A Friend of mine talks about security here...

A West High graduate, Jason met Kelli at Montana State University in Bozeman. Kelli is from Spokane, Wash. They both served in the Air Force and wound up in Boston. Before starting a family, they said, they wanted to volunteer overseas. They considered the Peace Corps but ended up in Afghanistan. Now visiting family and friends around the country, they're considering job options and where to live. Their families supported their decision to go to Afghanistan but worried about security in a country still thick with foreign fighters.

"We were talking to them on Skype (an Internet telephone program)," said Debbie Reinhardt, Jason's mother. "Jason said, 'Just a minute. Hold on.' He was gone for a few minutes. He came back and said, 'Oh, there was a car bombing.' After that I said, 'Just don't tell us any more. You've told us enough scary stories.' "

Jason and Kelli say security in the country is worsening, but infrastructure and daily life have improved. American forces have opened schools and clinics, and the Kabul airport went from rubble to operable in the year they were in Afghanistan.

"The newscasters want to show on the evening news just scenes of poppy and battle, but there are lots of clinics and schools that the military is funding," Jason said. "The Afghans want as much help as we can give so they can get back on their feet, and then we can go home and they can go on living their lives."

Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Something to think about

Recently a friend of mine was asking me some questions about living in Afghanistan and our motivation for moving here to help the poor. Those are always interesting questions. One of the questions he asked was, “How do you reconcile the fact that statistically your chances of dying in Afghanistan are significantly higher than in the U.S.?”
The question itself represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what is happening here in Afghanistan and has likely been influenced by the media and a constant stream of negative news about the Afghan people. I don’t really blame people like my friend. We all tend to be the victims of the information that we are fed. The situation is further complicated by the fact that U.S. involvement in Iraq is frequently lumped in with that of Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, it is seldom communicated that the climate and mood of these two countries is drastically different. For one thing, Afghanistan is not having a religious war or a civil war. There is no Shiite vs. Sunni Muslim battle here. There is no Kurdish minority opposing both the Shiites and Sunnis. In Afghanistan, about 90% of the population is Sunni, with only a small 5% minority in Bamyan Province that are of the Shiite faith. Though there may have been religious-based conflict in the past, this is no longer the case. What affects the U.S. viewing public the most is the news of an occasional terrorist bombing of one type or another somewhere in Afghanistan. Living here in Kabul, we don’t hear of these bombings from the news media.
We often hear them from our house. Many of our expatriate staff members have been in the close vicinity of a bombing over the last three years. Many have also found themselves having passed by a particular location that a half hour later was the scene of a suicide attack. These kinds of things can make you stop and think. In the U.S., few of us have ever had any close connection with acts of terror unless we happened to be in New York City in September of 2001 or in Oklahoma City a few years ago. Hearing about suicide bombings from places like Afghanistan makes us angry and prone to generalizations based on fear.
The truth of the matter, however, is that the Afghan people are not in a religious or civil war, and in fact, are tired of war. They want better jobs, better housing, better education and health, and a hope for the future. They WANT what we have to offer. In general, this extends to the farthest reaches of this rugged and remote country. The “enemy” here tends to be small groups of radicalized religious zealots who easily blend into most villages. Some are from the remote mountains of the border with Pakistan, and some come from organizations such as Al Qaeda. In a city of 3.5 million people such as Kabul, this amounts to only a handful of people.
However, the very nature of terror is that a small number of people can potentially exhibit some emotional control over thousands or millions. The nature of our mission here is to overcome evil with good. We have no intention of doing pitched battle with the Taliban. I’d just as soon not ever come in direct contact with anyone with the Taliban agenda. But I will continue to come in contact with thousands of Afghans who are looking to improve their crop yield, receive better maternal care and find an adequate educational facility so their children can have better opportunities than they had, or simply improve their lives. Yesterday, there were two suicide bombings in Kabul. I don’t know of any foreign aid workers who jumped on the next plane out of town. That’s not in our nature.
In the end, I answered my friend that I reconciled his question by simply not agreeing with it. I really don’t think that statistically my chances of dying in Afghanistan are significantly higher than in the U.S. Consider these statistics:

1) U.S. Homicides in 2004 – 17,357 – that’s 47 per day!
2) U.S. traffic fatalities in 2006 – 43,300 – that’s 118 per day!
3) Suspected cases of medical malpractice fatalities yearly – 120,000 – that’s 329 per day!
4) U.S. smoking-related fatalities in 2006 – 438,000 – that’s 1,200 per day!
5) U.S. cardio-vascular disease related fatalities in 2006 – 876,000 – that’s 2,400 per day (or one every 37 seconds)!
6) By comparison, in 2006 there were 2,943 terror related deaths in the entire country. This includes both Afghans and foreigners (a very small percentage) killed. That’s just 8 fatalities per day (on average).

Of course, no matter how you look at the numbers, the thought that someone is actually “targeting” you for death is a bit disconcerting. But am I MORE likely to die over here than in the U.S.? I don’t think so. Is it likely that I might die somewhere this year? Well, maybe so. But that’s a matter that all of us have to deal with internally and between us and God. So my return question to my friend was simply this: “Regardless of where you may live, are you personally ready to die today?”