Afghanistan: A Violent Paradox

On this morning's "Today" programme (on BBC Radio 4), there was a report from a journalist embedded with a British patrol in Afghanistan. The reporter went on a patrol around a small village with them and, on the way out (after delivering some medicines), the group was ambushed by some Taliban fighters armed with machine guns. After a short skirmish in which the British returned fire with rifles and artillery, the patrol was approached by a resident of the village, who said words to the effect of:

"Every time you enter our village, you are attacked by the Taliban; and every
time you return fire, you damage our homes, our livestock, and our crops."

This is what I mean by a "violent paradox": on the one hand, the British forces feel a duty to protect the Afghan people and help reconstruct their country from the ruins created both by the Taliban and the war started in 2001; on the other, their very presence seems to beget violence, both against the troops themselves and Afghan civilians. This is precisely what annoys me about the level of argument currently portrayed in the media on this conflict (and, for that matter, Iraq). It is true that the presence of foreign troops antagonises a violent minority and irritates much of the rest of the civilian population, but much of the current debate is focused on a "rock solid" two-sided argument: do we withdraw out troops now (or at least according to a short-term timetable) or do we stay in for the long run - "until the job is done", to paraphrase President Bush?

This debate needs to rise above the level of pacifism versus aggression. As usual, the current two-sided argument is a gross simplification of the real range of views prevalent in the world and, as usual, I find myself torn between the two. On the one hand, the West can't leave its troops in Afganistan (and Iraq) indefinitely; on the other hand, withdrawing rapidly in the near future would almost certainly start a civil war. As I said: it's a violent paradox.