Could Afghanistan Become Obama’s Vietnam?
By Maryanne George ('71, M.A. '72)
Alumnus and expert David Edwards weighs in on the obstacles and opportunities.
President Barack Obama is betting his presidency on success in Afghanistan. He’s sending thousands of new American troops into the country, along with diplomats, engineers, and educators. But will his bold new strategy to stabilize Afghanistan and defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda turn the tide against terrorism, or become Obama’s Vietnam?
Aware of the parallels between Afghanistan and Vietnam, Obama says his strategy is not a blank check. But will his promise of meaningful change in the economy, health care, the environment, and education in the United States become mired in an endless war thousands of miles away?
“Frankly, it’s a crapshoot,” says alumnus David B. Edwards (M.A. ’79, Ph.D. ’86), a nationally recognized expert on the country, who supports Obama’s multi-faceted approach. “Obama is staking his presidency of the idea that he can turn things around in Afghanistan, and no one except Abraham Lincoln has entered the presidency with more problems than Obama.”
The situation is complicated because Afghanistan’s future is inextricably linked with Pakistan’s, where al Qaeda has built strongholds to train terrorists and plot attacks, says Edwards. Both countries must be dealt with together to prevent attacks in the United States and other countries. The dual threat also makes it clear why Obama must take the gamble.
Edwards, who has spent years in Afghanistan and Pakistan, discussed Obama’s strategy in a recent interview before a U-M panel discussion, co-sponsored by the Center for Russian and East European Studies and the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies.
“Either Pakistan or Afghanistan alone would be a big problem. Together, they are enormous, but the fact that they are interconnected could be a bonus,” he says. “Progress in one could help the situation in the other, and if the administration is able to find serious partners in both places—in Afghanistan, via the electoral process, and in Pakistan, within the military and elected officials—then things could improve.”
Edwards says he is cautiously optimistic that Obama’s new plan to stabilize the economic and military situation is at least slowing down Taliban activities in some parts of the country. The new strategy comes at a time when violence in Afghanistan is at its highest level in eight years and the country is preparing for crucial national elections in August.
Obama has urged other nations to get involved because the terrorist threat in the two countries is not just a problem for the United States but “an international security problem of the highest order,” Obama says.
Edwards says other nations must respond before the region devolves into chaos. Dealing with Iran’s nuclear threat must also be part of the solution.
“A destabilized Pakistan will destabilize the entire region and has the potential not merely to unleash nuclear weapons across the India-Pakistan border, but to allow them into the hands of ideological foes and highest bidders alike,” he says. “Pakistan’s nuclear weapons present a global threat and the potential for chaos in the Middle East. If you start having unstable nations with nuclear weapons and oil the result could be chaos.”
But despite the global threat, Obama received only lukewarm support during his recent trip to Europe, Edwards says. “Support for maintaining troops is fading fast, as Taliban strength increases,” he says. “It seems possible that we will have to go it alone.”
Inside Afghanistan
Obama’s approach appears to be more coherent and thought out than that of the Bush Administration, which had no strategy to stabilize Afghanistan when it invaded after the Sept. 11 attacks, Edwards says. Instead, the U.S. attempted to export a limited set of American values into a totally different culture and failed to secure the support and safety of the local population.
Edwards has spent years learning about Afghan culture and politics. He conducted research along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, and with the mujahidin resistance parties in training camps in Pakistan and behind Soviet lines in Afghanistan. After the Soviets left, infighting among the mujahidin threw the country in turmoil, he says.
Returning in 1995, he found some Afghans welcomed the Taliban because they restored order, although they imposed harsh laws. These experiences were retold in two books by Edwards, Heroes of the Age: Moral Fault Lines on the Afghan Frontier and Before Taliban: Genealogies of the Afghan Jihad. In 2003, he shot Kabul Transit, a gritty, unvarnished documentary about life in Afghanistan. In 2004, he was the co-director of an oral history training project at Kabul University. He is currently writing a book on the changing social formations of violence in Afghanistan
The Bush Administration parachuted into the country with quick fixes that failed to understand the culture or politics of the country, he says.
“Their version of nation building was to hold elections and then declare victory,” he says. “We pulled our troops out and people lacked infrastructure and economic security. Reconstruction was done on the cheap and much of the money that should have gone into infrastructure and jobs went into the pockets of contractors and corrupt officials instead. You can’t build a nation without roads, schools, medical care, and clean water. And most of all, you need a population that feels secure in their own homes and has adequate resources to provide for their basic needs.
“There has been a drift in strategy about what we want to do about leadership, and the Afghan government is regressing,” he says. “There is a lack of investment in security, and crime and corruption are on the rise. President Hamid Karzi is a weak man who has tolerated corruption and surrounded himself with ‘yes’ men.”
A Stabilizing Force
Obama’s new strategy to deal with the economic, political, and military problems in Afghanistan simultaneously has a much greater chance of success, Edwards says. But broad policy outlines must be implemented with careful attention to people’s need for food, shelter, and security. Drawing on his years of experience in the country, Edwards outlined what needs to be done.
“Most people in Afghanistan do not want the Taliban to come back. Their continued reliance on suicide bombings and IED strikes are a sign of their weakness as much as their strength,” he says. “But the government must show that they can establish order, justice, and create an environment where people can imagine their futures. One of the fundamentals of counter-insurgency is to protect people in the country. Securing the population is ultimately more important than targeting the enemy. If the population is secure, the people themselves will help push the Taliban to the margins.”
The Afghan people need “hands-on attention” from soldiers living in smaller military bases in the villages where they can establish enduring connections and trust, he says.
“We need to get soldiers into the villages to pre-empt the Taliban,” he says. “They will see us as a stabilizing force so that they can plant crops. It will also provide more opportunities for communication between the troops and the people.”
The U. S. must also turn the tide on the information war the Taliban is waging with cell phones, websites, press conferences, and Arab television networks, he says.
“Right now we are losing the information war in Afghanistan and in the United States,” he says. “We have to do a better job of communicating what we are trying to accomplish to our own people, as well as to the Afghans. Vietnam showed us that the U.S. public will not tolerate casualties in pursuit of a foreign policy objective they don’t believe in. As long as kids keep getting blown up in Humvees on dusty roads that seem to go nowhere, the public will not tolerate it. If we can show that those who are dying are not only helping the Afghans rebuild their society, but are protecting our country, their sacrifices will not be in vain.”
The photo of soldiers in Afghanistan on the LSA Wire's homepage is from Edwards' film, Kabul Transit. For information on the movie, visit www.kabultransit.net.