In 1897 Rudyard Kipling may have had Afghanistan specifically in mind when he wrote “The White Man’s Burden”:
“Take up the White Man’s Burden-
The savage wars of peace-
Fill full the mouths of Famine-
And bid the sickness cease.”
His version of this burden was British imperialism, whose “savage wars of peace” always succeeded real brutal warfare. Under the lens of armchair historians, many of their imperial colonies throughout the world may have fared well, in balance. Has the introduction of parliamentarianism, Western education and acculturation, and Western technology and health measures overcome the decades or even centuries of military and social subjugation? What might have ensued if these proto nations had been left to their own devices? Certainly, the West would have not had the economic and cultural ascendancy generated by the Pax Britannica followed by the Pax Americana. Afghanistan presents an opportunity for self-determination of a nation without foreign intervention or influence. An opportunity we should enable by inaction.
Our military collapse in Afghanistan was an abandonment not only of billions of American dollars and assets, but also of its people and our allies in our always failing attempts at nation-building. The U.K. and other western colonial powers succeeded mainly in establishing false geographic borders and forced unifications of differing cultures under foreign compulsion. As the United Kingdom’s worldwide empire dissolved, the U.S.A. became infected with capitalistic imperialism as our “Manifest Destiny”, first declaring the Western hemisphere as our sole political and economic stepchild. We then extended our hegemony worldwide by not merely supporting but exporting our version of representative democracy. Our entry into Afghanistan was a matter of political and military retribution for terrorism against our country by the quasi-state of the Taliban and its Al-Qaeda stepchild. We quickly changed course to our usual beneficent motives of nation-building after we accomplished what the Soviet Union could not, the military suppression of an asymmetric warrior culture. Certain economic benefits were available, such as large deposits of various technologically important minerals. The geopolitical benefits of diminishing Iran’s regional influence and the dangers of Afghanistan’s version of Islam to energy sources such as Saudi Arabia were more important. After a score of years, we finally discovered that an asymmetric warrior culture based in tribalism and a totalitarian version of Islam could not be overcome. As the U.S. has done before, we cut and run.
We cut and run from what was a complex of insoluble problems. After we spent perhaps trillions of dollars and unmeasurable value in American lives, futures, and well-being, we became subconsciously, at least, convinced that continued direct efforts would never bear the fruits of a democratic, unified culture. Neither polity nor people should be embarrassed by dropping what they suddenly realize is a futile effort. No honor exists in useless self-sacrifice; no shame exists in retreat from a lost cause. Nor need we “live to fight another day” if that battle is to be the same. That is the decision we can act on now.
Afghanistan is both an international pariah and a bottomless whirlpool of need. All nations, for now, limit or deny participation privately or publicly in the Taliban’s affairs. That ruling class, having immediately violated its promises to its own people and the international community, has no access to markets or funds to carry on an internally collapsed economy. Virtually all actions they take in the name of their version of Islam serve to worsen the daily lives and futures of their people. Yet somehow after the lessons of decades many nations and non-governmental organizations believe that Afghanistan and its people can be rescued from afar. Monies and goods, ostensibly in a controlled and non-corrupt manner, still trickle into the country as a humanitarian necessity. Those noble efforts serve only to prolong Afghanistan’s agony.
Often, we acknowledge that certain individuals cannot be rescued or redeemed by the efforts of others. The chemically dependent person may be offered and given all the resources needed to walk a path to sobriety yet may waste those resources in relapses of the underlying disease. At some point despite all care by loved ones and the community, that person “needs” to “hit bottom” in order to come to a new perspective of life without dependency. Likewise other persons come to be infected with criminality. Many of them cannot respond to rehabilitation to civil responsibility without prolonged incarceration to protect the community at large and enable them to realize and repair their own social incompetence. Some few of these can never regain the community’s trust and must be sequestered for life. Theirs is a kind of foreseeable death like that of some chemically dependent who overdose or die from complications of their self-destructive behavior. Despite our best intentions, opportunities for revival in both these groups cannot be infinite. Many resources, personal, political, and economic, can be wasted while enabling their decline through endless support. Our terrible question is always when to stop that support. When to cut and run.
The same may apply to Afghanistan. History has shown us that artificially constructed nation’s endogenous culture cannot be conquered and changed by influences and actions of outsiders. The time has come for the U.S.A. to allow Afghanistan to “hit bottom”. All external sources of governmental or non-governmental aid, whether currency, commodities, or counsel, must cease. That country’s political and economic actions must be isolated completely, even to the point of ceasing external communication. Some contact must be maintained solely for protection of the international community from that theocracy’s addiction to cultural conquest and their criminal actions against foreign nations and persons. When violent conquests or criminal actions are attempted or completed, immediate and severe consequences against Taliban leaders and members must occur. We must stand by, teeth clenched, witnessing the agony of the Afghani people as they are subjected to famine and sickness by the brutally insane beliefs of their endogenous conquerors. Eventually, over a long period of suffering, that people, together or under their ancient system of tribal warlords, will come to recognize their own need to defeat their oppressors and begin their self-rescue. Only well after they have established some form of self-sustainment as a people, or a grouping of peoples should the international community seek to welcome them on a probationary basis. Certain countries will probably break such an embargo based on humanitarian grounds but in reality, self-interest. China, for example, could seek control over mineral rights. Iran certainly, and possibly Pakistan, may try to become sponsors, trading off minor Taliban concessions easily dismissed for long term regional advantage. The U.S. could even choose to negate Afghanistan as a major supplier of opium by simply buying up the crop and destroying it on a yearly basis. The U.S., despite its desires for a unipolar world, cannot control what other nations may do, nor should we. But we can refuse to participate in enabling Afghanistan’s illness through supporting their economic dependence and allowing the Taliban’s international theocratic criminality. It is not isolationist to refuse to intervene. A lesson we may choose to apply elsewhere. As a diverse nation we should not carry that burden further.