Greg Mortenson

On Dec. 4 at The Music Hall in Portsmouth, N.H., three days after President Obama’s speech announcing that 30,000 more troops will be sent to Afghanistan, I heard Greg Mortenson speak.

Mortenson is the author of “Three Cups of Tea” and the just-released “Stones Into Schools.” He has become well known for his 15-year campaign successfully building schools and relationships in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I had been hoping that Obama’s exhaustive deliberations about how the United States should proceed in central Asia would result in something other than an escalation in the war.

Having read Mortenson’s books, and being familiar with the arguments of really smart people offering a multitude of divergent proposals for addressing the violence in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, I was eager to hear his reaction to Obama’s decision. Surely this school-builder, this gentle man who walks trustingly unarmed among his protective Muslim hosts in remote, subsistence villages, would criticize a larger military footprint.

But Mortenson seemed ambivalent about the troop increase and uncertain regarding its wisdom. Like so many who are knowledgeable about the difficult history and extremely complicated present in Afghanistan, he truly does not know what the correct responses in that country are.

As he has clearly demonstrated, taking the time to build relationships with the people, village by village, and school by school, is an approach that produces transformations in ideas and attitudes not easily swept away by the Taliban. Fundamentalism and its recruits thrive in ignorance, and Mortenson is defeating ignorance and empowering people.

Intriguingly, the U.S. military now gets this. Mortenson himself recommended that American citizens read Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s Aug. 30, 68-page assessment of the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In that report, which reads more like the work of an anthropologist than a career warrior, McChrystal endorses Mortenson’s approach and recommends that the U.S. military concentrate to the extent possible on what could be called classic community organizing.

The report outlines a long list of tenacious problems plaguing Afghanistan — the corrupt and incompetent government; the absence of social services, jobs and infrastructure; feuding tribes; widespread illiteracy and a widely dispersed rural population; the formidable intimidation powers of the Taliban; the porous border with Pakistan; and the common belief that America will prematurely abandon the country.

Lastly, and no small thing, it is difficult for American soldiers and policy-makers to be sure of what is true. Our troops are frequently isolated from the people they are there to help, a circumstance McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in the region, is determined to change.

For example, how many Afghans want us to be in their country? How many want our help? Will President Karzai and his government — right down to the local level — become honest and effective?

And what will occur in Pakistan? Will the Pashtuns there turn against their Taliban brothers, or will they continue to aid the imposition of extreme fundamentalism in both countries?

Although President Obama didn’t want to frame his new initiative as “nation-building,” that’s what it is.

Sure, American troops will be fighting the insurgents when necessary, and training Afghan soldiers and police, but the larger part of their charge will be to stabilize the most populous areas and assist the people to — in essence — create a country.

We won’t be successful in 18 months. Too much has to be done.

We’re now in Afghanistan for the long haul, and will be there well beyond July 2011. This may be admirable, or it may not be; but I doubt that it is necessary for the security of the United States. With far fewer troops, but continued developmental aid, it would be possible to prevent either the Taliban or al-Qaida from establishing the types of camps that existed before 9/11.

And even if we control Afghanistan, do we not think Osama bin Laden or other terrorists could plot against us from Yemen, Somalia, Algeria or elsewhere? Terrorism is here to stay, so we had better get wiser if we still think that Big War is the answer.

Obama’s a smart man. He knows that protecting America in the short term doesn’t require a functional Afghanistan or Pakistan. So why this initiative? He knows that it will take years to assist central Asia to a point where its own people, governments and soldiers can take over sufficiently so that American troops can leave. Perhaps he’s playing for long-term global stability.

Obama’s a big-picture guy and a community organizer. He holds both a vision of the world as it could be, and a Mortenson-like grasp of the indispensable strengths of the citizen empowerment and bottom-up society-building needed to get there.

In the final analysis, could it be that Obama and his generals just couldn’t walk away from a defenseless country where the fundamentalists who would have controlled at least a third of it are the type that behead non-believers and throw battery acid on little girls’ faces?

Obama’s initiative is a little shocking, and more than a little unexpected. After sending battalions of American troops repeatedly through Iraq for almost seven years (and counting), and spending — ultimately — almost $3 trillion (and counting) on that war and its directly related costs, America could be committing to almost the same numbers of troops, years and dollars once again.

Whether this is necessary is highly debatable; and, worse, whether it’ll be successful is very unclear.

(c) 2009 Salem News

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