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Global Leaders and Columbia Experts Discuss the War in Afghanistan, U.S. Policy and Pakistan’s Role

Nov. 13, 2009Bookmark and Share
With increasing Taliban violence in Afghanistan, difficult decisions face the U.S. and its strategic ally, Pakistan. During Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency, he called Afghanistan a “necessary war.” Now, as President Obama deliberates a new strategy, global leaders and Columbia experts have been gathering on Columbia’s Morningside campus in recent weeks to discuss related opportunities and challenges. A highlight of these events, including links to further coverage and related videos, is below.
 
 Columba in the World
Pakistani Professor Discusses His Country’s New Relationship With the U.S. video Professor Saeed Shafqat
Syed Mustafa Kamal, mayor of Karachi, Pakistan [Image credit: Michael Dames / Columbia University] Mayor of Karachi Calls for Better Governance video
Visiting Diplomat and Afghani Adviser Advocate for Increased Development in Afghanistan [Image credit: Michael Dames / Columbia University]
Professor Robert Jervis [Image credit: Eileen Barroso / Columbia University] Professor Jervis Questions U.S. General’s Call for More Troops in Afghanistan
Saeed Shafqat, adjunct professor at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), recently visited the University from Lahore, Pakistan, where he teaches online courses for Columbia, to talk about the complex challenges facing his country. On Nov. 4, he delivered a lecture about “Pakistan’s Transition to Democracy—Militancy and Future Relations with the United States” and spoke to a Pakistani student organization about the current state of Pakistan-India relations.
 
“Pakistan is a place of origin for the terrorist, a destination for the terrorist and also a victim of the terrorist,” said Shaqat. “So in that way Pakistan has become a state of immense significance.”
 
On Nov. 5, members of the U.S. Military Veterans of Columbia University assembled to discuss the war in Afghanistan with Austin Long, assistant professor of international and public affairs. The event began with a screening of Robert Greenwald’s documentary Rethink Afghanistan, which advocates for the withdrawal of NATO military forces from the country. The screening was followed by commentary from student-veterans Marco Reininger, Will Rogers and J.P. Yorro.
 
Some members of the panel criticized the film, which called for increased humanitarian work rather than military operations, as misleading. Reininger, an undergraduate in the School of General Studies who conducted investigations and counter-improvised explosive devices operations in Afghanistan, stated that humanitarian efforts are part of the U.S. military’s counterinsurgency efforts. “The moment we withdraw from the country,” he said, “there would be no school building.”
 
Yorro, a dual-degree business and international affairs student and former U.S. intelligence officer, agreed with Reininger. “You can’t have schools without security,” he said.
 
Will Rogers, a business student and former Navy SEAL and Pentagon staff member, suggested two options for going forward. “Either you withdraw, and you walk away from what you created, which I think is wrong,” he said, “or you stay in and you try and fix the job that you began.”    
 
On Nov. 9, Syed Mustafa Kamal, mayor of Karachi, Pakistan, spoke at a Global Mayors Forum event held at SIPA. Karachi is the country’s largest city, its financial center and one of the most populous cities in the world. Water and supplies being sent to NATO forces in Afghanistan flow through Karachi, Kamal said, making it an important strategic center for the war on terror.
 
Kamal added that resolving the conflicts in his region “has to come through the good governance there in Afghanistan and good governance there in Pakistan,” rather than through the application of military force.
 
On Nov. 11, Colonels David Gray and Gian Gentile, two serving Army officers, spoke of their combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and assessed the problems of the current American approach to Afghanistan at an event sponsored by the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies (SIWPS). And on Nov. 12, Sadako Ogata, special envoy from Japan to Afghanistan and Pakistan, spoke at Columbia about the role of Japan and the United States in Afghanistan at an event hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute.
 
Upcoming events include a panel discussion presented by SIWPS on possible directions for U.S. policy in Afghanistan with Austin Long, Abraham Wagner, adjunct professor of international and public affairs, and Fotini Christia, assistant professor in political science at MIT; and a talk by Farzana Shaikh of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, titled “Identity, Ethnicity and Democracy: The Case of Pakistan.”
 
In addition to coverage of these events, a special advance article from The Record features an interview with Robert Jervis, the Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics, on Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan, the Vietnam War, and the legacy of the Cold War.
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