Posts Tagged ‘Afghanistan’
AFGHANISTAN: Virtually no safety net for war victims families
Despite having one of the largest war victim populations in Asia, Afghanistan does not have a law on how to deal with hundreds of thousands of war widows, orphans and disabled
Ahmad Wali died in a bomb blast in Kandahar city on 25 August and Samim was killed in a suicide attack in Kabul on 15 September. Both men left grieving families with little capacity to cope on their own.
We could not afford to pay the rent so we left our old home and have moved into a small room outside the city, said Samims eldest son, Arif.
My children cannot go to school any more because we cannot afford their education, said Walis widow, Pashtana.
Both families have found it increasingly difficult to meet their food needs: We eat whatever we can find but wait for Gods mercy when there is no food, said Pashtana.
We dont receive a single dollar from the government to help war victims and their families, Suraya Paikan, deputy minister for Labour, Social Affairs and Martyrs & Disabled, told IRIN, adding that tens of thousands of victim households were registered with her department.
The office of the president told IRIN that in the last 18 months over 2,800 condolence payments (US$2,000 each) had been made to families that had lost a family member in the war, and 1,700 sympathy payments ($1,000) had been distributed to people wounded in the conflict.
However, the presidents condolence payments are ad hoc and authorized only for specific families – mostly those affected by military operations by pro-government forces, officials said.
Wali and Samims families said they had received no support from the government or aid agencies apparently because both men were killed in explosions allegedly perpetrated by anti-government forces.
No laws
Despite having one of the largest war victim populations in Asia, Afghanistan does not have a law on how to deal with hundreds of thousands of war widows, orphans and disabled.
There is a lack of almost everything – from budget, to capacity, to political commitment and to laws and rules, Paikan said.
Noor-ul-Haq Ulomi, a member of the National Assembly who served the Soviet-backed government in the 1980s, accused the international community and the current Afghan government of failing to heed the plight of war victims.
In the past the [Soviet-backed] government distributed free land and apartments, [making available] education facilities for orphans, and employment for widows and disabled people, but the existing government has done nothing compared to what had been done in the past, he said.
Tiny welfare payments
The families of about 100,000 government employees, police officers, soldiers and Mujahedin fighters killed in fighting between 1979 and 2001 have been registered at the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Martyrs & Disabled (MoLSAMD), but assistance is minimal: With funds from the World Bank the government pays up to $12 monthly (40 US cents a day) to each family.
Government officials acknowledge that the real number of victim families is much higher but say they cannot help all of them.
Some beneficiaries said the monthly payments they received could not meet their needs for a single day, and also criticized the payment process as corrupt and bureaucratic.
The main weaknesses of the current social protection programmes include lack of well-designed targeting instruments, poor coordination across programmes, poor budgeting, and weak institutional and administrative capacity, the World Bank said in a statement on 15 October. The statement also said the Bank would spend $7.5 million in the next four years to strengthen the capacity of MoLSAMD and help develop its welfare programmes.
More war victims
Meanwhile, more families are becoming victims of the fighting: The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) recorded 2,118 civilian deaths in 2008, compared to 1523 in 2007.
In 2009 UNAMA recorded 1,500 civilian casualties between January and August, with August being the deadliest month since the beginning of 2009. These figures reflect an increasing trend in insecurity over recent months and in elections-related violence, said a recent report to the Security Council by the UN Secretary-General.
Almost three times as many civilian deaths (68 percent) were attributed to anti-government elements activities than to pro-government forces (23 percent). The most deadly tactics used and which accounted for the largest number of civilian casualties in the conflict to date were attributable to planted improvised explosive devices; suicide attacks carried out by anti-government elements accounted for 39.5 percent of fatalities. Air strikes by pro-government forces accounted for 20 percent of fatalities, the report said.
( _http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/rawanews.php?id=1279 )
Battlefield skyhook robocopter
The deadline for makers to bring forward unmanned skyhook robocopters – intended to move battlefield supplies in Afghanistan as soon as this year – is upon us, and one team at least is claiming a successful demonstration.
US defence colossus Lockheed, teamed with intermesh-rotor whirlybird maker Kaman, say that their droid chopper has managed to pass the tests set out for it by the US Marines under their “IMMEDIATE CARGO UNMANNED AERIAL SYSTEM” project.
