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Terrorism in the 21st Century
The War in Afghanistan

Item 5  05-NOV-2001 18:51 Richard Farson

Welcome to the discussion of what posture or actions the USA might take with respect to the war in Afghanistan.

5:1) 05-NOV-2001 22:28 Richard Farson

Ray Alden has suggested that we move a provocative comment from our previous discussion to make sure we get started on the right track.  And what more provocative comment than Sandy Mactaggart’s proposed solution:

1) Stop the offensive bombing, except to protect the Northern Alliance from being overrun by the Taliban.

2) During the winter, build across the border in Pakistan, a large number of Refugee Camps, isolated from the rest of Pakistan.  Allow no entry into Pakistan from the camps.  These camps would be well-equipped, comfortable refuges where a large proportion of the Afghan people could be accommodated and fed.  They would cost America a lot of money.  They would be turned over to Pakistan at the end of the war to become a helpful addition to the infrastructure of that country.

3) During the wintertime, continue to drop food packets into areas of Afghanistan where they are needed.  Also drop leaflets advising that food is available across the border in the camps for women and children.  If the winter is harsh, they will come.  Don't worry if they want to go home in the spring - they will probably return again.

4) Next spring, drop leaflets all over Afghanistan, advising all women and children and those opposed to the Taliban regime, to cross the border into one of these camps in Pakistan where they will be fed, clothed, receive medical attention and education.  Men will be screened, and Taliban fighters removed to separate camps.

5) Warn that the United States, at the end of that four-week period, will commence a total annihilation of everyone who remains in the country.  Proceed to bring the full force of modern warfare against anyone remaining in Afghanistan, until they either surrender or are eliminated.  Accept nothing less than unconditional surrender.

6) As in Japan and Germany after the war, rebuild the society with generous assistance, and try to educate the next generation to be useful members of the world.

5:2) 08-NOV-2001 11:59 Raymond Alden

It's Sandy's points #2, 3, & 4 that I think most worthy of immediate discussion.  Together, they have several elements that can be addressed separately -- e.g. Build the camps, administer them internally, what to supply besides shelter, medicine, and nourishment, how to screen those admitted to keep out extremists bent on disruption, etc.

First point, I think, might be the toughest part of all:  How might such a concept be "sold" to the U S Congress and this Administration?

5:3) 08-NOV-2001 12:02 Raymond Alden

For starters, I suggest that enlisting Koffi Annan as our "salesman" might offer the best hope, supported perhaps by a few of the more enlightened "back-benchers" in the Congress.

Two other things would help: 1) Support from a few well-known op-ed columnists, and 2) Support by an economist who could put together a persuasive comparison of the cost of doing this vs. the cost of the alternatives, over, say, a five-year period.  Most people can relate to five years.

5:4) 08-NOV-2001 15:51 Richard Farson

The logistics are overwhelming.  Presumably, we would be offering women and children, and some men, sanctuary.  But what are those numbers?  If there are 18 million Afghanis, what percentage are we talking about?  I think, after decades of war, there are many more women than men.  Can we build a city that would be as large as some of the top ten cities in the US?

And if we can only support say a few hundred thousand, which in itself is a monumental task for a winter construction, are we to obliterate the remaining 17 million plus?  So much hinges on our ability to provide sanctuary, but can we do it?

5:5) 08-NOV-2001 22:20 John Hart

This is copied in part from comments that I made in the international terrorism section which I think are applicable to this discussion.

There is no quick fix.  Unfortunately, “cleansing” of Afghanistan, although it has a certain appeal, from a practical standpoint probably wouldn’t work, as the “evil doers” would declare victory just by surviving.  Short of a nuclear attack, I am not confident that you could smoke them all out of their holes any time soon.  Even if you did succeed, you wouldn’t have stopped terrorism, and a certain part of the world might consider our actions more than heavy handed.  I would be concerned as well that a massive relocation could result in the type of harm it is meant to avoid.  Think of the consequences of moving millions of people, which include a number of elderly and sick.  Also, I am not convinced that at this time the coalition is weakening as troop commitments from other nations continue.  Granted in certain parts of the world public sentiment is getting nervous in large part to uncertain information.  A famous coach once said once he started listening to the fans it wouldn’t be to long before he would be joining them in the stands.  Keep in mind with regard to the rhetoric from the moderate Islamic countries; secretly they must be pleased with the idea of their radicals leaving to join the effort in Afghanistan with the possibility that America will bomb them to paradise.  Perhaps the answer in Afghanistan is patience.

