The Village Green
Stay in Afghanistan? There's No Other Choice
We're already there. Now we have to deal with it.
Jean Bethke Elshtain | posted 9/08/2010 09:28AM
Jean Bethke Elshtain, ethics professor at the University of Chicago, Chris Seiple, the president of the Institute for Global Engagement, and Will Willimon, bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church, discuss whether the U.S. should stay militarily involved in Afghanistan.
It is irrelevant to debate whether the United States should be in Afghanistan; we are already there. The important questions must deal with the realities of the situation.
First, remember why we are there. We entered Afghanistan with the United Nations fully behind the operation after the attacks of September 11, 2001, an act of aggression that necessitated a response. U.S. entry into Afghanistan was an act of self-defense.
The notorious misrule of the Taliban came to an end, and the operation of Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan ceased for the most part. We did not intervene to end Taliban rule per se, but to put an end to Al Qaeda operations. At this point, a return to Taliban control would be a disaster—first and foremost for the people of Afghanistan.
Under the Taliban, those who suffered the most were women. Women were driven out of universities, and girls were not allowed to go to school. Women were denied all legal rights and were not permitted to go out of doors unless escorted by a man. Anyone who defied regulations was beaten or stoned. Women had to be seen by female physicians and remain covered during medical examinations. This meant, in effect, little medical care, as female professionals fled Afghanistan in droves when the Taliban took over.
We must contend with these realities now. Leave aside our own security concerns: Are we content to watch Afghanistan fall once again under Taliban rule? What on earth do people think would happen if we packed our bags and left the country tomorrow? That we would see the lion lie down with the lamb?
We would watch as women now in school were denied an education, and other women were beaten and executed. We would stand by as those who signed on with the prospect of a constitutional Afghanistan are slaughtered. The border with Pakistan, now the site of Taliban operations, would turn into a Taliban stronghold from which they could threaten the security of the entire region. Afghanistan sits astride one of the most dangerous zones in the world. Terrorist entities hanker to generate dirty nuclear weapons with which to threaten all "infidels," whether Jews, Christians, or the wrong sort of Muslims.
We might pack our bags tomorrow, but we would return as the situation went completely downhill. No American president wants to see Afghanistan lost when so much is at stake. So our present dilemma is not whether we should be there or not, but how we can best secure the situation and eventually withdraw.
We have adopted a difficult counter-insurgency strategy for the sole purpose of trying to spare civilian lives. If this strategy does not succeed, it will mean a much longer U.S. presence in Afghanistan. Let us hope and pray—for the sake of the Afghan people, and in order to somewhat minimize the horrors of this world—that we succeed.
Copyright © 2010 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Related Elsewhere:Jean Bethke Elshtain teaches ethics in the divinity school and the political science department at the University of Chicago. Chris Seiple and Will Willimon also weighed in.
Previous Christianity Today articles on Afghanistan include:
Hard Times for Christian Aid Groups in Afghanistan and Somalia | As Christians mourn murder of International Assistance Mission workers in Afghanistan, Somalia orders out Christian groups. (August 9, 2010)
Afghan Girls Poisoned for Attending School | Some Afghan groups believe educating girls is forbidden in Islam and corrosive to society. (Her.meneutics, April 29, 2010)
Christmas in Afghanistan | Why, Lord, do you allow this time, of all times, to become for some a memorial of searing pain? (December 22, 2009)
Unconfirmed report on martyrdom deepens gloom for Christians | Unconfirmed report on martyrdom deepens gloom for Christians. (October 1, 2004)
Previous Village Green sections have discussed Bible smuggling, creation care, intelligent design, preaching, immigration, Lent, premarital abstinence, aid to foreign nations, technology, and abortion.
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September 2010, Vol. 54, No. 9
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just an inkling
The author contends that, "It is irrelevant to debate whether the United States should be in Afghanistan; we are already there. The important questions must deal with the realities of the situation." But right and wrongs cannot be so easily pushed aside, especially for the people living there. It is pure folly to base foreign policy on the realities of the present without an analysis of realities that brought us to the present.
Gyula Ficsor
For sometimes now I realized that our continued involvement in Afghanistan has become a human rights issue. When "good people" let Hitler kill millions of Jews, we judge them harshly in retrospect. Can we just stand by wringing our hands, when we know what the Taliban will do again to women?
The G
If Jean wants to rescue her illiterate sisters from their religion, let her go on her dime, not mine. That taxpayer money is needed in our ghettos here. And that's a war we might be able to win. This country has enough of its own oppression with a million homes lost and the dollar soon to crash. That article was stupid, stupid, stupid.