Afghanistan

Subterms

    More stories

    • 38 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Your Monday Briefing

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Aleksei NavalnyNavalny’s Life in OppositionKremlin AnxietyCourt DecisionWhat Will Yulia Navalnaya Do?Putin’s ‘Palace’AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyYour Monday BriefingThe Schengen Area closes up.Feb. 21, 2021, 10:13 p.m. ETGood morning.We’re covering travel restrictions within the E.U., the worst day of violence in Myanmar since the coup and the coming U.S. milestone of 500,000 deaths from Covid-19.[embedded content]A police officer addressing a driver at a checkpoint at the German-Czech border near Bad Gottleuba, Germany. Credit…Filip Singer/EPA, via ShutterstockA fresh blow to Europe’s open bordersAs new variants of the coronavirus are spreading rapidly, European countries such as Germany and Belgium have introduced new border restrictions, flying in the face of the free movement that has long been seen as a fundamental pillar of the European Union.The European Commission, the E.U. executive, has tried to pull countries back from limiting free movement since March, on the grounds that it had disrupted the bloc’s single market. The result has been an ever-shifting patchwork of border rules that has sown chaos and not always successfully limited the virus’s spread.But many countries cannot seem to resist taking back control of their borders. A suggestion by the commission that new restrictions be reversed induced a swift pushback from Germany, even as the new rules triggered supply chain disruptions and long lines of commuters from Austria and the Czech Republic.Background: Countries within the Schengen Area have the explicit right to reintroduce checks at their borders, but they need to clear a few legal hurdles to do so, and they are not meant to retain them over the long term.Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.In other developments:As the American death toll nears 500,000, more Americans have now died of Covid-19 than on the battlefields of World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined. No other country has counted as many deaths in the pandemic.To secure the release of an Israeli civilian held in Syria, Israel secretly — and contentiously — agreed to finance a supply of Russian-made Covid-19 vaccines for Damascus.Australia began vaccinating its population against the coronavirus on Sunday, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and 19 others getting their shots. The first to be vaccinated was an 84-year-old woman who lives in a nursing home.Dozens of protesters were injured in Mandalay, Myanmar, on Saturday.Credit…Aso/Associated PressMyanmar security forces open fire on protestersWitnesses said two people were killed and dozens wounded when security forces on Saturday opened fire on protesters in the city of Mandalay, Myanmar. It was the bloodiest day of protests so far against the military’s Feb. 1 coup.The shootings occurred as the authorities were trying to force workers back to their jobs at a local shipyard. The work stoppage there in protest of the ouster of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s civilian leader, has paralyzed river transport on the Irrawaddy, the country’s most important commercial waterway, according to Radio Free Asia.Details: The authorities used water cannons, rubber bullets, tear gas, slingshots and live ammunition to break up the crowd. At least 40 people were wounded, according to medics.Mansour Abbas, center, an Islamist leader hoping to join the next Israeli government, campaigning in Daburiyya, an Arab village in northern Israel.Credit…Dan Balilty for The New York TimesIn the Israeli election, an opportunity for ArabsAccelerated by Israel’s election campaign, two trends are converging: On the one hand, Arab politicians and voters increasingly believe that to improve the lives of Arabs in Israel, they need to seek power within the system instead of exerting pressure from the outside.Separately, mainstream Israeli parties are realizing they need to attract Arab voters to win a very close election — and some are willing to work with Arab parties as potential coalition partners.Both trends are born more of political pragmatism than dogma. But while the moment has the potential to give Arab voters real power, it could backfire and split the Arab vote, ultimately lowering the numbers of Arab lawmakers in the next Parliament.Context: Arab politicians and voters have not shed all their discomfort with Zionism and Israeli policies in the occupied territories. But there is a growing realization that problems the Arab community in Israel faces — gang violence, poverty and discrimination in access to housing and land — will not be solved without Arab politicians shaping policy at the highest level.If you have 7 minutes, this is worth itLibraries to honor women lost to violenceCredit…Kiana Hayeri for The New York TimesNajiba Hussaini, who died in a Taliban suicide bombing in Kabul in 2017, was a determined, highly accomplished scholar, who landed a prestigious job in Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum.Today, her memory lives on at the Najiba Hussaini Memorial Library, in the Afghan city of Nili, as a symbol of the progress made toward gender equality and access to education in Afghanistan. As of 2018, as many as 3.5 million girls were enrolled in school in the nation and one-third of its teachers were women.But amid negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban, many worry that a peace deal could mean that the progress Afghan women have made over the past two decades will be lost.Here’s what else is happeningAleksei Navalny: A Russian court has cleared the way for the possible transfer of the opposition leader to a penal colony, the latest step by the authorities to silence the country’s most vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin.Libya weapons: Erik Prince, the former head of the security firm Blackwater Worldwide and a supporter of former President Donald Trump, violated a United Nations arms embargo on Libya by sending weapons to a militia commander who was trying to overthrow the government in Tripoli, according to U.N. investigators. He has denied any wrongdoing.Venezuela: Millions of women in the troubled South American country are no longer able to find or afford birth control. The situation has pushed many into unplanned pregnancies or illegal abortions at a time when they can barely feed the children they have.ISIS: Frenchwomen who joined the Islamic State and are now held in squalid detention camps in Syria have gone on a hunger strike to protest France’s refusal to bring them back.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York TimesSnapshot: Above, Novak Djokovic won his third straight Australian Open title. His victory over the fourth-ranked Daniil Medvedev gave him his 18th career Grand Slam title. Naomi Osaka beat Jennifer Brady for her fourth Grand Slam title.Cephalopod sensing: An octopus’s arms can sense and respond to light — even when the octopus cannot see it with the eyes on its head, according to a study published this month in The Journal of Experimental Biology.Bollywood: Increasingly, new Hindi productions are showing mothers, and women over all, as full and complex human beings — not melodramatic side characters, but outspoken, independent leads who are in charge of their own fates.What we’re reading: The U.S. may experience a wonderful summer this year — even if the pandemic is not yet behind us, writes the health journalist James Hamblin in this long read from The Atlantic.Now, a break from the newsCredit…Con Poulos for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Jerrie-Joy Redman-Lloyd.Cook: This shrimp étouffée draws inspiration from Cajun and Creole cuisines.Listen: Radio drama, especially from its golden age in the 1930s through the ’50s, is now freely available, thanks to the internet. Here are six shows to enjoy.Do: Many mothers have felt obliged to put themselves last during the pandemic. But making time for self-care may give you what you need to keep on going.Restore your sense of self. At Home has our full collection of ideas on what to read, cook, watch, and do while staying safe at home. And now for the Back Story on …Taking stock of 500,000 deathsA graphic on Sunday’s front page of The New York Times depicts the totality of Covid’s devastation in the United States. From afar, the graphic looks like a blur of gray, but up close it shows something much darker: close to 500,000 individual dots, each representing a single life lost to the coronavirus.Credit…The New York TimesThis is not the first time The Times’s designers have used the front page to represent the scale of the pandemic’s toll. When Covid-19 deaths in the United States reached 100,000 last May, the page was filled with names of those lost — nearly a thousand of them, just 1 percent of the country’s deaths then.And as that number approached 200,000, the lead photograph on the page showed the yard of an artist in Texas who had filled his lawn with a small flag for every life lost to the virus in his state.But this is the first time the front page has depicted all the U.S. fatalities. “I think part of this technique, which is good, is that it overwhelms you — because it should,” said Lazaro Gamio, a graphics editor at The Times.That’s it for this briefing. See you on Tuesday.— NatashaThank youTo Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.P.S.• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is on children and Covid.• Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: What light travels in (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here.• Claire Cain Miller, a reporter who worked on our series on working mothers, “The Primal Scream,” spoke to NPR about the toll of the pandemic on women.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Violence May Delay U.S. Troop Withdrawal From Afghanistan

