The Foreign Service Journal, April 2020

16 APRIL 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL “The request has been made by the United States for the release of prisoners, and it can be part of the negotiations, but it cannot be a precondition,” he added. “No one is under any illusion that this will be straightforward,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on March 1. “We have built an important base where we can begin to bring American soldiers home, reduce the risk of the loss of life of any American in Afghanistan, and hopefully set the conditions so the Afghan people can build out a peaceful resolution to their now, what for them, is a 40-year struggle.” The New York Times added that the war has cost $2 trillion and taken the lives of more than 3,500 American and coalition troops and tens of thousands of Afghans. About 12,000 troops were still in Afghanistan at the time of the peace deal. The Costs of Reconstruction in Afghanistan O n Feb. 5 the Special Inspector Gen- eral for Afghanistan Reconstruction reported that there were 5,135 casualties in Afghanistan associated with recon- struction or stabilization between April 2002 and December 2018. That number, according to SIGAR, includes at least 284 Americans (216 U.S. service members and 68 U.S. civilians) who were killed in Afghanistan. SIGAR found that an additional 245 U.S. service members and 76 U.S. civilians were wounded. The report, “The Human Cost of Reconstruction in Afghanistan,” is believed to be the first official accounting by an independent agency of the human costs of reconstruction in that war zone. SIGAR found that 2,214 people were killed and 2,921 wounded dur- ing the time period. It also identified 1,182 people who were kidnapped or went missing. The majority of casualties occurred between 2008 and 2011, the height of reconstruction efforts according to SIGAR. “While considerable effort is made to track the amount of U.S. dollars spent, this review shows that we do not adequately capture the human cost of conducting reconstruction and stabiliza- tion projects while combat operations are still ongoing, especially third country nationals and Afghans,” the report states. government releases 5,000 Taliban pris- oners. Under the terms of the peace deal, the government-held prisoners were to be released in exchange for up to 1,000 Afghan captives held by the Taliban by March 10. On that date, according to the agreement, the Taliban was to start intra- Afghan negotiations. OnMarch 1, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani—whose government was not involved in the negotiations or the U.S.–Tal- iban deal—told reporters that “there is no commitment to releasing 5,000 prisoners.” 50 Years Ago The Quiet Battles R ecently, in a course on American society, I tried to convey to my students some impression of what it was like being a bureaucrat, in my case, a Foreign Service officer. … At twenty-two, when I entered the Foreign Service, one of the first things I learned was that the Organi- zation was not simply an extension of my personal development. It had work to be done, and this perforce took priority over the work’s interest or usefulness to me. … By the time an officer has the opportunity to exercise a satisfying amount of initiative will he still be able to? How much will the “system” get to him…? This, I believe, depends on him, on his quiet day-to-day battles with himself, on his ability to live fully into his experiences, to retain effectiveness without losing purpose, to retain purpose while implementing other people’s ideas. It may thus mean being able to hold two ideas in his head at once, the official one, the one he may disagree with but implements, and his own, the one he hopes to introduce, quietly and effectively, perhaps years hence at the proper time. … A bureaucratic career does pose moral dangers. It can be thought of as a series of battles, some of which will be lost. They are quiet battles and often lack the glamour of sit- ins and picket lines, but they are no less, and perhaps are more decisive for the future of society. —Craig R. Eisendrath, a former Foreign Service officer, excerpted from his article of the same title in The Foreign Ser- vice Journal , April 1970.