SUMMARY BY ANNA KELLAR

On October 8^th 2009, to mark to the eighth anniversary of the United States and NATO’s invasion of Afghanistan, Global21 was proud to co-sponsor a panel discussion that engaged five military and civilian viewpoints on the ongoing conflict that plagues the country today. More than seventy members of the Yale Community attended the event, and actively listened and questioned the panel, which included:

Zahid Hamdard – Afghan National Environmental Protection Agency, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Science ‘10

Katarina Kuai – UN Assistance Mission in Bamiyan Province, GRD ‘10

Eric Robinson – Captain, US Army. Civil-Military Operations Officer, Khost, GRD ‘11.

Bill Johnston – Sergeant, US Army, Force Protection for Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Urozgan and Nuristan Provinces. West Haven Police Department.

Parwiz Abrahimi – former science teacher, Marefat High School, Kabul. School of Medicine MD/PHD ‘16

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The discussion began with three questions:

1)   What does the recent presidential election mean for the legitimacy of the Afghan government?

2)   Is American involvement in Afghanistan a “war of choice” or a “war of necessity”?

3)   Should the main issues be humanitarian aid, state building and human rights, or based on    a narrower conception of US security interests? Can the initiative be changed at this point, and how?

The panelists were each given the opportunity to describe their personal experiences in relation to these topics. Eric Robinson, for example, spoke about his mission to register voters (part of his larger duties abroad) during which he witnessed extreme discrepancies in the process well before the actual election. He described how people would use tactics like asking for registration cards on behalf of all of the women in a village in order to increase the numbers of new registrants to an unfeasible amount.

Katarina Kuai’s work included training Afghan officials to include human rights concerns in their development planning, prompting several panelists to discuss the difference between the ways that Afghans and internationals approach development. Afghan officials often ask for big infrastructure projects (which are also the type of projects that the US Army is best equipped to assist with) in preference to the international NGO approach of smaller-scale projects with community input.

Parwiz Abrahimi addressed the challenges of working in classrooms where supplies are so limited that only one student could perform a simple science experiment at a time. He stressed how important it is for an Afghan girl, who might not expect many educational opportunities, to garner hands-on experience by wearing safety goggles and holding a test tube.

Despite the frustrations they experienced, and some disagreements on the kind of counter-insurgency strategy that would be most likely to succeed, all the panelists agreed that the international community must be more, not less, involved in Afghanistan. As Robinson put it, the Taliban who attacked him in Khost may not be a major threat to the United States’ security, but the presence of foreign troops is all that stands in the way of the Taliban retaking power in that province, and imposing rules that no person should have to live under in the 21^st century.

How would you respond to these questions? What is your opinion on the panelists’ experiences and beliefs? Leave your thoughts in the comments.