President Obama had announced that he will send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan while setting a goal of starting to bring forces home by summer 2011.
I logged on to Face Book and an Afghan friend wondered if Obama had asked any Afghan his/her opinion about whether to increase troops or not. I wondered if any of the members of the peace groups had asked any Afghan his/her opinion on whether to withdraw troops or not.
I walked to the office and asked my colleagues what they thought of the decision. Except one, everyone said the decision was good. I asked the guards – all agreed the decision was good. In the evening I went out and asked my driver. He said that the decision was good. I looked inside my own head and came to the horrible realization that if certain conditions were met, I too thought the decision was good.
Since my own reach is limited, I turned to Pajhwok Afghan News whose reporters swarmed the streets across every province in Afghanistan to get reaction. Here too, most thought, with some conditions, the decision was good. Those who did not want the surge, definitely also did not want an immediate withdrawal. Those few who wanted an immediate withdrawal, wanted the American soldiers to instead go guard the border with Pakistan.
Given my years within the non-violent peace movement, I am now so conflicted, I feel compelled to explain myself and to lay out my thoughts, so that others can read and challenge them, and I can examine this turnaround more clearly.
The ridiculous assertions
I’ll just get these out of the way because they are too silly. If you want me to explain why these assertions are silly, write me and I’ll do another blog on it. A Russian General has come out saying, “Afghanistan is an unwinnable war” because after all they tried to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan. Stop. I’m not a flag waving American, but I know enough that we are not behaving the way the Russians did. At least not yet. Some are declaring this to be Obama’s Vietnam. Stop. Compare the casualty numbers between the two events and restrain yourself. There are other comparisons, but reviewing those would mean I take this assertion seriously.
Do Not Escalate the War
When we are in America digesting news about Afghanistan through CNN and most other media sources, “WAR” is what we think about. When we are HERE in Afghanistan, two other words come to mind – “SECURITY” and “DEVELOPMENT”. We don’t really use the word “war” here. A typical question might be, “what do you think? Is the security on the road from Kabul to Jalalbad good?” We don’t say, “What do you think? Is the war bad now between Kabul and Jalalabad”?
“Development” is broken into sectors, and we talk about the education sector, or agriculture, or public health, etc. So when we talk about development, it is usually focused on one area and we all pitch in with what we know. Over a period of 30 years, hospitals, schools, universities, irrigation systems, farmlands, parks, entertainment centers, museums, art galleries, libraries, and more have been destroyed. Systems that make up civil society and run things: education of children, fire and water departments, communication, garbage clearance, sewage systems, banking; all severely damaged. So, as you can see, we have a lot to talk about and it is usually 60 to 80 percent of our daily conversations.
So Obama’s decision on increasing troops is talked about here in Afghanistan, as it relates to how it may/may not improve the security situation in Afghanistan, and how security and development to most Afghans are NOT a chicken and egg story – it is clear to most people. If there is no security, there is no development. There is improvement in certain sectors. However, large scale job creation that is only possible through industrialization (and it could be green economy here) is impossible without security. So, Afghanistan is awash in goods from every country except Afghanistan. The manufacturing industry is a struggling, unhealthy infant.
Along with never talking about the need for Afghanistan’s development, there are two more pieces to this situation that the peace movement chooses not to talk about, or when it does, you over there and us over here are not only singing different tunes, we are singing two completely different songs.
One, the anti-war movement talks about the war “spreading to Pakistan”. Most people here think that the insurgency is “coming from Pakistan”, and now that Obama has put pressure on Pakistan’s leadership to clean house and hell has broken loose in the Waziristan area, most Afghans will say the local version of “the chicken has come home to roost”.
Second, is a skeleton in the closet of Afghanistan’s history, a fear that simmers only skin deep under the skin of many Afghans, and that is the Afghan civil war. The Russians finished their humiliating withdrawal in 1989. The Taliban did not come in till 1996. In this very dark period, Afghanistan erupted into a horrific civil war and in 1994, 10,000 (ten thousand) people died in Kabul alone. This is only a few years ago, and there are many who fear that a quick withdrawal will result in another power vacuum and as such another civil war.
Before I go on to my wish list, I want to vent on my main peeve. There are three kinds of armed forces here that help with security in Afghanistan. There are the Afghan police. The insurgents are not afraid of them, as they are not well trained or well equipped. There are the international forces. The insurgents are not terribly afraid of them, as they don’t do hand to hand combat and can be easily manipulated into bombing innocent civilians. Then there is the Afghan National Army (ANA) – not enough in number, maybe not the best trained, but very brave and well armed and trusted by the locals.
