Why we can't leave Iraq

We can't just take our toys and go home from Iraq. Why?

Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Afghanistan.

The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 ostensibly to bolster the Communist ideals in that country, but more likely was there for the same reason everyone goes there-- to secure the oil and trade routes. It was also a "last throes" effort to show military dominance in a crumbling empire. We went in to stop them, in our ongoing fight against Communism, but also because I think we knew they were in their last throes and wanted to hand their asses to them one last time. We backed the Mujahidin, who were not only tired of people invading their country but were religious Muslims who disliked the atheist Communists. After ten years of fighting, the Soviets gave up in 1989 and pulled out of Afghanistan.

The Soviet occupation resulted in a mass exodus of over 5 million Afghans who moved into refugee camps in neighboring Pakistan and Iran. More than 3 million alone settled in Pakistan. Faced with mounting international pressure and the loss of approximately 15,000 Soviet soldiers as a result of Mujahideen opposition forces trained by the United States, Pakistan, and other foreign governments, the Soviets withdrew ten years later, in 1989.

Following the removal of the Soviet forces in 1989, the U.S. and its allies lost interest in Afghanistan and did little to help rebuild the war-ravaged country or influence events there. The USSR continued to support the regime of Dr. Najibullah (formerly the head of the secret service, Khad) until its downfall in 1992. However, the absence of the Soviet forces resulted in the downfall of the government as it steadily lost ground to the guerrilla forces.

As the vast majority of the elites and intellectuals had either been systematically eliminated by the Communists, or escaped to take refuge abroad, a dangerous leadership vacuum came into existence. Fighting continued among the various Mujahidin factions, eventually giving rise to a state of warlordism. The chaos and corruption that dominated post-Soviet Afghanistan in turn spawned the rise of the Taliban in response to the growing chaos. [Wikipedia]

We just left them there! We didn't act as a stabilizing force, we didn't try to help them rebuild their infrastructure, we didn't try to help them establish a democratic (or any other kind) of government, and as you saw in the Wikipedia quote, we even left the Soviets backing the Najibullah regime. We treated them like whores-- we got what we wanted, put our pants back on, and tossed a Benjamin on the bed where Afghanistan was left weeping and wondering what happened.

And you know what happened next-- the Taliban went crazy, stoned women, blew up statues thousands of years old, and coddled their favorite son, Osama Bin Laden, who to them was a heroic fighter who had dedicated his life to fighting the Soviets and protecting his newfound home. He of course went on to attack us on 9/11, and though I don't have the expertise to say that he was mad at us for leaving them there with a war-torn country, that's my understanding.

This is why we can't just abandon Iraq. We need to stay and be a humanitarian and rebuilding force. I know that Jack Murtha is correct when he says that Americans have become the target, and that our presence there has continued to irritate the situation. But that's exactly where our military strategy in Iraq is falling apart.

How does Hamas win so much support? Because they act like the Red Cross and the Shriners combined-- a social service organization, bringing aid to the little people. And in response, the little people love them. If we could stop raiding houses and start building them, and show the people the good side of America, we would not be as big of a target.

I confess I don't know how to do this, but for Pete's sake, I'm a Texas housewife with most of a degree in directing, I'm not a foreign policy expert. I just know what I see.

Ironically, Afghanistan is also the reason we should pull out of Iraq. We started a war there that became the red-headed stepchild of our foreign policy, and things there are disintegrating and fast. Poppy fields are once again the biggest cash crop, supplying heroin to the world. The tribal warlords are back, and the Taliban keeps trying to make an appearance. Because we are once again wiping our feet on that country, the people don't trust us. And why should they? This is the second time we've been there (if you don't lump us in with all the other Western peoples who have come and gone) and once again, we aren't doing a damn thing to really help these people in the long term.

(Oh, don't get at me for not supporting the troops. All I'm saying is that our men and women are hard at work giving the man the proverbial fish instead of teaching him how to fish himself. That's not to say they aren't trying, but they aren't helping in a lasting way.)

Why did we try to create Iraq into the modern democratic state and not Afghanistan? Why not just try to create our beacon of hope in the first place we "controlled"? Because Iraq was a modern, educated, secular country which, while being controlled by a madman and his sons, was in every other respect much like America. Afghanistan is more like the Wild West-- it's tribal, it's rural, it's uneducated (due to the combination of a lack of educational system and the killing and removal of the intellectual community during the Soviet occupation), and it's distrustful, tending to favor whomever is providing a tangible benefit right now, whether that is a warlord promising money and protection or a US soldier with a candy bar. So we "drained the swamp" (which we didn't really) and went on to invade another country which we thought we could better mold into the Western model of democracy.

We can't pull out of Iraq. Lord, I wish we could. I'm a peacenik, and I wish to hell we hadn't attacked Iraq in the first place. But to pull out now would be repeating our mistakes of the past. We left Afghanistan in 1989, and it took 12 years before that came back to bite us in the ass, but eventually it did. I don't want something similar to happen 12 years from now because we left Iraq before we had cleaned up our mess.

UPDATE: Note the date on this post, June 21, 2006. It's June of 2007 now and the death toll, just of our guys, is over 3500. I am not sure any more. I still believe in the ideas put forth here, but... You can talk about your various options for putting out a fire on the stove, but once the whole house is on fire, perhaps it's time to just shut up and get out. Go here for my latest post on this subject.