I had the pleasure of spending American Thanksgiving dinner with a friend of mine in Northern Virginia. His father was an Army doctor stationed at Walter Reed during the heyday of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and told a simple but insightful story at the table.
As we all know from Charlie Wilson’s War, the United States was supplying a not inconsiderable amount of aid to the Mujahadeen in order to counter Soviet influence in Asia. This aid included medical aid for high-ranking players, and as such, Islamic ‘freedom fighters’ would pass through Walter Reed from time to time for treatment.
My friend’s father describes one such Islamist that he encountered in the 80’s – an obstinately inarticulate man, apparently alive merely for the dual purposes of smoking cigarettes and felling foreign occupiers.
In accordance with Islamic law, he didn’t drink a drop – but smoked like a chimney, I’m told.
I wasn’t there (having not yet been born), but I can imagine the conversation: tobacco wafting through the room, a lit Malboro still burning between the lips of a wounded Afghan man; 1980s hospital decor and the overly sanitized feel of a room only comfortable to those accustomed to regular visits; a gowned doctor leaning over a stubborn, calloused man with a thick Pashtun accent:
-So, what is it that you do in Afghanistan?
-Kill Russian.
-Ah, I see. How about for leisure? What do you do for fun?
-Kill Russian.
-Interesting… Do you have children? What do they do?
-Yes. They Kill. Russian.
I wonder, what would the same militant say today, if he were alive? What would his colleagues-in-arms respond with? Would they answer, “Kill American”? “Kill Canadian”?
The story reminded me of a piece that I read years ago, when I first started getting interested in politics. Jonathan Kay wrote a article in 2006 that has stuck with me since then. It’s still remarkably relevant today:
“At the end of the day, war and politics are both about mobilization. A couple of blunt words from the Pope or some cartoons published in an obscure European newspaper are apparently enough to get mobs of angry Islamists into the street. But here in the West, we can’t even come up with the few thousand extra troops needed to finish off a war we thought we’d already won. We’re fat and lazy. The enemy is mean and hungry.”
As President Obama makes an announcment this week as to troop levels in Afghanistan, we have to consider: do we lack a will comparable to that of the injured Afghan militant?
Our enemies obsess about murdering our soldiers, about ambushes under the coverage of darkness, about improvised explosives on narrow mountain paths. Do we lack the strength to “Kill Al-Qaeda”, to “Kill Taliban”?
Administrative
