I think Afghan elders should be listened to

[ensho]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LD17Df03.html


US backtracks on Kandahar shuras



The United States military has now officially backtracked from its earlier suggestion that it would seek the consent of local shuras, or consultative conferences with those elders, to carry out the military occupation of Kandahar city and nearby districts - contradicting a pledge by Afghan President Hamid Karzai not to carry out the operation without such consent.

Lieutenant Colonel Tadd Sholtis, a spokesman for General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops in Afghanistan, told Inter Press Service on Tuesday that local tribal elders in Kandahar could "shape the conditions" under which the influx of foreign troops operated during the operation, but would not determine whether or where NATO troops would be deployed in and around the city.

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At a March 29 briefing in Kabul on plans for the Kandahar operation, however, an unnamed senior US military official told reporters that one of the elements of the strategy for gaining control over the Taliban stronghold was to "shura our way to success" - referring to the Islamic concept of consultative bodies. In those conferences with local tribal elders, the officials said, "The people have to ask for the operation ... We're going to have to have a situation where they invite us in."

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That is what Karzai said to a shura of between 1,000 and 2,000 Kandahar province tribal elders on April 4. Karzai said NATO's Kandahar operation would not be carried out until the elders themselves were ready to support it, according to a number of press reports.

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And the assembled elders made it known that they didn't want the operation.

That was clearly not what McChrystal, who was sitting behind Karzai at the shura, wanted to hear.

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But published accounts of the meeting show that the elders were not calling for expelling the Taliban from the city and its environs. When Karzai asked the assembled elders whether they were "happy or unhappy for the operation to be carried out", they shouted loudly, "We are not happy," the Sunday Times of London reported.

As reported by Agence France-Presse, when Karzai asked, "Are you worried?" the elders shouted back, "Yes we are!"

-snip-

Some of the elders told CNN's Atia Abawi they preferred to negotiate with the Taliban rather than confront them in a military offensive.

-snip-

But McChrystal must now worry about how the Kandahar campaign can succeed in the face of opposition from both local leaders and Karzai.
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