Afghan native and humanitarian award winner Hasan Nouri waited nearly 25 years to see Osama bin Laden brought to justice for the murder of his dear friend, journalist Jim Lindelof. However, Nouri's joy has been fleeting, vitiated by the reality that the blood of innocents continues to stain the streets of his homeland. Meanwhile, Washington and Kabul are in the midst of negotiating a "strategic partnership agreement" that is so saddled with fine print caveats it would, in effect, allow the U.S. to maintain troops on Afghan soil until the end times.
Although disrupting Al Qaeda has been the Obama administration's casus belli in Afghanistan, the assassination in May of the world's most notorious jihadist has obviously not changed U.S. thinking in the least, as the AfPak theatre remains the central front of America's war on terror. Nouri reminded me that not one Afghan was involved with planning or executing the attacks on 9/11, yet over the past decade no other people have suffered more than the Afghans as a result of this heinous crime.
During the 1980s Nouri co-founded the International Medical Corps (IMC) which established 50 M*A*S*H-style medical clinics to patch up Afghan mujaheddin fighters wounded in the war against the Soviets. Lindelof worked as an IMC nurse who returned to Afghanistan to help film a documentary in 1987 when his life was cut short by one of bin Laden's "Afghan Arab" jihadists.
Nouri immediately recognized the dangers inherent in the CIA's policy of allowing Pakistani intelligence to control the allocation of cash and weapons to the anti-Soviet resistance. As a result, the CIA ended up funding some of the world's most dangerous Islamic extremist organizations -- not the least of which was a group called Al Qaeda.
Nouri admonished the U.S. government about bin Laden and the Taliban throughout the 1990s and proposed a peace plan centered on restoring King Zahir Shah as Afghanistan's head of state -- a proposal that evidently fell on deaf ears. In fact, while the U.S. ignored Nouri, according to former U.S. Ambassador Peter Tomsen, it continued to outsource its Afghan policy to the ISI.
Before a congressional subcommittee in 1996 Nouri delivered an ominous warning: "...today's Afghan problem will become our [America's] problem tomorrow at home." Sadly, he was right. Nouri took me through the tragic day his worst nightmare became reality:
On September 11, 2001 after an early morning bike ride I noticed my two young sons Alexander and Nicholas (Baba) standing in the doorway seemingly distraught. Alex yelled: 'Dad, Dad they bombed New York.' I thought they must have been watching some scary movie. But as I watched the TV for just a few minutes I quickly realized why my boys were terrified and saw the pictures of Osama bin Laden -- the criminal who had killed Jim Lindelof.
A tearful Nouri told Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and Congressman Ed Royce the day after 9/11: "It tears me to pieces. It's the country of my forefathers, the proud country that defeated the Soviet Union. Now I see my homeland being a safe haven for terrorists.'' Rohrabacher told Nouri: "Hasan, don't cry. You and I have done everything we could but we as a nation have failed".
Congressman Royce was later quoted as saying, "If we had listened to Hasan Nouri September 11 would have never happened." In response to that statement in a Congressional Club Meeting Nouri mentioned: "I disagree with Congressman Royce. You did listen to Hasan Nouri. It was Congressman Royce who organized the historic Congressional Hearing of 1996. It was Congressman Royce who cosponsored the Senate Hearing of 1996 revealing the atrocities of the Taliban. Sir, I can never thank you enough for what you have done for America and Afghanistan"
The point of Nouri's tale is that Osama bin Laden's rise was not inevitable. If U.S. leaders would have taken Nouri's nonviolent political solution more seriously, the cataclysmic violence that shook the U.S. on 9/11 and plagued Afghanistan afterward could have been avoided.
Ten years after 9/11 Alex Nouri would break major news to Hasan once again. Alex called his father's cell phone on May 1, 2011 while Nouri was dining with Congressman Royce to inform him of bin Laden's demise. It's a shame the story doesn't end right there.
The day after bin laden was assassinated 22-year old U.S. Army Sergeant Kevin W. White of Westfield, NY was killed by an improvised explosive device in Konar province. Since bin Laden's death 257 NATO troops have been killed while August became the deadliest month of the entire Afghan war for U.S. troops with 66 killed, as others risk their lives in a war that lacks any defined objectives. Peace journalist Robert Koehler captures how the U.S. has lost its way and its common sense:
We're lost because we keep strafing and bombing our troubles, along with any people who happen to be in the way, rather than facing them with the least sort of honesty, let alone humanity. We're lost because our actions churn up problems infinitely worse than the ones we set out to solve. We're lost because we are so morally compromised we have to keep piling on more of the same -- more troops, more missiles, more carnage -- in order to avoid facing our consciences.
Hasan Nouri can certainly sleep at night with clear conscience after a lifetime of trying to reverse the tide of violent extremism. Bin Laden is dead and Nouri is ready to move on and implement an indigenous political solution to bring peace to Afghanistan.
Al Qaeda's founder may be gone from this earth but it appears his influence extends beyond the grave -- for the dangerous mindset that created bin Laden in the first place continues to haunt the echo chambers of the White House and the Pentagon.