The Marines’ requirements were for an unmanned, VTOL aircraft able to hover with underslung loads at high altitudes – essential in the Hindu Kush – and demonstrate the potential to shift ten tons of supplies per aircraft across 150 miles in 24 hours (in as many trips as required).
Lockheed and Kaman say that their unmanned K-MAX chopper has ticked the boxes in trial flights at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. They say the crewless K-MAX moved 3,000 pounds using two 150-nautical-mile round trip flights and “well within the required 6-hour timeframe”.
That would seem to add up to 12,000lb of stuff over 24 hours, not ten tons (20,000lb). Perhaps the Marines have relaxed their requirements, or perhaps “well within 6 hours” means “less than 4 hours” – though that last seems unlikely for a helicopter covering 600 nautical miles.
However you look at the figures, though, this could be a significant new thing – because the unmanned K-MAX was able to do its thing pretty much entirely hands-off.
“The system performed a rigorous set of cargo resupply scenarios as programmed, allowing the ground-based operator to monitor progress, and make adjustments to aircraft positioning only when requested by the Marine Corps for demonstration purposes,” according to Lockheed’s Dan Spoor.
The robochopper remained in touch with its ground station using both line-of-sight comms and satellite relay, and the ability to upload a new flight plan in the air was demonstrated. The K-MAX team also showed off a nifty “four-hook carousel”, which lets the droidcopter make multiple dropoffs in a single flight:
As an optional demonstration, Team K-MAX showcased the Unmanned K-MAX helicopter’s four-hook carousel, which enables multi-load deliveries in a single flight. Lifting a total cargo of 3,450 pounds, the aircraft flew to three pre-programmed delivery coordinates, autonomously releasing a sling load at each location. At the customer’s request, the fourth load delivery was performed under manual control by the ground operator.
This sort of capability really could be good news in Afghanistan, where supplies need to go by helicopter as much as possible, and sometimes have to be rushed in urgently to forward bases which are under fire at the time. The need to keep air crews within their allowed operating hours, and the need to lift them and their associated things – armour protection for instance – makes manned helicopters very expensive and eats into their lifting ability.
In Afghanistan at least, once you factor in casualties, terrible roads, wrecked and destroyed vehicles etc, unmanned robocopter lift could even work out cheaper in money – as well as lives – than using ground convoys. It cost the Marines just $860,000 to Kaman for this demonstration, peanuts in terms of military/aerospace projects.
The other still-standing contender for the immediate air cargo plan is Boeing’s A160T variable-speed robo whispercopter. However the Marines want to move fast with this, and it was stated last year that Februrary would be the deadline to show a working system. If the A160T doesn’t make a demo soon, it may be left at the post.
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Cost of Iraq war could surpass $1 trillion
Martin Wolk
One thing is certain about the Iraq war: It has cost a lot more than advertised. In fact, the tab grows by at least $200 million each and every day.
In the months leading up to the launch of the war three years ago, few Bush administration officials were willing to comment publicly on the potential costs to the United States. After all, no cost would have been too high if the United States faced an imminent threat from an Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction, the war’s stated justification.
In fact, the economic ramifications are rarely included in the debate over whether to go to war, although some economists argue it is quite possible and useful to assess potential costs and benefits.
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In any event, most estimates put forward by White House officials in 2002 and 2003 were relatively low compared with the nation’s gross domestic product, the size of the federal budget or the cost of past wars.
White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey was the exception to the rule, offering an “upper bound” estimate of $100 billion to $200 billion in a September 2002 interview with The Wall Street Journal. That figure raised eyebrows at the time, although Lindsey argued the cost was small, adding, “The successful prosecution of the war would be good for the economy.
U.S. direct spending on the war in Iraq already has surpassed the upper bound of Lindsey’s upper bound, and most economists attribute billions more in indirect costs to the war effort. Even if the U.S. exits Iraq within another three years, total direct and indirect costs to U.S. taxpayers will likely by more than $400 billion, and one estimate puts the total economic impact at up to $2 trillion.
