New US politics endangers Afghanistan concept of the German government

On Friday, 6th February the Security Conference begins in Munich and the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) has warned of new tensions with the USA on the subject of its Afghanistan policy. A new transatlantic conflict is inevitable since President Barack Obama’s policy on the Hindukush is endangering the Afghanistan concept of the German government, said the GfbV in an 18-page Memorandum on the new policy of the USA in Afghanistan. Instead of concentrating on civilian reconstruction and the democratisation of Afghanistan the US defence politicians are aiming at a purely military solution of the Afghanistan question, says the 18-page Memorandum. Militarisation instead of democratisation is a recipe for disaster, since a military solution is not possible in Afghanistan. The difficult situation of the central-Asian country is to be one of the main issues discussed in the 45th Munich Security Conference, at which the US Vice-President, Joe Biden, is expected.

While in Germany all important political parties see the top priority in civilian reconstruction and the fostering of a modern constitutional state, more and more US defence politicians are coming to the fore who hold the democratisation of Afghanistan to be unrealistic. "If these hardliners keep the upper hand in the formulation of the new Afghanistan concept of President Obama then there will be no basis for an involvement of the German army with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)”, warned the GfbV. For the ISAF is concerned with the protection and stabilisation of the democratically elected government of Afghanistan. The USA is moving steadily away from the spirit of the Petersberg process. On the Petersberg near Bonn several Afghanistan conferences have since December 2001 laid the foundations for the building-up of a constitutional state.

Last Monday President Obama in an interview with the TV station NBC indicated that the USA was preparing for a change of course in its Afghanistan policy. The USA is not in a position to build up in Afghanistan "a democracy on the pattern of Jefferson”, said Obama. No one expects a model state on the Hindukush, said the GfbV. But common decency in dealing with the civilian population and regard for international conventions must be expected as a matter of course on the part of the foreign soldiers. The dramatic increase in the number of civilians killed bodes ill if the USA now sends up to 32,000 new soldiers to Afghanistan without any clear strategy. Countless attacks above all by US troops have resulted in the disappearance of trust in the foreign soldiers within the civilian population. The US concept of supporting the militia of the tribes is wrong because it increases the power of the warlords instead of strengthening the democratically elected government and its institutions.