5:6) 09-NOV-2001 07:28 Mary Catherine Bateson

I have to admit that I assumed the sanctuary/camp proposal was Swiftian -- its very impossibility dramatizing the unworkableness of present policy.

5:7) 09-NOV-2001 14:37 Raymond Alden

Just trying would have some good results.  Suppose we did a decent job for just 10% of those seeking help?  And compare the cost and logistical nightmare to what we are doing now with troops, planes, ships, etc.

Swiftian, perhaps, but maybe we have to do that if we are serious about practical alternatives to the current approach.

5:8) 09-NOV-2001 15:47 Richard Farson

By itself, it seems to me to be desirable to create sanctuary for as many as we can possibly accommodate.  If we can scale down our thinking to manageable numbers, and then re-evaluate the obliteration part of Sandy's plan, it would be easier for me.  Now, if we don't threaten obliteration, we won't get as many refugees.  So, the logistics are interconnected.  Probably, all we can do is create a sanctuary for a few thousand this winter, more of a symbolic gesture?

5:9) 09-NOV-2001 20:46 Bill McGaw

If we have an opportunity to create a sanctuary of any size for refuges, should we not consider the inclusion of two way communication equipment which may enable them to express their feelings, conditions, needs, hopes, fears to the world?  Perhaps knowledge that global awareness of the dilemma exists may become comforting during the long, cold winter.

To be even more proactive, why not send in the receivers, transmitters, translators and methodologies, etc. to ensure that they are heard NOW?

5:10) 10-NOV-2001 20:02 Douglass Carmichael

bin Laden, in his interview yesterday (at, for example, the best overall paper covering this, to my surprise, the Sydney Morning Herald) http://www.smh.com.au/news/0111/11/world/world4.html made it clear he sees Afghanistan as the only Muslim state.  Attacking it at all puts us in a difficult position, because many Muslims agree with him, I think, at this point.

1. Winning the war (meaning crushing the Taliban and bin Laden)

2. Losing the war

are the only alternatives.  Neither is attractive.  But, I think we need to consider what happens if we fail to win?  Building a city of 18 million would be a western city or worse (who "organizes" the camps?), and play exactly into bin Laden's critique that such a city of horrors - commercialism of everything - is exactly the point.

In any case, we cannot let the people starve (yet, I read that food is more scarce on the Northern Alliance side, and the smuggling of food out - for a price - is a good business, so I wouldn't accept the food picture without lots of scrutiny for details).  Including the terrible problem that perhaps on the Taliban could distribute it - on their terms with each individual.  But then we have:

"Osama bin Laden's popularity in the Arab world appears to be waning - even if his appeal is still a force to be reckoned with, especially in parts of Saudi Arabia.

His recent videotaped denunciation of the United Nations has gone down badly with many Arabs, and in the past week the Arab press has criticized him for giving Islam a bad name."

5:11) 11-NOV-2001 18:07 Raymond Alden

Whoa for a minute!

a) Sandy suggested, I think, that the refugee camp(s) should be built in Pakistan, not in Afghanistan.

b) No one has yet suggested that they be built as "western cities" -- only as safe havens.  How they are managed remains to be discussed.

Size is, of course, relative.  It isn't necessary to begin with a declaration of how many we will accommodate; it is only necessary to begin and then to proceed wisely, growing to the extent that we can do a good job.

As for management of the camps, I wonder if we could set limits -- a framework to personal liberties, for example -- and within those limits allow Afghan leadership to manage the details.

The idea of equipping the camps with good communications to the outside world has a lot of appeal.

