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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (57331)	11/15/2002 12:09:17 PM
From: paul_philp	Respond to of 281500

Scott, The same people who argue that nation building is too hard for America argue that the US could have prevented the Taliban from rising to power in Afghanistan. Exactly how could the US have avoid the ethnic rivalaries in Afghanistan? What basis in law would they have used? Paul

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (57331)	11/15/2002 9:12:20 PM
From: Bilow	Respond to of 281500

Hi Karen Lawrence; Re: "But once the Soviets were gone, Washington lost interest. A year of peace was followed by bickering among the country's ethnic factions." In order to get the Soviets to agree to withdraw, we agreed to keep our nose out of the resulting "neutral" territory. This was the only reasonable thing we could do, given the undeniable fact that the US had absolutely zero important interests in Afghanistan, while it was a neighbor of the Soviet Union. The only disagreement was whether we would stop helping the rebels at the beginning or end of the 10 month Soviet withdrawal period, and on that the vote was 77-0 in favor of this resolution: SOVIET WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN 100th Congress, 2nd Session, February 29, 1988 SUBJECT: To express the sense of the Senate on U.S. policy concerning the possible Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan...S. Res. 386. *Agreeing to the resolution.* RESOLUTION AGREED TO, 77 - 0 S. Res. 386 expresses the sense of the Senate on U.S. policy toward Afghanistan, especially toward the possibility of a Soviet troop withdrawal. More specifically, the resolution states the sense of the Senate that: --All Soviet and Soviet bloc advisers must be removed from Afghanistan during the period of troop withdrawal; --The Pakistani government should not be put under any pressure to agree to Soviet terms for a settlement and that the future of Afghanistan should not be driven by the desire or schedule for a U.S.-Soviet summit; --The U.S. government should not cease, suspend, diminish, or otherwise restrict assistance to the Afghan resistance or take actions that might limit the ability of the resistance to receive assistance *until it is absolutely clear that the Soviets have terminated their military occupation; --The U.S. President should: support strongly the formation of an interim government in Kabul acceptable to the resistance; address the issue of the future status of the nearly 400 bilateral treaties the Soviets have made with the puppet Kabul regime; ensure that international assistance to the refugees continue at least until all Soviet and Soviet-bloc forces have been withdrawn from Afghanistan and peace has been restored; and address the repatriation by the Soviet Union of the more than 10,000 Afghan children who have been forcibly deported to the Soviet Union; and --The only acceptable formula for settlement of the Afghan situation is one which provides for the self-determination of the Afghan people and results in a government genuinely representative of the Afghan people. DEBATE: Those favoring the resolution contended: On February 8, Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union could begin withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan on May 15 if Pakistan and Afghanistan reach agreement by March 15 at the upcoming round of U.N.-sponsored negotiations in Geneva. Mr. Gorbachev also said that withdrawal could be completed in 10 months, which is an exceedingly long time. At this time, we need to express the Senate's intentions and desires regarding a peace settlement* in Afghanistan. ... It states that the U.S. government should not support a mere cosmetic solution to the war in Afghanistan; the solution must protect the legitimate hopes and rights of the Afghan people: to live free, governed by leaders of their own choosing, and without interference from communist or communist-supported forces. This resolution states explicitly that we also do not intend to abandon Afghanistan during the peace negotiations. We know that the Soviet Union is essentially a colonial empire that has been able to take over one country after another, because it has the force and the will to do so. A Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan is a powerful symbolic victory against the Soviet empire. ... *During this precarious time of transition, the United States must not discontinue its assistance. The State Department recently made an egregious error and agreed to terms requiring the United States to terminate all aid on the first day of the Soviet 10-month withdrawal. That agreement though is absurd and unacceptable, and directly contradicts the President's and Congress's desires. It seriously endangers the gains and sacrifices of the Afghan people and would unnecessarily accommodate Soviet wishes. Moreover, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) conducted a study which concluded that an orderly and safe Soviet withdrawal should take no longer than 30 to 40 days. Now, however, the United States appears ready to agree to a 10-month withdrawal period. And if the United States prematurely terminates assistance* to the Afghan resistance, the Soviets will be free to resupply and strengthen their forces, and perhaps even crush the resistance. This resolution expresses our support for the Afghan resistance as it enters negotiations to end the war. It states our intention to continue assistance for the Afghan people *during this period, and our desire to see a resolution that the Afghan resistance fully supports. No arguments were expressed in opposition to the resolution.* senate.gov After the Soviets and Americans pulled their fingers out of the Afghan pie, the country went to hell because the locals wanted to fight for power more than they wanted to negotiate for peace. It had nothing to do with our abandonment. If we had stuck on, and tried to influence the country (undoubtedly to form a western friendly regime), we'd have ended up fighting both the Afghans and the Russians. That was not an option. We helped the Afghans liberate themselves, then they took their new freedom and because Islamic Fundamentalism was more attractive to the population than warlords or democracy, the locals turned their own country into the poster child for "Why Islamic Fundamentalist Rule is a Bad Idea". The Afghans failed to produce a leader who would unite their country like so many other nations have come up with. That was their failing (and maybe Pakistan's), not ours. There is no way that wishing can transform a US Ronald Reagan into an Afghan "George Washington". It would have been wonderful to wave a magic wand and find a foreign policy that would have created a "Switzerland of Central Asia" out of those rough tribal inhabitants, but that was not something that was within the capability of our foreign policy. Maybe Pakistan or Iran could have done it, but it simply was not within *our* power to significantly influence Afghanistan to be a nicer place than the locals wanted it to be. Which is why we negotiated a "hands off" agreement with the Soviets. If there had been some alternative policy, or if there had been a sense at the time that Afghanistan would eventually become a problem for the US, the above resolution would not have passed the US Senate on a 77 to 0 vote. -- Carl@noteveryproblemhasasolution.com P.S. And not every world problem was created by errors in US foreign policy.