I just returned from Afghanistan, working with the NGO I volunteer with, Afghans4Tomorrow. I have heard from the Afghans that while they want our military there for security and training (and in part to help prevent civil war I imagine), they do not want us to kick in their doors and invade their homes, they do not want us to kill civilians with our bombs, they do not believe we can kill off the Taliban. They want security, reconstruction, education, and job opportunities. (Not very different from what we want here after all.)
The news about McCrystal is all over the cable channels. I do not know what to think about how things will change with our military strategy there, assuming they do change.
But as I watched Rachel Maddow's show last night I realized that I really can never understand, and know very little about what the troops over there go through, how this changes their lives, how it damages them.
And despite the fact that I have been to Afghanistan 3 times since 2004 working with the Afghan civilians, I really know little of what the Afghans feel and what they are going through either. Someone in Kabul told me "if you think this place is hard to live in, ask an Afghan". I suppose you could also say 'ask a soldier'.
I am not anti-military nor pacifist. I would like to be a pacifist, but I am just too pragmatic and unable to totally let my wishes seem real. I just wish we all understood better what war does to the troops and civilians caught up in them so maybe all of the citizens of the world would be less likely to let their leaders get us into them in the first place!
This is what war does to a city
I was thinking as I watched Rachael's show about what the answer is. I heard her criticize the COIN strategy, but she did not tell us what her answer is regarding our military activities in Afghanistan. I have no special knowledge to suggest a perfect solution to how our military is used there while we are there....I do believe that helping the Afghan people is worth it, and feel we as a nation have a responsibility to do so.
This little boy lives in a refugee camp (of people who fled the fighting in Helmand) and was walking around talking to himself. This is what war does to civilians.
Rachel showed a clip from the movie Restrepo where a soldier talked about the high he got during a fire fight, and how he did not know how he could deal with going home, I thought of a guy who is the only friend I have that has actually fought in Afghanistan, Capt. Benjamin Tupper. Ben wrote diaries on MySpace when he was there training the ANA in 2006-2007 where he worked with an Embedded Training Team (ETT) in Eastern Afghanistan. I followed his blog while he was there and was blown away. His writing is excellent, and it got noticed by Gary Trudeau and posted on the Doonesbury - The Sandbox as well as NPR's Morning Edition which he last appeared on just a couple weeks ago.
I want to plug his book called Greetings from Afghanistan Send More Ammo with a subtitle 'Dispatches from Taliban country'. In an article from his home town he explained why he wrote the blog:
"I just wanted people to know what was going on in Afghanistan," he said. "In 2006-2007, everything was Iraq and we were like, ‘Hey, we’re getting shot, too!’ We were jealous and frustrated and pissed off that Iraq stole all of this oxygen from the Afghan conflict."
The article also explained how I got to know Ben. (I am the current board president of Afghans4Tomorrow mentioned below and was on Global Exchange's "Reality Tour" trip with Ben in Afghanistan in 2004 where I first met him.)
Interestingly, Tupper’s deployment to Afghanistan wasn’t his first visit to the war-ravaged country. "Fortunately for me, I had been to Afghanistan two years prior to volunteering to go as a combatant. I went as a civilian, as part of a group called Afghans 4 Tomorrow, dedicated to the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan. They were the kind of group I could wrap my heart and my mind around. Everywhere you went, you’d hear these stories of what things were like under the Taliban. To me it was worse than Nazi Germany. So when I got home from that, I looked for an opportunity to go back."
I suggest you read the whole article, and look for his NPR Morning Edition interviews as well as pick up the book. (disclaimer, he is donating some of the proceeds to A4T). His dispatches from Afghanistan helped me understand a little better what war does to people. And again, I think we all need to pay closer attention so when we can, we avoid war. When we do get into one, we understand the costs and responsibilities that come with this decision.
PTSD is a huge problem for the civilians and for our troops.
Again, I do not pretend to really understand all that is happening in Afghanistan to those in the military nor the Afghans. I just figure that if we can do something good during this time, If we can help the Afghans, and help our troops who return with such trauma in many ways, it is worth it, and is our responsibility as citizens.
I'll write more about my trip to Afghanistan, but today wanted to talk about and think about all the people effected by this conflict, including our troops.