I should apologize for the unannounced hiatus in posting. I hope to be back soon with an update -perhaps a piece about what should have happened at the Ankara meeting, instead of what actually did happen- which is, pity little of significance.
Till then.

Day of Silence and Moratorium on the T-Word

To mark the barbaric beheading recently of Ajmal Naqshbandi, and because I have a blogger’s block today (ridiculous, I know, but a clear side-effect of taking this whole blogging thing too seriously,) I am announcing a day of silence on Safrang.

Further, in commiseration and solidarity with the journalists in Afghanistan who have called for a ban on reporting about you know who, I will stop using the reviled T-word from now on for a week.

Tomorrow I will be back with a long and long delayed response to Matt Weem’s comments about my earlier post about his work.

UPDATE:

I just read that Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday. Needless to say his passing away also has clear and direct implications on the subject matter of this blog (i.e. Afghanistan and the inexorable march of history), and so the day of silence applies to his memory as well.

Opine!

How is the new theme/header image?

Let Us Go to Mazaar, O’ Mullah!

(photo by safrang)

It’s Nowrouz today: the vernal equinox, the first day of spring, the beginning of the solar calendar, and the occasion for one of the most syncretic of festivals in the world: a cheerful amalgamation of Islam and Zoroastrianism, pagan rite and religious ritual, red tulip and the holy book.

This spirit of joyful syncretism is captured best in one of the oldest folk tunes in Afghanistan- one that goes through everyone’s mind at this time of the year- where a certain good-natured and blithe Mullah is urged to come partake in the festivities of Nowrouz.

Because in recent times spring in Afghanistan has come to be associated with the thaw that brings on the “spring offensive”, and because the spirit of the joyful Mullah Mamad jan has long died in Afghanistan and is replaced with the haunting spectre of another Mullah, we take the liberty to modify the old tune and urge the latter Mullah to forget the offensive and join in the festive:

Let us go to Mazaar, Mullah Omar jan!

***

Correction:

(Thanks to Hatif’s comment admonishing me not to invite the Mullah to Mazaar -and by historic precedence I should know why that would be a terrible idea- I stand corrected. The line above was meant to imply:

Let the rest of us go to Mazaar, O’ Mullah!

Not that the mad Mullah is prepared to listen to either interpretation…)

Yes, Who the Hell Pays These People to Write?

Joshua Faust of the indomitable Registan asks “Who the hell pays these people to write?” in relation to a recent UPI commentary about Afghanistan. In a nod to Registan and all the serious blogging that goes on there on Afghanistan, and in furtherance to Joshua’s pet-peeves about the UPI commentary, I have decided to add a few of my own to the seemingly interminable list of factual and other infractions that the commentary perpetrates.

First, highlights from Registan about the commentary:

• Kabul has about 3.5 million, not 2 million residents. Most live in unregistered housing built outside government control. Also, Iran helped us invade and topple the Taliban—it’s natural for them to maintain a presence there.
• I guess people don’t fear American bombers anymore, despite the random mis-targeting that has recently killed entire families.
• I guess, despite all published economic data to the contrary, the opium economy is 2/3 of Afghanistan’s total economy, not the 1/3 commonly cited by the national government, IFIs, and NATO.
• “An estimated $8 billion a year is needed to dig Afghanistan out of its narco-state status. But the funds aren’t available.” So, did President Bush not just pledge $8.6 billion in aid this year?
• “The Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan throughout the 1990s and killed thousands of Afghans in a vain attempt to establish its dominion.” Wrong decade, wrong numbers (approximately one millions Afghans died during the invasion, most from Soviet/Najibullah massacres).
• We should send aid through hawala, even though in the following sentence the author says, “it wouldn’t take long to co-opt or silence government hawala circuits.” What?

Committing any of these mistakes would warrant next-day corrections and possibly a rebuke of the writer. That the piece contains so many of them (and that is just the beginning of it) is a testament on how subsidizing papers with a view to making them mouthpieces for a certain agenda is a bad idea.

