As the debate over whether US should be sending more troops to Afghanistan rages the real question remains unanswered. In fact, no one is even asking the real question. The question do we need a nation called Afghanistan? What will happen if there is no Afghanistan? Actually you can ask that question about any country? But that will just be a stupid counter-argument. A country can be defined as a society living within same geographic region sharing the common history and culture working towards the common goal of prosperous future. In that sense, Afghanistan can be called as country. Even if we disregard the fact that no one there wants to work for prosperous future, they do share similar culture and history. But the point that tends to get lost it that the notion of a country or nation-state is itself relatively new. It’s a legacy of European colonist and has resulted into huge number of human loss in last sixty years or so. The tribal/nations of Africa especially are paying humongous price.
Afghanistan was never a unified entity. Whenever people talk about Afghanistan the timeline usually goes as far back as to Soviet invasion. For current memory that was the first time Afghanistan played its role as a playground for superpowers to fight. All though only because of Saudi money and American ammunition that Afghans could defeat Soviets, the fact that they won’t budge even in the face of insurmountable odds is quite something. And it may sound harsh but that’s what they like. They like to fight. If not foreign invaders then they will fight with each other or they will invade others (historically, they would invade Delhi). All the talk them having rich culture is kind of mystifying because if war and violence can be defined as culture then they do come out on the top of ‘cultured’ nations.
Afghanistan –known as Gandhar in ancient time, was always considered as frontier post for India. You cross Afghanistan’s rugged terrain and you get passage to reach fertile plains of Ganges. Alexander came the same way and he all most succeeded. The Huns did the same thing all though they settled and got assimilated in the local population. Still Afghanistan was known for higher seat of education. Taxila university was one of the biggest university in the world. But it changed completed with advent of Islam.
The first recorded invasion of Muslim Arabs was in 712 A.D. All though the invaders reached Multan, they turned back after looting. Then it became a frontier for Muslim zealots in their quest to expand Dar-Ul-Islam i.e. Muslim dominion. The region bore the bloodiest brunt. The native population was decimated or converted. The entire infrastructure was destroyed and places of learning were burnt down. Gradually all that’s left was warring and blood thirsty people wanting to and waiting for next fight. What was interesting is that once a Sultanate established their grip on Delhi (there were a factory line of them) the goal would be stop invasion of another foreign invader from the gates of Afghanistan or to stop the invasion of Afghans itself. Mughal Empire’s fight to keep that area under control was largely unsuccessful. Except for the brief period of 1650’s and 1660’s, Mughals were draining their treasury as well as soldiers into abyss.
With the fall of Mughal empire there was brief period of peace in Afghanistan under Nadir Shah dynasty but then they wasted no time in invading India numerous times.
As world started coming under the spell of western imperialism the Afghanistan gradually lost its prominence as gateway to India. Still for British imperialist the threat of Russians descending down the plains of Indus and Ganges was real. And their would do anything to preserve the jewel of their empire. Afghanistan unsurprisingly again became a playground between British and Russian empire. British Empire wanly tried to subdue the lawless and unforgiving tracts. They quickly learned that it’s easy just to position the tribes against each other and maintain the relative inert state rather than to establish a state. We can say that this strategy was largely successful as the area was in relative peace. Post independence i.e. after Indian independence, Afghanistan came into existence, for the first time in last thousand years or so, as a sovereign nation. Still the tribal region along Durrand line, the line that haphazardly divides Afghanistan and Pakistan, was still autonomous.
It wasn’t meant to last for long. Soviet invasion shattered the peace for good, though this time the prize wasn’t India. Afghanistan was merely another country to be won by two warring super powers. Afghanistan paid dear price. By the time Russians depart the Afghanistan was completely destroyed. Million or so people were killed and again, what’s left was unemployed young and middle aged people with lots of guns and ammunition and nothing to do. More importantly the nation of Afghanistan seized to exist for all practical purpose. It wasn’t a surprise that another disaster was waiting to happen.
It was quite interesting to see how these gun-wielding blood–thirsty terrorist, just like their forefathers, again descended onto India creating havoc in the state of Kashmir. The real perpetrators were Pakistanis but the it was no-brainer that these deranged people will soon spread tentacles through out the globe. What no one thought was that the repercussion would felt violently in New York.
That brings us back to US – another superpower – trying or rather, struggling to make the sense of situation in Afghanistan. And unless they think outside the box, Afghanistan would keep draining resources for decades. We need to realize that the concept of Afghanistan as a Nation just can’t take roots in the rough terrain of Hindu-kush Mountains. The best strategy would simply be to divide the country into the ‘tribe-stan’. Given autonomy to all the tribes and let them leave their life as they please. The only think, and admittedly not easy thing to do, is to keep eye on the ammunition that's going in and out of these tribes. This is all easier said than done.Anyone dares to table this idea even for the sake of discussion will face huge uproar from everyone.
Unfortunately, this won't necessarily solve or stem the problem of terrorism. Because the real cancer lies on the other side of the Durand Line and that will be one heck of a tumor to deal with.
