By Ahmad Tareq Kakar

December 2006

In an unscrupulous, misplaced move on October 28, 2006, US-installed Afghan President Karzai awarded Gen. James Jones, outgoing NATO Supreme Allied Commander - Europe, the prestigious Ghazi Amanullah Khan medal. In a news item, the President's office states that the NATO commander deserved it "in honor of his service to Afghanistan over the past four years"(1). Karzai conferred the medal whereas only two days earlier, on October 26, 2006, reportedly starting at 3 AM, NATO jets had brutally raided Kandahar’s war-torn Panjwayi district during the days of Eid-ul-Fitr that marked the end of holy month of Ramadhan. The raid left dozens of civilians dead - while reported numbers varied, around 90 people were killed. The correct number might even be higher. I was very disappointed by the little attention paid to this matter in the media and in this piece I would like to make it clear that Karzai's controversial decision to award the NATO Commander a prestigious Afghan medal has been a huge mistake and goes contrary to our national honor and psyche. I wonder why my fellow Afghans did not raise their voices in protest and denounce it?

When national awards are given to foreigners they are usually given for service in the fields of Science, Culture and Art. In Afghanistan, this does not seem to be the normal case. In the present case we are dealing with a case where a foreign military figure has been awarded a national honor for military service. The first question to be raised then is why US-favorite Karzai gave away a national award to a foreign military figure. There has to be strong justification for such a step. The reason given by the President's office, as outlined above, has been that the General deserved the medal because of his "service" to Afghanistan during the last four years: what kind of service are we talking about?

If we view NATO in the context of its whole activities in/against Afghanistan and, specifically in the Panjwayi incident, we will come to the conclusion that bringing blood bathes to villages, pounding their livelihoods, depriving Afghans of very basic human rights is no "service." It is a shame. The contention of the reason given by the President's office starts with the fact that, with the beginning of the US invasion and afterwards with the subsequent occupation of Afghanistan, NATO has been involved in grave activities against Afghanistan and its citizens.

At the beginning of the US invasion and subsequent occupation of Afghanistan NATO assisted the US in its attack on this country despite the fact that neither was the US invasion of Afghanistan based on legal, legitimate grounds, nor was NATO itself legally authorized to undertake support of the US against Afghanistan. It should be emphasized that the UN did not at all authorize the US invasion of Afghanistan and no UN Security Council resolution supported it. Afterwards the military alliance also highjacked the UN Security Council's ISAF force by taking over its command. Since taking over ISAF's command, and extending it to other regions, it has extensively used it against ordinary Afghans in insurgent regions where stiff resistance is still challenging the authority of foreign forces and the Karzai regime. The equation [ISAF equals NATO] leads us to the credible assumption that the misuse of the ISAF cover for a UN mandated International peace-keeping force was a planned and politically-militarily oriented maneuver to shape the force in such a way as to fit US designs. Perhaps a look into classified documents will one day support this assumption and it could be a fruitful field for academics to look into.

Since the massive extension of its mission from Kabul to other provinces, including turbulent and insurgent provinces like Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan, Zabul etc., NATO troops have inflicted huge destructions on ordinary Afghans. Ordinary citizens have been brutally killed, their houses bombarded; NATO troops have shelled Afghan villages, particularly in the south, with the same intensity as US forces. At present, NATO’s extension to southern provinces and its fighting campaigns seem to indicate a large scheme of war against the Afghans as whole. It seems as if NATO wanted to take out the insurgents together with the local population until a de-populated, empty Afghanistan is under their writ.

I would like to quote here the words of the former aide-de-camp to the Commander of the British taskforce in Afghanistan, Leo Docherty who, disappointed over the British campaign in Helmand, resigned from his job: "It's a pretty clear equation — if people are losing homes and poppy fields, they will go and fight. I certainly would."(2) Also in Docherty's words: "We're now scattered in a shallow meaningless way across northern towns where the only way for the troops to survive is to increase the level of violence so more people get killed. It's pretty shocking and not something I want to be part of. We've been grotesquely clumsy — we've said we'll be different from the Americans who were bombing and strafing villages, then behaved exactly like them."(3)

Returning to the Panjwayi strike itself, the perverse, perfidious strike on civilian compounds there serves as a concrete example to illustrate NATO’s horrible war on Afghans and their country. It has been particularly perverse and perfidious because, following a major clash between insurgents and NATO forces, the latter had announced that the area had been "cleared" and they could move back in, but when they moved in, they fell victim to indiscriminate bombardments.

There are a number of questions to be asked regarding the Panjwayi incident:

• How can NATO justify the use of aerial bombardment in a densely populated civilian area?

• Why did NATO use aerial bombardment, whereas it is very difficult to distinguish between combatants and civilians, since the resistance fighters do not wear uniforms?