To answer Joshua’s question about who the hell pays these people - well, let’s just say that the paper’s backers tend to view themselves closer to the opposite heavenly abode, i.e. heaven. UPI is owned by New World Communications, which is in turn owned by the Unification Church. Over the years, Reverand Moon who heads the Unification Church has subsidized the Washington Times, the flagship publication of New World Communications at a loss of approximately $1 billion. He has declared: “The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world.”

Back to the commentary, published twice, first under the title Afghanistan’s Opium Tango March 14th on UPI, and later under Broken Afghan Consensus March 17th, Washtington Times. Add to the list of error’s cited by Registan the following:

• The writer claims “The Shia suburbs of Kabul are now under the control of Iranian or pro-Iranian agents.“ This is an outrageous claim. While it is true that Iran has been attempting to make inroads among Afghanistan’s Shi’a community (largely the Hazara) to claim that their agents “control” suburbs of Kabul is stretching the truth. If anything, new political leadership among the Hazara are generaly suspicious of Iranian support. The Hazara association with Iran in the chaotic decade of 1990s, while low on substantial material/political support, was high on rhetoric and revolutionary spirit. This brought the Hazara widespread rebuke and isolation and the label of “Iranian agents” while in reality it did little to improve their lot. More importantly, there has been a substantial change in how Iran channels its support in Afghanistan. Instead of the initial “Shi’a solidarity” model, it is increasingly chosing to patronize groups along ethno-linguistic and cultural affinity lines. This is why Iran’s presence is far more visible in western Afghanistan and in particular in and around the city of Herat than in central Afghanistan and the Hazarajat.
• “The U.S. is hoping to diversify Afghanistan’s regional relationships by coaxing Gulf states to become stakeholders;” I suppose the writer means to wean Afghanistan off reliance on neighboring countries, but what is this going to accomplish? I seriously doubt if the US is pursuing such a policy. Instead, I think people are far more worried about managing current relationships vis-a-vis Pakistan and other regional neighbors. Diversifying regional relationships suggests that Pakistan is somehow dispensible in the process - which is simply not true. And it is not like Afghanistan has no bilateral relations with the “Gulfies” and is relying on the US to mend those ties. It is just that the Gulf States are not as crucial and as involved in Afghanistan as its immediate neighbors are. At any rate, the language here seems reminiscent of mutual funds lingo and Wall Street talk than international relations.
• “And today’s Afghanistan is totally insecure, so much so that it has already been promoted to the ranks of failed states…” We assume the author is referring to the annual Failed States Index compiled by Foreign Policy magazine and Fund for Peace. I don’t remember Afghanistan ever being off the list for it now to be “promoted to the ranks” as the commentary says. And anyways, no country is off the list: besides Afghanistan and Sudan, both the US and Norway are on the list too. Technically, all countries are on the “ranks of failed states”, what is important is their position on that list. If anything, inthe most recent ranking Afghanistan enjoyed a better position than before (to the outrage of Pakistan whose ranking was higher than that of Afghanistan), so if anything, Afghanistan was demoted on the ranking.
  
• “…except for an all-pervasive opium culture that keeps Afghanistan from sinking into total chaos.” An “all-pervasive opium culture” saving the day in Afghanistan- enough said. And “opium culture” sounds just too intriguing to not wonder what the author exactly means by it- to my knowledge it is the production and not the consumption of opium in Afghanistan that is the principle concern right now, and suggesting the existence of an “opium culture” clearly bears exotic connotations that have to do with consumption. 
• “Moscow says it still has many friends in the former anti-Taliban Northern Alliance that resisted Talibanization in the northeastern part of the country…” Priceless! To imagine that those among the former anti-Taliban Northern Alliance elements with weaker moral fibers would give in and be Talibanized! This is a prospect that only somebody with the most opaque notion of ethnic relations and political alignments in Afghanistan can contemplate. It is clear that Taliban were primarily Pashtun and aside from the Islamist aspect of their ideology, harbored strong ethno-natioalist sentiments. Suggesting that the Northern Alliance could potentially be Talibanized is absurd.
  
