The Endgame in Afghanistan
Part Two
Foreign Occupation… the Major Afghan Industry
Afghanistan is desperately poor, uneducated, violent, and politically unstable. We should not be surprised that foreign military occupation is the only major industry Afghanistan has been able to attract since the Industrial Revolution. The current NATO occupation is by far the most lucrative in Afghanistan’s long history because the NATO nations are the world’s richest, in a position to spread plenty of cash around. The U.S. will never run out of money. Afghanistan will never run out of young men who want to fight. This occupation could go on forever unless one side or the other rethinks its behavior.
Rethinking behavior is not an Afghan strong suit. Afghans have been locked into the same pattern of political behavior for 2,340 years.
Afghanistan's Past
At no point in its history has Afghanistan enjoyed a strong central government for more than a few decades. The most recent period of stable government – by Afghan standards – was the period from 1933-1973, when one king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, remained on the Afghan throne for 40 years after the assassination of his father. This period of stability was a fluke, however; it had more to do with the weakness and lack of meddling by Afghanistan’s neighbors – Iran, the Soviet Union, China, and the British Imperial Administration of India – than with any sudden burst of good governance in Kabul.
Afghanistan allied itself with the Axis Powers during World War Two, baiting the British and the Soviets to invade, but both had their hands full fighting the Nazis on other fronts. Neither saw much point in overthrowing King Zahir Shah.
The Afghan King was eventually deposed in an Afghani coup in 1973. He lived the next 34 years in Italy. After the collapse of the Taliban Regime he returned to Afghanistan, but he never again wielded political power. He died in 2007. In 1979, six years after the king was deposed, a new foreign military power, the Soviet Union, was finally enticed to attempt another occupation. It was a mistake that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Empire in the 1980s.
The Soviets believed they could turn Afghans into good little communists, just as we now believe we can turn them into good little democrats. The Soviet occupation, like all foreign occupations over the previous 2,310 years, turned out very badly for the foreign invaders. Thousands of lives were lost, billions of rubles were squandered, and all the good little communists were slaughtered after the Soviets withdrew in 1989.
The government that replaced the Soviet-backed government (and preceded the Taliban) was perhaps the weakest in Afghan history. A period of extreme chaos -- even by Afghan standards -- soon ensued. All significant social institutions in Afghanistan collapsed.
But every Afghan “state” – whether foreign-backed or indigenous – has proven to be among the world’s weakest and most unstable, its influence extending little beyond the city limits of Kabul. The only exception to this general rule was the Taliban Regime from 1996-2001. Taliban rule was an historical anomaly – strong and utterly oppressive. Not since the Mongols had Afghanistan been enslaved with such fervor. But the Mongols were in some respects more benign than the Taliban. The Mongols didn’t care whether anyone prayed, or how long they grew their beards. Their agenda was limited to rape, murder, and plunder. Once the initial bloodbath of Mongol conquest had passed, Mongols generally ruled with neglect and indifference. The Taliban, in contrast, actually wanted to control people’s minds.
America to the Rescue
Americans love to believe they are different from other peoples – and better! Our social institutions are more resilient. Our Founding Fathers understood human nature so profoundly and designed a political system so flexible and so workable that everyone should adopt it. After all, we’ve gotten good results with it. We are currently the world’s only military superpower and the most important nation in the world in terms of finance, technology, and entertainment. Our model of a democratic political system, an open social system, and a market-oriented economic system was successfully imposed by military force on Western Europe, Japan, and South Korea. It seemed to work pretty well in those places. Later, variations on our system were adopted voluntarily by some nations in Eastern Europe and many other nations around the globe. American ideas were the ideas that prevailed in the 20th Century. So why can’t we impose our ideas on poor Afghanistan?
Social conditions in Afghanistan are totally different than in any of these other places where American-tested ideas, backed by American military force, have been used to restructure societies. To say Afghanistan is “stuck in the Middle Ages” is wildly optimistic. In Afghanistan the Middle Ages have yet to arrive.
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