• Why did NATO strike a densely populated civilian area at 3 AM (4), whereas a) it is very difficult to identify targets in the middle of the night; b) all the more so that they were moving targets; c) everyone knows that insurgent fighters usually do not roam in large groups for they very well know that they can be the target of enemy aerial or ground attacks.

So, knowing that the target was not a fixed military one, like a cantonment or a barrack, and that insurgent fighters do not roam in large numbers, was this assault then a blind strike, carried out of frustration or malicious joy, or even a blind retaliatory strike after having been successfully attacked by the insurgent groups? The situation was aggravated by the claim that NATO troops had prevented help from reaching the village: "And, in the morning, they started hitting our village with mortars and rockets. They didn’t allow anybody to come to our help."(5)

In addition to all that, only days before Karzai awarded the NATO General, photos of German soldiers, part of ISAF, desecrating human skulls and bones had emerged. Instead of starting a legal hunt for the perpetrators, sending his Attorney General for immediate and independent investigation, Karzai, in a hurried move, found lofty words for the NATO representative and, marking another dark page in history, awarded him with a prestigious medal. A medal for what? Does "service" mean to kill, does ‘service’ mean to use excessive power against innocent nomads and commit a massacre using jets? By leaving his eyes, ears and mouth shut, Karzai ignores the killing and injuring of innocent people, and the depriving of Afghans of their homes and properties. That is very wrong and Mr. Karzai needs to understand it - the sooner, the better.

Such an understanding and seriousness must be reflected in taking serious actions against NATO, not words. Karzai seems to have repeatedly urged foreign forces to exercise caution and be careful, but they have not taken heed as evidenced by the Panjwayi massacre. He seems to be powerless and his policy remote-controlled from elsewhere. It is sad to note that some of his officials have blamed the local population, witlessly arguing that since the locals were providing "shelter" to the insurgents they themselves are guilty for the bombardments. This is the tip of the iceberg and an unbearable insult. 

The last aspect one needs to turn to revolves around the US-backed President's ignorance of national pride and sensibilities: the medal essentially refers to the person of Ghazi Amanullah Khan, the Afghan Emir who ruled Afghanistan from 1919 to 1929. It was under his rule that Afghanistan regained its full independence. Amanullah Khan, along with Mahmud Tarzi - a leading politician and writer of the time, as well as Amanullah Khan’s Minister of foreign affairs - vigorously resisted British designs to subdue Afghanistan's newly won independence. He admittedly made various mistakes, but today Amanullah Khan is still widely regarded as a historic figurehead personifying courage. When speaking about Afghanistan's independence, how can one forget the role played by Amanullah Khan?

Today, as Afghans are suffering under US and NATO occupation, the country is under the de facto political and military control of the US. Very basic human rights are violated by occupation forces and their Afghan surrogates. The country's infrastructure lies in ruin and Afghans are desperately looking for honest leaders to at least try to take the country out of its current mess and misery. Afghans, including their top intellectuals, are longing for their country's independence, and for leaders similar to Amanullah Khan, Mahmud Tarzi etc, to energetically fight for their rights. In this context, and because Amanullah Khan is widely regarded as a fighter for Afghan independence, Karzai's move to award the NATO representative the Ghazi Amanullah Khan medal, is enormously saddening and a huge mistake. It is rubbing salt into the wounds of Afghans and a blow to Afghan national honor.

To see the Afghan President (though ‘President’ only by name and abundantly nicknamed "mayor of Kabul") pinning the Ghazi Amanullah Khan award on the NATO commander's chest, intentionally ignoring the fact that forces under his command had brutally bombed Afghans only two days earlier, was a terrible sight and illustrated how we Afghans are humiliated and degraded nowadays, how there is so little care about our national feelings and our honor. This is when one strongly longs for "home-made" statesmen and politicians such as Muhammad Moussa Shafiq or Muhammad Hashim Maiwandwal, who had the education, cleverness and vision to lead Afghanistan. Their qualities as statesmen are in sharp contrast to the ones politicians in power in Afghanistan exhibit today and who unconscionably serve foreign designs against their own "beloved" country. Sadly, politics without morality still dominate Afghanistan's political scene.  

------------------------------------------------------------

Notes:

1 "President Karzai Receives NATO Delegation", Office of the President, http://www.president.gov.af/english/news/281006_General_Jones_NATO.mspx, last access 8 December 2006

2 Quoted in "UK Officer Quits Over Afghan Mission", Islam Online, http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2006-09/10/01.shtml, last access 8 December 2006

3 Quoted in Lamb, Christina, "Top soldier quits as blundering campaign turns into ‘pointless'", The Sunday Times, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2350795,00.html, last access 8 December 2006

4 Quoted in "NATO confirms Afghan raid deaths", BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6089862.stm, last access 8 December 2006

5 Ibid.