In its advice to travellers, the website
of the Afghan embassy in Australia says
of Kabul "there's a lot to see, even if most of it is wrecked". The embassy also warms holidaymakers not to "wander off the beaten track because parts of the city are scil mined
Its not ust Kau which s wrecked Aignan sace sarece: The court Tom resembe Europe Gomerment roos and police
mouses at anc bear the man cans Faces a women, prs and pows are
Marker traders are super poer and extorton. Trade within the country s strangled by warlords who control roads and levy "taxes" to pay for their armed gangs. Most of the country outside the capital is now in the hands of the old warlords. These people, all of whom are mass murderers, are part of what passes for a plan to stabilize the country.
The British and Americans are giving them money in return for controlling their territory. The exercise is given a veneer of respectability by the Loya jirga, a farcical consultative assembly, 80 percent of whose membership are warlords.
The puppet goverment of Hamid Karzai
i no autoro outside the capical. Karza
the Americans for millcar, sucD0r: I tame on the manoras t s sef evSHE STO DE SUC forces levying taxes and moong her sw laws.
The Americans refused his request. Rumsfeld and Bush were already planning the war on Iraq and did not want significant numbers of troops tied up in the Afghan mountains. Now two million refugees have returned to a country with neither jobs, housing or peace. The Americans are committed to spending $10 billion on military operations in the country this year.
According to the State Department they will have spent just under $l billion on humanitarian aid between 2001 and 2003. Much of the 54.5 billion which was pledged by a consortium of imperialist powers for ad za conference in Tokyo this year has not been giver. This s a good mathematical demonscracor of ana: imoortant to
consequent =s 00 not require any lea Opium growing is by far the most lucrative way of making a living for farmers. Warlords fight for their share of the profits, thus failing in the promise they made the Americans to keep the countryside peaceful and drugs free. Meanwhile in the areas that border Pakistan significant guerrilla operations are conducted by members of the Taliban and Al Qaida. T
They are based in Pakistan and the Afghan government is urging the Pakistani government to do more to restrict their freedom of movement across the border. In one attack in August about 400 fighters attacked a police station, destroyed the building and killed 30 police officers.
Given that the Pakistani intelligence serv ices were instrumental in setting up the Taliban it is unlikely that they will respond to Kabul's pleas for help.
The fact is that the Americans struggling to keep down the Iraqi resistance and drafting plans for the invasion of Iran guarantees that these attacks in Afghanistan will continue and will become bolder and more professional
Afghanistan is America's victim. It was the American determination to use the country as a battleground against the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 80s which has brought the country unending war. This allowed the warlords to flourish and created the Taliban.
The Americans are prepared to let the country return to barbarism so long as they, or their proxies, occupy part of it.
It is to the east of Iran and Iraq is to the west and there is no doubt that should Bush win a second term next year, some in his administration want to complete the hattrick and guarantee complete control of the region's oil.
Returning Afghanistan to the dark ages is a price they judge worth paying.
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POP, 8,200 nce September 2003 7
Mid-East crisis
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