Society
When the war was lost
Published 04 October 2007
Observations on Afghanistan
Britain boasts that it is winning the Good War, but six years on the body bags are still being sent home.
There is no single time I can point to as being the moment when the war in Afghanistan was lost. Instead, the relentlessly sad days of the past two years just slid into place like pieces in a jigsaw, until the overall picture became impossible to ignore.
The warning signs appeared soon after I moved to Kabul in August 2005, long before British troops started being regularly shipped home in body bags. It was a different war then, one that rarely infringed on life in Helmand or the House of Commons.
I used to walk easily around the capital and not worry about being kidnapped, killed or robbed. The blacked-out SUVs speeding through shit-filled streets seemed unnecessary and paranoid. They hinted at the hubris of occupation.
The main road leading east from Kabul is now synonymous with suicide attacks but they were still unusual then. When someone blew himself up on the highway, killing Nato troops, the world's media treated it as a shocking and isolated event. But a bystander, who told me such bombings were justified in a land occupied by foreign troops, gave an indication of what was to come.
Support for the insurgency has been fuelled by corruption. I remember interviewing a senior official at the ministry of justice who had just rejected a hefty bribe. He said the problem was more pervasive than it had ever been under the Taliban. It was a lament I would hear again and again.
Mansions housing warlords and drug smugglers have sprouted up across post-9/11 Kabul. While piles of garbage cover much of the city and limbless beggars line the gutters, an elite lives in its own isolated kingdom. It includes foreign journalists frequently pictured partying in the pages of a glossy magazine sold by street kids.
By late spring of 2006, the insurgency had intensified. It was still possible for officials in London and Kabul to ignore the bloodshed but it was becoming harder. I kept careful check of the daily reports from the south and noticed the Taliban were now engaging in pitched battles - not just hit-and-run attacks as in Iraq - with foreign troops. It made me certain things were going to get worse.
The most influential figures in the country remained the religious and tribal leaders. The first mullah I met preached to hundreds of worshippers every Friday. He told me it was time for Afghans to join the insurgency. His colleagues elsewhere in the city were not as militant, but agreed the time for jihad was approaching. They all gave similar reasons: corruption in the government, house raids by troops, the rise in prostitution, the easy availability of alcohol.
Defiant talk of resisting the occupation was no longer confined to the southern and eastern provinces, it was being heard near the presidential palace.
One morning when I was wandering through the city, the revolt shifted up a gear. The riots of 29 May 2006 were triggered by a crash involving a US convoy on the outskirts of Kabul. As the street fighting spread I took shelter in a small government office with a tearful woman who thought her children were among the dead in the chaos outside. A picture of the president, Hamid Karzai, smiling like the Mona Lisa, looked down on us. I realised the others in the room appeared calm. As one man put it, this kind of thing was inevitable during an occupation.
Later I fled to an Afghan friend's house where we watched the mayhem unfold on TV. One local network showed a mob breaking into its offices, the cameraman filming the anarchy as it closed in around him. Then the screen went blank. By the time I headed home, the city was deserted but for the usual beggars. Plumes of smoke filled the horizon and my guest house had been broken into.
As 2006 drew to a close, a street vendor told me about the hope he felt after the invasion and how that had disappeared. He mentioned a group of men dressed in police uniforms who robbed a house in his road, murdering the residents. In a nearby Shia suburb, a young labourer threatened to kill me if I ever returned. He was hungry and disillusioned and said he would fight the Taliban and foreigners.
I had been attending parliament ever since it opened. Seeing it in bright sunshine earlier this year, I realised the building was actually falling apart. The paint was flaking and its walls had started to crack.
Reports of civilians being killed in air strikes had become common. Throughout the spring and summer they appeared with growing regularity, seemingly following an identical pattern. First some villagers or local officials would say innocent people were dead and Nato or the US-led coalition would deny it. Then all parties would agree civilian blood had been spilled, only to argue over casualty figures. Karzai kept saying the bombing must stop, but it never really did.
The western world has always regarded Afghanistan as the Good War. Politicians and military personnel insist it is being won. Yet all I see is a lost cause.
The promises made by the international community have not been fulfilled and progress since the invasion is dwarfed by failures elsewhere. Even Afghans who hate the Taliban are starting to rise up.
One morning this summer there was a huge explosion not far from where I live. It was a suicide bombing at a busy transport intersection close to a police HQ. When I reached the site all I noticed at first was a bus gouged open, smeared with blood. Then I looked on the floor and saw pieces of charred flesh and hair around my feet, mixed in with shards of broken glass. A few body parts had been respectfully placed on a white sheet. The war had well and truly arrived in Kabul.
Chris Sands writes for the Independent from Afghanistan
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
