A very real complication emerges in the case of interventionary war. In this situation there may be real, deep contradictions between the "host" government and the foreign intervenor. So it is in Afghanistan. Not only is there a variance of view between the Karzai government and the insurgents, there is no harmonious symphony of agreement between the US government and its "host" in Kabul.
Had the US limited its goals in Afghanistan to the elimination of al-Qaeda as a threat and the punishment of Taliban for its ill-advised exercise of "Islamic hospitality," there would have been no disagreement between Washington and most of the rivals for power in Afghanistan as to what constituted a better state of peace. But the shift in American policy to the goal of creating a Western style pluralistic democracy with an independent judicial system, an absence of mass market corruption, civil liberties, gender equality, and, at least implicitly, a separation of faith and state assured that an increasingly large gap would emerge between Kabul and Washington (as well as other foreign capitals) as to the precise nature of a better state of peace.
The dichotomies have emerged in a high profile and utterly unmistakable way in the past few months. On subjects as crucial as power sharing, ending governmental corruption, squeezing the flow of drugs, corruption, and extortion generated money out of country, the animus between the governments of the US and Afghanistan have grown.
In each of these areas as well as the legion of lower profile issues, a careful parsing of the causes of the differing understandings of the much desired better state of peace hinge on one word. The word is one which is most unwelcome not only by the current American administration but by the opinion molding elites of the US and Western Europe. In the minds of many, perhaps all of these self-elected hoi olligoi, the word is a virtual epithet.
And, you might wonder, just what is this magic word, this word of unlimited ju-ju?
Nationalism.
Yep, bucko, that is the evil and ever-so-potent word. It is the word invoked by President Karzai and his people almost every other breath. To the Afghans the better state of peace is defined almost exclusively by the implications of nationalism.
In the US and most of the West, nationalism has been unilaterally consigned to the scrap heap of history. Nationalism is seen universally within the elite, academic, political and journalistic, as the cause of wars, the basis of misery, the virus of xenophobia, racism, and other ills which have beset humanity for generations. We are assumed to live in a post-nationalistic age where trans-national corporations, multinational institutions, the "international community" are celebrated as the axis around which the globe now rotates.
Ironically, the foreigner forces led by the US have been attempting to impose a highly nationalistic template upon the raw material of Afghanistan and the Afghans. Tossing multi-cultural sensitivities to the winds, the US and its partners have been beavering away in an effort to create a nation-state with all the features of the liberal democracies of the West, an arrogant and highly nationalistic notion to say the least.
Why anyone in the Obama administration would be surprised by the Karzai government's invocation of nationalism as a defense against the better state of peace sought by the outsiders is a mystery. Only Afghans can determine what is in their domestic interest which is to say what constitutes a better state of peace, Afghan style.
To Americans or Westerners generally it is impossible to believe that Afghans would willingly accept a government which tolerates, indeed engages in, corruption. Or why they might accept a better state of peace predicated upon an austere interpretation of Islamic law. Or, why they might welcome former insurgents, including the most barbaric members of Taliban, into the central government. Or, why they might be comfortable with a society and government which has more centripetal than centrifugal features.
We the People and our Western European counterparts would not see such features as desirable in our polity or society. Nor would we be comfortable with a legal system which is, at best, a hybrid of the sacred and the secular. We wouldn't find the pervasive presence of corruption, cronyism, or the supremacy of family, clan, and tribal identities conducive to a stable and comfortable environment.
The people of Afghanistan see the matter differently. For them all these features are as familiar and comfortable as one's own living room. To be sure some features are more objectionable than others, but as far as the locals are concerned, the most ineffective local remedies are infinitely superior to the best ideas imported or imposed by outsiders.
Governmental corruption is a very real, very live issue in Afghanistan. The Taliban uses its existence as a powerful tool for motivating support among the people who are always paying the graft--never receiving it. The use of graft is a universal tool for cementing political alliances, assuring family and tribal fortunes as well as (to quote Bruce Springstein) "to get a little something for yourself." Nearly everyone in Afghanistan wants to "do something" about corruption (usually make sure they are on the receiving end of it) but no one wants the outsiders to move in, take over indirectly, and clean the mess impartially.
Corruption and its control have become the line in the sand dividing the definition of a better state of peace as between Kabul and Washington. In a microcosm who does what with the corruption issue will determine whose definition prevails as the war enters its penultimate stage.
The takeaway for the donor nations, most of all the current administration, is simple. When all the money is spent (or blown) and the diplomatic rhetoric is exhausted, the Afghan people and only the Afghan people will define the better state of peace.
We had best get used to the idea. Get a grip on it. After all, it is nothing new in our experience. The towering figure of international morality, President Woodrow Wilson had the Marines land in Vera Cruz, Mexico to give the locals a lesson in good government and good citizenship. Even Mexican historians have allowed that under the American Marines the city and its surrounding area never had such good, effective, efficient, honest government.
It was a great lesson in good government. It failed to inspire the locals to emulate it. The huge elastic band which is culture, society, the force of "that's how things are done--here" took over the day after the last marine left. The good ole days of graft, corruption, ineffective government resumed as if there had been no interruption.
The lesson is simple. There is no need to relearn it in Afghanistan. When you are the outsider, your notions of a better state are as relevant as would be mammary glands on a bull. Only the locals know what is a better state of peace in terms of their history, their culture, their society, their ideas as to how "things are done around here."
That means we should kill al-Qaeda, Taliban and other armed troublemakers so as to provide an example to future Afghan governments as to what will happen should they repeat the fatal mistake of Mullah Omar and his Koran-waving thugs. Everything else must be left to the locals, for only they have a direct stake in the future.
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