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What Afghans say about the war

Posted by ELYAS BAKHTIARI in International, Politics, War.
Nov 24th, 2009 | Comments

A group of nongovernmental organizations recently polled 704 randomly-selected Afghans about how decades of conflict has changed their lives. Andrew Sprung has a summary:

1 in 5 say they’ve been tortured, three quarters have been forced to leave their homes at some point in the endless civil war, 43% have had property destroyed. The survey also has what would seem to be some moderately encouraging findings regarding the counterinsurgency: 70% see unemployment and poverty as a key driver of civil war; 48% blame the government’s weakness and corruption; 36% point to the Taliban; 25% to interference by neighboring countries; just 18% to the presence of international forces; another 18% to al Qaeda– and another 17% to the lack of support from the international community. After 30 years of civil war, only 3% named the current conflict as the most harmful period (though the report cautions that areas where the current fighting is worst are underrepresented).

The emphasis is mine. Notice the factors that the U.S. policy makers seem to identify as priorities—the Taliban, al Qaeda, and corruption in the government—are dwarfed by unemployment and poverty in the eyes of Afghans. That disconnect is revealing. The general consensus from the respondents was, if people are employed, the fighting will end. Here’s a quote from a woman in Kabul:

“We thank God that the fighting we saw during Taliban does not exist now, even though still they do suicide attacks. The main harm of the current conflict is poverty and unemployment. If there are employment opportunities for the people, there won’t be killings.”

That’s a point I’ve been trying to make on my own blog for some time. It’s not that rooting out the Taliban and cleaning up the government aren’t important, but they will ultimately be futile efforts without some serious attempts to improve the fundamentals of Afghanistan’s economy. Among its recommendations, the report calls for the international community to “commit and deliver not just more aid, but more effective aid for humanitarian, reconstruction and development activities throughout the country.”

The international community has been reluctant to follow through with promises of aid since back when the Soviets left, and the American public is understandably skeptical of nation building. But we’re already spending money in Afghanistan. We can either keep wasting it on a largely ineffective military solution, or we can try to fix this mess once and for all.

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elrod

While I agree wholeheartedly that non-military spending and economic growth would cure much of what ails Afghanistan, how exactly do you that? On the American side it's easy, actually. A relatively small outlay of investment would go a very long way in bottom-of-the-standard-of-living scale Afghanistan. But who do you invest the money with? The Afghan government has proven itself too corrupt to be trusted with aid dollars. And outside Kabul, where do you envision private Western investment going?

Elyas

I wish I had the answer to that. There may be a role for the military to play outside of Kabul, working with local leaders to rebuild basic infrastructure and direct spending. As I understand it, this method was a part of the revamped strategy in Iraq.

My main concern is that the debate has been evolving into an either/or question of sending more troops or not, when the primary focus shouldn't be on a military solution but on setting benchmarks for economic and political progress.

elrod

The reason the debate has turned to the military question is that the military question is the controversial one. Expending a billion dollars or so on non-military investment in Afghanistan is a pretty uncontroversial decision on the American side (where to put the money is a different story, I said above). But expending more military resources - including manpower - is a hugely consequential story for America. It is American lives on the line, after all.

I'm fairly convinced that Afghanistan's problems are more economic than they are political. That is, the Afghans are more likely to lay down their arms if they have jobs than if they have an honest democratic republic. Note that that was NOT the case in Iraq, where questions of ethnic and religious share of power were far more important than money.

Silhouette

"...just 18% to the presence of international forces.."
*************
I like how the pitch of this article is nonchalantly woven in near the end like this..lol..

Just say it already: "some special interest tycoons and their british buddies want the taxpayers to continue paying for their henchmen to secure that area." It's OK, we know.

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