Propping Up Afghanistan

"Hardship arising from the economic situation, or from severe weather or natural disaster, has become more widespread, and hope for the future has been steadily declining.  
"Local armed groups have proliferated, civilians have been caught between not just one but multiple front lines and it has become increasingly difficult for ordinary Afghans to obtain health care."
Reto Stocker, Red Cross International

A sobering picture of the reality of life and dim prospects for the future within Afghanistan where civilians' hope for peace and prosperity is evaporating.  A situation that has been looming for years, after the initial euphoria of improved expectations from the arrival of NATO troops ousting the Taliban and freeing the population from their onerously abusive rule.

The assessment of a dreadfully worsening situation where ordinary Afghans are finding it increasing difficult to envision their future without conflict, where education, nourishment and a feeling of safety have become elusive, leading to universal despair. That despair has much to do with the determined resilience of the Taliban, and the departure date of NATO troops.

The weak, ineffectual and notoriously corrupt government of President Hamid Karzai is one the populace has no faith in.  Once NATO troops have made their departure, the population fully expects the Taliban to return to rule as they did previously.  The country will be mired once again in an explosive civil war.

And the national police and the military will not be capable of restraining events from collapsing into chaos; they will fall before the Taliban onslaught, until they and the various tribal militias that have gathered themselves to defend against the inevitable will engage in violence that will leave no part of the country a safe place for civilians.

In advance of NATO withdrawals, Taliban and their al-Qaeda partners have launched attacks and explosions as a demonstration that there is no place safe from their incursions.  Not in Kabul, not anywhere, and certainly not government buildings where 'safe zones' are optimistically considered to be free from the ability of the Taliban to infiltrate.

As Afghan National Army troops begin to take over from NATO and become front line their casualties are steadily growing.  And bombings and targeted killing sprees are exacting casualties among civilians of whom over 200 died in September alone.  An International Crisis Group report gave warning that the Afghan government itself may not last beyond 2014.

The next election will be held then and it is widely assumed that Hamid Karzai, who cannot seek another term of office - and whose last certifiably corrupt election win earned him huge resentment at home and abroad - will engineer things so that a proxy candidate will 'win' the election, ensuring that his behind-the-scenes control will remain intact.

"The Afghan army and police are overwhelmed and unprepared for the transition.  Another botched election and resulting unrest would push them to the breaking point", cautioned the ICG's senior Afghanistan analyst, speaking of the "real risk the regime in Kabul could collapse upon NATO's final withdrawal in 2014.  The window for remedial action is closing fast."

Whose ultimate responsibility is that?  Foreign support after 2014 may be so disorganized and weak it has led the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to predict that "after a new phase in the civil war, a Taliban victory will likely follow." 

International diplomats, reading the writing on Afghanistan's wall, and viewing the wearying of the international community with its involvement over the past eleven years in attempting to fund the dire needs of the impoverished country so hugely dependent on foreign largesse, have hopes that with minimal continued involvement they can still prop up the administration and military to forestall disaster.

On the other hand, Hamid Karzai's complaints of conspiracies by the West against him, and his dissatisfaction with ongoing commitments not meeting his financial bottom line 'needs', concerns those diplomats in the knowledge that donors are fed up with the president's inability or unwillingness to introduce reform.