"Afghanistan In Perspective"

A very helpful post by Raphael Alexander (exactly as at his site):

The BBC has a very interesting and varied webpage showing all sorts of graphs and charts and statistics [if you like that sort of thing, which I sort of do]. It's difficult sometimes to get bogged down in the language of the mission in Afghanistan, based on the pros and cons, the hawks and the doves, and so one sometimes forgets that behind it all is a much more colourful world than the black and white views we get presented. The truth is that despite all the bad news, there is much good we don't think about all that often.

The Taliban continue to wreak the main havoc in the lives of ordinary Afghanis, which needs to be remembered in any discussion about the mission. This continued insurgency, along with the illegal opium trade, has made it difficult to pursue even the most basic semblance of the rule of law and democratic leadership. Some of the statistics:

Refugees

Five million Afghans have returned since Afghanistan was liberated of the Taliban in 2001, while three million remain in exile. The refugee crisis has been enormous, and nowhere greater than in the south where the Canadian are deployed. The worst part of the refugee crisis is the displacement of people that leads to inevitable collateral casualties: a disturbing 1,445 civilians killed in the first 8 months of 2008.

That's 180 civilians a month. Most deaths have been perpetrated by the Taliban. But think of those five million exiles who have returned to their country because of a hope for something better than the Taliban.

Health

For some of you reading this, the idea that the average life expectancy in Afghanistan is 43 will be shocking. It is for me. That's only 9 years from now in my own life span, and quite disturbing to think of. Other than the war, the main problems are based on water, sanitation, disease, malnutrition, poverty, and displacement. Worse yet, because of corruption in government, it's been difficult to administer the kind of aid that is really needed here. Robert Fisk elaborates on this.

Education

For those who want western forces to leave Afghanistan to the Taliban, consider this fact: "4.2 million children" have returned to school since the fall of the Taliban. 4.2 million. That statistic alone is absolutely incredible, as it would represent 12.7% of the population of our entire nation. There is an obvious burning desire, a need, for children to get a proper education in Afghanistan. Of those children going to school, girls now make up 35% of the population. That is a staggering number of girls who would have been otherwise disenfranchised from what has been considered by the U.N. as a basic right to life.

Economy

War and drought has led to the increase in poppy cultivation, fueling the war with the Taliban. There are two extremely fascinating maps attributed to the problems facing food and poppy cultivation here:





You can see there are enormous problems facing the country, but many of them are based on the insurgency attempting to disrupt the rebuilding and reconstruction of the country. Despite it all, there is slow progress being made there. In 2007 it was reported that 1.73 million girls attended primary school, a statistic that would disappear in the return of the Taliban. It isn't that western forces aren't making a difference there, but the benefits appear too small over the length of time we have been there. As you can see, the most important part of rebuilding Afghanistan isn't just security [although it's major], but the difficult part of finding crops for farmers, an economy for the people, health care and immunizations against disease, sanitation, improvements to education, and major crackdowns on the corruption that robs the people of the little gains they make.

Many Canadians want us to leave Afghanistan [and we will, inevitably, in 2011 as part of a multipartisan decision in Parliament], but where would we go after that? As the Torch writes, "no Western country is going to send any serious number of troops to Congo, and Sudan simply won't voluntarily allow in any Western contributions to the hybrid AU/UN Darfur force that might help make that force effective in a real way." Are we moving on from Afghanistan because we've "done enough"? Or just to mix things up for a bit, and find a new hopeless mission to get half-finished and leave again?