The Fourth Afghan War — the ?American? Afghan War — seems to have already disappeared from our collective national consciousness, eclipsed so quickly by the gathering storm clouds of yet another military action, as well as by the pop-culture specters of J-Lo, Jacko, and Joe Millionaire.
The fact that the Afghan War, an orgy of vengeance in which thousands of innocents died as a direct result of U.S. bombing, is little more than an afterthought — if even that — for so many Americans is disturbing on a number of levels.
Yes, we are desensitized. Yes, we have short attention spans. Yes, the media has said very little about Afghanistan recently. But these conditions must be overcome if we are to learn anything from the conflict, especially considering the fact that we are about to engage in a similar war against the people of Iraq.
Will it be another quick victory? Probably. But a closer look at the Afghan War reveals a troubling reality: The cost of victory in our so-called ?war on terror? is terribly high.
Afghanistan was already an impoverished, troubled nation before the U.S., allegedly hunting Osama bin Laden and the terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, attacked Oct. 7 2001. The people who ultimately paid the price for the terrorist attacks, however, were not the criminals, but the Afghan civilians, people who had nothing to do with Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
Statistics vary, but a synthesis of reliable sources show that somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 Afghan civilians died in the war. Thousands more survive today crippled, or orphaned, or malnourished, or homeless (an estimated 700,000 people are now internally displaced). American tactics, including the use of sometimes indiscriminant cluster munitions (whose bomblets can explode long after the bomb has hit the ground), and attacking ?military? targets deep in civilian centers, allowed for this accumulation of ?collateral damage.? And Osama bin Laden was never found.
The aftermath of the war is even less talked about, yet equally disturbing. The brutally repressive Taliban was toppled, and the brutally repressive Northern Alliance warlords, who ran the country before the Taliban came to power, took over. Yes, the Taliban (who, by the way, came into power with the support of the United States in the 1980s and whose human-rights abuses were ignored until recently) was awful, and it is good that they are gone, but let us not forget that there is nothing approaching a democracy now in Afghanistan.
The warlords who now hold the most power have human-rights records just as appalling as the Taliban?s. Furthermore, fundamental Islam seems to be taking hold once again, and women are still oppressed daily. The BBC reports that while some women do indeed go without a burkha in public, they ?speak quietly of a fear of acid attacks and of verbal harassment on the streets.? Torture, political intimidation, and the violation of freedom of expression are commonplace.
Poverty is extreme, and aid is far too little; again, the BBC reports that only 40 percent of the aid to Afghanistan is going toward long-term building. And one final statistic: the life expectancy in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is a mere 46 years, compared to 61 in neighboring Pakistan and 70 in Iran.
Nation-building has failed — and will continue — to fail as long as the United States disregards basic human rights and democratic ideals.
Human Rights Watch interviewed an Afghan student, who was quoted as saying, ?I have to leave this country, forever. I want to leave Afghanistan. There is nothing here — no freedom to do anything. I want to live free. But we cannot even watch television. I cannot learn about anything. The leadership here is very bad for us. It is not much different than the Taliban.?
The lesson to learn here is that the United States cannot fight criminals by bombing entire nations. With Iraq next on the hit list, the same scenario is likely to repeat itself. A weak, impoverished nation, led by a brutal ruler (who was at one time supported by the United States) will be attacked, civilian casualties will be very high, equally brutal Western puppets with connections to the oil industry (Hamid Karzai, the appointed interim prime minister of Afghanistan, was once an advisor for UNOCOL, the company that planned to build an Afghan oil pipeline long before the Taliban fell) will take control, and little will change for the average citizen (assuming he or she is still alive). Perhaps then the administration will move on to some new boogeyman, and the American people will once again forget.
This is surreal.
I must ask the readers of this column to not sit idly by as America, as Jon Stewart puts so eloquently, ?tries to become Rome in the next Bible.? Get involved in the movement. Voice your opposition to this war by joining the ?Books not Bombs? international student strike March 5 and demonstrate the power that we have as the people of this country.
And finally, remember the victims of the Fourth Afghan War just as you remember the victims of Sept. 11: as sufferers, as innocents, and, above all, as human beings.
Kyle Myrhe ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in English.
