This is the second in a three part piece looking at the war in Afghanistan from 3 different angles. The First part found here talked about Taliban progress in light of new info showing that they have a heavy presence in 80% of the country.
Side Note Sorry I'm late with this planned to write the 3 parts over Friday/Saturday/Sunday excessive alcohol/laziness however derailed that plan :D
"I do not see indications of a large al-Qaida presence in Afghanistan now," McChrystal told reporters at the Dutch Defense Ministry, where he met military officials.
(Google News 11th Sept '09)
A Nasty German Mess In Kunduz
On Friday 4th September 2009 in Kunduz province in Afghanistan, Germany was handed a major problem.
The Northern province with a population of 800,000 had been fairly calm until the summer of '09. 4,000 German troops presided over the area with not much to do.
This had been a source of some trouble between the US and Germany. Sec of Defence Robert Gates, sent a letter in 2008, to Germany complaining about US and British troops fighting daily in southern Afghanistan while German troops sat back in Non-Combat roles. In the letter Gates called Germany's performance "disappointing". The Germany's responded by saying the letter was "impertinant" and "fantastic cheek".
Kunduz Province (Pop: 800,000) in Red
This problem flared up again in December '08 when the British media gave extensive coverage to a report that claimed "German troops were too fat to fight the Taliban" reporting that 40% of German troops in Afghanistan were overweight.
German soldier doing something
All in all things weren't going so smoothly for NATO in Afghanistan. The US and British were insisting on Germany taking on more combat roles and sending more troops and Merkal was replying that "it wasn't up for discussion".
Enter the Taliban
Which brings me back to Friday 4th September in Kunduz province. Two trucks carrying fuel for NATO troops gets hijacked in Ali Abad district of Kunduz province. The Taliban behead the two drivers before taking the trucks and getting away. While crossing a riverbed the trucks get stuck in the mud and stall.
The Taliban knowing that they can't get away encourage the locals to syphon of the fuel from the trucks to deprive NATO forces of them. A crowd finally formed around the two trucks just before the US air force fired on the trucks.
What followed is one of the more macabre scenes of this or any war. The grief-stricken relatives began to argue and fight over the remains of the men and boys who a few hours earlier had greedily sought the tanker's fuel. Poor people in one of the world's poorest countries, they had been trying to hoard as much as they could for the coming winter.
"We didn't recognise any of the dead when we arrived," said Omar Khan, the turbaned village chief of Eissa Khail. "It was like a chemical bomb had gone off, everything was burned. The bodies were like this," he brought his two hands together, his fingers curling like claws. "There were like burned tree logs, like charcoal.
"The villagers were fighting over the corpses. People were saying this is my brother, this is my cousin, and no one could identify anyone."
So the elders stepped in. They collected all the bodies they could and asked the people to tell them how many relatives each family had lost.
A queue formed. One by one the bereaved gave the names of missing brothers, cousins, sons and nephews, and each in turn received their quota of corpses. It didn't matter who was who, everyone was mangled beyond recognition anyway. All that mattered was that they had a body to bury and perform prayers upon.
The Guardian (UK)
At the end of it all 93 people had been confirmed dead. Taliban called the incident "an intentional massacre" and US commander of forces in Afghanistan Stanley McCrystal who had just days before proposed to Obama and Gates a strategy of limiting collateral damage went on Afghan TV and promised a full investigation.
Aftermath of the bombing in Kunduz
German headache
The strike had been ordered by German colonel George Klein but carried out by the US air force and instantly set off a fresh wave of recriminations. In Germany where over 2/3's of the public was already against the War and with Angela Merkel scheduled for an election against a liberal Anti War candidate on the 27th of September this wasn't good news.
Naturally the suggestion by the Afghan Human Right Monitor that Germany staged a "massacre" and the suggestions of a War Crime are potentially explosive in Germany even without the elections being a few weeks away.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeir of the center-left Social Democratic Party, who is Merkel's main challenger in the election, has been saying for a while that if his party emerges victorious, "As chancellor, I would push for us to develop plans with the new Afghan government to establish a clear perspective for the duration and end of the military engagement."
(Asia Times Sept 9th)
Military analyst Anthony Cordesman, who advises the top US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, lost no time in lampooning the Bundeswehr's record in northern Afghanistan.
Cordesman said German soldiers lacked "situational and combat experience" to confront the Taliban on the ground. "They're as oriented toward staying in their armored vehicles as any group I've met. They're not active enough to present much of a threat to the Taliban most of the time," Cordesman mocked. The German Defense Ministry pushed back the US criticism, saying it was self-serving. These are unusual public exchanges for two NATO allies. Merkel's statement on Sunday suggests that Germany will take to the high ground rather than be the butt of ridicule.
The German Daily newspaper, Bild hit back
"The Americans - who still have the massive German criticism of them ringing in their ears - can barely conceal their schadenfreude: look the good Germans too are responsible for killing civilians."
I seems fairly clear that no matter who wins the next German election on 27th Sept (and polls show Merkal narrowly leading, but set to lose a lot of seats in the Bundeswehr to the liberals) that Germany is not going to be increasing troops and might be in favour of a timetable to withdraw.
Meanwhile in Britain...
70% of people in Britain are now against the Afghan war. Prime Minister Gordon Brown who is committed to "staying the course" is looking at losing in an electoral landslide in the next 6-12 months. The British media is in full attack mode against the war and members at the Ministry of Defence are resigning in protest at equipment and the general conduct of the Afghan war.
The latest:
Mr Joyce, a former army major who was parliamentary private secretary to Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary, used his resignation letter to direct a series of damning accusations against the Prime Minister.
Mr Joyce said: "I do not think the public will accept for much longer that our losses can be justified by simply referring to the risk of greater terrorism on our streets. Nor do I think we can continue with the present level of uncertainty about the future of our deployment in Afghanistan."
He finished up:
Mr Joyce also said that there should be a greater "geopolitical return from the United States for our efforts" adding "for many, Britain fights; Germany pays, France calculates; Italy avoids."
Never in the 60 year history has there been so much problems in NATO. The United States and Germany are in the middle of a full blown diplomatic row. Britain is losing confidence in the War and going off on virtually all its European NATO allies and Germany and France seem to be pushing for a European withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Indeed, a pall of gloom descended on the two-day European Union (EU) foreign ministers meeting in Stockholm over the weekend. According to reports, the EU ministers showed "no optimism or idealism" in their speeches, which were laced with depressing and "occasionally grisly anecdotal evidence" of the war that is going horribly wrong. The disputed presidential elections in Afghanistan and growing Afghan intolerance toward foreign involvement - and now the Kunduz incident - dominated the Stockholm discussions.