Understanding Afghanistan

Afghanistan is an impoverished nation with currently unharvestable natural resources. There are some estimates in the trillions of dollars with oil in the north, gold, iron ore, copper and lithium. Ongoing conflicts prevent exploration of these resources. Their largest cash crop is poppy. Like most US conflicts, we funded the opposition to fight against Russia in the late 1970’s. That opposition included Bin Laden and the mujahidin. When the Russians left in 1989, we left as well. Hook and Spanier' 'American Foreign Policy Since WWII'  define this moment as our ‘benign neglect’ when we walked away from a country with the warlords in different regions fighting for power and control over parts of Afghanistan and the opium trade. These conflicts continued until 1996 when the ultra-religious Taliban took control. They imposed the most conservative Sharia law which is a strict religious doctrine as well as the chosen tool of oppression and instigation of fear under their brutal leadership. Al Qaeda and Bin Laden took up residence in Afghanistan and shared a mutual hate for the US, although the Taliban was more locally focused and Al Qaeda was globally Western in their attention.

We invaded Afghanistan after 9/11 in our pursuit of retribution against Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts with Operation Anaconda. It has been suggested that we failed to provide the requested support needed to capture Bin Laden in the fight of Tora Bora because we were two weeks out from invading Iraq. Certainly getting Bin Laden would have diffused public desire to invade Iraq if it was perceived that we had gotten the man who engineered 9/11. Bush gave his ‘it’s not about one man’ speech  to signal the end of his pursuit of Bin Laden and said that we needed to pursue the larger war on terror with a new target on Iraq.

In Afghanistan we were readying to start the half attempt at ‘nation building’ under the Bonn Accords sponsored by the UN. In reality, we pushed many of our resources into the mess we were creating in Iraq while we put a corrupt government in power in Afghanistan. Karzai was our president of choice. Under their new election rules, women must comprise twenty five percent of legislator positions. Having been such an oppressed population, the Afghan women were unprepared for this role but were eager to learn.

What we did accomplish in Afghanistan was a reversal of policies imposed by the Taliban. Girls were put back in school. Unlike Iraqi women who went to school, earned college degrees with many wearing western clothes, Afghan women were extremely oppressed with no rights what so ever. Music not only is now allowed, they have their own type of Afghanistan Idol on TV. Although this may sound like progress, I remember an interview with the producer and he said he is regularly threatened and takes great security measures to stay alive.  

I believe the success of any society is centered on the role of women. When women do better, families and the communities they live in do better. The NYTimes reported that Afghanistan was listed among the top three most dangerous countries for women ranked by the Thompson Reuters Foundation. They have one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, little access to healthcare and education and economic opportunity are scarce. The Human Rights Watch paint a similar grim picture for women as armed or Taliban insurgents attack girls’ schools, women in leadership roles and local police arrest women who resist forced marriages. The UN News reports "Once again, reality confounds perception in this country," Mr. Ging said. "So many brave Afghans are fighting for human rights and women's rights; all they need is modest support from the international community." Most attacks occur in more rural communities where resistance to social change is high and protection is low, but insurgent infiltration into the more densely populated areas are felt as they propagate fear and intimidation through bombing or shootings.

Only fifty percent of the Afghan population now lives in areas now controlled by Afghan Security Forces. There are over 150,000 members on the Afghan National Police Force comprising Afghan Civil Police, Border Police, Uniform Police and Special Forces with women accounting for less than 1% of the total force because of cultural hurdles. There is significant integration of different sects, although in areas dominated by say the Pashtuns, there are largely Pashtun police because they tend to stay local.

There are only an estimated 100 or so suspected Al Qaeda insurgents that remain in Afghanistan which has been reported in mainstream media. The most recent assessment of the government of Afghanistan by the Department of Defense in April 2012 is “The Afghan Government is gradually developing the capacity to provide stable, effective, and responsive governance to the Afghan population. However, the government’s long-term sustainability is jeopardized by multiple factors, including widespread corruption, dependence on international aid and mentoring support, and an imbalance of power that favors the executive branch over the legislative and judicial branches. Limited human capacity with appropriate formal training or civilian education within the civil service sector also impedes the development of stable and sustainable government across Afghanistan.”

Afghanistan was in the dark ages when we invaded their country. The Taliban culture was extremely oppressive in a society that was impoverished and largely ruled by regional warlords. We occupied the country while doing little to assist establishing a new government and institutions because our focus and resources were directed towards Iraq. If we could reflect on our own country's struggles with human rights and the fight against cultural barriers to change, we can understand that it takes decades and generations to make those changes. It has only been a single decade of trying to transform Afghanistan and bring it into the current century. The majority of Afghans support these changes but their lives are threatened for embracing them by the insurgents and locals who resist it. I believe the defense report made clear the impediments working against potential long term success. I believe there will be a civil war again due to the culture that remains entrenched especially in those communities not under control of the Afghan Security Forces. The pervasive corruption can undermine and delegitimize the current Afghan government. Support for it will be critical as their strength will certainly be tested. It is not about a cut and run policy in Afghanistan. We have been there for over ten years. No matter how much money we spend or what we do to try to nation build, are mission there cannot be achieved. It's time to come home.

 

Afghanistan: A Human Rights Tragedy. 2012, Nov 20. UN News. Retrieved from http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2012/11/30/afghanistan-a-human-rights-tragedy-2.html#ixzz2Ef0wuztq  Nov9, 2012

Bennhold, Katrin. 2011, June 15. Afghan Women Most Imperiled, Report Finds. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/world/europe/15iht-women15.html?_r=0   Nov 9,2012

Human Rights in Afghanistan. 2012 Nov.  Human Rights Watch. Retrieved from http://www.hrw.org/asia/afghanistan   Nov 9,2012

Report on Progress toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan. 2012, April. Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved from http://www.cfr.org/afghanistan/report-progress-toward-security-stability-afghanistan-april-2012/p28138 Nov 9, 2012

United States Plan for Sustaining the Afghan National Security Forces. 2012, April. Department of Defense. Retrieved from www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/Report_Final_SecDef_04_27_12.pdf   Nov 9.2012