Dinner Conversation about Afghanistan

The time I spent traveling in Afghanistan in the early 70′s produced an indelible impression in my mind. Years later, many of the details have become blurred and intermingled with a lifetime of subsequent experience, and yet in ways that defy precise explanation, Afghanistan and its people  continue to play a role in my sense of what it means to be human.

At dinner last night I asked a friend about a journalist he had introduced me to who reports out of Kabul for Time magazine. I met the Journalist, Tim McGirk, about a year ago and during a conversation he had opined that he had met Hamid Karzai and had come to hold the president in high regard — a brave leader who could be trusted, he explained.

The journalist’s assessment surprised me. I had pretty much assumed that Karsai was mostly likely just a bold opportunist, willing to grab for the gold ring of power with the help of the United States.

I shared my surprise at the journalist’s assessment with my dinner companion and suggested that recent reports of Karzai’s  bellicosity toward the United States seem to be at odds the journalist’s assessment, and wondered out loud if McGirk’s thoughts might have changed. It seems my comments were enough to incite an angry response from my dinner companion.

He explained that none of the people in that part of the world could be trusted. They are happy to take our money and blood and then stab us in the back, he said.

I asked him why that would be surprising . If the tables were turned and the Afghans were occupying the United States, would we do any different?

He seemed genuinely surprised by my comment. He explained that we are in Afghanistan doing the dirty work of helping them become a free nation.

I reminded him that we had invaded Afghanistan, ostensibly to get Al Qaida, and as a means to that end, had displaced the Taliban leadership that tolerated Al Qaida’s presence. In an admittedly far fetched hypothetical, I suggested, what if the Afghans had invaded the United States in order to liberate its citizens form the depredations of the aggressively militaristic Bush administration and right-wing fundamentalist Christians?  Assuming the Afghans were better armed than us, wouldn’t we be apt to take their money and their blood, and then stab them in the back?

The one constant with respect to the tribes of Afghanistan is that they fiercely reject the imposition of foreign power. Indeed, their rejection is so deeply ingrained in their culture, that history has repeatedly informed us that militarily invading Afghanistan is one of the world’s worst ideas.

There are certainly other ways of influencing the course of evens in that region without committing to an invasion but the sad facts are that we have committed the error and are now saddled with the consequences of our folly — costly and indecisive combat in remote deserts and mountains, destabilization of a nuclear Pakistan, legitimization of militant fundamentalism in the region, and increasing legitimacy for the ambitions of Iran and other pretenders to the throne of Islam.

Obama has thrown more men and material into a fray in which no decisive outcome can be achieved. His knowledge of this gave him cause to set a July deadline for beginning a withdrawal of United States forces. In this knowledge, Karzai will do whatever he can to avoid being cast as a puppet of the United States when the time comes for him to stand on his own. He is terrified at the prospect of being called to account for his complicity with his nation’s invaders. A so he should be.