Back in 2002, the White House was quick to distance itself from Lindsey’s view. Mitch Daniels, director of the White House budget office, quickly called the estimate “very, very high.” Lindsey himself was dismissed in a shake-up of the White House economic team later that year, and in January 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the budget office had come up with “a number that’s something under $50 billion.” He and other officials expressed optimism that Iraq itself would help shoulder the cost once the world market was reopened to its rich supply of oil.
Those early estimates struck some economists as unrealistically low. William Nordhaus, a Yale economist who published perhaps the most extensive independent estimate of the potential costs before the war began, suggested a war and occupation could cost anywhere from $100 billion to $1.9 trillion in 2002 dollars, depending on the difficulty of the conflict, the length of occupation and the impact on oil costs.
The most current estimates of the war’s cost generally start with figures from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which as of January 2006 counted $323 billion in expenditures for the war on terrorism, including military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just this week the House approved another $68 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which would bring the total allocated to date to about $400 billion. The Pentagon is spending about $6 billion a month on the war in Iraq, or about $200 million a day, according to the CBO. That is about the same as the gross domestic product of Nigeria.
Scott Wallsten, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, put the direct cost to the United States at $212 billion as of last September and estimates a “global cost” of $500 billion to date with another $500 billion possible, with most of the total borne by the United States.
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Five Years GoneWhat, exactly, Nothing at all?
By Fred Kaplan
Imagine it’s early 2003, and President George W. Bush presents the following case for invading Iraq:
We’re about to go to war against Saddam Hussein. Victory on the battlefield will be swift and fairly clean. But then 100,000 U.S. troops will have to occupy Iraq for about 10 years. On average, nearly 1,000 of them will be killed and another 10,000 injured in each of the first 5 years. We’ll spend at least $1 trillion on the war and occupation, and possibly trillions more. Toppling Saddam will finish off a ghastly tyranny, but it will also uncork age-old sectarian tensions. More than 100,000 Iraqis will die, a few million will be displaced, and the best we can hope for will be a loosely federated Islamic republic that isn’t completely in Iran’s pocket. Finally, it will turn out that Saddam had neither weapons of mass destruction nor ties to the planners of 9/11. Our intervention and occupation will serve as the rallying cry for a new crop of terrorists.
It is extremely doubtful that Congress would have authorized such a war or that the American people would have shouted, “Bring it on!”
Some will protest that this counter-scenario is unfair. Nobody at the time predicted all of these outcomes (though several predicted some of them); Bush can’t be blamed for the unforeseen consequences of (let us stipulate) a well-intentioned action.
However, toting up the war’s extravagant costs against its meager (and still-speculative) gains is a valid way to gauge the larger question: Was the invasion worth launching? Was it a good idea? And the war must be appraised not as some abstract vision of an ideally waged war but rather as the actual, existing war that the Bush administration planned and executed.
The disastrous consequences that have been unfolding plainly over the past five years are not “side effects” of this war but rather the direct, head-on results. For example, it’s an evasion to lament that, had then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld listened to the Joint Chiefs and sent twice as many troops, the war would have gone differently. Maybe so, but Rumsfeld wasn’t interested in waging that kind of war. He saw the war not so much as a fight about Iraq as a demonstration of a new style of warfareknown as “military transformation” or “the revolution in military affairs”that signaled how America would project power in the post-Cold War era. He saw, not incorrectly, a turbulent world of emerging threats, some in remote areas inaccessible from U.S. bases. The large, lumbering armies of old were not so suitable for such conflicts. Hence his emphasis on small, lightweight units of ground forcesfast to mobilize, easy to sustainand superaccurate bombs and missiles to hit targets that only heavy artillery could destroy in decades past. With the Iraq war (and the Afghanistan conflict before it), he wanted to send rogue regimes and other foes a message: Look what we can do with one hand tied behind our back. If we can overthrow Saddam (and the Taliban) so easily, we can overthrow you, too.
It is no surprise, then, that Rumsfeld rejected the argument, made by several Army and Marine generals, that whatever happens on the battlefield, we’ll need a few hundred thousand troops to impose order and help form a new Iraq. A large, lengthy occupation would have nullified his whole concept of new-style warfare and its vision of 21st-century geopolitics.
