Signs Of Hope In Afghanistan

CBS' Tom Fenton On Post-Taliban Slow But Steady Progress

(CBS)  Tom Fenton, in his fourth decade with CBS News, has been the network's Senior European Correspondent since 1979. He comments on international events from his "Listening Post" in London, and other parts of the world as well.

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You know the old saying: No news is good news. But in the news business, it is just the opposite: Good news is no news – which is why you have been hearing so little from Afghanistan recently.

Iraq has been grabbing the headlines. Even the most confirmed optimist would find it hard to see a ray of light there today. But there is a growing body of evidence that things are beginning to improve in Afghanistan. To see why, you need to travel around Afghanistan a bit. That’s something the media find hard to do in Iraq now – many news crews rarely venture out of their hotels in Baghdad.

Afghanistan is not an obvious choice as a potential success story. Decades of war and misrule, wanton destruction, a population that is 80 percent illiterate and a per capita gross national product that is one of the lowest in the world, make it a very tough case. The major cash crop is poppies. Afghanistan supplied more than three-quarters of the world’s illicit opium last year.

Add to that America’s past mistakes in Afghanistan: The CIA supported the Islamic fighters who fought the Russians (and later formed the core of al Qaeda). Then America left the country to the mercy of its own warlords when the Russians were driven out. Finally, American oil interests toyed with the Taliban in the hope that they would bring stability to the country and play ball with companies that wanted to run a pipeline through Afghanistan to provide an outlet for Central Asia’s gas and oil riches.

In the late 1990s, representatives of the Taliban were even wined and dined in Houston! Well, perhaps not wined, but one wonders what they thought of Neiman Marcus and all the rest.

With a track record like that, the chances that the United States would get it right in Afghanistan this time were not good.

Some painful compromises have been made. Hamid Karzai, the American-backed provisional President of Afghanistan, has given government ministries to some of the warlords who ruined the country, and is even seeking to draw “responsible” elements of the Taliban into the government tent. These are risky deals, designed to buy a little stability in a country that Karzai only partially controls.

NATO allies, primarily the US, France, Britain and Germany, are building a national army and police force for Karzai, and efforts are underway to persuade the warlords to disarm their private armies. Progress is slow, but the effort is beginning to pay off.

With the exception of the border with Pakistan, which has always been a problem, and parts of the southern badlands, there is basic security in much of the country.

You can travel around, as CBS News has, and see the results of foreign aid projects in the countryside. There are big projects, like a highway construction program that began with the Kabul to Kandahar road, which was completed in record time. And there are countless smaller projects that make real improvements in the lives of the people.

Aid to Afghanistan is not costing a lot: 67 dollars a year for each man, woman and child. Kosovo got more than ten times that as it recovered from war. Even Haiti got more. But a little bit of aid goes a long way in this country.

In Charasiab, southeast of Kabul, we saw a new well provided last year by CARE which now brings clean water to a parched village. While we were taping, an old man approached the camera to say, “Thank you, thank you” to the Westerners. And everywhere, you see new schools and children flocking to classes, including happy schoolgirls, recognizable by their black smocks and white scarves.

When you drive north from Kabul through the Shamali Valley, where the warlords razed entire villages and the Taliban destroyed the thousand-year-old irrigation system, there are now bright patches of green, and grapevines once again flourish.

A registration drive is underway for elections, which the government hopes to hold in September. The country already has a new constitution.

Afghanistan is still on knife's edge. But, unlike Iraq, it seems to be headed in the right direction

And one other thing. Birds have come back to Kabul. Locals say they were driven away by the fighting. Now their songs wake you in the morning.