Afghanistan Lesson?

The U.S. went into Afghanistan with the express purpose of eliminating the terrorist training camps of Islamo-fascists, including Osama bin Ladin, and dismantling the control of the Taliban. The training camps were destroyed, Osama was chased into hiding with his leadership decimated, and the Taliban were driven from control. Well, driven from control of the major cities at any rate. Hamid Karzai’s central government has a firm grasp on the major cities, but it does not control the countryside. That is still under the control of a variety of warlords and the Taliban. Read Afghanistan Devolving?, “The About to Bite Us War,” and Poppies & Heroin, Lifeblood of Afghanistan.

We are not seeing a lot of information out of Afghanistan, but we are beginning to hear about the same sort IED attacks on NATO troops in Afghanistan as the Coalition troops are experiencing in Iraq. Perhaps there is no more damning evidence than the Afghanis who are voting with their feet, as reported by Time Magazine correspondent Azadeh Moaveni, who writes:

Hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees have streamed back into Iran, reporting that their liberated country is unlivable outside Kabul, marred by warlord strife and resurgent Taliban.

Perhaps the message learned from Afghanistan is that while people everywhere wish to live in peace and harmony, it may not be possible to spoon feed democratic institutions to societies which are still living with tribal and religious traditions dating from the 7th Century. The Allied Forces were able to do so at the conclusion of World War II, but they were dealing with nations which existed, for the most part, within the 20th Century. The lesson may well be that we will extend to you a helping hand to enter the 21st Century; but you have to do the heavy lifting and create your own governmental institutions such that you can live in harmony with the world community. If you can’t do that and you don’t threaten us, have a nice day. If you threaten us, we will bomb you into oblivion. It is too bad that Europe will not like that position. At the rate they are going, they will become third world Islamic nations and may ultimately face the same dilemma as Afghanistan.