5:12) 12-NOV-2001 04:03 Richard Farson

Bill, I'm with Ray.  I would like to see that kind of communication from the refugees.  But I doubt that our generals would.  As far as I know, there has never been a war in which the enemy has not been portrayed as evil.  Sam Keen, once a WBSI post-doctoral Fellow, has written a book about that, “The Face of the Enemy”.  We won't know whether the refugees are seeking refuge from the Taliban, or from our bombs.  Probably the latter.

5:13) 13-NOV-2001 08:36 Mary Catherine Bateson

One of the most interesting points about the sanctuary suggestion is that it assumes that we might spend comparable moneys helping people rather than punitively.

5:14) 13-NOV-2001 12:13 Richard Farson

The New York Times this morning presents graphic photos of a Taliban POW begging for his life, and then being beaten and shot.  Apparently, executions are the way the Northern Alliance celebrates its victories.  Now, we have the difficult dilemma of being pleased that the Taliban are on the run but are being replaced by another set of thugs.  It will be a challenge for the Administration to build a coalition to bring order and human rights into Afghanistan.  At this point, we don't seem to be able to control the Northern Alliance.

5:15) 13-NOV-2001 17:43 Mary Boone

This is a half-baked thought, but I've recently heard of the enormous success of giving small loans directly to citizens of emerging nations.  They are starting tiny businesses and paying back the loans and doing tremendously well.  Anyway, this model might be applied in this situation?  I'm not sure about the business part since their infrastructure is so decimated and maybe money won't be too much help either if there's nothing to buy, but the idea of seeding the money directly to the people who need it and giving it as a loan greatly appeals to me.

5:16) 13-NOV-2001 20:58 Richard Farson

Apparently, Mary, those small business loans have been very successful.  Some are only about $50.  Appeals to me too.

5:17) 13-NOV-2001 22:22 Raymond Alden

Yes, Mary, that certainly has a place in the larger scheme of things.  I wonder how much stability and infrastructure repair must be achieved before such an activity would become practical.  Perhaps less than I would think right off the top of my head.

5:18) 15-NOV-2001 01:31 Richard Farson

Even the prospect of such aid would be encouraging.

5:19) 18-NOV-2001 14:13 Douglass Carmichael

I have followed the Grameen Bank experiments fairly closely, and I have been puzzled by the logic of getting poor people into debt rather than "giving" them the fifty dollars.  The answer seems to be in the support system and identity of being a part of a community and having programmed responsibilities that come with the loan.  But wouldn't it be better to do through gifts, so that people are not bound into the debt/banking system?

Will Afghanistan be just a western market with a big pipe through it, and a consumer world with the boom box culture, or will it need to be different?

5:20) 18-NOV-2001 17:34 Raymond Alden

People have not, historically, responded constructively to material gifts as well as they have to the opportunity to be constructive themselves.  I think that is the logic of getting people into debt -- along with the likelihood of their being able to get out on their own efforts and then go on from there.

5:21) 19-NOV-2001 15:09 Richard Farson

What can we make of the rapidity in which the overthrow of the Taliban is taking place?  Based on the experience of the Russians and the British, most of us thought that we were in for a long siege.  Now, it appears that as far as ending the Taliban regime, the end is in sight before winter fully sets in.  And this without much in the way of our committing ground forces, and a very limited bombing campaign.  Puzzling.  Another victory where the enemy of the US is the only one who suffers casualties.  We're making a habit of that.  Of course, that doesn't mean we will necessarily have an easy time ahead trying to root out the Taliban survivors and Al Qaeda from their mountain hideouts.

It appears possible that the momentum from this potential quick victory may take us directly into a war with Saddam.  Whatcha think about that?

5:22) 19-NOV-2001 23:42 Raymond Alden

One thing that I make of it is the tendency among the Afghans, accustomed as they are to tribal warfare, to switching sides with the expectation of being seen as among the winners.  We ought not to trust things to be what they appear to be.

5:23) 20-NOV-2001 12:19 Mary Boone

Ray, I agree.  Things are probably not as they seem.  Certainly, we can root around all we want to in the Afghan mountains and still only make a dent in a global, networked organization that shares power so effectively that it can immediately regenerate leadership.

