REFLECTIONS

Afghanistan Revisited

BY BRUCE LAINGEN

Sorting papers recently from my assignment as DCM in Kabul from 1968 to 1971, I relived positive memories — especially when considered against the changes in that country’s troubled history since.

Deep in my files was a post report that included photos of a brand-new chancery in Kabul, a city described as rapidly growing at 400,000 people (today it’s nearly 10 times that number). The report also describes active American communities in the Helmand Valley, Kandahar and Jalalabad; a large USAID program in education and agricultural development; a good-sized USIA program; and a growing Peace Corps presence.

Afghanistan is portrayed as a land of “rugged beauty, sharp contrasts, of desert wastes and lush green valleys seen from the towering mountain ridges of the Hindu Kush.” That same month, Look magazine carried a glossy, 12-page spread, “Crossroads of the Silk Route.”

Kandahar, then the country’s sec-ond-largest city, had a brand-new air terminal building, said to be worthy of future refueling stops by PanAm and other airlines. It was already served internally by Ariana Airlines, which was proudly flying a brand-new Boeing 727. The post report’s recommended reading? Caravans, by James Michener.

My files contain accounts of jaunts by American families on U.S.-funded highway projects linking Kabul to Kandahar and the Helmand Valley, and extending west to Herat and the Iranian border. A nearly nationwide circular

There was no
mention of poppies.

highway was evolving — the U.S.-funded segments linked with Soviet-built highways from Kabul north thorough the Salang Pass and on to Mazar-i-Sharif and the Soviet border.

I remember those road trips for nonexistent service stations and an embassy driver capable of coping with leaks in an overheated radiator by the creative use of apricots from roadside orchards.

USAID workers traveled frequently to the Helmand Valley and their headquarters in the town of Lashkargah — evident in a headlined report from the Kabul Times of May 10, 1969: “A 21- Percent Increase in Wheat Harvesting Expected in the Helmand.”

The article was accompanied by a photograph of then-Ambassador Robert Neumann, standing proudly with both turbaned and white-shirted Afghan farming experts in tall stands of wheat. There was no mention of poppies.

In painful contrast, the Washington Post of April 6, 2009, has a front-page story and large color photo captioned “U.S. Marines fire 120-mm rockets on Taliban positions in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province.” In 1968, defense and air attachés (the latter flying a two-engine prop plane) managing a small army leadership training program — a geopolitical gesture to “balance”

the overwhelming Soviet presence. Today? The U.S. military force in the country is expected to soon reach 55,000, with perhaps another 30,000 in supporting NATO forces.

So much for the hopes and optimism of those now-long-ago days. The “Great Game” for influence in Afghanistan continues. The Taliban have replaced the Russians and we, with President Hamid Karzai as a partner, face some of the same difficulties (and new, more daunting ones) as we try to help build democratic governmental processes in a still deeply traditional society.

In 1963, King Zahir Shah had put in place a constitutional democracy. Today we know full well from the painful record since — including the king’s ouster by his cousin Daud in 1974 — that this governing experiment has yet to prosper.

Equally uncertain is U.S. military success in attaining the objectives that began with our intervention in 2001. Pursued at great cost, in both human and material terms, since that time, a stable and terror-free Afghanistan is now a major strategic goal in the broad region, both for us and NATO.

No one could hope more for success than those of us who enjoyed diplomatic service in Afghanistan in the years following the opening of the U.S. legation in Kabul, back in 1952. ■