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FRIDE:
NATO STRUGGLES WITH AN OPIUM-FUNDED WAR IN AFGHANISTAN - BY ROBERT
MATTHEWS: 04/02/08
(MaximsNews Network)
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UNITED
NATIONS - / MaximsNews Network / - 04
February 2008 -- On
November 6, Afghanistan was shocked by the deadliest
bombing in the country’s history. The suicide attack occurred in the
province of Baghlan, heretofore relatively quiet compared with the violent
southeastern territory.
The terrorist act killed at least 77 people, including a key opposition figure
and five other members of Afghanistan’s parliament, as well as,
horrifyingly, 59 school children. The attack underscored the spiralling
violence that has frazzled nerves, disheartened and alienated the population,
and undermined material and political progress in Afghanistan.
It has also raised the question of whether the US-led
military strategy in Afghanistan, which has shortchanged political,
economic and social reconstruction, has failed even to establish basic local
security for the country, much less provided for long-term stability.
The reality of developments in Afghanistan since 2005 have mocked US
assertions of success and the scales have finally fallen from the eyes of both
the media and some government officials. Today, even the initial tactical
success of the US in toppling the Taliban regime has receded in significance
in the face of a growing and dangerous insurgency.
It may yet be possible to demobilise the armed men who have risen from the
seeds planted by Western error in the rocky soil of Afghanistan. It may yet be
possible to craft a plan for a sustainable peace. But this can only come to be
if wisdom is finally hitched to power.
In this Comment article, Robert Matthews explores the failures of US and NATO
policy in Afghanistan, and asks what should be done to bring a long-awaited
stability to the war-ravaged country.
The challenges that lie ahead for NATO, and its discourse with the US,
European governments and the populations supporting the Afghanistan mission,
will be the subject of a second article. A final essay will take up the role
of Pakistan both in Afghanistan and as a central front in the global war on
terror.
Download the full version of this publication, available in
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Keywords
Afghanistan
Conflict Conflict
resolution Failed
states Middle East
NATO War
on terror
Related
publications
Bio
author: Robert Matthews
Robert
Matthews, Associate Fellow of FRIDE, holds a Ph.D in Latin American history from
New York University, where he was a teacher at the Center for Latin American and
Caribbean Studies. For twenty years was a collaborator with the Peace Research
Center - Centro de Investigación para la Paz (CIP) - in Madrid, specializing in
United States foreign policy.
Labels:
NATO,
opium-funded war,
Afghanistan, FRIDE,
Fundación
para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior,
Security,
Elections,
United
Nations, U.N.,
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