- Joined
- Feb 29, 2004
- Messages
- 1,720
- Points
- 248
Donor countries are showing more generosity toward Afghanistan lately, but the international largesse may prove meaningless unless the country's continued violence can be controlled.
American officials are pleased with the upward trend in assistance promises, while privately criticizing Arab countries for reneging on Afghan aid pledges they made more than two years ago.
Most worrisome for U.S. officials and congressional leaders is the continued threat posed by regional warlords and their heavily armed militias.
``Without bringing security to Afghanistan, nothing else is possible,'' says Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Mark Schneider of the International Crisis Group, a research foundation, says security in Afghanistan ``affects everything from elections to reconstruction. ... This is not a post-conflict situation; an unrelenting battle continues in Afghanistan.''
More than 2 years after the demise of the Taliban regime, regional warlords battle constantly over turf and narcotics trafficking.
There is strong bipartisan support in Washington for helping Afghanistan, the country that spawned al-Qaida and the Taliban, so that it does not descend into an anarchic haven for terrorists all over again.
President Hamid Karzai says the country's first national elections, set for September, could be jeopardized unless the private militias that control much of the country are disarmed.
On the plus side, donor countries pledged $8.2 billion for Afghanistan at a conference last month in Berlin. A U.S. commitment of $2.2 billion for 2004 was supplemented with promise of $400 million by Japan over two years, $391 million from Germany over four years, $850 million from the European Union for 2004 and $900 million by Britain over five years.
That's more than was pledged at a similar conference in Tokyo two years earlier, said Barnett Rubin of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University.
``If the pledges are fulfilled, it will go a long way toward correcting the financial neglect from which Afghanistan has suffered,'' Rubin said.
But James Dobbins, an analyst at the Rand think tank and a former State Department expert on nation building, is less impressed.
He says $8.2 billion over three years ``works out to $100 per Afghan per year - not bad - but Kosovo got four times more after just 11 weeks of bombing, and Bosnia seven times more after two.''
Dobbins points out that various Afghan wars have lasted for more than 20 years.
U.S. officials cite the accomplishments of outside aid: 25 million school textbooks distributed, 203 schools constructed or rebuilt, 140 health clinics rehabilitated and 4.26 million children vaccinated against measles and polio.
They also tout the restoration of the war-ravaged, 310-mile Kabul-Kandahar highway. That trip, once a bone-jarring 12-hour adventure, now takes about four hours.
But no one doubts the distance the world's second-poorest country has to travel.
A recent study by the NYU center says average life expectancy is 43 years and that one out of four children dies before age 5.
On the economic front, opium poppy, the raw material for heroin, is the country's principal growth industry. According to the United Nations, Afghanistan accounts for three-quarters of the world's illicit opium production. Karzai has vowed to cut the poppy crop by 25 percent.
But for Afghans and their American patrons, security is the major concern. Barnett describes the level of international security assistance to Afghanistan as ``pathetic.'' The NATO-led troop commitment is 6,000-strong and is deployed mostly in Kabul. The perceived dangers inhibit a more robust presence.
The United States itself has about 15,000 troops in Afghanistan, most of them attempting to hunt down remnants of al-Qaida and the Taliban in the border area with Pakistan.
Biden says that on security matters, the Afghan forces are still neophytes. He cites the scant progress toward the goal of disarming 40,000 of the nation's 100,000 warlord militiamen by June 30.
As of the first week in May, Biden says, ``the number who had been disarmed was exactly zero.''
Source: Modoracle
American officials are pleased with the upward trend in assistance promises, while privately criticizing Arab countries for reneging on Afghan aid pledges they made more than two years ago.
Most worrisome for U.S. officials and congressional leaders is the continued threat posed by regional warlords and their heavily armed militias.
``Without bringing security to Afghanistan, nothing else is possible,'' says Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Mark Schneider of the International Crisis Group, a research foundation, says security in Afghanistan ``affects everything from elections to reconstruction. ... This is not a post-conflict situation; an unrelenting battle continues in Afghanistan.''
More than 2 years after the demise of the Taliban regime, regional warlords battle constantly over turf and narcotics trafficking.
There is strong bipartisan support in Washington for helping Afghanistan, the country that spawned al-Qaida and the Taliban, so that it does not descend into an anarchic haven for terrorists all over again.
President Hamid Karzai says the country's first national elections, set for September, could be jeopardized unless the private militias that control much of the country are disarmed.
On the plus side, donor countries pledged $8.2 billion for Afghanistan at a conference last month in Berlin. A U.S. commitment of $2.2 billion for 2004 was supplemented with promise of $400 million by Japan over two years, $391 million from Germany over four years, $850 million from the European Union for 2004 and $900 million by Britain over five years.
That's more than was pledged at a similar conference in Tokyo two years earlier, said Barnett Rubin of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University.
``If the pledges are fulfilled, it will go a long way toward correcting the financial neglect from which Afghanistan has suffered,'' Rubin said.
But James Dobbins, an analyst at the Rand think tank and a former State Department expert on nation building, is less impressed.
He says $8.2 billion over three years ``works out to $100 per Afghan per year - not bad - but Kosovo got four times more after just 11 weeks of bombing, and Bosnia seven times more after two.''
Dobbins points out that various Afghan wars have lasted for more than 20 years.
U.S. officials cite the accomplishments of outside aid: 25 million school textbooks distributed, 203 schools constructed or rebuilt, 140 health clinics rehabilitated and 4.26 million children vaccinated against measles and polio.
They also tout the restoration of the war-ravaged, 310-mile Kabul-Kandahar highway. That trip, once a bone-jarring 12-hour adventure, now takes about four hours.
But no one doubts the distance the world's second-poorest country has to travel.
A recent study by the NYU center says average life expectancy is 43 years and that one out of four children dies before age 5.
On the economic front, opium poppy, the raw material for heroin, is the country's principal growth industry. According to the United Nations, Afghanistan accounts for three-quarters of the world's illicit opium production. Karzai has vowed to cut the poppy crop by 25 percent.
But for Afghans and their American patrons, security is the major concern. Barnett describes the level of international security assistance to Afghanistan as ``pathetic.'' The NATO-led troop commitment is 6,000-strong and is deployed mostly in Kabul. The perceived dangers inhibit a more robust presence.
The United States itself has about 15,000 troops in Afghanistan, most of them attempting to hunt down remnants of al-Qaida and the Taliban in the border area with Pakistan.
Biden says that on security matters, the Afghan forces are still neophytes. He cites the scant progress toward the goal of disarming 40,000 of the nation's 100,000 warlord militiamen by June 30.
As of the first week in May, Biden says, ``the number who had been disarmed was exactly zero.''
Source: Modoracle