More members of the ANA have died than ALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOLDIERS ACROSS ALL OF THE COUNTRIES PUT TOGETHER. They deserve our support in helping to increase their number and improving their training to the point at which they can defend themselves. They deserve that their contribution in bringing security and stability to Afghanistan be recognized. Please, stop talking only about American soldiers giving up their lives, and about Afghan civilians. There are Afghan soldiers here fighting more bravely than the international forces and paying a heavier price for it.
My Wish List
President Obama gave a speech. I do not know the details of his plan. I hope it includes the following:
1. Increase in the number of troops with the following caveats: their primary responsibility is to recruit and train more people in the ANA, they consult heavily with ANA before engaging in any battle, they run away from battles if it looks like they are out gunned and come back the next day; they do NOT call in for air power and bombing. It does not work. This last tactic has already started and people are appreciating it.
2. I like the deadline, because it does say two things: we are not here to stay, and it puts pressure on Afghanistan to take responsibility for their own security. Keep repeating this message.
3. Put pressure on BOTH the Afghan government and USAID to not engage in corruption and implement best practices in the use of development aid dollars.
4. Pledge to continue giving money for development even after we have withdrawn. We cannot rebuild in two years. We cannot rebuild in 10 years. It will take longer. We need to keep supporting Afghanistan in its development because we played a large part in its destruction.
5. Return USAID to what it was, a genuine aid organization full of people who knew what they were doing and people who cared. Take it away from the State department.
6. This one is a real stretch - the US Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) and the Army Core of Engineers (ACE) cannot be effective when they are part of the US Army. Remember, even the Taliban are calling for the withdrawal of the NATO army, NOT of aid organizations. No other country has this linkage. Relabel them as private or non-military government organizations staffed with skilled engineers who are skilled in reconstruction of roads, buildings, etc.
7. Peace is not the absence of war. My challenge to the Peace Community is to develop a compelling policy of peace and stability in Afghanistan and lobby for its continued funding by the US Government long after the last soldier has been withdrawn. I have scoured the web-sites of the anti-war groups, and I find no such policy of peace. It is not candles and sage, it is not posters and bumper stickers, it is not marches with chants of “Who is the terrorist? Bush / Obama is the terrorist”. it is a whole lot of tangible infrastructure that challenges us American to share our wealth for sound domestic policies – both at home and for those countries less fortunate than us.
8. I believe that ONLY WHEN we financially contribute towards a compelling peace policy, which is far, far cheaper than a policy of using weapons to keep peace, true peace is possible. When we believe that spending money on our own health care is important and giving some money to another country’s health care is also important, peace will arrive. Until the various peace movements can rally together, come up with such a policy, lobby for it and legislate it, simply a rant of “withdraw all troops” is not just ineffective, it is naive.
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3 comments:
Is it ever the case that limited intervention of an armed force from outside a country actually reduces suffering inside that country? One can think of some pretty good examples where a government has been so oppressive to its own people that armed intervention could suggest itself. But it never seems to work. In my view, the long-term costs of engaging in warfare that tend to erase any short-term benefits are rarely considered, and even the short-term benefits are rarely realized. (And all this puts aside the plain fact that altruistic or defensive motives are seldom, if ever, the real motives for armed intervention.)
So what should Obama do? First of all, there should be negotiations with all sides aimed at promoting peace and justice, and not aimed at promoting “US interests,” which is just code language for corporate interests that are completely indifferent to human suffering. The Taliban offered to negotiate with us before we attacked Afghanistan; it's high time we took them up on it. And there should be serious negotiations around other conflicts, such as India-Pakistan and Israel-Palestine. Serious negotiations to promote peace and justice, not just manipulating all sides to promote “US interests.” What do we have to offer in such negotiations? Development assistance to promote peace and justice for the masses, not just “development” to promote “US interests.” We could offer powerful incentives for compromise instead of trying to manipulate all sides to gain advantages for US business interests.
Another peaceful tool we could try is nonviolent intervention like that which is practiced by the Nonviolent Peace Force. Such intervention should be tried before any thought of armed intervention.
Could limited, short-termed armed intervention for the purpose of promoting long-term peace and justice be justified in same cases? In theory, perhaps – but I have not seen a single convincing example, even though such a purpose has been proclaimed as the rationale for one conflict after another. That's what UN peacekeeping forces are supposed to be doing in their various interventions. They have not had much success.
So if there is truly any further justification for international armed forces in Afghanistan or anywhere else, it should be a force recruited by a democratic international body that represents the people of the world, not just governments. The United States does not meet that standard, nor does NATO, nor does the UN. Obama should act to create such a body.
