
– go full-tilt boogie on infrastructure… kabul is a ruined city, almost more so than when the u.s. took over in late 2001/early 2002, and the rest of the country (with a few exceptions such as cities like jalalabad, herat and mazar e sharif) have never had infrastructure to begin with… i’m talking water, sanitation, electricity, roads, health care, schools, etc…
– get prices under control… the americans (in kabul, at least) have grossly distorted rents, wages, and prices of everything… when the project i work for is paying $15K a month, 3 months in advance, for ONE up-armored toyota suv, and $35K a month for one house that’s used as the project office, you know things are out of control… i know an afghan woman who runs her own consulting company who had to hire someone from india to manage her office because she can’t afford to hire an afghan… what’s wrong with this picture…?
– the obama administration should plan to conduct monthly visits to afghanistan by administration higher-ups… that means the secdef, the sec’y of state, the special envoy, the vp and the prez hisself… message: we’re paying attention, we care, we want to see what’s happening on the ground, we’re not afraid to come there…
http://takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/
It appears the US did learn from the Soviet failure in Afghanistan: if they arm and supply ALL sides involved in the conflict, from the official Afghan military to the Taliban and any number of black ops, “divide and conquer” is nearly an automatic result.
By the way, yesterday’s analysis of the current situation in the heroin markets, that of a “pump & dump” operation run by contractors, feels about right. No great conspiracy required, just a few small and fairly manageable ones involving the usual suspects working through new and as yet unmonitored trade routes and storgae facilities in West Africa.
Of course, Cryptogon readers are typically well-informed, so people here are surely already aware that “The Base” that is ‘Al Qaeda’ translated just happens to be of the relational variety:
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/print.asp?ID=3836