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyViolence May Delay U.S. Troop Withdrawal From AfghanistanThe new Biden administration is reviewing a deal between its predecessor and the Taliban for a May 1 deadline to pull all American troops out of the country.Afghan police at a checkpoint in Kabul earlier this month.Credit…Jim Huylebroek for The New York TimesAdam Nossiter and Jan. 29, 2021, 9:51 a.m. ETKABUL, Afghanistan — Both the Afghan government and its Taliban foes appear to be gearing up for a violent spring amid uncertainty over whether the Biden administration will meet a May 1 deadline for the withdrawal of all American troops from Afghanistan.On Thursday, the Pentagon raised questions about whether the pullout — agreed to in a February 2020 U.S.-Taliban peace deal — would go ahead on schedule as the incoming Biden administration reviews the agreement made by its predecessor. That statement followed bellicose remarks by Taliban and Afghan government officials, amplified by waves of violence across the country.“Without them meeting their commitments to renounce terrorism and to stop the violent attacks against the Afghan National Security Forces, it’s very hard to see a specific way forward for the negotiated settlement,” Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby said at a news briefing. “But we’re still committed to that.”Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said Friday on social media that Mr. Kirby’s assertions were “unfounded.”The agreement between the Taliban and the U.S. government started the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan in exchange for counterterrorism pledges from the Taliban and a promise to push the Afghan government to release 5,000 prisoners. The move amounted to the strongest attempt yet by the United States to extricate itself from its longest war and potentially paving the way for the Taliban’s future inclusion in the Afghan government.But the talks excluded the Afghan government and left it feeling sidelined and unheard, according to Afghan officials. Under former President Donald J. Trump, they said that U.S. diplomats frequently ignored concerns from Kabul in an attempt to expedite the negotiations.There are currently 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, down from 12,000 this time last year. And while the Afghan government is in favor of the withdrawal of Western forces, it wants a slower timetable than the one agreed to with the Taliban.Now, it faces the prospect that the uncertainty around meeting the troop withdrawal deadline could fuel even more violence.With the peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, at a standstill, Washington’s review will examine the Taliban’s commitments to severing ties with terrorist groups and reducing violence as agreed.U.S. officials have long insisted that the agreement was “conditions based,” and if the Taliban does not meet those terms it would extend the presence of U.S. forces in the country.The Taliban, gearing up for the spring fighting season, is already well positioned around several Afghan cities after making steady gains across the country in recent years.A member of the Taliban in March last year in an area controlled by the group in Laghman Province’s Alingar District.Credit…Jim Huylebroek for The New York TimesBut recent overtures from the Biden White House have sent a more reassuring message to Afghan President Ghani and other government officials, raising their hopes that they will no longer be sidelined and that the Americans will not leave any time soon.Afghan National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib unleashed a harsh diatribe against the Taliban last week while speaking to a group of Afghan commandos at an air base outside Kabul.“They have proved that they don’t have any desire for peace and that they are a terrorist group,” said Mr. Mohib, who has long history of spouting such sharp rhetoric. His latest remarks came on the heels of a phone call with his new U.S. counterpart, Jake Sullivan.Afghan officials have said privately that Mr. Sullivan’s hourlong call restored a certain level of trust between the Ghani administration and the White House and made them confident that their voices will be heard as the peace talks in Doha continue.On Thursday, the new secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, talked with Mr. Ghani and expressed “the U.S. desire for all Afghan leaders to support this historic opportunity for peace while preserving the progress made over the last 20 years.”Assurances from the White House that the Ghani administration will have ample lines of communication to Mr. Biden’s cabinet seem to have also assuaged the Afghan government’s concerns over the U.S. decision to retain Zalmay Khalilzad, the diplomat who spearheaded the U.S.-Taliban negotiations that excluded the Afghan government.President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan during a visit to Herat this month.Credit…Hoshang Hashimi/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSome Afghan officials distrust Mr. Khalilzad and were hostile to his dialogue with the Taliban under the Trump administration, particularly his pressure on them to release the roughly 5,000 Taliban prisoners with hopes that a reduction in violence would follow.It didn’t. But it did open the way for talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban that began in Doha in September.Asfandyar Mir, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, said that an additional complication for the Biden administration is that the Afghan government is a “house divided” with rivalries throughout.Many Afghan officials say they believe that the Taliban have only a single interest: to seize power by force. And all sides in the conflict agree that missing the May troop withdrawal deadline would quickly change whatever equilibrium has been established on the country’s battlefields and could risk setting off a concerted Taliban effort to enter cities.In the meantime, regional powers, especially Iran and Pakistan, are biding their time and waiting to see what comes next under Mr. Biden.Iran, for instance, hosted Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy leader, in Tehran on Wednesday, which could be perceived as demonstrating the country’s willingness to play a more active role in the talks.Iran’s involvement in the Afghan war has shifted since 2001, underscoring the changing geopolitical currents over the war’s duration. On one hand, Tehran’s official line has denounced the return of the Taliban as a direct threat to Iran. But on the other, Iranian operatives have made quiet overtures to the insurgent group, offering weapons and other equipment, in Afghanistan’s southwest, Afghan officials say.The Taliban does not “trust the United States and we will fight any group that is a mercenary for the United States,” Mr. Baradar was quoted as saying in the Iranian news media in an apparent reference to the Afghan government.But just a month earlier, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, all but offered up an Iran-trained Afghan Shiite militia to serve the Kabul government in “the fight against terrorism.” He was speaking in an interview with an Afghan news outlet.Officials here took that as a clear signal from its powerful neighbor that it intends to get further involved in the Afghan conflict.The Biden administration decided to retain Zalmay Khalilzad, the diplomat who spearheaded the U.S.-Taliban peace talks last year.Credit…Jim Huylebroek for The New York TimesEarlier this week, a Taliban delegation met with officials in Moscow, and on Friday, Abbas Stanekzai, a Taliban negotiator, told reporters that the Ghani’s administration is not “honest about peace.”Abdullah Abdullah, the chairman of the Afghan government council leading the peace negotiations, sounded a pessimistic note in an interview with The New York Times on Thursday.“The Taliban have taken a sort of maximalist position,” Mr. Abdullah said. “Before the negotiations, we were led to believe there would be a significant reduction in violence,” he added.“The recent attitude of the Taliban has not been encouraging,” Mr. Abdullah said, noting that the group had yet to make a promised break with Al Qaeda, the terror group responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks and the main reason U.S. forces invaded the country in 2001.A report from the U.S. Treasury Department earlier this month indicated that Al Qaeda had only gained strength in Afghanistan and continued its ties with the Taliban throughout 2020.Despite waves of targeted killings across the country — striking fear in some Afghanistan’s most populated cities, including Kabul, the Afghan Independent Human Rights commission found that the number of civilian deaths had decreased by more than 20 percent compared to 2019.The report also found that 8,500 civilians had been killed and wounded in Afghanistan in 2020.Najim Rahim and Fahim Abed contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 188 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      US poll chaos is a boon for the enemies of democracy the whole world over

