Afghanistan's Senate: Condemnation of Western leadership

The U.S. and its NATO allies have paid a heavy price for mounting civilian deaths in the war against the Taliban, and for their chronic neglect of anti-democratic backsliding within President Karzai’s Kabul regime.

Afghanistan’s upper house of parliamentary elders, known as the Meshrano Jirga, has formally condemned a recent spate of alleged instances of “collateral damage” deaths in the countryside. Senators also called on NATO to cease its offensives – and demanded that the Karzai administration seek peace talks with Taliban leaders.

Although the bill is not binding, nearly half the Senate’s members are Karzai appointees, and the speaker of the Meshrano Jirga, Sibgatullah Mojadidi, is a respected moderate. The speaker was summoned to Karzai’s office soon after the bill was passed. Sources indicate the leaders are co-ordinating their efforts to press for a radical change in American stewardship of the war.

The development constitutes a repudiation of Western military and political leadership in Afghanistan and region: major offensive operations in the countryside, and hands-off diplomacy in Kabul, are both currently key aspects of NATO strategy – as is a tough, no-negotiating stance towards the Taliban leadership.

While polls over the past year have shown that an overwhelming majority of Afghans welcome assistance in fighting off the Taliban and al Qaeda, public protests have grown in recent weeks in response to the mounting civilian death toll. Twenty-one people are alleged to have been killed in a U.S. air strike Wednesday in Helmand province.

Meantime, the Karzai regime continues to press on with its plans to alter the nature of democratic discourse by heavily restricting the Afghan news media. Shamefully, none of the regime’s Western sponsor nations have publicly voiced official concerns over choking amendments to the country’s media law - or the violent police raid on Afghanistan’s leading TV station on April 17.

The irony of Western ineptitude will not be lost on the fighting men and women of national forces, such as those of Canada and Great Britain. Arguably the troops have been operating with increasing care and effectiveness, even while political controversies roil and multiply at their rear, on the home front.

Monday on skyreporter.com – as Western politicians fail to learn the lessons of Afghan history, are we all condemned to repeat them?