We’re going to be spending a lot of money on Afghanistan. In a spasm of bipartisan cooperation, the Congress already allocated billions of dollars not only for the fight against terrorism, but to rebuild lower Manhattan and the Pentagon. While it is unclear what our involvement will entail – speculations range wildly from a covert surgical excision of bin Laden to predictions of World War III – these missions will not be cheap. With a faltering national economy and international markets in a tailspin, the idea of spending billions of dollars on a nebulous crusade to take out bin Laden and his networks seems not to be the most prudent fiscal choice.

Most troubling with any of the above-mentioned scenarios is the human cost. Couple an already decimated and war-torn land with starvation and a brutal winter and the equation for suffering is unimaginably great.

However, several unique characteristics of the situation in Afghanistan present opportunities for us to undertake an unconventional approach to not only deposing the terrorist networks harbored there but to assist the people who have suffered for over two decades through war, hunger and a brutally oppressive regime.

We do not recognize the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan, and even if we did, they are still not in control of the entire country. Therefore, humane intervention can be justified without deliberating about breaching Afghan sovereignty. If we do not recognize sovereignty, we cannot breach it.

The United States has a long history of justifying international involvement through protecting our own interests. We have ardently expressed that our greatest national interest is to root out terrorism. We may not catch Osama and even if we do, bringing him to justice may only spur a rash of hostage taking and terrorist acts perpetrated by his followers.

Our hope of meting out an effective and lasting justice to Osama is to de-legitimize him and the network of al Qaeda.

Ironically, justice for Osama can be accomplished only by bringing justice to the Afghan people. Bombing them “to the stone age” is not just. Neither is letting them stream to the borders only to be turned away from refugee camps. Justice is not encouraging a people to hide in the sub-zero mountains in winter in a nation with food supplies weeks from running out. Many will die if they are forced from their homes, deprived of food, medicine and fuel.

As we have seen in Iraq, depriving the public while trying to bomb a tyrannical regime seven ways from Sunday is not a formula for success. We could recall the not-too-distant past where pouring money into Afghanistan to fight the U.S.S.R. and then failing to undertake a humanitarian campaign to rebuild the war-torn state we supported in their struggle against the Soviets. Coupled with ideological nudging from more fundamentalist sources, Muslim extremists flocked to the mountains of Afghanistan, birthing the Taliban in an ideological revolution.

Do we maim the Afghans and walk away, leaving another generation of zealots to inculcate the young with fanaticism and hate? Will our long-term national interest of deposing terrorists and their networks be accomplished through alienating the Afghan people and refusing to live their struggle?

The United States can undertake massive humanitarian campaigns and aggressive infrastructural rebuilding in Afghanistan, as we have done with previous adversaries. Rather than letting Japan and Germany flounder in poverty, we undertook humanitarian efforts not to assuage our sense of altruism, but to serve our long-term interests, making Japan and western Europe part of our club instead of letting them slip into the camp of our ideological enemies.

The Taliban is an unrecognized, oppressive regime with whom we refuse to negotiate. However, by not offering Afghans an alternative to the Taliban, they become even more appealing in their radical stance against the evil West.

Our national interests are best served by feeding the Afghans, deposing a regime that refuses to value the lives of women and children, refusing to entertain their desire for jihad, and not creating millions of refugees in central Asia. Rebuild Afghanistan, and our network on the ground will not only have greater access to Osama, but will bring reconciliation with the Afghan people.

We will pay to rebuild Afghanistan no matter whether we choose to bomb them or declare a humanitarian mission. We just need to decide whether to do it before or after mounting a long and expensive military campaign, continuing to harden more average Afghans and give them overwhelming evidence to hate us.

Rachel Faber Machacha is a graduate in international development studies from Emmetsburg.