      by

      Believe it or not, the world did not stop turning on its axis because of the US election and ensuing, self-indulgent disputes in the land of the free-for-all. In the age of Donald Trump, narcissism spreads like the plague.But the longer the wrangling in Washington continues, the greater the collateral damage to America’s global reputation – and to less fortunate states and peoples who rely on the US and the western allies to fly the flag for democracy and freedom.Consider, for example, the implications of the Israeli army’s operation, on US election day, to raze the homes of 74 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in the occupied West Bank village of Khirbet Humsa. The pace of West Bank demolitions has increased this year, possibly in preparation for Israeli annexation of the Jordan Valley – a plan backed in principle by Trump. Appealing for international intervention, the Palestinian prime minister, Mohammed Shtayyeh, claimed Israel had acted while “attention is focused on the US election”. Yet worse may be to come.Trump’s absurdly lopsided Middle East “peace plan” gave Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s rightwing leader, virtual carte blanche to expand settlements and seize Palestinian land. Joe Biden has promised to revive the two-state solution. But while the power struggle rages in Washington, analysts warn, Netanyahu may continue to arbitrarily create new “facts on the ground” – with Trump’s blessing.“Over the next 11 weeks, we are likely to see a major uptick in Israeli demolitions, evictions, settlement announcements, and perhaps even formal annexation of parts of the occupied territories, as Netanyahu and his allies in the settler movement seek to make the most of Trump’s remaining time in office,” Khaled Elgindy of Washington’s Middle East Institute predicted.The Khirbet Humsa incident gained widespread media attention. The same cannot be said of a football pitch massacre in northern Mozambique that also coincided with US polling. While Americans were counting votes, villagers in Cabo Delgado province were counting bodies after Islamic State-affiliated extremists decapitated more than 50 victims.Nearly 450,000 people have been displaced, and up to 2,000 killed, in an escalating insurgency in the mainly Muslim province where extreme poverty exists alongside valuable, western-controlled gas and mineral riches. Chinese, US and British energy companies are all involved there. Mozambique’s government has appealed for help, saying its forces cannot cope.Trump’s ‘man of the people’ myth of resisting a liberal conspiracy is the ultra-toxic element of his poisonous legacyBiden vows to maintain the fight against Isis. But it’s unclear if he is willing to look beyond Syria-Iraq and expand US involvement in the new Islamist killing grounds of the Sahel, west Africa and the Mozambique-Tanzania border.As for Trump, he claimed credit last year for “defeating 100% of the Isis caliphate”. The fool thinks it’s all over. In any case, he has shown zero interest in what he calls “shithole” African countries.Afghanistan is another conflict zone where the cost of US paralysis is counted in civilian lives. It’s a war Trump claims to be ending but which is currently escalating fast.While all eyes were supposedly on Pennsylvania, Kabul university was devastated when gunmen stormed classrooms, killing 22 students. Another four people were killed last week by a suicide bomber in Kandahar.Overall, violence has soared in recent months as the US and the Taliban (which denied responsibility for the Kabul atrocity) argue in Qatar. Trump plainly wants US troops out at any price. Biden is more circumspect about abandoning Afghanistan, but there’s little he can do right now .The Biden-Trump stand-off encourages uncertainty and instability, inhibiting the progress of international cooperation on a multitude of issues such as the climate crisis and the global pandemic. It also facilitates regression by malign actors.China’s opportunistic move to debilitate Hong Kong’s legislative assembly last week by expelling opposition politicians was a stark warning to Democrats and Republicans alike. Beijing just gave notice it will not tolerate democratic ideas, open societies and free speech, there or anywhere.China’s leaders apparently calculated, correctly, that the US was so distracted by its presidential melodrama that it would be incapable of reacting in any meaningful way.Taiwan’s people have cause to worry. The “renegade” island is next on Chinese president Xi Jinping’s reunification wish-list. Who would bet money on the US riding to Taipei’s rescue if Beijing takes aim?Much has been said about the negative domestic ramifications of Trump’s spiteful disruption of the presidential transition – his lawsuits, his refusal to share daily intelligence briefings with Biden, and his appointment of loyalists to key Pentagon posts. He hopes to turn January’s two Senate election re-runs in Georgia into a referendum – on him.But not enough attention is being paid to how this constitutional chaos affects America’s influence and leadership position in the world – or to the risk Trump might take last-minute, punitive unilateral action against, say, Iran or Venezuela. Like Xi, Vladimir Putin undoubtedly relishes US confusion. He may find ways to take advantage, as with last week’s Moscow-imposed Armenia-Azerbaijan “peace deal”. Authoritarian, ultra-nationalist and rightwing populist leaders everywhere take comfort from America’s perceived democratic nervous breakdown.This is the worst of it. By casting doubt on the election’s legitimacy, Trump nurtures and instructs anti-democratic rogues the world over. The Belarus-style myth he peddles, and will perpetuate, of a strong “man of the people” resisting a conspiracy plotted by corrupt liberal elites, is the final, toxic element of his profoundly poisonous legacy.Farmers in Palestine, fishermen in Mozambique, and students in Kabul all pay a heavy price for his unprincipled lies and puerile irresponsibility. So, too, does the cause of global democracy. More

