Matt Weems

Late in 2001 our soldiers began operations in Afghanistan. Conventional public opinion in the United States was frighteningly simplistic. Osama was a mass murderer and the Taliban were terrorists and women abusers. The invasion would redress the wrong done to us, save Afghans from the grip of the Mullahs, and democratize another Asian nation all in one blow.

Vietnam taught Colin Powell that wars should be entered only with overwhelming force and limited, achievable objectives. But a more important lesson was that ignorance about the theater of operations can waste any amount of force and leave us chasing futile objectives. Our military had extensive research and plans on the shelf for invading Iran and Iraq, but nothing for Afghanistan.

Also ominous was the reputation of Afghanistan and its people. Ghengis Khan’s steppe horde, unbeaten in Central Asia, suffered a defeat in the mountains of Afghanistan. The British famously sent an army and baggage train of over fifteen thousand people to Kabul, of which one man and his horse got out unscathed. The Russians fought to create a modern socialist state in Afghanistan for a decade but could not subdue the tribesmen. Would our Afghan adventure become a nightmare as well?

I treated my anxiety with large doses of information. I wanted to know everything: the peoples who live there, the major social movements, the nations that projected influence into Afghanistan, the men who whose personalities shaped the events, the weapons, the battles, and the massacres. I read the BBC and the New York Times. I read Steve Coll, Christopher Kremmer, Barnette Rubin, Abdul Rashid, Peter Hopkirk, Robin Moore (who is a simple soul), and others.

Democracy is no more native to Afghanistan than Communism or theocracy. The Soviets, Pakistan and the United States blunder when they try to remake the country in their own images. Solutions imposed by foreigners fail to take root in Afghanistan. The material from which peace and stability must be forged are the aspirations, flaws and virtues of the Afghans themselves and these are best revealed in the lives of the warlords.