In other words, it is not the case, as many critics charge, that Rumsfeld “miscalculated” how many troops would be needed for the mission of stabilizing post-Saddam Iraq. Rather, he wasn’t interested in that mission. In a National Security Council meeting shortly before the invasion, he insisted that the Pentagon, not the State Department, should take charge of planning for postwar Iraqbecause he wanted to ensure that there would be no such planning (and, indeed, there wasn’t).
A stronger case could be made that the occupation would have gone better had L. Paul Bremer, head of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, not issued (on whose orders, we still don’t know) the directives that barred all Baathists from government jobs and disbanded the Iraqi armythus alienating all Sunnis at a moment when reconciliation was vital and putting tens of thousands of armed young men out on the streets, angry and unemployed.
Still, it is unlikely that, even without the directives, a foreign occupier could have staved off sectarian violence for long. The majority Shiites would have naturally taken over the Baghdad government. The Sunnis, a minority accustomed to running things, would have rebelled. Holding early elections in the provincial districtsforming a federal republic from the bottom upmight have eased the factions into power more gradually, enabled them to make adjustments at each stage. We will never know. But again, this was not the way that Bush chose to go.
There is yet another way to assess the war: What if Saddam Hussein had not been toppled? Would Iraq be better or worse off? Would the Middle East be more or less stable, the United States safer or in greater danger?
(_http://www . slate . com / id / 2186850/)
Most horrifying side effects of war on terror
How true. A road leading to a dead end, no chance of turning back, no one to help you slow down, let alone stop and turn back. Drug abuse is a problem faced by every country, however it is less obvious in developed countries where they have adequate means to help such individuals, the true horrific effects of such substance abuse can only be seen in places where the much needed help and support is not readily available. Today we take a journey down such road, looking at images depicting the horros faced by these people, many of them the sole bread winners for their families.
Our contributing photographer Dr. Altamash Kamal (Karachi, Pakistan), takes us down this journey, where he shares with us the devastation caused by heorin, as captured by his lens. These photos were taken in Karachi, Pakistan.
No, he is not dead, but will be within a couple of years if he doesnt get help. for now flies have a feast on his face once he passes out after his heroin fix. This is the price Pakistan has paid for being next to the land-locked Afghanistan which is the worlds biggest producer of heroin. Pakistan has become the major export route for Afghan heroin. This in turn brought the drug mafia who was very keen to develop a local market for their produce. Here lies one of their happy consumers.
Surveys indicate that the prevalence of HIV/AIDS among intravenous drug users in the city is about 35%, yet if you look, you find people sharing needles in dark alleys and secluded corners all over the place. Strangely, in the cities at least, they all know the risk, but that doesnt change anything. Altamash Kamal
This young boy waits in a drug den waiting for friends to arrive with his next heroin fix. Altamash Kamal
Another heroin addict waiting for his fix.Heroin is one of the most addictive substances known. it captures the body and the mind of the addict. withdrawal from it is very painful, even to watch from from a distance.
Soon after i took this picture, he was busy helping his friend find a vein so the friend could inject himself with a fix. despite some NGOs operating free needle exchange programs in the city, few addicts use them consistently. Maybe because they are few and far between? The probability of getting infected by sharing a needle with a HIV carrier is around 99%. The governments health system is almost completely absent. they leave it to the NGOs to provide needle exchange, counselling and treatment.
Pakistan spends just 1% of it budget on heath and education (each) and 20 times that on getting fancy toys and other goodies for its generals to live like royalty. and the people who need help go untreated. Altamash Kamal
Two users preparing their fix. Altamash Kamal
Karachi, is the largest city in Pakistan and one of the biggest in the world population wise. The pictures these images paint points to a bigger problem, a problem faced by most of the developing world. These problems existed before as well, however, after the afghan war, these problems have increased in Pakistan many fold and hence it is more evident here. Pakistan/Afghanistan border runs through rough terrain and mountains, making it extremely difficult to man it at every single point of crossing, hence giving rise to a growing and thriving market for drug dealers. While the Pakistani government partners with US in dealing with Taleban and terrorism, its own people are getting drugged to death, inflation and poverty is not helping things either. ( http://www.coloursmag.com/?p=32)