As for the microloans, I agree with Ray, there is something about the notion of a loan that seems to work.  I have no problem giving people the money, but it doesn't seem to bring about the same sense of ownership that the loan does.  I do think that while you're giving out loans you should also be giving out free food and shelter so that people have the means by which to act on their ideas.

I thought about the infrastructure issue too, but I don't think we should delay too long, because I believe that the lack of infrastructure offers people opportunities in rebuilding.

5:24) 21-NOV-2001 14:21 Raymond Alden

And our model infrastructure might differ from their model.  <g>

5:25) 21-NOV-2001 21:01 Nicholas Johnson

Doug: (At least I hope this comes out as a response to 5:19 from Nov. 18.)

Having been on the board of a microloan outfit, I think the idea is a wonderful one.  The payback rates are impressive.

But I guess I disagree with the notion that gifts are better than loans (hard-hearted capitalist that I am!).  What I do think those programs (i.e., our government's support of such programs) ought to do is to make it possible for the interest rates on those loans to be much lower (they are sometimes multiples of those we're used to).  The rationale is that our microloan rates are so much lower than what their local loan sharks charge that our rates are seen as OK.  I disagree.

But I do think there is an advantage to introducing these borrowers to the concept of paying back interest as well as principal.

5:26) 22-NOV-2001 08:16 Mary Catherine Bateson

I, too, think microloans are an important component of post-conflict planning and would emphasize that in many places the microloans have been made to women.  Incidentally, there are conventional devices in Muslim countries that function as the equivalent of interest, so it is not necessary to take on that Islamic prohibition directly (and Islam, unlike Christianity until quite recently, does allow women to own property although custom often prevents).

I have another issue I want to raise, however, which is the interaction between a local cultural tradition and the international system.  Afghanistan (like some other countries) has a long tradition of tribal feuding and local warfare, with unstable coalitions and periods of unification.  The superimposed pattern is external powers sponsoring one group or another as surrogates for wider international rivalries.  The traditional pattern, combined with the topography, makes Afghanistan a sitting duck for waves of invasion that perpetuate chaos and creates the gaps into which a group like al Qaeda can move.

Someone used the term "thug" a few comments back.  Aside from the ironies of its origins, “thug” refers to someone behaving in a way unacceptable to the society to which he belongs (just as murder refers to illegal or culturally unacceptable killing of human beings).  So, when we ask people to stop killing prisoners, we are not really saying “stop behaving like thugs”, we are saying “stop behaving like what we regard as thugs”, or, more broadly, “stop behaving like Afghans in a way that has been adaptive for centuries”.  We are really talking about fundamental culture change as part of becoming part of a 21st century international community.  Globalization, whether one likes it or not.

I think we do have to do that -- like many anthropologists, I have realized that sentimentality about preserving traditional cultures is often very appealing from the male point of view, but it means, willy-nilly, perpetuating second hand status or worse for women.  But we should be creating an opportunity for Afghan warriors to become "a new kind of hero", i.e. recognizing the move from an old value system to a new, rather than saying stop being thugs.

5:27) 22-NOV-2001 16:06 Richard Farson

Mary Catherine, I'm afraid I'm the guilty party in the use of the term "thugs" when describing the Northern Alliance--calling attention to the idea that we may be replacing the Taliban with something equally atrocious.  You're right, of course, and I stand corrected.

It is interesting and challenging to hear an anthropologist make the case for ancient cultures needing to adapt to Globalism, and making it in support of women, which seems to me reason enough.

5:28) 23-NOV-2001 23:06 Raymond Alden

  "It is interesting and challenging to hear an anthropologist make the case for ancient cultures needing to adapt to Globalism…"

Yes indeed!  I'd like to hear more about this, for it seems to me to involve two contradictory but appealing arguments.

Ultimately, how much are respect for local culture and adaptation to "acceptable" international behavior irreconcilable?

"…and making it in support of women, which seems to me reason enough…"

One good reason, but not "reason enough"!  <g>  I.e. There are other important reasons, worthy of equal time.