• The author cites the recent CSIS report Breaking Point: Measuring Progress in Afghanistan and although quoting the principal findings of the report verbatim, decides to leave out a crucial qualification in the third and last finding. The original line in the report reads: “Conditions have deteriorated in all key areas targeted for development except for the economy and women’s rights.” With a penchant for hyperboly, the writer scissors the sentence selectively and cuts out the part about improvement of economy and women’s rights. This is intentionally misleading (unlike the other mistakes that are driven more by ignorance.)
• “Volunteers from all over the world have been killed and injured by Taliban guerrillas and pro-Taliban civilians.” I can think of quite a few of my Pashtun compatriots who would boil over in anger with this characterization. Those whom the writer calls “pro-Taliban civilians” responsible for the death of aid workers (and they are hardly volunteers in many cases - most of the time, they are paid quite lavishly by contractors) are Taliban who dissolve into civilian life after the day’s job of being a Talib is over. It is true that civilians in some areas do harbor pro-Taliban sentiments, but I have not heard of mobs of such civilians killing aid workers - and that too on such routine basis as to dissuade them from working. The real work of killing and suicide-bombing and blowing up people and schools is done by bona fide Taliban who when need ariseth, fade into civilian life.
  
• “Meanwhile, Taliban’s much-touted spring offensive is only days away.” Ahh.. the spring offensive! What would western journalist do without this sujet? The notorious spring offensive has kept talking heads and writing hands busy for months to the degree that I seriously think everyone is simply playing into Taliban hands. Also, I did not know that the spring offensive’s date coincided precisely with the new year Nowrouz, now “only days away.” By all accounts, the offensive is not such a precisely scheduled affair and has been underway for weeks now.
• “Democratic judicial structures are also stillborn, stifled by criminal networks and bribes, or camouflaged to practice sharia (Islamic) law.” Shariah law constitutes an important and a constitutional source of law in Afghanistan and hardly needs to be “camouflaged.” That the law be inspired and derived from Shariah was overtly decided and is not a secretive affair. 
• “Mighty Germany won’t let its Afghan contingent do any fighting.” Factually correct - still I found the characterization “Mighty Germany” rather quaint and amusing. 

True, things don’t look their best in Afghanistan, but that should hardly be occasion for journalism to languish accordingly when it comes to writing on Afghanistan. For some time now I have read accounts in papers that have disturbed me in their inaccuracy or for the fact that they have clearly fallen into the political trap of whoever it was that facilitated the journalist’s trip or access to information or translation. This is irresponsible when it comes to the sensitivity of the situation in Afghanistan and the power that the media exerts on opinions and ultimately on decision making in the US, now the largest outside stakeholder in Afghanistan. I hope to muckrake further such eggregious reporting on Afghanistan in the future on Safrang.

“Reconciliation and Accountability”

“Healing the wounds of the civil war requires both reconciliation and accountability.”

So argue J. Alexander Thier and Scott Worden of USIP in a recent article in CSMonitor.

The authors point out that “although President Hamid Karzai successfully negotiated a crucial amendment to protect the rights of victims of war crimes, the new amnesty law still favors the powerful warlords who sponsored the bill.”

In what seems to be an intentionally vague bit of phrasing, the new bill signed by the president attempts to appease the anxious MPs bent on self-forgiving while at the same time preserving the inalienable rights of the victims:

“The most controversial and confusing aspect of the bill remains its amnesty provisions. On one hand, the revised bill offers general amnesty from prosecution to all former combatants who agree to abide by the Constitution and laws of Afghanistan. However, a crucial clause restricts this reprieve, stating that the amnesty ’shall not affect individuals’ … criminal or civil claims against persons with respect to individual crimes.’”

