AFGHANISTAN           

My view of Afghanistan is based on my understanding of Islam, living 4 years in Iran and Saudi Arabia and is coupled with the history of occupation.  Afghanistan is a closed tribal Islamic society.  Invaders thought history have failed to motivate a change to the basic tribal influence outside the urban centers.  The country has always been the land crossroad from the Middle East to the Far East. 

Columbus was sent out to find an alternate overland route to India for spices and gold and other trade. Columbus knew this area was tribal and if you weren’t a Muslim, you could be treated as an infidel. The route around Africa was long and had its own set of perils. I can understand the Afghani concern for change, considering invaders are consumers of their scant resources of water and arable land for food. Tribal customs dictate the welcoming of non-infidel strangers at your door. Throughout the Middle East, if someone comes to your door and asks for food and water, you are obligated to provide and some require welcoming them as a guest. That is how Osama bin Laden lived in Afghanistan and was able to go between Pakistan and Afghanistan freely, even though he was a Saudi citizen.  It’s the age-old adage in the Middle East “The enemy of your enemy is your friend”.  Osama bin Laden was fighting their infidel western enemy and therefore he was their friend.

This adage explains the mortal enemies of Saudi Arabia aligning with Israel possible.  Take Iran and Saudi Arabia-Sunni/Shiite relationship.  The Persians and the Arabs have had undercurrents of conflict since the Middle Ages.  Now take the current situation of Saudi Arabia and Israel uniting in a coalition against Iran.  I would be leery of this coalition, as it could be only temporary until the Iran Saudi Arabia conflicts subside. 

Saudi sees the local conflicts being supported by Iran as a threat to them.  Iranians are involved in fighting to protect the Shiites being persecuted in regions in the Middle East outside Iran.  This conflict will never be resolved with the involvement of the United States or any other western country that tries to interject their values on Islam. 

This is the same cultural excuse Russia uses to be aggressive in taking over former USSR states, although they use both culture and language and not religion as rationale. The United States has been repeatedly duped into conflicts in the Middle East.  The Sunni leader Hassan of Iraq led a minority Arab Sunni population that had a war with Iran over the border for the Shatt al Arab waterway. The Arab Sunni army of Hassan was disbanded by Bush and as a result of the Arab Shiite majority takeover of Iraqi government.  Some of the radical Sunni army personnel regrouped to be a part of ISIS, wanting their own territory.  Iranians have supported the Arab Shiite opposition to ISIS.  Take the Saudi/Iran conflict in Yemen.  Iran is supporting the suppression and purge of Shiites living in Yemen and Saudi Arabia is helping the Sunni government. 

The Middle East regional conflicts can be categorized in 3 ways 1.) Religious conflicts, which have not been resolved for 100’s of years, 2.) Civil Wars aggravated from within like Iranian Revolution and Civil Wars aggravated from outside – and the Iraq wars U.S. involvement with flawed intelligence (in hindsight) to remove a tyrant that had been tagged with weapons he did not possess. And 3.) The only justifiable war (in my opinion), Protection of an allies’ sovereignty, like the coalitions war to liberate Kuwait.

The U.S. soldiers in the Afghani rural tribal areas have never been and will never be totally welcoming to non-Muslim armies.  These soldiers are a stress to their way of life. Any change in rural areas is almost impossible, due to lack of any educational infrastructure and no burning desire to educate due to obligations of subsistence farming with scarce resources.  The only thing that keeps the U.S. welcomed in Afghanistan is our expenditures of large sums of cash, some of which is given to tribal leaders as a bribe, so as not to interfere with our troops.

I find that a large portion male population in both Iran and more so in Saudi Arabia   dominated by misogynistic culture ingrained in the religion.  I find some of the same misogynistic tendencies in western religions cultures.  The prime example is the Catholic Church, however there are some differences.  The Muslims allows a divorce by the male repeating the words “I divorce thee” three times and then it was final. In Iran and Saudi Arabia the female could not leave the country without permission of the husband.  In Saudi Arabia a divorced female becomes a social outcast and had no prospect of employment. In Saudi Arabia males and females (even married) are separated in almost all social events.  As can be seen, there is a clash of cultural mores between East and West.  It was once in Iran (1970’s) if a female citizen of another country married an Iranian, she could not leave the country without permission and if she had children and divorced, the children automatically reverted to the male. In Saudi Arabia, the married female could not go out of country without a male family member or her spouse. Almost all of these same cultural religious rules apply in Afghanistan.

Keeping all that in mind, the prime lesson that the USSR learned in Afghanistan was that it could never win and by staying and all that was accomplished was wasting monies. They built infrastructure that they could not maintain, nor was the training to maintain retained.  The USSR was always in conflict in the tribal areas. Does this sound familiar?

For all our monies spent in rural Afghanistan on infrastructure it will all go into disrepair as soon as we exit.  Power plants, water facilities, roads and schools will all become useless.  Schools in rural areas go unused, as education in these areas is not a priority.  Most rural areas rely on subsistence agriculture.  Not all things that western countries think as a priority are the same in the rural tribal areas. 

It is my opinion that our involvement in the Middle East is not in the best interest of the majority of our population.  In fact, it is detrimental to our national security.  I contend our presence is an irritant and will eventually create animosity. When there culture demands retribution  (an eye for an eye) every civilian killed potentially has a relative that may adversely react to the killing.

 The only downside to our exit are those involved in the military industrial complex that will suffer by a lack of hardware attrition, maintenance, and purchases of hardware. Our military will not suffer, they will still be in service to our country. The positive is they will be without constant deployments and they can concentrate on their families.  The monies used for Afghanistan infrastructure, schools, water treatment, utilities, and roads could be redirected to benefit our citizens. 

In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.  Keep the population uneducated and the sheep will follow the leader of the flock. I have always thought a leader can keep the population on their side by creating an enemy that they can point to, as the reason the masses are being oppressed somehow.  Take Iran, the rural population of religious Shiite extremists clung onto the Ayatollah’s rant about how Americas installation of the Shah and overthrow of their legitimate government, was the root of all their ills after 25 years.