Starting Points: Osama bin Laden

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Apr 29, 2010

Legitimation Crisis in Afghanistan

NEIL SHAPIRO

In the media celebration of our "victory" over the Taliban in the Helmand Valley, little attention has been given to the nature of insurgency: the proper tactic of guerrillas is to fade away before overwhelming power, leaving behind only enough fighters to force the invaders to harm civilians and damage property. This is exactly what happened in the recent fighting in Marja. Faced with odds of perhaps 20 to 1, helicopters, tanks and bombers, the guerrillas wisely dispersed. Victory may not be quite the right description.

That battle will probably be repeated in Kandahar, which, unlike the agricultural area known as Marja, is a large and densely populated city. Other operations are planned, so the Marja "victory" has set a pattern that accentuates military action. This is not conducive to an exit strategy--it will not lead out of Afghanistan but deeper into the country. Indeed, there is already evidence that this is happening. As the Washington Post reported shortly after the Marja battle ended, not far away "the Marines are constructing a vast base on the outskirts of town that will have two airstrips, an advanced combat hospital, a post office, a large convenience store and rows of housing trailers stretching as far as the eye can see."

Since the Helmand Valley is the focal point of the military strategy, it is important to understand its role in Afghan affairs. The Helmand irrigation project, begun in the Eisenhower administration as a distant echo of the TVA, was supposed to become a prosperous island of democracy and progress. As a member of the Policy Planning Council in the Kennedy administration, I visited it in 1962. What I found was deeply disturbing: no studies had been made of the land to be developed, which proved to have a sheet of impermeable rock just below the surface that caused the soil to turn saline when irrigated; the land was not sufficiently leveled, so irrigation was inefficient; nothing was done to teach the nomad settlers how to farm; plots were too small to foster the social engineering aim of creating a middle class; and since there were no credit facilities to buy seed, settlers were paying 100 percent interest to moneylenders. In short, after the buildup of great expectations, disappointment was palpable.

Was it a portent? It seems likely. At the least, it's striking that precisely where we carried out our first civic action program is where the Taliban became most powerful.

So what should that experience have taught us? That we should learn about the Afghans, their country and their objectives before determining our policy toward them. There is much to be learned, but I will here highlight what I believe are the three crucial issues that will make or break our relationship.

The first issue critical to evaluating US policy is the way the Afghans govern themselves. About four in five Afghans live in the country's 20,000-plus villages. During a 2,000-mile trip around the country by jeep, horseback and plane half a century ago, as well as in later trips, it became clear to me that Afghanistan is really thousands of villages, and each of them, although culturally related to its neighbors, is more or less politically independent and economically autarkic.

This lack of national cohesion thwarted the Russians during their occupation: they won many military victories, and through their civic action programs they actually won over many of the villages, but they could never find or create an organization with which to make peace. Baldly put, no one could surrender the rest. Thus, over the decade of their involvement, the Russians won almost every battle and occupied at one time or another virtually every inch of the country, but they lost about 15,000 soldiers--and the war. When they gave up and left, the Afghans resumed their traditional way of life.

That way of life is embedded in a social code (known in the Pashtun areas as Pashtunwali) that shapes the particular form of Islam they have practiced for centuries and, indeed, that existed long before the coming of Islam. While there are, of course, notable differences in the Pashtun, Hazara, Uzbek and Tajik areas, shared tradition determines how all Afghans govern themselves and react to foreigners.

Among the shared cultural and political forms are town councils (known in the Pashtun areas as jirgas and in the Hazara area as ulus or shuras). The members are not elected but are accorded their status by consensus. These town councils are not, in our sense of the word, institutions; rather, they are "occasions." They come together when pressing issues cannot be resolved by the local headman or respected religious figure. Town councils are the Afghan version of participatory democracy, and when they act they are seen to embody the "way" of their communities.

Pashtunwali demands protection (melmastia) of visitors. Not to protect a guest is so grievous a sin and so blatant a sign of humiliation that a man would rather die than fail. This, of course, has prevented the Afghans from surrendering Osama bin Laden. Inability to reconcile our demands with their customs has been at the heart of our struggle for the past eight years.

As put forth in both the Bush and Obama administrations, our objective is to prevent Al Qaeda from using Afghanistan as a base for attacks on us. We sharpened this objective to the capturing or killing of bin Laden. That is popular with US voters, but even if we could force the Afghans to surrender him, it would alienate the dominant Pashtun community. Thus it would probably increase the danger to us. But it is unnecessary, since a resolution of this dilemma in our favor has been available for years. While Pashtunwali does not permit a protected guest to be surrendered, it allows the host, with honor, to prevent the guest from engaging in actions that endanger the host. In the past, the Taliban virtually imprisoned bin Laden, and they have repeatedly offered--provided we agree to leave their country--to meet our demand that Al Qaeda not be allowed to use Afghanistan as a base. Although setting a withdrawal date would enable us to meet our objective, we have turned down their offers.

The second crucial issue in evaluating our policy is the way the people react to our civic action programs.

Afghanistan is a barren, landlocked country with few resources, and its people have suffered through virtually continuous war for thirty years. Many are wounded or sick, with some even on the brink of starvation. The statistics are appalling: more than one in three subsists on the equivalent of less than 45 cents a day, almost one in two lives below the poverty line and more than one in two preschool children is stunted because of malnutrition. They are the lucky ones; one in five dies before the age of 5. Obviously, the Afghans need help, so we think they should welcome our efforts to aid them. But independent observers have found that they do not. Based on some 400 interviews, a team of Tufts University researchers found that "Afghan perceptions of aid and aid actors are overwhelmingly negative." We must ask why this is.

The reason, I think, is that the Taliban understand from our pronouncements that civic action is a form of warfare. The Russians taught them about civic action long ago, and Gen. David Petraeus specifically proclaimed in his Iraq days, "Money is my most important ammunition in this war." Thus many ordinary citizens see our programs as Petraeus described them--as a method of control or conquest--and so support or at least tolerate the Taliban when they destroy our projects or prevent our aid distribution.

To get perspective on this, it is useful to look at Vietnam. There too we found that the people resented our efforts and often sided with our enemies, the local equivalent of the Taliban: the Vietminh, or, as we called them, the Vietcong. The Vietminh killed officials, teachers and doctors, and destroyed even beneficial works. Foreigners thought their violence was bound to make the people hate them. It didn't. Like the Kabul government, the South Vietnamese regime was so corrupt and predatory that few supported it even to get aid. When we "inherited" the war in Vietnam, we thought we should sideline the corrupt regime, so we used our own officials to deliver aid directly to the villagers. It got through, but our delivering it further weakened the South Vietnamese government's rapport with its people.