Reconciliation and accountability definitely sound great together. Like Khurma and Sawab. Question is, how can both of these be achieved in Afghanistan given the current alignment of powers?

Again the authors:

“The best way to ensure that the new bill becomes a force for reconciliation is to implement it within the framework of the Action Plan for Transitional Justice, enacted by Karzai last December. The plan sets up several mechanisms to foster forgiveness and accountability, such as a commission to vet high-level government officials and a program to build national monuments of remembrance for victims. But crucially, the plan states, ‘[T]here will [not be] amnesty for war crimes, crimes against humanity and other gross human rights violations.’”

However, all indications seem to suggest that what initially catapulted the MPs into a frenzy of action that led to the drawing up of the amnesty bill in the first place was the announcement of the same Action Plan for Transitional Justice enacted by the president (which coincided rather ominously with the trials and executions of Saddam Hussain and his cohorts in Iraq.) It is not entirely clear how the stipulations of the Action Plan can be reconciled with the political contingencies of the day.

Reconciliation or Accountability?

“Reconciliation or accountability?”

It’s one of those choices that in ideality -as opposed to reality- no one should have to make.

Either the one, or the other. Trouble is, both look so damn pretty it’s hard to decide. Like the story of Buridan’s Ass that starved to death unable to decide between the bales of hay.

**

Here are a few other ones like it:

1. “Liberty or security?” (pops up regularly in post-9/11 US - and even in Europe!);

2. “Khurma or Sawab?” (Dari proverb meaning “Dates or deeds?”: otherwordly rewards, or instant gratification);

3. “Peace or justice?” (a common one, most commonly heard in relation to Israeli-Palestinian conflict);

4. “To be or, or not to be: that is the question.” (Shakespeare died trying to figure out what it would be like not to be in order to conclusively answer this.)

**

“Either/Or”

Title of Soren Kierkegaard’s book in which he refutes the either/or paradigm. It is a refutation of the dialectics of Hegel, who famously had an infectious fetish for either/or. The Victorious Hermit’s choice of the title was ironic, and some say even satirical.

**

The short, and correct answer to all of these questions is:

-”Both, please. At the same time.”

**

“Reconciliation or accountability?”

It’s one of those choices that in ideality (as opposed to reality) no one should have to make.

Unfortunately, it’s also a choice that confronts Afghanistan today. In all its harsh reality. And so much depends on it.

**

I understand the warlords - I do- and their ditch effort to just forgive themselves and be all lovey-dovey and peacey-reconciley.

But then what becomes of so much blood spelt, sons murdered, daughters raped, fathers imprisoned and lost, and mothers left alone and sad?

If something is not done about all so much wrong, the sky would -should- fall down. More realistically, the nation’s soul will be so unclean and tainted at the very moment of its new beginning that it will never be cleansed.

With no accountability, there will be no fresh start, no new beginning -of the kind that Afghanistan needs. With no reconciliation, the cycle will just go on.

**

So, reconciliation or accountability?

-”Both, please. At the same time.”

Opium Production Through the Roof - Again

One wonders whether the recent changes in US drug policy towards Afghanistan were in anticipation of this: the fact that for the second year in a row, opium production levels have reached new heights.

In the months leading up to this announcement by the US Department of State, the said agency announced the appointment of William B. Wood, formerly ambassador to the drug-ridden Colombia, as its new ambassador in Kabul. Separately, US government pressure increased on the GoA to allow invasive eradication procedures, which formerly took a backseat to interdiction efforts. At least one other senior US government official spoke of Colombia’s success in the fight against drugs as a model for Afghanistan.

Whether those changes were anticipating the new revelations or not, the fact remains that the fight against drugs in Afghanistan has been a dismal failure ever since day one of post-Taliban Afghanistan. In fact, Taliban had greater success in curbing poppy cultivation (albeit for other motives.)

