On Faith: AfPak Fails Because of Pak
Minneapolis, MN (July 1, 2010) - As a regularly featured blogger on the Washington Post/Newsweek's "On Faith" blog, Dr. Aseem Shukla, member of HAF's Board of Directors, has the opportunity to provide a Hindu viewpoint on various issues. Below is Dr. Shukla's latest blog. Please post your comments directly on the "On Faith" site by clicking here.
Q: In the wake of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's dismissal as chief commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Congress is evaluating our policy and presence there. Is it time for the U.S. to get out of Afghanistan? Do we have a moral responsibility to stay or to leave?
As Americans, we have an urgent and unequivocal moral responsibility to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible. The morality in withdrawal arises directly from the depravity of this war's execution. A decade of engagement in Central Asia has abundantly demonstrated the valiance and strength of our nation's soldiers. Sadly, in the war in Afghanistan, it is as if our gladiators are asked to battle with one hand tied behind the back and a blindfold placed over their eyes.
Telling soldiers to fight like a tiger but smile and hand out chocolates to civilians is one way to crush the fight; but telling a soldier to chase an enemy hard, but pull back at the nominal boundary between Afghanistan and Pakistan borders is a metaphorical shot in our soldier's back. We instruct our generals to bring stability and good governance to Afghan lands, but ask them to close their eyes to Pakistani Islamists that shelter al-Qaeda and churn out their only export of consequence out of Pakistan--newly minted, radicalized Taliban warriors.
As long as the Obama Administration does not accept and confront certain ground realities, there can be no moral justification to march thousands of courageous America's finest towards their own martyrdom. This reality? That the Pakistani civilian government is as much a phantom as the border between Waziristan and southern Afghanistan; that Pakistan has no interest in our collective success in Afghanistan; and that the Pakistani military plays its own Great Game focused on destabilization and terror among its neighbors in India and Afghanistan.
AfPak's success lies in choices that sadly have gone from feasible to now only rhetorical. Will NATO forces occupy and cleanse North and South Waziristan in Pakistani territory with a brutal determination it would require? Is the United States willing to condition all financial and logistical support to Pakistan's military on its complete and determined cooperation with allied goals? Is the United States willing to stringently leverage humanitarian American aid disbursement in Afghanistan and Pakistan with strict limits to preclude the runaway corruption that has infected an area suddenly flushed with American dollars?
It seems clear that the possibilities that arose in 2001 have eroded over the near decade of our engagement there. Unless our military goals in Afghanistan encompass Pakistan's nominal territory that is the true epicenter of terror in the world today, we cannot morally continue in this failed Central Asian endeavor.
Views expressed here are the personal views of Dr. Aseem Shukla and do not necessarily represent those of the Hindu American Foundation or the University of Minnesota.