As Obama leaves Canada (damn I wish I lived in Ottawa right now) I have a few thoughts on Afghanistan to share.
First, I should make clear that while I abhor war in general, I am a realist and I do not think all wars are the same. I do not agree that countries should be engaging in regime change adventures of any kind. The only time this sort of a war is justified in my view is when the offensive regime actually becomes offensive (invades/attacks another sovereign nation). As such, I am and have been highly critical of the Iraq war. That said, I view the conflict in Afghanistan from a wholly different angle. The problem with Afghanistan is not an offensive regime, but the lack of any substantive regime whatsoever. Afghanistan is a failed state (if it can even be called a state). I strongly believe that this world we inhabit today cannot tolerate any failed states. If there is to be any hope for global cooperation moving forward there simply cannot be any regions on the planet that are not involved in the conversation. I won’t go into the full argument here for that, as that would make this post too long for anyone to bother reading it. Suffice it to say: Iraq war = stupid mistake, Afghanistan war = sadly necessary.
It may be a difficult sell up here in Canada to say that the war in Afghanistan starts now. We have, after all, been there for nearly eight years now. To say that the war begins now may be taken as an affront to all that our soldiers have already sacrificed and accomplished there – it is not intended as such. I believe that for the most part, what we have been doing in Afghanistan up until now has been to maintain a holding pattern, to keep our foot wedged in the door, but we simply have not had the resources to make any significant lasting gains in the territory overall. We need more boots on the ground, more intelligence, more alliances, and a much more serious approach overall.
As Harper tries to gin up some voter support by posing as a reasonable man who wants to bring Canadian troops home, let us not forget that if this man had been in power at the time we would be in Iraq. Let me say that again: Harper would have gotten us entangled in the Iraq fiasco. Don’t forget it. If Harper had had his way we would not even have a foot in the door in Afghanistan, we would be wondering what happened to our severed foot while the Taliban wondered what to do with their newly won Pakistani nukes. Harper does not have a leg to stand on here.
I hope that as the Afghanistan war moves forward the powers that be will make three very critical changes to the strategy.
For one: Afghanistan requires justice, not freedom. I will write another post on this distinction later.
Two: Afghans need jobs. We need to stop shipping our own people in to do the construction work. We don’t understand construction in that area of the world anyways. We ship in our own people, then we have to build hugely expensive security complexes to house these people, and then they go about building things out of concrete (also shipped in) that simply does not do well in that environment. Let the Afghans do the building, they have developed region-specific techniques that have served them well for thousands of years, and we simply do not know better. Besides, it will make our aid dollars go way further.
Three: Buy the poppies! I don’t care what we do with them, but we need to become the customer the farmers are beholden to if we are to have any hope of winning over the population. So long as the Taliban is the entity providing the paycheque, we have no hope of making any permanent gains.
Obama should also be reminding our NATO allies (and I suspect that is exactly what Joe Biden was doing in Europe last week) that they have a responsibility in Afghanistan as well. This is a NATO conflict, and all of NATO’s partners should be involved.
After 7+ long years of fighting in Afghanistan it is time for us to take it seriously. We either get the hell out (bad idea) or we seriously ramp up our efforts there to get the job done. 17,000 more troops is nowhere near enough. While it may make my skin crawl to assume the role of hawk here, I am prepared to do it on this one. Are you?
I also believe it is(if it can be called) a just war in Afghanistan.More force has to be dealt to end the hide and seek game Osoma has been playing.
I tend to agree. It is disgraceful (and more than just a little suspicious) that Bin Laden hasn’t been caught yet. I found it interesting that Obama modified his comments regarding Bin Laden shortly after he became President.. before he was elected catching OBL was a top priority… afterwards it seemed to become a minor one. Makes me wonder what he learned.
That said, I don’t really think the ‘just war’ argument has legs. It brings up two very thorny questions: Justice according to who? and if justice is why we wage war then why aren’t we waging a hundred other wars? Besides, the whole concept of justice and war going together is somewhat absurd really. Innocents always die in war. War is never just.
So we must fight wars for other purposes. We fight wars to jockey for position, to assert power, to neutralize threats, and to establish some basic levels of security. This has been and must remain the logic of war, or we will turn into crusaders and destroy ourselves.
So the logic behind Afghanistan is simple. We cannot allow a failed state to exist next door to a weak state that owns nukes. We need to finish the job in Afghanistan so that we don’t have a much much bigger problem to deal with in Pakistan later (where you can bet India and Iran would both be involved…).
This isn’t old-school war at all. “Winning” in Afghanistan doesn’t necessarily mean defeating anyone in pitched battle. It means giving the moderate voices a foothold. It means raising the standard of living at least above desperation levels. It means giving the Afghan people a viable option to have a life other than violence to turn to. It means giving the country a basic sense of law and that somebody is enforcing those laws. Most of these things are not accomplished by military means…. but none of them can be accomplished without the umbrella of security that only the soldiers can provide now. The problem with soldiers is that too few only make a problem fester. Sticking a thorn in a tiger’s paw only serves to piss the tiger off. We need to turn our thorn in Afghanistan into a full-blown spear.
I do understand what you are saying with going into Afghanistan without the “Kill them all attitude”(which I have said out of frustration at a time or two).Maybe Mr.Obama did find some things out that he was not aware of before,and I would love to know what they are.
I first go to RAWA to see what they are saying.Not much there these days like there was a few years ago.
Tonight I checked in with some of my favourite Canadian progressive bloggers and found that Le Daro had an interesting post . Its about a CNN interview with Imar Khan. I searched further to find an article on him in the Telegraph,14 Aug,2007. I would rather hear from people who have lived over there than some CIA agents or North American envoys and advisors.
Read his views and see what you think.
But first go to LeDaro at blogspot.com
Sorry, spelled his name wrong: IMRAN KHAN.
good looking guy!
And, even better: Charlie Rose had a great conversation with Imran on Aug 6,2008. Khan explains the mess that’s been made and what made it so bad and what the US did wrong.
Wish I could find a current response from him regarding Obama’s decision.
Hah! Found this interview on RAWA with a woman named Eman: She is being interviewed on the newly elected Obama and what it means for Afghanistan:
she thinks his policy is too close to Bush’s and eventually says: “I’m sure they will fail even if they bring a million more troops…”
Title of article is “Afghans to Obama: End the Occupation.”
Near the end she talks about Iran.
OK: this is my last post on this: Democracy Now, which I didn’t tune in to for a few days had a big discussion on Afghanistan: Obama’s War.
You can listen,view or read.Democracy Now .org Feb 23/09
I liked your comment about construction but then I remembered that great film called “Garbage Warrior” about that kooky US architect who was found by a desparate architect in India, after that big storm they had there and he went over with his small crew and built with the people houses that they were so happy to build and have. The government of India had basically provided them some sheet metal stalls to live in. These US Whole Earth Catalogue type guys went over and built the houses with old tires, pop cans and adobe and fixed up their water system and ofcourse brought some solar cookers.
They’ve been called to many places after disaster strikes. Helped out after Katrina too.
They build off the grid houses. They look lovely.Some rich Americans have even called him up to design their country estate.
Its one of my favourite films.During the film we see him being evicted from the Association of American architects and then after katrina, and kudos for his work, they reinstate him.
The wonderful thing about that hippie revolution and the Whole Earth Catalogue was that these rebellious Americans were studying tribal and ancient ways of building, and then adapting them for the global village and the tune in drop out people.Now they have so much to share.
Viva Palestina .org Something to follow.