There should be an intensive push for negotiations on multiple fronts, backed up with generous offers of long-term development assistance and nonaggression pacts. There should be a push for democratizing the UN, and a push for development of a UN Nonviolent Peace Forces consisting of millions of trained personnel. There should be a push to abolish destructive weaponry and national armies entirely.
If all this sounds too naïve and pie-in-the-sky, I suggest it's because we know very well that “peace and justice for the masses” has nothing to do with what the current US government wants. The US government is promoting “US interests” (Obama says so!), which is just heartless corporate interest, so nobody in power is even asking how to promote peace and justice for the masses. All they can ever think of doing is starting wars and escalating wars. If there is going to be any progress, it's got to come from us, the people of the world.
I sure hope that things somehow work out for you and all the people or Afghanistan. I just don't think that 30,000 more US marines are going to help in the long run.
I think your comments make it clear how our debates on these issues are flawed by highly incomplete information, and they provide some marginal justification for Obama's assertion that his current strategy is somehow "different" from the previous administration. They also make it clear to me that the arguments we use to either endorse or condemn this action are still based on some pretty fuzzy assumptions.
First, very little of the sensitivity that you are showing to the plight of the Afghan people is apparent in the way that Obama is trying to justify the troop increase. He is essentially just rehashing the DLC argument that John Kerry tried to use in his 2004 Presidential campaign - the Iraq war was a bad idea because it distracted us from the primary objective of weakening terrorist strongholds in Afghanistan. Now that we're eliminating that distraction, it's time to get back to business. If there is anything you've learned in your experiences over there that suggest that we need to revisit that argument, I'd be very anxious to hear about it. Otherwise, I'll assume we should give the same credence to this line of thinking that we did several years ago.
I guess that the key question is who exactly are the "insurgents" that are disrupting security and development efforts in Afghanistan (or Pakistan, for that matter). According to the Obama justification, they are purely Al Qaeda and its "sympathizers". Their objective is not to assume control of governments in the region, but mainly to assure they have a place to plot the downfall of Western democracies without fear of prosecution or extradition. Is that really all it is? Are there insurgents with little interest in Al Qaeda that want to disrupt the peace and development of Afghanistan for other purposes? If so, are we asking for trouble by employing a strategy that does not distinguish between the key factors of "resistance" in the region?
Let's assume for a moment, whether it is reasonable or not, that Al Qeda is indeed at the root of all the insurgency. If so, then does their motivation for disruption in Afghanistan continue if the Americans no longer show any interest in confronting them there? It seems to me that Al Qaeda's purposes are best served by encouraging Americans to throw billions of dollars they don't have into other areas of the world with almost no constructive purpose. As long as we play that game, they're happy. Once we stop...is it possible that they may begin to turn their attention elsewhere? In other words, is it possible we are simply forcing the Afghans to host a conflict that really has very little to do with them?
There also remain all the other long-lingering concerns that we are apparently still unable to make part of official discourse, including the oil/pipeline implications and the fact that we continue to want to give Al Qaeda the legitimacy of an army when they're really just a gang of thugs (and just how many of them are there, anyway?).
I don't doubt that there is considerable justification for security assistance in Afghanistan, but our leaders are not demonstrating sufficient commitment to that objective unless it assists their own ends. And for all the talk that this administration is somehow different than the last, there is little evidence to suggest that they are being more forthcoming about the need or reasons for intervention than the last bunch. Until that changes, there is still considerable justification for opposing Obama's Afghanistan plan.
Please keep us posted on developments and perceptions as you hear them. They are extremely valuable to us. Thanks...
So glad you're posting again. I was wondering what happened to you.
I too listened to Obama with great interest. Having read the history of the Soviet invasion in Gregory Feifer's The Great Gamble, it is obvious that the US has an entirely different approach than did the Soviets. I'm currently reading Steve Coll's Ghost Wars, about the CIA involvement in Afghanistan from the onset of the Soviet invasion. It is clear that the US has much to answer for in the way we conducted ourselves during that time. The US virtually assured that Afghanistan would fall into chaos after the Soviets left by promoting disunity between the various mujahadeen groups, a result of a narrow-minded focus on being anti-communist.
I also recently had the opportunity to spend time talking with Sarah Chayes, author of The Punishment of Virtue, and I think she would largely concur with your assessment. It is encouraging that the NATO forces are making use of her relationships with the people of the Kandahar region to make wiser decisions.
I believe that Obama has begun to set us a new course in diplomacy, that he understands that it serves no purpose to call out world leaders and brand them as "evil", and that he has taken the time to understand the complicated relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
I was interested in your comments about separating USAID from the state department and will have to do some more research on that relationship.
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