Leading horses to water but can you make them drink?
I am one of those rare birds in conservative circles because I don’t support the continued mission in Afghanistan. I have been seen as a ‘traitor’ and a miserable excuse for a Canadian conservative. I have not always been this way, and in fact, I supported the initial invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. And no, I am not a paleo-conservative or some kind of late in life squishy pacifist but the initial mission was to support militarily the Afghan opposition to the then current ruling government who allowed a foreign terror group to train, plan and launch military offences against foreign civilians outside of Afghanistan.
I remember 2001 very clearly and Afghanistan was meant to be the first strike in the war on terror against those governments who gave safe harbour to terror groups to export their terror operatives to anywhere in the world which did not mean their political litmus test.
I could even support the initial invasion of Iraq thinking it the next logical step in part of a larger strategy to confront one government after another who financed and gave safe harbour in promoting terror operates worldwide until eventually the last and mostly potentially deadly of the terror masters – the Mullahs of Iran would be surrounded by American allied governments. No sane government mapping out a war on terror would leave Saddam Hussain in power and at one’s back when confronting the last terror master. When the spring of 2005 came and went without America leading troops in a Syrian offensive I came to two conclusions.
Either the larger strategy of confronting all the terror exporting governments had been lost or there never was a ‘grand plan’ as I was led to believe. This lead me to doing a great deal of reading concerning the Soviet military adventures in Afghanistan. I mistakenly assumed the opposition to a Soviet-style government was based very similar reasons we in the west would have risen against any Soviet-style occupying government, and yet, deadly opposition to the Soviets was really only triggered all over Afghanistan when the Soviets sought to do things like enfranchising education for all females, establishing an older age of consent and enfranchising legal rights for women outside of Sharia Law.
To understand why these things were not discussed or fully aired when the West started to lend support to various ‘mujahideen’ movements operating in Afghanistan at the time it is important to remember the geo-political realities of the times. The West and the international communist movements lead by the USSR were in the midst of a ‘cold war’ with the West and battling via proxy. This was the height of Western political pragmatism of ‘they might be right bastards but they are our bastards’. Its the kind of political pragmatism which ultimately bankrupts itself and lead Western governments to support financially and militarily some of the most grievous and oppressive regimes. The societal consequences of this morally bankrupt pragmatism often lies at the heart or root of all our current conflicts.
Take a pause and think about this. If the west was not supplying or turning a blind eye to international arms dealers supplying weapons and ammo to the mujahideen forces in Afghanistan what would have happened? Eventually, Soviet military power would have been extended all over Afghanistan and the tribal mentality would have undergone profound changes resulting in a new societal frame work more conducive to the 21st century. Generally, medical and education standards would have improved significantly and Afghanistan’s satellite status as a client state of the Soviet Union would have fallen away as the Soviet empire imploded. And then what? After 30 years of Sovietization would the population remained as feudal and as backward as today? I can’t say as my crystal ball is out for repair but in retrospect I suspect it was the Afghani people’s best chance of entering the 21st century.
The Taliban were successfully overthrown in the fall of 2001 and since then, there have been a variety of mistakes which have lead which leads us today. Firstly, any armed insurrection needs money and lots of it. The Warlords of Afghanistan have consolidated their power base through the financing and controlling the illicit opium trade in Afghanistan. The one bright spot of Taliban rule was the destruction of the opium trade in Afghanistan. The revival of the illicit opium trade could have been avoided entirely by the allied forces if a coherent opium strategy adopted. In fact, considering the worldwide shortage of medicinal opiates; farmers in Afghanistan could have been licensed and controlled for growing the only ‘cash crop’ of the country rather than having Western forces seeking to destroy this war ravaged country’s only means of earning hard foreign currency. There was even a plan but it was ignored. One cannot live on world aid alone especially while the Lords of Kabul dipped first into the trough. This strategy also had the advantage of taking money directly out of Lords of War’s hands, and consequently, stiffling their ability to wage war. But did we do this? No, instead we fumbled the ball and let the Lords of War fill their coffers. Secondly, our blind support of any Afghan governance as long as it was not the Taliban.
