Opium war 'making enemies of Afghans'

The highly critical study of the five years since the US-led invasion found that Afghans are starving to death despite international donor pledges and that the foreign military presence was "fuelling resentment and fear" among the local population.

The report, by the Senlis Council, an international policy thinktank, said that the US-led international community had "failed to achieve stability and security" in the war-torn country and that attacks were perpetuated on a daily basis.

"Prioritising military-based security, the United States' and United Kingdom's focus on counter terrorism initiatives and militaristic responses to Afghanistan's opium crisis has undermined the local and international development community's ability to respond to Afghanistan's many poverty-related challenges," the report said.

""By focusing aid funds away from development and poverty relief, failed counter-narcotics policies have hijacked the international community's nation-building efforts and undermined Afghanistan's democratically elected government. Poppy cultivation is a food survival strategy for millions of Afghans, and the United States' and the United Kingdom's poppy eradication policies are fuelling violence and insecurity."

The report concluded that poverty was driving people to support the Taliban which now had a "strong psychological and de facto military control" over half of Afghanistan. It also found that the international military coalitions in Afghanistan - the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom and the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) - were fuelling resentment and fear.

"The distinctions between them are extremely blurred, with the Nato-led Isaf is now constantly engaged in war operations. Afghans see the international military coalitions as taking sides in a civil war situation, and as Nato-Isaf troops retreat to their fortified compounds in southern Afghanistan, locals perceive that the Taliban-led insurgents are once again defeating global military powers."

The report, called Afghanistan Five Years Later: The Return of the Taliban, is published after British forces experienced their bloodiest few days in the country, with 15 military personnel killed in an air crash near Kandahar and a suicide attack in Kabul. The new chief of general staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, has also said the army can only just cope with the demands being placed on it by the government.

More
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1865302,00.html