Is this relevant to Afghanistan? Reflect on the term used by Gen. Stanley McChrystal when his troops moved into Helmand: he said he was bringing the inhabitants a "government in a box, ready to roll in." That government is a mix of Americans and American-selected Afghans, neither sent by the nominal national government in Kabul nor sanctioned by local authorities.

How will the Afghans react to McChrystal's government? President Karzai was at least initially opposed, seeing the move as undercutting the authority of his government. We don't yet know what the inhabitants thought. But we do know that when we tried similar counterinsurgency tactics in Vietnam, as the editor of the massive collection of our official reports, the Pentagon Papers, commented, "all failed dismally."

If we aim to create and leave behind a reasonably secure society in Afghanistan, we must abandon this failed policy and set a firm and reasonably prompt date for withdrawal. Only thus can we dissociate humanitarian aid from counterinsurgency warfare. This is because once a timetable is clearly announced, a fundamental transformation will begin in the political psychology of our relationship. The Afghans will have no reason (or progressively less reason, as withdrawal begins to be carried out) to regard our aid as a counterinsurgency tactic. At that point, beneficial projects will become acceptable to the local jirgas, whose members naturally focus on their own and their neighbors' prosperity and health. They will then eagerly seek and protect what they now allow the Taliban to destroy.

If under this different circumstance the Taliban try to destroy what the town councils have come to see as beneficial, the councils will cease to provide the active or passive support, sanctuary and information that make the Taliban effective. Without that cooperation, as Mao Zedong long ago told us, they will be like fish with no water in which to swim. Thus, setting a firm and clear date for withdrawal is essential.

This leaves us with the third issue, the central government. We chose it and we pay for it. But as our ambassador, Gen. Karl Eikenberry, has pointed out in leaked reports, it is so dishonest it cannot be a strategic partner. It is hopelessly corrupt, and its election last year was fraudulent; General Petraeus even told President Obama that it is a "crime syndicate." It is important to understand why it lacks legitimacy in the eyes of its people.

For us, the answer seemed simple: a government must legitimize itself the way we legitimize ours, with a reasonably fair election. But our way is not the Afghan way. Their way is through a process of achieving consensus that ultimately must be approved by the supreme council of state, the loya jirga. The apex of a pyramid of village, tribal and provincial assemblies, the loya jirga, according to the Constitution, is "the highest manifestation of the will of the people of Afghanistan."

Like the Russians, we have opposed moves to allow Afghanistan to bring about a national consensus. In 2002 nearly two-thirds of the delegates to a loya jirga signed a petition to make the exiled king, Zahir Shah, president of an interim government to give time for Afghans to work out their future. But we had already decided that Hamid Karzai was "our man in Kabul." So, as research professor Thomas Johnson and former foreign service officer in Afghanistan Chris Mason wrote last year, "massive US interference behind the scenes in the form of bribes, secret deals, and arm twisting got the US-backed candidate for the job, Hamid Karzai, installed instead.... This was the Afghan equivalent of the 1964 Diem Coup in Vietnam: afterward, there was no possibility of creating a stable secular government." An interim Afghan government certified by the loya jirga would have allowed the traditional way to achieve consensus; but, as Selig Harrison reported, our ambassador at the time, Zalmay Khalilzad, "had a bitter 40-minute showdown with the king, who then withdrew his candidacy." We have suffered with the results ever since.

Could we reverse this downward trend? If we remove our opposition to a loya jirga, will the Kabul government respond? Probably not so long as America is willing to pay its officials and protect them. But if we set a clear timetable for withdrawal, members of the government will have a strong self-interest in espousing what they will see as the national cause, and they will call for a loya jirga. Indeed, President Karzai already has.

Would such a move turn Afghanistan over to the Taliban? Realistically, we must anticipate that many, perhaps even a majority, of the delegates, particularly in the Pashtun area, will be at least passive supporters of the Taliban. I do not see any way this can be avoided. Our attempts to win over the "moderates" while fighting the "hardliners" is an echo of what we tried in Vietnam. It did not work there and did not work for the Russians in Afghanistan. It shows no sign of working for us now. As a 2009 Carnegie Endowment study of our occupation and the Taliban reaction to it laid out, even after their bloody defeat in 2001, "there have been no splinter groups since its emergence, except locally with no strategic consequences."

Nor, as I have shown in my history of two centuries of insurgencies, Violent Politics, are we likely to defeat the insurgents. Natives eventually wear down foreigners. The Obama administration apparently accepts this prediction. As the Washington Post reported this past fall, it admits that "the Taliban cannot be eliminated as a political or military movement, regardless of how many combat forces are sent into battle."

A loya jirga held soon is the best hope to create a reasonably balanced national government. This is partly because in the run-up to the national loya jirga, local groups will struggle to enhance or protect local interests. Their action will constitute a brake on the Taliban, who will be impelled to compromise. Today the Taliban enjoy the aura of national defenders against us; once we are no longer a target, that aura will fade.

If we are smart enough to allow the Afghans to solve their problems in their own way rather than try to force them to adopt ours, we can begin a sustainable move toward peace and security. Withdrawal is the essential first step. Further fighting will only multiply the cost to us and lead to failure.

About William R. Polk

William R. Polk (williampolk.com) is the senior director of the W.P. Carey Foundation. He is the author, most recently, of Understanding Iran, and is working on a new book on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir, tentatively titled The Cockpit of Asia

Apr 17, 2010

For Somalis caught between Islamists and weak government, fleeing is only option

Image via Wikipedia

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, April 17, 2010; A01

IFO, KENYA -- Two Islamist militants delivered an ultimatum to Zahra Allawi's daughters: marry them or die. The men were from al-Shabab, a militia linked to al-Qaeda that is fighting Somalia's U.S.-backed government. The two girls were 14 and 16.

Allawi said her neighbor in southeastern Somalia received the same command. But he swiftly married off his daughter to someone else. The next day, the fighters returned with a butcher's knife.

"They slaughtered him like a goat," she recalled.

