The United States has had 90 years to formulate a working relationship with Afghanistan. It had numerous opportunities to help Afghanistan grow and modernize before Soviet Communism and Afghan nationalism made it a Cold War target, but it chose to defer to British and then Pakistani interests. Even after the Soviet defeat from which it benefited, the U.S. had the chance to intervene but chose instead to back away and leave its fate to others. On 9/11 Afghanistan's fate became interlocked with America's, but once again Washington chose a path which allowed Afghanistan to drift into chaos.
Senator Fulbright's reflections are a tragic and largely forgotten commentary on the Cold War. But were he here today to witness the futile debates over policies that were always irreconcilable and the Vietnam-like quagmire they have caused in Afghanistan, he would be the first to recognize that the medieval theologians had been at it again, only this time around the fraud, the lie and the illusion had hardened into a permanent and perhaps terminal reality.
Copyright - 2012 Gould & Fitzgerald All rights reserved
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