To Afghan Youths, It's Simple: They Want U.S. Troops Out

by Leela Jacinto

At street corners across Kabul, there's a palpable tension in the air.

Days after violent anti-U.S. protests erupted across Afghanistan following a now-retracted Newsweek report alleging Qur'an desecrations by U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, youths in the capital city are openly debating an issue that has simmered under their society's skin for more than three years: the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.

"It's a problem, a daily problem in class these days, discussing this issue," says 21-year-old Ahmed Siyar, a student in Kabul University's law and political science department. "The students are always asking the teachers why do the U.S. troops want to be here? How long will they be here? They want to know the position of the teachers." Siyar tells me that he gets branded a Western lackey because he talks about the need for U.S. and international troops.

Some of the teachers try to introduce a more nuanced approach, talking about the benefits of a strategic partnership with Washington. "But the students don't even know what strategic friendship means," scoffs Siyar. "All they can think about is, it's an invasion." Just how fiercely this opinion is held among those attending Kabul University became apparent on May 13, when hundreds of irate students marched from a dormitory chanting "Death to America" and burning U.S. flags to raucous cheers from the crowd. This was part of a wave of protests that began at the University of Nangahar in the southeast and spread over five days of bloodshed to 10 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. Fifteen people were killed. Even as experts wondered who was organizing and instigating the violence, news footage established one unassailable fact: No matter the masterminds, Afghanistan's youths were supplying the body count.

Like most internationals in Kabul, I was stunned by the ferocity of the demonstrations, but not that they broke out. Earlier this year, I worked at an Afghan news agency funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, training local journalists on the job. In public, the trainees were diplomatic and eager -- almost too eager -- to please, as you might expect in a U.S.-sponsored program. But in private conversations over tea and cigarettes, I got some idea of the great mistrust with which they view America.

Generally, younger reporters are less informed and shoddier writers than the older generation of editors, who benefited from a quality education system that existed before and during the Soviet occupation.

As Ahmed Siyar is finding in Kabul University's political science department, most of the younger reporters see things in black and white and want U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. The older journalists tend to see how the U.S. presence could be necessary right now to secure the country.

But they all complain of U.S. heavy-handedness: intrusive house raids in the southeast, detention of hundreds of Afghan prisoners in Guantanamo and frequent reports of innocent villagers being arrested due to poor intelligence. Across ethnic, tribal, age and gender lines, the reporters and editors I worked with staunchly oppose permanent U.S. military bases here. One reporter told me that U.S. troops should stay for three to four years "maximum." And several Afghans wished that their president could, just for once, stand up to the Americans.

In Kabul circles, there are code words for the brash, haughty, security-obsessed U.S. troops and officials. Former U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad was routinely called "the viceroy of Afghanistan," while Afghan President Hamid Karzai is simply "the puppet." The floodlit, heavily fortified U.S. Embassy in the heart of Kabul is "the real powerhouse." It was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- not Karzai -- who announced that parliamentary elections finally would take place in September. And it was Khalilzad -- not Karzai -- who confirmed reports of amnesty negotiations with ex-Taliban officials.

A few days after the riots, a young reporter who supports the presence of U.S. troops, "but not for long," told me he was appalled by the violence but glad that protesters had made a point. He didn't trust Newsweek's retraction. "This is not a small thing, they can't just say sorry," he said. "I think the U.S. military put pressure on Newsweek -- something happened between the U.S. military and Newsweek."

Even Siyar, a staunch U.S. supporter who stayed home the morning of the demonstrations, has a conspiracy theory about it: "The Newsweek report was published by the Jewish lobby in America to check if, after three years, Afghans have lost respect for their religion. And we've proved that we haven't."

Leela Jacinto is a New York-based writer in Afghanistan.

© 2005 Star Tribune