Three hours later, she and her 10 children fled. After handing their life savings of $300 to a smuggler, they crossed into northeastern Kenya last month, joining tens of thousands of Somalis in this sprawling refugee settlement. They are the human fallout from Africa's most notorious failed state, haunted by unending conflict and a quiet U.S. counterterrorism campaign.

About 2 million Somalis, roughly one-fifth of the population, have sought refuge in other parts of their country or in neighboring countries, most of them since 2007, when the fighting intensified. Nearly 170,000 have fled this year alone, according to U.N. officials, arriving in desolate camps inside and outside Somalia with barely anything except the clothes on their backs.

Many are running from al-Shabab's radical dictates and increasing savagery, as well as fears of a major government offensive.

This article is based on more than 60 interviews conducted in Somali refugee communities in Kenya and Yemen. The refugees' stories of life under al-Shabab could not be independently verified, but community leaders, refugee officials and human rights groups as well as al-Shabab spokesmen gave similar accounts of recent events in Somalia.

Allawi had plenty of reasons to flee. Al-Shabab fighters, she said, once whipped her for not attending midday prayers at the mosque. Last month, she was forced to prove that the man she was walking with was her husband.

An al-Shabab commander also sought to recruit two of Allawi's sons, ages 10 and 13. Allawi begged him not to take them. In exchange, he forced her to buy three weapons for his force.

"If they could all afford to come, not a single person would remain in Somalia," said Allawi, 37, seated with her children on the reddish, sunbaked earth a day after they arrived. "There is no freedom in Somalia, only death."

Instability since 1991

War has gripped Somalia since 1991, when the collapse of President Mohamed Siad Barre's regime plunged the country into lawlessness and clan fighting. Two years later, mobs dragged the bodies of U.S. soldiers through Mogadishu, the capital, during a U.N. peacekeeping mission, an event later depicted in the movie "Black Hawk Down."

The country has vexed U.S. policymakers, who fear that Somalia could become the next Afghanistan. In December 2006, the George W. Bush administration indirectly backed an Ethiopian invasion to overthrow the Islamists, who had risen up against Somalia's secular warlords.

But within two years, the Islamists returned, more radicalized and led by al-Shabab, which in Arabic means "The Youth." The Obama administration and European nations are backing the Somali government with arms, training, logistics and intelligence.

Yet al-Shabab, which the United States has labeled a terrorist organization, now controls large swaths of Somalia. It has imposed Taliban-like Islamic codes in a region where moderate Islam was once widely practiced. Urged on by Osama bin Laden, the group has steadily pushed into Mogadishu, importing foreign fighters and triggering U.S. concerns that the movement could spread to Yemen, across East Africa and beyond. Somalia's government controls only a few blocks of Mogadishu and has little legitimacy elsewhere.

Many Somalis say they believe the United States is guiding the war.

"We expect American helicopters to strike Mogadishu at any moment," said Aslia Hassan, 40, who arrived at this refugee settlement three days ago with two small plastic bags of possessions. "This is why we are running."

Al-Shabab's dictates

The refugees say they are also escaping al-Shabab's puritanical dictates. Western and Somali music is outlawed in the areas the group controls in southern and central Somalia. Movie theaters have been shuttered, and the watching of films on DVDs is prohibited. In some areas, the refugees say, playing soccer -- and even watching it on television -- is banned. So is storing pictures on cellphones and using Western-sounding ringtones. Only Koranic music is allowed.

Al-Shabab's religious police, often led by children, order people to put out cigarettes and give haircuts at gunpoint to anyone with modern hairstyles or longish hair, the refugees say. As a warning to those who defy their dictates, al-Shabab fighters have displayed severed heads on steel poles.

Women must sheath themselves from head to toe in abayas made of thick cloth and are not allowed to wear bras. In Mogadishu, buses are segregated, with women sitting in the back.

"Even if a pregnant woman asks to sit in the front of the bus, where it is less bumpy, she will be refused," said Dahaba Duko Ali, 35.

She arrived here last month with her seven children, evading al-Shabab checkpoints. Fearing the police -- Kenya has closed its border with Somalia -- the smugglers drove along back roads and dropped the family just over the border. Under cover of night, Ali and her children walked 30 miles to Ifo.

Ali Mohamud Raghe, an al-Shabab spokesman, said that "our Islamic religion tells us" to separate men from women and for women to wear thick abayas. The militia forbids all "the evil things that infidels aim to spread" among young Muslim Somalis.

"So music is among the evil actions," he said in a telephone interview.

Even donkeys are not beyond al-Shabab's dictates. The militia has decreed that donkeys cannot wear harnesses, nor can they carry more than six sacks. They are also segregated: Women can use only female donkeys; men must use male ones. "How can I feed my children?" lamented Hassan Ali Ibrahim, 40, a gaunt donkey-cart driver who arrived in Yemen with his eight children.

Savage methods

On a Friday in October, the Ibrahim brothers -- Sayeed and Osman -- were taken from their prison cell in the coastal Somali town of Kismaayo. An al-Shabab court had convicted them of robbery, they said, adding that their imprisonment was politically motivated.

The brothers and a third inmate were driven in a minibus to a field in front of a police station. A crowd of 4,000 had gathered. Ten masked men stood in the field; one held a microphone and another clutched a knife, the brothers recalled.

The third inmate, in his early 20s, was taken out of the van. Several of the masked men held him down and his foot was chopped off above the ankle, the brothers recalled.

It took five minutes.

"God is great," chanted the fighters, drowning out the screams.

Minutes later, the brothers were taken out of the van. Sayeed looked away as his brother's leg was sliced off.

"I felt powerless," Sayeed said. "I wanted a miracle to happen."

A voice over the loudspeaker announced that Sayeed's right hand and left leg were to be amputated. By the time his limbs were hacked off, he had passed out. He woke up in a hospital. After 10 days, the brothers fled Kismaayo. In February, relatives hid them inside a crowded minibus and smuggled them into Kenya.

"What they did to us has nothing to do with Islam," said Osman, as he struggled to get up from a chair with his crutches.

But Mohammed Muse Gouled, 70, said al-Shabab had helped bring stability. For years, he said, warlords contested for power and territory, and chaos and insecurity grew. "No one can harm you under the Shabab," said Gouled, adding that he fled shelling by the regional African Union peacekeeping force.

One woman's journey

Habiba Abdi, 19, was five months pregnant and unmarried. Under the dictates of al-Shabab, she would have faced death by stoning. Fighters entered her neighborhood in Kismaayo, searching for the woman with the "illegal child."

