It has been so long since I have posted anything on this blog that I can barely remember how to do it. I blame the cold, or the snow, or the autumn, or the summer. Something. But there is nothing like a good, well intentioned, and totally misguided blog entry to make a writer respond.
My fellow blogger, Jonathan Fluck, placed a long and well thought out piece on Afghanistan on this blog JUST TODAY! Already, I am at the computer responding in kind. My good friend's article is filled with small truths. Yes, there are many reasons not to be involved in Afghanistan. The government is corrupt. We have killed too many civilians with airstrikes. The good will we created in 2001 has lessened greatly. All true. So good leftist that he is, my colleague hints that we should remove ourselves from this God-foresaken place. It would be the morally right thing to do. It would be the practical thing to do. It would be the peaceable thing to do. What he doesn't say that is would be the most disastrous thing to do, not only for us, but for the Afghan people.
My friend's entry is predicated on the notion that the good will of the Afghan people toward America and American troops has been lost, and that good will is necessary in order to win the war. Well, good will is hard to quantify. Certainly, if an army, any army, just happens by and kills a member of your family, either by accident or on purpose, you are not going to be sympathetic to that nation and its forces. But the actual fact is that good will does not win wars. It never has won a war (see wars- Civil, W.W. I, and W.W. II), and will not be the deciding factor in the Afghan war. Certainly, it would be very helpful if the Afghan populace were supportive of American efforts against the Taliban. But Afghanistan is a complex place. If you have any doubts about this, there are some retired Russian generals you might want to contact. Afghanistan is a multi-tribal nation dominated by Pashtuns, but also made up of Uzbeks, Tajiks, and other smaller groups. The Taliban has always derived its support from the Pashtuns. The Taliban forces did not win the Afghan civil war with good will. They won it by terrorizing and murdering their opponents. They had and still have little support among non-Pashtuns, who remember their murderous ways during their time in power. While they have been able to gain traction among the Pashtuns by highlighting accidental killings by American forces, most Pashtuns are right now on the fence, and will go with whichever side is winning, mostly because they don't want to sentence themselves to death if the Taliban returns to run the country. The non-Pashtuns will never feel good will toward the Taliban, and will not support them, just as they did not support them during the Taliban's time in power. And we must not forget how awful the Taliban period was for the Afghan people. If you have any doubts, check out some of the journalism of that period, count up the bodies of the men whose beards did not meet standards, or were caught smoking, or drinking, or selling alcohol, or the body count of the women who were caught out of their homes without male accompaniment, or were seen not covered from head to toe in burkhas. Where is the good will here? There isn't any. The Taliban regime was predicated on violence, and if it does return it will return at the end of a gun, not because the Afghan people, even the Pashtuns, want the Taliban back.
The arguments my good friend makes to support a pull out from Afghanistan are the arguments of the defeat lobby. Look where they are coming from. The speaker in my friend's entry was speaking to a meeting of Brooklyn for Peace and the Green Party. Sorry, but guilt by association works here. Does anyone truly believe that Brooklyn for Peace and the Green Party ever supported military action in Afghanistan (except, possibly by the Soviet Union in 1979)? And look at my friend's language. The young man who found his mother's severed head turned into a "resistance fighter." Resistance to what, you may ask? Well, the American military, of course. And also freedom, openness, and tolerance, to mention a few good things. Follow the directions of the speaker my good friend quotes, or the groups my good friend visited, and you will follow a disastrous path that leads to theocracy and repression in Afghanistan, and terrorism for any state opposing the Taliban and their acolytes. And if that happens, all the good will available won't make a bit of difference.
John Attanas
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Afghanistan story
Anand Gopal spoke at a forum co-sponsored by the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, Green Party, Brooklyn For Peace, and a number of other organizations. Gopal is an American journalist who is either from Afghanistan or from close by--he is actually a fluent Pashtun speaker. His analysis of why we have lost the war, and why Americans have gone from being heroes to being the enemy focused on three major points:
1. Air strikes and collateral damage. Gopal told the story of one would-be suicide bomber (now in prison, which is where Gopal met and interviewed him), who was only 12 or 13 years old when a U.S. airstrike hit his house and 16 members of his immediate family were killed. He was at school at the time and was the only member of his immediate family who wasn’t killed. When he returned to the house and made his way through the crowd of people trying to clear the rubble to find any survivors, he came across his mother’s severed head, which he held in his arms for a long time and refused to relinquish. When he did, he joined the resistance and volunteered to be a suicide bomber.