5:29) 24-NOV-2001 00:30 Richard Farson

Our first lady has promised that Afghan women will play a part in the post-war government.  Mark Shields commented tonight, what will then be our posture with respect to Kuwait, where women cannot vote, and Saudi Arabia, where they cannot drive.  So Ray, your comment about not being reason enough may have anticipated the problems such policies may get us into.

Mary Catherine, is your seeming willingness to abandon the idea of protecting pre-modern cultures in favor of their adapting to Globalism shared by many anthropologists?

5:30) 25-NOV-2001 07:22 Mary Catherine Bateson

"...Seeming willingness to abandon the idea of protecting pre-modern cultures in favor of their adapting to Globalism…" is putting it pretty strongly, but there is a real dilemma.

What pre-modern cultures want from the rest of the world is the pieces of modernity that fit their values and perceived needs, or rather the pieces that fit the values and needs of the gatekeepers.  No question that Afghan men have wanted better weapons, which feel like improvements by making them more fully warriors -- and that the Taliban were ready to open that gate but not to relinquish control over women.  What a community actually gets from Globalism may worsen their lives.  What a thrill to have an AK-47 -- except when you are daisy cutter bombed from the sky!

Any serious commitment to human rights is likely to entail a criticism of many traditional cultures, but as long as they have a degree of viability and isolation we should not burst in telling them what to do.  I am in favor of protecting the subsistence base of pre-modern groups as much and as long as possible, try to prevent the extremes of exploitation and the introduction of disease, but this is a rearguard action and the back up has to be providing alternatives and access to what is good in the global system.

Lastly, Afghanistan has not been culturally isolated for centuries.  Bin Laden can be regarded as a colonizer and missionary, working for his own preferred form of culture change.  The Taliban can be compared to the effort to turn back the clock in Cambodia, though they are mild by comparison.  Outside influences are not an option.

5:31) 26-NOV-2001 22:53 Raymond Alden

Catherine: Please edit your last paragraph.  "Afghanistan has not be culturally isolated for centuries" doesn't come through clearly and I want to know what you mean.

5:32) 28-NOV-2001 00:29 Kip Winsett

Catherine, I would like to hear more about "protecting the subsistence base of pre-modern groups as much and as long as possible".  For example, should we step in to ameliorate the effects of natural disaster (e.g. famine)?  Should we (the world community) intervene in situations such as Rwanda?  How far do we let a situation deteriorate before we act?  Is it possible/feasible/desirable to include cultural anthropologists on any team that is going to intervene?  What should be the underlying "guiding principle" in any intervention?  And a final question: Has any pre-modern culture made a successful adaptation to the modern world without experiencing severe harm?

5:33) 29-NOV-2001 20:25 Douglass Carmichael

Debt and interest are too culturally bound to seem to me to be a way for all to proceed to modernity.  The spontaneous creation of local currencies could be a different model.

Afghans are rebels against colonializisms, from before the Roman Empire.  In the Norman O Brown essay, I cited elsewhere he takes the clear stand that Islam arose because of a failure of Christianity to support spirit, and those abused by the needs of empire, against the state, by its alignment with the Roman Empire, and Islam was a Bedouin revolt against that alignment.

And that still continues.  Many Afghans don't want a modern state (which we all think is sort of passé anyway (except we think it’s good for others), and the attempt to make Afghanistan an appendage of Soviet, American, Russian or Chinese hegemony rankles.  They are suspicious of any large "state" organization.  An interesting point of view indeed.

5:34) 01-DEC-2001 20:21 Raymond Alden

And one I'd hesitate to criticize!

5:35) 08-DEC-2001 15:23 Richard Farson

The war is not over, but it appears that the Taliban regime is.  The difference between our USA experience in attempting to conquer Afghanistan and that of the Soviets and British remains fascinating.  Is our ability to do in weeks what the Soviets couldn't do in more than a decade because:

1) Our military is so advanced and superior?

2) Our aid to the forces arrayed against the Soviets was telling?

