A Conversation about Afghanistan

My husband was talking yesterday about Afghanistan, how it was about to really blow up. Besides his ardent love of listening to NPR on various stations during his working hours, he had caught a Frontline “War Briefing” about Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Musharraf made a deal with the war lords, paid them off and got voted out of power. Bhutto got assassinated. You all know the recent history.

The real point of the show was that the influx of Extremist Muslims to the area from all over the Islamic world determined to make it an Islamic State has made it volatile.

Here’s where our conversation got interesting.
We segued into all the Wars the US has failed in, for a lack of understanding of the People we were trying to influence.

“Like in Vietnam, where the villagers welcomed us during the day, and were all VC after dark” he started, “in Afghanistan, the Taliban also will retaliate against anyone who aids us, much as the VC did in Vietnam. It is impossible to know who is your enemy.”

I went into why we shouldn’t be intervening in sovereign nations in the first place, let them have their country the way they want to.

After talking about why they intervene (greed usually) he started on the meme that these people actually DO hate us, a position chronicled by Arthur Gilroy’s own trip to the middle east last year.

“They really do hate us Diane, that’s where NY came from, not Iraq, not anywhere else. The rest just want to grow their Poppies in peace. Or whatever. There is an Islamic Taliban that wants America dead.”

You mean the Poppies we poisoned, along with whole villages, or Charlie Wilson’s war, or the Saudis that were flying the planes? Which “enemy”? We create enemies, and if we leave them alone, and they can live as they choose, perhaps in a generation that resentment will die away.

We armed them, for fucks sakes, to fight with Russia, we gave them rocket launchers instead of throwing rocks. Then we stayed.

Then I dared to say aloud the things few people will.

Why is it so problematic for a country to want an Islamic State, yet its ok for there to be a Jewish State?  Especially for Americans, who have tried so hard to make this a Christian State?

Secondly, perhaps they hate us because we have interfered so much in the Middle East for ages, and are stationed in their Holy Places. Would Catholics want Taliban stationed in Rome? Would Sarah Palin not protest a head shop and a strip club going up next to her church? Thats how they view us in their regions.

We prop up dictators (House of Saud, anyone?) who make their Faustian bargains with us (Saddam Hussein, anyone) and them take them down (The Shah, anyone?) when we no longer need/want them.

Perhaps if we pulled out and left them the fuck alone, we wouldn’t even be on their radar screens?

Apparently I am much too simplistic.

My husband started again on how that whole region has been run by “sects” “war lords” and “nomadic groups” forever, who will never get along.

Think about how very Exceptionalist those quoted terms are, how derogatory. In a region with little resources, perhaps living in smaller, communal groups is a good thing. We Americans look back now and romanticize Native Americans for living exactly like that.  

Who are WE to say how THEY should live? Just as the Vietnamese mostly didn’t give a fuck about a centralized government there, just wanted to live in their villages unmolested, perhaps we just don’t get that these people too have a right to live as they choose.

Let them work out their own fights, much as the US did in our own Civil War(s).

Still too simplistic, me.

Its the oil. It will be years before we have any kind of non-reliance on it.

Seriously, I countered, if we could put a man on the moon with all our collective will, brightest minds, resources and the government supporting it in a few short years with brand new technology; could we not produce gazillions of windmills with technology we already have, tapping into a system of dispersal we already have in place, in 3 or 4 years?

Its not rocket science. Literally. Its a scaffold, some gears, fins and a generator. Think of all the people we could put to work making them and maintaining them. Electricity, done.

Sure transportation is the biggest issue, and we are probably 15 years out from trucking being electric.

Could we not make it mandatory in that amount of time for people to drive small electric cars, and have permits for the larger trucking industry, permits for people who need work trucks, and rental trucks for those who need to move a mattress?

It takes collective will, national support and could be done. Produced here, it would keep our assets in country and make us non-reliant on keeping patsies in the Middle East.

We need the money in oil to control the region, and we are 25-30 years away from that ever changing he thinks. The money that IS already in this country will fight the technology every step of the way.

We argued long about all those things, but that’s the framework. I still think it could be done.

I’m still too simplistic.

The United States will never abandon Israel.

Where did I mention Israel? Aren’t we talking about the “Istans”???? The “Istans” you say have inept armies, too inept to control their own people?

India, Pakistan, god knows who else all have nukes now. They hate Israel, and we will never abandon them. India and Pakistan despise each other as well. Without us, Israel would fall.

Perhaps if we quit backing Israel’s abuse of the Palestinians, their fellow Muslims, they might just leave them alone too. Perhaps if Israel treated their fellow countrymen with respect no one would hate them, either.

They hate them for the same reasons they hate us.

So there you have it:

We are fighting in the mountains of Afghanistan with winter coming on because really, Saudi Oil and Israeli genocidists say we must and we are too lazy and uncommitted to “grow our own”.

And you think I’m the simplistic one?

Heh.