Oh, America

by tristero

This is not a post bashing Nick Kristof. I repeat, and I'm serious: I'm not attacking Kristof on this occasion. In fact, I completely agree with the thrust of this column about Obama's terrible decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan. Not to say that Kristof can't be spectacularly wrong, just that this is not one of those times.

No, what this post is about is something far more subtle, and dire, than an American columnist who happens to be wrong. It's about how incredibly blind, narcissistic and, frankly, stupid, we can be even when we're the good guys and are trying to be decent. It's a little thing, a micro-rhetorical slip, and many of you will scream we have far more pressing things to worry about. I believe, however, that what Nick did here, probably inadvertently, is symptomatic of a major intellectual and moral failure of American international relations, both officially and culturally. It is the perverse universe of American arrogance in an atom.

Please read the entire column. And, if you didn't notice anything amiss, please bear with me, while I summarize what he said.

Kristof begins by asking us to imagine that we are a "barely educated" Afghan villager and to see Obama's escalation through his/her eyes. Nick's point: while occasionally American troops have done good, they've done a helluva lot of harm, and they're non-believers in a region where religious homogeneity is a given. With Obama's escalation, it surely looks, to rural Afghanis, like a foreign, occupying power is running amok in their country. In short, the escalation is a perfect mechanism for increasing sympathy among the Afghan people for the Taliban.

This sounds highly plausible to me. Kristof goes on:
That’s why so many people working in Afghanistan at the grass roots are watching the Obama escalation with a sinking feeling. President Lyndon Johnson doubled down on the Vietnam bet soon after he inherited the presidency, and Mikhail Gorbachev escalated the Soviet deployment that he inherited in Afghanistan soon after he took over the leadership of his country. They both inherited a mess — and made it worse and costlier.

As with the Americans in Vietnam, and Soviets in Afghanistan, we understate the risk of a nationalist backlash; somehow Mr. Obama has emerged as more enthusiastic about additional troops than even the corrupt Afghan government we are buttressing.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned in his report on the situation in Afghanistan that “new resources are not the crux” of the problem. Rather, he said, the key is a new approach that emphasizes winning hearts and minds: “Our strategy cannot be focused on seizing terrain or destroying insurgent troops; our objective must be the population.”

So why wasn’t the Afghan population more directly consulted?
What a fantastic question! Why didn't anyone ask lots of Afghans what they wanted? Kristof continues:
“To me, what was most concerning is that there was never any consultation with the Afghan shura, the tribal elders,” said Greg Mortenson, whose extraordinary work building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan was chronicled in...
Hold it right there. What the hell is going on here? Did I read that right?

Immediately after pointing out the very disturbing problem that Americans and other Westerners seem only to be consulting with themselves, Kristof immediately turned around and consulted an American for his opinion on what Afghans think. Later in the article, he quotes another American. No Afghans.

The only Afghan who is provided an opportunity to give an opinion in this entire column - the main point of which is to deplore the fact Americans don't listen directly to the Afghan people - is a fictitious Afghan. Conjured up from the imagination by Nicholas Kristof, an American, apparently after consulting other Americans about their opinions about what opinions Afghans hold.

Now, Kristof might retort that he clearly stated he was reporting on what Americans working in the grassroots were telling him - hence, the creation of a phony Afghan Everyman - but that is simply kicking the problem down the road. If he is hearing reports that Afghans are not being listened to by Americans, it all but behooves Nick to, you know, speak to some. Kristof may not be as liberal as you or I on many issues, but he's no Judith Miller, ie, he is no hack. The few times I've written to him to point out something I was certain he was factually wrong about, he's responded quickly with back-up. Regarding the objection that "merely" speaking to a few Afghans is purely anecdotal, I have to point out that in nearly every human culture (except ours, apparently) it is considered common human decency to make the effort to talk and listen to other people instead of simply talk about them. The attitude that it doesn't really matter that much whether we talk to others is an American habit, and a highly obnoxious one that has caused an incredible amount of problems in the past 8 years.

And there you have it. We know so little about these countries we are occupying - and yes, that is exactly what we're doing, we're occupying Afghanistan, even if it's mainly a large circle in Kabul protecting the corrupt Karzai regime - that even a well-meaning, well-travelled, and far from stupid person like Nick can't even find a single person from - let alone, in - that country to consult with when on a deadline. I said "can't" but it's just as likely that Kristof didn't even think to do so.

Nick's behavior epitomizes what is all too often the American Way in international affairs - we're either too ignorant to really know much about other countries or too narcissistic to care. Many of you will say I used the wrong conjunction just now and you're right - most of the time, especially when it involves countries where we're fighting wars, Americans are both clueless AND pathologically solipsistic.

Again, this is not about Kristof. This attitude is so intrinsic to the American worldview that even someone like Kristof - who I know knows better, and who clearly agrees with those of us opposed to Obama/Afghanistan - falls into the habit on occasion.

Despite an occasional expert with hands-on experience - and I'm certainly not disputing Mr. Mortenson's or Mr. Rupp's expertise - we, as a country, have only the vaguest idea of who these people are, what their concerns are, their hopes, and their fears - not to mention their complex politics and social structure, which seems radically different from America's.

Sometimes when I've tried to make this point, commenters have objected by saying something like, "What? We're not allowed to act until we know everything there is to know about another country? That's ridiculous!" Well, yes it is, which is why I didn't suggest it. What such commenters don't realize is that I'm really not exaggerating. We know nothing or next to nothing about these countries. More specifically, we, the people of the United States, can't even find Afghanistan (or Iraq) on a map. We, the official government of the United States, are mostly talking to a few Afghan officials, a handful of self-styled foreign policy experts with limited personal experience in the country, and studying highly preliminary statistics and demographic studies. Occasionally, the government checks-in with actual on-the-ground, but still American, experts like Mr. Mortenson, and that's just about it. Sure there are lots of conferences and the appearance of knowledge, but it's mostly American opinions about what they think Afghans think about.

In short, Americans know exactly enough about Afghanistan to be dangerous.

"Okay, tristero," I can hear you saying, "Aren't you doing the same thing? Talked to any Afghans recently, you hypocrite?" No, I haven't. I haven't been to Afghanistan nor ever met anyone from that country (it looks like an incredible place and I would love to go there someday, if it ever gets stable),

All I can do is respond by saying something that has to sound incredibly lame, but I'll say it anyway, namely that this American would very much like to hear directly from Afghans about what their concerns are regarding both the present and future of their country, including but not limited to opinions - whatever they might be - regarding the current American occupation and the plans to increase an American military presence there. If any reader knows anyone born and, preferably still living, in Afghanistan who would be interested in speaking with me and would get them in touch, I'd be grateful. It will easier if they can speak/write in English but I'll try to find a translator if they don't. The email address is "tristero" followed by the numeral one then the "at" symbol then "mac" dot "com."

That's not much, I agree, and you can - if you distrust my motives and politics - dismiss my interest as the crudest of token gestures. I'm not sure I'd disagree with you (although my request is sincere, and I've been genuinely interested in Afghanistan for years). But as trivial and as flawed as my request is, it's apparently a damn sight more than a lot of the people setting Afghan policy in this country have tried to do. And that is very, very troubling.

Kristof's column is persuasive - Afghans are not being consulted. Alas, he perpetuated the neglect. And his inadvertent behavior, I believe, tells us a lot about how deeply flawed and unsophisticated are our approaches to international relations.