Pubdate: Thu, 28 Sep 2006
Source: Chicago Sun-Times (IL)
Copyright: 2006 The Sun-Times Co.
Contact:  http://www.suntimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/81

BUSH CAN'T AFFORD TO LET AFGHANISTAN WOES WORSEN

It is likely Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan  President 
Pervez Musharraf were not feted with tea and  Twinkies when they 
dined with President Bush at the  White House on Wednesday. Tea and 
Twinkies were on the  menu when Musharraf visited Comedy Central's 
"The Daily Show" earlier in the week, but there were far 
fewer  laughs at the White House when Karzai and Musharraf 
met  face-to-face after publicly squabbling about the lack  of 
security along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

While Musharraf has denied his country is abetting  Taliban fighters, 
reports suggest otherwise. It is  believed Pakistani sympathizers are 
harboring al-Qaida  leaders and supporting the Taliban by swapping 
weapons  for drugs. Indeed, poppy cultivation has blossomed in 
Afghanistan -- a problem Karzai said he takes  responsibility for. 
The United Nations estimates this  year's opium yield has gone up 49 
percent, and money  gleaned from the drug-infused flowers goes into 
the  warlords' pockets and then buys weapons for Taliban  fighters.

It was believed, five years ago when the United States  went into 
Afghanistan, that the Taliban -- who had  ruled Afghanistan since the 
Soviets withdrew -- had  been decimated. But like the poppy that 
grows so  effortlessly in the harsh Afghan soil, they have grown  in 
force and in determination to take back control of  the country. The 
entire southern part of the country,  near the Pakistan border, has 
been devastated by  suicide bombers and roadside bombs.

The murder of an Afghan official who was working for  women's rights 
was fanatical and repugnant. Safia  Amajan was a religious woman and 
wore a burka when a  Taliban gunman shot her four times with a 
pistol. The  vicious killing recalled filmed scenes in a 
Kabul  sports stadium when the Taliban were in power and a  woman was 
brought into the middle of the field and shot  in the head.

NATO forces, about 18,500 troops, are frustrated  because their 
mission had been intended to help  reconstruction, not fight the 
Taliban, and they rightly  are asking for more troops. Many Afghans 
have lost  faith in Karzai's government: Only one in 10 has 
electrical power at home.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry noted in a Wall Street  Journal op-ed 
Monday that the American government must  pressure our allies who 
"have pledged troops and  assistance" but have not followed through. 
Pakistan  President Musharraf recently made a deal with tribal  lords 
to leave jurisdiction of their lands to them in  exchange for no 
militant incursions into Afghanistan.  It isn't working. It is hoped 
President Bush  communicated this to Musharraf and that he will turn 
his attention again to the continuing problem of  Afghanistan's instability.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman