Erstmals hat ein höherer amerikanischer Beamter in Afghanistan seinen Job hingeschmissen, weil er den Sinn des Krieges nicht mehr sieht. Matthew Hoh, ein ehemaliger Marine-Soldat, der den zivilen Aufbau in einer Provinz im Süden verantwortete, hat einen vierseitigen Brief an das State Department geschrieben, der sofort Aufsehen erregte. Richard Holbrooke, der Sonderbotschafter der amerikanischen Regierung für Afghanistan und Pakistan, versuchte Hoh zu halten, doch der blieb bei seiner Kündigung.
Sein zentrales Argument ist, dass die Vereinigten Staaten zu einer Partei in einem 35jährigen Bürgerkrieg geworden seien.
Aus der Washington Post:
„I’m not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love,“ Hoh said. Although he said his time in Zabul was the „second-best job I’ve ever had,“ his dominant experience is from the Marines, where many of his closest friends still serve.
„There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed,“ he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. „I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys.“
But many Afghans, he wrote in his resignation letter, are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there — a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.-backed national government is rejected. While the Taliban is a malign presence, and Pakistan-based al-Qaeda needs to be confronted, he said, the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war.
Hier ein Interview aus Al-Jazeera: