Human Rights and the Taliban

Much of the world is aghast at the Taliban’s ongoing elimination of the basic human rights of it’s citizens. Daily we’ve listened to the “regrets” and admonitions from the pulpits of western foreign ministries and U.N. agencies of every acronym as another basic right is done away with while the Taliban tell us to essentially “mind our own business.”

This is a “clash of civilizations” at its most fundamental core.  It reflects the very difference on what it means to be human.

The West’s secular concept of human rights is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the United Nations in December 1948 which asserts that by simply being born into the human race every person has “inalienable” rights.  It makes no claim as to where these rights come from but they are to be universally recognized based simply on your human DNA. 

Universal human rights include: freedom of thought, speech, press, religion, assembly, association, movement, education, and work, all cited in the Declaration. Human rights have become embedded in western (globalized) political culture and a substantial part of the foreign policy of most Western governments.  The U.S. formally adopted human rights as part of its foreign policy under the Carter administration in the late 1970s.

In the worldview of the Taliban as expressed by its chief ideologue and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Mowlavi Abdul Hakim Haqqani, in his new book, “The Islamic Emirate and Its System,” the chief purpose of government is to implement Sharia (as the Taliban interpret it), and nothing more.  Human rights are not part of this worldview or system of governance, it’s all about “God’s Rights” and what is owed to God above all other considerations (as they see it.) Don’t misunderstand, God is the Creator and imbues “value” in every human life (something sorely missing in the worldview of the secular West), but only in so far as that life submits to and acknowledges God’s Rights above all else and lives accordingly. The Taliban Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice will see to that.

Can you imagine any more fundamentally different way of looking at the universe?  One that defines the very purpose of human existence?

The West will never understand this “God-centric” versus “Human-centric” view of the universe and will continue to rail against the latest Taliban outrage to no effect.

The Formation of an Authoritarian Theocratic State

What we are observing in Afghanistan “real-time” day by day is the formation of an authoritarian theocratic state by the Taliban.  No surprises here, but nevertheless interesting (or tragic) depending on whether you have to try and survive under their rule.

It’s interesting because what we are witnessing we have all seen before. Authoritarian revolutions are not new and have precedence in the 20th century as exemplified by the Russian Revolution, the Communist Revolution in China, the Cuban Revolution, and other Marxist revolutions that resulted in authoritarian regimes in Latin America , Africa, and Afghanistan itself with the Saur Revolution of 1978. All of these were underpinned by Marxist ideology (a form of theology itself.) The Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979 comes closest to an authoritarian theocratic regime shaped by a form of messianic Shia Islam that gives it its “theocratic” nature.

As we see happening in Afghanistan, the period following revolutions, or in this case the violent overthrow of a Democratic Islamic Republic, is chaotic and confused as the “revolutionaries”, formerly rural insurgents for 20 years, try to understand and manage the business of government. 

What we’re seeing is the first post-revolution step to control the population through repression and coercion.  In Afghanistan the former constitution, laws, and democratic processes (as imperfect as they were) have all been abolished.  Basic human rights have been eliminated.  Freedom of thought, expression, movement, association, religion, press, and education for women and girls, all gone.  The coercion comes through an enforced violent form of Deobandi Islam buttressed by a strict interpretation of Sharia mediated through Hanafi jurisprudence (as interpreted on the spot by local former insurgent commanders and their advising Mullahs.) When is the last time you saw an image of a Talib without an AK-47?

But, not all revolutions succeed.  Repression does not stand and opposition begins with the innate human longing for freedom.

Leaving Afghanistan

My association with Afghanistan started back in 1978 and parallels formal U.S. involvement with that country from then until now.  It is hard for me to untangle my personal experience and emotions from any attempt at objective evaluation of the President Biden’s decision to remove all remaining U.S. forces from Afghanistan.  Nevertheless, I do agree with the President’s decision to end our direct military presence there. 

I am not a military strategist, but it is clear that no matter the U.S. troop levels over the last 20 years (100,000 under Obama and 2500 now) we never achieved the objective of tamping down the Taliban insurgency, building a self-sustaining Afghan military or stabilizing the Afghan government.  But it was also never consistently clear what exactly the military objectives were as they kept changing (or were always ambiguous) under the four U.S. administrations that presided over our military involvement in Afghanistan, e.g., overthrow the Taliban?, nation-building?, win hearts and minds?, establish democracy and human rights?, conduct counter insurgency?, stabilization?, etc. 

Unintentionally, the prolonged U.S. military presence and operations there probably also stoked the ongoing chaos.  The continuous conflict would have been there anyway, U.S. military presence or not, since the Afghans have been at war with each other since 1978 and it does not take much for personal, family, village, religious, ethnic, tribal, political conflict to erupt between Afghans. I think beyond the strict military objective of initially overthrowing the Taliban, dismantling the Al Qaeda presence there, and tracking down Osama Bin Laden, we asked and expected too much of our military. 

I think the President nailed it when he said: “Only the Afghans have the right and responsibility to lead their country, and that more and endless American military force could not create or sustain a durable Afghan government.”  “We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan, hoping to create ideal conditions for the withdrawal, and expecting a different result.”

It’s interesting to note that in his announcement that while the President primarily addressed our direct military involvement in Afghanistan, he did go on to say that: “While we will not stay involved in Afghanistan militarily, our diplomatic and humanitarian work will continue.  We’ll continue to support the government of Afghanistan.  We will keep providing assistance to the Afghan National Defenses and Security Forces.”

Most Americans have no idea about our civilian aid and development investment in Afghanistan over the last 20 years.  As with most federal government spending, it is hard to pin down the figures, but the last I could verify were about $825 billion in military spending and security assistance and another $143 billion in civilian aid and development, nearly a trillion dollars.

Just as we are rightly ending our military involvement we should be just as careful about continuing any overly ambitious civilian aid programs in Afghanistan based on the poor results achieved over the last 20 years.

Over my ten years there between 2003-2018 I worked on, designed, managed, and implemented civilian aid projects in 12 Afghan government ministries including the Office of the President all intended to establish effective “governance.” Honestly, none of those projects ever achieved the unrealistic goals that were set for them, yet we kept funding and doing them over and over.  I believe the whole “nation-building” exercise over the last 20 years in Afghanistan has mostly failed (as well-intentioned as it was) for a variety of reasons.

— We (the international community supporting the re-construction) were all woefully ignorant of Afghan history, culture, and values in our rush to nation-building with far too many naïve, unrealistic, and over-funded programs. 

— We never had trustworthy, reliable partners in the Afghan government in all of this.  The Afghan political elite with whom we partnered to re-build their government and country were corrupt and at heart never shared our values and goals.

— You can never change a society much less a culture from “the outside” by imposing alien concepts and values.  Most of the programs we tried to implement were driven by western, secular, globalized cultural values which were alien to Afghanistan and mostly antithetical to the Afghan interpretation of Islam.  

Our leaving is difficult but the right decision.

Chances for Peace in Afghanistan

The U.S has been meeting with a delegation of Taliban representatives for the past several months in Doha, Qatar to negotiate an end to the 18-year-old war and reduce U.S. military presence there.  As part of that ongoing process a group of 50 prominent Afghan civilian leaders (including women) who are not currently associated with the Afghan Government, which the Taliban refuses to recognize and talk to directly, has met with the Taliban for two days this week of intense discussions.  They have jointly issued a “Roadmap to Peace” that contains several interesting points which presage the future of Afghanistan.

·       “Institutionalize the Islamic system in the country for the implementation of a comprehensive peace.”

·       “Assure women’s rights in political, social, economic, educational, cultural affairs as per within the Islamic framework of Islamic values.”

