From the table tennis diplomacy of the Nixon administration and the opening up of Chinese politics to the Taleban favored cricket sport under the Pakistani influence, to the baseball game promoted by the American troops in Afghanistan, sports have been used as a bridge bringing together people from different countries and cultures, giving them a chance to cherish the fact that they belong to the same species in this widely contested and mostly limited environment on planet earth.

Now that Afghanistan has been rid of Taleban and their influence is fading away and when Pakistani influence has lost its base, a new nation has become involved in the country. It is the US that declared war on Al-Qaeda and its supporter Taleban regime. It was less than a year ago, when US planes started bombing Taleban and Al-Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and forced Taleban to flee rather rapidly form their power bases and abandon their hard military excursions against the Northern Alliance forces in the country. Taleban lost power in Afghanistan more rapidly than when they gained it. Good riddance, said the Afghan nation.

But Afghanistan remained open to the military excursions of the US against what is called terrorist cells and remnants of Taleban forces. Traditionally forces that remain in a foreign land are welcome only when they come in as liberators, as friends, as forces that topple down tyranny and oppression. That is why the US forces, notwithstanding large collateral casualties that they inflicted on Afghan civilians and villages and physical destruction that resulted from using of the mightiest bombs in modern arsenals, were looked at as liberators, as friends. But as time passes and as the original objectives of the operation are met, their status increasingly return to that of alien forces. This further happens because of casualties that are caused by friendly fires, miscalculations, using wrong information by wrong type of informers, etc. And there have, unfortunately been many instances allegedly caused by all of these situations.

But it is important that US and international forces continue to stay on in Afghanistan until such a time that the transitional government gains full control of the country. The making of the national army seems to take much longer than one would expect. Some now talk of years, may be five or more, before the national army could be ready to take up its task. So, presently Afghanistan has had to rely on the United Nations and also the US military forces for the upkeep of security. It is also because of the weakness of the security in the country that its president has US body guards rather than Afghan ones.

The US, aware of the experiences of the Soviet invading forces, has tried and is trying to let its forces play the role of friends, of liberators, of helpers. When you see American military men help build up schools in Herat, or when you see them teach little boys how to play baseball in Urgun in the south of the country, you are reminded of the tactical approach of the US military in its quest to fight Al-Qaeda and also to keep the Afghans happy. However, it is not always that things move so easily, so smoothly. An incident last week in Kandahar where American troops entered certain compounds without notice and interrogated people, show that because of that locals have started to question the US forces attitudes.

But the US forces have also embarked on training of platoons of the national army for Afghanistan. This experience further brings together the US military personnel with those of the Afghan government. The problem however is to keep the delicate balance between being a friendly force or being branded as an occupation force. For the US military to be effective both in achieving its own goals as well as helping the Afghans, it is important to plan all its action accordingly, to safeguard human rights, to avoid any expression of arrogance or acts that may alienate the Afghan military or general public. A recent punishment accorded to an American troop who had assaulted a prisoner shows that the US military bosses are serious in walking the fine line between friend and foe in Afghanistan. 8/19/02