Doug Stanton Knows Afghanistan, But Imus Wants More

Doug Stanton wrote the book Horse Soldiers, about events in Afghanistan in 2001. Now out in paperback, the book features a new chapter that brings the situation up to date, which is what Stanton, who recently returned from the country, did for the I-Man today.

“I was quite surprised by what I discovered, and impressed,” he said of his trip at the end of April, when he met with Afghan leaders and with General Stanley McChrystal. “It seems a lot of what’s been going on over there doesn’t always make it into news reports.”

Stanton described McChrystal’s plans for Afghanistan as complex and nuanced. “They’re trying to train U.S. soldiers to really look at the Afghans as people who want a job and education,” he said. “In other words, to think first, and not try to solve the problem with the end of a rifle. They’re over there trying to create good governance and a good judicial system.”

Which, to Imus, sounds a lot like nation-building; but Stanton doesn’t think that makes it bad. He told Imus about how the U.S. is trying to change the current “judicial” system in the country, whereby the Taliban provides “motorcycle courts” in the countryside and dictates punishment.

“The locals are somewhat beholden to them, although they do not like them, generally,” he said of the Taliban. To combat this rogue “justice,” President Hamid Karzai, with U.S. involvement, is trying to create a real judicial system that actually works.

McChrystal’s plan, while ambitious, is aimed at creating enough progress by July 2011 that the momentum will be irreversible. “The Afghans are in favor of this,” Stanton said of a U.S. troop drawdown next summer.

Despite Obama’s desire to create more transparency in Afghanistan’s detention facilities, which Stanton witnessed at a center near Bagram, it remains vague what would define a U.S. victory in this long-conflicted country.

“Winning would mean in 15 years, you or I could get in our truck and drive our goods ten miles down the road without being held up at gunpoint, either by the Afghan National Police or the Afghan National Army, or by one of the four criminal gangs,” said Stanton.

The emphasis now for U.S. troops in the region is to establish legitimacy between themselves and the locals, and then for the locals to do the same with their own government. “It’s a long process,” said Stanton. “The question is, do we have the stomach for it?”

For Imus, however, the question is when Stanton would stop riding the coattails of Horse Soldiers and work on something else.

“Got any ideas?” asked Stanton, who we hope is not a one-trick pony. Or Horse Soldier. Ha Ha.

-Julie Kanfer