Sopko on Afghanistan + Nader Praises Ghani

Ahmed Rashid has an OpEd piece, "Afghanistan’s Failed Transformation," today that is worth reading. Rashid achieved prominence in the United States post-9/11 when his book Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (2000) was on the Gray Lady's bestseller list.

Rashid says,

John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, apparently is the only official in Washington who dares speak truth to power. In a Sept. 12 speech at Georgetown University, he said that Afghanistan “remains under assault by insurgents and is short of domestic revenue, plagued by corruption, afflicted by criminal elements involved in opium and smuggling, and struggling to execute basic functions of government.” His comments were largely ignored by the American media, and there was no immediate reaction from the Obama administration.

I decided to see if Sopko's Georgetown speech is available on YouTube. It is (see above).

Rashid says that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan needs to be judged on the basis of four post-Taliban transitions: political, military, economic, and the ability of the country to disentangle itself from meddling foreign powers. Rashid says Afghanistan has failed in all four transitions.

Interestingly, Ralph Nader had a piece on the Counterpunch web site yesterday hailing new Afghan president Ashraf Ghani ("Will Ashraf Ghani be Given the Room to Govern? Afghan Voters Choose a Better Future"):

I’ve known Ashraf Ghani and his family since his teaching days at Johns Hopkins. I knew of his wide-ranging interests and ability to see through propaganda and verbal pomposity. As a comprehensive, functional progressive, he is not strapped to any prejudging ideology. During our visit to California in 2012, he spoke of traveling to scores of Afghan villages to sense their expectations, their rhythms and their responsiveness to practical engagements to develop community economies, health care and education. His experience in the creation of the National Solidarity Program, which provided block grants to villages for plans devised and implemented by village councils, helped him in his visits to various Afghan villages. Today, that little-noticed program covers over half of Afghanistan’s 21,000 villages.

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The Afghan population is an asset because the people are ready for government officials with honesty, smarts and the ability to get results. They want exactly what Ashraf Ghani can deliver for them: basic necessities, public works and stability for their families and communities in as self-reliant a manner as possible.

The editorial in the August 15, 2014 issue of Science magazine noted a potentially positive national asset for Ghani: “the hyperspectral survey of Afghanistan by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in 2007… quantified 24 world-class mineral deposits (including iron, cobalt, gold, copper, and rare earth elements), positioning Afghanistan to become a major supplier of minerals…” 

No one knows better about the worker or the distributional, environmental, and contractual protections needed before such minerals are subjected to extraction than this practical, inclusive renaissance man with an inherent personal touch, who is about to lead this war-ravaged country. 

Will Ashraf Ghani be given the elbow room to exert his remarkable leadership capabilities to bring out the best from Afghanistan? Or, will the forces of disintegration, once again, reassert themselves to dissect and divide a country that conniving outsiders and corrupt insiders will not leave alone? 

For more information, please see http://en.ashrafghani.com/.