AUSTIN, Texas --- Until a few days ago, it seemed there were
only two ways we could possibly lose the war in Afghanistan at this late
date. The first was if great numbers of Afghans starve to death this winter,
thus canceling out the good we have done by getting rid of the Taliban and
inciting a new wave of terrorists. The second would be an Islamist uprising
in Pakistan, the overthrow of President Pervez Musharraf and war between
India and Pakistan, thus rather more than canceling out any good we have
done.
True, Al Qaeda seems to have leaked away at the end, like water
dribbling out of cupped hands. First they were all holed up in Tora Bora and
we were pounding the stuffing out of them and then ... they weren't there.
Since we suspected the Pakistanis would let them through, it can't have come
as much surprise. We have learned a great deal about how deeply implicated
the ISI, the Pakistani CIA, was in the Taliban government.
But now arises a third possibility for disaster that has an
element beyond tragedy -- ludicrous farce. The problem is Gen. Abdul Rashid
Dostum, the warlord's warlord; a man who has changed sides nine times,
including stints fighting for the Soviets, the Soviet puppets, the
Mujahadeen, the Taliban and now the Northern Alliance. This one is a
classic.
One Western diplomat, according to the Times, says Dostum has "a
very checkered human rights record." Now that's diplomatic language.
According to intelligence sources, the guy is brutal and corrupt, as well as
untrustworthy -- and according to the Revolutionary Association of the Women
of Afghanistan, his soldiers' record of rape is ghastly. To have fought a
war, costing who knows how many Afghan lives and at least several American
lives, and a monetary cost of billions only to end up with Dostum in power
is beyond bearing.
Dostum has been appointed deputy defense minister in the new
Afghan government, "something of an unsavory trade-off," notes the Times.
Yo. If he remains deputy defense minister -- one of his rival warlords notes
that Dostum is illiterate and incompetent to be deputy defense minister - we
will presumably have to accept it as a necessary evil pursuant to Hamid
Karzai's noble effort to create a true coalition government. (But let's
spare the rape victims the lecture about necessary evil.) The trouble is,
Dostum, on his record, is the cilantro of generals -- he has a tendency to
take over everything around him. He has already kicked up dust, threatening
to boycott the new government because only two of his followers were given
cabinet posts.
Whoever said irony died on Sept. 11 should report to
re-education camp immediately.
The administration and the media may be doing a significant
disservice by oversimplifying this war. Black hats and white hats may make a
good cowboy movie, but they have a downside in reality. During the culture
wars of the Gingrich era, conservatives liked to accuse liberals of "moral
relativism," a deadly insult even though no one knew quite what it meant.
Moral ambiguity is a fact of life, and to pretend it doesn't exist in
Afghanistan will only lead to disenchantment. And disenchantment, in our
case, usually leads to abandonment of whatever we've started because it's
too messy. The other night on "60 Minutes," ex-Rep. Charlie Wilson referred
to this as "our well-known attention deficit disorder."
We didn't stick around the first time to help Afghanistan get
itself functioning, from which ensued a great tragedy. Unless we get a
realistic grasp of just how difficult this is going to be, we are all too
likely to give up prematurely again.
It seems to me it does no one any good to keep saying, "Our
enemies are evil people who hate us because we are successful." That's
certainly not the way they look at it -- and, at the very least, it is
necessary to understand your enemy in order to fight him.
We have already reached such a pass with oversimplification that
the words "root causes" are used as a scornful code for wussiness ("He
thinks we should try to understand the 'root causes.' What a wimp!"), as
though trying to understand someone else's point of view is a weakness.
As many others have pointed out, we are probably dealing with at
least two aspects of terrorism. One is the perverted holy-warrior fantasy of
Osama bin Laden, and the other is the consequence of history and policy.
If you drive people off their land -- say the Palestinians --
and leave them to rot in refugee camps for three generations, you are going
to get terrorism. If you further aggravate old wounds by sending settlers
into Palestinian territory and ruthlessly occupy same, you will get more
terrorism.
This is not a great mystery, nor is it caused by envy of
American success. There is no weakness in re-examining policies that lead to
terrorism -- we'd be fools not to do so.
To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other
Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web
page at
www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2001 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