    • 113 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump's Afghanistan withdrawal announcement takes US officials by surprise

      by

      Donald Trump has announced on Twitter that he wants to bring all US troops home from Afghanistan by Christmas – a plan that came as a surprise to administration officials and which puts complicated peace negotiations in jeopardy.Multiple officials told the Associated Press they had not been informed of any such deadline and military experts said it would be impossible to withdraw all 5,000 US troops in Afghanistan and dismantle the US military headquarters by the end of the year.They suggested the president’s claim was aimed at shifting the news cycle away from coronavirus coverage and that the Pentagon would not act on the order before the 3 November US election.The announcement was, however, greeted enthusiastically by the Taliban on Thursday. If Trump follows through, the militant group would almost certainly claim it as a victory, after decades of couching their fight as a war against foreign aggression.“It’s no surprise that the Taliban have welcomed Trump’s announcement that he’d have the troops home by Christmas. They spent 19 years fighting for this,” said Ashley Jackson, the director of the ODI’s Centre for the Study of Armed Groups.“This is the last leverage the US had left in talks with the Taliban, and Trump is proposing to give it away for free.”Without the prospect of US military pressure, the Taliban would have little incentive to stay at the negotiating table with representatives of the Kabul government.From a practical point of view, disentangling a 19-year military presence would take considerably longer than two months.“It’s October, so no – it’s ridiculous. It’s simply can’t happen,” said Jason Dempsey, a former infantry officer who served in Afghanistan. “We could make some superficial show of pulling out uniformed troops, but obviously we still have a very massive contractor presence, and we would need a uniformed headquarters to oversee the shutdown and withdrawal of everything we have in country.”Trump has made impulsive policy announcements about Afghanistan on Twitter before, including calling off a US-Taliban summit last year, shortly before a withdrawal agreement was first expected to be signed.He also has a record of ordering abrupt and total troop withdrawals from foreign deployments. In most cases the Pentagon has sought to mitigate and slow the speed of the pullout but in some case the president has prevailed in bringing soldiers back home.The Afghan government and Taliban negotiators are currently attempting to hammer out a new political settlement for the country in the Qatari capital. The peace talks were set up under a withdrawal agreement signed earlier this year between the Taliban and Trump’s administration.The US-Taliban deal laid out a full departure of American forces by May 2021 but only if conditions on counter-terrorism were met, including severing ties with al-Qaida. Some critics of the Doha talks argue that the militants are merely marking time until the departure of US troops.Trump’s plans were announced in a tweet late on Wednesday night. The White House doubled down on the message on Thursday morning: “our troops in Afghanistan are coming home by the end of the year”, the official Twitter account for the administration said.It was the latest in a long line of ad hoc policy announcements from Trump that have caught his own advisers and military by surprise. His national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, had said shortly before Trump tweeted that troop numbers would be brought down to 2,500 early next year.About 4,500 troops are currently on the ground in Afghanistan, reduced from over 12,000 when the deal was signed in February.The Pentagon referred all requests for comment on Afghanistan drawdown plans to the White House.The Taliban welcomed Trump’s remarks as “a positive step towards the implementation of [the] Doha agreement”, a spokesman for the Islamist group, Mohammad Naeem, said in a statement, referring to the US withdrawal deal.Peace talks have been progressing slowly, with negotiators still trying to lay out the ground rules for their discussion. They are currently stalled on which school of Islam should be used when settling disputes.Trump has made a promise to “end” America’s wars overseas part of his bid for re-election this year, promising to bring troops home from a constellation of conflict zones including Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.But past pledges to bring back troops have often been abandoned, reversed or only partially completed.After ordering a total withdrawal of US troops from Syria in October 2019, Trump was persuaded to let some stay on the grounds that they would protect oil installations there. A US military presence has remained, but it is about half the size of the thousand-strong force that was supporting Kurdish forces in northern Syria.In July, the Pentagon announced it was pulling nearly 12,000 troops out of Germany, after Trump called for a total withdrawal to punish the Berlin government over policy disagreements.Senior military officials made clear it would take years to redeploy that number of troops, and Congress is scrutinising the order. The drawdown of foreign deployed forces was dwarfed by the dispatch of 10,000 US troops to the Gulf following the killing of the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani in January. Dempsey, now adjunct senior fellow of the military, veterans and society program at the Center for a New American Security, said the Pentagon would wait to see the outcome of the presidential election before carrying out major troop movements. “I think the lesson we all should have learned after four years is the president’s conception of his powers doesn’t go anywhere beyond his enjoyment of having an expanded Twitter presence,” he said. “We’ve become so inured to these kind of kneejerk attempts to win the news cycle that nobody will be talking about this 48 hours from now.” More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in World Politics