·       “Ensure the security of public institutions, such as schools, religious madrassas, hospitals, markets, water dams and other working locations”

·       “Continue support and assistance from donor countries post peace agreement based on the new cooperation and relations”

So, what does all this mean for Afghans and the Americans who have footed the bill for the ongoing war and the reconstruction of Afghanistan over the past 18 years?  Are the prospects for peace real?

Its clear from the statements the Taliban have made throughout the negotiations that they believe they have won the war and that the U.S. is looking for the fastest way out.  Once the U.S. leaves, the Taliban will establish an “Islamic system in the country”, meaning the current constitution and government will be abolished and a government based on Sharia law implemented.  No more western-sponsored elections will be held.  This may be just as well because every election in the country has been plagued by voter fraud with each election worse than the last and has only led to further instability.

The Taliban have conceded to respect women’s rights “within the Islamic framework.”  This means women will lose some of the rights and freedoms they have gained under the western-driven reconstruction which has established institutions patterned after western, secular norms.  But women will retain their rights as accorded in the Quran and under Sharia law. These do not line up well against contemporary international standards of human rights, but they do include the right to an education, to work outside the home, and political participation in some form which were all banned under the pre-9/11 Taliban government.

The Taliban have committed to reducing “civilian casualties to zero” and to refrain from attacking and destroying all the public infrastructure that has been built during the post-9/11 reconstruction, i.e. schools, hospitals, dams, markets, etc.

Most notably for Americans, the Taliban are expecting the reconstruction funding provided by western donor nations led by the U.S. to continue.  In other words, the $132 billion of U.S. taxpayer money that has been poured into Afghanistan to rebuild that country after 9/11 will continue, although much of that money has been stolen through corruption.

Nevertheless, It does look like we may be on the verge of some sort of “peace” in which the Taliban again implement an Islamic state that accords women some limited rights and privileges. This will not be a democracy as we know it but will be something familiar and acceptable to most Afghans who by most surveys are ready to accept Sharia law if it will bring security and peace.  Unfortunately, the Taliban are not the only opposition group to be fighting against the current Afghan government.  The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) which once held sway over much of Syria has reconstituted itself in Afghanistan and has proven to be just as lethal as the Taliban.  There are also innumerable armed criminal, drug, and ethnic-based militias who will continue to fight on no matter who rules in Kabul.  So peace will be illusive and fighting will not come to a complete stop (as it never has in Afghanistan), but may be reduced under a future Taliban government that will continue to receive support for its civilian reconstruction efforts from western donor governments funded chiefly by the U.S.

We’re buying our way out of this one and it may be worth it.

"Harmful Western Activities"

The Taliban today attacked the offices of Counterpart International, an American NGO, in Kabul, Afghanistan.  As is their method of operation, the attack commenced with a suicide bomber breaching the front gate with other armed attackers moving in behind and entering the building. 

The Taliban Spokesperson in claiming responsibility for the attack claimed Counterpart was involved in “harmful Western activities inside Afghanistan.” He described the group as a “U.S. network” — indicating it was singled out because it is an American-led organization.  He went on to say that Counterpart employed “40 to 50 foreign advisers” who he said had worked in “various aspects of brutality, oppression, terror, anti-Islamic ideology and promotion of Western culture.”

I have worked in Afghanistan for ten years for various NGO’s funded by the U.S. government (and other Western governments) designing and implementing nation-building programs after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.  As such, I was part of a “U.S. network” that was involved in “harmful western activities inside Afghanistan” and the “promotion of Western culture.”  These “harmful activities” included: supporting elections, promoting women’s’ rights, establishing rule of law, building the capacity of government, working with religious leaders to promote tolerance, and supporting higher education.

For the past 150 years Afghanistan has been subjected to repeated “harmful Western activities” beginning with the British invasions of 1842 and 1880 followed by the “westernizing reforms” of Afghan King Amanullah in the 1920’s to the communist revolution and Soviet occupation in the 1980’s.  The most recent and sustained assault of “harmful Western activities” started after the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and has continued to the present day as part of the whole “nation-building” exercise funded and implemented by a coalition of Western countries. 

Quite honestly, all of these “harmful Western activities” have failed miserably, whether its military interventions or the naïve attempt to change Afghan culture and society from the outside by imposing superficial Western institutions and values, as Counterpart was accused by the Taliban of doing.

Afghan culture and society is at war with itself to determine what it will be and what values will guide it into the future.  It is indeed “harmful” to intrude on this process.  Afghan’s themselves can only decide what their country will look like.  This has been and will continue to be a painful and violent process, but it’s only made worse by the outside meddling of U.S.-funded organizations like Counterpart International and the dozens of other western organizations working inside Afghanistan, no matter how well-intended. 

Ambiguous Results of CIA Actions in Afghanistan

On October 22nd the New York Times reported that, “The C.I.A. is expanding its covert operations in Afghanistan, sending small teams of highly experienced officers and contractors alongside Afghan forces to hunt and kill Taliban militants across the country…”

The CIA has been “involved” in Afghanistan ever since the CIA was first created in 1947.  Afghanistan wasn’t unique in that regard.  It is the primary job of the CIA to collect information and conduct analysis on the political, economic, and military dynamics of every country in the world in so far as those developments may impact the national security of the U.S.

The CIA’s role in Afghanistan changed dramatically, however, with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 and its attempt to pacify the country for ten years until the Soviet’s defeat and departure in 1989.  The CIA’s primary role changed from simple information collection, to aggressively supporting and arming the Afghan resistance fighters opposing the Soviet occupation forces.  This support grew over the course of ten years to become the largest program of “covert” support in the U.S. history, approaching $500 million a year by the mid-1980’s.  (All this is extensively covered and documented in several published books including: “Ghost Wars”, “Charlie Wilson’s War”, “The Main Enemy”, and many others.)

The result of the CIA’s active involvement in Afghanistan providing lethal support to the Afghan resistance in the 1980’s is at best ambiguous, for both Afghanistan and the U.S.  The “law of unintended consequences” is defined as, “…actions of people—and especially of government—that have effects that are unanticipated or unintended.”  The U.S. policy of flooding the country in the 1980’s with weapons, which are still in use today, has enabled the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan for 38 years (1979-2017), while yet enabling the Afghans to defeat of the Soviet army of occupation. 

The author of “Ghost Wars” asserts that the most lethal support was given to Islamic fundamentalist groups (who were the most ardent fighters) which inadvertently empowered these extremist groups to grow and metastasize beyond Afghanistan to Pakistan, Indian Kashmir, to the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union, Bangladesh, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordon, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.  All of these countries have individuals who participated as “volunteers” in the war in Afghanistan in one way or another in the 1980’s and who went on to become the “seeds” of indigenous terror groups in their home countries in the 2000’s.

The successful Afghan war of resistance that defeated the Soviet army in the 1980’s, enabled with CIA support as a part of U.S. policy, was also inadvertently the seminal event in the rise of global Islamic Jihadi terrorism in the 21st century.  It was not the only contributing factor by far, but it was the inspirational example of an Islamic vanguard defeating a western, atheistic world power, the Soviet Union.  It represented the first forceful “roll back” of foreign, non-Muslim powers that had occupied or culturally dominated much of the Muslim world for nearly 200 years, and vindicated Islam as the religion favored by God that would eventually come to govern the entire world, in the view of radical Islamic extremists.

We should be very careful about tasking the CIA with lethal activities in Afghanistan, or anywhere else for that matter, because of the unintended and unforeseen consequences that can arise from those actions.

U.S. Foreign Policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan So Tragically Wrong

U.S. Secretary of State Tillerson made quick stops (for security reasons) in Kabul, Afghanistan and Islamabad, Pakistan this week as part of the implementation of the Trump Administration’s new South Asia policy that was announced in August.

It’s a policy that is tragically wrong because it is based on false assumptions, incorrect facts, and contains nothing new that hasn’t already been tried in America’s longest war in history.  If this is the “new” policy, we Americans can count on remaining in Afghanistan forever.

Secretary Tillerson made a “secret” three-hour stop in Afghanistan where he met with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani on the U.S. main military facility at Bagram Airbase just north of Kabul.  It was apparently too risky for Tillerson to travel to Kabul city itself to meet the President, and Tillerson’s overall stop in Afghanistan was kept to under three hours to avoid rocket attacks on the U.S. base itself, as was the case when U.S. Secretary of defense visited in September.

During the short press conference that followed his meeting with President Ghani, Secretary Tillerson remarked (with a straight face) that: “Afghanistan has come quite a distance already in terms of creating a much more vibrant population, a much more vibrant government, education system, a larger economy… so there are opportunities to strengthen the foundations of a prosperous Afghanistan society.”

Really?

I have spent ten years in Afghanistan managing failed U.S. nation-building programs.  the U.S. has spent more on Afghanistan’s reconstruction than it did on the “Marshal Plan” to rebuild Western Europe after World War II and reconstructing Afghanistan has been the largest expenditure to rebuild a single country in our nation’s history.

The result is Afghanistan continues to be at war as it has been for 40 years (1978-2018), is the second most corrupt country on the planet, produces 90% of the world’s opium, 70% of its population is illiterate, the unemployment rate is 25%, GDP is falling, Afghan civilians and military killed in the conflict is at all-time high, Afghans are the second largest ethnic group migrating to Europe illegally, the Taliban control nearly half the country, and the 2014 Presidential election was so fraught with voter fraud that no one could tell who won the election.  The result is an illegitimate government brokered into existence by the U.S., sustained by massive amounts of foreign aid money, and propped up by the occasional drone strike.  It appears that there are indeed many, “…opportunities to strengthen the foundations of a prosperous Afghanistan society.”  It is a tragedy that we continue to mislead ourselves about what has been accomplished and what is even possible in Afghanistan.

Secretary Tillerson next stopped in Islamabad, Pakistan for a few hours (for security reasons) to meet with the new Pakistani Prime Minister, Abbasi.   Like every U.S. Secretary of State since 9/11, Tillerson made the same speech: “Pakistan is so important regionally to our joint goals of providing peace and security to the region and providing opportunity for greater economic relationship", i.e. stop funding and supporting terrorist groups and we will give you more aid money. (The U.S. has given Pakistan $1.1 billion in aid since 2001.)  The Prime Minister’s Response was also the same as it has been since 9/11, “The U.S. can rest assured that we are strategic partners in the war against terror...”  Of course they are.

The Pakistani military intelligence service (ISI) created the Taliban in 1994.  They continue to support, provide safe havens in Pakistan, provide weapons and tactics training, and in some cases actually lead Taliban military operations inside Afghanistan targeted against American soldiers.  Regardless of what the civilian politicians in the Pakistani Government (like the Prime Minister) may want or think, Pakistan’s foreign and security policy is firmly controlled by the ISI.  The ISI will never stop supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan or other terrorist groups in Kashmir or India as long as the ISI believes these groups serve the larger strategic purpose as “allies” against the inevitable war with India, with whom it has already fought three wars since 1947.

Pakistan is a state supporter of terrorism in South Asia and should be labeled as such.  Pakistan gave shelter to Osama Bin Laden for ten years after 9/11 and continues to “host” dozens of terrorist groups, some of which are controlled by the ISI, that conduct cross-border operations in Afghanistan, and Indian Kashmir.

Mr. Tillerson was unfortunately on a “fool’s errand” during his trip to South Asia to implement a failed foreign policy that has not substantially changed since 9/11.

Trump’s Afghanistan Strategy is More of the Same

Like most Americans I listened closely to President Trump’s speech Monday night hoping to hear a different U.S. strategy towards Afghanistan. Maybe I listened a little more closely than others because I worked in Afghanistan for ten years managing civilian “nation-building” programs between 2003 and 2016.  Unfortunately, the strategy is more of the same and additional troops are now headed for Afghanistan.  This speech could have been given by Barack Obama or George Bush, and probably was.  All this tells me (and us) that America’s longest war in history is going to continue endlessly into the future with the same miserable results.

Sixteen years’ investment of blood and treasure in Afghanistan has taken its toll on the U.S. with little to show for it. The January 2017 quarterly report of the Special Inspector General’s for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) issued to U.S. Congress summarized that:

--Since 2001, 2247 U.S. military personnel have died and more than 20,000 have been wounded.

--The U.S. has spent more on Afghanistan’s reconstruction than it did on the “Marshal Plan” to rebuild Western Europe after World War II.

--Reconstructing Afghanistan has been the largest expenditure to rebuild a single country in our nation’s history.

The President’s “new” five-point strategy includes the following:

1.     A “conditions-based approach” which means our continued involvement there will be determined by the actual improved situation on the ground, not a time table.  What this means is that more U.S. troops will now be sent to Afghanistan indefinitely, despite President Obama’s authorized the deployment of 100,000 troops to Afghanistan in 2010-2011, with little effect.  The result of that deployment is that the Taliban now control nearly half the country.

2.     The “integration of all instruments of American power--diplomatic, economic, military—toward a successful outcome” that is intended to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table.  This approach was tried under the Obama Administration when it’s was called “All Government Approach.”  Again, the intent was to bring all American resources to bear on strengthening the Afghan government and military to change the momentum of the war.  But according to comments made in May by the U.S. National Director of Intelligence, Daniel Coats, conditions in Afghanistan will “continue to deteriorate” because of the Afghan government’s “political dysfunction and ineffectiveness.”

3.     More pressure will be brought against Pakistan to stop supporting the Taliban.  This has been part of the strategy of both Presidents Bush and Obama ever since 9/11, and hasn’t worked.  Pakistan created, supports, and directs the Taliban because it is part of Pakistan’s overriding strategy to create a “friendly” government in Afghanistan that would support Pakistan in any future war with India.

4.     Ask India to do more in Afghanistan.  India is already a major economic development partner with the Afghan government and in the past year has also started to provide significant military support.  This is not going to turn things around for the dismal performance of the Afghan military, and will only cause Pakistan to increase its support for the Taliban to prevent its deadly enemy (India) from gaining ground there.

5.     Change the “rules of engagement” for the U.S. military so they can more aggressively target the Taliban.  Again, in 2010-2011 we had over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan.  With President’s Trump’s plan to add another 4000 to the 8400 already there, it is hard to imagine how this is going to make any difference no matter how aggressive their rules of engagement might be.

The one encouraging phrase I heard in the President’s speech was, “we are not nation-building again.” I think most Americans have forgotten (and maybe the President has too) that our involvement in Afghanistan is not just military, it’s also civilian nation-building.  The U.S. has spent about $115 billion on civilian reconstruction programs alone through the U.S. Agency for International Development since 2002, all the things I did for ten years which mostly failed to achieve their objectives.  Will this continue?

I am very pessimistic about Afghanistan’s future and our continuing ill-fated involvement there.

Between A Rock and a Hard Place

The first foreign policy “crisis” that the next U.S. President will face when he or she takes office on January 20th, 2017 will be Afghanistan.

After 15 years of intense U.S. support including $115 billion for direct civilian and security (military and police) assistance, the situation in 2016 has been described by one senior U.S. government official as an “eroding stalemate.”  That’s optimistic.  We are losing whatever has been achieved there and the Afghan government is slowly collapsing under the Taliban onslaught and its own ineptitude driven by corruption.  (The actual “total cost of war and reconstruction” has been estimated to be $783 billion by the Cost of War project at Brown University.)

On October 30th the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR), released its 33rd quarterly report to the U.S. Congress on the status of the U.S.-funded reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.  As the report summarizes,  

“The insurgency is the most immediate and visible threat to a viable central government in Afghanistan.  The less-dramatic and slower-acting, but still existential, threat is the corroding effect of corruption, which diverts money from vital purposes, undermines security and public services, saps the economy, erodes public trust and support, and in varied ways nourishes the insurgency. Like the insurgency, corruption is an enemy that can be hard to pin down and difficult to defeat.” 

Indeed.  The Taliban control more territory now than at any time since their overthrow in 2001 with the Afghan Government controlling only two thirds of the country.  Since January 2016 the Taliban have contested five provincial capitals, carried out some of the largest terrorist attacks in the capitol city of Kabul, and have pressed attacks in all 34 provinces of the country with an average of 68 attacks a day.  As a result the Afghan army and police forces have incurred about 15,000 casualties so far this year with civilians suffering over 5000 casualties, the highest levels ever recorded.  An estimated 1.2 Afghans have been displaced because of the fighting and are living as refugees in their own country with another 85,000 opting to leave the country in the first six months of 2016 alone for the migrant trail to Europe. Adding to the Taliban threat, ISIS has now established itself in two eastern Afghan provinces and Al Qaida operatives are active in seven provinces according to a recent report in “The Guardian.”  With opium production also up by 43% in the country, there is no shortage of funds to fuel the insurgency and corruption.

According to a 2016 World Bank report, the social and economic gains achieved with international assistance over the last 15 years are also quickly eroding due to war and corruption. 

“Poverty, unemployment, underemployment, violence, outmigration, internal displacement, and the education gender gap have all increased, while services and private investment have decreased. High levels of crime and corruption undermine Afghanistan’s delivery of public services, deter private investment, and are the by-product of weak institutions.” 

The current U.S. administration has opted to leave 8400 troop in Afghanistan in 2016 continue in a support role to the Afghan army, down from a high of 100,000 in 2010.  On the civilian side of reconstruction the U.S. continues to pour money into the country.  At the Brussels Afghanistan “Donors Conference” in early October, the international community pledged another $15 billion in support, of which the U.S. is the largest contributor. Given the abysmal results achieved so far, isn’t it time to re-evaluate U.S. foreign policy goals in Afghanistan?  Recently a group of U.S. generals and former U.S. ambassadors to Afghanistan have announced that a “generational commitment” of assistance was still required of the American people toward Afghanistan to see it securely to the end goal of….what? 

With conditions deteriorating rapidly, I am convinced that this will be the first foreign policy crisis faced by the next U.S. president and a decision must be made.  What might their options be? 

1.     Stay the Course: 

Under this option the U.S. would continue to stave off the complete collapse of the Afghan state (as it is doing now) by providing minimal resources, both military and civilian, while hoping the Afghan army and government will improve its performance enough to hold the Taliban at bay, pursue an eventual political settlement with the Taliban, and allow for a gradual U.S. withdrawal years from now. 

The consequences of this option is essentially more of the same, i.e. lots of money expended with declining results.  The American people will not, and should not accept this. 

2.     Increase the Commitment: 

This option would basically reverse the declining commitment of the current U.S. administration and return to the early days of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan by committing whatever resources are required to not only stave off defeat, but push back the Taliban and strengthen the government to the point of self-sufficiency while pursuing a negotiated settlement with the Taliban. 

The consequences of this option would require more resources than option one and return to a strategy that has already been proven a failure.  The American people should not accept this option either. 

3.     Pull out: 

Under this option, the U.S. would change its mission in Afghanistan drastically and all but entirely pull out after 15 years of failure to achieve any lasting policy objectives there. 

The consequences of this action would result in the collapse of the Afghan military and government, and a Taliban takeover of most of the country.  It would also result in an immediate return to the civil war similar to the pre-9/11 era when the Taliban were fighting the “Norther Alliance” and other insurgent groups (funded by outside powers) for complete control of the country.  Any minimal social gains achieved over the last 15 years would evaporate, an already dismal economy would collapse, and the out migration of Afghans from the country would accelerate further.  ISIS would continue to expand its presence and Al Qaida could once again gain space for its core planning and training activities. 

Most Americans have forgotten about Afghanistan (or no longer want to hear about it) and are not aware of the ongoing costs in American lives and resources.  It’s time for the next President to make a choice and explain it to the American people.

Afghanistan and the US Elections

The first US Presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was watched by an estimated 80 million Americans on Monday night.  I’m not sure how many people outside the US watched the debate but it was reported that the Taliban watched the debate from a “secret location in Afghanistan.”  The Taliban’s spokesperson, Zabiullah Mujahid, said that,

 “We were very interested in watching, but we had hoped that Afghanistan would feature more prominently in the discussion. There was nothing of interest to us in the debate as both of them said little about Afghanistan and their future plans for the country.”

Anyone at all connected with Afghanistan should have an interest in the outcome of the US presidential elections, including the Taliban.

Unfortunately as the Taliban rightly observed Afghanistan never came up in Monday night’s debate just as it hasn’t come up in any of the primary debates. It’s curious how the longest running war in US history should not be a priority issue in the election.  Neither candidate offers any opinion or policy proposals related to Afghanistan on their websites.  How to explain this?

There was an interesting article in the New York Times recently that may offer a partial explanation.  It was entitled, “15 Year’s Into Afghan War, Americans Would Rather Not Talk About It.”  Indeed.  We are all tired, disillusioned, and battered.  I know that I am after ten years of intense professional and personal involvement.  “The result is an awkward national silence whenever Afghanistan’s chaos inevitably imposes itself on our attention, like a family pretending not to hear the troubled relative pound the Thanksgiving table.”  (That would be me.)

“The country is barely standing, the Taliban is resurgent and refugee outflows are high. The United States has assumed an unspoken role as indefinite occupier, with just enough troops to stave off Afghanistan’s implosion but not enough to make that implosion any less inevitable. The question of whether the United States should play this role has not really come up in the presidential primaries or the general campaign, partly because so few Americans want to even acknowledge it is happening.”

But it is happening, in spite of more than 2300 US soldiers killed, another 20,000 wounded, and over $115 billion in civilian foreign aid and reconstruction assistance.

On Wednesday September 28th Gulbuddin Hekmatyar of the Hezb-e-Islami insurgent group formerly allied with the Taliban and aligned of Al Qaida signed a peace agreement with the Afghan government.  Mr. Hekmatyar has been fighting with everyone in Afghanistan for nearly 40 years, i.e. the Afghan Government, the Communist party, the Soviets, the Americans, and other insurgent groups.  In the signing ceremony he commented that,

“We hope the day has come that foreign countries will not influence our country’s affairs and that peace comes.  We started negotiations with the government after almost 90 percent of foreign troops left the country.  The remaining troops will also leave the country soon.”

For once in his life, he may be right. But you wouldn’t know it from the US elections.

“Moqaamat” = Resilience

The Merriam-Webster English dictionary defines resilience as: “the ability to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens.”

