A Geologist's Analysis of the War in Afghanistan

I wasn’t going to write about Afghanistan this week. It's all over the news, it's certainly the topic du jour, and I was feeling a little Afghan-saturated.



But then I woke up this morning to a headline that announced that with the death of 11 more soldiers (including three DEA agents) that this was the deadliest month yet for American forces in the country. It also struck me personally because I lost 11 of my good friends from the service on June 28th, 2005, in a helicopter crash. When I was in Afghanistan, I became pretty good friends with some other DEA agents working counter-narcotics in the country. And, finally, hitting unbelievably close to home, my good friend LT Dan Cnossen stepped on a land mine in early September within 36 hours of getting on the ground. He lost both legs above the knee.

So this morning's news, coupled with thinking constantly about Dan, reminded me about how volatile Afghanistan really is, and the imperative to figure out a cogent strategy in regards to a rapidly deteriorating situation.

I can’t help but feeling that we are at an inflection point in the war in Afghanistan. The public dissatisfaction is becoming more and more tangible, and there are more opponents on both sides of the political spectrum questioning our goals and methods. The American public has a long historical track record of being quite averse to American casualties, and you cant help but think that as Obama is considering McChrystal’s request for more troops, that this month's death toll is going to influence that decision.

People have been asking me constantly about my thoughts on Afghanistan. Should we be there? Should we send more troops? Is it winnable?

I don’t claim to have the policy solution in Afghanistan, but I do tell one story that maybe in an anecdotal way can help us think about Afghanistan with regards to the long view of history.

In 2007, I was writing my masters thesis on economic alternatives to poppy production in the rural areas of Afghanistan. I had to go to Bagram Air base about three hours outside Kabul in order to conduct some interviews.

As you drive into the main gate of Bagram air base, you see a line of hundreds of big semi-trucks waiting to get through security to get on base.  The trucks are filled with construction materials -- concrete, wood, steel, etc…  Then you drive around Bagram and you see those materials being put to work.  There is massive construction erecting hangars, buildings, even gyms for recreation.  But if you look closely you notice that we are building a lot of those structures on the rubble of the Taliban buildings from when they were in control of Bagram prior to the US invasion.  Interesting, we destroyed them, and are now rebuilding the same buildings.

But perhaps more interesting is that if you look closer, you see the Taliban buildings are built on top of the Russian buildings from when the Russians invaded Afghanistan.  The Russians built on top of the old British buildings, and so forth and so on.  And what you begin to realize is that Bagram has been a base of some foreign power since Alexander the Great.  And if you do what I’m calling -- for lack of a better term -- a sedimentary analysis of Bagram, you begin to see like a geologist examining layers of rock formations, layers of political empires that have come and gone in Afghanistan.  Finally, as you are looking at these layers of different powers who have failed to tame, conquer, pacify, socialize, democratize (insert your own ideology here), you begin to seriously question the feasibility of US goals in the country.

Then as you leave and see the hundreds of millions of dollars of construction being done at Bagram, and around the rest of the country, you cant help but wonder: Are we just the next layer of rubble?