A student recently sent me an e-mail about a Department of Defense article that his teachers had required him to read. He was, properly and intelligently in my estimation, dubious as to the reliability of the information and ideas that the report contained. My response to him answered some questions that he posed and established the framework for a young citizen's engagement of such issues as the United States' present invasion of, involvement with, and strategic objectives in Afghanistan. 'Below the fold,' as it were, folks can read the original interrogatories of my pupil, and my reply. The article about which the youngster inquired is available here. http://www.defense.gov/...
HERE IS THE STUDENT'S CORRESPONDENCE:
I was reading an article for class, about Afghan-US relationship in Afghanistan and the dilemmas faced by the troops over in that area.
Now I understand and do not question the dilemmas presented in the article, but what I question is the statement in the article that Afghanistan and US relationship is rather peaceful.
The reason I question the report is first of all it was written and published by US Department of Defense. Woulnd't the government try to censor, or maybe distort the truth, so the world will have a positive view towards the American allocation of troops around the World? Also, few months ago, I watched a documentary featuring how the Afghan local population is rather feeling ambivalent towards US troops. The local population somewhat relied on the US troops but they would also choose the Taliban on any given day.
What I'm wondering about is the following:
1) Is the US-Afghan relationship really well?
2) What's the US profit in sending our troops over to the Middle East? (Mr.Anthony told me last time that it taks about 1 million bucks to keep a soldier over in the Middle East)
3) How does the Afghan population feel toward the US?
AND HERE IS MY RESPONSE:
Hey there!
This is great inquiry on your part. As I hope you realize by now, I am not going to try to "tell you the truth," which is altogether too complex, not to say elusive or even impossible, a task to undertake in a reply to an e-mail, In fact, of course, I am skeptical that people are capable of uncovering anything like absolute truth in regard to events as tangled and fraught with interest and ambition as are those in Afghanistan and other spots in Western and Southwestern Asia.
What I hope to do consists of three or four parts, in all of which I will strive to maintain standards of 'intellectual honesty,' the importance of which I have repeatedly emphasized in our interactions in class. The first thing which I do here is to discuss the nature of 'policy communication' as inherently an exercise in propaganda, a word that I am sure that you have heard but which you probably think about in ways that are almost exclusively negative and associated with lies and deception. The second thing is to give a sense of 'what is at stake' generally when nations contend for resources and advantage, a sort of 'geopolitical' overview of modern nations, and their coalitions and components. The third thing involves examining the most important aspect of a competent, and, as I say, 'honest,' approach to the second item here, which is basically the central necessity of taking a historical approach to any effort at comprehension in these matters. The final matter about which I opine is the duties attendant on democratic citizenship in such situations as these.
In corresponding briefly about all of this, I hope to provide you with some tools and resources to increase your own understanding, as well as suggesting sort of a 'road map' as to how you might plan out a journey to seek even deeper knowledge, even though what I proffer here is barely 'scratching the surface' of what one might learn about facts and concepts which might be useful in furthering a world view rich and detailed enough to play the citizen's part, which is to demand a voice in determining things from which government now, almost without exception, excludes our real participation.
Before I embark on this little informational odyssey, however, I'll respond briefly to the exact questions that you pose, both in the sense of giving my considered opinion and in the sense of referring you the sections of the larger missive that will offer further guidance. You ask, first of all, "Is the US-Afghan relationship really well?" If by 'well,' you mean what we used to call "hunky-dory," or all sweetness and light, the answer is an obvious 'absolutely not!' However, in broaching such a query, one needs to back up and consider what ideas and information would necessarily premise any intelligible answer to such a query. In particular, you might pay attention to the second and third parts of my overall reply, which follows below.
Your second question, "What's the US profit in sending our troops over to the Middle East?" is an excellent initial inquiry, to which I would reply that 'certain sectors of the U.S. population gain extensive profit from the U.S. presence there, and other sectors of the U.S. population garner benefits that are non-remunerative, while most U.S. citizens gain little or no advantage from the invasion, which has now lasted over seven years.' The President of the United States and many other political experts and pundits would disagree strongly with this last portion of my assessment, of course, and, as above, you can consider the second and third sections of my overall response, below, to gain greater access to information or insight about this question.
Your final interrogatory, "How does the Afghan population feel toward the US?" is very difficult to answer in any sort of simple fashion. Undoubtedly, segments of the Afghan populace want the U.S. to remain there and welcome our presence; other elements clearly loathe our involvement with their homeland and either wish us to leave, or hope for something much worse than a mere departure to befall us. However, probably, the vast majority of Afghanis have complicated opinions about this situation, although a substantial amount of evidence exists that at least a small majority of the population believes that our military should not remain there.
Having, I hope, answered the direct questions that you pose, I ask you to think about the 'nature of the beast,' as it were, in what you want to understand. You are looking for a way to come to grips with a complicated case of political strife and controversy. In such a situation, you can rest assured that, without exception, all of the interested parties to this situation will have a tendency to discover reasons to support their interests. Any other supposition would go against practically the entire experience of human history, as if one might anticipate a Roman Senator would be likely to cast a critical eye on the idea that the Roman Empire should exist, or that a Southern slaveholder from Georgia would question the propriety of the institution of slavery.