In about 2004 the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC), the preeminent U.S. health surveillance and protection agency conducted an assessment of the health of the Afghan population as input into the design of the first major USAID healthcare program in Afghanistan.  I remember glancing at the report at the time and was astonished by a statistic that has been with me ever since.  The study claimed that an estimated 68% of the population suffered from some form of mental illness, most predominantly Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which the Mayo Clinic defines as, “a mental health condition that's triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event.”  Given that Afghanistan has been in a continuous state of war for 38 years (1978-2016), the longest running armed conflict of any country in modern history, the fact that 68% of the population suffers from mental distress is not surprising.  What IS surprising is the unexpected resilience of the Afghan people and why that should be.  Why do kids gather together in a ruined school to teach eachother how to read?  What is it that has not been entirely extinguished that leads those kids to that “school”?

While PTSD is a relatively new label to decsribe the psychological effects of war and terror that have stalked us all in the 21st century, I have to believe its actually as old as the human race.  War and terror have been around a long time.  The everyday wounds we inflict on one another are part of the landscape of human history and our lives.  Those wounds don’t go away, but they are somehow overcome by many of us. We move forward sustained by something.

Everyone of my Afghan friends and colleague have been affected by war.  There is no family, no individual that has not been “touched by evil.”  I remember when I first came back to Afghanistan in 2003 I was living in a small apartment and the man who served as the “chowkidar” or guard for the property lived below me in a room with one of his teenage sons.  As we got to know one another (a chance for me to practice my rusty Dari) he shared the travails of his life and his family through the years of war.  At one point he lifted the tee shirt his son was wearing during one of our conversations to show the scars that ran from the boy’s neck to below his stomach.  He explained that during the civil war in the mid-90’s when one of the combatants was raining rockets indiscriminantly down on the city from the surrounding hills, one of them landed on their house killing three family members instantly and severly wounding the boy who was four years old at the time.  The boy was lucky to surrvive.  Yet, this man and his son were among some of the happiest people I’ve ever met in this country and were thriving making plans for the son’s education and the marriage of another son.  But I know that other’s have not fared so well and have never recovered from the “bad things” that have happended to them and their families.

There was an interesting article recently in the New York Times that featured the struggles of an entire town over the decades of war in Afghanistan.  The town is Istalif which is situated northwest of Kabul and has been famous for its unique blue pottery for over a thousand years.

The article cites Istalif’s reputation for “resilience” because of its ability to survive and resurrect itself after repeated ravaging by one invader after another for a millennium, and more recently from 38 years of war.  During the Taliban incursions into the area in the late 1990’s, the article claims that that artisans buried their tools and fled believing that they would eventually come back to pick up their lives.  According to one shopkeeper interviewed, “We were not going to give up.  This has been our past and will be our future. My grandfather started this shop and my son will continue the business.”

People in the West who have the luxory to spend their lives studying and researching such things as “resilience” have identified a few key factors that can sustain us through the tragedies that befall all of us at some point in our lives.  I have seen all of these strategies for resilience practiced and lived by Afghan friends and colleagues over the years:

·       “A sense of future possibilities and positive expectations no matter what happens.”

·       “Achieving small goals every day that gives a sense of self confidence and efficacy, i.e. sometimes all you can do is keep breathing and put one foot in front of the other”

·       “A sustaining network of family and friends”

·       “A sense of ultimate meaning and purpose derived from a deep spirituality”

Are We Happy?

In its 2015 edition of annual “Survey of the Afghan People” The Asia Foundation posed this question to 9,586 Afghans:

“In general in your life, would you say you are very happy, somewhat happy, not very happy, or not happy at all?”

I’m not sure how I would answer that question myself, and would likely respond by asking, “About what? When? Who are you and why are you asking this question?”

But, apparently the Afghans interviewed weren’t as confused as I would have been and 74.9% of them responded that they were either “very happy” or “somewhat happy.” I’ll leave it to you to guess what the difference is between being “very happy” as opposed to “somewhat happy”, or what that actually means and why it matters.

I recently passed through Dubai and happened to catch an article on the front page of the “Gulf News” that reported that his Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai (you got to love this guy’s title) is so concerned about the happiness of his subjects that he designated six government officials as “National Happiness Officers” and sent them off to the U.S. to study happiness at some university or other.  There is no emoji to express my reaction to that.

All this concern with citizen’s happiness seems to be part of an international trend to measure a nation’s well-being by gauging the state its citizens’ happiness.  In the introduction to the 2016 “World Happiness Report” (yes there is such a thing) published by the U.N. it states that, “Increasingly, happiness is considered to be the proper measure of social progress and the goal of public policy” and offers up the official OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-Being.  Are you ready for this?

 “Subjective well-being encompasses three different aspects: cognitive evaluations of one’s life, positive emotions (joy, pride), and negative ones (pain, anger, worry). While these aspects of subjective well-being have different determinants, in all cases these determinants go well beyond people’s income and material conditions... All these aspects of subjective well-being should be measured separately to derive a more comprehensive measure of people’s quality of life and to allow a better understanding of its determinants (including people’s objective conditions). National statistical agencies should incorporate questions on subjective well-being in their standard surveys to capture people’s life evaluations, hedonic experiences and life priorities.”

Yikes!

The good news is that the 2016 report ranks Afghanistan 154th out of 157 countries on the “Happiness Scale”, just above Togo and just below Benin.  This is far better than where Transparency International rates Afghanistan on its annual “Corruption Index Scale” which is 166th out of 168 countries, and which is the source of so much angst and hand wringing on the part of the international community that keeps Afghanistan afloat.  According to the “Happiness Scale” the Government of Afghanistan is actually doing okay (at least better than Togo) by its citizens’ thank you and all you foreigners should just ease up on all this negative talk about corruption and focus more on the happiness the Afghan Government is producing for its citizens.

When I was a kid and whenever my Mother sensed some unhappiness in me, she would just tell me to “go outside and play.”  And she was right.  My happiness almost always came back.  She didn’t need OECD guidelines to figure out what was wrong with me or how to fix it.  I’m all grown up now (most of the time), but it’s still good advice for all of us.  And, apparently the Afghans are listening when their Government tells them to just “go outside and play.”

I

Tourism in Afghanistan

There was an interesting report on the BBC this morning.  Maybe you saw it?

“Militants have attacked a convoy of foreign tourists in west Afghanistan, injuring six and their Afghan driver.”

A spokesman for the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

The unsuspecting tourists were made up of eight from the U.K, three from the U.S. and one German. They were on the “Duck and Cover Tour” travelling west from Bamyian to Herat with their tour guide and had stopped for a game of mini-golf and a light set menu lunch (included in the tour package) that was comprised of soup, one Kabob (goat or chicken), white rice, melon for dessert, and one glass of wine (red or white), no substitutions please.  The German insisted on beer and was the only one uninjured in the attack.

The colorful tour brochure promised that,

“Afghanistan is steadily regaining its past reputation as a beautiful country with hospitable people, and is a popular destination for its unique culture and diverse terrain. Recent travelers often remark that Afghanistan’s historical legacy and stark landscape is the initial reason they visit. However, they leave with a newfound respect for the enduring spirit of the people.

A spokesperson for the Army, Colonel Najibullah Najib said that,

"We have transported all of [the injured] to our medical facility by helicopters and none of the injuries are critical.  I don't know their nationalities, but there were 11 foreigners including six men and five women.  One of the men, smelling of beer, remained behind at the lunch stop."

American-Afghans

The unofficial involvement of America and Afghanistan goes back a long ways, to the 1830’s to be exact when an American (and it’s difficult to know what to call this guy) by the name of Josiah Harlan became the “Prince of Ghor” Province.  Really?

