When the Indian embassy was bombed in Afghanistan, the Indian government did not respond by launching air strikes, or sending troops, or railing against Muslim extremism. Instead, they invested in building Afghani infrastructure, including a power grid and road system…
The book “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson describes the author’s experiences in Afghanistan after he was injured in a climbing accident and was taken in by a small village to heal. During his time in the village he learned the local traditions and customs, mainly that the Afghani culture is one of hospitality, meaning that if you are given assistance or aid you incur an obligation to return the favour. When he was healed he paid back that debt by raising money to build schools in rural/tribal areas, especially for girls who receive little to no education. Mortenson’s experiences showcase the sort of policy that we should have in Afghanistan: we should be building schools in villages instead of bombing them. There is a time and place for conventional war, but history proves that Afghanistan (the “Graveyard of Empires”) is not the place for it. The key to understanding a hospitality culture is that it is also a retribution culture, as in, if you build schools for them they will like you, and if you bomb their uncle they might want to kill you.
The problem in America is that our foreign policy has for too long been run by frightened people, who say that the strong way to implement foreign policy is bombing villages and sending our young men and women to die, instead of doing the real strong and principled work of creating peace in Afghanistan. A couple weeks ago Newsweek ran a cover article that featured interviews with Taliban leaders, the main message of which being that these people will not give up, and killing their brothers and sisters will only embolden them. One of the men lived a very happy life selling vegetables until his father, a relatively peaceful Muslim cleric, was beaten and killed by American soldiers. He immediately joined a Taliban insurgent group to kick out the “invaders.” This word is crucial, it shows that we are being viewed through the lens of revenge culture, not through the lens of hospitality culture as we intended. We cannot achieve our goals in Afghanistan if we are seen as invaders, and we will be seen as invaders even more if President Obama sends more soldiers into Afghanistan. The debate shouldn’t be over whether to send more soldiers or not, it should be over whether we send an army of contractors (the non-Blackwater kind) and builders, or to cut our losses and get every American man and woman out while we can. On this point I find myself slightly undecided, but what I know for sure is that more fighting men and women isn’t the right answer. I think they’ve given enough anyway.
