Important non-priorities

Try this conundrum for size: A) As important as what’s a priority is what’s not; B) Non-priorities can still be important. Such has been the case with four Afghanistan crisis issues, as yet unexplored in this column. Time to address these now.

Post-Oct. 7 loss of life. That date witnessed the start of American military involvement with Afghanistan. For a while the world press floundered. Was it “war on Afghanistan” or “war in Afghanistan” or, more accurately for the initial American involvement, “war above Afghanistan”? Take your pick; people died no matter what the nomenclature. There have been six categories of casualties, listed here in order of U.S. press attention:

Americans in combat: five – three soldiers by friendly fire, one CIA agent shortly after interrogating an American Talib in late November, one Special Forces sergeant last week at Tora Bora.

“Civilian Afghan combat casualties” – in quotes because of another conundrum: Who’s a civilian and who’s not? Let’s say, in any case, almost certainly under 5,000. The European press, hyper-attentive on this matter, says 2,000.

Non-combat Afghan “victims” of interruptions in humanitarian relief: very few despite much hand-wringing by humanitarian organizations (see below). Seldom, very seldom, do super-resourceful, super-enduring Afghans starve to death.

Afghan Taliban combatants: maybe – maximum – another 5,000. Very likely fewer as losers slipped back into landscape and woodwork.

Al-Qaida outsiders allied with the Taliban: max thus far, another 3,000. Probably fewer and concentrated in four or five small areas.

Friendly Afghan (mostly Northern Alliance) combatants: at most 1,000 … to whose number should be added the Sept. 9 death of Ahmad Shah Masood.

Total: fewer than 15,000, probably nearer half that figure, in three fairly bloody months which may have ended two dozen far more awful years of Afghan catastrophe … I n which many millions (millions) have died and would otherwise have kept on dying.

Humanitarian frustrations. In front of me, as I scribble, is a map of “University Town, Peshawar” replete with 116 Afghanistan-oriented humanitarian organizations. The Pakistani suburban quarter, about to lose its ex-pats, has served well as a support center for Afghan causes beginning with the Soviet invasion in 1979. Now the action moves back across the border, but my Peshawar map recalls the enormous idealism and hard work of so many humanitarian colleagues over the past 23 years. I shall miss Peshawar, my do-gooder chums, and also people like Masood (quite a different Masood) who tended the American Club bar. We grew old together as he served Heinekens to countless international representatives of non-governmental organizations.

This same NGO community, which does so much good, has been notably unhappy with our post-Oct. 7 military effort. Over the past three months I’ve been honored to share various European podiums with NGO reps. Their constant message is both slighted and short-sighted: That the United States, which (gasp!) did not ask their permission, is A) killing innocent victims and B) impeding NGO relief efforts.

Nonsense. For a start, some of these NGO programs were in bed with the Taliban, serving as de-facto ministries of health, education, and welfare. Their argument: That they needed to stay “apolitical.” Again nonsense. By being on the ground, with Taliban visas in their passports, they helped the Taliban as well as the local populace. I know; I have two such visas in my passport – neither of which kept Taliban thugs from “whupping me upside the head” (American thug parlance) last March.

Since October the NGOs have wrung their hands … and pointed fingers at the Pentagon. Let them point. The Pentagon has cleared the way for a far, far more comprehensive humanitarian/reconstruction effort. Let’s get serious.

Limitation of ISAF mandate to Kabul. ISAF is the International Security and Assistance Force which, led by Britain, is (slowly) assembling in Afghanistan’s capital city. These guys are key, and you can tell as much from what ordinary Afghans (if not all their “leaders”) are saying for the first time in Afghan history: They want and need outside peacekeepers.

My italics are prompted by the utter lack of precedent for this desire. In the past Afghans have cheerfully attacked, butchered, and defeated all armed outsiders. (Ask the Soviets, if you can find any.) But now the war-weary Afghan sentiment is diametrically different. Why, then, is the ISAF mandate not extended to other cities, indeed to all Afghanistan?

Two reasons: First, the outsiders are few. Second, Afghan warlords (including both the new defense minister and his even more parochial deputy) want to keep them few so as to preserve their own bailiwicks.

Never mind. If Afghanistan is going to be, once again, a nation-state-in-the-making, things must begin with Kabul. Order must be consolidated – and politically de-ethnicized – in Kabul. Institutions must be built in Kabul. Reconstruction programs must feel secure and functional in Kabul. In short, Kabul is where it’s at…not only for the capital city but also for the future of the whole country. Consolidate Kabul on sustainable principles, and the rest of Afghanistan, however remote and recalcitrant, will eventually follow suit.

“Eventually” could take a while. Recent reports indicate lawlessness on the rise (yet again) in the unruly Pushtun South. As with war deaths and humanitarian needs, such discord is regrettable. It’s important to extend ISAF’s mandate to the provinces. It’s not an immediate priority.

Opium. Here’s the last, least mentioned, and editorially trickiest of four important non-priorities. Our contemporary Western relationship with mind-altering plants is so bizarre – and frequently mindless – that one scarcely knows where to start.

So let’s start close to home with the New York Times which, on this past October 22, called pre-Taliban Afghanistan “by far the biggest source of opium in the world.” Tim Golden’s mostly useful article quotes the State Department senior official for international narcotic issues as follows: “They [who’s “They”?] may have told people they can plant, they may tell people nothing and allow them to plant, or there may be enough chaos with the war that it won’t matter what the Taliban says. … We had a situation that showed promise that is now headed in absolutely the wrong direction.”

Approximate translation: Yes, for reasons both political and Islam-ethical, the Taliban had imposed a ban on opium production in the last year of the last millennium. This ban, furthermore, had been effective in Taliban-controlled areas, notably in opium homeland Helmand province, irrigated by water from a U.S.-built dam. How Mullah Omar did it, we’re not quite sure … and, having escaped last week’s Helmand posse, he’s not available to tell U.S. Sophisticated crop substitution plus subsidies? Threats of sports stadium execution? Again, take your pick.

The point is that now, as before, it’s planting season. Either BBC World or CNN International (distinguishable mostly by accent and the 24/7 stock market reports run by Atlanta but not London) ran a piece last week on the re-invigoration of opium poppy free enterprise. As one who once lived next to the head U.S. narc in Peshawar – memorable for his swagger, beer belly, and stressed Budweiser belt buckle – I couldn’t care less.

Now is not the time to give Afghans guff on mind-altering drugs. With respect to this issue, let’s stop projecting blame and spend less time chasing “justice” beyond our borders. Let’s explore demand, not supply – consumption, not production. It’s time to ask these questions: Why do so many Westerners, especially Western adolescents, want such drugs in the first place? Why do they seek mind alteration? What’s unsatisfying – perhaps incomplete – about their (our) conventional Western mind?

As a teacher – my proudest identity – I used to distinguish with my students between phony and real questions. A phony question is one whose answer is already known to the person (teacher) who asks it. A real question, on the contrary, is really worth asking. Both the “teacher” and the “students” stand to learn something. The preceding paragraph is full of real questions.

Dr. Whitney Azoy, a cultural anthropologist and former U.S. diplomat in Kabul, has worked for 30 years with Afghanistan and the Muslim world.