Take a Deep Breath and.....
By lindamuralidharan on 2015-03-20 23:22:38
I better be telling myself this more often....self-induced stress is pretty foolish...."just breathe deeply and refocus, Linda".
This need is apparent because my tendency to fall back in to naivete seems to be life long. You'd think I'd be a little wiser in
my grandparent years. After all, it took formidable public opposition to get us out of Vietnam...way too late. And the public
is just passive about its opposition to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. [caption id="attachment_6703" align="aligncenter"
~ LESTERS atiosar Kasur Lom
SERVICE CENTER
sisio WEY)
width="600"] typical home of
modern elite in Kabul[/caption] I still fall in to the habit of thinking, "Now 'they' will get it. Now the decision makers...at
least the ones of good will... and the public will say, ‘Vo mas! Wea Culpa! We've learned our lessons." And I can then
easily fall into an agitated state when this does not happen! [caption id="attachment_ 6704" align="alignleft" width="600"]
1
= ; ze : ' poor internal refugees in
Afghanistan[/caption] Despite the evidence that builds and builds, only a smattering of analysts, voters, and decision makers
face the situation squarely. I want to illustrate this by some recent reporting from Afghanistan that indicates how
counterproductive some of our current efforts there are, but first I'll refer to a lot of books, articles and interviews that came
out of Afghanistan in the earlier years of our war there. Over and over again it was shown that neutral observers on the
ground found that US representatives chose the wrong people to cooperate with. [caption id="attachment_6705"
align="alignright" width="199"] Afghan refugees in Athens[/caption] If there were local
officials and activists trying to counter corruption while also not supporting either the Taliban or war lords, we often left
them unprotected. War lords or other corrupt and/or violent factions all too often assassinated them. For our part, we cozied
up to the wrong group or individual time and again. I tend to be of the opinion that little would have made a difference in
our efforts to control politics in Afghanistan. It was the habit of the many tribes and ethnic subdivisions there to engage in
frequent violence among themselves. Usually, of course, there were relatively low level casualty numbers although the
families certainly suffered if it was their father/brother killed and the numbers imprisoned for mere political rivalry would
stun the typical American. Despite what was a brutal approach to life ...we would think... but maybe our militarized police
and solitary confinement prison customs are brutality just under a different guise.....it was a resilient society that was able to
repel waves of invaders over the centuries...with the British and the Russians being the most recent victims before US and
NATO troops decided to go where no sensible humans had gone before. Yes, it is likely that nothing that we could do ina
humane fashion would pacify that country in the near term and develop it as a functioning, socially responsible society in
the ways we expect. I suspect only Afghans can do that...and then it might not be exactly the model we ourselves would
design. Nonetheless, I continue to be horrified that the efforts that our elected officials and public seem to endorse again and
again are done with such high levels of incompetence and low levels of common sense. The famed American "know how"
has either disappeared into the pages of history or simply does not transport well beyond our borders in the modern age. If
we are going to be there at all, why not be a little effective, why not at least do no harm? [caption id="attachment_6706"
align="alignleft" width="225"] Female mortality rates among highest in world[/caption]
The most recent evidence I have seen comes in the form of an article in the New York Times titled "U.S.-empowered Militias
Have Villagers 'shivering'. The author, Joseph Goldstein, quotes directly from some of the locals in the areas where the
militias operate. For example, a 36 year old villager named Ahad, said, "For God's sake, take these people away. We cannot
stand their brutality." While we had the hot war in Afghanistan, we did not succeed in defanging the Taliban. (To a certain
extent they were kept contained and could not replace the central government in Kabul, but they definitely did not go away
or surrender.) There are multiple reasons for this. Afghanistan had not been used to a strong central government and most
Afghan regimes that tried to impose one failed as we did. We chose Hamid Karzai over the will of the people. Corruption is
and has been for decades rampant in Afghanistan, and we did almost nothing to reduce it and in many ways encouraged it
by the massive amounts of cash we turned over to people we saw as "friendly" to our cause and by choosing a very corrupt
family such as that of which Karzai is a part to be the head of what passes for a central government (regardless of whether
we find him individually corrupt).
