A dark anniversary

The world was prepped and ready on Oct. 7, 2001, as the United States, reeling from 9/11, gathered itself to deliver a crushing blow to an enemy who had shattered forever America’s image of itself as an invincible, inviolable power.

The punishment to be meted out would destroy Al Qaeda and its allies, assuage the shock and humiliation of the Twin Tower attacks, and show any miscreants what happens to those who try and take on the world’s only superpower.

It did not quite work out that way.

Eight years on, the United States is bogged down in what increasingly looks like an unwinnable war in Afghanistan.

We are battling a poorly defined enemy, in pursuit of murky goals. Support for the war is waning at home, while in Afghanistan disappointment at the slow pace of reform is rapidly giving way to rage at the failures of the foreign efforts in the country.

Plummeting security, rampant corruption, a flourishing narco-mafia and a badly flawed election have combined to convince many Afghans that the much vaunted ‘democracy” foisted on them is just another trick being played by an international community intent of furthering its own interests at Afghanistan’s expense.

Much of the misery, of course, is being caused by the Afghans themselves. But that is a tough sell in a populace that feels, with some justification, that it has been alternately victimized and neglected by its neighbors over the past few centuries.

The Afghans are not thanking us, nor will they, for these past eight years of hope and despair.

It did not have to be this way. In 2001, most Afghans rejoiced at the departure of the Taliban.

“I was so excited,” recalled Nasimi, a young journalist in Kabul. “Everyone was happy that the Taliban were gone, that those dark days were over.”

He laughs at the memory of lines outside barber shops, as men rushed to rid themselves of the beards the Taliban had insisted they wear. The only problem was that their newly bared chins were a different color from their deeply tanned foreheads, noses, and cheeks.

“Men were running around town with two-toned faces,” he said.

Children were flying kites, music blared from wedding parties, and photo shops arose almost overnight, filling some of the holes left by the Taliban’s harsh, restrictive regime.

But even in those early days, the cracks were beginning to appear, just beneath the surface.

“As excited as I was, I was also a bit nervous,” Nasimi admitted. “We did not want to see the Northern Alliance back in power.”

That was our first, and, some would say, fatal mistake. In our haste to get in and out of Afghanistan so that we could pursue our more "strategic" interests in Iraq, we handed power to some of the most widely loathed figures in the country, while excluding the Taliban from any talks about the future of the country..

“Did we go through all of this just to see Fahim and Dostum back in power?” grumbled Hafiz, referring to two of the “warlords” who helped to divide and destroy Afghanistan during the civil wars of the early 1990s.

Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, former defense minister, is now first vice president to incumbent-in-waiting Hamid Karzai. General Abdul Rashid Dostum held a high-level post in the presidential administration until a public and violent altercation with a political rival forced him into exile in Turkey. But his support for Karzai in the August 20 elections may yet gain him a seat at the table in the new cabinet.

Having dubbed Afghanistan a “fledgling democracy” well on its way to peace and prosperity, the United States could barely wait to turn its attention to more important matters.

The years of neglect have taken their toll. The Taliban, so easily routed by U.S. bombs in 2001, are back, and appear to be stronger than ever. They have a firm grip on at least half of the country, and offensive military operations seem to have little effect. The Taliban, like the Hydra of Greek mythology, just grows multiple heads to replace each one that is lopped off.

What is worse is that our understanding of Afghanistan has progressed little, judging by public statements by powerful people.

We are battling the Taliban, although our stated goal is “to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda.” If that is so, then we were done in November, 2001. Osama bin Laden and his band scampered over the border to Pakistan almost as soon as ordnance began to explode.

We stayed in Afghanistan, burning down the barn long after the horse had bolted.

Recent statements by U.S. national security advisor James Jones that Al Qaeda’s presence was “diminished” in Afghanistan after eight years of war are more than a bit disingenuous. Al Qaeda was almost non-existent in Afghanistan by the end of 2001.

They are back now, in a limited way, because we are here. The presence of foreign "infidels" on Afghan soil has stirred up the jihadists. And the naturally xenophobic Taliban, whose love for Al Qaeda was never strong, have welcomed them back, because they need all the help they can get.

The truth is, we cannot fight or win this war until we have a better understanding of what it is we are trying to accomplish. Condoleezza Rice’s recent comment that “if you want another terrorist attack in the U.S., abandon Afghanistan” is just fear-mongering, designed more to obscure the point than to clarify it.

At present, despite Barack Obama’s toned-down rhetoric, we are still engaged in what amounts to a global war on terror, while the Taliban, the vast majority of whom are Afghan Pashtuns, are fighting a war of national liberation.

How do you begin to discuss or resolve a conflict where the adversaries are not even on the same plane?

“The Americans say they will only talk to Taliban who have laid down their weapons,” said Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, former Taliban foreign minister. “What is there to talk about if you have already surrendered?”

The past eight years have brought some signs of progress: girls in school, women in parliament, a growing economy, an opening of Afghanistan to the world. Kabul now has stable electricity and ATMs, large supermarkets and even a shopping center, complete with an escalator.

Young men and women learn languages and computers, they work and study abroad, and know much more about the world outside than did their older brothers and sisters. It would be much more difficult for the Taliban to impose their brutal and repressive regime on an Internet-savvy, Twittering population. That is all to the good.

But make no mistake: despite the advantages many Afghans have reaped from the international presence here, most would prefer to dispense with our well-meaning but often misdirected “assistance.”

If we do not manage to convince the population of this battered and broken country that they are better off with us here, we will soon find ourselves in an even worse situation.

As the United States re-examines its goals and priorities, and weighs whether or not to ratchet this war up another few notches, the policy planners in Washington should listen to some home-grown truths from Afghanistan.

“We were very tired of fighting in 2001,” said one heavily bearded Pashtun in Kabul. He is a singer, not an insurgent, but the past eight years have made him into a bitter, angry man. “We let the Americans in. But in a few years we will not be tired any more.”
 

http://www.globalpost.com/notebook/afghanistan/091007/dark-anniversary