Harlan who was born into a Quaker family in Pennsylvania found himself in Calcutta, India in the 1820’s while representing his father’s import-export business.  He decided not to return to the U.S. for some reason, but instead presented himself to the British-Indian Army as a “surgeon” (he wasn’t) and served with the British Army in the colonial wars in Burma in the mid-1820’s.  Tiring of taking orders in the Army, which I empathize with completely, Harlan traveled to the Punjab and served in the Sikh imperial administration of Ranjit Singh as the Governor of Gujarat Province in the early 1830’s!  He somehow came to be acquainted with the Afghan King in exile Shah Shuja and found himself traveling to Afghanistan via Peshawar and Kabul to visit with the then ruling King, and rival of Shah Shuja, Dost Muhammad.

Now for the “Prince of Ghor” part of the story.  Dost Muhammad entrusted Harlan with the leadership of a military expedition to Ghor province where a slave trader was wreaking havoc on the local Hazara population and more importantly refusing to pay tribute to the King.  Haraln showed up at the mud fort of the slave trader with about two thousand troops and himself riding an elephant. Harlan’s guys turned the fort into rubble with their artillery and embarked on 10 days of feasting to celebrate their victory at the end of which, Harlan was named the “Prince of Ghor” in perpetuity.

Harlan returned to the U.S. circa 1840 and wrote a book (don’t we all.)  He later convinced the U.S. Army to create a “Camel Corps” and attempted to import camels from Southwest Afghanistan for the purpose.  The U.S. Camel Corps was later disbanded in 1863 and the camels released into the American southwestern desert. 

I am proud to follow in the “American-Afghan” tradition although I have only ridden a camel once and am no Prince, not even close.

I first became involved in Afghanistan in graduate school where I studied Islamic History and Persian, and did an obscure Master’ thesis on the “Baburnama”, the autobiography of a 16th century Afghan King who went on to become the first Mughal Emperor of what is today India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

By the grace of God I found employment with the U.S. State Department which was deeply involved in confronting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.  I found myself as a very Junior Political Officer who spoke halting Dari supporting the Afghan resistance fighters (Mujahedin) for most of the 1980’s until the Soviets gave up (but that’s another bizarre story even though I did not get to ride an elephant over the Hindu Khush mountains like Harlan, just a jeep in Peshawar.)

I have had the privilege of playing a small role in supporting the rebuilding of Afghanistan from 2003 until now working alongside my Afghan friends and colleagues, and the even greater honor of being referred to sometimes as an “American-Afghan.”  Thanks guys, but where’s my Elephant?

Afghanistan: Corruption = Insecurity

Afghanistan is perceived to be the second most corrupt country in the world according to the annual index compiled by Transparency International, i.e. second from the bottom out of 167 countries.

Most Afghans state that corruption is the third largest problem facing their country, according to a 2015 survey conducted by the Afghan Institute of Strategic Studies (AISS). The same survey found that 77% of Afghans do not trust their government because of the corruption they face when trying to obtain basic public services and another 86% believe that corruption disproportionately affects the poor who cannot afford to pay the bribes in order to receive public services.  The survey further revealed that 79% of Afghans believe there is no will in the Afghan government to seriously fight corruption and 90% believe that as corruption increases, so does insecurity.

Why would the Afghan citizens support a government that routinely robs them every day?  Especially when the very government from which they seek basic public services and which campaigned to end corruption, has itself come into existence as a result of massive voter fraud.  There is probably no more blatant example of corruption than a government stealing an election from its own people.  The result is an illegitimate government brokered into existence by foreign powers and sustained by lots of money and propped up by the occasional drone strike.

The Taliban insurgency that plagues Afghanistan is driven in part by public grievance against corruption.  The use of social media, e.g. Face Book, Twitter, YouTube, etc. has increased dramatically in Afghanistan and the narrative that the current government is corrupt and must be removed violently is the third most common theme broadcast by the Taliban to justify its cause and attract new recruits.  Just as people’s perception of corruption as a problem in their daily life has increased to 89% of the population, so have the Taliban come to increase their control of more territory than at any time since their fall in 2001.

Let’s personalize this a bit.  I head an international organization in Afghanistan that is subject to Afghan taxation, which the Afghan government sorely needs.  We have been trying to pay our taxes at the Ministry of Finance every week for the past three months to no avail.  Every time we show up to pay our taxes there is some new issue, e.g. the forms need new numbering, the computer system is down, you tax case manager is out today.  This is what’s called, “administrative corruption”, where slowdowns and obstacles are placed in your way until you “pay something extra” just to get your service.  According to the AISS survey, it’s what is experienced by 64% of the Afghan population whereby:

“…government employees try to show difficulties and complications for their administrative tasks in order to receive a bribe.”

I wonder if I would have an easier time paying taxes to the Taliban?

It’s all a sad dilemma, trending in the wrong direction, with no good way out, that will end badly.

“A Clash of Civilizations”

In 1998 Harvard Political Scientist Samuel Huntington released a book entitled “The Clash of Civilizations.”  His premise was that the previous world order of the Cold War which was based on the identity and conflict of political ideologies would be replaced in the 21st century by new primary identities of culture and religion that would lead to conflict.

While severely criticized and debated at the time (that’s what academics do for a living) I believe his thesis has been borne out in Afghanistan.  I have seen it and experienced it every day in my ten years here.  Afghanistan is on the front lines of the clash of civilizations.

The intense and expensive development effort carried out in Afghanistan by the western nations since 2001 has inevitably been shaped and driven by western cultural values.  These are assumed to be “universal” values that are now the globalized “norm” that all people aspire to.  These are so embedded in our western worldview that we don’t even think of them, kind of like the unseen wood frames that hold up the houses (and civilization) we live in.  I’m talking about things like democracy, elections, constitutions, legislatures, individualism, gender equity (and now choice), basically the freedom to choose and define who you will be apart from any constraints, and above all secularism. 

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines “secularism” as,

“The belief that religion should not play a role in government, education, or other public parts of society.  Indifference to or rejection or exclusion of religion and religious considerations in public life.”

Sound Familiar?

The Afghan culture and people by and large are not secular and the clash of civilizations here is between secularism and theism.  Again, defined by Merriam-Webster as,

“The belief in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of the human race and the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world.”

I can’t think of two more fundamentally opposed belief systems that motivate such radically different attitudes and behaviors that result in the “clash.”

The Taliban fight to restore God’s law as represented in the Sharia in Afghanistan.  It’s a complete social, political, and moral order ordained by God as revealed through His Prophet and preserved in the Quran.  Elections, parliaments, individualism, humanly concocted laws and conventions are not part of the deal.  Who wants to argue with God!  Apparently the designers of western aid and development schemes do and they are paying the piper, so perhaps they can call the tune?  But, it’s not working.  After all 62% of Afghans say that religious scholars should be involved in politics and 67% say that they should be consulted on what’s acceptable change.

This clash plays out daily among the Afghans who themselves are sometimes divided between the two world views, and their western co-workers in the many international aid organizations working in Afghanistan.

When I served as the Country Director of a large international organization here there was some polarization among the Afghan and international staff along the “civilizational” fault line that was interesting to observe.  One of my senior Afghan Program Directors in the office was a former Taliban government official and a former “Mujahedin” resistance fighter from the time of the Soviet occupation in the 1980’s.  He had lost part of his right hand while making bombs for the “Jihad.”  He was also a trained religious scholar (Alim) and prayer leader (Imam) who served as our connection into the world of religious leaders and scholars with whom we were attempting development programming.  Being an older man who dressed in traditional fashion with turban and a long beard who carried himself as a religious leader, he naturally became the symbol of Islamic propriety in the office which is where the clash erupted.  

