By Eleanor LeCain
In March 2003, I traveled to Afghanistan to facilitate a leadership training for a group of Afghan women who were hoping to help lead their country away from the abyss that had been Taliban rule.
Afghans I met — men and women — were grateful that the U.S. had knocked the Taliban out of power. They wanted to get an education and a job, but there were few schools and jobs available.
That was the moment when we might have been able to fund education and economic development to win over the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, and help build a central government capable of running the country. The U.S. had clarity of purpose and a sense of national unity for its mission.
After all, Al Qaeda had launched the 9/11 attacks from Afghanistan, complete with terrorist training camps. Nearly the whole world supported our efforts to uproot Al Qaeda and to build a new and representative government in Afghanistan.
But the U.S. did not provide the support needed to help Afghanistan recover and rebuild. Afghans were puzzled why even then the U.S. was supporting cruel regional warlords, undermining the power of the central government we claimed to support.
Just days after I left Afghanistan, the U.S. invasion of Iraq began. President Bush shifted attention, military force, and funds to Iraq. U.S. efforts in Afghanistan languished. President Obama wants to recapture the historic moment that was lost in 2003.
But that moment has passed. An escalation of military force nearly seven years later cannot bring it back. Here’s why an escalation won’t work:
1) The central government is too weak. People refer to President Karzai as the Mayor of Kabul because the only area he really controls is the capital. Afghanistan lacks even the basic elements of a functioning central government: it does not deliver services nationally like health care or education; it does not provide a national bank and finance system; it does not administer justice. Afghanistan is really a collection of regions, some ruled by warlords. So there will be no real central government to take over military operations in 18 months. That approach may work in Iraq, but it will not work in Afghanistan which is completely different. Iraq had a strong central government before the U.S. invaded; Afghanistan did not.
2) The country is too corrupt. Corruption runs rampant from top to bottom. Funds intended to support military and development efforts are siphoned off by swindlers. Stealing isn’t a crime so much as a way of life. The police who should be protecting citizens are part of the problem: many of them shake people down for protection payoffs. In fact, protection payoffs are a large source of revenue for the Taliban.
3) The country has become a big heroin den. Growing and trading opium is the country’s largest income source. Even people who don’t like opium feel it’s their best path to financial survival. So on top of political and religious feuds is a vast network of narcotics dealers.
4) Local support for the US has dramatically diminished. The current war has dragged on for eight years. U.S. and Coalition forces have driven Al Qaeda from Afghanistan and have limited Taliban efforts to return to power. In those eight years, lots of Afghan civilians have been killed and injured. Bombs that have destroyed Taliban fighting units have also inflicted “collateral damage,” killing civilians. The neighbors and relatives of those dead civilians aren’t likely to welcome new troops as their liberators. Many Afghans now see the U.S. as part of the problem, an occupying force.
In addition to the likely ineffectiveness of escalation is the certainty of its expense. At a cost of about $1 million per soldier, 30,000 more troops will cost us about $30 billion a year. This is on top of the $1 trillion we have already spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. government is already in debt by over $12 trillion. Every dollar we spend is borrowed money. So we’re going to borrow more money to send more troops, thereby making us even more vulnerable to our creditors. Being heavily indebted to other countries is itself a threat to our national security.
There is another way forward. The U.S. first invaded Afghanistan to dismantle the terrorist training camps and their Taliban supporters. Mission accomplished. We can declare victory and set a new, clearly defined objective: prevent the resurgence of terrorist training camps. This objective can be met by the presence of a much smaller multilateral force. Also, more support for educating girls and women would lift families and communities while helping to reduce terrorism.
LeCain is a Washington, DC-based speaker and writer, the president and CEO of NewWayUSA, and a former Massachusetts Assistant Secretary of State. This piece was provided by the American Forum, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, educational organization that provides the media with the views of state experts on major public concerns in order to stimulate informed discussion.
Young people need good jobs now
Thursday, December 24th, 2009By Liz Shuler and Donna Dewitt
As the new year rolls in, a four-letter word is on everyone’s lips: jobs.
With the unemployment rate at red-alert levels, the White House held a jobs summit, the president gave a major address and Congress is preparing legislation to create jobs. But not many are looking at the particular problems facing young workers. Not only have they been hurt disproportionately by the economic crisis, they could very well be the first generation in recent history to be worse off than their parents. Joblessness among young workers is even higher than the national average. They need jobs — good jobs — and they need them now.
In a recent survey done by the AFL-CIO and our community affiliate Working America, young workers spoke out about their dilemma. “Things are definitely harder for me today than they were for my parents at my age,” 31-year-old Laura told us. “Back then, you could graduate high school, get a job at the local grocery store and still be able to buy a house and even put a little away for retirement. It’s just not that way anymore.”
Today, young people are coming out of college tens of thousands of dollars in debt and unable to find jobs — certainly not the kind of jobs they thought they’d find. “Sometimes we wonder if it was really worth it to get an education for the price we’ve paid,” Jessica, also 31, reported.
More than half of the 18- to 34-year-olds we talked to earn less than $30,000 a year. Only 31 percent make enough money to cover their bills and put some aside. And benefits? Young people say the situation is just as bad. Thirty-one percent are uninsured, up from 24 percent 10 years ago. Less than half have retirement plans at work.
Many young people are worried they won’t be able to start their adult lives and pursue their dreams of having families of their own. And they’re right to be worried: One in three 18- to 34-year-olds lives at home with their parents.
Without immediate action to create jobs, living standards for young workers — and even their children — may be stunted permanently. History teaches us that deep economic troughs like the one we’re in can scar young people for their entire careers as their earnings may never recover and their children may earn even less.
Yes, we need longer term economic restructuring. But we have a jobs crisis right now — for young people and all of us. And Congress and the president must jump-start jobs immediately.
Our states and communities are starving for aid to keep teachers and firefighters (many of them young workers) on the payroll. Let’s get that aid to them now. Schools are crumbling and higher education costs are out of control. Without significant new federal investments, the state and local budget catastrophe and infrastructure collapse will strangle long-term solutions for young workers. Are we really ready to write them off as a lost generation?
When people need jobs so badly, it’s the right time to invest in the clean, green technologies of the future, and in the distressed communities, putting jobless people to work tutoring children, cleaning up abandoned buildings, or providing child care, to name a few.
And let’s move some of the leftover bank bailout funds from Wall Street to Main Street, so community banks can lend money to small businesses for the purposes of job creation.
Efforts like these can keep and create at least 2 million jobs in the next year. As I travel across the country, young people tell me they are ready to join the fight.
In the same survey, thirty-five percent say they voted for the first time in 2008, and nearly three-quarters say they keep tabs on government and public affairs, even when there’s not an election going on. Job creation, health care and education are their top economic priorities. And — by a 22-point margin — young workers favor expanding public investment over reducing the budget deficit.
Young workers are not just calling for action to create jobs and fix the economy — they’re depending on it. Their economic future — America’s economic future — is at stake.
Shuler is the secretary treasurer of the AFL-CIO. Dewitt is the president of the SC AFL-CIO and Co-chair of the SC Progressive Network. This column appeared in The Sun News.
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