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Afghanistan
- Gold Folder Created: August 2008
“We do know, of certain knowledge, that [Bin Laden] is either in Afghanistan or in some other country or dead.”
~ Donald Rumsfeld
Afghanistan has taken a back role to Iraq in the last few years, ceding the headlines to its neighbor in the Middle East. That will change in the next year. Look for Afghanistan to steal back the attention of news analysts as more troops are sent to this Taliban hotspot and fighting intensifies in this war zone.[1]
Afghanistan is larger than Iraq in terms of both size and population. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, guests of the Taliban, plotted the September 11 attacks in Afghanistan. And America went to war there in October 2001, with the international community's blessing, to capture or kill those responsible for the attacks. Yet as of late summer, 2008 there are only about 36,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, less than one-third the number stationed in Iraq. According to Lee Hamilton, director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., the costs of our lack of attention have been high of late. In June 2008, a Taliban prison raid freed 1,000 inmates in Kandahar, 400 of whom were Taliban. On July 13, 2008, Taliban forces nearly overran a U.S.-Afghan outpost in the Weygal Valley near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, killing nine and wounding 15 American soldiers. More U.S. troops died in Afghanistan (52) than in Iraq (43) since between May and July, 2008. Suicide bombingsincreased by 40 percent during the first half of 2008 as compared to 2007. Afghanistan is producing opium -- used to make heroin -- at record levels, supplying 92 percent of the world's total. Narco-trafficking funds the Taliban's insurgency and undermines the Karzai government, which is weak and rife with corruption.[2]
While Afghanistan continues to slip into chaos, with a sharp increase in Taliban-led attacks on U.S. troops, a booming opium harvest and stalled reconstruction efforts, questions are being raised about President Hamid Karzai's leadership of the troubled country. Karzai, known for his debonair fashion sense, was hailed as the face of Afghanistan's future when he was promoted by the coalition forces that overthrew the Taliban in 2001. In the early days after he decisively won the 2004 presidential election, he was widely praised for his steady leadership during the country's fragile new era. But in the summer of 2008 Karzai came under fire, literally and figuratively. Karzai, who narrowly survived an assassination attempt in April, 2008, has taken the brunt of the blame for not acting forcefully against a resurgent Taliban and for failing to stem endemic corruption in the security forces and reconstruction teams in the desperately poor country. Things have deteriorated so badly that some Afghans say they preferred the rule of the Taliban, which imposed strict Shariah religious lawin the country from 1996 to 2001, according to Afghanistan experts.[3]
Jonathan Evans, director general of Britain's security service MI5 describes al-Qaeda and its associated groups as, "the main national security threat that we face today." Through a series of attacks and attempted attacks, Evans argues Islamist extremists have declared war on the values that underpin the liberal democracies of Britain, Europe, and the entire West.[4] When the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949, NATO's founding members agreed on the sacred Article 5 clause stipulating that "an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all."[5] As a collective defensive military alliance, NATO invoked Article 5 following al-Qaeda's 9/11 attacks on the United States. Evans says the Alliance must now follow through on that invocation and continue to deny al-Qaeda a safe haven in which to operate by winning in Afghanistan. With a catalog of successful and thwarted al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on Britain and Europe since 9/11, it is imperative that all NATO members recommit to the mission in Afghanistan. The terrorist attacks on London and Madrid serve as stark reminders of why NATO undertook the Afghanistan mission in the first place. Europe cannot afford to underestimate the incredible momentum that Islamist extremists—at home and abroad—will gain from signs of weakness by the Alliance in Afghanistan.[6]
So far, our NATO allies' contributions have been disappointing, with national restrictions on the use of their troops precluding participation in the more dangerous, but most crucial, missions. The provisional reconstruction teams (PRTs), which should be relying on civilian expertise and leadership, are increasingly dependent on military staffing. NATO's commander in Europe, US General Bantz John Craddock, has accused alliance member countries of failing to keep their military and aid pledges to Afghanistan. He said NATO member states had agreed as recently as April at the alliance's summit in Bucharest to fulfill previous promises to the strife-torn country. But he said letters and calls from his office had produced few results. Of 73 units pledged to train Afghan security forces, 19 were still lacking and that funding for NATO operations was also coming up short. The Czech Republic, for example, had made helicopters available but the alliance did not have the capability to transport them to Afghanistan.[7]
