America’s “Great Liberating” attitude, meant to sound as heroic as “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” is slowly fading away. Let’s look beyond our own welfare. Will we stand for “liberty and justice for all” and present no compromise to struggle? Our reputation and integrity rests in Afghanistan.
Victory won’t be easily achieved and the quest for success is quite risky, but Afghanistan has spent 30 years begging for help. My Muslim community has felt embarrassed since 2001. Some of us are frightened, but even more of us are ashamed of the Taliban.
Have you forgotten the six people killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing? Have you forgotten the 223 lives lost when the two U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed in 1998, or the 17 sailors killed on the USS Cole in 2000?
Remember the 2,976 victims buried under two of the worlds’ tallest buildings in 2001. I can’t find an accurate number of servicemen and civilians killed since our Afghan invasion, but where’s Al-Qaeda’s base? Whether we are in or out of Afghanistan, the conflict will continue and it will haunt us for years to come.
The Soviet Union pushed into Afghanistan in 1979. Its air support devastated the country. Almost 1.5 million Afghans were killed; of the 3 million civilians wounded, 1.2 million wound up permanently disabled. At this time, one in every two refugees in the world was Afghan.
Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson and the CIA’s Gust Avrakotos convinced the American government to intervene. The U.S. secretly sent logistics to Mujahadeen forces to defeat our Cold War rivals. The Soviet Union dissolved as a result of the 10-year conflict, but Afghanistan was left with half the population under 14 years of age.
Our country abandoned the Afghan people and ignored the psychological implications that would soon follow. We ignored the values of social health services, schools, and the importance of laying the framework for a solid and responsible government that could defend the people.
The Taliban left Pakistan and took Kabul in 1996. Televisions, radios and even kites were confiscated. Women were denied an education, couldn’t work — and were prohibited to reveal their faces. With so many men killed in war and living under so many rules, women were left to support their children by either begging or turning to prostitution.
While the U.S. was in Iraq searching for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan. In his article “Afghanistan: U.S. gives warlords green light to reassert control,” Norm Dixon revealed the Bush administration handed Afghan control to the “same warlords who committed unspeakable atrocities.”
One name mentioned in the article General Abdul Rashid Dostum, Dostum is known to have fought alongside Soviet troops, conduct arrests for the Taliban and even orchestrated a kidnapping in 2008.
U.S. General Stanley McChrystal announced in a “Global Security” article that American troops will reduce civilian casualities by limiting air strikes. McChrystal explained to the BBC that deploying more troops is vital for victory. Many self-centered Americans, safe on U.S. soil, reject our military’s plea for resources while sacrificing all they have for what we supposedly stand for.
The Afghan people fought and won our war against the Soviet Union. Reparations are due. After all the favors America has done, I think it’s time Israel also gets off the sidelines and finally helps out.
Khalil Sheikh is a senior liberal studies major and a contributing writer for the Daily 49er.