But in my opinion, we had to do something about Afghanistan because this post-Cold War mess is as much ours as any nation’s. After all, past administrations (Republican and Democrat) chose to fight the Cold War there. Before then, in the 1970s, Afghanistan didn't look that different from many places in the world in the mid-1900s, including France, or Turkey, or for that matter the Western United States(i.e. google "Afghan images and 1970s"): a rural landscape of mountains and valleys scattered with herders and farmers and small local markets in villages and towns that spring up on crossroads. Afghanistan also has a few large urban centers such as Kabul, Herat, and Kandahar, all with significant histories in South Central Asia at important trade routes that have existed for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
Apparently the U.S. covert action of arming the Mujahedeen (folks we referred to as freedom fighters) did the trick because we claimed victory in the Cold War. Afghanistan proved to be the Soviet's Vietnam. They essentially fled with their tails between their legs (as we had left Vietnam) and it gave the Soviets a huge heroin addiction to boot and led to their economic and political destabilization.
But as we and the Soviets pulled back from Afghanistan under mutual agreement. We collectively left a vacuum that was filled by scores of thugs, bullies and brutes. The Mujahedeen whom we had armed to their teeth had become Warlords, many of whom embraced fundamental forms of Islam (perhaps a reaction of their religion being banned by the Soviets). Then the Taliban began to take root and started persecuting and terrorizing women; suddenly women doctors, lawyers, college professors and so on were forced to sequester themselves behind closed doors and behind a full body drape of the burkha, public schools and universities were closed and females were banned from education. Al Qaeda began breeding terrorists in this country-without-a-government. Finally, Osama bin Laden was forced to flee Sudan and the rest of the story is American legend.
So to abandon Afghanistan is to abandon the Afghan people, a people who love wide open spaces and their independence as much as Western North Americans. Unfortunately 30 years of war, where the life expectancy is 45 years old, their old way of life is a faint memory that will quickly be no more than a legend. Colin Powell told Bush about Iraq, you break it you buy it. In my opinion it is unconscionable to abandon our Afghan sisters and brothers after our nation so effectively used their homeland as our battleground and helped destroy their social and physical infrastructure. We have had a hand in this debacle all the way up to their recent joke of an election.
As a woman of peace I abhor the use of violence, and I believe if Americans dig in and do this right we can give our Afghan sisters and brothers back their country and help them to move forward in peace and prosperity. It will take lots of money and fortitude, but it has absolutely nothing to do with Vietnam from our perspective. We are there as friends of the Afghan people; we are no longer fighting the Cold War.
I say change the idea from a "war" to a "peace action" and do the work that the United Nations is unable or unwilling to do in Afghanistan. In my opinion we should be sending them health care workers, legal scholars, educators, architects, engineers, and construction workers to help them rebuild their communities and to train their next generation and, yes we should send in more troops as peace keepers to keep our people safe as they work alongside Afghans to do the job of helping them rebuild. I am convinced that the rank and file Afghan doesn't want those terrorist brutes in their midst, and they certainly don't want corrupt political leaders any more than we do. Like us, they want the ability to raise their children in peace and lead safe lives. Instead they live in terror. How can an informed American of conscience turn away from their pleas for help? Afghans say "Please do not forget Afghanistan...again."
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/reader-diaries/2009/07/24/please-do-not-forget-us-again-like-you-did-last-time