She hid with relatives. Four days later, she begged a smuggler to take her to Kenya. A few months later, she had a baby girl. She named her Sabreen, which means "tolerance."

They live here with a cousin. Other refugees taunt her as the "one who broke the law of Islam." Some call her dhilo, or whore.

But she is more worried about al-Shabab. Last year, fighters from the militia crossed into Kenya and abducted three aid workers and a Somali cleric; last week, the group raided a Kenyan border town.

"Sometimes, I prefer to die," said Abdi, as she cradled Sabreen in her arms.

Apr 15, 2010

How to End the War in Afghanistan | The New York Review of Books

Hamid Karzai; drawing by John Springs

Neither the UK nor the US started the war in Afghanistan. In the 1990s that country’s Taliban government provided a safe haven and support for al-Qaeda. In return Osama bin Laden provided the Taliban with money and fighters. Afghanistan became the incubator for the September 11 attacks. The international intervention in response to those attacks had widespread support around the world. But we never meant for our militaries to be there forever. Eight years later, with al-Qaeda pushed into Pakistan, it is not enough to explain to people why the war started. We need to set out how it will be ended—how to preserve what has been achieved and protect South Asia from a contagion that would affect us all.

The route to progress depends on recognizing the centrality of politics to issues of war and peace. Violence of the most murderous, indiscriminate, and terrible kind started this Afghan war; politics will bring it to an end. A political settlement for Afghanistan must have two dimensions. First, a new and more inclusive internal political arrangement in which enough Afghan citizens have a stake, and the central government has enough power and legitimacy to protect the country from threats within and without. And second, on which the first depends, a new external settlement that commits Afghanistan’s neighbors to respect its sovereign integrity and that carries enough force and support to ensure that they abide by that commitment.

Britain fought three wars in Afghanistan between 1839 and 1919. Each time it was defending its power base—and economic stake—in British India. And each time it suffered military reverses as it sought to establish order. Yet on every occasion, once that lesson had been learned the hard and bloody way, Britain’s imperial strategists sought—and secured—a saner and more sustainable objective: a self-governing, self-policing, but heavily subsidized Afghanistan, whose tribes balanced each other and that posed no threat to the safety of British India.

Soviet strategists reached strikingly similar conclusions. When the Soviet forces in Afghanistan withdrew in 1989, they left behind a government, led by the Afghan Communist Mohammad Najibullah, that survived for three years. It did so—in the words of advice from the Kremlin—by “forgetting communism, abandoning socialism, embracing Islam, and working with the tribes.” As with every other regime in modern Afghan history, the Najibullah government could not have existed without external subsidy. And so it fell when Boris Yeltsin’s newly independent Russia cut all aid to Kabul.

Britain’s experience in the nineteenth century, and the Soviet Union’s in the twentieth, showed that the best way, perhaps the only way, to stabilize Afghanistan in the long term is to empower the Afghans themselves in charge so that they can secure and govern their own villages and valleys. To achieve this, the Afghans need full political and military support, and generous economic subsidy, from outside. But the Afghan people neither need nor welcome our combat troops on their soil any longer than is necessary to guarantee security and set them on a course to regulating their own affairs.

A recent study of Britain’s bloody withdrawal from Kabul in 1842 concluded that the first cause of that disaster was the reluctance of junior officers to tell their superiors the truth about the dire situation the British forces found themselves in. I know from my own discussions with diplomats and commanders in the field that such “happy talk” is no longer the order of the day. Getting Afghanistan right means getting down to ground truth. These are the facts as I see them:

• The Afghan people are tired of thirty years of war. They have been traumatized by the fighting and the denial of basic rights and opportunities. The majority of them hate, for good reason, the brutality of the Taliban. But sometimes they see them as their only protection from other brutal powerbrokers or warlords.

• The Afghan government led by Hamid Karzai faces competing demands from its own people, from powerful criminal and commercial interests, and from the international community. But it lacks the capacity to govern. The concerns about its credibility run deeper than last fall’s elections, which were marred by widespread corruption and fraud. They also relate to the very structure of the political system.

• The Afghan insurgency is a broad but shallow coalition, with shifting relationships, geographical bases, and tactics. The Taliban is led by members of the former Talib regime under Mullah Omar, who has been based in Pakistan’s border areas. A variety of other factions are also operating, including the Haqqani network, Hizb-e-Islami, and a range of smaller groups. These groups all trade on the uncertainties of the people and the weaknesses of the state.

• The Taliban are still despised—one recent poll suggests that only 6 percent of Afghans want them back in power. But they do now have organized cadres that enjoy some limited support—in the south, east, and north—and are able to mount operations in Kabul and elsewhere.

• Having fled Afghanistan, al- Qaeda’s senior leadership is now also hiding in Pakistan’s tribal areas. A significant number of its leaders have been killed or arrested. Despite the historical ties between al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, their relationship is predominantly tactical and local. Yet al-Qaeda retains the capacity—including through its affiliates in other countries, such as Yemen—to plan and carry out deadly attacks around the world.

• There has been a significant change in Pakistan in the last eighteen months under President Asif Ali Zardari’s democratic government. The reality and threat of domestic terrorism has brought new purpose to civilian and military leadership, and new consensus between leaders and the Pakistani electorate. It is now realistic to talk about complementary pressure on the insurgencies on both sides of the border.

The Afghan and international strategy over the last eight years has been to focus on building up the key functions of the state and delivering better lives for the Afghan people. Despite many setbacks, there is a real record of achievement here, continuing today. The return of five million refugees in recent years is perhaps the greatest sign of the growing confidence of Afghans in their safety and security, and an important indicator of our own progress in protecting them. Still, polling shows that Afghans regard the lack of security as one of the biggest problems; last year more Afghan civilians were killed in insurgent attacks than ever.

In 2003 the Afghan National Army numbered fewer than two thousand. Today it is over 100,000 strong, though the ethnic balance within it—and particularly the proportion of Pashtuns—is weak. The total will grow by a third by the end of the year, and further in the years to come. Afghan soldiers are gaining frontline combat experience, including in the current Moshtarak operation in Helmand province. Plans are now being developed for the transfer of “lead security responsibility” to the Afghans—district by district and province by province—once the Afghan National Security Forces, local government, and other institutions are able to meet key conditions of effectiveness. As the Afghan National Army gets stronger, international forces will be able to withdraw from combat operations—although their training and mentoring of their Afghan counterparts will need to continue for a number of years.

