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rfmcdonaldMargaret Wente's column in The Globe and Mail says pretty much what I think about the pointlessness of trying to modernize Afghanistan.
The Hazara themselves, as the Taliban would have pointed out, are people who in denying Islam with their heretical Shi'a beliefs and so merit the sort of severe punishment that will bring them back into the fold. According to the natural order of things, of course.
Are the only substantive differences between the Karzai government and the Taliban the former's support by foreign governments and non-Pushtun? If so, what reason is there for Canada--and other nations, of course, and for NATO as a whole--to play any role in Afghanistan more extensive than that of guaranteeing its government won't sponsor international terrorism? If 117 Canadian soldiers had to die in Afghanistan, surely they could have died for a cause that would not have been so easily falsified. "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"
I want little girls to go to school as much as anyone else. But the Afghan mission has morphed far beyond its original intent. Now, it's nation-building. To secure the terrain until the Afghans are able to help themselves will require more boots on the ground, more training of police, more civilian aid, more democracy promotion and a whole bunch more money. No one has yet been able to explain how we will prevent the next few billion dollars worth of aid from disappearing into the pockets of corrupt government officials and useless projects, the way the last few billion did.
Western intervention is fuelled by the delusion that, once we show them the way, Afghans will want to be more or less like us. But what if they don't? Take Ustad Mohammad Akbari, a leader of the politically crucial Hazara minority. In his view, the new law actually protects women's rights. "Men and women have equal rights under Islam, but there are differences in the way men and women are created," he explained. "Men are stronger and women are a little bit weaker; even in the West, you do not see women working as firefighters."
The Hazara themselves, as the Taliban would have pointed out, are people who in denying Islam with their heretical Shi'a beliefs and so merit the sort of severe punishment that will bring them back into the fold. According to the natural order of things, of course.
Are the only substantive differences between the Karzai government and the Taliban the former's support by foreign governments and non-Pushtun? If so, what reason is there for Canada--and other nations, of course, and for NATO as a whole--to play any role in Afghanistan more extensive than that of guaranteeing its government won't sponsor international terrorism? If 117 Canadian soldiers had to die in Afghanistan, surely they could have died for a cause that would not have been so easily falsified. "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"
