Bombed and Betrayed
By Fariba Nawa



I had a friend I had known for 10 years, an
Afghan-American with an MBA from the University of
North Carolina who left the United States to work for
the peace and stability of his homeland, ravaged by 23
years of war. Farhad Ahad was a role model for my
generation of exiled Afghans holding on tight to our
roots. Now he's dead.
His was not treated as a hero's death. Heroes are
remembered and hailed. Their deeds become the material
of legends. Ahad's death was forgotten, as was his
cause - rebuilding Afghanistan.
Last summer this businessman who had spent most of his
adult life in the United States returned to Kabul to
become the foreign ministry's acting economics
director in the U.S.-backed government, 17 years after
his escape from conscription into the Soviet-backed
army. On Feb. 24, he and three other Afghan-Americans,
including the country's minister of mines and
industries, were killed in a mysterious plane crash
off the coast of Karachi, Pakistan. The team was on a
chartered Cessna en route to a mining operation where
they were to observe the methods in order to emulate
them in Afghanistan. They were also key advisers in
the country's $3.2-billion gas pipeline deal with
Pakistan and Turkmenistan.
The Pakistani government says it is investigating the
crash. But few in the United States have heard about
it, even though four U.S. citizens were killed. Their
forgotten deaths are a reminder to Afghan-Americans
that once again, our homeland is being abandoned. The
U.S. media and government used us when they needed us
during the war against the Taliban, and now we're
passé - Iraq is the focus - and so is our cause.
There's a collective feeling of betrayal.
We had welcomed the United States to wipe out the
Taliban, and had told the American public so through
the media. We were the familiar link to what the West
saw as a strange, unlucky people. But we did it under
one understood condition: You can bomb us now, but
you'll help put the country back together once you're
done. America and the world have stood us up. The Bush
administration even "forgot" to include $300 million
for reconstruction aid in its 2004 budget proposal
until congressional leaders made it an issue.
The war against the Taliban made Afghanistan a local
story for the United States, but only for a short
time. Isn't a plane crash with four Americans killed
also a local story? This is what my friends in the
Afghan-American community are asking. We live and work
in the United States, we are American citizens, but
our hearts and history are in Afghanistan. We're
feeling now that we are more needed there than here.
The last time I saw Ahad was at a demonstration in the
San Francisco Bay area, where the largest Afghan exile
community resides. He was the founder of
AfghanSolidarity.com, a Web site dedicated to peace
and Afghan unity. Through the site, he had organized a
protest against the Taliban. In front of the federal
building in San Francisco, he and a handful of others
shouted for help, not for imperialism. We wanted the
Taliban out. They had hijacked our culture and
religion. We wanted a democratic Afghanistan in peace.
But our shouts were falling on deaf ears. This was a
month before Sept. 11, 2001.
After the United States had decided to respond
militarily to the terrorist attacks in New York and
Washington, there was a sense of hope. Anyone in the
community who spoke against U.S. intervention was
shushed. Afghan exiles and locals both seemed to
believe a new era was upon us, one in which peace and
stability would finally prevail. It was wishful
thinking.
Our homeland is better off than it was during the
Taliban time, but it's far from where it should be.
Warlords backed by the United States still rule most
of the country. President Hamid Karzai's weak central
government struggles to survive. A Taliban and
al-Qaida insurgency is gaining strength, as terrorist
bombs continue to kill civilians. Many
Afghan-Americans have returned to Afghanistan to work
for a year or permanently. I was there last summer and
plan to go back as soon as I can. We find plenty to
do, but not enough money to do it well.
Ahad had arrived in Kabul shortly after the
assassination of Haji Qadir, the minister of public
works, who was unpopular with some factions. Ahad
reflected on Qadir's death in a Newsweek article. He
was quoted as saying, "I realize I'm a target as well.
But if I'm destined to die in Afghanistan, then let it
be."
I shuddered when I read this. He was such a patriot.
He had left Afghanistan as a teenager. I wondered if
those of us who grew up in America have any place in
today's Afghanistan. We're stuck in a time warp,
attached to the country through the nostalgia of our
parents' memories. But there's little time for
introspection. If it's not our duty to aid Afghans,
then whose is it?
We often discuss what the rest of the world can do.
How can Afghanistan remain independent and take money
from imperial powers? What will be the underlying and
more devastating cost of reconstruction funded by
foreigners? Will we become pawns of the Great Game of
the past century when Afghanistan's neighbors used it
as a buffer zone to contain each other?
We come up with no clear-cut answers to these complex
questions of development. But one thing is clear. The
United States and its allies, especially after bombing
the country, have a responsibility to maintain peace,
and reconstruction is part of the answer to peace.
Only when this happens will I believe that my friend
did not die in vain.
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.