ross HermistonNovember 16, 2008 15:27 EST

My dream would be to be a professor of a compulsory course for all Canadian Members of Parliament. I would assign the excellent, informative essay by Robert Montgomery, THE ARCHIPELAGO OF FEAR, to the class as compulsory reading. I would require them to write an essay on the reasons why we should abandon our complicity with the American - Nato dominated International Security Assistance Force. I would also require them to comment specifically on the following statments by Mr. Montgomery:
(1)"I was fascinated and troubled by the possibility that foreign aid might be helping remodel Kabul into an even more dangerous place."
(2)"During the Soviet occupation, the Russians were despised for situating their bases in urban areas, effectively using locals as shields and shutting down parts of the city. It had occurred to many Afghans I spoke to over the next two weeks that the West was essentially doing the same thing. "We expected the international forces not to follow the same mistakes as the Soviets," said Ahmad Fahim Hakim, an architect and deputy chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission."
(3)Shravan Kashyap, a long-time UN hand, told me over an English breakfast in the rose garden that he was working on a project, funded by the Canadian International Development Agency, to improve refugee settlements near Kandahar. CIDA was doing fantastic work, he said.
"So what are those settlements like?" I asked as he munched on his toast.
"Oh," he said matter-of-factly, "I'm not actually allowed to go there."
(4)After seven years and billions dollars in aid, Kabul still lacked a fully functioning sewage system. The streets were a moonscape. Electricity flowed to only a few neighbourhoods, only every second night, and only for a few short hours. Most homes lacked running water. Most of the three million–odd refugees and returnees crowding the city lived in informal settlements with no services whatsoever.
(5)What do you want?" I took to asking people. "Security," answered many. When I pressed them, I realized that they were talking mostly about jobs, food, and a way to take care of their families.

RickWNovember 16, 2008 20:08 EST

I simply cannot believe our politicos to be as naive as Hitler supposedly was when his commanders assured him that whole divisions were still in reserve, when they were in fact non-existant.

I can only conclude that there is another, far more sinister, agenda behind all this. I mean, in this age of instant communications, how can it be anything else?

AnonymousDecember 12, 2008 02:48 EST

I'm currently under a UN contract here in Afghanistan. And although my duty station means I reside in the North-Eastern Region, I've spent a fair share of my time in Kabul - mostly in transit to and fro Dubai's Terminal 2.

Names like the Serena (where I had brunch for the first time precisely one week ago today - Friday being the national day of rest) and the unnamed compound where the author stayed (adorned with a swimming pool and bunker bar playing background to a United Colours of Benetton ad) being an only too familiar reality of my time here. While the rare escapes into the cities various rose gardens and strolls through commercial streets leave me with a sense of anxiousness (or, even worse, worry that I’m not being anxiousness enough). Since I arrived a few months back, a South African teacher, two British NGO workers, and one French NGO worker have been shot, in broad morning day light on the streets of Kabul. Their crime, coming here wearing their hearts on their sleeves and being precisely where their attackers knew they would be. Regardless of, the effectiveness of their work (of which I admittedly know nothing about) or the overhead costs of their respective organizations, was the punishment fitting?

The author leaves an ambiguous message here, one that I have no clear answer for: Given that these architectural monstrosities breed suspicion, rage, and inevitably violence ; yet, as the good Colonel so clearly pointed-out, death by IED’s and well aimed bullets are a relatively common (and escalating) occurrence here – how does one mediate immediate security concerns with constructing a city that will one day no longer require heinous rolls of barbered wired perched atop every second wall and at least one automatic weapon in sight regardless of where you stand? Who lays down their shields/weapons first?

(Please note that following the authors suit I’m discussing only international civilian daily realities, and not those of the various international militaries. That in itself is a whole other story…)

NiloufarFebruary 05, 2009 03:38 EST

I was living in Kabul for a while, and most of the journalists I encountered there, were those who used to research on the internet, because they were too intimidated to leave the compound to actually investigate on the street level. It's understandable to a certain degree, but more interesting are the implications of this method for the content of their reports and the actual picture they eventually portray. They won't get to talk to common people, Afghans, so they won't be able to write about their concerns. In the security bubbles where they hang out they will just meet other expats who have their own justified concerns, and this concerns start reflecting on the journalist, who in the end will produce a one-sided story. There is no space for complexity there, no space for ambiguity. But Kabul as a city is full of complexity. It is a very ambiguous situation, there is no good and bad, no black and white. That is actually something you can only find out while trying to get the full picture, that's what Charles Montgomery tried and actually he captured the complexity of the situation very well. Very rarely I read articles about Afghanistan in Western media that reflect the actual situation, and go beyond what we desire to hear, or what we are used to hear in the expat community. Investigative journalism has become a very rare discipline...

Now, the question is very valid, who lays down their weapons first? But shouldn't we first ask ourselves, what was the actual mission of the international intervention, and what has to be done to achieve it? One aspect has been completely neglected in 7 years, which is work, or if we dig deeper, support to build up a strong economy. And in this both the Afghan government and the international community have definitely failed to show commitment... When people are bored, unemployed, hopeless, hungry and betrayed, they easily become preys for radical brainwashing. So why not defeating the problem at it's roots?

The whole story has another dimension, reflected in the number of illegal Afghan refugees in Europe(mostly young men escaping a futureless life). They are illegal because economic matters is not enough to get a residence permit. But what if economic issues might eventually lead to political, radical actions? What if economic problems are born out of political instability and post-conflict turmoil that the West partly accounts for? The West interfered, for many good reasons, but at the end of the day, every mission has to be accomplished, even if it entails a lot of trouble. Self-criticism, empathy as well as neutral analysis are part of this process...