The new announcement, however, comes with a bit of a good news caveat from the UN:

The UN says although production of poppies, used to make heroin, has fallen in the north and centre, a sharp rise is likely in the lawless south. (more from BBC)

I do know of Badakhshan having become a drug-infested province lately, but did not know of any provinces in the center with notable poppy cultivation. If the UN means Uruzgan, for all but geographical reasons that province is a southern one.

***

Unrelated, ُSafrang is delighted by the newcomer on the block: Afghanistanica - an exploration of Afghanistan from a safe distance. Afghanistanica features some of the best written and best-backed-up blogging on Afghanistan you will see anywhere -and not only online backlinks. We only wish the blogger had activated commenting.

Continuing the Discussion on Afghanistan-Pakistan Relations…

Please note: My article on Afghanistan-Pakistan relations (prev. post) is posted on the website of the leading South Asian e-zine Chowk and is receiving many responses.

While some comments stray off topic and many more have degenerated into name-calling, there are some substantial and thoughtful responses that deal with the politico-historical roots of the differences between the two countries, and especially with the state of Pakistan today.

All those who would like to continue the discussion on this subject and who are tired of my slow reponses, go over there and take on the hundreds of prolific readers and writers of that website. On this blog, we are done with that discussion and shall move on to the more interesting things.

Moral indignation is outraged only when presented with an affront to its most parochial sentiments.

Darfur has become an accepted fact of our history, and only occasionally anymore animates the conversations of our latte drinking liberals. Civilian death tolls from Iraq are not seen as collateral damage or civilian casualties anymore, but as routinuous and vaguely tragic byproducts of the inevitable march forward of history. We are all on some level or another guilty of regularly misconstruing, multiplying, misinterpreting, misquoting, misapporpriating, minimizing, or maiming facts in a manner and medium of our own choosing and convenience.

The atrocities that take place in the name of journalism are fitting reflections of our own laxities and sliding standards. Ditto the vagaries that take places in the entertainment industry’s portrayal of people and places. Most of the time, we just let them slide by.

Except, of course, when they engage our most primate and parochial concerns. Then we must protest not only the misrepresentation itself, but the appalling worldwide silence. The same silence, incidentally, that we would be guilty of had we ourselves not been the object, but the audience.

***

I have not seen the latest bollywood output, Kabul Express. I do not do bollywood anymore. And I am not shocked that it has gotten it all wrong when it comes to the portrayal of the Hazara of Afghanistan. I am, however, mildly surprised at the way so many people who have been emailing me this morning have been holding the Indian movie industry to apparently reverential standards of factuality and truth - affirming, through protesting this latest anomaly, that on all previous occasions it had our collective tacit approval.

***

This is but just one incident. More generally, and more seriously, I want to ask myself: What is one, who tries hard to be a person of conscience, to do? One feels like withdrawing. And reading Camus. And sulking. And keeping aloof and above all of it. But one has no choice: one is in this.

One feels bad for the gradual decay eating away at one’s moral soul. And before soon, one will stop noticing it altogether.

***

And so: Really, what the hell were Indian filmmakers thinking?! They should not be able to get away with this!!

The Business of Blogging

Lost in a medley of graduate school applications, the footwork of organizing a talk in DC by a visitig MP from Afghanistan, and playing out my fantasies of global domination through my new Civilizations-III PC game, I have missed a very exciting week of blogging on Afghanistan.

But then I also believe that all bloggers ought to occasionally wrest themselves away from the business of blogging, or they will risk quality and seriousness. Just as a casual attitude about blogging is often helpful in a world of real-time news and information, and helps to keep the ball rolling and the blog updated, too much of this attitude can also end up trivializing otherwise important issues.

At any rate, bloggers should remind themselves of the sanctity of the craft of writing at all times.

