Afghan War Is Turning Ethnic And US-NATO Appears A Party – OpEd

[rug]

President Hamid Karzai is increasingly entangled in conflicting ethnic disinterests in trying to end the war in his country and US-NATO is unwittingly falling in the quagmire of Afghan ethnic power politics. Amidst this bleak backdrop, Pakistan propagates disunity among Afghan ethnic groups – an old British policy of divide and rule – to keep Afghan state weak and irrelevant.

By Ajmal Samadi
(April 13, 2013)

TWELVE YEARS after US-led allied forces joined forces with local militias to topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the war has become more relevant to Afghan ethnic realpolitik than a global War on Terror.

President Hamid Karzai desperately wants NATO-US forces out of Afghanistan – the sooner the better, he has said. “When we went to America for discussions, the American government told us that they no more have a war with the Taliban. We agree with America for its desire to end the war with the Taliban. We prefer the peace process over the war. We will be even happier if the war ends today,” Karzai said at a joint presser with John Kerry in Kabul on 25 March.

As US-NATO prepares for yet another summer of fierce fighting against Taliban insurgents, President Karzai’s spokesman has said that it’s “aimless and unwise” to continue the war in Afghanistan. If Pakistan is the regional capital of militant Islamism, then why on earth are US-NATO forces killing Afghans, asked a statement issued by President Karzai’s office on 19 March. President Karzai believes America’s war in Afghanistan, even against the Taliban, is unofficially over but he is angrily puzzled for the missing peace.

Karzai’s frustration is largely based on some basic facts. In 2012, the war killed about 11,000 people in Afghanistan. Only 274 were foreigners, the rest were all Afghans – 2,754 civilians, 3500 Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and 4,600 Taliban. In the eyes of President Karzai, Afghans, particularly his own Pashtuns, have disproportionately suffered the costs of NATO’s war – this must stop, he wants. As reported by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), civilian casualties of war are overwhelmingly inflicted in the south, east and southeast of the country. Additionally, the war has stunted development, education, health and other critical services in the Pashtun-dominated south and east. Polio, a crippling disease which has been wiped out almost all over the world including in northern and central Afghanistan, is still virulent in the south and eastern provinces. In Bamyan and Panjshir provinces, according to some estimates, illiteracy will drop to below 5 percent by 2024 but in Kandahar, Helmand and other provinces, where schools are closed and millions of kids are deprived from education due to insecurity, it will remain in double digits.

http://www.eurasiareview.com/13042013-afghan-war-is-turning-ethnic-and-us-nato-appears-a-party-oped/

Ajmal Samadi is director of Afghanistan Rights Monitor (ARM), a Kabul-based human rights watchdog.

[Kolesar]

1. Per his oped, Afghanistan would be back under the control of Afghanistan if NATO withdrew

The West’s intentions in Afghanistan are legitimate and commendable. Their policies and tools are wrong. So long as Pashtuns are grilled in the trilateral fire-line of US-NATO, Pakistan and Afghan warlords Afghanistan will painfully remain at the verge of collapse and relapse.

I don't see his solution.