A Mullah Dies, and War Comes Knocking

The only reason Pakistan's invasion-by-proxy has morphed into something even vaguely resembling an insurgency is that the Afghan people are at the limit of their endurance with a government that pillages and brutalizes them and lies to them barefaced. Judges demand fortunes for positive verdicts. Customs agents expect kickbacks for every transaction. Police officers shake people down or kidnap them for ransom. Six years of depredations by the government have led to its rejection -- and to resentment of the international community that installed it and then refused to supervise it. From those feelings of anger have spread pools of collaboration with the Taliban.

Meanwhile, have the Taliban changed their approach to the exercise of power? Not in the least. They still seek to gain control via terror -- by hanging bodies upside-down from trees, by placing pieces of men in gunny sacks like quarters of meat to horrify their neighbors.

So what has changed in six years, except the West's failure to provide a palatable alternative? Is this to be the world's response to that failure? "Oh, we weren't able to do any better for the Afghans than the Taliban, so we may as well bring them back in and get the place off our hands."

The battle for Arghandab never had to happen. The probable consequences of Mullah Naqib's death were plain even to me, a foreigner. Surely they were clear to Afghan leaders who have spent their lives in the tortuous politics of the place.

But far from taking steps to prevent the Taliban attack, those leaders did exactly what would help bring it about, almost as if they wanted it to happen. If they did, perhaps they too sought the battle for its psy-ops value. In the West, the message would be: "You see, there's just no way to achieve a military victory over the Taliban. You don't have the forces or the political will. You will always be putting out fires. You should let us negotiate."

As if echoing this message, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown emerged from a meeting with Karzai in late October to say that solutions in Afghanistan require "reconciliation of all the groups." Karzai alluded to "the need for political activity alongside our military campaign."

Absent from these statements was the least recognition that proper conduct of government is the best antidote to the Taliban. Provided with accountable, responsive leadership, the Afghan people wouldn't give that lot a second glance.

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Sarah Chayes, a former NPR reporter, runs a local cooperative in Afghanistan.