Durand Durand

Resolved: President Obama's plan for increasing troops in Afghanistan is in the United States' best interest.

We've been debating this resolution for two weeks, and the more I talk about it, the more I learn. One big issue I've discovered is the Durand Line. Now, last week, I thought the Durand Line was just a small little section of the AfPak border. Then I found this picture, and looked further into it.

The Durand Line is basically the entire AfPak border, and none of it is recognized by Afghanistan.

See that blue section of the map? That's all disputed territory. See the little red line in the middle? That's the internationally recognized border.

This, quite succinctly, is a problem.

According to President Obama during his speech at West Point, “The future of Afghanistan is inextricably linked to the future of its neighbor, Pakistan. In the nearly eight years since 9/11, al Qaeda and its extremist allies have moved across the border to the remote areas of the Pakistani frontier. This almost certainly includes al Qaeda's leadership: Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. They have used this mountainous terrain as a safe haven to hide, to train terrorists, to communicate with followers, to plot attacks, and to send fighters to support the insurgency in Afghanistan. For the American people, this border region has become the most dangerous place in the world.”

Ok, that makes sense. But looking at this map, I see a significant issue. Exactly which border are we trying to stabilize? The edge of the blue area in Afghanistan? The international border? The edge of the blue area in Pakistan?

The only way I see that we can resolve this issue is to redraw the lines. It's like what's happening in Africa; we white people draw lines based on how much land we want and declare the separate sections as separate countries. But the consent of the people is not claimed, and because tribal areas are being shredded and split up, there is civil war and an entire continent of unrest.

This is what is going on in the Middle East. Because we keep forcing our Western ideals and our Western-drawn lines without the consent of anyone but ourselves and our Western allies, the people are angry. They want their people in one place, and other people in another.

Maybe we should work to redefine the lines to both the Afghani and the Pakistani people's consent. That would be more diplomatic than sending in a bunch of people to an area that is not recognized as a border. Sure, terrorism is still a problem, but because the countries they exist in are unsettled and angry, they have an easy job sneaking by and building their regimes. So once we stabilize the border and the countries, the terrorists won't have any public support. They won't be needed to stir the pot. The pot will be settled.