While, for instance, Karzai’s recent tirades against Pakistan definitely invited commentary, I frankly was not in a position to provide serious commentary, and I felt that commenting anyway would be disingenuous and somehow insulting to the imaginary audience of Safrang. Of course I could merely post a link to the news article itself, but then I respect myself more than to just relay information anyone can get anyways. So I had to let the whole thing incubate for a while, and yes, I had to play Civilizations-III for hours on end.

On an ending note, as far as blogging is concerned, I recommend reading a recent Op-Ed in the WSJ, titled “The Blog Mob.” The tagline reads: “written by fools to be read by imbeciles,” attributed to Joseph Conrad who was speaking many years before about newspapers! Here is an excerpt:

The way we write affects both style and substance… In this aspect, journalism as practiced via blog appears to be a change for the worse. That is, the inferiority of the medium is rooted in its new, distinctive literary form. Its closest analogue might be the (poorly kept) diary or commonplace book, or the note scrawled to oneself on the back of an envelope–though these things are not meant for public consumption. The reason for a blog’s being is: Here’s my opinion, right now.

The right now is partially a function of technology, which makes instantaneity possible, and also a function of a culture that valorizes the up-to-the-minute above all else. But there is no inherent virtue to instantaneity. Traditional daily reporting–the news–already rushes ahead at a pretty good clip, breakneck even, and suffers for it. On the Internet all this is accelerated.

The blogs must be timely if they are to influence politics. This element–here’s my opinion–is necessarily modified and partly determined by the right now. Instant response, with not even a day of delay, impairs rigor. It is also a coagulant for orthodoxies. We rarely encounter sustained or systematic blog thought–instead, panics and manias; endless rehearsings of arguments put forward elsewhere; and a tendency to substitute ideology for cognition. The participatory Internet, in combination with the hyperlink, which allows sites to interrelate, appears to encourage mobs and mob behavior.

Case in Point - Self Delusion about the Taliban

This is what I mean when I say that people are in denial and self-delusion about the Taliban (read previous post):

“I am absolutely convinced that if we allowed Afghanistan to fall back into Taliban rule it would become a failed state again and a black hole for terrorism training,”(NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop) Scheffer told the Daily Telegraph last week.

Thank god we are “absolutely convinced” of that, because if not, it seems that Afghanistan’s reversion back to Taliban is an actual option weighed with some seriousness by NATO’s Secretary General. And the only thing that makes Taliban unattractive to him is that they do a bad job in keeping a functional state. Otherwise, well, they are not Jeffersonian republicans, or ardent feminists for that matter, but they are… all right… I guess.

Get real, people!

(Incidentally, this is the sort of thing that makes one nostalgic about the moral clarity and no-compromise attitude of the likes of Jeane Kirkpatrick in dealing with tyrants and totalitarians.) 

Weekly Alert - II

~ Recommended Readings, Viewings, and Events ~

(Note: I have decided to change the format of the Weekend Reading posts (started last week) to include not only recommended readings, but also viewing recommendations and event alerts.)

Here is the second Weekly Alert:

• Article: “NATO’s Future” - The Economist reports on how NATO came to embody the Destiny’s Child hit “I’m a Survivor!”
• Map: “Situation Map of Afghan Floods” - A map of the affected districts in Western Afghanistan and emergency responses, created by ReliefWeb.
• Event: “Afghan Perspectives on Afghanistan’s Transition” - A panel discussion and presentation organized by the Conflict Resolution Forum at Elliot School of International Affairs, George Washington University -for those of you who live close enough in the area to make it (yours truly is one of the four panelists discussing Afghan perspectives of the recent developments.)

Fighting the Good Fight: Abdul Jabbar Sabit as Afghanistan’s Elliot Spitzer

Afghanistan’s new Attorney General Abdul Jabbart Sabit views his mission as a Jihad against corruption, and so far, he is making both progress and enemies aplenty.

