Americans have forgotten about the war in Afghanistan.
In the past year alone, we rallied against a giant oil spill. We watched Tea Party members claim themselves as the only American patriots. We saw Arizona change the constitution, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange become a global celebrity and revolution spread across the Middle East. And amid all the news that has been selling, we have stopped getting coverage of a historical landmark in our country’s history.
Thousands of Americans are still dying overseas, and there is no clear end in sight.
Now the longest-running war in our nation’s history (nine years), it appears as though the conflict has only worsened. We invaded Afghanistan to install democracy, suppress the Taliban and in the words of George W. Bush, “deny safe haven to those who wish to further harm us.” Now bin Laden is believed to be in Pakistan, and elected Afghani President Hamid Karzai leads arguably the second-most corrupt government in the world. More than 70,000 troops and civilians have been killed or injured, and close to 400 billion taxpayer dollars have been spent.
Earlier this month, President Obama said, “I can say we will defeat al-Qaida and that the Taliban will not be retaking Afghanistan,” but conceded, “the Taliban are still going to be an element in Afghanistan.” He pledges to start withdrawing some of the nearly 100,000 troops in July and handing over security duties to Afghani forces later this year.
I would love to see our troops come home. But President Obama’s claims seem to be far-fetched, as Americans have not received an accurate depiction of what is truly going on.
“The Americans hire locals to clean the weeds out of wadis and to work on the roads. The Taliban regularly attack those workers to discourage them from cooperating with the US forces. So the Americans have hired and armed local men to provide security for the workers,” reported University alumna Cali Bagby for KVAL last September from Marjah, Afghanistan.
While the president insists we have ensured enough of a safe haven to hand power over to Afghani forces, it appears that we have created a situation where Afghani forces are hardly sustainable without us. We invaded a neutral country that is home to a radical extremist group that killed nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001, but Afghanis who withhold from Taliban activities have been thrust into a position of guilty association.
If I didn’t pick the fight, I probably wouldn’t want an American bomb on my doorstep either.
According to the U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Field Manual, we need the support of the local people in order to separate the population from the insurgency. The formula of this highly regarded military strategy says success will be achieved when there is “stability, an acceptable level of violence, and a benevolent dictatorship” installed in Kabul.
“It is a corrupt but stable government,” said Dan Morrison, a University journalism professor also embedded in the Marine unit last summer. “It is not democracy. Is there work to be done? Yes. We don’t have acceptable levels of violence. If the question is ‘are we finished?’ No. The Taliban is increasing their attempts to occupy the Samson region, after they decided to pull out of the Peck valley. It is very fluid. Nothing is stabilized yet.”
Morrison has reported in 31 countries, including five war zones. He believes that counter-insurgency, based on massive studies done on mostly failed attempts, does not work. After reporting from Afghanistan, he says the Afghani people really don’t want us there.
He also believes that Americans no longer care about Afghanistan.
“People are sick to death of this story,” Morrison said. “The reading public doesn’t care.”
And to make matters worse, Americans are both tired and uninformed. Even if Americans wanted an objective picture of our occupation in Afghanistan, it is a nearly impossible feat to provide one.
“There is no way you can work in the media in Afghanistan other than being embedded in a unit,” Morrison said. “People ask how come you don’t show the other side. You are traveling with the troops. When you hang out with people who save your life, you say, ‘I like these guys.’ You want me to walk around with the Afghanis? The people don’t like it. Someone is always trying to kill you.”
The war in Afghanistan has become yet another convoluted mess in our history books. While the American people are dealt assertions of victory, the promises seem to lie far from reality.
“Anyone who proposes to tell whether we are winning or losing is pulling your leg,” Morrison said. “I don’t make any claims. That’s way beyond the capability. The official policy is ‘to deny safe haven to extremist groups.’ We are still there. We have not yet accomplished that mission. And we can’t do it. COIN (counter insurgency) simply does not work. The American people, for very good reasons, are not interested in pursuing a policy of scorched earth in Afghanistan. Thus the possible quagmire with no good solutions.”
I wonder if America should have taken up arms in the first place.
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