Concerning education and health, in 2001 only one million Afghan children attended school, all of them boys. This year we expect to see seven million Afghan children enrolled in school—a third of them girls. Eight out of ten Afghans now have access to health care.

Poppy growing and the drug trade are major problems for Afghanistan; but during the past two years there have been successive reductions in poppy cultivation: 19 percent in 2008, 22 percent in 2009. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that cultivation will not increase in 2010. Improvements in governance and security, along with high wheat prices, have supported these results.

The achievements of the National Solidarity Programme—which aims to improve local and regional government—would be a remarkable story in any country. Over 22,000 village councils have been elected by their peers since 2003. They have not just designed but implemented almost 40,000 development projects, and are now forming, from the bottom up, district councils.

There are also areas where progress has not been so impressive. We are now stepping up our efforts to address these concerns, and the Afghan government needs to do much more:

• Justice and law and order are a critical battleground. The Afghan National Police number almost 100,000, but the biggest problem is now quality, not quantity. Part of the force is involved in the drug trade. It also suffers from illiteracy, patronage by criminals and insurgents, and corruption. The Afghan government is launching a robust and far-reaching program of reform. But the government needs, with our help, to build up the informal judicial structures for resolution of criminal and civil disputes. That is, after all, what Afghans often mean by the rule of law.

• Despite the success of the National Solidarity Programme, civil administration remains an extremely difficult and uphill struggle. In large parts of the country, district governance is almost nonexistent; half the governors do not have an office, fewer than a quarter have electricity, and some receive only six dollars a month in expenses. Over the next two years the international community has promised to help train 12,000 civil servants to serve on the district level.

• Last, there is the problem of corruption. According to January’s BBC/ABC/ARD poll, 95 percent of Afghans see corruption as a problem in their local area. In some regions Afghans are paying an average of $100 in bribes to officials every year. Such widespread abuse has deep roots. President Karzai has promised to tackle corruption and build independent institutions to monitor and drive progress. The international community will judge him by his actions, not his words. Donors are trying to provide him with incentives by promising to channel more aid through the government as certain tests are met, for example the verification and publication of the assets of senior officials and ministers; the adoption of new procedures for senior appointments; and a clear timeline for the enactment of comprehensive anti-corruption legislation.

The achievements of the last eight years would not have been possible were it not for the tireless efforts and unstinting bravery of our troops. Without them, the insurgency would have overwhelmed the Afghan government and probably overrun Kabul. Our development work would have ground to a halt. And al-Qaeda would have seized more space to plan its terrorist atrocities.

The work ahead—on each of these fronts—is both clear and pressing. The additional troops that the United States, Britain, and others are deploying are vital if progress is to be made. Britain’s commitment and determination will endure until we have achieved our shared objective—an Afghanistan that must not again be used as a basis for international terrorism.

Brennan Linsley/AP Images

A girl watching an Afghan National Army soldier searching an area thought to have been used as a Taliban firing position, Pech Valley, Kunar province, January 24, 2010

However, even on the most optimistic reading of present plans, the Afghan authorities will not be able to govern their land in sustainable or acceptable ways unless the scale of the insurgency itself is reduced. And only then will we be able to withdraw our forces confident that we will not have to return. The strengthened efforts of our military forces are an important part of this. As General McChrystal said recently, the role of the military is to “try to shape conditions which allow people to come to a truly equitable solution to how the Afghan people are governed.” This raises the core political challenge for Afghanistan, one that has been neglected for far too long.

The Bonn Agreement of 2001 and the process that followed it fell short of a truly balanced political settlement. The Northern Alliance came to Bonn as the new masters of Afghanistan. But they were not representative of the broader Afghan population, including the Pashtun majority in the south. It was right that the Taliban leaders were excluded from Bonn. But other more significant and legitimate groups were seriously underrepresented, most notably the various Pashtun confederations from which the Taliban draws its strength.

The two jirgas that followed Bonn led to a top-down, highly centralized political structure for a country whose people have always had a strong predilection for managing their own affairs at the local level. Furthermore, new arrangements in Kabul did not do justice to tribal and other informal, traditional, and community-based structures. Corruption has exacerbated these problems. The unconstrained accumulation of financial resources by malign power brokers has eroded tribal balance. Finally, from Iran in the west to Pakistan in the east, from the Central Asian Republics in the north to the regional powers of India, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Turkey, the Bonn Agreement failed to bind Afghanistan’s neighbors into the long-term project of building a new, more peaceful country.

The lesson I draw from history is that Afghanistan will never achieve a sustainable peace unless many more Afghans are inside the political system, and its neighbors are in agreement with a political settlement.

Political Outreach

There is now an international consensus behind a program to reintegrate Taliban fighters, which the UN defines as “the process by which ex-combatants acquire civilian status and gain sustainable employment and income.” The logic behind this program is simple. As military pressure on the insurgency increases—as the dangers of continuing the fight grow and the prospects of success look more remote—those on the periphery of the insurgency will start to review their allegiances. We have seen this happening in fits and starts in recent years.

For such realignments to be sustained there needs to be not just employment but protection from retaliation by former allies. That is the significance of President Karzai’s proposed National Council for Peace, Reconciliation, and Reintegration, and of the $150 million the international community has already pledged to fund it.

But I would emphasize that a re-integration program will have a major impact only if it is coupled with a serious effort to address the grievances of those whom President Karzai describes as his “disaffected compatriots”—i.e., the Taliban and other insurgents. Without a genuine effort to understand and ultimately address the wider concerns that fuel the insurgency, it will be hard to convince significant numbers of combatants that their interests will be better served by working with the government than by fighting against it.

Some insurgents are committed to al-Qaeda’s violent extremist agenda. There will never be reconciliation with them—they must be beaten back. But the majority are not. They share conservative Islamic beliefs and, linked to that, strong views about what is a just social order. Their rallying cry is the expulsion of international forces. But they are also motivated by their intense dissatisfaction with the Afghan government and Afghan politics—which they see as corrupt and incompetent.

The idea of anyone reaching out to political engagement with those who would directly or indirectly attack our troops is difficult. We have no more right to betray our own values than those of the Afghan people who pray that the Taliban never come back. But dialogue is not appeasement; nor is allowing political space for discussion with opposing forces and politicians.