ey == Also, during our occupation of
sections of the country, we funded local people to form ¢ gangs (officially known a as "militias") to counter Taliban forces in
territories where we could not spread our limited military people power. Since we supposedly ended the war and left, we
have armed additional leaders, war lords, in effect. Some of these have a desire to be honest local protectors and keep
Taliban types at bay. Too many others, often poorly monitored for quality control by the US, exploit the surrounding
population. One individual, a former farmer, has been supplied with rifles, ammunition, cash, and other supplies. This
fellow with the single name Rahimullah, is now feared by noncombatants who normally don't like the Taliban but consider
Rahimullah worse. See Ahad's quote above. [caption id="attachment_6708" align="alignleft" width="300"]
i = Afghan men mourning deaths[/caption] Rahimullah and others like him have
been involved in n beatings, extortion of money or goods from the locals, kidnappings, and sometimes both child murder and
pressing of children into their armed units against their will. Back in the earlier stages of the war, the US was warned that
this potential lawlessness would lose fans for the US and for anti-Taliban supporters and would weaken the already severely
challenging effort to develop a strong central government in Kabul. As a taxpayer observing this from afar, I do have trouble
deciding if I am more distressed at the real suffering of ordinary people at the behest of the taxes I pay or at the either
purposeful or accidental incompetence of the people I am paying to make foreign policy . .. whether at the strategic or
tactical levels. Meanwhile, there is talk that this U.S. President is wanting us to stay longer and longer in the Afghanistan he
promised to remove us from. Maybe his heart was in the right place, and like so many Republicans think, he was capable of
a gross mistake. He made assumptions about what the conditions ought to be when we "leave". [caption
Languages of Afghas
-Nuristani
—Pashai
id="attachment_6709" align="alignleft" width="3 50") * provinces with the most spoken language colored Languages of
Afghanistan[/caption] Since we lost the war, the conditions could not be all rosy. is this coming as a shock now to the
President or is he just too willing to be pressured by hawks and arrogant government officials? Almost nothing there
resembled the condition Germany or Japan were in years after WWII and their development as peaceful, functioning,
modern nations. Afghanistan had developed, from the years of British attempted conquest, a dependence on foreign aid or
maybe something like "tribute". With our focus on military "solutions", we made no realistic attempt at an internationally
planned and intelligently implemented Marshall Plan. We have continued to keep our heads buried in the sand with regard
to Pakistan, which will continue to meddle in Afghanistan...when it cannot even bring its own country in to a modern age of
functionality. According to www.wisegeek.org_
"In total, the US government spent $13 billion USD under the program from 1948 to 1951. Some of the money spent
was considered part of Germany’s debt, since much of the destruction was the result of German invasion and bombing
of certain countries. The US was fortunate to have very little damage since it entered the war late, and the 48 contiguous
states were largely untouched by the war.
The Marshall Plan did succeed for the most part. It spurred significant economic recovery in countries receiving aid,
and it is also considered the beginning step toward forming a union of the European countries. This goal was considered
important to the US in the prevention of future multinational European wars.
The program abruptly ended in 1951 when the US became involved in the Korean conflict. Republicans had gained
control of the House of Representatives and the Senate in 1950, as well, and many of them disapproved of the plan.
With fewer funds to allocate toward European recovery, the plan was officially disbanded. There were efforts to extend
it, but Republicans quickly voted them down."
Perhaps Barack Obama thought our efforts during a failed war really did leave the crippled nation of Afghanistan in
condition to run its own affairs without civil war or caving in to the Taliban and Pakistani proxy influence. [caption
id="attachment_6710" align="alignright" width="300"] Kabul
Family.....during Soviet rule, women could leave their faces uncovered in Kabul[/caption] Many people other than myself
have been saying for some time, that once we made the dreadful mistake of meddling militarily in that country, the only
useful way to leave is to get all our military people out of there and sponsor an internationally brokered peace process with
guarantees/balance of power agreements coming from many of the surrounding nations. We seem to be moving farther and
farther from such effectiveness as witnessed by the US President's talk about staying in Afghanistan for virtually
"perpetuity" and by our seeing how we drive many people in to the arms of the enemy by policies such as those that set up
new war lords (while continuing to support the old ones). I will practice taking a deep breath for my own sanity. I won't,
however, "hold" my breath in anticipation of sanity returning to our national policy any time soon.