      The Tug of War in Washington Around the War in Afghanistan

      by

      The struggle has been going on for four years and is once again approaching a possible turning point. On one side you have a majority of Democrat and Republican legislators united with the intelligence community in the team called “proponents of a massive US military presence across the globe.” On the other side, an unpredictable US president who, since his 2016 election campaign, has consistently confirmed his intention to pull back the troops still engaged in the greater Middle East by the two presidents who preceded him.

      The tug of war continues between these two opposing forces as the place of the United States as “leader of the free world” appears up for grabs. (“Free” in the preceding sentence can be defined as “subject exclusively to corporate control” as corporations are deemed the only legitimate wielders of power.)

      The Skies of Post-COVID Education Are Darkening

      READ MORE

      It has been a full 19 years since President George W. Bush launched his first campaign of perennial military occupation that the media labeled the “war in Afghanistan,” as if it was just another struggle between two opposing national armies. Bush still called it a war, but by ennobling it with the moniker the “global war on terror,” he made sure that, at least concerning public expectations, it was a war whose narrative didn’t require rational battle plans, declarations of victory, surrenders or truces. Nor did it require any of those singular moments that have defined past wars, producing all those “important dates” on the calendar that future generations of schoolchildren can memorize and then regurgitate as their responses to multiple choice questions on the tests that will decide whether or not they have mastered the logic of history.

      For anyone familiar with the mechanisms that require a constantly expanding military budget, US President Donald Trump’s insistence on reducing the footprint of the American military in the greater Middle East is heresy. Do Americans really think their continued presence is vital in Afghanistan? They said the same thing about Vietnam in 1973 when they abandoned Saigon to the Vietnamese communists. What disaster followed? The Vietnamese developed their country within a global economic context dominated by the United States and the two nations have since become best of friends, even though the communist party still officially runs Vietnam.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In 2001, Bush launched the war that was intended to drive the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. Regime change didn’t take long to complete. Though officially banished from power, the Taliban have remained the most powerful political force in the country. Driven by his impatience, Trump imagined that the only solution might come from recognizing that state of affairs and reaching an agreement with the Taliban. After several false starts, negotiations began again on September 12. This propension for dialogue with the enemy does not sit well with those Americans who see their nation’s role in the world as the defenders of democracy, who because they believe in that ideal deserve absolute trust. For these strategic thinkers, history has shown that the Taliban are untrustworthy and simply do not merit the confidence of the always respectful and trustworthy United States. 

      Reviewing the reactions of the camp committed to maintaining the US presence, Sean D. Naylor, Yahoo’s national security correspondent, cites retired Admiral William McRaven, former commander of Joint Special Operations Command. He tells us that McRaven opposes the negotiations because he is “skeptical that the Taliban would follow through on its commitments.”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Commitment:

      In diplomacy, a formal promise to respect a number of agreed-upon rules and behaviors until one of the parties can demonstrate, thanks to its obviously superior force and capacity to intimidate, that the respect of those rules and behaviors is no longer required

      Contextual Note

      McRaven was blunt in his appreciation, using a tired cliché to express his conviction that no official agreement should be taken seriously. “I’m not personally convinced that any deal with the Taliban will be worth the paper that it’s written on.” Joining McRaven in his opposition to negotiations, Michael Morell, former deputy director of the CIA, asserted that his “assessment is that the Taliban would take over the country again in a matter of months.”

      For those unfamiliar with CIA jargon, “assessment” is synonymous with “my self-interested opinion.” Pursuing with the same vocabulary, Morell added that despite the terms of the envisaged peace deal that explicitly forbid it, “my assessment is that they would provide safe haven to al-Qaida.”

