One Site of the Kandahar Killings (Mammon Durrani --- AFP/Getty)I remember having a heated debate with a diplomat friend, over some of the finest Bavarian beers, about the value of life. He ended the discussion, "Sometimes, in the grand scheme of things, even great tragedies become somewhat immaterial when you consider the circumstances."
The tragedy in Kandahar yesterday, which took the life of 16 innocent civilians --- nine of them children --- might fit that descript.
Whether the US army sergeant responsible for the crime is mentally unstable or did this out of blind hatred will take some time to clarify. But what's more appalling is that that the incident resurrects a question, rearing up as recently as last month with the Qur'an burning, and yet remains unanswered: why is the US shooting itself in the foot in Afghanistan over and over again?
Even before America stepped into the scene in the latter part of 2001, many Afghans were wondering if the US knew what it was getting into. One does not simply enter Afghanistan with a large army and expect the people to respect them, honor them, love them or even accept them without giving some serious thought to the experiences Afghans have been through.
I'm not talking the crushed empires of era before Christ or even the 19th century humiliation of the British. As much as Stanford grad students and "three-cups-of-tea"-drinkers might wish it were true, Afghans have suffered too many tragedies in the recent past to give too much thought to what they have endured in the previous 3000 years.
What I am talking about is the Soviet Union. The collective psyche of the Afghan still has that story etched on its frontal lobe. Yes, we remember the Mujahideen destroying Kabul. We also remember the Taliban's reign of theo-terror. But none of that would have been happenly had not the Soviet Union so brazenly violated our sovereignty to get to those damned warm waters. The Soviet invasion was and is still considered the causes belli of the never-ending war in Afghanistan --- the spark, if you will, that burnt the whole country to the ground and is now kicking the ashes in its people's faces.
How do you deal with the emotions Afghans have for a large, Western army that enters Afghanistan to tell its people what they should or shouldn't do?
Americans are not the only people who are addicted to generalisng peoples and countries based on their appearances and locations; however, if your average American can easily mistake Afghans for Arabs and Afghanistan for Saudi Arabia, you should be prepared for Afghans to at least draw some similarities between the Soviets and the Americans.
Let's see…
You're both White. You both speak a European language. You drink a lot of alcohol and "shamelessly" walk around with your women without making them wear burkas.
You both put men in power who are corrupt and are perfectly fine with making people's life miserable with militias. You both "mistakenly" bomb villages and kill dozens of people. You both take our men to prisons where they disappear for years. You both seem to have little regard for our holy book. And you both have soldiers that rape our women and kill entire families whenever they please?
Okay, the US is not nearly as ruthless when it comes to dealing with Afghans as the Soviets were. But like the American, the Afghan makes mistakes when comparing peoples that look similar in a lot of ways. And when you've had 33 years of war and a 10-year-long repression from another Western power, it doesn't take a truckload of Qura'ns to be burnt and stomped on on the streets of Kabul for people to start suspecting Americans of being disrespectful to their religion. It doesn't take 100 incidents of mass murder by a mentally ill soldier to make people think, "Hey, maybe they're all like that?" It doesn't take 1,000 rapes --- five or ten will do.
Most Afghans welcomed and are still okay with the NATO presence in the country. In return, is it too much to ask for America and its allies to try and not invoke the memory of the Soviets time and time again? After all, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Americans with doctorates are using their collective über-brains to support the US actions here. Why is it so difficult for them to get across the simple message that you have to be extremely careful here, given the hatred that exists towards the Soviets?
I wish there were easy answers to what the US should do in the case of the Kandahar Massacre. But here's a starting thought: maybe once, the US should ask the Afghans what might calm their anger a little bit.
I'm not talking about throwing the perpetrator --- who in my opinion deserves a humane trial, no matter the gravity of his crime --- to the victims' families. Instead, US authorities should give the locals affected by this tragedy some options as to how they want the situation to be dealt with so at least they won't go out holding banners in protest that simply state in bold lettering: "United States = Soviet Union". Those options could be anything from generous compensations to a trial held in the area where the crime occured. This is not your average crime. It was brazen. It was committed by an individual clearly linked to you. It was not a mistake. You can't just apologise and move on.
If you attempt that token apology, the Taliban won't need to tweet about it --- the Afghans affected by this crime and by similar incidents will lose their minds. Given how many of tthese incidents have occured recently, that will be a lot of Afghanistan. You don't need that while you're trying to sign a strategic agreement to allow for a long-term US presence.
For starters, here's something you could stop doing that haunts the memory of every Afghan, no matter where he or she lives, to this day: Soviet soldiers, sometimes with their Afghan comrades, broke our doors late at night, walked in with guns, and took our brothers, fathers, sons, and cousins away from us, sometimes forever.
So, after the rhetoric subsides about the lone Kandahar soldier who in no way stands for the American forces in Afghanistan, have a think about your "night raids". And think why you might want to demonstrate that the "United States does not equal the Soviet Union".