Afghanistan, again
Plus high-level report on Ukraine warns of 'historic mistake'
Watching Afghans in this raw (and graphic) video scramble to help victims of the deadliest earthquake in 20 years called to mind Chesterton’s “rush of life” passage in Mere Orthodoxy. Children repeat the same thing “through excess, not absence, of life,” he wrote. And “repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. Heaven may encore the bird who laid an egg.” As we witness Afghans battling to overcome wars, hunger, and now natural disaster, we are tempted to become hopeless, and cynical. But suppose their visible will to survive, tested again and again, is a theatrical encore meant also for us?
Welcome to this week’s Globe Trot. Afghanistan’s June 22 earthquake struck at 1:30 a.m. local time in a remote region near Khost, about halfway between Ghazni and the Pakistan border. At least 1,000 people are dead and hundreds injured or buried in rubble. It’s an area that’s seen waves of heavy fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban, including last year as the Taliban moved to encircle Kabul to the north.
The isolation of the Taliban government, which seized power last year, will make it harder to mount an international response for disaster relief. But NGOs already on the ground hope to fill the gap. Colorado-based Morning Star Development, with a team of doctors and workers in the region, is assessing the situation to provide medical care and other relief. The area is predominantly inhabited by Pashtuns, Morning Star president Lars Peterson told supporters in an email, with homes constructed from stone, mud, and sticks. “As of this writing, over 1,000 Afghans (many children) have been killed by collapsing houses,” he said.
Ukraine: “The situation at the front following three months of war is extremely unfavorable for Ukraine,” begins a report prepared by Ukrainian, British, and American intelligence and military experts, based on information received from Ukrainian military commanders on the front lines. The report came to me via a senior government official and a top humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine.
Dated May 31, the report accurately predicts the Russian strategy now playing out in the east, where Russian forces have made substantial gains in the Severodonetsk-Lysychansk area over the last several days and Ukrainian troops continue to suffer high casualties. The loss of these cities, along with Slavyansk, write these experts, “will be decisive to the course of this war.” (Update: Ukrainian forces have been ordered to withdraw from Severodonetsk, a small but symbolically important victory for Russia.)
The report criticizes the United States for relying too heavily on a long-term sanctions strategy while critical heavy weaponry—including long-range missiles the Biden administration has been reluctant to approve—is immediately needed. It concludes:
By not providing Ukraine with heavy weapons systems, and especially missile defense systems in sufficient quantities, the West will make a historic mistake that will cost hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives and the loss of tens of thousands of square kilometers of territory.
Poland: Polish pastors say they don’t know of any church in Poland that’s not in some way helping Ukrainians, and some Christians feel God is using Ukrainian refugees to bless the Polish people. The stories of how they’re helping one another make must-reading from my former colleague Sophia Lee. Said one: “We realize we cannot rest right now. It’s not our time to rest.”
For the 1 million or so Ukrainian teen refugees like those who gather nightly in a park in Warsaw, it’s like the mirror they were peering into, trying to figure out their futures, exploded in their faces.
Georgia: Nearly 700 Russian troops are stationed along the boundary of the breakaway region of South Ossetia. The Russians are using controlling tactics similar to those deployed in eastern Ukraine–to intimidate, antagonize and drive out local residents to further establish control. This is how Russia wins a war through intimidation it cannot win outright.
Iraq: “Many small brooks make a strong river,” Nemam Ghafouri liked to say. During six years of working in a costly war zone, the 52-year-old surgeon made a torrent of difference until her death last year due to COVID-19. Yesterday I received a report from the camp she started in northern Iraq. It’s a refuge for Yazidis whose lives were upended by Islamic State when the militants captured their villages in 2014. American counselors sponsored by a church in Hawaii, working with Kurdish medical professionals, are together building on her legacy—this week launching a suicide prevention program with help from a German crisis counseling clinic in the nearby city of Duhok. One simple but profound improvement—for young people still without homes, schools, or futures almost 8 years since ISIS displaced them—is to have a 24/7 emergency suicide prevention hotline.
Syria: A historic Syrian monastery has reopened to visitors. But the nearby Christian community has almost vanished due to ISIS and 10 years of civil war.
When in… Burgundy, a region of France best known for wine, you can also join the gherkin harvest.
Reading… Malcolm Gladwell’s “What I Found at a Mennonite Wedding,” a wonderful look at the “low power-distance culture” that pervaded also my husband’s Midwest upbringing. There’s actually a dataset for comparing this and other attributes of different countries. To see how helpful it is for cross-cultural understanding, take a look at this comparison I pulled of four countries in the Middle East. So often we talk about “Middle East policy” or “Middle Eastern culture” in ways that don’t take into account the vast differences within the region.
… also reading The Shepherd’s Life by James Rebanks, definitely low power-distance culture stuff, in anticipation of a trip with my husband (to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary!) through the Midlands and northern England starting in a week. Wish us well, particularly since I am recovering from my second Covid-19 bout. And look for a few posts along the way.
Thank you for including the link to Sophia Lee's story. I miss the reporting by each of you who resigned from World.
I hope you recover from Covid soon.