Hearing pleas and grievances from the visiting public in his office (often in person,) he is becoming a one-man institution of transitional justice -the kind of justice that Afghanistan so badly needed post-Taliban, the kind of justice that Afghanistan did not get, because its new leaders were too willing to cut deals with warlords and criminals left and right.

The least that these cynical leaders -with little moral courage to stand up to corruption on their own- can do now, is to stand behind the man who has the moral fortitude to do it for them: Abdul Jabbar Sabit, Afghanistan’s Elliot Spitzer. (Mr. Spitzer is New York State’s Attorney General and a lightning rod against corporate corruption and white-collar crime.)

The good news is, so far Mr. Sabit has won many supporters: from the general populace who see in him a man with the moral rectitude and the courage to stand up to powerful people, and from a good number of MPs. (This, despite rumors and suggestions about his own shady political/Hezbi associations in the past.) But in a place like Afghanistan, where politics can often be a dirty and amoral affair -where it isn’t?-, he faces a particularly tough battle. The hard work lying ahead of this veritable Mujahid, and the need for people to stand behind him, is epitomized in this quote from Shukria Barakzai, an MP from Kabul:

“He is wonderful, and we all need to support his reforms, or he will be a lonely person facing many difficulties… People are really thirsty for justice, but Dr. Sabit is in such a hurry, and he has opened so many lines of battle, that he is taking many risks.” (Read Top Prosecutor Targets Afghanistan’s Once-Untouchable Bosses.)

While Mr. Sabit’s earlier ventures to Herat and Balkh faced resistance (from officials higher up, who saved the corrupt officials Mr. Sabit was bringing to justice) his recent trip to eastern regions has proved more successful. He has rellied popular support, and counting on the goodwill of the people towards his cause, he recently said that “People will not support corrupt officials… I am convinced that Mazar-i-Sharif and Herat like situation will not be created here.” So far, he has ordered the arrest of 11 allegedly corrupt officials, four of whome have reportedly fled to escape arrest.

With the danger that widespread corruption and impunity throughout all the levels of the current government poses to the future of Afghanistan, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Abdul Jabbar Sabit is fighting the most important of battles (at least as important as the military campaigns against the insurgents) for Afghanistan. He needs all of our support, now.

(Note: For a highly expository interview with Mr. Sabit (in Farsi), follow the link from Warlordish blog here.) 

State Failure vs. State Collapse

A UN Security Council fact-finding mission has concluded its trip to Afghanistan and found that without sustained support the country may “slide back into conflict and a failed state again.”

If this statement is not a gross distortion of facts, then it certainly shows a profound misunderstanding of them. Despite its decidedly alarmist tone, the mission’s report paints a picture far prettier than reality: the reality that Afghanistan is already a failing state, and a state in conflict.

Despite the media and politicians’ rather open-minded approach to the use of terms “state failure” and “state collapse”, in serious scholarship and the literature on state failure and collapse, these phrases have precise and exacting meanings.

On last year’s Failed States Index (compiled by Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy magazine) Afghanistan ranked #10 out of a total of 146 countries. While the ranking was comprehensive and also included countries such as Norway at 146th place and the US at 128th place (clearly strong states), it does say something about Afghanistan at 10th place, in the same neighborhood as Liberia, Haiti, Somalia, and Guinea. (Read my “A Failing State in a State of Denial” on Pakistan’s surprising rank at 9th place ahead of Afghanistan published at South Asian portal chowk.com) That ranking placed Afghanistan among clearly failing states, and the fact that since the index’s release the situation has deteriorated should only move Afghanistan higher in the ladder of failing states.

The idea of the ranking of failing states and the progressivity of state failure should suggest a terminal stage of sorts. This terminal stage is when it is said that a state has collapsed -as was the case in Afghanistan in the early 1990s.

Perhaps what the UNSC mission had in mind was this -that without sustained (or increased) support from the international community, the state in Afghanistan may collapse, because it is already a failing state.