The current situation in Afghanistan is fundamentally different from that in Iraq, and the solutions must necessarily be different. But one thing is clear: In the long run, U.S. "boots on the ground" is not the answer in either case.
In Iraq there were no foreign terrorists, no connection with 9/11, no al-Qaeda, no Taliban and no insurgents — until we went in, wearing occupiers’ "boots on the ground." Now there are thousands of "enemy combatants," and anti-Americanism is a worldwide phenomenon, even among our former allies.
In the coming decades, history books will long ponder why the United States went into Iraq, wasting a treasure in blood and money. There are no easy answers. Let me short-cut the discussion, at the risk of over-simplification: George W. Bush went in, in order to become a "wartime" president, and to do the bidding of his mentor, Dick Cheney, who went in for Halliburton and for oil. The rest is eye-wash.
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Afghanistan is different. There actually is a usurping Taliban in Afghanistan, and a protected al-Qaeda — foreigners all — who were actually involved in 9/11. We struck for a legitimate reason. Now, if we get our boots out of Afghanistan, we will discover that, as Alexander the Great did over 2,000 years ago, and the Soviets did more recently, Afghans will get rid of foreigners. They always have.
Most of us Americans, and for that matter our un-inquisitive mainline press, know what little they do about Afghanistan from the film and book, "Charlie Wilson’s War" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003, by George Crile). It tells the story of how a maverick congressman from Texas, a Houston socialite, and rogue CIA operatives conspired in a covert operation to use U.S. taxpayer money to support the mujahedeen "freedom fighters" in their war against the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan.
The book and the film, if overblown, are basically accurate. What they both miss, however, is something I discovered firsthand when working as director of support programs for WHO in the 23 largely Islamic and Arabic-speaking countries of the Middle East, namely that the CIA in the late 1980s shifted the focus of their support from the regular mujahedeen "freedom fighters" to the more extreme splinter faction of the "talib" (teachers) in the refugee camps and "madrassas" of Pakistan and its tribal areas — operatives who are today known as "the Taliban."
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The idea was, presumably, that these extremists would put still more fanatical pressure on the occupying Soviets (with their "boots on the ground"), although in fact, as it turned out, the Taliban never attacked either the Soviet occupiers or the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul. Instead, they husbanded their U.S.-supplied weapons, training and money, and simply took over most of Afghanistan from the freedom fighters.
We heard at the time that the United States was supporting and training a renegade foreign extremist group from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, today known as al-Qaeda, and was promoting the introduction, production and trade of opium in Afghanistan, to further destabilize the Soviet occupiers. It was even rumored that the Reagan administration was training both Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives on U.S. soil.
Something that I did not know at the time, but which investigative reporter Steve Featherstone now reports in "Human Quicksand" in the September 2008 issue of Harper’s Magazine, is that in the late 1980s Osama bin Laden was actually contracted to the CIA. (There is independent evidence that this allegation is true.)
In 1986, the CIA funded the construction of a sprawling tunnel complex in the mountains around Kost, on the Southeastern border of Afghanistan with Pakistan, to shelter anti-Soviet mujahedeen. Osama bin Laden, the son of a wealthy Saudi contractor associated with Bush, father and son, was awarded the contract work.
This is all the more surprising considering that not long thereafter al-Qaeda carried out the terrorist bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Something went terribly wrong with the contractual relationship. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the underlying cause of 9/11 came down to a contract dispute?
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So, what’s the bottom line on all of this? The three principal reasons we are in Afghanistan today, namely (1) to fight al-Qaeda, (2) to fight the Taliban, and (3) to fight opium, were all originally created, promoted and funded by the U.S. government and the CIA during the Reagan and Bush administrations. Is there any possibility that these same persons can put Humpty Dumpty back together again?
The current Bush administration is clearly incompetent to deal with these complex issues. Few Americans have the intellectual and experiential capacity to understand the cultural and practical realities involved. U.S. "boots on the ground," i.e., occupation, is today the No. 1 reason why both Iraq and Afghanistan are unable to clear their territories of foreign terrorists. The militarization of U.S. foreign policy is not the answer.
The answer is to get U.S. boots out, lend practical assistance to the governments and peoples of Iraq, engage in diplomatic negotiations with the entire region, give up dreams of empire, protect our own homeland, and bring our troops home, with all the honor, care and benefits they deserve. This is the only "victory" possible.
Sharon resident Anthony Piel is a former director and legal counsel of the World Health Organization.
