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The power of the pen

Katherine O'Neill, June 5, 2008 at 7:52 AM EST

pen

Pashmul is a collection of bombed out mud compounds and grape huts. So, that's why, even after last week's Operation Rolling Thunder, which saw bombs and artillery rain down on the rural area west of Kandahar for three days, it wasn't completely obvious Canadian and Afghan soldiers had even been there.

 It's surprising that people even dwell in this dangerous place, which is a maze of winding pathways and farmers' fields, and a favoured hide-out for Taliban insurgents. Most residents are poor farmers; few can read or write.

When the soldiers walked out of Pashmul on Friday after the fighting had finally stopped for the week, several Afghans come out of hiding to greet them. Many handed out tiny gifts to the children, emptying their pockets to give away whatever they had on them, including candy, water and pens.

One little girl in a green dress (pictured above) stopped me, and pointed to my pen. “She wants to know what that is,” an Afghan interpreter explained to me.

She looked puzzled when I handed it to her, and the interpreter tried to tell her how to use it. As I left, I wondered what would happen to that pen. Would she find paper? Would she ever be able to use it at school, if one eventually re-opens in the battle-scarred area?

 

 

 

  1. Jim Terrets from Vancouver, writes: Excellent. Looks like the past six and a half years of rebuilding Afghanistan is really paying off. Our presence has obviously improved the lives of Afghans a great deal. Since "Pashmul is a collection of bombed out mud compounds and grape huts" after six and a half years and billions of dollars of NATO rebuilding, you can tell that NATO is well on its way to "winning." Maybe after another six and half years of NATO "rebuilding," that little girl (if she's not killed in the war) will get a piece of paper to write on.
  2. Hugh MacDonald from Canada writes: And if phantom and his peers have their way, she will be abandoned to be slaughtered for ever having the hope of an education or any semblance of the freedoms they have in Canada.
  3. The Phantom from Canada writes:

    Hugh

    You do realize that the Karzai government has instituted the death penalty for adultery? They have also declared that insulting islam is punishable by death. This little girl could end up swinging on the end of a government sanctioned rope if her legally arranged marriage at the age of twelve doesn't work out. And of course any freedom of religion or freedom of speech will be out of the question. This is the government our troops are killing women and children to prop up.
  4. Jeff T from Canada writes: The liar strikes again, let us see some more of Phantom Credibility's lies.

    Phatom Credibility said: "The troops fighting in Afghanistan are a bunch of cowards. Killing men, women and children indiscriminately because they figure: better safe than sorry, lets call in an air strike or hit them with the artillery and then go see who's dead. " Clearly impling that we do not care, and just run about shooting at everything. This is a bold faced, and ignorant lie. Phantom Credibility is a LIAR.

    "Can't stand the fact that our soldiers are killing women and children? " If we were killing women and children indiscriminatly, then yep, I would not be able to stand it and would be out of uniform.

    "...and also apparently has no accountability for the task they volunteer for because they just follow orders. " clearly ignorant on the subject, so, choosing to engage in a lie instead.

    "Also take into account that they are fed and housed and receive numerous other benefits. " more lies based on ignorance... Tis one is innocent I supposed, being prejudiced, he just does not car enough to actually research the facts.
  5. Nick Wright from Halifax, Canada writes: I don't understand the point of the headline: "The power of the pen."

    What power? "The pen is mightier than the sword" is clearly not at work in this little girl's world--nor in Afghan little boys' world either. It's a war zone because we choose to make it one, and we go in and bomb and shell their pathetic mud homes and irrigation systems on a regular basis, not just once.

    The insurgency is not only strongly supported in Kandahar province, its members are largely local people, who want the foreigners to leave and for Pashtuns to resume their rightful place as Afghanistan's rulers.

    This little girl faces a future no different from the one she would have faced if she had been born before the 1979 Soviet invasion. You can kill people, and destroy their homes and livelihoods, but you can't change a culture by force.
  6. Nick Wright from Halifax, Canada writes: PS Note that by "rightful place" I meant as the Pashtuns see it; it's not for me--or any other outsider--to say who should rule Afghanistan.
  7. Jeff T from Canada writes: "The insurgency is not only strongly supported in Kandahar province, its members are largely local people, who want the foreigners to leave and for Pashtuns to resume their rightful place as Afghanistan's rulers."

    -----

    Which explains why the detainees taken in this region rarely speak Pashtu, Urdu, Tajik or Hazera dilects... Some Russian, and a whole lot of Arabic though.

