[R-G] Trying Harder in Af-Pak

[Sid Shniad]

http://www.truthout.org/060109R 

t r u t h o u t June 1, 2009 

Trying Harder in Pakistan and Afghanistan 

This week in Cairo Obama will undoubtedly embody our good intentions 
and fundamental decency as Americans. But, for all our self-deluding 
innocence and naivete, we will remain Graham Greene's leper, and the 
harder we try in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the more our actions sound 
as a warning bell and an anti-American recruiting call to Muslims 
all over the world. 

by Steve Weissman 

"Master, how long will it take for me to reach enlightenment?" the eager 
student asked. "Perhaps ten years," the teacher answered. "But what if I try 
extra hard?" the student asked. "How long will it take then?" The teacher 
thought for a moment and smiled. "Then," he said, "it will take twenty 
years." 

Anyone who has studied Eastern philosophy or martial arts will have 
heard the story in one form or another, but it has special application to 
President Barack Obama's escalating intervention in Afghanistan and 
Pakistan. The harder he tries to win a military confrontation in the two 
countries or to engage in a major effort to reform them, the longer and 
deeper he will find himself sucked into unwinnable wars and inescapable 
quagmires. 

The reason should be obvious. The presence of American troops, aircraft 
and pilotless drones - or too much American money and too many American aid 
workers - will turn increasing numbers of Afghans, Pakistanis and their 
fellow Muslims from around the world against us and against those who appear 
to do our bidding. 

Nationalistic and religious reaction is the one unchanging lesson of 
foreign intervention, especially in countries that have a history of having 
fought against the British, French or other colonial powers. Yet, the 
Pentagon never learned the lesson from Vietnam and refuses to learn it from 
Iraq, where top generals still speak of staying at least another ten years. 
Nor have Obama's White House and the Democratic-controlled Congress gotten 
the message, believing they can soften any anti-American reaction by adding 
several billions of dollars more in non-military foreign aid. 

In other words, we will try harder, work smarter and do more. It's a 
can-do American response, neatly repackaged under brand Obama, as if his 
apparent decency and good intentions will be enough to change the way 
average Afghans and Pakistanis - and the Pakistani officer corps - will 
respond to what looks like unending foreign intervention. 

Even those who should know better are swallowing the bait. Only three 
senators - Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin), Bernie Sanders (Independent-Vermont) 
and Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) - voted against the supplemental appropriations 
to escalate American military intervention in Afghanistan. Leaders of the 
formerly antiwar MoveOn also gave their blessing to Obama's wars, while 
well-intentioned feminists and defenders of human rights are urging the 
State Department to use American intervention as a wonderful opportunity to 
remake foreign cultures in America's image, as if anyone knows a good way to 
do that. 

Almost no one in the narrow debate talks of Washington's long-standing 
struggle to dominate the oil and gas resources of Central Asia and the 
pipelines to bring them to market. Everyone talks of the very real need to 
safeguard Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, without ever raising similar and 
inter-related concerns about Indian and Israeli nukes. And early calls for 
an exit strategy from either Afghanistan or Pakistan have been replaced by 
plans to build a monumental new American embassy in Islamabad. Our folly 
knows no limits. 

We're in for the long haul, and those of us who have seen the movie too 
many times before can only try to explain the drama as it develops. For 
starters, let me suggest a first reading or rereading of Graham Greene's 
"The Quiet American," in which he describes the similar overlay of innocence 
and naivete that led up to America's massive intervention in Southeast 
Asia. One of his key characters is a truly idealistic CIA man who blows up 
women and children, all for a good cause. "Innocence," warned Greene, "is 
like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no 
harm." 

Think about those words as you hear President Obama's eagerly awaited 
speech this week in Cairo. He will undoubtedly embody our good intentions 
and fundamental decency as Americans. But, for all our self-deluding 
innocence and naivete, we will remain Graham Greene's leper, and the harder 
we try in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the more our actions will sound as a 
warning bell and an anti-American recruiting call to Muslims all over the 
world. 

The Soviets learned that lesson in Afghanistan and the Chinese seem to 
be avoiding similar pitfalls in most of their global interventions. But we 
are Americans, and we try harder.