Don’t panic July 24 2002
Is it true, as some commentators suggest, that we’re losing the peace” in Afghanistan?
Ah, peace in Afghanistan. An alluring image indeed. Picture it: As the songbird chirp-chirp-chirps away, farmers celebrate a successful poppy harvest by firing automatic weapons into the air. Young lovers joined in marriage are saluted by ... entire villages firing automatic weapons into the air. Friends and relatives gather to mourn the loss of a respected elder ... by firing automatic weapons into the air.
That’s one hell of a peace. It would sure suck to lose that.
There are legitimate reasons to worry that we are indeed losing it, though. First of all, we haven’t quite “won the war” yet. Osama bin Laden and Chief Talibandit Mullah Omar are still at large. So are most of their top underlings.
Nevertheless, we’re already turning our military attention on Iraq, which didn’t actually have any involvement in the 9-11 attacks, the ostensible reason for the War On Terror™. Focusing our military resources elsewhere isn’t going to make finding bin Laden & Co. any easier.
Secondly, we haven’t done enough to support peace and to stabilize the post-Taliban government of Hamid Karzai. We’ve flown him to the U.S. and Europe, and complimented his good looks and hats in our magazines. But we haven’t helped him extend the rule of his government outside of the capital, Kabul. In fact, we’ve insisted that the 5,000-man United Nations peacekeeping stay confined to Kabul.
As a result, the Kabul government has about as much power in the provinces as a high school hall monitor does confronting bullies. Several leaders of the Northern Alliance, our allies in defeating the Taliban government, now run their home provinces as principalities — even charging customs duties. Along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, we actively fuel disloyalty to the Kabul government by paying and arming locals to hunt al-Qaeda.
The danger of this fragmentation is that it could lead to a renewal of civil war — precisely the scenario that precipitated the rise of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the first place. Karzai and U.N. General Secretary Kofi Annan have requested more peacekeepers and say they should be more widely deployed. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden and several key congressional Democrats and Republicans agree.
For the moment, though, we are focusing our nation-building efforts on training a multi-ethnic Afghan national army. But it’s a tedious process that will take years, bogged down by our drill sergeants having to learn how to say, “Left. Left. Left-Right-Left” in eight different languages.
We don’t have the luxury of time, because there is a very real danger that Afghanistan could again collapse into civil war. The longer we’re there, the less welcome we’ll be. Our bombing has already killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Afghan civilians.
Though the Afghans seemingly tolerated those deaths as the cost of getting rid of the Taliban, we no longer have the Taliban as our excuse. Increasing complaints by Afghans about U.S. forces killing civilians have led to calls by Afghan leaders for an end to U.S. operations, or at least increased restrictions. Those calls have intensified since a July 1 U.S. attack on a wedding party that killed or wounded about 150 people. Over time, such sentiment will only grow.
The longer we stay without adequately restoring peace and stability, the greater the danger that Afghans won’t want us there. We’ll morph from heroic friendly uncle into a heavily armed, cranky mother-in-law who won’t leave.