World fails to create stable Afghanistan: International Crisis Group Report reveals

KABUL: The global community has failed to create a politically stable and economically viable Afghanistan despite pouring billions of dollars into the South Asian nation during a decade-long war against the Taliban, says the International Crisis Group.

The Brussels-based think tank said the United States and its allies still lacked a coherent policy to strengthen Afghanistan ahead of a planned withdrawal of foreign combat troops from the unpopular war by the end of 2014.

“Despite billions of dollars in aid, state institutions remain fragile and unable to provide good governance, deliver basic services to the majority of the population or guarantee human security,” it said in a report released this week.

Violence is at its worst in Afghanistan since US-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government in late 2001, with high levels of foreign troop deaths, and record civilian casualties during the first six months of 2011.

Afghanistan relies on foreign aid for around 90 per cent of its spending, but many international donors are reluctant to channel aid through the country`s ministries because of a lack of capacity and rampant corruption.

Public sector corruption is seen as worse than in any other country except Somalia, and equal to Myanmar, according to Transparency International. President Hamid Karzai has acknowledged

US and Pakistan: The rocky AmPak affair- By Tariq Ali in Guardian

By: Tariq Ali
Published in Guardian UK, July 15
While US threats to hold back aid mean little, its hunting on Pakistani soil is heightening tensions

Nato fuel tankers in Pindi Gheb, 122km east of Islamabad, which were set alight by unidentified gunmen in May 2011. 

Ever since the US occupation of Afghanistan began almost 10 years ago two fictions, common in nuclear families, have dominated the discussion on American-Pakistan relations. The first is that neither side is fully aware of what the other is doing; the second is that a total breakdown of the relationship is imminent.

As long as the Pentagon bankrolls the Pakistan army to fight its wars and Nato troops remain in Afghanistan there will be quarrels, charges of infidelity, a reduction in the household allowance, perhaps a separation – but a divorce? Never. The cash-arms nexus is crucial to this most recent phase of the AmPak relationship. In return, as WikiLeaks revealed, Washington defines the rules of the marriage. It drones the country, it violates its sovereignty, its agents kill citizens on public highways. International law is arbitrary and Pakistan's latest response suitably mild: