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GLOBALIZING AFGHANISTAN

Duke University Press

Contents

Acknowledgments..................................................................................................................................................ixIntroduction: Globalizing Afghanistan Zubeda Jalalzai & David Jefferess..........................................................................................1It's the Opium, Stupid Afghanistan, Globalization, and Drugs Nigel C. Gibson.....................................................................................31Afghanistan in a Globalized World A Longer View Rodney J. Steward................................................................................................51The "Afghan Beat" Pukhtoon Journalism and the Afghan War Altaf Ullah Khan........................................................................................79Veiled Motives Women's Liberation and the War in Afghanistan Gwen Bergner........................................................................................95Transnational Feminism and the Women's Rights Agenda in Afghanistan Maliha Chishti & Cheshmak Farhoumand-Sims....................................................117Global Frames on Afghanistan The Iranian Mediation of Afghanistan in International Art House Cinema after September 11, 2001 Kamran Rastegar.....................145Conclusion: The Current Amazement Afghanistan, Terror, and Theory Imre Szeman....................................................................................165Bibliography.....................................................................................................................................................187Contributors.....................................................................................................................................................201Index............................................................................................................................................................205

Chapter One

Afghanistan, Globalization, and Drugs Nigel C. Gibson

An account of fighting in Afghanistan from the spring of 2007 says almost everything that needs to be said about the seemingly never-ending Afghan war:

The patrol was stuck, enveloped in a poppy field in a Taliban ambush. Automatic rifle fire came toward them from a tree line about 175 yards to the west and from a row of mud-walled Afghan houses to the east and north.

Being stuck in a red poppy field evokes the popular image of death worn on the lapel every 11 November in Britain and Canada. The red poppy is a symbol that comes not only from the killing fields of the First World War but from earlier disastrous British imperial adventures into Afghanistan in the 1840s and 1860s. This period also saw the beginning of war photography and governments' attempts to control such images. In a familiar pattern, the bodies pile up in the present Afghanistan war, though we do not see them in the media (see Imre Szeman's essay in this book). Five years into the war NATO forces in southern Afghanistan faced a "resurgent" Taliban, who killed an average of five coalition soldiers every week between 1 May and 12 August 2006. Military leaders warned the coalition governments that victory in Afghanistan was far from certain. After intense fighting in 2006 which inflicted high casualties on the Taliban and a Taliban offensive in spring 2007, these commanders once again pressured their governments for more troops and supplies.

Until the election of President Obama in 2008, America's commitment to the occupation of Afghanistan played second fiddle to the Iraq war, which had been named (by those who supported the occupation of Afghanistan but opposed the occupation of Iraq) as a reason why the Afghan war dragged on and will drag on well past the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. One reason for the continuing violence is that Afghanistan is "enveloped in poppies"—red gold—which despite eradication attempts continues to post record-breaking crops. Afghanistan, the opium capital of the world, is the source of cheap heroin. The opium industry represents at least 50 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product, which dwarfs its "formal economy," backed by the EU and NATO.

Opium has been a major driver of Afghanistan's economy since 2001 and permeates political life. It dominates the economy, particularly the economy of war, and thus contributes to making it a war without end. Since the opium trade is essential to funding local leaders and the Taliban insurgency, President Karzai has insisted, "Either Afghanistan destroys opium or opium destroys Afghanistan." But the destruction of the poppies would also herald the destruction of "Afghanistan." Poppy production (employing nearly three million people) gives most farmers a means of survival. Additionally the apparatus of a (narco) state—as much as one can speak about such an institution—is probably most efficient (and equally brutal) in the areas controlled by the Taliban and the opium warlords. Ironically the opium industry creates state-like structure.

Much more than the invasion of Iraq by the United States and Great Britain, the overthrow of the Taliban is still considered a "just war," for two reasons: first, it ousted a "rogue regime" that gave refuge to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda; second, it was considered a humanitarian intervention to "liberate" the people, especially women, from the "feudal" Taliban regime (see the essays in this book by Gwen Bergner and Maliha Chishti and Cheshmak Farhoumand-Sims). More than seven years after the invasion, however, NATO is losing the war on both counts. The Taliban controls significant areas of the country, and despite tactical defeats in 2006 (mainly based on fighting a conventional war rather than an insurgency) it still controls vast areas in the south. The mountainous areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan which provided refuge to al Qaeda remain beyond the control of NATO as well as Pakistani forces (who had been seen as supporting the Taliban). The Karzai government's lack of capacity to control vast areas of the country, bemoaned by many, is echoed by the Pakistani government's inability to police the Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa (formerly North West Frontier Province) and by NATO's inability to control the south. President Musharraf 's attempted compromise with "Islamic militants" in the semiautonomous North Waziristan led to accusations of turning a blind eye to the consolidation of the Taliban in the area. NATO's inability to deal with the Taliban in the south led to aerial bombings in 2006, with the consequent death of many innocent people. The strategy continued into 2007. The sum of these conditions points to a failure to maintain security by the world and regional powers (NATO, Pakistan). Meanwhile suicide bombings have rocked Kabul, indicating the absence of security in the heart of the most secure zones. Despite the rhetoric to justify the invasion, the humanitarian situation in the country as a whole has not improved, as evidenced by constant warnings of impending food shortages and other crises. Significantly the situation for women has not really changed much at all and may in fact have taken some steps back.

A Prisoner of Kabul: Karzai, the Media, and the Mayor

The scene of Hamid Karzai's first presidential...