Raul R. Pillar is probably right with his theory , that terrorists (foremost al-Qaeda) do not necessarily need Afghanistan as a safe haven to attack the US in future and that the presence of US troops in the area should not be justified with just this target – to eradicate such breeding places. Also he draws a reasonable parallel to the Vietnam war (most of those Afghanistan-Vietnam parallels being mostly far fetched) in saying, that the Johnson administration overestimated the effect a communist Vietnam might have on the surrounding east Asian states and likewise the Obama administration and its supporters may be wrong assuming that an unstable Afghanistan will pull Pakistan and other Central Asian states in (other authors have claimed rightly, that during Afghan Taliban rule, the situation in Pakistan was a lot more stable than it is nowadays!).
But I fail to see, why this conclusion allows us to immediately jump to the assumption, that US presence (and probably the whole NATO presence as well, since when the US would leave, countries like Germany and Britain will hardly be made to stay) should be stopped in the region. Is our only target to make sure we are not attacked from a make-shift camp by bearded men? Are we only worried about having blood in our own streets? What about the countries of the region? Afghanistan is economically and educationally speaking in a dire situation, major areas in Pakistan are not doing any better and countries like Turkmenistan and Kirgizstan are neither sporting promising records. While other nations like Japan and Norway have long understood, that making a difference in this region takes patience, time and skilled labour we are only discussing money, arms and our own casualties.
As Ahmed Rashid recently pointed out to one of the few Americans who were venturing Pakistan outside their Islamabad embassy recently “You want to win over the people? Show me one school the Americans have built. Show me a road, a hospital, a railway.” . Other European countries (with a few exceptions) have an equally poor record. Some NGOs pull in after major disasters but leave soon after. There is seldom a long term commitment. As Rashid has pointed out in his recent book , the opportunity for Nation Building may have already passed, and other writers have argued that the US should not linger around anymore with this argument, since its record was poor enough in this respect . But an effort to bring a lasting peace to the region and aim for an economic development including surrounding regions (Iran, Xinjiang, Balochistan, Ferghana) should be made and attempted now. This does at the moment still include army presence, the Afghan army and police are far away from managing the situation themselves and the Pakistanis can in this regard unfortunately still not be trusted (especially the ISI). But while dismembering al-Qaeda should still be a good reason to stay and even enlarge CIA presence , there are other issues apart from our homeland security, that should make us aware of our responsibilities abroad.
Further Reading
Who’s Afraid of A Terrorist Haven?; Washington Post, 16th of September 2009
Rashid, Ahmed; Descent into Chaos – The United States and the failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia; Allan Lane 2009
http://www.realisticforeignpolicy.org/archives/2009/09/coalition_issue.php
http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2009-09/afghanistan-cia-ausbau
[originally posted on 20/09/2009 on here-ware]
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