For the West to succeed in bringing Afghanistan into the 21th century requires a complete societal occupation spanning generations and to be effective and demands Afghanistan be made into a modern colonial state complete with responsible governance. I cannot speak to the rest of the Western world but I am greatly reluctant to go ‘colonial’. So far, we are trying a new gentler form of ‘colonialism’ in that we will let Afghani’s rule themselves without much outside pressure in the guise of coaxing them with ‘gentle’ persuasion into adopting things like enfranchising the rights of women or adopting Western standards of human rights. So far its been a massive fail.
Furthermore, as long as we turn a blind eye to the innate corruption in the Afghanistan government and the breaches of human rights we are merely giving military cover to another brutal regime, much like the regime which was ultimately toppled by the Taliban in the first place. No one should forget the Taliban came to power riding a wave of popular revolt and could quite easily come back to power riding another wave of popular revolt. I have to give Unambiguously Ambidextrous a hat tip for bringing this TimesOnline report to light on this side of the Atlantic.
When Habiba’s elderly husband was badly beaten in a village brawl there was only one place, she said, that she could turn to for help and justice. Barefoot and weeping, the farmer’s wife, 50, trekked for four hours through Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush mountains to meet the local Taleban commander. “My feet were bleeding and I cried the whole way but I didn’t care about my safety,” she said. “We are poor people. We know the Government doesn’t help people like us.”
Corruption and incompetence in President Karzai’s government — particularly at local level — have forced a growing number of people to seek the services of the Taleban. (…)A senior Nato intelligence official admitted this week that the Taleban “has a government-in-waiting, with ministers chosen,” ready to take over the moment the current administration failed. He warned, in a bleak assessment of the insurgents’ strength: “Time is running out. Taleban influence is expanding.”
The Taleban, which Nato says run shadow governments in 33 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, are only too willing to help settle local disputes. Their strict, if brutal, interpretation of Islamic law is often preferable to the lengthy and costly Government alternative. “My husband had a broken leg so he sent me to find Mullah Zafar,” Habiba said. “We don’t know anyone in the Government and we know they won’t solve our problems.” Mullah Zafar Akhund is the Taleban’s shadow governor in Jaghatu district, Wardak province, a short drive south of Kabul.
Habiba’s husband, Abdullah, who is 20 years her senior, fought with a neighbour called Qasim over water rights. Village customs prescribe which fields should be watered at which times. Habiba said that Qasim was stealing the water when it was not his time and turned violent when her husband challenged him. “I waited two hours to see Mullah Zafar,” she said. “He listened to my story and sent three of his soldiers to come back to my village. They spoke to the village elders who told them the same thing. The soldiers beat Qasim and ordered him to give us his water for seven nights.”
The return to power of the Taliban is almost preordined given our failure to significantly influence and establish responsible government throughout the country after 9 years of trying – abet ineffectually. We can pour more NATO troops and flood Afghanistan with American soldiers and demand they fight and die for a cause in which ordinary Afghans are reluctant to embrace. Or we could admit we just aren’t good colonists and use modern technology to firewall the country until such time that the Afghani people as a whole are willing to embrace a more westernized notion of governance and human rights. We can seriously impede and stone wall the country so even if the Taliban give safe harbour to the likes of Al Qaeda; Al Qaeda cannot use Afghanistan as a launching pad to export their violence into the wider world.
Speaking as a Canadian I am not on side for making Afghanistan as a new province of Canada and given the choice; I’d rather into discussion with the Turks & Caicos Islands becoming the next province of Canada. Besides, the Turks and Caicos holds a distinct advantage over the Afghans – in that they can freely decide to join the Dominion rather than being forced into that position due to military occupation. Finally, I cannot in good conscience demand any Canadian solider die in a fight for a cause which is not innately our own.
