Journalist reflects on reporting in Afghanistan

Ahmed Rashid, an award-winning Pakistani journalist and author, advocated continued U.S. military commitment in the Middle East in a lecture Monday titled "Afghanistan, Pakistan and Terror."

Rashid, the recipient of the 2001 Award for Courage in Journalism from the Human Rights Society of Pakistan, began his lecture by commenting on the military effort in Afghanistan immediately after Sept. 11, 2001. A few months after the invasion, Rashid pointed out, the United States' commitment weakened and its military focus shifted to Iraq.

As a result, the "whole region is on a knife edge," he said. Afghanistan is already being called "a forgotten war," and the United States is expected to withdraw an additional 4,000 troops in the spring. Instead of reducing the military effort, Rashid advocated increasing the number of troops and resources in the area, as he fears that U.S. allies will not take the lead if the United States decreases its current effort.

While Rashid conceded that dramatic progress has been made in Afghanistan, he said the administration should be wary of how easily the country could be pulled backwards by a resurgence of the Taliban, a growth in Afghanistan's opium production and the presence of warlords in parliament. The Taliban has been responsible for roughly 1,500 deaths in the country since March.

Rashid then shifted his discussion to Pakistan, noting that the United States has done little to encourage democracy there. While Pakistan does have extremists, the overwhelming majority of the country's population — about 70 percent — is not affected by these minority groups, he said. Their presence, however, has provided an excuse for the military to shun democracy as an option due to the belief that democracy would be too weak to contain them. Hypocritically, the military, while denouncing these groups, still continues to recruit from within them. In this way, the military is "part of the problem with extremism, not part of the solution," Rashid said.

This atmosphere within Pakistan has provided a place for the Taliban to hide, and the resurgence forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan's other neighboring countries are counting on the United States to leave Afghanistan and let it collapse, Rashid added.

Because of the region's fragility, Rashid said the U.S. or allied military presence in Afghanistan is still necessary. The people of Afghanistan have generally been welcoming to American troops, accepting that, if they want progress within the country, they will have to tolerate the interference of the international community.

Rashid closed his lecture by expressing his dismay that the current administration is failing to take the lead in the military effort in Afghanistan.

Since such an initiative is lacking, he reiterated the need for the presence of international resources and troops for as long as the people in Afghanistan are willing to let the international community help combat the region's problems.

Rashid is a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal, BBC and other international news organizations, and is the author of three bestselling books. In September 2002, he became the first journalist to address the United Nations General Assembly.