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COMMENTARY
March 7, 2009
The shame
Our prime minister suffered this remark to be quoted in world media last weekend: "We are not ever going to defeat the insurgency. My reading of Afghanistan's history is that they've probably had an insurgency forever, of some kind."He made the remark to Fareed Zakaria, on CNN. He has not since retracted it. It is possible, although not likely, that Stephen Harper's claim to have read Afghan history is more shameful than his defeatism. That he knows almost nothing about the country was made clear by his remark. The idea that the history of Afghanistan consists of one long insurgency betrays a simplistic ignorance that heads of government should not put on display; especially those with grave responsibilities for the lives of our troops in the field. The history of the present insurgency in Afghanistan goes back to the late 1970s. It began as a response to a Soviet-aided Afghan coup: the violent installation of a government that acted in defiance of all of Afghanistan's tribal, religious, and cultural traditions. It grew as the result of a Soviet invasion, to prop up that "socialist revolution." As even Mr. Harper should know, the history since has been vexed. The U.S. and friends were allied with indigenous "insurgents," against Soviet invaders. We did not, and could not reasonably foresee, that the USSR would collapse, and that the Afghan insurgency would itself be captured by an essentially Arab (as opposed to Pashtun or otherwise indigenously Afghan) Islamist insurgency within it. The Taliban came to power through chaos in the wake of the Soviet exit. This new revolutionary force could not have come to power under any other circumstances. The Taliban were able to prevail because all the checks, balances, and accommodations of Afghan society had been obliterated. That is why organized resistance to them failed. It took the incredible destruction of the Soviets and their Afghan clients to create the required disorder, and moreover, to superficially unify Afghan society in implacable opposition to the "godless invaders." But specific Soviet divide-and-conquer policies, designed to fragment the country, and stir inter-ethnic and inter-tribal animosities and rivalries, also contributed to the bloody mess. Al-Qaeda shifted its base of operations to Afghanistan (from Sudan) because the Taliban offered them the world's most reliable national sanctuary. Osama bin Laden and company were able to plot the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- together with several other major terror attacks or attempts on the West -- from Afghan soil. That's why we're in Afghanistan today: because of a history that dates back about 30 years; because of events that happened in Afghanistan that had ultimately little or nothing to do with Afghanistan itself. The history of the modern state of Afghanistan goes back more than 260 years, under various direct and indirect European influences, and is by no means a story of "continuous insurgency." There is a deeper regional history, going back to the arrival of a Persianized Islam, and an even deeper pre-Islamic history, of which we should have been reminded in 2001 by the Taliban's dynamiting of the monumental Buddha figures in Bamiyan. We need to further appreciate that the overwhelming majority of Afghanistan's Pashtuns, and nearly all of its other peoples (Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkomans, Baluchs, Nuristanis, etc.) are utterly opposed to our common Islamist enemy. I travelled in Afghanistan "before the deluge," and can attest that it was a nation of religious believers, but not religious fanatics. We have every indication that, despite goading, the peoples of Afghanistan have not since gone out of their minds. The task we took upon ourselves, after 9/11, was to clear out of Afghanistan the murderous insurgents we had, indirectly, previously assisted. For various reasons, beyond even those hinted above, it was not going to be an easy task, and it has not been. In particular: through murder and mayhem our ruthless enemy has been taking control of the tribal structure of Pakistan's adjoining North-West Frontier. And we should realize that the "tribal chiefs" we face there are in most cases not the traditional Pashtuns, but usurping Arab terrorists and their proxies. We cannot walk away from that mission. We cannot, morally or practically, surrender this country to Islamists who throw acid in the faces of little girls because they dare to go to school. The Obama administration is right to be adding troops; Canada and her NATO allies cannot afford to entertain the defeatism that our shameless prime minister has enunciated. We must not surrender to evil. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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