Channel Four says it feels “dutybound” to examine on what ground Gordon Brown says of the 100 servicemen who died in Afghanistan that “they have paid the ultimate price but they have achieved something of lasting value.” On its always welcome Snowmail email, Ch4 lists its own yardsticks to decide if things of lasting value have been achieved and declares that “reliable measures of these things are scarce”. Not too scarce, actually. Here are my thoughts on their seven tests ….
1. Territory safely held – all of Helmand is safe, apart from three districts near the border (pictured). The main areas, including the Pashtun capital Kandahar, have been made safe by the British.
2. Schools reopened: 2,000 schools have been rebuilt in the last five years, 6.4 million children (including 1.5 million girls) are now being educated.
3. Hospitals rebuilt: In 2001 just 8% of Afghans had access to some form of healthcare. Now the UN says this figure is 80%.
4. Roads and Bridges Repaired: In 2001, 50km of roads existed. Now it is 4,000km and growing fast. Completion of the Ring Road is due 2010 – there’s a brilliant article about it in the Atlantic Monthly.
5. Freedom of movement: Real problem, mini warlords and predatory police are still untamed.
6. Freedom of Expression: Kabul is stuffed full of newspapers tearing the government, NATO and Pakistanis to shreds. There are 350 publications registered in Kabul, 42 radio stations, 8 private TV channels and one, Tolo TV, is running exposes on corruption and warlordism plus doing Afghan Idol. Literacy is a big problem, but freedom of expression is not.
7. Extent of Democratic Achivements: Karzai is up for re-election and who will challenge him is the talk of Kabul, with eyes on the interior minister.
On the economic front a new currency, the Afghani, has been successfully launched. Afghan agricultural wages are about 80% higher that Iran. Of course this country is beset by problems. But one cannot say the British effort in Afghanistan has not achieved anything. What the prime minister said was, for once, precisely right.
Yes, this is still a country so poor it barely deserves the term “third word” and plenty is wrong with it. But one simply cannot argue no progress is being made there. Whether it is lasting, of course, depends on whether the West stays long enough to ensure this work is not torn asunder by a bloody civil war.
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