While I certainly don't support just sending more military forces to Afghanistan, I also differ from many if not most progressives in believing that the United States has a profound responsibility not to abandon the Afghan people yet again. Frankly I would like to see the US at least double it's presense in Afghanistan - but for every dollar spent on the military there I demand that we spend at least one dollar promoting development. Taking it a step further I think that we need to make our efforts in Afghanistan the largest green development project in history. The scale should be on the level of the Marshall plan, but the vision should be 21st century. Please follow me under the fold.
I have long been fascinated by Afghanistan. It started 35 years ago when a summer school friend told me stories of his brother's drug filled adventures searching for Sufis. In the 80s I was frankly just confused. I couldn't support Soviet imperialism, but neither did I have much sympathy for what I considered woman-hating religious nuts. Beyond that I felt certain that US support for the mujahadeen would come back to haunt us, although I certainly never imagined that what we now call blowback would result in anything like 9/11.
The 90s just broke my heart. First there was tragic civil war, with sparring mujahadeen forces shelling Kabul for the first time. Then the Taliban seemed to come from nowhere - although we now know they were sponsored by Pakistan - and created one of the most oppressive regimes in modern history. My interest took a more personal turn after my mother visited Kabul and became involved in working to support the rights of Afghan women as they struggled to survive in the hell the Taliban created.
My mother went on a second trip in August 2001 to see how women were living in the zone controled by the Northern Alliance. She was in the compound where Massoud, the last best hope in the struggle against the Taliban, was assassinated by Al Queada thugs on Sept 9. And my days after 9/11 were spent trying to get the US government to do something to get her out before they started bombing.
I supported the invasion. While I did not see how bombing Afghan civilians was an appropriate responce to the events of 9/11, for the first time in my life I felt that war was the necessary response to a regime which we could no more reason with than our fathers could reason with Hitler. I don't really like to use the word evil, but in this case I could find no alternative. Beyond that I felt that having abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal the United States really owed the Afghan people some effort to restore civilization to their land. While I had little faith in the Bush administration I nevertheless hoped that the shock of 9/11 might create an opening where the American people would take responsibility for our past. Silly me.
Of course, as it turned out, my worst fears were realized as the neo-cons turned the nation's attention to Iraq. Still, there were some magic moments early on as Afghan women awoke and demanded change, as money poured in and as development began. As terrible as life is in Afghanistan now there have been some profound changes - not least a constitution which guarantees women's full equality. But for the most part the Bush admin not only did too little, it did it mostly wrong as well. And with Bush in office I mostly supported just getting us out of the way, and letting the Afghans do what they would. Now, though, with President Obama creating policy, my hope has changed to massive intervention - only this time we need to do it right.
To me the bottom line is that we simply owe it to the Afghan people. For the last 40 years we have either ignored them almost entirely, or we have made them toys in our struggles first against the Soviet and now against the Jihadis. Throughout though the primary victims have been the people.
Let's go back to 1979. While I'm not going to pretend the communists were saints neither will I accept that they were simply totalitarians. In fact they made a major and I believe good faith effort to bring Afghanistan into the 20th century. Women served in all levels of government and society. Education was taken to the ignorant, land was given to the poor, and if it was far from perfect life for most Afghans was improving in fundemental ways. Do I wish the Soviets had never invaded? Of course I do, I consider that invasion as much a war crime as our invasion of Iraq. But I also think we need to recognize that a conscious decision was made in the Carter (NOT the Reagan) administration to make enough trouble for the communists that the Soviets would be provoked into invading what they considered a country in their sphere of influence.
Here's what Zbignew Brezinski has to say about that time:
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Now, again, I'm not at all trying to justify the Soviet invasion. On the other hand - as an American I am much more concerned about, and responsible for, the actions of my own government. And as far as my government was concerned the people of Afghanistan existed primarily as pawns in their struggle with the Soviets. Just as the we "liberated" something like a million Iraqis from Saddam by killing them. Therefore, in my mind, with a new administration searching for a new way in foreign policy, it is our responsibility as a nation to do everything we can think of to rebuild Afghanistan for its people.
It's Colin Powell's famous "pottery barn rule" - we f---ing broke it, now it's our G-- D----ed DUTY to at least try to fix it. I know it's politically naive to say this, but I don't give a good g-- d--- what it costs. We owe them, it's the right thing to do - and hey, if we do it right it actually will pay us back in many ways.
