Way To Go, Dr Liam Fox!

The new British Defense Secretary, Dr Liam Fox, opened his mouth in Kabul the other day. Out came a whole heap of truth. In response the Afghan government and media have gone exoatmospheric. In the process of going ballistic they have proven Fox to have been spot on.

In a press conference at the British embassy in Kabul, the visiting Defense Secretary said bluntly that the purpose of the intervention in Afghanistan was to facilitate British national security. He went on to say what the American led operation was not about in his estimate. It is not, he opined, "for the sake of an education policy in a broken 13th Century country."

Well, at least someone involved in the multi-national effort to squash Islamist jihad oriented assemblages of thugs such as al-Qaeda and Taliban has the intellectual, moral, and one might add, political courage to tell it like it is. The US and its associates--the first among which was and is, the UK--put boots on the inhospitable ground of Afghanistan in order to expunge not only the architects of the 9/11 attacks, al-Qaeda, but the government which protected these international criminals pursuant to the requirements of "Islamic hospitality," the government of Mullah Omar's Taliban.

The intent of the operation at the outset, before it was distorted by the Bush/Cheney administration, was simply to make the world safer for civilized folk by nullifying for once and all the threat posed by Islamist jihadists. As such, the operation was both legally and ethically justified. Had it kept to the original intent, the US, the UK and all the rest would have been long gone from a geographic expression which can be characterized with accuracy and honesty as being both broken and 13th Century.

The initial response by President Karzai, according to at least one (conveniently) unnamed "senior government source" and the Afghan excuse for a newspaper of record, was vehement, even vitriolic. The assorted respondents agreed that Dr Fox "dissed" Afghanistan something fierce.

The unnamed "senior source" averred that despite the "sacrifice" of British lives and the expenditure of British money, it was evident that the Brits were "racist" and showed "a lack of trust." The source also belabored the obvious: That Dr Fox thinks Afghanistan has not changed since the 13th Century and was as a consequence both "tribal" and "medieval."

Yeah, dude, that is pretty much the size of it. So, where's the problem?

Afghanistan is highly tribal in its social and political complexion. That reality has been noted by everyone from President Karzai to General McChrystal and from Joe Biden to George W. Bush. It is probable that even President Obama agrees.

As for being "medieval," that is another self-evident feature of much of the Afghan cultural, social, political, and intellectual landscape.

The ascendancy of religion over secular matters was a hallmark of Europe's medieval period. And, so it is in Afghanistan today. Consider a few salient points.

The primacy of personal loyalties over the demands of institutional affinity is another prominent feature of the European medieval experience. So it is in Afghanistan today.

Women were generally subjugated in Europe in those days. Such is their status in contemporary Afghanistan.

A preeminent dynamic in Europe during the medieval period was the struggle to establish and maintain the authority of a central government over regional and tribal figures. Tell us, Mr Karzai, how is it different in Afghanistan today?

There is nothing that foreign intervenors can do to fix the "broken 13th Century country" which Afghanistan is. Mounds of money and torrents of "advice" will do nothing real to address the reality to which Dr Fox referred. Externally sponsored (imposed?) nation-building is a monstrous fraud perpetrated upon not only those who furnish the ways and means but upon those who are the recipients.

When the Bush/Cheney bunch--along with the New Labor government in the UK--shifted the goal in Afghanistan from one of permanently abating the nuisance of al-Qaeda and Taliban to one of creating a 21st Century Western style ideal in Afghanistan, they did nothing but assure a long, bloody, and ultimately failed effort. Only blunt and realistic honesty of the type shown by Dr Fox can serve to deflect the collective effort from its current course.

Far from whining, complaining, and carping about the presumed racism and disrespect shown by the British Defense Secretary, the Karzai government and its supporters should welcome the honesty. They should be gratified by the retreat from the well-intended effort to impose a view of society and politics quite foreign to the Afghan experience.

Rather than using the Fox remarks as one more cause to bitch and moan, the Karzai government should embrace them. How refreshing it would be to hear Karzai or even some unnamed "senior source" allow that Afghanistan is a broken 13th Century country. "But it is up to us and us alone to fix it and drag it into the 14th or even 21st Century if we and we alone want to."

Not only would it be refreshing, such a statement would be a real step along the road to a more stable Afghanistan, an Afghanistan which might have a future other than one dictated by the most violent proponents of political Islam.