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Should We Be in Afghanistan?
I'm on book tour, and even though War is not a political work, people are asking me very political questions about it. Should we be in Afghanistan? Should we pull out? What about civilian casualties?
Is there any such thing as a "good" war, or are all wars by definition evil?Is there any such thing as a "good" war, or are all wars by definition evil? There are no easy answers — I wish there were — and coming to any useful conclusion requires a person to let go of any political freight they may be carrying.
My experience in war started in Bosnia in 1993. A quarter-million civilians died in the ethnic conflict there, and the carnage finally stopped when NATO forces bombed Serb positions around Sarajevo and forced a rough peace. The triggering event was when Serb militias machine-gunned seven thousand men and young boys into pits after overrunning the city of Srebrenica. My career reads like a human rights report from the past decade and a half: Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Macedonia, Afghanistan.
These conflicts killed tens of thousands of innocent people, and the leaders who perpetrated these crimes were immune to the entreaties and diplomatic efforts of the international community. Only military action by Western forces — or the threat of military action — brought those conflicts to a stop. Were those military actions immoral? Were they more immoral than standing by and
watching?
I first went to Afghanistan in 1996. I was on assignment to investigate jihadist training camps in the Tora Bora mountains south of Jalalabad.
Weeks after I left, Taliban forces swept through most of the country and established a repressive regime that waged war for the next five yearsWeeks after I left, Taliban forces swept through most of the country and established a repressive regime that waged war for the next five years against an alliance of warlords in the north. As always, it was the civilian population that suffered — both because of the fighting, and also because of the endemic poverty in a country that was locked in an armed struggle. Infant morality was on the order of twenty-five
percent. A large percentage of the population was living in refugee camps along the Pakistan border. Afghanistan was a rogue nation recognized by only three countries in the world; with no extradition treaties, it was the perfect place for a group like Al Qaeda to be based. There was no way for the international community to get at them without physically going in with a military force.
That, of course, was what happened after the attacks of 9/11. I was with the Northern Alliance when they swept into Kabul, backed up by American air power, and I remember strangers hugging me on the street when they found out I was American. For a brief while we were seen as liberators, and something like ninety percent of Afghans approved of the American military action in their country. This was not an invasion; it was a rescue mission.
The tragedy, of course, is that this good will was squandered by inexcusable mistakes and lack of commitment on the part of the United States. In the years following 9/11, the American military presence in Afghanistan stayed under 20,000 men. (By comparison, there are over 30,000 cops in New York City.) It wasn't nearly enough to maintain stability in that country — and without stability, there was no way to establish good governance or a healthy economy. Over the next few years the Taliban filled the vacuum left by a weak NATO presence, and now we are facing the agonizing question about what to do.
The problem in Afghanistan is not a military one. By that I mean the Taliban are not invincible: they are ten or twenty thousand poorly-equipped men living a rough existence around the edges of Afghan society. The Western armies drove the Nazi war machine out of Europe and defeated them in their homeland; if we can do that, I think we can probably defeat the Taliban.
It is a question of political will at home, not of military obstacles in the mountains of Afghanistan.It is a question of political will at home, not of military obstacles in the mountains of Afghanistan. Where are the European countries in this? France, Spain, Italy, Holland, England — they all suffered attacks from Al Qaeda, or nearly did, and yet only England has a significant troop presence in Afghanistan. And where are the Islamic countries? Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Morocco... they are considered apostate regimes by bin Laden and have suffered their own terrorist attacks as well. If NATO forces pull out of Afghanistan, Al Qaeda will probably come across the border and resume their operations. (A rogue state that they control would be far more secure for Al Qaeda than a temporary refuge in the tribal areas of Pakistan.) The entire world will potentially be touched by the chaos in Afghanistan as it was on 9/11.
And then there are the Afghans. Sometimes people say to me that we should pull out our troops so the war can stop. That statement always amazes me: Afghanistan in the 1990s was an unmitigated bloodbath. Rival warlords armed by the United States fought for control of the country and, in the process, killed tens of thousands of civilians. Taliban forces finally took control and became locked in a vicious frontline battle against the relatively enlightened forces of Ahmed Shah Massoud. In that context, the fighting of the last eight years has been blessedly limited. Those dark days are sure to resume if the West pulls out. The soldiers in Afghanistan are viewed by the locals in much the same way as police in high-crime neighborhoods: not very well-liked, but God help us if they ever leave.