Afghanistan is a crucial front in the global struggle against the al-Qaeda terrorist network and Islamic radicalism. According to Lisa Curtis and James Phillips of the Heritage Foundation, the United States-led coalition was unable to transform an overwhelming military victory in 2001 into a stable postwar political situation because of Afghanistan's fractious politics and shattered economic, state, and civil society infrastructures; a minimalist American approach to committing military forces and foreign aid; Pakistan's failure to crack down decisively on Taliban forces that have taken refuge in Pashtun tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border; the Afghan government's failure to expand its authority and deliver services to rural Afghans; and a shortfall of economic aid, due in part to many countries' failure to fulfill their foreign aid pledges to Afghanistan. The U.S. has pledged to increase assistance to Afghanistan significantly over the next two years (about $2 billion for reconstruction and $8.6 billion for security assistance), and in January extended the deployment of 3,200 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. These are steps in the right direction. But to ensure that Afghanistan does not again become a safe haven for terrorism, Americans must wage a long-term integrated political, military, and economic development campaign to convince Afghans that their interests are better served by an inclusive democratic government than by a radical Islamic regime.[8]
For all its old-fashioned ideas, the Taliban in Afghanistan is waging a dangerously effective information warusing the Internet and other modern communications systems to spread their message among tribespeople and the international Muslim community. A new report by Gareth Evans' International Crisis Group says the extraordinary information campaign being waged by the Taliban is driving a dangerous wedge between the Karzai Government, along with its international backers, and the Afghan people. It warns that along with the traditional "shabnamah" — "night letters" in leaflets that usually contain threats and traditional nationalist songs and poems — the Taliban is using the full range of media to tap into strains of Afghan nationalism and to create the impression it is much stronger than it is. Along with the internet, the Taliban was issuing DVDs, tape cassettes and mobile phone messages to create the impression it is a patriotic organization defending Afghan traditions. It also has its own website and statements from its leaders are put out in five languages, with regular updates. The Crisis Group said the information campaign, complete with exaggerated battle reports, was having a big impact on the largely rural and illiterate population.[9]
Key Terms
Taliban
Osama bin Laden
al-Qaeda
Suicide bombing
Hamid Karzai
Shariah religious law
North Atlantic Treaty
Provisional Reconstruction Teams (PRTs)
Bantz John Craddock
Information war
Research Tips
Read the CIA World Factbook entry for Afghanistan:
Read a University of Utah report on Politics, Economics and Society in several countries, including Afghanistan:
Check out a Physicians for Human Rights report on the treatment of women in Afghanistan:
Africa
- Gold Folder Created: August 2008
“Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must move faster than the lion or it will not survive. Every morning a lion wakes up and it knows it must move faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve. It doesn't matter if you are the lion or the gazelle, when the sun comes up, you better be moving.”
~ Maurice Greene
In the United States, we simply do not hear very much about the positive developments in Africa. What we see in the news, what we see in the print media, what we see in the broadcast media are typically the bad news stories: the stories about what's going on in Sudan, the stories about people, women, their families being displaced, having to move to refugee camps. Or we hear about problems of fighting in Somalia, which looks very complicated, very confused. Or we hear about the terrible, very serious economic problems in Zimbabwe where the president is literally running the country and his people into the ground. More recently, we've been hearing a little bit about the post-election violence in Kenya.[10]
Each year, 515 million people contract malaria. As many as 3 million — primarily young children in sub-Saharan Africa — die from it. But the morbidity statistics associated with malaria represent just one segment of the neglected disease spectrum. The overall numbers are even more numbing and difficult to comprehend. Nearly one out of every six people worldwide is affected by a preventable and treatable disease such as malaria, cholera, tuberculosis, river blindness, dengue fever, or human African trypanosomoiasis (sleeping sickness). That fact translates into 1 billion men, women and children around the world who suffer from neglected diseases. More than a million of them die each year due to this neglect, and for too long they have been invisible casualties. Sadly, despite the fact that one billion people are affected by these diseases, less than one percent of the roughly 1,400 drugs registered between 1975 and 1999 treated these diseases. In some cases, the treatments and medications for these diseases exist, but the affected populations face barriers to access. In other cases, the clinical knowledge and research capacity may exist for the creation of new therapies and diagnostic tools, but hurdles remain that halt progress on the research and development that must take place to deliver new therapies to those in need. To overcome these impediments, global health leaders must mobilize non-governmental organizations, humanitarian aid groups and public and private-sector interests to develop innovative policy solutions to bring newer, more effective treatments to patients with neglected diseases.[11]
