Analysis: Frustration Sparks Afghan Riots

Council on Foreign Relations

May 30, 2006
Prepared by: Esther Pan

A cargo truck in a U.S. military convoy crashed into traffic May 29 in Kabul, killing several civilians and triggering lethal riots (NYT) in the capital city. The U.S. military said the truck's brakes failed (AP) and called the incident an "unfortunate traffic accident." Furious Afghans surrounded the convoy, throwing stones and drawing gunfire, and then rioters and looters rampaged through Kabul (CSMonitor), attacking foreign businesses and NGOs. Afghan President Hamid Karzai imposed a curfew and Afghan police patrolled the streets (Reuters) in an attempt to restore order.

Nearly five years after a U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban, the unrest highlights the tense and fragile security situation in Afghanistan. Afghans are angry that some $12 billion in foreign aid received by the state since 2001 has not provided jobs, improved security, or raised the standard of living; 53 percent of Afghans still live on less than one dollar per day. Afghans are also suffering attacks from a resurgent Taliban using Pakistan as a base to stage deadly cross-border suicide missions. In a CFR Special Report, Barnett Rubin says the Pakistan-based Taliban insurgency is becoming more lethal and effective.

A U.S. campaign of air strikes against militants in the south has killed dozens of Afghan civilians, further angering the population. More than fifty alleged Taliban members were killed in a May 29 air strike (al-Jazeera) on Helmand province, and some 372 people, including civilians, have been killed in violence since May 17. Many Afghans seem fed up with the presence of foreign troops—and well-paid foreign consultants driving large cars—in their country.

 

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.


Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.


I'm not too sure if any has paid attention to this particular incident but it seems that the supposed stability that was believed to be present in Afghanistan is crumbling in Coalition hands. This may be in part to the tactics employed by Coalition troops and the recent upsurge of activity by Insurgent activity working from a bases in Pakistan but it seems like we're losing support more and more everyday. I'm unsure of my own opinion in the matter but it's always good to hear both american and international opinions on this incident.

P.S. Please keep "keel teh f-in' hajjis" and "america rulez" to a minimum.


_________________
Tanks > Life. =)

Is this supposed to be news?  I mean, this sort of thing shouldn't be any kind of suprise considering that the troops are not there for peacekeeping purposes.    Soldiers are there for taking out the remnants of the Taliban.  Until they're gone, helping innocent civilians is ridiculously difficult.  

The situation is similar to Africa,  without the coalition troops.  Countries give them billions of dollars and there doesn't seem to be much progress there.  Why?  Well, its because they're too busy killing each other, there's corruption among the African leaders, and there's serious problems with organization.

I'm a Canadian and we have troops over there in Afghanistan.  While many of us object to them being there, we appreiciate their efforts.  The largest  bit of news about our troops over the last few weeks was about the death of a Canadian female officer, who was the 1st Canadian female killed in action since WW2.  It's sad and depressing, but there's going to be a lot more Canadian deaths as they continue to fight the Taliban.

News about the death of soldiers, riots, and civilian deaths can barely be considered 'news' because all of that is entirely expected.   In fact, if there were no foreign troops or foreign news people in Afghanistan, there would STILL be deaths, riots, you name it going on.  In the end, the future of Afghanistan will be determined by Afghans.  Same goes for Africa.

If all the coalition troops left, all that will happen is that you would have oppressed Afghan civilians calling out for help, and then guess what?  The U.N. will just be sending troops back there again for more of the same mess.

Something like this happens almost every month, for me it's not worth the news nor the shocking anymore.


_________________

Exactly, this isn't news at all. This has been happening there for quite some time now, both in Afghanistan and in Iraq. They'll pull out once they can reach a comfortable balance in the situation or until they figure out a solid solution, then after a couple of years something new may come up that will cause a stir. It might be in the middle east, maybe in Africa, or maybe even South America because of that Hugo Chavez fellow. What's for sure is that these are problem regions and are all constantly in turmoil, now, that's not to say it isn't worth fighting for or that we should just give up and let them kill each other. The road to a stable solution for all these places is a difficult one, but if we leave it alone it won't fix itself, it'll just worsen and worsen. At least that's what I think..

I don't know but it seems to me that this is a tad wrong....Afghanistan is supposed to be the Coaltion's crown jewel of a revitalized muslim nation and the fact that there are riots in the green zone is something that needs to be followed closely. When the populace begins rioting int he capital it is something that is extremely serious especially when Afghanistan has been under the illusion of progress being made.


_________________
Tanks > Life. =)

hhhhm somthing realy needs to be done about this  

GT3000 wrote:

I don't know but it seems to me that this is a tad wrong....Afghanistan is supposed to be the Coaltion's crown jewel of a revitalized muslim nation and the fact that there are riots in the green zone is something that needs to be followed closely. When the populace begins rioting int he capital it is something that is extremely serious especially when Afghanistan has been under the illusion of progress being made.

You have to keep in mind that not everything is just peachy between the coalition soldiers and the civilian population.
The civilians get annoyed with the searches and whatnot that they must endure from the soldiers.  A few months ago, a 16 year old Afghan kid was shot dead by Canadian soldiers after he hit a soldier on the head with an axe.  The boy wasn't a terrorist, but he was upset with all the searches and security checks by the soldiers.  After that, it took a lot of effort from Canadian officers to try to calm down the Elders and justify the killing.  Consider also that members of the Taliban aren't above using mosques or civilian houses as cover while they're shooting it out with coalition troops so this usually ends up with some civilian deaths.  The riots are caused by pent up frustration, not a real hate towards the foreign soldiers.

As for "Afghanistan being the crown jewel of a revitalized nation," well I don't think that Afghanistan was supposed to be the "crown jewel" of anything.  The bottom line is that George Bush made a mess of Afghanistan because he had to do SOMETHING after 9/11 and the coalition troops are just dealing with the mess that he left behind.