As the US government stumbles toward failure in a war which was
initially won, a new way of thinking is needed to reverse the tragic
course of US security interests in Afghanistan. A recent attempt
on the life of Afghan President Hamid Karzai came perilously close to
succeeding. Attacks on
US forces are on the rise. The US reaction is causing a rise in
civilian casualties. The result is a deadly spiral approaching a
tipping point. The gains of the initial routing of the Taliban
could be erased by another anti-American quagmire.
Is there a
solution? The answer, it
turns
out, is a firm "It depends." If Americans can embrace the plan we
outline here, then Afghanistan can be stabilized in a way that wins the
war,
eradicates poppy cultivation, and allows the US to bring most of its
troops home almost immediately.
Religious fervor plays but a small role
in decisions to join the
Taliban. Money plays a far greater role. The Taliban pays
$8
per day,
twice what the Afghan army pays its soldiers, and three times police
pay. Insurgents get help with basic necessities such as food,
clothing, and medical care. Young men by and large do not join
the
insurgents out of a desire to fight, but because their families need to
eat. The US military occupation runs well over $20 billion
per year.
Every able-bodied Afghan male could be working for much less than
a
tenth of
that. The United States, with its superpower economy, is losing a
rudimentary bidding war against a foreign force whose fighters often
fight barefoot.
The main obstacle to the solution
we propose is not logistical,
but psychological. In war, Americans tend to place their faith in
actions which result in damage to the enemy. The motto of the
state of Missouri is "Show
Me." From
this heartland of the heartland comes this fair rendering of the
American preference for what the eye can see, right now. Winning
a war
through soft power, which is how the peace was secured after World War
II, requires patience and a bit more imagination.
Afghanistan has a 40 percent
unemployment rate. Pulling America's sons out of
harm's way in Afghanistan will
succeed on one condition, and will fail otherwise. That condition
is
competent execution of a specific program, down to dollars on a
spreadsheet, to create large numbers of low-but-adequate wage jobs
which build Afghanistan's almost non-existent infrastructure. The
level of investment per year would equal the amount required to soak up
Afghanistan's 40 percent unemployment, and would be paid not to
laborers brought in by foreign contractors, but to Afghan citizens
alone.
Though it may be hard for
Americans to imagine, most Afghans would be delighted to work at the
hardest kind of labor for a mere ten dollars a day. This
unskilled labor could dig water pipeline, build water treatment plant,
build roads, repair buildings, and do the thousands of jobs which need
doing in this tormented country. Rocket holes in government
ministries and AK-47 pockmarks are everywhere. One need not work hard
to discover the needs of Afghan society. It needs everything.
The average lifespan in Afghanistan is 43.
Schools are running in three and four
shifts of pupils per day,
because school space is lacking. Hospital supplies are a
perpetual
problem in most poor countries. In Afghanistan, there are no
hospitals
to hold the supplies. People
with
treatable problems are dying because there is no room to
admit them. Thirty percent of the population has no access to
clean
water. One out of five Afghan children now die before the age of
five.
Because the entire cost of
wages which would erase Afghanistan's forty percent unemployment would
amount to less than one-tenth of the cost of the US military
occupation, we call this solution the Ten Percent of Present Cost
Solution. Afghanistan lacks a
skilled and educated workforce, and if the unemployed cannot obtain
education, they can at least receive on-the-job-training.
This plan will build
observable infrastructure cheaply
and quickly, which will drive Afghans away from the arms of the
Taliban. Most Afghans never liked the Taliban, which as a
movement
has its roots in Pakistan. The Taliban was only able to take
power in
the vacuum left the last time the US abandoned Afghanistan. After
the
Mujahadeen had driven out US arch-rival the Soviet Union, the US left
Afghanistan to its own decrepitude and bombed-out
ruins.
Poppy cultivation, from which heroin is derived, is purely
economically-driven. Cash for alternative crops would stop it.
When the U.S. overthrew the Taliban in 2001, it promised farmers
that they would not need to cultivate poppies to survive. The
farmers waited but the promises were not kept. The total yearly
GDP due to the narco-trade is about $3 billion. The military
occupation burns through more than this much money every two months.
The Afghan Loya Jirga, a
country-wide meeting of tribal elders, has
long been the body
which we would liken to a Congress or Parliament.
Central
governments in Afghanistan have seldom had much power, and even the
relatively strong Taliban could not consolidate the loyalties of the
Northern warlords. Afghans should be left to run their affairs
the
Afghani way, with the West focused on eliminating the drivers of
violence: the deadly combination of wretched poverty, too much time on
the hands of the unemployed,
and money and explosives in the hands of jihadist
recruiters.
The Ten Percent Solution should be
administered
by an agency committed to a regimen of spot audits and headcounts at
worksites in order to keep corruption in check. Corruption will
never
be eliminated, but mechanisms could be put into place to verify that at
least most of the money is used properly. The WPA- Works
Progress Administration earlier in our history is a good model.
Presently, forty
percent of development funds going
to private contractors exits the country in the form of corporate
profits and salaries to foreign consultants, who may earn $200,000 -
$500,000 a year in a country where most people live on less than a
dollar
a day. The recommendations in the recent
report
by Agency
Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR), led by Oxfam, should
be
implemented in the legislation.
Any remaining US military presence
should be confined to a single forward base which serves only as a
launching pad to the Afghan-Pakistani border. International
peacekeepers inside Afghanistan should consist of troops from Muslim
countries. Although the mile-wide Afghani independent streak
frowns upon any kind of foreign troops, those who are at least Muslim
possess the advantage of understanding the protocols of a Muslim
society. This translates into more successful interaction with
the populace.
Muslim troops
from the UAE are already operating in some provinces with great
success.
Whether the Solution can be adopted depends
on how loudly Americans demand the correction of a course that is
headed straight for the rocks. Economic conditions in Afghanistan
are inconsistent with the country's importance to the United States as
a strategic partner in the global War on Terror. Professor Peter
Bergen of John
Hopkins' School of Advanced
International Studies, in testimony before the House Committee on
Foreign Affairs in 2007 said: "Given the fact that the 9/11
attacks
emerged from Afghanistan and cost the American economy at least $500
billion, aid for Afghanistan so that it does not to return to a failed
state is a good investment."
By lobbying lawmakers to expand their
thinking, Americans can win the war, an engine of jihadist hatred can
be removed, and a looming tragedy for both Afghans and American
soldiers can be avoided.
Ralph Lopez is the founder of
Jobs for Afghans. His co-author is an Afghan citizen and a
Master's candidate in government at a university in the the U.S.
