Afghanistan’s crisis of trust

Too dangerous to help

The Koran-burning and its aftermath may have lasting consequences

THE nationwide protests and violence triggered by the burning of Korans at Bagram airfield more than a week ago have subsided, but the consequences continue. The most serious has been the withdrawal of hundreds of foreign advisers from Afghan government departments, after two American officers working in a joint-command centre at the interior ministry were shot dead in retaliation.

The pull-out, though temporary, has meant that the corridors of Kabul’s ministries no longer echo to foreign voices. The fleets of four-wheeled drives which ferry development experts and military officers through Kabul’s muddy gridlock have vanished. At a stroke the “civilian surge” which was designed to bolster the Afghan state has been undercut.

That surge is seen as critical to plans for the government in Kabul to take full control of the country after foreign combat troops leave by the end of 2014. The idea was that as the NATO-led international coalition pushed the Taliban back, a more capable Afghan government would grow into the space left behind and win over its neglected citizens. But for the moment, instead of working side-by-side with their Afghan colleagues, those advisers are locked down in their guesthouses and national embassies. They continue to work, remotely; but in a culture where personal relations are crucial, many projects are in effect on hold.

The advisers do more than advise. A cadre of plausible-seeming foreigners reassures donors reluctant to finance Afghanistan’s corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy. “Without them monitoring and supervising their projects, with all the corruption we have, donors will reduce aid, I fear,” says Haroon Mir, director of Afghanistan’s Centre for Research and Policy Studies. Embassies are pushing for the return of the advisers as soon as possible.

Any return is likely to be accompanied by even more stringent security restrictions. Behind the peeling red paint of the counter-narcotics ministry, staff have been told that when their four international colleagues come back, they will be given extra bodyguards, and all other weapons will be banned from the compound.

Trust on both sides is at the lowest ebb many can remember. The careless desecration of their holiest text was a provocation too far for many Afghans already suspicious of foreign forces and cynical about broken promises of peace and prosperity. Profuse American apologies and assurances have done little to soothe tempers. A worrying number of Afghans no longer give the West the benefit of the doubt.

There is disillusion too among Western military advisers and soldiers, who increasingly fear being assassinated by the very people they have travelled across the world to help. Of 60 coalition people killed in Afghanistan this year, 12 have been slain by their Afghan comrades. NATO soldiers in Afghanistan were having to show “great restraint”, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the alliance’s secretary-general, conceded on February 28th.

Afghanistan - Study (The Horror)

TALIBAN propagandists currently have one of the easiest jobs going, remarked a Western official after news reached Kabul of a shooting spree in rural Kandahar, in which an American staff sergeant killed 16 sleeping civilians. “If I were the Taliban spokesman I’d just sit back in a cave and do nothing, and leave it all to us,” the official added.

The massacre, or “assassination” as Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, described it, is but the latest disaster to befall the NATO-led coalition. The shootings on March 11th in Panjwayi district come less than three weeks after the inadvertent burning of Korans in a rubbish pit at Bagram airfield. That caused days of nationwide protest which left around 30 Afghans dead and more than 200 wounded. Reprisal attacks killing American soldiers led to the temporary withdrawal of advisers from Afghan ministries. In January a trophy video emerged of American soldiers urinating on Taliban fighters they had killed in battle. These incidents come on top of the usual round of civilian casualties from coalition airstrikes, which are less frequent now but no less resented.

The aftermath of each incident follows a similar trajectory.  NATO is profuse in its apologies or condolences. Mr Karzai rages, trying to strike a balance between domestic populism and the need to work with the foreign allies he relies on. Diplomatic assets are deployed to smooth relations. The Taliban, which itself kills many civilians, seeks to capitalise on the crisis with inflammatory statements about Western invaders. Countries with soldiers deployed in Afghanistan brace themselves for revenge attacks on their troops.

In the case of the Panjwayi shootings, a day after the killings the area was relatively calm. Elders in the area have shown admirable restraint. Villagers did not want their anger to be manipulated or misused, one elder told this newspaper.

For while many lost faith in foreign soldiers long ago, that is not the same as wanting chaos, or the Taliban, back. An attack on a village in rural Kandahar also does not have the power to galvanise a fractured nation in the same way as an attack on their holiest book did last month.

In fact, the political impact of the latest shootings may be strongest in America and Europe. Officials in Kabul fear the incidents give a damaging portrayal of a hapless mission, lurching from one disaster to another. Each incident also feeds perceptions of an Afghan public exasperated with, or even hostile to, the help being given. Nothing is as toxic to support for a difficult overseas campaign as the feeling the recipients are ungrateful.

According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted just before the shooting in Panjwayi, 55% of Americans believe most Afghans are opposed to what  NATO is trying to accomplish there. 54% said America should pull its troops out even if Afghan forces are unprepared to replace them. Barack Obama and his counterparts are due to meet in May at  NATO's summit in Chicago, where they will discuss the scale of continuing support and the pace of the troop withdrawal. Any more self-inflicted wounds would speed up the alliance's exit.