      This seals the case that in the intelligence community, the word “assessment” literally means “opinion” and not much more. Like a banker analyzing the curves of a real estate market in 2007 who believed it would keep growing forever, or like a schoolboy ready for a history test, Morell remembers the reasons Bush cited to attack the Afghan government in 2001: they had given “safe haven to al-Qaida.” If they did it once, they’ll do it again. Morell may be right, but he should also know that it was the US that gave the initial impetus to the creation and development of al-Qaida when they mobilized Osama bin Laden against the Soviets who had taken control of Afghanistan in 1979.

      The language feast continues when McRaven suggests that keeping troops in Afghanistan may be “a high price to pay” before adding this thought: “But what we have learned in the military is how to do this in a way that hopefully will not lose a lot of great soldiers.” The generals hope; the soldiers die. It’s just a question of when to pat yourself on the back when the numbers announced by the media remain sufficiently low.

      Historical note

      William McRaven and Michael Morrell have every reason to be suspicious of the value of commitments by any political entity. International understanding and world peace depend on trust and the respect of agreements reached by the political leaders of all nations. To wield clout in this complex world of international relations, financial power and military might may be sufficient to impose a nation’s policies in specific contexts, but the capacity to conduct business with every other nation in the world depends on the ability to maintain a reputation for keeping one’s commitments.

      The US has proved its capacity to wield financial power and military might, though not always to convincing effect. In his book, “In the Shadows of the American Century,” historian Alfred McCoy wrote, “Future historians are likely to identify George W. Bush’s rash invasion of Iraq, in 2003, as the start of America’s downfall.” It was the misuse of American power under Bush that began a precipitous decline in the reputation of the US as a political model and as a legitimate defender of the rule of law.

      That meant that to redress the balance, it became more important than ever for the US to show its determination to respect commitments. But as Annalisa Merelli, writing for Quartz, documented with a long list of examples, “the US is an unreliable international partner—and it has long been one, even before the current administration pulled out from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Paris agreement on climate change, and threatened to end NAFTA. History is dotted with treaties that the US has signed but not ratified, signed and then unsigned, and even refused to sign after pushing everyone else to sign.”

      Americans find this hard to understand because the media rarely, if ever, track the international reputation of the US in its proclaimed role as “leader of the free world.” They prefer to see the constant betrayals of trust as inevitable and regrettable but, at the same time, forgettable results of the differences between the two sacred political parties — Democrats and Republicans. Each has a different view of the world and, once in power, quite naturally seeks to impose that view, if only to keep their campaign promises to voters (and donors). International agreements always take a backseat to electoral tactics. 

      Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee for the US election in November, has expressed his admiration of McRaven’s “moral courage” and his pride in being associated with him. McRaven, who supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and has openly criticized Donald Trump, has a clear vision of the future that gives a good indication of what Biden’s foreign policy may look like. He affirmed that the US will “probably need to be in Afghanistan for a very long time.” Nineteen years has clearly not been long enough.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in World Politics

      Can the Afghans Work Toward a Lasting Peace Deal?

      by

      Afghanistan is at a critical stage in its decades-long conflict. A combination of factors has led to a deterioration of the country’s security. These include political corruption, dysfunctional institutions, patron-clientelism and social instability. Violence has intensified in recent years, causing numerous causalities of civilians and troops. 

      Can the Taliban and the Afghan Government Make Peace?

      READ MORE

      Washington has been a key supporter of the Afghan political system ever since the Taliban regime was overthrown in 2001, when NATO invaded Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks in the US. Since then, the US has sought to strike a deal with the Taliban, who have led an insurgency against NATO and Afghan security forces.

      Making Peace

      The US-Taliban peace deal — which the Afghan government is not a party to — was struck on February 29. If successful, it could help bring an end to the longest war in US history. The deal, which was signed in Doha after mediation by the Qataris, was the result of months of talks between Taliban officials and Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special envoy to Afghanistan. The agreement aims to pave the way for the end of US military involvement in Afghanistan and the withdrawal of foreign forces from the country if the Taliban uphold their side of the deal.

      The accord has been met with opposition due to continued attacks by Taliban militants against Afghan forces and civilians. On March 10, the Taliban and the government in Kabul were due to enter intra-Afghan peace talks for a separate agreement. However, an attack on a hospital maternity ward in May, which caused the death of mothers, midwives and newborns, threw the idea of peace in Afghanistan up in the air. As a result, the government resumed offensive operations against Taliban militants soon after the attacks. Afghan officials have since confirmed that peace talks are set to begin in September.

      Embed from Getty Images

      “This is cradle-to-grave terrorism,” says columnist Max Boot in an op-ed for The Washington Post, referring to the attack on the hospital. Nonetheless, US officials, including President Donald Trump, have stressed their desire for Afghans to take charge of their own security rather than relying on US and NATO forces. The US insists on intra-Afghan negotiations and is in a hurry for there to be a political settlement between the government and the Taliban.

      Based on its continued stance, there is no doubt that the Trump administration is committed to the Doha deal and its withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, whatever the circumstances or consequences. This makes it more unclear what the US-Taliban agreement could lead to and, more importantly, how much influence the Taliban would have on Afghan politics and society as a result.

      Ending Decades of Conflict in Afghanistan

      Ever since the Soviet invasion in 1979, Afghans have witnessed violence. Many young people are fed up with warlords who have destroyed the country and profited from its misery. Yet there is optimism that a political solution will emerge from the Doha agreement. This could have a lasting and positive impact if certain conditions are addressed.

      In this context, a number of local, regional and global factors are crucially significant to bring an end to the longstanding conflict and ensure a durable political settlement in Afghanistan.

      First, Afghans need to work on a local and national consensus. In a divided and diverse country like Afghanistan, the people must build strong social networks that include all factions and ethnic groups. They must work on a general consensus pertaining to a power-sharing structure.

