Afghanistan and the War on Terror

Up here in Canada, where we are braving what seems like our 100th snow storm of the season, there is a steadily growing movement that wants Canadian troops out of Afghanistan. For those of you not familiar with what Canada is doing in Afghanistan - we are there on a peacekeeping mission to assist Karzai's govt keep the Taliban out. And we are doing it under the NATO flag. Please do not compare this to Bush and his incredibly stupid war in Iraq, we are in Afghanistan by invitation and are actively trying to root the Taliban out.

Now, it would appear to me that if bombs and guns could have defeated Radical Islamists it would have done so by now. And this is something the West doesn't seem to be realising. As a Muslim, married to a Jew (who is intermittently following some Yoga thingy) , I am only too aware of the craziness prevalent among Radical Islamists and go out of my way to keep a very far distance from them.

However, they are still a very real threat - not only to the Western countries but also to Moderate Islam. I used to think that this is a Muslim problem and it is time for Muslims to stand up and reign in those crazy fanatics who have twisted and turned what is a peace loving religion into a lethal doctrine of suicide and revenge. But while I might have been more inclined to rationalize with one of them before I got married, I certainly value my family a lot more now and will likely never enter such a discourse. There is no doubt that the few religious nuts have taken over the agenda of close to a billion people and with their brutality have all but made the rest of us shut up.

What is surprising to me however, is how this illiterate rag tag bunch came to such power. And here the West and particularly US is to blame. It is well known that in the Afghanistan war, the US funded and equipped the mujaheddin to fight the Russians. Pakistan was paid to train another group of elite mujaheddin. The US militarily themselves marvelled at how well this uncouth bunch of men fought the Russians. The problem is the US basically showed these guys how to combine western technology and guerrilla warfare - making for a particularly lethal combination. When the Russians fled, the groups turned on each other and the one that prevailed was the Taliban. With no other agenda on hand, the Taliban turned against the West.

Now, fundamental Islam is not something that the West can fix overnight. A relatively normal person's path towards fundamentalism happens over a period. This is the concept the West seems to be missing. The war on fundamental Islam (and actually fundamental religion of all denominations) must be won. But to fight it, you need to have a strategy that works. Guns and bombs do not. Every time you throw a bomb and kill someone's father, you are only more likely to make it easier for the family to be "recruited" by some despicable fundamentalist movement.

I always wondered why the West (and Moderate Islamic states) do not make it inconvenient for people to join the fundamentalist movement. Here is my reasoning: A person in these countries has basic needs - food, shelter, clothing and safety. I wonder if we would not have been further down on our war against fundamentalism if we had spent the money we use for guns and bombs to build small local industries and provide incentives for people to give up their guns and run stores or mills or something. Surely it would make much more sense to be financially secure than to give up security for an unknown future where your wife and kids could likely end up without any support whatsoever.

If you really want to make a difference in these parts of the world, you have to go with a long term strategy that focuses on bettering the lives of the locals. And the best way to win someone over is to educate their children, provide good medical care and give them a legal and reasonable way to earn their livelihood. Surely one of Mr. Harper and Mr. Bush's advisers would have told them that. You need to start teaching a secular curriculum to students from a very young age that teaches them to think independently. You need to provide the youth with real skills like medicine, engineering or even how to fix cars, that they will not learn through the religious instruction in a madrassa. The war on fundamentalist Islam is not something that can be won overnight, it's a long painful process that requires foresight and patience.

I just finished reading a very insightful book, Three Cups of Tea - the story of how an American called Greg Mortenson builds schools in the remotest regions of Pakistan. I very highly recommend that everyone who is wondering what Canada is doing in Afghanistan read this book.

We cannot walk away from Afghanistan. That would mean millions of innocent Afghans are again brutalised by the Taliban. This is not the Canadian way. We cannot go on fighting the way we have been because if you fight ideology with guns, the ideology only gets stronger and more resilient. We have to fight it at the grassroots, by making it extremely unprofitable for the locals to join these fundamentalist groups. But to do that we have to gain their trust, teach their children, take care of them and essentially provide all the services that they believe they would get from the Taliban. Only then can we even expect to have some inroads in this game.