Drug companies that create treatments for the malaria epidemic are slashing prices in an effort to get crucial medicines to needy regions. Drug company Novartis has announced a 20 per cent average reduction in the price of its malaria drug Coartem to help access to treatment in the world's poorest regions. Coartem produces cure rates up to 95 percent and Novartis will provide it to the public sector without profit. Novartis says the reduction will increase access to the drug for millions of malaria patients, especially children in low income regions of Africa.[12]
Largely as a result of Malaria, the child mortality rate in Africa rates well behind UN targets. Less than a quarter of "priority countries" are on track to reach UN goals for reducing high rates of infant and maternal mortality by 2015. While some nations -- notably China -- have made significant progress, far more, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, have either stagnated or lost ground. One of the objectives is to slash the death rate among children under five by two thirds before 2015, using the beginning of the century as a benchmark. Another seeks to improve maternal health. Only 16 of these high-risk nations are on track to meet their goals. Twenty-six have made no progress whatsoever, and 12 -- including Cameroon, Botswana, Kenya and South Africa -- have actually slid backwards. The bottom line is that more than 10 million youngsters die before the age of five every year, most from preventable causes. In at least 15 African countries, one out of four or five children never see his or her fifth birthday, according to UN statistics. In the world's richest nations, the corresponding figure is one out of 200 or less. Maternal and child undernutrition account for 20 percent of maternal deaths and 35 percent of under-five deaths. But at the same time nutrition only accounts for eight-to-13 percent of total aid flow. Routinely scheduled immunization and pre-natal care proved more efficient than relying on 24-hour clinical services for emergency care at birth, or care of ill newborn babies and children. Another critical focus is working to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV.[13]
Despite malaria's death toll, HIV/AIDS seems to always get more press. And in Uganda, the current anti-AIDS strategy does not seem to be working. At the fifth National AIDS Conference in Uganda, the keys for moving beyond the past achievements called for going beyond the ABC (Abstinence, Be faithful and Condoms) strategy. The ABC strategyled to the reduction in the HIV prevalence rate from 18% in 1992 to 6.4 % by 2006. However, there is still a long way to go. About 2.5 million Ugandans are HIV-positive and 2.3 million children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. The challenges of ensuring universal access to care and treatment by those affected by the pandemic, responding to the needs of orphans and minimizing the infection rates, call for a multi-dimension approach beyond the ABC strategy. Critics argue that the ABC strategy focuses more on changing sexual behaviors and ignores social-cultural and economic dimensions that put certain categories of people to a higher risk of getting infected. It is premised on assumptions that every person is empowered to make free choices regarding their sexual behaviors. But opponents claim that poverty, gender imbalances, sexual violence and negative cultural practices deny some people a choice to control their sexual behaviors. This partially accounts for the stagnating prevalence rate of 6.4%. The National AIDS Conference concluded that there is need to supplement the ABC strategy with approaches that target contextual and societal issues that dispose vulnerable groups to HIV/AIDS. The strategy should go beyond ABC to DEFG where D stands for fighting discrimination, E for education and information, F for fighting poverty and G for gender sensitivity.[14]
Only a quarter of HIV-positive pregnant women in poorer countries receive antiretroviral therapyto prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, according to a UN report. Nevertheless, the report found that increasing numbers of HIV-positive children and expectant mothers are receiving anti-HIV drugs. The report, which was jointly produced by the World Health Organization, UNAIDSand UNICEF, found that in 2007, an estimated 290,000 children aged under 15 died because of HIV and that 2.1 million children were living with the virus. The HIV epidemic in adults is also having an effect on children, and 12.1 million children in sub-Saharan Africa have had one or both parents die because of HIV. Focusing on low- and middle-income countries, the report details progress in four key areas: the provision of antiretroviral drugs to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, the provision of pediatric anti-HIV treatment, preventing new HIV infections in children and young people, and the protection and support of young people affected by HIV.[15]
In 2006, just over a third of a million pregnant women with HIV received antiretroviral therapy to prevent HIV transmission to their babies. Although this represents a 60% increase on 2005, it means that only 23% of expectant mothers with HIV are receiving drugs shown to dramatically reduce the risk of HIV transmission to their infant. Nevertheless, 21 countries are now on track to meet the target 80% coverage of treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission. This includes several countries with a high adult HIV prevalence such as Botswana and South Africa. Other encouraging news is evidence of a decline in HIV prevalence amongst women attending antenatal clinics. Between 2001 and 2006, prevalence declined in eleven Eastern and Southern African countries.[16]