Conservative estimates put the ratio of people in the Resistance who have been directly impacted by U.S. airstrikes at 1 out of every 4 fighters. Every airstrike creates untold numbers of volunteers for the Resistance. Gopal pointed out, however, that the Resistance also causes civilian casualties and wanted to know why the same phenomena isn’t at play on the other side. He described a village that had not seen any violence, although it’s in the midst of disputed territory, until U.S. forces came into the area. The Resistance took up positions on one hillside (the village is in the valley between two mountain ranges), while the Americans were on the opposing hillside. In the shooting that followed between the two sides, four villager non-combatants were killed. Gopal returned to the village a few weeks later to talk to the villagers, and everyone blamed the Americans for the deaths, because they believed there was no reason for them to provoke the Resistance by coming into the area.
2. A corrupt and institutionally compromised government. By corrupt Gopal was not only referring to bribery that is heavily in play, which is true of many governments, but the fact that bribery is actually needed to get anything accomplished.
In more than half the country during the last elections, voting booths were said to be open, but in fact they were not because the government could not secure the area. Observers could not be there, and the ballot boxes were simply stuffed to show a government victory.
To illustrate the institutionally compromised state of the government, he told a poignant story demonstrating how the Taliban has made such a comeback. In a northwest region, where loyalties were severely divided during the civil war, the downfall of the Taliban with the American invasion meant that power was handed over to the Northern Alliance mujahedeen. The Pashtuns of the area were not part of the Northern Alliance but maintain the tribal network and power structure that most of Afghanistan still functions under: tribal elders run the villages.
Unfortunately for the Pashtuns, the Northern Alliance leaders used this opportunity to settle scores. The Pashtun villages had their leaders murdered and their women raped time and time again, so the elders went to the Governor, appointed by the Karzi government and the U.S., for redress. Well, the Governor was in league with the Northern Alliance, so there was no redress there.
Next the Pashtun villages sent a delegation to Kabul to plead with Hamed Karzi himself to stop the slaughter, which he promptly promised to do. But Karzi’s authority effectively stops at Kabul’s borders, so the killing and raping continued.
Then, the villages went to the U.S. military to plead their case. The military commander listened sympathetically and went to the Governor to discuss the matter. The Governor told the commander that those people were all terrorists and there was no truth to the allegations.
Shortly after, the U.S. decided that poppy production, which skyrocketed after the demise of the Taliban, was getting out of hand and told the Governor that the poppy production in the area must be cut in half in a year. The Governor and all the Northern Alliance militias grow poppy as a cash crop, as did the Pashtun villages. The Governor then sent the militias to eradicate the poppies in the Pashtun villages but not, of course, their own.
Finally, the Pashtun villages opened a dialogue with the one organization with an infrastructure and military that could protect them: the Taliban. This northwest area is now completely under Taliban control, and no government representative dares set foot in it.
3. Inadequate and wrongly directed reconstruction aid. Though millions and millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have been earmarked for reconstruction work there is very little to show for it, because the U.S. government almost always awards the contracts to U.S. companies, the majority of which do not have the infrastructure on the ground in Afghanistan to fulfill the contract. That means they must subcontract out the work, and the subcontracting of the work usually goes to three or four levels, with each subcontractor taking a profit margin, so that when the work finally does get to a subcontractor who can actually do the work, the money, originally more than adequate to do an excellent job, is no longer adequate. That is why the Kabul to Kandahar highway has become impassible in parts after just three years—design, materials, and construction were so poor that the road is disintegrating in some areas.
Another problem is the type of reconstruction taking place. For example, in one village a model pomegranate processing plant was constructed. Literally state of the art, it was even constructed with local laborers. Unfortunately, pomegranates do not grow in the region, and the plant sits unused. Also, being ‘state of the art,’ it requires electricity to run, and the village does not have electricity. There apparently are plenty of example of such misguided reconstruction efforts.
And we wonder why the tide of good-will has turned against us?