The “Imam” and the like-minded staff who coalesced around him took it upon themselves to reprimand other staff for not dressing in an Islamic enough fashion at the office and some of the women for not wearing “hijab” the traditional head covering.  In one case, he convened a “Jirga” a traditional council (comprised of men) to reprimand a female and male staff member for working alone in an office together with the door closed.  Islam has a deeply embedded principle of “commanding good and forbidding evil” which gives people license to critique others on the perceived correctness of their religious observance and zeal.  Islam is very much about group salvation.  If you wander off the path it affects us all.

This is where it ended and the “Imam” was let go along with some of his followers.  We were an international (read secular) organization working in Afghanistan not an Afghan organization, and therefore governed by western conventions of employee behavior.  In this instance secularism won out.

It’s unfortunate, because I understood him and what he represented.  I don’t know what happened to him.  The last I heard he had travelled to Cairo, Egypt to attend the world-renown Islamic University of Al Ahzar for advanced training in religious studies.  Others have said that he re-joined the Taliban in a political role, but has long since given up bomb making.

“We Condemn These Attacks in the Strongest Possible Terms”

Afghanistan has been at war for 38 years (1978-2016) and counting, the longest running armed conflict in modern history with no end in sight.  Just yesterday Taliban suicide bombers struck a bus convoy of newly commissioned police officers on the outskirts of Kabul killing 32 and wounding another 53.  “Residents in Qala Haider Khan, where the incident happened, have said that they were still collecting body pieces of victims that had been flung far from the blast site.  They also thought the casualty toll was higher than that issued by the government”  “Two women were begging here, but they were killed and I saw their bodies, one eyewitness said.”

Pretty routine stuff these days as are the inane and predictable pronouncements that follow from foreign embassies and international organizations operating here who all, “condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms.”  Tough response.  I’m not sure how much more of this “condemning in the strongest possible terms” the Taliban can take.  Surely they are close to being driven from the battlefield to the negotiating table?

It’s hard to say who the Taliban actually are these days with increasing defection from the security forces to the opposition and the general ambivalence within the ranks of the government’s own security forces.  According to a recent poll conducted by the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies among the Afghan police, 68% believe corruption is rampant with the police forces and 72% said resisting a corrupt government is justified.  Another 83% believe that armed resistance is justified against those who criticize Islam.  All this points to a likely “inside job” that planned and executed yesterday’s attack against the police cadets.

This is a miserably failed government and society on every measurable scale and level that has been eating itself alive for 38 years and is again plunging into total chaos.

“Most of the country, including several provincial capitals, is threatened by the Taliban, even as the insurgency devolves into a network of narco-criminal enterprises. In sixty per cent of Afghanistan’s three hundred and ninety-eight districts, state control doesn’t exist beyond a lonely government building and a market. Al Qaeda and the Islamic State have established a presence in the east. Afghanistan can’t police its borders, and its neighbors give sanctuary and assistance to insurgents.  Afghanistan’s finances depend on foreign aid and opium. Corruption is endemic. After the departure of a hundred and twenty-seven thousand foreign troops, in 2014, the economy collapsed, unemployment soared, and hundreds of thousands of Afghans abandoned the country.” New Yorker, July1, 2016.

For 15 years after 9/11 the U.S. and other NATO countries who perceived themselves to have something at stake in Afghanistan have poured money, development expertise, and military resources into this country in an attempt to nudge it onto a path of some stability to little effect.  It’s actually gotten worse in many respects and the current government is likely to collapse this year because of gross ineptitude, lack of leadership in the Office of the President, and corruption.

Once again in an annual ritual NATO will meet in a few days in Warsaw to review its policy and military commitments to Afghanistan.  The Assistant U.S. Secretary of State said of the conference and of NATO that, “We will sustain our commitment to Afghanistan, including making a pledge of additional three years financial support to Afghan security forces through 2020.”  But no one has any enthusiasm for this anymore.  As NATO and the U.S. back away quickly from Afghanistan we will continue to pay the salaries of the poor souls that were killed on that bus yesterday and continue to “condemn these attacks in the strongest possible terms” from afar.

Preserving the Faith

All Afghans are Muslims. Well…most Afghans, I know a few who in private deny any faith at all.  We do have a small Sikh community of long ago Indian origin in Kabul and one sole surviving Jewish Rabi (after his brother died a few years ago) who is the care taker of the last remaining functioning synagogue in the country dating from a time when Afghanistan actually had a vibrant, but tiny, Jewish community spread across a few major cities.

History can be viewed through a lot of interesting lenses, i.e. political, economic, military, social, etc.  But Afghanistan’s history, in particular its interaction with the outside world, can never be understood without viewing it through the eyes of its religious leaders who sought to preserve the Faith from what they perceived as an assault of alien, non-Muslim values, laws, and political systems.

The 19th and early 20th century saw an onslaught of European occupation and rule over the Muslim world in general starting with Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798 and ending with the French and British occupation of what is today Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq after the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire after the first World War. By 1920, most of the Muslim world was ruled by Christian European countries from Morocco to Egypt and further south into Africa including Nigeria, Sudan and Somalia, and across the Middle East, Central Asia, British India and further East into Malaysia and Indonesia. It’s estimated that nearly 90% of the world’s Muslims were living under alien rule by European Governments.

Afghanistan avoided foreign occupation in the 19th century as “The Great Game” left it a diplomatically declared buffer state between British India to the South and Imperial Russia to the North.  It was, however, invaded twice by British armies from India in 1839 and 1878.  Aside from the usual Machiavellian power plays between the British and a variety of Afghan royal princes vying for the throne in Kabul, it was the religious leaders call for “Jihad” against an alien, non-Muslim invader in order to preserve “The Faith” that ultimately rallied the Afghan population to prevent permanent occupation. It was these “Mad Mullahs” as the Brits called them that saved Afghanistan from occupation by “kaffirs” (unbelievers.)

While alien armies could be kept at bay, ideas were harder to stop at the borders.  As the 20th century began, some of the gadgets (and the ideas that spawned them) from Europe including the telegraph, newspapers, modern weapons, talk of a constitution and a parliament, etc. trickled into Afghanistan, or at least into Kabul.  It was the Afghan King Amanullah who imported these things full throttle.  He drafted Afghanistan’s first constitution, tried to implement girls education, abolish the purdah (full veil for women in public), and declared that all government employees must wear western style pants, hats, and suits.  His fatal confusion of “westernization” with “modernization” provoked the religious leaders who declared the King a kaffir and preached “Jihad” against him.  He was deposed in 1929 in order to preserve the Faith from assault by alien ideas and adulteration.

If we fast forward to 1978 and the internal communist revolution and the Soviet occupation that followed, we see the same attempt to introduce radical change into Afghan culture and society undergirded by the “scientific atheism” of communism.  The reforms included land redistribution, abolition of the "bride price", co-education for men and women, etc.  It didn’t take.  The reforms immediately provoked an armed resistance lasting ten years and supported by the call to Jihad from religious leaders of all stripes in order to preserve the Faith, among other motivations.

Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Afghanistan has once again been subject to reform imposed from the outside world designed to "help"...

  “…Afghanistan become a more responsible and integrated member of the region and the world. Afghanistan has made significant progress towards rebuilding its political system and institutions.  Political participation – especially among women – is growing. Since 2001, Afghanistan has adopted a new constitution; organized presidential, parliamentary, and provincial council elections; established Ministries to deliver services to the Afghan people; and, developed a vibrant media and committed civil society.”

