Karzai, Criminal Syndicates and Terrorists

The Western Powers with over 150,000 military forces in or adjacent to Afghanistan and their network of support and supply bases outside the country need to re-conceptualize the Mission to crush Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Experts admit that a military strategy will only accomplish so much. Essentially, the Afghans must take control in fighting the violence, terrorist raids into their villages and in bringing greater levels of peace, security and prosperity. If national leaders of Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq and other dysfunctional states are seen as heads of a criminal national syndicate with alliances to local syndicates rather than as simply crusaders against Terrorism, then it will be easier to pull out foreign troops, decrease the spending of foreign treasure and create conditions for Afghans and anti-terrorist Muslim movements to take over the fight to bring peace and local security. The military role should be minimized, except for an increase in drone strikes across Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

Here are a few suggestions for speeding up the pullout from Afghan and other states combating terrorist organizations:

First, we should invite, fund and recruit special units of adventurous Muslim retired officers and young or unemployed Muslim soldiers that disagree with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda Ideology of Murder and Mayhem to fight in a pan-Muslim Army equivalent to the old colonial Foreign Legion or African Commando units. Then, embed these units with the elite of the Afghan national army or local police in key valleys along the frontlines bordering Pakistan. Build up the Afghan Army and Police by having a predominance of Arabic and Afghan speaking instructors rather than foreign non-speakers. Downgrade Euro and US military operations, except for the drone strikes, as of July 2011 and dramatically increase the drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The hundreds of billions of dollars to fight the current wars are unsustainable for much longer. More importantly, it is inefficient and extremely wasteful.

Secondly, another anti-terrorist strategy is the active sponsoring of TV, radio and print media operations that promote any and all less extreme Islamic values 24/7 for all men, women and children. There should be accredited cyber K-12 schools, agricultural and trade schools with Afghan trained teachers and religious leaders available for both boys and girls. The proposal includes the giving of every Afghan, among its various minority groups in all areas of the country, media and radio that ensures access to the media 24/7. By a mass media communications strategy, the State can have a presence in all parts of the country and can keep the faces of government leaders and its major terrorists, rapists, and wanted criminals posted in every media, government outlet and post office. In essence, it needs to do what the FBI has done to fight the various criminals and their syndicates across the US since the late 1920s. The media needs to televise the local major jurga forums as well as creative business, sports, religious and arts peoples from all its ethnic communities. This 24/7 strategy should apply to media as well as to all the police and military compounds in the country with a fund at each of these elite military and national police  institutions that can pay for civil informants as to local terrorists. As part of its urban anti-terror strategies, the government should have cameras at and near all major cities and towns as well as compounds and military barracks so that terrorists do not surprise trainees, military or police officials.

Also, the Afghans needs to create distinct Afghan uniforms for both the more elite members of the military and its national police forces as was done with Italy’s Carabenieri and Canada’s RCMP and its distinct red uniforms. These forces need special issue equipment and training so as to trace all its equipment if stolen or traded. Rotate the elite military and police officers as well as their families to lower chances of graft and criminal activities and increase their loyalty to the State. Provide better housing and educational opportunities for all these elite troops and their families. Pay and promotions need to be linked to the accomplishment of local and national performance goals while on duty. Another option is to have liaisons with the local beggar communities in each major town and city as was done in pre-industrial Europe.

Karzai Family Criminal Syndicate has the protection of all the Western powers in Afghanistan. This Family syndicate may be exposed for short periods of time, a case in point is the activities of his brother the banker, but the Karzai criminal syndicate will remain in power since it is the key national group binding the national criminal network for most of the drug and land-based lords in Afghanistan’s twenty-eight provinces. As Peter Galbraith pointed out, while investigating corruption and Karzai government election practices, all but one of Karzai’s Ministers and their Departments are actively involved in corrupt practices. As the New York Times and other media outlets have documented, each week officials are leaving the country with suitcases of foreign funds or using the development money and contracts to build palatial residences or the palaces and fortresses of local warlords. Especially telling is the Karzai control of a province adjacent to Iran since that country is a key transit route in the drug and money trade. Karzai is frank that he receives sacks, bags, suitcases of funds from the Iranians as well as other foreign States. The Karzai syndicate and most of the drug lords will remain in power until such time as another crime syndicate leader is found in Afghanistan.

If any Euro or other countries were serious about cleaning up corruption in Afghanistan or Yemen or even Pakistan, they would indict any Afghan or other officials that have dual citizenship, much as the US did to Karzai’s brother, who is a US citizen and a syndicate front banker that controlled the money laundering operations for the Karzai family, government and its drug lord allies. As with Iraq, those that oppose the government criminal syndicates in power are no different. However, those with less power should be monitored and encouraged to call for an end to corruption so that those in power can be kept on their toes.

The US, Euro States and even Russia are all agreed that they need to stay the course in Afghanistan since it is a resource rich country and also a transit country for potential oil and gas pipelines to Pakistan and energy hungry India. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban need to be crushed or marginalized enough for the pipeline and mining activities to take place in and through Afghanistan.

Perhaps, if we re-conceptualize the current anti-terror strategy as one of dealing with criminal syndicates, we could make greater impact in neutralizing the threats in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. We need to give these criminal bosses of networks deals and incentive they can’t refuse while rooting out the terrorists in their territories, using the media to expose both their terrorist enemies and when the time comes even them.