Jonathan Fluck
1. Air strikes and collateral damage. Gopal told the story of one would-be suicide bomber (now in prison, which is where Gopal met and interviewed him), who was only 12 or 13 years old when a U.S. airstrike hit his house and 16 members of his immediate family were killed. He was at school at the time and was the only member of his immediate family who wasn’t killed. When he returned to the house and made his way through the crowd of people trying to clear the rubble to find any survivors, he came across his mother’s severed head, which he held in his arms for a long time and refused to relinquish. When he did, he joined the resistance and volunteered to be a suicide bomber.
Conservative estimates put the ratio of people in the Resistance who have been directly impacted by U.S. airstrikes at 1 out of every 4 fighters. Every airstrike creates untold numbers of volunteers for the Resistance. Gopal pointed out, however, that the Resistance also causes civilian casualties and wanted to know why the same phenomena isn’t at play on the other side. He described a village that had not seen any violence, although it’s in the midst of disputed territory, until U.S. forces came into the area. The Resistance took up positions on one hillside (the village is in the valley between two mountain ranges), while the Americans were on the opposing hillside. In the shooting that followed between the two sides, four villager non-combatants were killed. Gopal returned to the village a few weeks later to talk to the villagers, and everyone blamed the Americans for the deaths, because they believed there was no reason for them to provoke the Resistance by coming into the area.
2. A corrupt and institutionally compromised government. By corrupt Gopal was not only referring to bribery that is heavily in play, which is true of many governments, but the fact that bribery is actually needed to get anything accomplished.
In more than half the country during the last elections, voting booths were said to be open, but in fact they were not because the government could not secure the area. Observers could not be there, and the ballot boxes were simply stuffed to show a government victory.
To illustrate the institutionally compromised state of the government, he told a poignant story demonstrating how the Taliban has made such a comeback. In a northwest region, where loyalties were severely divided during the civil war, the downfall of the Taliban with the American invasion meant that power was handed over to the Northern Alliance mujahedeen. The Pashtuns of the area were not part of the Northern Alliance but maintain the tribal network and power structure that most of Afghanistan still functions under: tribal elders run the villages.
Unfortunately for the Pashtuns, the Northern Alliance leaders used this opportunity to settle scores. The Pashtun villages had their leaders murdered and their women raped time and time again, so the elders went to the Governor, appointed by the Karzi government and the U.S., for redress. Well, the Governor was in league with the Northern Alliance, so there was no redress there.
Next the Pashtun villages sent a delegation to Kabul to plead with Hamed Karzi himself to stop the slaughter, which he promptly promised to do. But Karzi’s authority effectively stops at Kabul’s borders, so the killing and raping continued.
Then, the villages went to the U.S. military to plead their case. The military commander listened sympathetically and went to the Governor to discuss the matter. The Governor told the commander that those people were all terrorists and there was no truth to the allegations.
Shortly after, the U.S. decided that poppy production, which skyrocketed after the demise of the Taliban, was getting out of hand and told the Governor that the poppy production in the area must be cut in half in a year. The Governor and all the Northern Alliance militias grow poppy as a cash crop, as did the Pashtun villages. The Governor then sent the militias to eradicate the poppies in the Pashtun villages but not, of course, their own.
Finally, the Pashtun villages opened a dialogue with the one organization with an infrastructure and military that could protect them: the Taliban. This northwest area is now completely under Taliban control, and no government representative dares set foot in it.
3. Inadequate and wrongly directed reconstruction aid. Though millions and millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have been earmarked for reconstruction work there is very little to show for it, because the U.S. government almost always awards the contracts to U.S. companies, the majority of which do not have the infrastructure on the ground in Afghanistan to fulfill the contract. That means they must subcontract out the work, and the subcontracting of the work usually goes to three or four levels, with each subcontractor taking a profit margin, so that when the work finally does get to a subcontractor who can actually do the work, the money, originally more than adequate to do an excellent job, is no longer adequate. That is why the Kabul to Kandahar highway has become impassible in parts after just three years—design, materials, and construction were so poor that the road is disintegrating in some areas.
Another problem is the type of reconstruction taking place. For example, in one village a model pomegranate processing plant was constructed. Literally state of the art, it was even constructed with local laborers. Unfortunately, pomegranates do not grow in the region, and the plant sits unused. Also, being ‘state of the art,’ it requires electricity to run, and the village does not have electricity. There apparently are plenty of example of such misguided reconstruction efforts.
And we wonder why the tide of good-will has turned against us?
Jonathan Fluck
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