    But I digress. Perhaps you could post some sources for those facts.
  8. Jeff T from Canada writes: Oh, I forgot to mention. There are Pashtuns in the insurgency. Especially after the harvest. The do not believe in the fight, they are paid 100USD a month by the Taliban, which in that country is a small fortune. The Taliban is not as well loved as you would have us beleive.

    This site here:

    http://afghanistanica.com/2007/05/06/afghanistan-and-the-qawm-an-important-yet-unknown-concept/

    Details how impossibile it is to nail down loyalties throughout the country. Well researched and thought out. So, to call the Pashtuns all in line with the Taliban is false. To call them all in line with the Coalition and the Government of Afghanistan is equally false. A loyal group today, could easily be disloyal tomorrow.
  9. Nick Wright from Halifax, Canada writes: To Jeff T: Yes, shifting loyalties is a well-known Afghan trait, but that doesn't mean they won't unite in common cause against a threat. Ask the Russians.

    True, the Taliban are not monolithic, nor is their support among Afghan Pashtuns, but Afghans in the south and east are badly disillusioned with the Karzai regime's unfulfilled promises. Foreign armies killing and imprisoning Afghans, destroying their homes and livelihoods, and violating cultural and religious norms are seriously aggravating factors.

    From an essay "The Neo-Taliban" in "The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan" (Robert D. Crews, Amin Tarzi, eds.) (2008):

    "(It) is most likely that there are small bands of people led by local leaders who may at times coordinate their activities with other bands. They unite only in mission, to rid Afghanistan of foreign forces and to establish an Islamic state based on sharia. They believe that those who support the policies of the United States in Afghanistan are guilty and are offending Islam."

    From the Epilogue: "(N)umerous fighters infiltrate Afghanistan from Pakistan. But many more appear to have emerged from Pashtun communities in the southern and eastern interior of Afghanistan."

    From a Radio Free Europe article quoting Christine Fair of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan: "(I)f Pakistan went away, you still have a largely Afghan-driven insurgency"...Her findings are supported by a series of interviews with Taliban fighters in Kandahar Province published in March by the Globe & Mail (which) suggest NATO air strikes and drug-eradication programs have fed the insurgency in southern Afghanistan. Many Taliban soldiers said their family members had been killed in air strikes or that they had been opium-poppy farmers until their crops were destroyed by drug-eradication teams."

    www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2008/04/eae848e5-e3af-
    49b8-9d6d-d27ba748f251.html
  10. Geoffrey May from Canada writes: a better title might be , "The powerlessness of the pen".
  11. S Anderson from Canada writes: Phantom

    Go back under your bridge, you're junk !
  12. The Phantom from Canada writes:

    S Anderson supports the death penalty for insulting Islam.
  13. S Anderson from Canada writes: Phantom

    Shhhhhh !
  14. Jeff T from Canada writes: Nick, those articles you quote, fail utterly to acknowledge that nationalist Pashtuns often get the words Pashtunistan and Afghanistan mis-interpreted. Thier vision of Afghanistan is very very different then what the international community understands and acknowledges. Further, most of those regions of the NWF of Pakistan have been living under very strict Sharia Laws for decades. Ask an Afghan in Kandahar City if he wants a return to those days.

    The lack of beards tells me, "... there is an interesting question."
  15. Nick Wright from Halifax, Canada writes: Jeff T: Kandahar Province has always lived under strict sharia--that was one of the reasons the Taliban were welcomed in the South in 1994. They originated in Kandahar, and their mission to impose sharia throughout the country won them strong support among all Afghan Pashtun enclaves.

    They got into trouble in the South, beginning in 1998, for two main reasons, neither of which had to do with beards:

    1) They departed from traditional methods of justice. Taliban umma (religious leaders) at the head of the movement started condemning people instead of justice being administered by tribal council. This was regarded as arbitrary, and therefore unjust.

    2) They tried to disarm ordinary tribespeople as part of their pacification program (something the Karzai government would like to do, but dare not). The first rebellion against the Taliban in the South in 1998 was over disarmament. When the Americans started supporting the Northern Alliance in 2001, the Taliban were already in deep trouble with Afghans.

    Other than that, the status of women and girls was little different from what it had always been--including under the Northern Alliance warlords who tore the country apart, and now fill most senior federal and provincial posts.

    Should the foreigners leave, it is highly questionable whether Kandahar province will return to the original Taliban style of governance, since most commentators point out that Mullah Omar, a real hard case, has limited or no influence over the current Afghan insurgency, and mostly acts as a Pakistan-based coordinator and supplier of money and arms.

