Comments on: Afghanistan: An Inaugural Gift

By: James Mutti, Contributing Editor

James Mutti, Contributing Editor — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 08:04:29 +0000

Early on, I also opposed the Afghan War. Now, my perspective has shifted somewhat. Now that we’re in it, I think leaving would be a huge mistake – selfish and a betrayal of the Afghan people. The Taliban were never a group who had won over the hearts and minds of Afghan. They simply had the military might to knock off any potential political rivals. And a good part of this military might was provided by al Qaeda. We weren’t unfairly picking on the Taliban when we attacked. The Taliban’s willing hosting of al Qaeda made them a legitimate target. This could turn out to be a “good war”, but for that to happen, there must be a greater emphasis on actually successfully rebuilding Afghanistan than on fighting a war.

For anyone with an interest in what’s been happening in Afghanistan since the late 1990s, I would highly recommend Ahmed Rashid’s Descent into Chaos. Excellently written with a lot of the information and nuance that we in the US have somehow missed. And from a new (for most readers) perspective.

By: Mr. President, We Do Have a Choice | Demockracy

Mr. President, We Do Have a Choice | Demockracy — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 04:07:04 +0000

[...] perpetrator of the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, to justice. And a week into the war, the Taliban government then in power in Afghanistan made an offer to turn him over — with seve…. They would do so if provided evidence connecting him to the crimes; they would not give him to the [...]

By: Andy Juell

Andy Juell — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:57:39 +0000

Tom;
Appreciated your comments. Aside from the political machinations of five different administrations — back to Reagan, and their motives regarding Afghanistan, a couple of things are worth noting. The Taliban are basically the same folks that we supplied Israeli- captured Soviet arms to for the purpose of killing Soviet soldiers at the tail end of the Cold War. Obviously we couldn’t kill them ourselves so we proxied the deal. Once the Soviet army tired of the process and left — satisfying our political intent, we dropped Afghanistan like a rock. We didn’t rebuild their schools or their roads or their hospitals. We didn’t even offer a shovel or two to bury the dead. Afghanistan absorbed the fundamentalist line because it appeared to be the only thing that resembled the truth and just about the only tangible fiber holding their society together. Cold war ideology was a lot like keeping mistresses. Once they got a little old or not as pretty (useful, being the operative term), they got dumped. Washington and Moscow dumped a lot of mistresses in four decades of rivalry. Why would the Afghan people assume anything less now?

Secondly, I don’t think the anti-war notion will catch on. Different set of issues. The Vietnam War was a God-awful morass to be sure, but two issues ran parallel to the war itself. One was the draft and the other was the 18 year-old vote. I was drafted the same year I joined the SDS. I know a little about civil dissent and radical politics — the extreme version. As an organization, we made a lot of noise, shut down entire cities — usual anarchy type stuff, but we didn’t stop the war. The middleground folks were working in Washington to get the voting age lowered to eighteen. Seemed fair that the boys that were doing all the dying should have a say in the whole thing. Once that vote was guaranteed, Congress knew full well that any further support of hostilities in Vietnam would end their respective careers. So the war ended.

Obama’s real challenge in Afghanistan is going to center on trust. The developing world puts a lot of stock in loyalty because they haven’t got much else. This is the conundrum of inheriting somebody else’s mess. The old cut and run thing (no matter how appealling) can’t be repeated here. In order to sell this notion of ‘democracy’ to a tribal world, policy must exhibit a level of consistency from one administration to the next. Without that coherence of purpose, we have no real stake in the game and the Afghan people know it.

A. Juell