Afghanistan - If we don't know it, can we succeed?

This story comes from an acquaintance whose offspring is a U.S. military officer at Baghram airbase in Afghanistan. This officer was recently deployed to Afghanistan. It raises some questions. One is why our government wants to keep the American public in the dark about the reality of Afghanistan. Another is how we can expect to "succeed" in view of the tenacious culture of that country. Although America has been at war since October of 2001 the press is just now getting around to reporting this, or some aspects of it. 




The sad story: There is a weekly get together or party that goes on among some Afghani troops and/or police on the airbase itself and maybe elsewhere in Afghanistan. Our troops call it Thursday man-love night or something close to that. At Baghram, the weekly Thursday night party starts with Afghani men listening to music and chatting. At some point, young Afghani boys are brought to the party room. Over time, the men and boys pair off and leave the party. They go someplace semi-private on the airbase and the men have sex with the boys. Our troops know about the sex because of the sounds of the man love. According to CNN, there are variations of this theme.

The Afghani cultural context: Why does this happen? Apparently, this happens on Thursdays because Friday is prayer day for Muslims and the men have to behave, more or less. So, they party on Thursday, maybe as a way to prepare for the following day of prayer and good behavior. It is OK for the Afghani men to do this because they are not having sex with Muslim women, something apparently forbidden. And, it is OK for them to have sex with the boys because they do not love the boys. If they loved the boys they had sex with, that too apparently would be forbidden under Islamic religious law.

The American troop context: American troops are under orders to not interfere with the local culture, including the Thursday man-love night parties. For many of our troops, this is demoralizing. They just want to beat the Afghani men senseless. Reactions from our troops range from outrage to dejection.
 
One can argue that we know little or nothing about Afghanistan, its culture or its people. It is reasonable to expect "success"? What is success? During his time in office, President Bush did nothing about Afghanistan after we were told that we "won" the war. That was the Bush administration strategy and most of congress endorsed it. It took President Obama about a year to decide on a new strategy, i.e., a troop surge. Nobody much in politics opposed the new strategy, implying that the old Bush strategy of doing nothing failed.

Success or a fireball?: How will it end, if it ever does. What should we expect after years of war and U.S. government sanctioned public ignorance? The surge is now officially  deemed to be some feeble sort of "success", as narrowly defined by the U.S. military. It definitely does not mean establishing some sort of modern culture. Nor does it mean getting a functioning government in the sense that Americans understand it. We will never change the Afghan government from anything other than a hopelessly weak and corrupt failure. After all this time and money (about $370 billion so far), why do we still know essentially nothing about Afghanistan? Maybe our government wants to keep the public in the dark so that resistance remains politically tolerable. What that will accomplish in the long run is anyone's guess.