    But most important, Kandaharans have made it clear that although they will fight to remove the foreigners (us), they won't tolerate a wholesale return to the original Taliban's style of rulership. Predicting such a return as the most likely scenario is alarmist, in my view.
  16. Jeff T from Canada writes: Nick, you have the starts of an understanding, but you are discounting the fact that the Government of Afghanistan is exerting levels of influence over Kandahar City today not previously seen... Including recostruction, vocational training, and security intiatives. Kandahar City accounts for the vast majority of the residents of all of southern Afghanistan.

    Further, I can personally atest to the return of refugees in the Panjwai, as well as the return of farmers commerce, as a result of security intiatives.

    It is deeper then a one dimensional view. There are those that do not support the Government and the Coalition, and there are those that do. If no one supported us, our position would be untendable, and the casualties we would be expereincing would be multiplied above we are are expereincing now.
  17. Nick Wright from Halifax, Canada writes: Jeff T: I don't share your rosy view, nor do the UN, NGOs, the U.S. government, the British government, and scholarly studies (Canada's government is the exception, but they stepped through the looking glass a long time ago). I think it is time you offered some sources to back up your claims.

    You said, "Kandahar City accounts for the vast majority of the residents of all of southern Afghanistan." What is the source of this information? The Afghan population is roughly divided 75% rural to 25% urban.

    Kandahar city is a mess of poverty and insecurity. Many refugees returning to the province were forced out of Pakistan and are coming back to no livelihood (except for poppy) and serious physical danger.

    You also said that you can "personally atest to the return of refugees in the Panjwai." More than 3,200 families (at least 10,000 people) were forced from the Panjwai in the 2006 fighting. Many of their homes, fields and irrigation systems were destroyed by foreign armies' bombing, shelling and armoured vehicles.

    The Canadians have been back in force several times now, and each time, the locals become refugees (or the more sanitary "IDPs"--Internally Displaced Persons). Those who stay are often killed, wounded or arrested. Sadly, after each fight, more of them come home to nothing but rubble and destruction. They have no money to replace their losses, and promised aid rarely makes it through to them. They are still not secure, and they are fed up with it because they know it will keep happening.

    They rural population is turning to the Taliban partly out of frustration and a need for order, not because they like the Taliban. But they see the Taliban as fellow Pashtuns who will not violate their culture nor force them to support the seriously corrupt and discredited Karzai government. I think the number of "those who support us" is dwindling monthly.
  18. Jeff T from Canada writes: Ok, the first sin here is in your last sentance. You do know that Pashtunwali and Whabbism are in conflict right? The concepts of the Taliban are in fact foriegn to Pashtuns. Brought there by some lovely people from Saudi Arabia who built a few "schools" in Afghanistan.

    One of those "students" who was also a Mullah just happened to marry a specific Saud at that time... From a very rich family I might add.

    Your second sin, is not knowing the history. We never left Panjwai when we took it during Op Medusa. We have several Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) in the region, and refugees did return to those regions, and reconstruction is on going.

    In Kandahar province itself, the largest geographic feature is the Reg Desert. The population (aside from Beaduin tribes) is concentrated in Kandahar City (pop 300,000 out of just over 1 million in the province) and in several smaller communitees like Spin Boldak, Tarin Kot, Mas'um Ghar, and Spur wan Ghar.
  19. Nick Wright from Halifax, Canada writes: Jeff T.: If Kandahar city has 300,000 residents and Kandahar province almost one million, how then does "Kandahar City account for the vast majority of the residents" of Kandahar, never mind "all of southern Afghanistan"? There are two other southern provinces, Helmand and Nimruz, which as of 2002 had a total population of about one million people. I think you are talking through your hat.

    FOBs are not the same as week-long air and ground campaigns. It is the latter that have caused repeated cycles of evacuation and destruction (well recorded, and widely acknowledged as counterproductive), as the insurgents return after each campaign. The little girl has likely had to flee with her family or hunker down in a cellar more than once in her short life, as the bombs and shells fly, and troops burst into homes, looking for her brother, uncle or father. Do some reading.

    You also mix up religous affiliations. Yes, Al Qaeda is strongly influenced by Wahabbism, since Osama bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia, but the original Taliban were strongly influenced by Pakistani Deobandism. They are both based on severe interpretations of Islam, but they are different, and Deobandism is easily the primary strain among Taliban. It is what was taught to Afghan refugees in the madrassas just inside Pakistan.

    Nevertheless, as I originally said--and supported--the current insurgency is mostly groups of local Kandaharans who want foreign armies to leave and to have a society based on a very conservative mix of sharia and pashtunwali--as it has been for centuries. The original Taliban are not a dominant influence.

    We won't change their minds through military occupation and violence. Our government seems to be finally realizing that (goodbye Gen. Hillier) and is shifting to training and reconstruction. Some are hopeful, but I'm afraid it is too late.

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