The Afghans must own, lead, and drive such political engagement. It will be a slow, gradual process. But the insurgents will want to see international support for it; and international mediation—for example under the auspices of the UN—may ultimately be required. So there needs to be clarity about the preconditions for any agreement: those who want a political say in their country’s future must permanently sever ties with al-Qaeda, give up their armed struggle, and accept the Afghan constitutional framework. In doing so their interests would be recognized and given a political voice but would be constrained by the nation’s laws and balanced by the interests and views of others.

In his repeated offers to talk directly to insurgents, President Karzai has made clear that while such preconditions should set the terms of any eventual agreement, they should not prevent a dialogue from developing. The build-up of international and Afghan military forces should concentrate everyone’s mind. Dialogue provides an alternative to fight or flight. Any such process of political outreach will take time and effort to prepare, let alone conclude. But the time to start laying the foundations for dialogue is now, so as to take advantage of the growing Afghan and international military presence.

President Karzai has proposed for April 29 a great consultation—a grand peace jirga—involving around 1,400 members and guests. They are to include parliamentarians, provincial councils and governors, religious and tribal leaders, and representatives from civil society organizations and women’s groups. This should be the start of a process of building a new national political settlement. He has said:

The objective will be to get guidance from the Afghan people on how to move forward towards reintegration and reconciliation —where reconciliation may be possible—and chart out an action plan in consultation with the Afghan people.

What might such a political settlement look like? An outsider can only offer suggestions.

First, there should be arrangements, whether formal or informal, to ensure that the legitimate tribal, ethnic, and other groups that feel excluded from the post-Bonn political settlement are given a real stake in the political process and are able to compete for political representation. A peace settlement must include the vanquished as well as the victors. To do this, the new arrangements should give voice to the different blocs of opinion and influence. Access to political office and government jobs should be opened up. And efforts should be made to broaden the ethnic base of the Afghan National Army. All of this would encourage Afghans to address their grievances, and those of their broader community, from within the system. And it would offer them a part in building stability and security in Afghanistan so that—and this is a key objective of many of the insurgents—the international forces will be able to withdraw from combat, initially into a training and support role, and then altogether.

Second, the provincial and district governors and their associated assemblies of elders should be given new governing powers, so that the walis (or provincial governors) and the uluswals (district governors) have the confidence, competence, and capacity to govern in the best interests of those they represent. Recruiting the right people for these jobs is essential—and in view of the challenges of upholding justice and the rule of law, the police chief and local magistrates are equally important. Local governors and local assemblies also need to be given more direct responsibility for overseeing development, adjudicating disputes, providing local security, and reintegrating local insurgents and their sympathizers.

Third, a new legislative process should be established—not necessarily involving constitutional change—between president and parliament, in order to give parliamentarians a real stake in the success of the political settlement. Such a stake would encourage them to participate as well as to criticize, and would ultimately lead to the development of something completely alien in Afghanistan today, but critical to democracy—a constructive or loyal opposition.

Fourth, underpinning all this must be a more concerted effort to prevent and eradicate corruption. President Karzai’s promises to tackle the culture of impunity and to establish a new anti-corruption unit are important. Emphasis must also be put on how the Afghan government—with international help —can counter the extensive drug trade. This goes to the heart of ordinary people’s concerns about corruption and lack of the rule of law. Part of this is about ensuring that the new political settlement includes many more checks and balances—such as independent courts—and much greater emphasis on transparency and accountability to ensure that government at all levels and in all guises is the servant, not the master, of the Afghan people.

The External Political Settlement

No country’s politics can exist in a vacuum, least of all Afghanistan’s. For too long it has been the victim of external meddling and interference. Today competing regional interests are being pursued in Afghanistan, and the country’s tribal and ethnic groups—in the south, the east, and the north—still roam freely and find refuge across its borders. Those who oppose the government still draw on funding, support, and shelter from abroad. If Afghanistan is to have a more peaceful and prosperous future, it needs not just a new internal political settlement but also a new external political settlement.

Given the scale of the geopolitical challenges in this region—including the long-running tensions between India and Pakistan and the presence of Iran—it can seem that Afghanistan is fated to remain the victim of a zero-sum scramble for power among hostile neighbors. The logic of this position is that Afghanistan will never achieve peace until the region’s most intractable problems are solved. But there is an alternative and ultimately more promising possibility, by which Afghanistan poses so many dangers that it becomes the place where more cooperative regional relations are forged.

The first step is a greater recognition by all of Afghanistan’s neighbors and the key regional powers of two simple facts. Fact one: no country in the region, let alone the international community, will again allow Afghanistan to be dominated, or used as a strategic asset, by a neighboring state. Fact two: the status quo in Afghanistan is damaging to all. Crime, drugs, terrorism, and refugees spill across its borders when Afghanistan’s great mineral wealth and agricultural land should instead be of benefit to the region. These two facts can and must provide the basis of a shared interest around which the countries of the region can coalesce.

Second—and this point is more complex—there needs to be a more honest acknowledgment of the different interests and concerns of Afghanistan’s neighbors, so that efforts can be made to provide reassurances. Pakistan is essential here. It holds many of the keys to security and dialogue. It clearly has to be a partner in finding solutions in Afghanistan.

Pakistan is a country of 170 million people. It is a nuclear power. Pakistan will act only according to its own sense of its national interest. That is natural. Its relationship with Afghanistan is close to the core of its national security interests. Pakistan fears the build-up of a non-Pashtun Afghan National Army on its doorstep, and it is perpetually worried about India’s relationship with Afghanistan.

It has also had a difficult relationship with the US for a generation. That is the significance of the Obama administration’s determination to pursue a new security, economic, and political relationship with Pakistan. This policy opens up a vital opportunity to address Pakistan’s concerns—and ours. The Kerry-Lugar Act—which provides for over $7 billion in nonmilitary aid over the next five years, but makes the support conditional on the Pakistani government taking effective action against militants in its territory—is an important down payment in this regard.

But progress cannot be achieved simply by a more serious, more equal US–Pakistan strategic security understanding, crucial though that is. Alongside Pakistan’s fears about its western border, fears about Pakistan’s own involvement in Afghanistan need to be addressed. Every country needs to accept that, just as there will be no settlement in Afghanistan without Pakistan’s involvement, so there will be no settlement in Afghanistan unless India, Russia, Turkey, and China are also involved in the search for solutions. China is Afghanistan’s largest foreign investor. India has already pledged $1.2 billion for reconstruction in Afghanistan. It has a big part to play. Moreover, the Iranian regime—whose nuclear policies have flouted the UN and that has a record of attempting to destabilize its neighbors—must acknowledge that the best way to protect its investments or promote the interests of Afghans that share its Shia faith is to work to promote peace, not undermine it. The Iranian government’s refusal to take part in the recent London Conference on Afghanistan was completely shortsighted.

