True progress amid Afghan chaos
As the U.S. departs Afghanistan after 20 years, it is important to stand back, look past the last few weeks of chaos, and reflect on what it all means. I have heard many people say, “It was all for nothing!” That is an easy reaction, especially for those who are not very familiar with what we did there. Having spent nearly a decade in Afghanistan, I have a different take on this. Although I am very disappointed with the outcome, I do not feel our mission in Afghanistan was all for nothing. There are improvements in nearly every part of life in that country, and much of it cannot be taken away.
When I first arrived in Eastern Afghanistan in 2005, I saw a country still in shambles. The cities were mostly in ruins. The city streets were dirt roads filled with sewage and garbage, and the highways were not much more than dirt tracks filled with potholes and were very dangerous to navigate.
The little medical care that was available was difficult to get and antiquated at best. There were few schools and even fewer school buildings. Children usually sat under trees with no books or even a pencil to write with, while teachers desperately tried to spread knowledge to hungry, overcrowded classes.
Electricity was only sporadically available in a few major cities if the grid was working that day. The few affluent people used generators at their homes if they could afford the fuel. The irrigation systems, the lifeblood of a country where 80% of the population works in agriculture, were in shambles. The country could not feed itself.
Farmers turned to the only cash crop that could help them stay afloat, opium poppies, to make heroin. The country was in a dire state.
Very few people spent enough time in Afghanistan to really see the progress that has been made. The major cities and even many smaller towns are thriving with commerce and would be unrecognizable from the cities of the past. New shops, apartments and houses went up all over the country. Some Taliban did not even recognize Kabul when they arrived this month, since the last time they saw it the city was a heap of ruins, and now it is a bustling city with vastly improved infrastructure.
Due to many aid agencies, especially USAID, Afghanistan went from educating 900,000 students (all males) in 2001 to more than 9.5 million students in 2020, and nearly 40% were female.
Although still lacking many modern standards, Afghanistan’s medical infrastructure is a massive leap forward from where it was prior to the U.S. invasion. Every district has a health center and each province has a hospital. Medical NGOs have helped bring drugs and medical equipment into health centers that did not exist before. One of my former administrative staff members back in 2010 is now a surgeon in one of the largest cities in Afghanistan, something that would not have been possible without our intervention.
The road systems throughout the country have been largely improved. Even though many of the roads have been damaged since reconstruction, what used to take a full day of travel can now take only hours.
This is a huge improvement for the movement of goods and people. The power systems are still in a poor state, but have been much improved from where they were 20 years ago.
The irrigation systems in much of the country are finally providing water to rural areas where drought and poor yields led to widespread hunger. I ran a program in 2011 that focused on working with Afghan communities to rebuild their irrigation systems. Countrywide, we rebuilt hundreds of village irrigation systems and helped increase crop yields to tens of thousands of acres of land.
These gains will not be easy to reverse. I am sure much of the progress we have made throughout the years will be halted and even pushed back. The last administration in Kabul was full of corruption and incompetence. Truthfully, none of us really know what the new government in Afghanistan will look like or attempt to do.
Thousands of Afghans are fleeing Afghanistan, thinking that their lives are in danger, and I am sure that many of them are. However, it is my hope that most Afghans, especially the well-educated ones, will stay and work to make their country better, even under difficult circumstances.
I pray that the progress that has been made over the last 20 years will help shape the new Afghanistan and hopefully one day, lead to peace. I still have hope for Afghanistan.
Corsten spent nearly a decade in Afghanistan as a soldier and aid worker and is the author of “3,000 Days in Afghanistan.”