Afghanistan and FNMI Initiatives

Harper has announced that Canada has extended its commitment to keep troops in Afghanistan until 2014. By the end of its expeditionary mission to that country Canada will have spent over 30 billion dollars, lost just less than 150 lives and accomplished nothing of any lasting substance. Committing our troops to a mission in Afghanistan will have as little long term impact on the local or global situation as Canada’s military participation during the Boer War. Today, we continue to squander billions of dollars, Canadian military lives, and have made a mockery of the role of Parliament in approving the extension of foreign expeditions. Sadly, we have passed up an opportunity to close the growing gap between mainstream Canadians and our indigenous peoples by our commitment to remain in Afghanistan in order to fight an ill-conceived war by ineffective means.

Could the 30 billion dollars we shall spend in Afghanistan by 2014 have been better allocated to deal with First Nation, Métis and Inuit training, infrastructure and housing needs at home? The Kelowna Accord with FNMI leaders would have allocated about 5 billion to deal with our internal need to upgrade the living standards of Canada’s indigenous population. The five-year, $5-billion plan set targets to improve education, housing, economic development, health and water services, and detailed how money would be spent along the way. When the accord fell to the wayside, so did any forward momentum in addressing those needs. Today more than 100 aboriginal communities do not have access to clean drinking water. There are 27,000 aboriginal youth living away from their parents due to poverty, aboriginal incarceration rates are rising and the gap between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians continues to widen as the demand for adequate housing and educational facilities increases. In short, we have intentionally squandered an opportunity to address our own nation building needs by signing up for an ill conceived Afghanistan adventure. After nine years of involvement we have absolutely nothing to show as an achievement.

The billions squandered in Afghanistan was not just for maintaining our troops but was also spent to enrich Karzai family members, corrupt Ministers and the key warlords in most of the 28 districts in the country. We failed to train any significant number of locals in carpentry, masonry, public utilities, medical services, local municipal services, waste and water management, or educational training work. We failed to assist Afghans to transform their educational and training institutions at every level. Today, over 70% of the population is either unemployed, illiterate or has received no training in any career or profession. Women and children are still raped and abused. Our greatest accomplishment has been to enrich the warlords, Karzai family members and their allies, and all those involved in the opium trade. Business in the illicit drug trade is at an all time high thanks to the protection of foreign troops.

How could the billions have been better spent? If Canada had heeded Marshall Mc Luhan’s insights on the impact of mass media and technology on the thinking of populations, we would have trained a few thousand Afghanis among each of the country’s minority groups to operate radio, television, cyber chat lines, newspapers and surveillance cameras 24/7 in Afghanistan. These local media people would be trained, at a cost of less than one billion dollars, to use the latest technology to communicate to their local peer groups in culturally savvy ways. Rather than spend millions each week to keep our Leopard tanks on the road to nowhere, we could give everyone radios, TVs and training tools at discount prices. If we had spent less than a billion dollars on a career and technology development strategy, Afghans would be hearing their own trained people, on a 24/7 basis, talk about their cultural, religious and training needs. A mass media strategy would have provided a lasting opportunity to transform a society and train people to help themselves in all walks of life. A mass media strategy that provided both electronic information and training opportunities across Afghanistan would have done more to genuinely win the hearts and minds of both men and women across each district of the country than our current policies of cat and mouse troop placements. If we had adopted a vigorous mass communications strategy, media messages would have gone out in the local dialects to homes and public institutions. Afghan media personalities could have made more transparent and transformative the workings of government services, educational and other institutions in the society. Also, a 24/7 media strategy could have exposed the gross corruption and criminality among government officials and the various Taliban factions. Less Afghan men living in far off communities would be clueless as to the struggle that is currently being waged in Afghanistan. In a recent survey, the overwhelming numbers of Afghans claim not to know why foreign troops are in the country.

The Afghan people could be reminded that the best way to get the foreigners out is for them to get training in a multitude of trades, services and professions. Instead, most of the billions upon billions spent by foreign governments maintain over 150,000 foreign troops, private security forces and non-governmental support staffs chasing a few thousand local Taliban. Whereas it costs us over a million dollars to kill or capture one Taliban, it cost them less than one thousand dollars to equip and maintain fighters in the field or to ensure that a suicide bomber carries out his work on a mere bicycle. Harper has informed us that our new military mission is no longer one of combat but one of training the country’s police and government officials. What makes us think we will do a better job at training police and a new Afghan army, when most of the conscripts are handpicked loyalists of the Karzai family or this or that warlord?

We are wasting a billion dollars per year on our Afghanistan expedition in order to achieve nothing of any lasting substance. Our unique reputation as UN Peacekeepers and our influence in our own backyard has eroded. Canada’s resources could have been used at home to close the worsening gap between Canadians and our indigenous peoples. Our military engineers could have built roads and airports in our North to get our goods and services to China, Asia and Russia over our Arctic space by new, cheaper and quicker routes. We could have built the infrastructure and thousands of new homes across our over seven hundred FNMI communities. We could have promoted innovations in Green Technology or created the world’s biggest domestic fish hatchery in the Hudson’s Bay. We could have trained our own FNMI populations to defend our home and native land and even have funds left over to help Haiti in our own Hemisphere. Mc Luhan and Pearson must be turning over in their graves!