As attention returns to Afghanistan, emphasis should be on local help

Afghanistan is resolutely back in the news. President-elect Obama wants to send more troops, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the buildup could begin in six months and number 30,000.

The United States routed the Taliban government in late 2001 and almost immediately was distracted by the war in Iraq. Troops and money shifted to the Middle East, and U.S. assistance to the country plummeted. Attention, belated and remedial, has shifted back.

In talking with people with lengthy, varied experience in Afghanistan and reading interviews with key American leaders, such as Gen. David Petraeus, I am struck by the themes that get repeated.

An influx of American forces in Afghanistan echoes the surge in Iraq, which had a significance much deeper than raw numbers. "At its core, the surge has been about cooperatively protecting the Iraqi civilian population," wrote Michael E. O'Hanlon, a Brookings Institution senior fellow, in an essay titled "Lessons of the Surge."

Beginning in 2006 in Anbar province, the U.S. eventually hired and armed 90,000 former insurgents and tribesmen as the Sons of Iraq. Grudging cooperation sprang from local fear of al-Qaida militants, whose lethal zeal terrified the population.

The U.S. was desperate enough to take risks on who it worked with, and to challenge both Shiite and Sunni thugs. Iraq's largely Shiite central government is wary of its armed Sunni inheritance, but living conditions are calmer.

In the current Foreign Policy magazine, Petraeus outlines the next logical step beyond helping Afghanis ensure security and preclude establishment of extremist safe havens, "but also to support economic development, democratic institutions, the rule of law, infrastructure, and education."

Petraeus the respected military mind gets right down to the level of city manager. The lack of electricity in the country is a basic challenge to communicating with people with illiteracy rates that run to 80 percent. Radios are essential, hand-cranked and otherwise.

Another key word is reconciliation. In Iraq, the U.S. slowly came to terms with people it did not trust and who did not like Americans. They worked it out. Petraeus defines a similar template for Afghanistan.

Seattle educator Suzanne Griffin has worked throughout Afghanistan since 2002 to build an educational infrastructure and promote literacy among women. I caught up with her after a morning reunion with her Emerald City Rotary in downtown Seattle. Years later, she is still grateful to Seattle Times readers who donated money to ship 10,000 textbooks collected by Woodinville High School students and Rotary members.

She was returning to Afghanistan with a new job as manager of Washington State University's Afghan eQuality Alliance, to boost university enrollment to 100,000 by 2010, with at least 35 percent female students. The tools include promotion of scholarships, computer literacy, computer labs, online courses and digital libraries.

Griffin has spent years helping train Afghan teachers, school principals and provincial education directors. Success, she emphasizes, is in local ownership of programs. Make resources available and help local officials distribute them and garner credit. Hire locally. Promote locally. The lessons are rooted in her Peace Corps experience. Do not do things for people, but with them.

A year ago next Wednesday, Griffin survived an attack by suicide bombers that killed seven people. She was in a hotel gym, the target of the assault. Knowing it was too dangerous to walk alone outdoors, she had started a therapy routine for a hip replacement. She huddled in the locker room as bullets spattered the plaster over her head.

New Year's Eve, another seasoned veteran of Afghanistan wondered what form a military surge might take. After two hitches in the Army, this former noncom, a paratrooper with a Ranger Tab, wondered where the Pentagon would find enough light infantry. He has been to Iraq twice and Afghanistan three times. For him, doing the job right means small teams to meet and gain the trust of local leaders.

Different sets of experience sharing similar views, and recognizing similar paths. Helping Afghanistan progress is an intense, hands-on assignment.

Lance Dickie's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is ldickie@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to www.seattletimes.com/edcetera