Afghanistan: The Road Ahead (Pt. 5)
This is part five of a five-part mini series on Afghanistan. Today: A Strategic Framework Forward
Now that it has been established what we have been accomplishing and why we should continue to accomplish our goals in Afghanistan, it is important to plan ahead and look towards future goals. It is clear that the mission in Afghanistan has not been without problems. Rising poppy production revenues are being used to recruit and pay insurgent fighters who earn more than they would in the police or the Afghan army. Efforts to eradicate poppy growth threaten the livelihood of Afghani famers and shift allegiances towards the neo-Taliban movement. At best, Pakistan has been half-hearted in its efforts to fight Islamic extremism and tighten its borders against foreign jihadis flowing into Afghanistan. At worst, it is aiding them. Corruption and a judicial system that views cronyism and bribery as higher than the law further push ordinary Afghanis towards extremism. Afghans trust the law, they just don’t trust those who implement it. What can be done to address these threats to Afghan stability?
Firstly, it must be made clear that our long term goal is to focus on aiding governance, humanitarian efforts, and reconstruction, and that eventually our mission will need to hand over the responsibility for security to local police forces and the Afghan National Army. It is also quite clear that the mission is not a lost cause, and hopefully, in time, we can look upon Afghanistan in the same way that we look at Japan, Germany and Korea now – with pride. To achieve this longer term goal, there are five major things that need to be accomplished: increased international aid, expansion and acceleration of Afghan National Army training, the purging of corruption within local police forces and the judiciary, a shift from the prohibition of the poppy trade to regulation, and increased international pressure on Pakistan to control their porous borders.
In addition to the security that the international community is providing, Canada and other countries need to step up and increase international aid to Afghanistan. On a per capita basis, Afghanistan receives less aid than many other post-war countries in recent years, such as Rwanda, Bosnia, and East Timor. On top of this, only about $7.3 billion of the $20 billion pledged for Afghanistan has actually been disbursed by the international community. In order to accomplish any of the other suggestions that will be made henceforth, the international community will have to dole out the dough and not only keep its commitments, but keep on committing. International aid, and lots of it, is necessary to build roads, bridges and highways, provide power and electricity, dig wells, regulate narcotics, train and pay the Afghan National Army, and establish good governance and a reputable justice system. Simply put, it would be extremely hard to implement any of the other following suggestions without more international aid.
The Afghan army now numbers about 30,000 troops, near halfway to the figure targeted for 2009. However, even with these 30,000 troops and the 42,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan already, we can see that there continues to be violence and instability. We need to double the current targets to about 140,000 troops by the time foreign troops start to pull out. Indeed, Afghanistan’s defence minister asserts that 150,000 soldiers are needed to secure the country without foreign forces. We need to create an expanded plan that immediately sets targets for this number of troops, accelerate army training in order to meet these targets (because it simply will not be acceptable to double the time frame along with the targets) and follow up by further assisting the training of the army and police forces by sending increased numbers of military advisors and instructors, as well as police instructors.
In order to establish stability in the country, an ordinary Afghan must be able to trust public institutions to be effective and fair. If they do not, they may be persuaded to subscribe to the neo-Taliban’s brand of swift and decisive (in)justice. Funding must be provided to civil society groups in order to inform citizens of their rights, defend them against corruption in the government, and socialize individuals against bribery and corruption. Councils must be set up in order to monitor the actions of public officials, much like that Auditor General does in Canada, and most importantly, the wages for public officials need to be increased so that bribery isn’t a necessary part of life, that officials don’t need to ask for bribes in order to provide for their families. Finally, qualified people must be appointed to public positions such as the judiciary, as opposed to the trend of cronyism that is sweeping the country. Principled government needs to take the place of the current patronage government.
The current Afghan eradication program is self-defeating and is utterly damaging to the image of the central government. You cannot expect people whose livelihoods are ruined through the purposive destruction of their crops to continue to be friendly to those who carried it out. Poppy production is a necessary evil in Afghanistan, and supports the lives of many of its citizens. A much better solution to this problem is to lightly regulate the poppy trade by establishing a registration system for farmers and aiding farmers with alternate means of livelihood. In addition, since there is a world shortage for opium-based medicines, Afghan opium could be used to produce beneficial drugs if the international community decides to cooperate on this issue. There may very well be a day that Afghanistan can restrict the growing of opium – but that day is not now, and it is certainly not soon, as far too many people’s lives depend on it for support.
One of the Taliban’s greatest assets is the porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The state of the border allows for cross-border raids and easy training and planning for Islamic extremists. Pakistan is not especially co-operative when it comes to this situation, and some suggest that the intelligence community in Pakistan is even aiding the Taliban, as it did in the 1990s. Some suggest that this would be in order to combat increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan as the result of their deployment of peacekeepers. In general, the Pakistani population is quite supportive of Islamic extremism – 38% of respondents in a Pew Global Attitudes Survey indicated they had some or a lot of confidence in Osama Bin Laden. Pakistan must immediately be pressured to put more controls on its borders and, if it is doing so, stop supporting Islamic militants. Canada must take a much harsher stance against Pakistan – Pakistan’s actions, or inaction, is indirectly related to the deaths of Canadian soldiers. Canada must use all diplomatic means at its disposal to pressure Pakistan into being as cooperative as possible with the Afghan government, and pressure the international community to do the same.
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