      That said, the power distribution should be based on citizenship, not ethnic and religious lines. In the long term, stability and development are likely to be ensured if power-sharing is based on Afghan citizenship. Aside from this, the government needs to support such community networks, strengthen key institutions, continue to empower Afghan security forces and clamp down on widespread corruption.

      Second, under the auspices of the United Nations, a shura (council) should be created that consists of all sociopolitical elites, including political, tribal and community leaders, to lead the Afghan peace process. This shura needs to negotiate a ceasefire as a first step. Holding direct talks between rival groups is the second step. This would involve the government, the Taliban and former mujahideen commanders.

      To carry out the talks, the shura needs to form an inclusive and consultative negotiating team from all ethnic and political groups to be able to address the deeper grievances in the country. These issues should be aired by the people and addressed under Afghan legal frameworks and the rule of law.

      The shura needs to help all opposition groups resolve their differences and conflicts through dialogue. For a peace agreement to succeed, the Afghan government, the Taliban, all Afghan leaders, ambassadors of regional states, representatives of major Muslim countries and members of NATO must be a party to the deal. These stakeholders would need to guarantee that they would abide by any conditions in the settlement, and regional states would have to agree to end all meddling in Afghan affairs.

      Third, there is a need for economic and political pressure at a regional level. Considerable pressure should be imposed on influential states like Pakistan and Iran. These two countries are considered to be the root of the problem in Afghanistan and have been accused of harboring and supporting insurgents. Hence, it is necessary that Islamabad and Tehran assure the Afghan government that they will not provide safe havens for terrorists and that anyone doing so will be brought to justice.

      It is also vital that Pakistan and Iran own up to their covert interventions in Afghanistan’s internal affairs. Both of these nations should be transparent about such operations with the Afghan government and external stakeholders. Furthermore, regional states must recognize the political independence, territorial integrity and the rights of Afghan people to self-determination in their choice of political system.

      The assurances and regional consensus also need to be based on a commitment by the Afghans. In other words, in order to ensure an end to meddling in Afghan affairs, the government in Kabul must remain impartial when it comes to the political situation of other regional states.

      In addition, Kabul needs to assure regional states — Iran and Pakistan, particular — that their legitimate interests in Afghanistan will not be harmed. The Afghans must pledge to be active partners in trade, transit and energy resources. This would be a gamechanger for the region. There would be a shift away from the destructive intervention of neighboring states toward regional connectivity and an economy-focused approach that would benefit all nearby nations.

      Fourth, once a peace deal is reached, the international community could transform a treaty into a sustainable settlement through political and economic assistance. With this in mind, once a peace agreement is ratified, Kabul should engage with the US, the European Union, the World Bank and other international partners to design and implement nuanced development programs that could lead Afghanistan toward greater physical and economic stability. This would create job opportunities for all civilians and even militants, who would, presumably, put down their guns.

      In the first phase after a peace deal is enforced, a clear future plan needs to be implemented so members of opposition groups can be appointed in official positions. In this regard, the rights and obligations of the political forces of militant groups would be on the same footing as other Afghan citizens in a democratic and fair manner. The aim would be to reintegrate opposition groups and to encourage dialogue to prevent future conflict. Furthermore, the international community, alongside the shura, should persuade all parties — including the Taliban’s political wing — to participate in free and fair elections.

      If Peace Isn’t Possible?

      These measures would strengthen and consolidate the peace process to ensure that weapons are put down and stay down. A failure to address these conditions could lead to an intensified proxy war. As a result, non-state actors like the Taliban would step up with their insurgency, leading to an escalation of violence. This would not only bury any possible political settlement, but it would also derail global security.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in World Politics

      Can the Taliban and the Afghan Government Make Peace?

      by

      Having harbored al-Qaeda militants, the Taliban regime that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 was toppled by the US following the 9/11 attacks in the US. In 2003, the Taliban reorganized and began their insurgency against the Afghan government and NATO forces. Since then, despite national and international efforts to negotiate a peace settlement, the insurgency has continued. As a result, Afghanistan has faced years of instability and violence.

      In late 2018, Zalmay Khalilzad was appointed by Washington as the US special envoy to Afghanistan in a bid to strike a deal with the Taliban, which was signed on February 29, 2020, in Qatar. Under this agreement, peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban should have started at the beginning of March.

      How Osama bin Laden Got His Revenge

      READ MORE

      Yet after months of political wrangling, the negotiations will begin in September, according to Afghan officials. The US-Taliban deal states that prisoners on both sides should be released before the intra-Afghan peace talks commence, including 5,000 for the Taliban and 1,000 for the Afghan government. This has proved to be a contentious issue.

      The Afghan peace talks are to start soon, but one thing is clear: The Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan cannot be easily reconciled with the government’s Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Hence, with a number of sticking points, including a permanent ceasefire or a significant reduction in violence, peace talks will be extremely strenuous.

      Both sides have been at a stalemate. The main reasons for this are conflicting positions between the Taliban and the government. The Afghan government has taken an intransigent view regarding the republic system. It has called it a “red line” that cannot be negotiated, though it has made some concessions since the US-Taliban peace talks began. The Taliban have always focused on reinstating an Islamic emirate, often vaguely calling it an “Islamic system” that should be harmonious with Afghan cultural values.

      In particular, there are three main areas of contention for both parties.

      The Constitution

      First, the negotiations could focus on either the revocation or amendment of the Afghan Constitution, which conflicts with the Taliban’s goal of an Islamic emirate. While the current constitution guarantees equal rights for all Afghan males and females, the Taliban sternly deny gender equality as well as other basic human rights.