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Sebastian Junger is the New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Storm and A Death in Belmont. He is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, and has been awarded a National Magazine Award and an SAIS Novartis Prize for journalism. He lives in New York City.
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Comment by Kanani Fong on May 19, 2010 at 8:58pm -
Thanks for sharing this Clay! I was just talking about this the other day. I'll write it up later on.
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Comment by marion tucker on May 25, 2010 at 10:55am -
This the BEST piece on war - and Afghanistan - I have ever read.
It should be required reading in schools and for every person on this planet - particularly for the people who, whatever their reasons (ignorance, naivete, or deliberate obfuscation) - until they GET that when evil is loosed upon the innocent, they must be met head on and defeated - or there will be no civilized, free people on earth - no freedom even for the naysayers to speak.
Junger has decades of experience in war, up close and personal. His voice is reasoned, backed up with boots on the ground, including Afghanistan both before and during this war - a seasoned voice, non-political, non "agendered."
That is a rarity - in any age.
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Comment by Clay on May 25, 2010 at 10:57am
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Thanks, Kanani and Marion. I agree. Sebastian nailed it and was non-political in doing so. So impressive.
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Comment by Vance Pace on May 25, 2010 at 7:02pm -
Great post! I posted recently on my Facebook page that I had recently finished reading "War" and one of my friends quoted the line from that old Edwin Starr song "What is it good for; absolutely nothing" and while I didn't respond I remember thinking, as awful as it is actually "War" is good for something, or at the very least something good can come out of "War". This great nation was the result of "War", slavery was ended as the result of a "War", Nazi and Japanese tyrany was stopped because of a "War". Yes, "War" is terrible, and it would be wonderful if there was no more "War" but I find that I must live in the real world, not a fantasy world, and unfortunately sometimes "War" is required to stop something even more terrible.
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Comment by Liza Wiemer on May 26, 2010 at 12:04am -
It is extraordinary how Sebastian was able to write a book that is so deeply connected to politics without being political.
Early this evening a Holocaust survivor and his wife stopped over to chat. I had WAR on my living room coffee table. They were fascinated. I picked it up and read out loud some sections that have stuck with me. "Politics may be what drives war, but war is ultimately about the people," the survivor said. "Those who fight in it, those who survive it are the ones who truly understand its lasting impact." Sebastian brings this home for all of us.
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Comment by Andrew Lubin on May 26, 2010 at 11:16am -
There are 2 questions here: 1- Should be in Afghanistan? 2 - Are we using the correct tactics for success?
And so as I sit here waiting to board a plane for my 5th embed into Afghanistan, let me answer...
1 - Yes, we need to be in A'stan. It's not that we're nation-building (altho we are); it's keeping those 15% anti-west, anti-US Taliban-AQI-whomever from using A'stan as a base from where to attack us again - as proven 2 weeks ago in NYCV, and with the Christmas Day bomber, they will.
These folks don;t like us, want to kill us, and need to be stopped, And if it's 1st Marine Div who does the stopping - so much the better.
2 - Tactics: But we're doing it wrong. McChrystal and the entrenched Army beaurocracy is runing a war that ignores the realities on the ground - this is a country with an annual income of aprox $ 2.00 / day; we need to bring basic job programs that get folks working. Working Afghans who can feed their families are happy Afghans not taking money from the Taliban to shoot their own people and our troops.
By bringing small-scale jobs: canal cleaning, welding, micro-loans, you put them back to work TOMORROW - then they take ownership of the area, and police it themselves (like the Sunni's did in Ramadi and Anbar with the Marines, long before Petraeus's 'surge' left US shores).
But McC is pushing the Karzai party line, and allying himself - and us - with an incredibly unpopular leader.
Better he should do what the Marines are doing in Helmand; clear out the bad guys, bring in jobs and basic stability, help the local govenrment stand up and become effective...and then if Karzai's boys turn up, fine; if not, we've still secured an area and brought that patch of ground back to stability.
These folks have been at war-civil war since 1974. Deomicrecy? Taliban? They just want to live better tomorrow than they are today. And we can do it - but not by trying to remake a country with a literacy rate of approx 20 % into a mini-US. Like one of my Marine Colonel friends sad at a conference a few months back, "Counterinusrgency is easy - you've got to make them want to choose us."
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Comment by Kanani Fong on May 26, 2010 at 12:34pm
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Hey Andrew. Glad to see you arrived safely. Also, thanks for taking on the military tactics POV.
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