Lingering in Afghanistan

According to General Stanley McMcrystal, more American troops are urgently needed in Afghanistan if the Taliban's attempts to regain power are to be thwarted. While President Obama has long wanted to put more troops in Afghanistan, McCrystal wants as many as 40,000 more boots on the ground. As Americans focus more on cares closer to home due to the bad economy, support for continuing the seemingly neverending wars begun during the Bush administration is running low. Many would like to see a complete withdrawal even from Afghanistan despite the possibility that the Taliban could retake the country and again provide a safe haven for Al-Qaeda and other terrorists.

In a sense, we can say the Afghan war was a success if we retroactively define its goals narrowly. It was a war launched directly in response to the September 11th terrorist attacks; the Afghan government of the time provided Al-Qaeda with a base from which to operate and coordinate attacks against the United States and its allies. Defeating the Taliban per se was never the object of the war...it was principally about uprooting Al-Qaeda and making it more difficult for them to launch more attacks. The Taliban were only an enemy because they sheltered Al-Qaeda. While the United States and its allies have failed to bring peace to Afghanistan, they have succeeded in disrupting Al-Qaeda, their basic mission. Why, then, do we need more troops? It is merely because the Taliban have proven to be a more resilient enemy than was bargained for, and this is because they, much more so than Al-Qaeda, still have some popular support and are able to recruit a seemingly endless number of impoverished local fighters. Unfortunately, I think if we take the Taliban's bait we'll just be further enmeshed in a war that has no real end in sight. Every time an Afghan civilian is caught in the crossfire, another family turns against the "foreign invaders." It honestly could go on forever, and that's what really scares me.

I think the main military mission in Afghanistan has already been achieved though perhaps not permanently. Our problems right now are with the nation-building aspect of the mission that we've never really wanted to take on. We're stuck propping up a government that, if the recent indications of electoral fraud are any sign, appears to be corrupt and can't be counted on to win hearts and minds. Putting more troops in won't make the government honest and it won't make Taliban supporters give up on an idea of an Islamic state which is as old as Islam itself. Muhammad was himself a military leader, and the first leaders of the Caliphate were among his closest personal associates. There will ALWAYS be people in Afghanistan who are sympathetic to the idea of a Taliban-type government...always. It really doesn't matter how many troops there are unless the intent is slaughter on a massive scale, a morally indefensible mission. The alternative to depopulating Afghanistan is to try to help the Afghans build up something they can't bear to lose, and that's what I favor.

Right now, the main reason Afghans have for opposing the Taliban is the Taliban's own abuses and their oppressive governance. Even if the United States and NATO left the country entirely, the Taliban would still have a lot of fighting to do within Afghanistan. However, the Taliban also have made plenty of friends, particularly among religious Pashtuns who appreciated the relative stability the Taliban brought. To truly win in Afghanistan, the US needs to help make Afghanistan a better nation even as it is in chaos; the new Afghanistan has to be thoroughly better than the old Afghanistan to discredit the former regime. You can kill Taliban all day and still not accomplish that. What is sorely needed in the country is a social and economic revolution: modernizing agriculture, building schools and hospitals, expanding access to electricity, providing support for entrepreneurs, and other things of that nature are sorely required. I would try to first build up the areas of the country that have the LEAST support for the Taliban. Let those areas be an example to the rest of the country that life really can be better. Afterwards, expand into the more dangerous areas with the assistance of the military...you can guarantee that the new infrastructure and social projects will be targeted by militants. It's not a surefire solution, but it attacks the root of the problem and is, in my view, more likely to yield long-term results if done on a grand enough scale than simply bringing in more troops is. The more subtle the approach, the better -- ideally, you don't want the Afghans to see what we would consider progress to be a threat to their civilization. That might mean helping to build a few mosques and even focusing on education for boys ahead of education for girls. That's not the ideal way to go, but we're talking about a war-torn and conservative country here...this is not the time for social activism. All Afghans have a vision for what they would like their country to be; our best shot at winning peace is trying to build that country closer to THEIR collective vision than to ours for now.

Now, for the tricky part...finances. Continuing the Bush wars as they are conducted now is expensive enough; to expand them further is prohibitively expensive in my view since a complete victory can't be assured. Building up Afghanistan's infrastructure and economy is going to be quite expensive as well, though, which is why the most fiscally prudent among us would like to cut and run. What I would do to start off with is reorient American foreign aid towards Afghanistan for the near future. Israel and Egypt currently get huge amounts of American aid far in excess of their importance, in large part because we want them to buy weapons from us. Bringing stability to Afghanistan is more important than propping up our defense industry, I think, so aid to Israel and Egypt should be at least halved and those savings used to build up Afghanistan instead. In fact, cutting aid and moving the savings to Afghanistan across the board would be a wise strategy if we can do it without stepping on too many toes. The many NGOs that operate in the country can also be of some assistance with these new projects, particularly in more peaceful areas of Afghanistan. Other foreign governments will likely also continue to offer aid; if they can be made interested in assisting particular infrastructure or humanitarian projects, that would be excellent. However, we have to be careful that the money goes to the right places and projects that employ and help Afghans. We can't help but continue to spend some money maintaining a military presence and helping the Afghan security forces, but that's all needed just to stymie the Taliban; investing in Afghanistan is the best way I can see to actually achieve a lasting victory.