Afghan war criminals give themselves blanket immunity

On the basis of the information that we have become familiar with, there are four points worth reiterating: (1) the Taliban are not a unitary force, (2) the core insurgent groups among the Taliban are not the only enemy of the Afghan people, (3) there are many non-Taliban warlords who are also enemies of the Afghan people, who the US military considers their allies, and who occupy important local positions of power, and (4) there are warlords, who are alleged to be war criminals, who hold positions in the national parliament and President Karzai's cabinet.

I'd like to focus on the 4th point, and quote Malalai Joya from chapter 9 of her book, A Woman Among Warlords.

"As I walked inside the recently rebuilt halls of Parliament, I saw mostly the same old faces from Afghanistan's sorrowful past. Many warlords had once again strong-armed the process and forced their way into Parliament. Even though, it was supposedly illegal for militia leaders or combatants to run for office, a Human Rights Watch report exposed their allies. Many of these people either stole their places in Parliament at gunpoint or bought their seats with U.S. dollars - which they had in abundance because leaders of the Northern Alliance were paid with cash by the CIA for the support of the U.S. war" (p. 124).

With this context from Joya, I'll identify what I see as four key points in a recent article by Jason Leopold, "Afghanistan Enacts Law Giving War Criminals Blanket Immunity."

The article appeared in Truthout.org on March 16, 2010. The URL for the article is: http://www.truthout.org/afghanistan-enacts-law-giving-blanket-immunity-war-criminals57746

The first of the points that I draw from Leopold's article is that the Afghan Parliament, "made up largely of former warlords" who have been "accused by Afghans and human rights groups of war crimes," have voted for a law "that provides blanket immunity and pardons for members of the Afghanistan armed factions of war crimes and human rights abuses prior to Dec. 2001."

Second, Leopold refers to The Transitional Justice Coordination Group (TJCG), "made up of a coalition of 24 civil society organizations, [that has] called upon the Karzai government" to suspend the law and eventually abolish it.

Three, according to Leopold, there is a provision in the amnesty law that "allows victims of atrocities to file individual claims against alleged perpetrators." Leopold reports that TJCG said this "places an unfair burden upon victims, who have already suffered so much and would put themselves at rick of reprisals given the impunity of Aghanistan today." He adds: "This provision is particiularly impractical so far as it concerns women and the many victims of sexual violence, who already face barriers to obtaining justice."

Four, and most relevant for the present post, Leopold writes that there are "War Criminals in Karzai's Cabinet, including "high-level officials who were accused of war crimes." For example, "both of Karzai's vice presidents are former leaders of armed groups whose factions squabbled for control of Kabul in the 1990s, when thousands of civilians wee killed and hundreds of thousands fled from their homes." Another example: "...Karzai approved the re-appointment in Jan. of Gen. Abdul Rashid Dotsum, an ex-militia chief, to a high-level military position which had been harshly criticized by civil rights groups."

The implications? The US appears to be fighting a war focused on what it calls the Taliban, while much of the rest of the country is ruled by warlords who have also perpetrated atrocities on the Afghan people and who now use present circumstances to consolidate their power. Along the way, the Afghan people remain among the poorest in the world and the U.S. government and military spend tens of billions of dollars on an adventure that appears to have no clear strategy for bringing security to the Afghan people - and no end point.