What are we doing in Afghanistan? Just what aren't we supposedly doing in Afghanistan?
It's quite a chore list. We're there to support democracy. We're there to provide security. We're there to liberate the womenfolk from the oppressive yolk of Islamic feudalism. We're there to fight the Taliban. We're there to eradicate Afghanistan's narco-economy. We're there to rebuild the national infrastructure. We're there to train the Afghan army and security services.
To understand the depth of those challenges, look at what we have to work with. We're working with a country that is literally dirt-poor. We're working with people whose understanding of social structure is predominantly that of tribalism. We're working with a multi-ethnic country of Uzbeks, Tajiks, Turkomen and Balochs where the greatest threat is from the majority sect, the Pashtun. We're working with a country that has 18th century literacy levels at best. We're working with a country that has implacable gender oppression. We're trying to tame a country that has known not just decades but centuries of war, especially war with occupiers. We're working with a country where the major economic product is opium. We're working with a population with whom we are culturally, linguistically, socially and religiously alien, a population deeply suspicious of foreigners.
With all of these tasks, each of them compounded by all of these challenges, we send a force of 2,500 soldiers out of which we field 1,000 combat soldiers in the large province of Kandahar.
We've taken on so many tasks under these daunting circumstances that success in only one or two of them will constitute failure. Perhaps we've set the bar too high. Instead of trying to be a one-stop solution-shop for Afghanistan, we should identify those objectives that are never going to be within our reach, drop them completely, and focus on the few that we can accomplish within a reasonable time frame.
"The Mission" as it's now configured is plainly beyond our reach. So long as we refuse to accept the reality of the situation, we'll never be able to leave at least not until we're eventually driven out.
3 comments:
You assume the goal is perfection or nothing. It's not. The only major goal is to make the country self-supporting, so it's no longer an easy target for fantatics or terrorists.
We don't need to eliminate the Taliban. We need them weak enough and the Afghan police strong enough that Afghanistan can defend itself.
We don't need to make it totally safe. We need it safe enough that they can rebuild.
We don't need them to be an economic superpower, or even fully self-supporting. We need their economy strong enough that it can grow with only financial foreign aid.
Don't dismiss goals as unreachable. Instead, ask yourself; which goals can we make progress on? Which problems can we improve, or at least keep from getting worse? Remember, we've already overthrown their previous government. They're defenseless without us. How would our leaving help them?
PS- I know you haven't advocated for a troop withdrawal. However, others have, and the final comment is directed at them.
First of all, "we" didn't overthrow the previous government. Second, I support trying to achieve goals that are realistic, so long as they're achievable within a reasonable time period. Third, I think our soldiers will be pulled out when they become too great a political liability for whatever party is in power in Ottawa.
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