AFGHAN HOPE

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