The case for Afghanistan: they need help, and we owe them.
A fighting chance
By
John Smart
President Obama is making us all proud in his debut on the world stage, being cheered and welcomed wherever he goes. Watching the other international heads-of-state at the London G-20 meeting fall all over themselves to be seen and photographed with the new American leader was deeply satisfying, like fresh, cool water after an eight-year drought. And he handled everything with aplomb, deftly settling a dispute between France's Nicholas Sarkozy and China's Hu Jintao, and muting possible obstructionism from Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel.
Then Obama went to the NATO conference and pushed for support for renewed actions in Afghanistan and the Pakistani border region.
This action has understandably caused a level of disapproval from the American left - including Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold. It has all the hallmarks of another Iraq, or even Vietnam - American military adventurism in another country on the other side of the world. We are well advised to be skeptical. But there are several important considerations in this case.
First, we've been involved in Afghanistan from the get-go, and there is the question of whether we have a responsibility toward the Afghan people. The Carter administration admitted that it helped to lure the Soviet Union into armed intervention in Afghanistan in 1979, but major, overt support for the Muhjahidin was greatly expanded in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan and the first President George Bush. This is the story of "Charlie Wilson's War."
I was in Uzbekistan, just north of the Afghan border, in the late 1990s, and met an Afghan family that had fled the Taliban.
"Taliban" is the Pashto word for students. The family told the story of when this group of students came to their small, mountain village, and announced that they had been sent by the Americans to help drive the Russians out of Afghanistan. They had American-made guns and ammunition, canteens and other items to prove that they had American backing.
At first, the villagers welcomed these students and helped them rout the Russians from their region. But later, when that was completed, these nice students took over.
They said that women must remain covered, could only go out-of-doors when accompanied by male family members, and could not work outside the home. This family told me that their medical people and teachers were all women, so that was a real hardship. They confiscated all the television sets and radios and smashed them in the village square, and generally imposed their own strict form of Islam on the villagers.
The family I knew finally gathered up all the possessions they could carry on their backs and walked to the Uzbek border. When I met them, they were in the bazaar trying to sell their prized rugs, bridal garments and other cherished family treasures. It was very sad.
Anyway, after funding and training the Taliban, the United States simply walked away from Afghanistan, leaving the Taliban in charge. So, I think we owe these people something - maybe only stability, but something.
Second, can anyone say what would happen in this strategically important part of the world if we just packed up and left - again? Presumably the Taliban and other Islamic extremists would take over, Osama bin Laden would come out of hiding in his cave, and the elected government of Pakistan would be quickly overthrown. Does anyone know what that would mean? I can make some guesses, and they are not good news.
So no, I feel certain that Obama would rather not send more troops into Afghanistan. I believe that he'd much prefer concentrating on solving the economic riddles he's faced with. He was very vocally against the intervention in Iraq, and I trust that if he could get out of this one he would.
Let's hope that Obama can persuade our allies to help us resolve this mess quickly, and allow the people of this embattled land to go about their own business. And then maybe that family I met will be able to go home.
April 5, 2009
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John Smart lives in Park Falls, is a member of the Wisconsin Governor's Commission on the United Nations, the board of the Wisconsin Alliance for Excellent Schools and a frequent guest on Wisconsin Public Radio's Ideas Network.
