America's 'Special Relationships': Foreign and Domestic Aspects of the Politics of Alliance by John Dumbrell & Axel Schäfer & Dumbrell John

Author:John Dumbrell & Axel Schäfer & Dumbrell John [Dumbrell, John & Schäfer, Axel & John, Dumbrell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, International Relations, General
ISBN: 9780415483759
Google: qcTJngEACAAJ
Goodreads: 6738752
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2009-01-15T06:19:29+00:00

Afghanistan

Afghanistan became a political issue soon after the withdrawal of Dutch troops from Iraq. Although there were already around 600 Dutch military personnel in Kabul, in December 2005 the Dutch government under Balkenende sent 1,750 extra troops to Uruzgan province as part of the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) being run by NATO, with the intention that they would remain there until August 2008. An attempt by the smallest coalition party (D66) to question the mission in particular, and the relationship with the United States in general, failed to split the government. Parliamentary opposition faded once the Labour party were accommodated with promises that the main aim of the mission was to be reconstruction and not counterterrorism. Guarantees from the United States, the United Kingdom and the Afghani government over the treatment of any suspects that the Dutch might hand over to other authorities also swung opinion in favour. Above all, the need to maintain unity within NATO played a particular role in the positive Dutch decision.26

Nevertheless, problems remained. The then minister of defence, Henk Kamp, refused to clarify what exactly the Dutch attitude was towards the opium trade.27 The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reckoned that 87 per cent of the world’s opium production was from Afghanistan, where it was calculated that about 52 per cent of the GDP ($2.7 billion) came from this industry.28 The 2006 harvest rose 47 per cent, to around 6,700 tons, enough to produce 670 tons of heroin. Kamp did not deny that Dutch ISAF troops may become involved in the destruction of poppy fields if it fell under their task of supporting the regional Afghani government, even though this was not an official task of ISAF. Kamp’s problem was that the United States, under the guise of Enduring Freedom, wanted to act unilaterally to destroy the poppy harvest, in direct opposition to the official standpoints of both the ISAF and the Afghani government. With no alternative source of income, this policy threatened to increase support among the farmers for resistance against the military forces in Afghanistan – including the Dutch. In January 2007 the Afghan president Hamid Karzai finally stated that there would be no spraying of opium fields with pesticide from the air, thus rejecting US demands.29 However, Afghan forces have undertaken ground operations against the opium farmers, with potentially dangerous consequences for the ISAF mission.

Meanwhile, throughout 2007 the decision on whether the Dutch forces would remain longer than the August 2008 deadline gradually increased in significance.30 Early signs indicated that there was a determination to push through an extension of the Dutch commitment. Defence Minister Eimert van Middelkoop stated openly in June 2007 that the cabinet had the ‘political intention’ to prolong, an honest announcement that got him into trouble for apparently ignoring the need to get parliamentary support. In August the chief of staff, Dick Berlijn, went a step further by declaring that it would be ‘a moral failure’ for a prosperous nation like the Dutch to turn its back on the mission.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.