A Failing Mission in Afghanistan?
An Abundance of Lawless Lawmen
“If the Taliban were still here, that rapist would have already been executed by now. It would have been a lesson for all,” she says. “If there is no law, and the government does not listen to people’s complaints, then it is better to go back to the Taliban era. At least then we had justice.”
- An Afghan woman, reported by TIME
One should hope that we have not yet forgotten our campaign for the hearts and minds of the Middle East. And although I hate to simply add to the pile-on of criticism for what is occurring in the military campaign there, overall, what we have seen is a resounding failure.
Afghanistan’s version of the the “Sahwa” or Awakening movements in Iraq, where the indigenous people fight alongside the U.S. against insurgents and terrorists, is the alliance between NATO forces and Afghanistan’s warlords. Unfortunately, instead of respected tribal heads (or, at least, leaders who can pass as that), we have lawless tyrants who were part of the very reason the Taliban gained support from regular Afghans—at least, before the religious movement imposed its own brand of tyranny once in power.
As a wonderful result, the current government, headed by Hamid Karzai, is riddled with corrupt warlords who are too valuable to get rid of—we need their militias to keep order—but too lawless to continue relying on, if we want any sort of happy conclusion to this entire venture.
The Need to Step Up
One of the primary problems in Afghanistan is that coalition forces are mainly those of the warlords, who provide local police and militia support, and the United States. Although there are a few other countries who maintain a strong contingent in Afghanistan, all are basically dwarfed by the U.S.’s commitment, which is basically four times that of the second most committed nation, Britain, who itself dwarfs the next most committed, Germany.
Each of these countries can, although not happily, commit more troops to the battle. The United States only has so much political will, and has to still deal with the quagmire of Iraq, even though there is improvement. Afghanistan is a far more worthy cause, in terms of legitimacy and importance to future international security. However, that doesn’t seem to be encouraging too much help from the other nations as of yet.
Without this help, we will continue to rely on the warlords to patch up what security holes there are, slowly becoming more and more indebted to them—and further alienating an angry population that helped throw them out of power in the first place.
One would hope that President-elect Obama’s influence can get more attention to Afghanistan, as he’s consistently pushed for the cause. However, so far, we’ve seen far more disorder and stubborn—even self-destructive—insistence on not coordinating internationally.
Just as it was our downfall in the financial world—turning a bad situation into a catastrophe—it will be in the very “real” world this time, if nations that like to consider themselves “Great Powers” still do not step up to take the responsibility bestowed upon the title.
Blaming the United States does not, in fact, solve a pressing problem that affects everyone. Let’s hope the European countries have learned that lesson by this point with the financial crisis.
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