Third—and this is where the external settlement connects most clearly to the internal political settlement—there needs to be greater transparency with respect to the future direction of Afghan foreign policy. It is for the Afghans to decide how to do this, but their involvement is critical in building confidence and reducing miscalculation. Linked to this, there will need to be consistency and clarity about the presence, activities, and future plans of the international forces in Afghanistan.

Fourth, economics should be the great lubricant for better regional relations. Afghanistan can benefit all its neighbors if it becomes the land bridge of Central Asia, South Asia, and the Gulf. After all, the Silk Road was the passage for trade for many centuries. There are common interests not just in trade and transport, but in managing and sharing water and electricity and harnessing economic growth for the benefit of Afghanistan and the neighboring countries.

Fifth is the question of the forum in which this work should move forward. The process must be led by the countries in the region. Only these governments can decide whether the multitude of existing bodies such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference can provide the basis for the serious and sustained regional engagement that is now needed. The Afghans should take the lead, in partnership with the UN. In time perhaps this could lead to a standing Conference on Stability, Security, and Cooperation in South Asia. Above all, Afghan citizens must decide the future political process in their country. Important as the neighbors’ legitimate interests are, they cannot supplant, nor will we allow them to supplant, the Afghan government and the Afghan people. The days are long gone when powerful countries would dispose of a smaller, vulnerable neighbor to suit their own ends.

Conclusion

If we successfully implement the strategy I have outlined, a better future for Afghanistan is not a utopian goal. Within two to five years it is realistic to aspire to see the country still on an upward trajectory, still poor but stable, with a just peace, with democracy and inclusive politics taking hold at all levels, and with incomes growing. The urban population should have access to electricity. More shops will be open in the local bazaars and more children—in particular more girls—will be going to schools. Most grassroots insurgents —the so-called ten-dollar-a-day Taliban—should be resettled in their villages with at least some of the insurgent leaders taking part in the legitimate political process. Communities will be increasingly able to rely on the Afghan National Security Forces for protection—or to protect themselves. International troops will have stepped back from the front line—though they will still have a role, and sometimes a dangerous role, in training and mentoring their Afghan counterparts. The neighbors will be working together, preventing trouble, not fueling it. And above all, al-Qaeda will be kept out.

I have been to Afghanistan six times as British foreign secretary. On my first visit in July 2007 I attended the funeral of its last king, Mohammed Zahir Shah. The grief I witnessed was palpable and deep, but so too was the sense of national unity. Ethnic allegiances and historic feuds were put aside to mourn the passing of the “father of the nation.”

This unity is not expressed today through allegiance to a monarch. Instead it is founded on a deep desire among the people to live life as they see fit. The military surge is vital to success; so is investment in the civilian economy; but now is the time for Afghans to pursue a political settlement with as much vigor and energy as we are pursuing the military and civilian effort. That is how to end the war in Afghanistan.

—April 1, 2010

Mar 31, 2010

Behind the Lines for Wednesday, March 31, 2010

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By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly

Dept. of reasonable questions: "How much sense does it make to have the Department of Homeland Security in a city that is a prime target for attack?" . . . Just in case you were wondering: Osama bin Laden "is alive, well, and personally 'giving the orders,' " FBI info shows . . . Boring from within: Police association urges federal air marshal's chief as next candidate for rudderless TSA. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage.

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“How much sense does it make to have the Department of Homeland Security in a city that is a prime target for attack?” Dan Walsh asks in a Washington Post plea that “a plan be developed” to shift federal agencies out of the D.C. area. “Every time something scary happens anywhere in the world New York City security officials ‘ramp up security’ here at home,” Jonny Diamond gripes in The L Magazine, concluding, “This is kind of silly.” The Infrastrucurist’s Melissa Lafsky ponders of the post-Moscow transit security surge, “Were all these increased security measures necessary? Or were they a waste of time and money? The answer is neither.”

Feds: “A new FBI terrorism case provides a rare nugget of intelligence about Osama bin Laden: the al Qaeda leader is alive, well, and personally ‘giving the orders,’” Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff learns. The FBI has been training thousands of law enforcers nationwide to identify, disrupt and dismantle IEDs, including bombs made out of ordinary household products, The Associated Press’ Greg Bluestein spotlights. Completely exonerated by the CIA, but convicted as a Hezbollah spy in print, Nada Nadim Prouty is a “counterterrorism heroine,” Post blogger Jeff Stein essays. A former Iranian Revolution Guards officer who spied for the CIA in Iran for nearly decade is telling his story in a new book coming next week, Ken Timmerman alerts for Gather.

Homies: A police association yesterday urged the White House to tap DHS’s federal air marshal director to head the rudderless TSA, CNN notes. DHS’s Janet Napolitano this week “reiterated her resolve to fight terrorism and urged the science and technology community to develop innovative initiatives to help protect the nation from threats,” All Headline News’ Tejinder Singh relates. At ICE detention centers, mental incompetence is routinely ignored by immigration judges and deportation officers, who are under pressure to handle rising caseloads and meet DHS quotas, The New York Times’ Nina Bernstein cites from a new report — and see The Texas Tribune’s Julian Aguilar on the same.

State and local: According to a newly released report there are 27 militia-type groups in Indiana, all against the federal government but “not necessarily racist or hate-oriented,” The Merrillville (Ind.) Post-Tribune reports — and see The Toledo Blade.The National Park Service will award a contract this spring for an $8.5 million two-lane access highway to Pennsylvania’s Flight 93 Memorial, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. The National Federation of Independent Business is urging Tennessee employers to get prepared for ICE inspections of their hiring records, The Knoxville News Sentinel says. The Frederick County (Md.) Sheriff’s Office will soon partner with ICE “in another national program to help enforce the nation’s immigration laws,” the News-Post notes.

