Brother, can you spare a pul?

So President Karzai has revealed that he has accepted money from Iran. Definitely not as much as the U.S. has given Afghanistan to tackle its bucketful of problems, but enough to fill a couple of bags. This probably confirms the worst fears those who've always suspected that Iran and Afghanistan were buddying it up somehow. Personally, though, I'm not particularly surprised. Karzai's government hasn't exactly been a paragon of accountability or fairness. What is interesting though is that the announcement follows up a period of pretty shaky U.S.-Afghan relations, and casts doubts on whether the Afghan government is going to go along with American or Iranian interests.

The same article states that Karzai claimed "American officials had leaked information to The New York Times about Iranian payments because of disagreements over the private security companies. " Whether this is true or not, it does reflect the issues that these private companies have played a part in Afghanistan's reconstruction. It's a Catch-22: the government doesn't want what are essentially Western mercenaries going trigger-happy, but without them to protect development projects, Taliban insurgents will hamper progress since local law enforcement is still insufficiently prepared to meet the threat.

The prognosis for U.S. future involvement in Afghanistan is not good at the moment. While many American news sources state that coalition troops are weakening the Taliban and that offensive operations have been a success, Afghan sources state otherwise (for a comprehensive overview, check out Afghan Notebook's entry Operation Dragon Strike and Kandahar). If the situation does not improve soon, public opinion on the war may fall so far that troops will have to withdraw soon from Afghanistan. Looking at the results from the small sample of students I surveyed for my project, the majority feel that the U.S. has been in Afghanistan for too long; this has been the second longest conflict for U.S. involvement, a few months short of Vietnam. And not to be too pessimistic, but we all know how that ended.

There is also a question of how this will affect U.S.-Iran relations (or lack of). Iran's the giant octopus in the Middle East room, and no one's quite sure where it's tentacles are reaching out to, which is what what makes it so unpredictable right now. We can see from Ahmadinejad's recent visit to the U.S. that there is little love for him, and it's partly because he's smart. Real smart, and a smooth talker. In most of his media appearances with pundits such as Larry King, he came looking a lot better than most would like, and without driving any interpreters to collapse from exhaustion during his speeches. There have been some overtures made towards nuclear talks, but even then there is no guarantee with the rapid changes in politics on both sides.

To continue the octopus theme:

RIP Paul (2008-2010)

Lesson for the kids: Drugs and guns and bad writing don't mix.

It sounds like a series of bad movie plots being tested in real time.

You have the action-crime-comedy (or thriller) of soldiers trying to smuggle drugs out of the country using military equipment.

Or the slasher horror with soldiers going ballistic and killing people and collecting bits of them of souvenirs. (Link below)

And at that point you would want to file that screenplay in the unmarked circular cabinet next to your desk and hope for something better to drop into the inbox.

But no. Although the investigations, and concurrently the news stories, are still in an ongoing process, more sticks have been poked into the proverbial bicycle of Afghanistan’s relations with the West, which recently has been struggling up and down more hills than a Tour de France novice. If at least one of these cases proves to be true, everyone is going to be in a world of hurt.

Let’s take the first story. British soldiers have allegedly (key word here, if it’s not true I will be relieved) used military planes to transport heroin out of Afghanistan. In addition to the fact that you really should not be smuggling drugs while you are trying to wage war in a foreign country, this case highlights the issue of where a lot of the money flows in Afghanistan: the poppy fields and the opium produced which can raise cash for warlords in the countryside.

Journalists have trained their spotlights on the airstrike of the day and the political debate of the week for so long, ongoing concerns such as drug trafficking aren’t mentioned quite as often. Like the plant, the issue has been there for a while, growing and wilting and then growing again. Destroying poppy fields, paying farmers to destroy poppy fields, trying to find other sources of income for the farmers, are all methods that have been tried and not proved particularly successful so far.

It’s the money that’s the concern. The money from selling the opium is likely to fund campaigns by warlords and insurgents in areas such as Helmand. Coincidentally, opium poppies are primarily grown in Helmand province, where a lot of British soldiers are currently stationed. Possibly the same soldiers that may or may not have bought heroin. Made from opium.

[2 hours later]

It was at this point where I had finished writing a much harsher version of the above paragraphs, when I double checked the news articles I’d read.

This word sprang out.

“Unsubstantiated.”

Basically, no evidence for the claims.

Phew.

Also, I may have jumped the gun a bit.

So this is a lesson in basic journalism: try not to Monday morning quarterback while the game is still going on. In the two hours I’d left this article alone, the situation had changed. For the better too, although security measures are going to be increased and the suspicion still lingers as the Royal Military Police are going to investigate. Nevertheless, I went back and rewrote most of this entry.

So that’s the thriller flick taken care of. What about the horror?

The second story is much more serious as it is, even when you don’t count the macabre element of the orthopedic souvenirs. I don’t pretend to know what makes a soldier tick, what gets him out of bed in the morning and back into it at night, what makes him finally snap.

And I try not to judge as a civilian when cases like this come up in the military. War is hell on anyone.

But even as the investigation continues, as Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell stated, “whether ultimately proven true or not, [the charges] had already damaged the U.S. military's reputation.” Which is really the last thing they need in a country where you’re not sure if the local you’re working with actually likes you or not.

Until the case is fully made to light, this is one screenplay that is not going to be discarded just yet, no matter how much we want it to.