      Embed from Getty Images

      This is why, in their Moscow statement of February 2019, the Taliban called Afghanistan’s current constitutional law un-Islamic, urging for a new constitution based on “Islamic tenets.” The existing constitution of Afghanistan is believed to be one of the most liberal Islamic constitutions in the region, and the Taliban want to Islamize it based on their extreme interpretation of Islam.

      By Islamization, the Taliban would likely centralize power in the hands of one man — the group’s leader — who would have ultimate control as the head of state. He would handpick members of an Islamic council that would serve as the legislative body. The constitution of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, which was drafted in three days in 1998 by 500 clerics, is a case in point of what governance by the Taliban looks like.

      Elections

      Second, according to Article 61 of the current constitution, the president can only be elected by the people. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, a staunch supporter of the existing political system, has repeatedly said that the government will decisively defend the constitution based on the “republic system.”

      In this system, the head of state and other elected bodies are elected directly by the people. Article 4 of the constitution explicitly says that national “sovereignty in Afghanistan shall belong to the nation, manifested directly and through its elected representatives.” Afghanistan has held elections as a feature of democracy since the fall of the Taliban, including four presidential and three parliamentary elections. 

      In contrast, in the Taliban system based on sharia law, legitimacy comes from the decision of an exclusive, small group of religious elites. That is why the Taliban have continuously opposed elections in Afghanistan. Taliban militants have repeatedly carried out attacks around election time, including in 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019. The aims of such assaults were to disrupt the elections, undermine the government and, ultimately, to taint the legitimacy of the outcome of these votes.

      More importantly, democratic decision-making is an alien concept to the Taliban as a movement. For instance, the founder of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar, declared himself as the leader in 1994. Similarly, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor and Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, the successors to Omar, were both appointed by members of the supreme council.

      Many Taliban members have also expressly rejected elections as a means of choosing a government. In 2018, a senior member of Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s leadership council, flatly rejected elections. Referring to the shura, he said that the leadership of a government should be selected by a supreme council because “elections are not according” to sharia law. Likewise, Jalaluddin Shinwari, the former deputy minister of justice under the Taliban regime of the 1990s, said in 2019 that the “Taliban will not accept elections.” The group has asked the US to return power to them and to accept the Taliban’s emirate.

      However, aside from the theological argument of opposing elections, the Taliban’s biggest fear in this process stems from the uncertain outcome of allowing the people to choose. The Taliban’s odds of winning and eventually returning to power are extremely slim. Therefore, the group is likely to make every effort in the Afghan peace talks to win power as long as they do not involve elections.

      Human Rights

      Third, human rights are of the utmost importance when examining the Taliban. Respect and the protection of individual rights supported by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are fundamental elements of a democratic system. Article 7 of the current Afghan Constitution assures respect for human rights. Likewise, Article 22 guarantees equal rights for all Afghans before the law, irrespective of their gender, ethnicity or religion.

      Conversely, the Taliban are strongly opposed to respecting such universally accepted values and rights. They have never shown flexibility to accept a democratic and republican state, which values human rights. Rather, the Taliban have steadfastly reiterated their intent to reinstall an Islamic emirate that will respect human rights under their model of an “Islamic framework.” As per the Taliban‘s ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam, this would be incompatible with a democratic state’s human rights values.  

      To cite just a few examples, the Taliban have been notorious for their hostility and discriminatory policies toward ethnic and religious minorities and women. When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, they committed massacres against Hazaras in Mazari Sharif and Bamyan, slaughtering hundreds of civilians, including women and children. This attitude remains unchanged. 

      Similarly, under Taliban rule, Sikh minorities in Afghanistan were required to hang a yellow cloth on their rooftops and, in particular, Sikh women had to wear yellow cloths in public to identify themselves. Likewise, when they captured Kabul in 1996, the Taliban forbade girls and women from attending school and going to work, except in rare cases as medical staff with strict conditions. 

      Finally, the Taliban’s Dastur (draft constitution) stipulates that the amir al-mumineen, an Arabic term that means commander of the faithful, “must be a male Muslim follower of the Hanafi Islamic jurisprudence” — referring to a Sunni Muslim school of thought. The Taliban originally reserved this title for Mullah Omar.

      Though the matter of Dastur seems to be missing from the current discourse of the movement, the patriarchal nature of the Taliban still holds true, not only for the head of the state but also for other key positions. By only allowing a man to hold the role of head of state, the Taliban’s system of governance discriminates against women and members of other faiths — including Muslims of different Islamic sects — both of which are conflict with basic principles of human rights.  

      Despite claims by the Taliban and speculation by some researchers, the group’s general values have not changed. For example, in Taliban-controlled areas of today, women who wish to work or get an education are forced to do so under stringent conditions. In reality, this deprives women of the right to education and work as they are likely to be reluctant to attend a school or get a job.  

      Will the Afghan Peace Talks Work?

      The evidence so far suggests that both the Taliban and the Afghan government have shown some flexibility in agreeing to talks. Yet the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan remain incompatible. Both forms of governance negate each other. Unless the two sides accept considerable concessions in their positions, the possibility of reconciliation appears slim. This is particularly applicable to the Taliban.

      If the Taliban wish to smoothly reintegrate into society, they will have to adapt their policy about the governance system to a society that is very different from what they saw in the late 1990s. If they do not give in to the will of the new Afghan society of today, the group will face the resistance of Afghans who have sacrificed a lot over the last 19 years. Moreover, the chance of overthrowing the Western-backed Afghan government — if that is still the Taliban’s goal — seems far less than possible. 

      As a nation marred by violent conflict for decades, Afghanistan is highly dependent on international aid and assistance. Therefore, as the intra-Afghan talks begin, the Taliban have no option but to change their restrictive position with regard to holding free and fair elections and upholding human rights and other critical issues protected by the current constitution.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More