It all sounds (and looks) unassuming, non-ideological, and certainly religiously neutral, but it’s not. At least as perceived by Afghanistan’s religious leaders who have been largely ignored and left out of this intense development project over the last 15 years.  For many of them, this is the latest secular assault on the culture and the Faith; and for the western nations implementing these latest development schemes it is simply the inevitable process of dragging Afghanistan into the banality of a globalized and secular world that ignores the Faith that defines Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is on the fault line in the struggle between Faith and aggressive secularism.  The western backed reforms attempted in Afghanistan over the last 15 years have provoked resistance, some of it actively violent as promoted by the Mullahs of the Taliban, and other forms of resistance that are more subtle.  It remains be seen how this latest encounter will ultimately unfold, but the guardians of the Faith in Afghanistan cannot, and should not, be ignored in the change process.

Rishwat Khor, Kheshwar Khor “Eat a bribe, eat a country”

Corruption is eating Afghanistan alive.

According to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) survey conducted in 2012, half of Afghan citizens paid a bribe while requesting a public service and the total cost of bribes paid to public officials amounted to US$ 3.9 billion.  This is an increase of 40 per cent between 2009 and 2012.

In another survey conducted by The Asia Foundation in 2015, 89% of Afghans surveyed said that corruption is a problem in their daily life.  Yet, according to the UNDOC survey:

“While corruption is seen by Afghans as one of the most urgent challenges facing their country, it seems to be increasingly embedded in social practices, with bribery being an acceptable part of day-to-day life. For example, 68 per cent of citizens interviewed in 2012 considered it acceptable for a civil servant to top up a low salary by accepting small bribes from service users (as opposed to 42 per cent in 2009).

How is it that 89% say corruption is a problem, yet 68% say it’s OK for a public servant to ask for a bribe? How is it that corruption becomes so embedded in the daily life of a culture that it becomes the norm and is simply expected?  

I had lunch recently with a good Afghan friend who is a former Ambassador to a Western country and he related how another former Afghan Ambassador was bragging to him that same day how he embezzled $500,000 while serving in his embassy post.  According to my friend Afghan officials talk openly about their involvement in corruption and compare amounts that they have stolen, ridiculing those who have grabbed less than they could. 

Afghanistan, being the centralized state that it is, provides very modest health care to all of its citizens, mainly paid for by the international aid programs of foreign donor countries like the U.S. who is the largest aid donor in the health sector having invested over $1 billion between 2002 and 2012.  Unfortunately, in 2015 53% of the population reported having had to pay a bribe to receive any health care service at government run clinics or hospitals. In a just completed corruption assessment on the Afghan Ministry of Public Health, the section headings of the report itself are entitled: embezzlement, extortion, bribery, fraud, falsification, theft of public goods, nepotism, and discrimination.  

The abuses reported include having to pay a bribe in a clinic to be seen by a doctor; having to pay a doctor before surgery is performed or a baby delivered; having to pay hospital cleaners to change the sheets on a patient’s bed; and having to pay a bribe to receive prescribed medication.  Clinic furnishings, equipment, food, and fuel are sometimes appropriated and used at employees’ homes or stolen out right and sold in the marketplace.  There have been instances of ambulances purchased with foreign aid money having been appropriated by clinic administrators for use as their own personal vehicle.  It goes sadly on.

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All of this is a ticking time bomb.  Not that Afghanistan needs anymore bombs.  But if 53% of the population has to pay a bribe to receive health care that is their right as Afghan citizens, with all the resentment that must engender, what about the other 47% who will not or cannot because of their poverty pay a bribe to receive care and are turned away?  Maybe they can report these problems to the police?  No they can’t. 53% of the population has said they have to pay a bribe when requesting police services.  How about the courts?  No luck there either.  63% say they have to pay bribes when interacting with officials in the judicial system.  So where can they turn to for justice?  Who will hear their story and act?

The Taliban are waiting to embrace them and all their rage against a corrupt government and the foreigners who prop it up.  The Taliban will advocate for their grievances in the tragic ways we have come to expect. As they say, if you “eat” a bribe, you “eat” your own country.

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Countering Violent Extremism and Why the U.S. Continually Misses the Target

Ever since the Iranian Revolution of 1978 the U.S. Government (USG), and most Americans, have been taken by surprise by the social and political upheavals that have occurred with frequency across the Muslim world that are motivated by religion. The trend has been toward escalating violence aimed not only at the “secular” west but also at moderate Muslims that is driven by religious intolerance and perceived grievance wrapped in the language of an extreme interpretation of Islam. The conflict has become global and is the defining factor of the 21st century so far.

We in the west have been taken by surprise with these developments because for the last 200 years we have persistently detached and discounted religion as a valid way of making sense of the world and as a legitimate value in organizing aspects of public life, and assumed that the rest of the world would eventually do the same. They did not.  Our secular way of looking at things has resulted in a dangerous blind spot that refuses to see or believe what our adversaries are zealously telling us in their words and actions.  As the preeminent British scholar of Islam Bernard Lewis said: “The idea that any group of persons, any kind of activities, any part of human life is in any sense outside the scope of religious law and jurisdiction is alien to Muslim thought.”

The annual “Survey of the Afghan People” conducted by The Asia Foundation finds consistently that 67% of the population of Afghanistan states that religious leaders are the most influential voices in their community and 61% who believe that religion and politics should “mix.”  What would the response rate be to those same questions if posed in the U.S., U.K., or (God forbid) in the Netherlands?

With all of the USG’s military, social, and economic interventions in the Muslim world from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria we may finally realize that something is missing.  None of these burdensome involvements have turned out as planned.  In spite of 15 years and $113 billion of military and development aid provided to Afghanistan the Taliban is winning enough “hearts and minds” to control 35%-45% of the country and ISIS is gaining supporters along with territory in the south eastern and north central parts of Afghanistan.  What are we missing here?  Not enough drones, “kinetic” military action on the ground, not enough elections, democratic institutional reform, “inclusiveness”, gender equity, rule of law, community development, or a robust and rabble rousing civil society, not enough capacity building and EU-funded international human rights advisors?  How about another “Afghan National Development Strategy” for consumption at the next international donor conference?

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A recent USG response to this “missing” element is something called “Countering Violent Extremism” (CVE) which is the attempt to prevent or dissuade groups from resorting to violence to achieve their goals. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has fashioned an approach to CVE that, “… concentrates on youth empowerment, social and economic inclusion, media and messaging, improved local governance, reconciliation, and conflict mitigation.  USAID has long recognized the critical role of development in addressing social, economic, governance, and other grievances that can fuel violent extremism or radicalization of individuals and communities.”

Are we really unable to recognize that religion can be an authentic driver of violent extremism?  Is every grievance that leads to extremist violence reduced to political, economic, and material deprivation?  Apparently so, at least officially.  The closest the USG can even come to recognizing the significance of religion in the world view of other people is by reducing it to a “cultural driver” that reflects indigenous “religious customs.” Pathetic.

“While less amenable to influence by development assistance, there are principles that should be considered to address cultural drivers, for example, by respecting indigenous and/or religious customs.   (Missions should consult with USAID’s Regional Legal Advisor (RLA) or General Counsel (GC) in advance of programming to ensure compliance with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment concerning separation of church and state.)     USAID Manual on, “The Development Response to Violent Extremism and Insurgency.”

It’s telling that the section from the USAID manual above should caution its readers to obtain legal counsel prior to implementing programing to ensure compliance with the “Establishment Clause” of the U.S. constitution.

While serving as the Country Representative to Afghanistan for The Asia Foundation, one of the programs I had responsibility for was something called the, “Traditional Leaders Development Program.”  (Could not use the phrase “Religious Leaders” because it violated the Establishment Clause.) The program supported moderate Muslim religious leaders in their own words and voices to counter extremist views and interpretations of Islam that could lead to violence.  The successful program was discontinued after a few years by the USG out of fear of non-compliance with the Establishment Clause, which is exactly why the U.S. continually misses the target.