First, if we really are serious about repairing the image of the United States around the world can you think of anything better than spending, say, $50 billion a year to rebuild Afghanistan? If we seriously want to take American foreign policy in a new direction this is the direction I choose. Not just putting diplomacy first, but actually taking responsibility for past actions and doing our best to fix what we broke.
Secondly, some of that money - if things are done "right" - will act as part of the process of stimulating the US economy. Obviously it would not be the most "efficient" way to create jobs back here. If, however, we make a serious effort to create a truly green economy in Afghanistan then we could provide a real boost to our own evolving alternative energy industry. Imagine the jobs we would create if the US Army Corps of Engineers ordered $10 billion of solar panels and wind turbines for use in rebuilding Afghan villages. Imagine what we'd learn about creating green economic zones in third world countries, and how much business that would bring US companies over the next century as they sold equipment and expertise in Africa, the Mid-East and Asia (hey, we might even get some of our dollars back from the Chinese).
Do I know all the details of how this could work? Of course not. On the other hand I do have faith that the American people, if allowed to, could figure it out. My first step would be to stop thinking of this as a military operation. Yes, there will be forces we need to fight to make this happen, but our job is rebuilding, not fighting a war. I would imagine some type of multi-department commision in which the Defense Department played a necessary but subordinate role. As much as possible experts from outside government should be brought in to imagine what might work, and then government should determine how we could do that. I imagine it would involve creating safe zones - the military's role - where massive reconstruction would be started as soon as it was safe for workers to be brought in to both do some of the initial construction work AND to train Afghans to take it over. What exactly got built would depend on local needs, but all construction would be as green as possible. For example, instead of trying to string power lines through hostile territory all energy would be generated locally through wind, solar or whatever green technology would function best locally. Eventually we probably would want to create a smart grid for the whole country, but at first we need to make things work for people on the ground - so they have no motivation to accept or return to the Taliban.
I think that should provide an adequate outline of where we need to go, the details are for the experts. I would, however, like to address one very immediate issue - poppies. As anybody who's paying the least attention knows the Afghan economy is largely based on poppies and heroin. Let's just buy it all, or at least offer to. This is not an original idea - the world is in desperate need of more morphine, let's buy the poppy crop and supply the world with all the morphine it can legitimately use. This is probably not a long term solution, but it would be a very effective method of seperating your average farmer from the Taliban and integrating them back into the broader society. Perhaps the Afghan federal government could act as broker and thereby become an ally to the poppy growers instead of an enemy. Going forward some farmers may want or need to continue to grow poppies (for sale to the government to go to the new UN Poppy-to-morphine fund), but many others will turn to crops which can feed their families, villages and perhaps, eventually, even become exports. The point, though, is that in every area - energy, construction, agriculture - we need to think not so much outside the box as inside the lives of the people struggling to just exist in a failed state.
I think I've made all my main points. I just want to say a word about the NGOs that are already working in Afghanistan (or would be if they felt it was safe). Although I do believe the government will need to take the first steps I think that as soon as it is feasible as much work should be given to NGO's as possible. I don't believe most NGOs will want to be involved in the intitial phase as it WILL involve a very real military effort - the very first step is making villages safe for workers to come in. To work in hostile environments NGOs do need to be perceived as seperate from Western governments and militaries. We must respect this, but we must also involve the NGOs as much as possible because they have more first hand experience in this kind of work than anyone else. Initially they should be advisory, for the reason stated above, but one goal throughout should be to create spaces where they can get (back) to work.
I guess that's it. Obviously this would be a long, hard job. Unfortunately I think the hardest part would be selling the American public on spending the necessary amounts. Realistically though, my guess is that in the long term spending, say, $250 billion on an effort like this would be cheaper than fighting for five or ten years, and/or just letting Afghanistan fall back into the hands of the Taliban and Al Queada. It's hard times here, as you know, and getting the American people to come up with money for Afghans is not going to be easy. On the ohter hand, we've seen the impossible happen quite often these last couple of decades. In 1979 who really believed that South Africa would have a non-violent revolution, or that the Berlin Wall would be torn down by the citizens of the city? Or, for that matter, that a Black man would be president of the United States.
Wake up America and just do the right thing.
For those who are interested my mother has written a memoir of her three trips to Afghanistan.
To check it out click here.