3) The Taliban rule was comparatively shaky, and easier to topple?

4) We haven't yet started the up close fight in the mountains and the victory is premature?

5) God is on our side?

6) All of the above?

5:36) 08-DEC-2001 21:35 Raymond Alden

"All of the above" is the best of the choices offered. <g>

I think it is because most of the civilized world has been sympathetic to our objective, while the same were not sympathetic to the Soviet objective(s).

Having many supporters is much more important than their help with the fighting or the supplying might suggest.  For one thing, it puts a lot more spirit into the effort.

5:37) 09-DEC-2001 23:01 Harlan Cleveland

Of the options presented, I guess I'd also opt for "All of the above" -- except that I think God might prefer to be the Referee, not our (or anybody's) Coach.

But Ray has suggested another important category:  We have been operating in Afghanistan with a wide coalition of folks who agree that al Qaeda's 9/11 action, therefore the harboring of al Qaeda by the Taliban, have been way off the chart of "civilized behavior”.  They may not all agree with us about lots of other things, even for example about the Taliban's treatment of women (and most men).   But both al Qaeda and the Taliban stepped across some dotted line that most of humankind thinks should be inviolable.

Never mind that most of this inchoate coalition isn't ready to DO anything about it.  There is a "coalition of the willing" which is doing something, protected by the apathy of those who aren't doing anything but are glad (for varying reasons) that something is being done. 

This kind of coalition is always vulnerable to actions by the "willing" that disturb the conscience of the apathetic.  So it's important that the coalition building led by Colin Powell be protected from the instinctive unilateralism of some of his colleagues in the fragile American consensus that has been the lead horse in this already complicated new kind of "war" against only one aspect of "terrorism”.

5:38) 09-DEC-2001 23:42 Richard Farson

Harlan, your point about the coalition of the willing compared to the glad apathetic is important.  Most liberals are in that latter camp.  But they are so afraid of appearing unpatriotic that they are reluctant to attack the administration as it violates civil rights.

Even though the suicide bombings were horrific, I still see this as an "accidental war".  I just don't believe that Americans would have been so mobilized to support a war if it had only been the plane crashes and the loss of a few hundred lives.  That would be more comparable to the Oklahoma bombing.  It was the dramatic collapse of the buildings that so galvanized world opinion, and that was an unintended accident.  But we have never been able to separate the two, and so go after all of Afghanistan for what was surely a surprise unintended consequence to its alleged perpetrator, bin Laden.  Somehow, the absurdities get swept under the rug.  We still do not know for sure that bin Laden is guilty.

5:39) 10-DEC-2001 22:30 Mary Boone

Dick, I think one of the main reasons "we've" accomplished so much is that "we" is more than just the external coalition of the usual suspects (e.g. European and even Middle Eastern countries).  I think that the negotiating power of the Northern Alliance and the speed with which an interim government has been forged is remarkable.  Of course, it remains to be seen how fragile the truce is amongst "warlords" (as they were described today in an article I read in the NYT).  But the fact is, Alexander the Great knew all about conquering and then allowing for self-rule.  Seemed to work pretty well for him.

And hallelujah, it looks like the humanitarian aid is going to get through and that has had impacts -- e.g. General Abdul Dostrum changed his earlier "bellicose" attitude at a ceremony where first train carrying food came across the Freedom Bridge which had been closed for years.

5:40) 10-DEC-2001 22:31 Mary Boone

Dick, according to the videotape they found in an Afghan private home, you were right that they didn't anticipate the extent of the attacks.  But it also looks like this tape makes it clear that the circumstantial evidence against Bin Laden is pretty compelling.

5:41) 11-DEC-2001 00:06 Richard Farson

I'm interested in seeing that tape, and wonder if we will see it all.  I have never doubted that bin Laden is the likely perpetrator.  I just doubted that we had the goods on him in a way that would get a conviction in any court (other than a military tribunal, perhaps).  The way they talk about it, I would still be surprised if there is a smoking gun.  But maybe so.  It would be a relief to know that we didn't go to all this trouble to get the wrong person.