Afghanistan: Aid, Armies and Empires

Peter Marsden's book is a timely reminder that Afghan views of the current state of affairs are infused with a strong sense of history, and that the current US-led intervention is only one of a series of such adventures, dating back to the early nineteenth century. Those who lack historical perspective in assessing the prospects of the current war would do well to remember that military intervention supported by 'hearts and minds' humanitarian work is not new. Indeed, the book is a sobering reminder that no amount of 'stabilisation' through financial, military, or humanitarian aid will appease those aggrieved by violent foreign occupation.

Perhaps the most important contribution of the book is its portrayal of the moral certitude of those who have invaded Afghanistan over the course of two centuries. Thus the British in the nineteenth century acted under the assumed rights of imperial ambitions, and the Soviet Union was later to claim that its invasion was in self-defence against such 'imperialists'. By contrast, the Taliban undertook a moral crusade to create a strict Islamic state, countered by a similarly vehement moral 'duty' espoused by the USA in defending democracy. Unlike the Soviet Union, the US intervention was backed by the UN Security Council, but the author convincingly demonstrates that US national strategic interests were always in the foreground. The author gives considerable attention to the juxtaposition of US foreign policy and the neo-conservative 'Project for the New American Century', which warmly embraces American global hegemony while only just falling short of using the term 'crusade'.

The two concluding chapters of the book trace the evolution of aid to Afghanistan over three decades. We are reminded, for instance, that international NGOs enjoyed long-term relationships with communities throughout the 1990s, and the secure environment provided by the Taliban actually enhanced this. After the Bonn Agreement of 2002, donors turned their attention to state building, and NGOs were co-opted into what was to become a more troubled compromise between neutrality and impartiality on the one hand and supporting Western foreign-policy agendas on the other. The dilemma was most acutely felt when NGOs found themselves to be 'unwitting agents of a public relations campaign targeted at the Afghan population, US taxpayers, international forces and the families of international forces'(p. 189). Despite attempts to establish doctrinal separation between military and humanitarian operations, the author notes an increasing 'objectification' of Western aid workers perceived as aligned to the occupying forces. The blurring of the distinction between aid and military endeavours is increased through 'stabilisation' efforts of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams. Although the association is always difficult to prove, there have been almost ten times as many aid workers killed in Afghanistan since 2001 than were killed in the preceding ten years.

Neither this nor any other contemporary book on Afghanistan is a definitive history. The sad fact is that the majority of everything written about the country in the past 30 years has been written from a Western perspective or by Afghans who have long since left the country. However, the book at least presents an independent interpretation of events, unimpaired by current foreign-policy 'script'. Moreover, its probing of a history keenly felt by many Afghans is a reminder of a much quoted local saying: 'You foreigners have your fancy watches, but we Afghans have the time'.