Two Books

This blog is about two not-so-new books that I have just gotten around to reading: The Forever War by Dexter Filkins, and Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and Oliver Relin.

I read The Forever War first, determined to gain at least a rudimentary knowledge of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the troubled region that surrounds them. I wanted to be able to watch the news without glazing over in confusion, ignorance, and yes, even boredom, when they talk about the numerous insurgent groups and the areas they control. Above all, I hoped to learn more about the root causes of the extreme hatred of Americans in that part of the world. I sat down with my map, highlighters, and index cards and began what I thought would be a difficult read.

I whipped through The Forever War like a dime store novel. Dexter Filkins, a foreign correspondent for The New York Times in Afghanistan and Iraq, is a master storyteller who has been in the region for over 20 years, and has witnessed first-hand the rise of the Taliban in the 90’s, the aftermath of September 11 and the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Much of that time he’s been imbedded with the Marines, in as much danger as they were but without a gun. From his book, and with a little help from Wikipedia, I learned or clarified the following things about Afghanistan:

• The social scene in late 1960’s Kabul resembled that of any modern western city. Women wore mini-skirts, men were clean-shaven without turbans, liquor was served and music and dancing were very much enjoyed.
• The 70’s were a decade of coups, reprisals, and the Soviet Invasion in 1979, which actually came about at the request of the Afghan government. They needed help to overthrow the Mujahideen, who were trying to take over the country. But the Mujahideen (with covert support from the US CIA) drove out the Soviets, and proceeded to carve up the country and rule it like war lords.
• In the late 80’s, the mujahideen fought each other in the subsequent Afghan Civil War.
• The Taliban were a group of Afghan Islamists, many who had studied in madrasahs in Pakistan during the Soviet occupation. They expelled the mujahideen and ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. They restored order to the country, but replaced it with extreme Fundamentalism. Their agenda is strictly concerned with Afghanistan, and they have never had a global terrorist agenda.
• Al-Qaeda is NOT the same as the Taliban. It is compromised mostly of Arabs or Islamic militants from countries other than Afghanistan. They are more of a globalized, anti-imperialist movement focused on jihad against the US, and they (NOT the Taliban) are responsible for 9/11. They are funded largely by wealthy Saudis like Osama Bin Laden.

Keeping all of that in mind, it is still difficult to understand who’s fighting whom and why in Afghanistan. Dexter Filkins compares it to a game of pickup basketball. “On Tuesday, you might be part of a fearsome Taliban regiment, running into a minefield. And on Wednesday you might be manning a checkpoint for some gang of the Northern Alliance. By Thursday, you could be back with the Talibs again.” Filkins explains that war is part of everyday life for the Afghan people, and it’s like a job. Only the civilians seem to lose.

In that region of the world, many tribal traditions dictate that each tribe must take revenge for the death of one of its members. Every time a citizen is killed, we create another family who needs to take revenge. They see daily footage of screaming women carrying their dead children out of bombed out buildings, and hear them repeatedly referred to as “collateral damage.” For this, we will never be forgiven. The campaign to influence their hearts and minds is a folly.

In 1989, I took a class at Harvard Extension School that focused on terrorism, which was something that I thought of, at that time, as a hardship endured by other countries not my own. The professor assured me and the rest of the class that terrorism would be coming soon to our own shores. I remember him saying that every time a plane is hijacked, the hijacker never expects to get what he demands. He may say he wants a bag of money and an island in the Caribbean and the release of many prisoners, but all he really wants, if even for one brief moment before he is gunned down on a tarmac, is to be powerful, respected, and most of all, to be heard. I thought about that when I read about a Taliban leader that Filkins interviewed who expressed his deep frustration that, after conquering 90% of the country, the UN would not extend them formal recognition.

As far as trying to discern what the people of Iraq and Afghanistan think of our country, my impressions after reading this book were perhaps the most sobering thing I learned. Regardless of their religion, tribe, ethnic background, education or socio-economic class, the one thing they can agree upon is their hatred for America’s occupation of their countries. While on an individual level, they are generous, loyal and respectful of Americans they know and trust, they feel insulted and betrayed by the US, and every day we remain in their country makes it worse.

Like Dexter Filkins, Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, is a trusted American. After becoming injured during a failed attempt to climb K2 in 1993, Mortenson recovered in a Pakistani village, where he observed its 84 children sitting outside, scratching their lessons in the dirt with sticks. Three Cups of Tea is an inspirational story, beautifully written, about how one extraordinary man, with no money or construction experience, returned to that village to build them a school, and over the next decade built 81 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Mortenson’s efforts stand in sharp contrast to the millions of dollars our government is pouring into Afghanistan to help rebuild the damage we have done. He has said, “By building relationships, and getting a country to invest its own land and labor, we can construct and maintain a school for a generation that will educate thousands of children for less than 20 thousand dollars. That’s about half what it would cost the government of Pakistan to build the same school, and one-fifth of what the World Bank would spend on the same project.”

Mortenson’s volunteers come from all the warring sects of Islam. Illiterate high-altitude porters have given up their good jobs to earn paltry wages assisting Mortenson to provide their children with the education they never had. A taxi driver who happened to pick up Mortenson at the Islamabad airport sold his cab and became Mortenson’s “fixer”, protecting him from danger, assisting him with language and customs, greasing the skids wherever necessary. Over and over, former Taliban fighters have renounced violence and oppression of women after meeting Mortenson.

Syed Abbas, the Supreme Leader of Pakistan’s Shia is one of Mortenson’s biggest supporters. “Our Holy Koran tells us that all children should receive education, including our daughters and our sisters” he has said. Greg Mortenson is attacking the root cause of terrorism every time he offers a child an alternative to an extremist madrassa.

Because of his vast knowledge of the people, their customs, and the geography, Mortenson is often consulted by our military. In one such session, he lamented the hundreds of $840,000 cruise missiles we have launched into Afghanistan, pointing out that for the cost of one of them, we could have built dozens of schools and educated tens of thousands of students. And he asked them, “Which do you think will make us more secure?”

These two books make it clear that if our goal in the middle east is to achieve peace in the region and safety for our country, then our current strategy is all wrong. We will never find and kill every insurgent, but by providing impoverished children with an alternative to fundamentalist madrassas, we can prevent the creation of new insurgents, and those educated students can help make a dent in the crushing poverty that created the environment that nourished the old ones.

Further, we need to educate the citizens of our own country to understand the complexities of the numerous religions, ethnicities and tribal customs of the people of middle east. They are not all guilty, we are not all innocent, and we need to be able to say that without having our love of our country questioned.