February 6, 2009 Troops or infrastructure? Bullets or ballots? These questions are making the rounds in Washington and Kabul as President Obama drafts his Afghanistan policy. According to recent news reports, President Obama has decided to send 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan and to outsource the rebuilding of the country – infrastructure, human services – to European nations. Guns or butter? How to decide?
Insecurity is the dark cloud hanging over Afghanistan, and until some semblance of security is achieved, it seems unlikely that the other pieces such as paved streets, reliable electricity, clean water, new schools, and meaningful employment that pays a living wage will fall into place.
In the time I have been in Afghanistan, I have heard Afghan bodyguards, co-workers, drivers, judges, lawyers, and law professors speak about the state of Afghanistan. There is universal agreement that Afghanistan needs help. But what is needed to restore the basics of life, not to mention human rights and the rule of law? Who can help Afghanistan? Who will help Afghanistan? Is Afghanistan a failed state?
Every Afghan I have spoken with has expressed high hopes for the presidency of Barack Obama. They believe as I do that he is an agent of hope and renewal who can fix what has broken so badly through the past decades of Soviet occupation, Taliban rule, and civil strife. But where to start?
I have had this conversation with many of my Afghan friends. Invariably, they lead with a statement on insecurity. Afghanistan is a dangerous country. Even ordinary Afghans – never mind ex-pats and foreign workers – dare not walk on the streets of Kabul for fear of kidnapping. The cost of living is high and so is unemployment. Municipal services are unreliable: roads remain unpaved, Kabul does not have dependable electricity. Girls go uneducated in provinces outside of Kabul.
The discussion on insecurity leads to a question: “What do you think of President Karzai?” Here follows an informal referendum on President Hamid Karzai: he is weak, he favors his Pashtun tribe, his brother is a drug dealer, he has allowed corruption at the highest levels of his government. Many Afghans hope that a new president will be elected in this August's election and that a new administration will turn things around. But no one seems to know who the new president might be.
The cycle is clear: insecurity breeds corruption, corruption fosters poverty, poverty robs infrastructure, depleted infrastructure deprives Afghans, deprivation breeds insecurity.
One has only to drive through the upscale neighborhoods where houses the size of cruise ships bear witness to the greed and graft that Afghans claim have robbed them of a decent quality of life. Adorned with elaborate mosaic tile designs and painted in pastel pinks, greens, and yellows, many of these houses were acquired at bargain basement prices.
Insecurity is the dark cloud hanging over Afghanistan, and until some semblance of security is achieved, it seems unlikely that the other pieces such as paved streets, reliable electricity, clean water, new schools, and meaningful employment that pays a living wage will fall into place.
In the time I have been in Afghanistan, I have heard Afghan bodyguards, co-workers, drivers, judges, lawyers, and law professors speak about the state of Afghanistan. There is universal agreement that Afghanistan needs help. But what is needed to restore the basics of life, not to mention human rights and the rule of law? Who can help Afghanistan? Who will help Afghanistan? Is Afghanistan a failed state?
Every Afghan I have spoken with has expressed high hopes for the presidency of Barack Obama. They believe as I do that he is an agent of hope and renewal who can fix what has broken so badly through the past decades of Soviet occupation, Taliban rule, and civil strife. But where to start?
I have had this conversation with many of my Afghan friends. Invariably, they lead with a statement on insecurity. Afghanistan is a dangerous country. Even ordinary Afghans – never mind ex-pats and foreign workers – dare not walk on the streets of Kabul for fear of kidnapping. The cost of living is high and so is unemployment. Municipal services are unreliable: roads remain unpaved, Kabul does not have dependable electricity. Girls go uneducated in provinces outside of Kabul.
The discussion on insecurity leads to a question: “What do you think of President Karzai?” Here follows an informal referendum on President Hamid Karzai: he is weak, he favors his Pashtun tribe, his brother is a drug dealer, he has allowed corruption at the highest levels of his government. Many Afghans hope that a new president will be elected in this August's election and that a new administration will turn things around. But no one seems to know who the new president might be.
The cycle is clear: insecurity breeds corruption, corruption fosters poverty, poverty robs infrastructure, depleted infrastructure deprives Afghans, deprivation breeds insecurity.
One has only to drive through the upscale neighborhoods where houses the size of cruise ships bear witness to the greed and graft that Afghans claim have robbed them of a decent quality of life. Adorned with elaborate mosaic tile designs and painted in pastel pinks, greens, and yellows, many of these houses were acquired at bargain basement prices.
A January 2, 2009 New York Times article, “Bribes Corrode Afghans’ Trust in Government,” describes these upscale, oversize houses as “poppy houses,” suggesting that they are paid for by drug trafficking. “Nowhere is the scent of corruption so strong as in the Kabul neighborhood of Sherpur,” the article states. “Before 2001, [Sherpur] was a vacant patch of hillside that overlooked the stately neighborhood of Wazir Akbar Khan. Today it is the wealthiest enclave in the country, with gaudy, grandiose mansions….” The article goes on to say that “…the plots of land on which the mansions of Sherpur stand were doled out early in the Karzai administration for prices that were a tiny fraction of what they were worth.”
“Inexplicable Wealth of Afghan Elite Sows Bitterness,” a January 12, 2009 Washington Post article, describes “Children with pinched faces beg[ging] near the mansions of a tiny elite enriched by foreign aid and official corruption.” The article continues: “It is difficult to prove, but universally believed here, that much of this new wealth is ill-gotten. There are endless tales of official corruption, illegal drug trafficking, cargo smuggling and personal pocketing of international aid funds that have created boom industries in construction, luxury imports, security and high tech communications.”
Against these odds, every day Afghans pray for an answer to their country’s huge needs. What to do?
Former U.S. Senator George McGovern proposed in a January 22, 2009 Washington Post op-ed piece that rather than “try[ing]to put Afghanistan aright with the U.S. military…” President Obama instead call a “five-year time-out on war….” McGovern suggests that “during that interval, we could work with the U.N. World Food Program, plus the overseas arms of the churches, synagogues, mosques and other volunteer agencies to provide a nutritious lunch every day for every school-age child in Afghanistan and other poor countries.”
Guns or butter? Senator McGovern chooses butter -- "food in the stomachs of hungry kids.” My Quaker faith tugs at me. I can imagine what a nutritious lunch would mean to a hungry Afghan child. And there are too many hungry children on the streets of Kabul. But then I return to the insecurity issue, and I wonder what difference a full stomach makes if you can’t walk on the streets of Kabul?