This does not mean that everything that emerges from the 'parties in interest' is a lie, or otherwise false and pernicious. It does mean, however, that these 'stakeholders' will tend to present a partial story that justifies their particular estimation of what is best in advancing their particular stake. This is simple common sense and underlies the definition that I have proffered to students for the wonderful noun, "Propaganda:" "A partial truth, propounded for partial purposes, by an interested party or other person with access to greater information, in order to persuade those lacking information or insight that a certain course of action is right or necessary." In such a view, since by definition everything, including this e-mail, might fit the parameters of 'propagandizing,' one should use every critical reading trick at one's command to evaluate the argument or perspective presented. Moreover, one should make absolutely certain that one gathers opinion and analysis from a wide range of publicists, since relying for one's assessment on the points of view of self-interested parties is highly likely to lead to distortion and error.
The second point of this e-mail is to introduce you to the idea of "Realpolitick," essentially the underlying rationale for and elements of the foreign policy of the United States at this time. Our country, the world's biggest economy, the winner of two world wars and a cold war, and the instigator of almost countless other conflicts, including the wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq, must have something that it wants in all of this fighting. I will not pretend to present anything even vaguely resembling a complete assessment of such a situation, but I would highly recommend that, in order to understand what the 'strategists' in the Departments of Defense and State and the Central Intelligence Agency believe that you familiarize yourself with the life and ideas of Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, two former Presidential advisers and highly regarded 'strategic thinkers.' They have written extensively about the geopolitical, economic, and security aspects of such far flung outposts of American 'interest,' or empire, as Afghanistan, which continues to be at the center of a "grand chessboard" of imperial design that the British and the Russians and others have long contended over in "the Great Game" of empire.
Since I find myself in polar opposition to the policy pronouncements of such leaders as this pair, I also recommend that you look into such thinkers as Greg Palast, whose recent book Armed Madhouse, examines these matters from an average person's viewpoint, and Juan Cole, whose blog, "Informed Comment," should be a part of your regular reading. http://www.juancole.com/... is the web address of an assessment by Cole of Barack Obama's State of the Union Address. Literally hundreds of other studies could be of assistance in trying to understand the general context of what is happening in Afghanistan. A 'classic' analysis that supports my take on all of this mix of fact and assessment that I call propaganda is Richard Barnett's Global Reach: The Power of the Multinational Corporations, which correctly, in my view, locates the center of U.S. foreign policy in the needs and goals of big business and its financial allies. This is a huge area of study, of course, but if you start now, and keep your eyes open, you will either find an academic future here or at least gain some semblance of background to fulfill your duties as a citizen, about which more later.
The third point of this note concerns the lack of historical perspective in almost all of the output of such 'established' interests as the Department of Defense, whose article you sent to me and about which you initially inquired. In considering the current conflict in Afghanistan, for example, practically no one notes that for several years Osama Bin Laden was the recipient of billions of dollars of U.S. assistance as an opponent of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1970's and 80's. Nor did anything in the communiques that you sent me, for instance, speak of the goals and objectives of the British in Southern and Southwest Asia, which directions and directives this country has assiduously supported, developed, or turned to its own regard since at least the 1930's.
You read Imperial Cruise: the same conscious uptake of the imperial mantle that the author describes in that volume in regard to Teddy Roosevelt in Northeast Asia arguably applies to the entire planet at this juncture, as the U.S. is the imperial leader of the 'free world' and of the capitalist economic system that underlies it. This does not mean that you, or anyone else, should reject U.S. foreign policy automatically. It does mean that an understanding of that morass of ideas and actions requires orienting yourself to their development over time. I highly recommend that you find and read a slender, brilliant volume by a giant of diplomatic history, William Appleman Williams. The Tragedy of American Diplomacy is a masterwork that provides a framework for considering the sorts of issues that you sagely identify as missing in DOD's notions of a 'happy' relationship with Afghanistan.
Finally, if you can follow what has appeared thus far, you might ask, "So what's a student to do, once he follows such a course as you recommend?" I can only say that, if Americans, and citizens of other countries, do not find a way to challenge the experts who currently shape and implement policy, the future of this planet looks bleak indeed. In other words, just understanding is not nearly enough. Armed with ideas and facts and questions and hopes, the newly informed student or factory worker or small business person needs to think about what human connections are possible and necessary in order to develop a humanistic set of policies and approaches to the inevitably interconnected fates of humanity's tribes, organized in arbitrary collections of people called nation-states. Patriotism, in this view, is poisonous; nationalism, in this view, is at best toxic; any imperial approach is unlikely to reflect the common concerns of people from every part of the earth and every walk of life.
Well then, there you have it. This is long, and yet it is so much merely the merest hint of what you need to consider and study. But, as my grandmother used to say, "a word to the wise is sufficient." If you have follow-up queries or want to talk further, just let me know. Thanks, keep me posted, and
Ciao for now,
Jimbo