Follow the money: While al Qaeda has used the Internet primarily to spread its propaganda and rally new recruits, like other terror groups it has also relied on the Web for fundraising, a Studies in Conflict & Terrorism article explores. Authorities are pushing to regulate an allegedly common method of moving money across the border: stored-value cards, The Arizona Daily Star says. Treasury last week levied sanctions against an Iraqi with ties to an al Qaeda-linked support network operating there, Reuters reports. Congress wants the Pentagon to better track funds spent as part of a cash discretionary fund supporting counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, The Christian Science Monitor mentions. A bill in the Missouri legislature would ban the State Employees Retirement System and other entities from investing in companies doing business with governments that support terrorism, The Jefferson City News Tribune notes.

Bugs ‘n bombs: Al Qaeda has “trained a group of female suicide bombers to attack Western targets including airlines,” IPT News quotes from a new intel assessment — as The New York Times has Monday’s Moscow subway bombings reviving “ a peculiar fear in the Russian capital, one that goes beyond the usual terrorism worries of a metropolis: the female bomber.” A La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology egghead has designed an antibody that will treat people exposed to smallpox during a bioterrorism attack, The Voice of San Diego profiles. Regarding attacks on lawmakers after the health care vote, The Minneapolis Star Tribune judges that whoever sent a “potentially used condom” to Rep. Betty McCollum “could have engaged in bioterrorism; body fluids, if present, can potentially transmit one of several serious diseases.”

Up in the air: An American Eagle flight from Chicago was diverted Monday night from Reagan National to Dulles by a suspicious person report, NBC Washington notes. “All selected children will have to go through the new full-body ‘naked’ scanning machines being introduced at airports,” The Daily Mail hears the Brit government ruling Monday — while The Guardian learns from defense sources that RAF jets have been scrambled twice this month in response to terrorist alerts on airliners flying over the U.K. Two breaches occurred at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport over the weekend, both involving suspects scaling walls to enter restricted areas, The Hindu relates — as the Times of India reports two security inspectors under suspension.

Coming and going: For the first time in recent years, Canada has put its subway networks on “extra alert” in the wake of Monday’s Moscow metro blasts, IANS notes — while AP has Prague’s subways boosting security for the April 8 summit where Obama and his Russian counterpart will sign an arms accord. Amid security warnings, Port of Corpus Christi commissioners will hire only half the marine patrol staff originally planned, the Caller-Times tells. The ongoing saga of Coast Guard demands on inland Minnesota fishing guides continues, but state officials recommend guides start applying for TWICs, The Duluth News Tribune relates. “Could a national identity card help resolve the heated immigration-reform divide?” Time Magazine wonders.

Terror tech: “As threats to Pentagon computer networks . . . continue to grow, the Senate Armed Services Committee is holding up creation of a new Cyber Command,” The Washington Times tells. Britain’s MI5 security agency “is launching an unprecedented round of redundancies to improve the overall level of computer skills among its staff,” The Daily Telegraph records. DHS’s First Responder Technologies program has created a virtual platform where first responders and . . . officials can “collaborate on team projects and critical homeland security initiatives,” News Blaze relays. Researchers have developed a technique to ascertain the “chemical fingerprint” of compounds such as mustard gas, rat poison and VX, providing vital clues to responders, Wired Science says. By mimicking biological tissues that respond to shifting environments, a multifunctional polymer developed by a U-Pittsburgh researcher can decontaminate a range of bio-agents and chemical toxins, Popular Science reports.

Gizmotronica: A U.K. biotech consortium has developed a gadget that trains groups of bees at a time to smell out explosives, obviating costly and time-consuming individual coaching, New Scientist notes. A hand-held version of a Pentagon-developed beam weapon that subjects recalcitrant targets to an ostensibly “harmless” burning sensation could end up being used by police to control rowdy civilians, Homeland Security Newswire relates — while Danger Room reports Israeli boffins’ development of a loud-hailer/weapon so ear-piercing it could kill. “Some of New York’s newest high-tech weapons in the war on terror look like ordinary blankets,” but they’re made of “state-of-the-art material that can protect civilians and rescuers against chemical, biological and radiological attacks,” The New York Post spotlights — as NBC Dallas-Fort Worth sees North Texas business owners turning to an innovative weapon long used in Canada and Europe to foil burglaries: fog combined with a strobe light.

Over there: Monday’s twin suicide bombings in Moscow included an attack on a subway station just steps away from secret police headquarters, The Washington Post reports — while The New York Times sees the blasts presenting “a grave challenge” to P.M. Vladimir Putin’s record of curbing terrorism. Moscow authorities say they will step up security measures, not just on the subways, during Orthodox Easter (April 4) and Victory Day (May 9) celebrations, RIA Novosti notes. A pipe bomb explosion in Athens on Sunday night killed a 15-year-old Afghan boy, injuring his mother and sister, Kathimerini recounts. “As if South Africa’s own high crime rate and the threat of European football hooligans weren’t enough, World Cup planners are also bracing for a possible terror attack,” AP leads.

Courts and rights: A Chicago cabdriver charged with trying to send money to an al Qaeda-linked Pakistani terrorist leader will remain in custody after deciding Tuesday not to contest detention, The Chicago Tribune tells. A federal appeals court has ordered a Rhode Island judge to hear more arguments on whether to vacate a $116 million judgment against the PLO over a 1996 terror attack that killed a U.S. citizen and his wife, The Providence Journal reports. Cracks are beginning to appear in the military’s prosecution of three Navy SEALs accused of striking a most-wanted terrorism suspect they had captured in Iraq, The Washington Times leads. An alleged leader of a violent cross-border drug gang believed involved in the slayings this month of three U.S. consulate employees in Juarez was arrested Monday, the Post relates.

This just in, from The Onion: “2,000 MILES BENEATH BAVARIA, GERMANY—Mytron the Fifth, Illuminati ruler and secret mastermind of the entire human race since the year 8449 on the world’s true calendar, died yesterday in his subterranean bedchamber. He was 112. Mytron, who assumed clandestine dominion of the planet upon the sudden withering of Hemmonphanes the Ancient, was perhaps best known for engineering more than 200 wars, economic catastrophes, and famines, and for having psychokinetic control over the inner thoughts of every man, woman, and child on earth. ‘He’ll be missed,’ said a longtime friend and Roman Catholic archbishop who declined to be identified. Mytron is survived by 251 offspring, primarily from his human wives.” Read, also in The Onion: “Computer Company Started In Garage 30 Years Ago Now In Smaller Garage.”

Source: CQ Homeland Security