Security in Afghanistan Is Deteriorating, Aid Groups Say
Security in Afghanistan Is Deteriorating, Aid Groups Say
Adam Ferguson for The New York Times
By ROD NORDLAND
New York Times
Published: September 11, 2010
Quote:
KABUL, Afghanistan — Even as more American troops flow into the country, Afghanistan is more dangerous than it has ever been during this war, with security deteriorating in recent months, according to international organizations and humanitarian groups.
Large parts of the country that were once completely safe, like most of the northern provinces, now have a substantial Taliban presence — even in areas where there are few Pashtuns, who previously were the Taliban’s only supporters. As NATO forces poured in and shifted to the south to battle the Taliban in their stronghold, the Taliban responded with a surge of their own, greatly increasing their activities in the north and parts of the east.
The worsening security comes as the Obama administration is under increasing pressure to show results to maintain public support for the war, and raises serious concerns about whether the country can hold legitimate nationwide elections for Parliament next Saturday.
Unarmed government employees can no longer travel safely in 30 percent of the country’s 368 districts, according to published United Nations estimates, and there are districts deemed too dangerous to visit in all but one of the country’s 34 provinces.
The number of insurgent attacks has increased significantly; in August 2009, insurgents carried out 630 attacks. This August, they initiated at least 1,353, according to the Afghan N.G.O. Safety Office, an independent organization financed by Western governments and agencies to monitor safety for aid workers....
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How a foreign surge affects a resistance insurgency
Shared here is a slide from a presentation I am preparing promote a proposal for a more effective way ahead in Afghanistan. Many are cheering the successes of the past year, while calmer heads, notably GEN Petraeus and MG Nick Carter, are taking an optimistic "wait and see what next fighting season brings" approach.
My position is that this insurgency is best seen in two distinct tiers. The upper tier being a revolutionary insurgency driven by the Quetta Shura primarily, with largely political issues of causation. The rank and file that the brunt of the COIN surge is directed against, are what I call the lower tier, and are in essence a resistance insurgency. This is an effort to depict how increased foreign presence and effort affects a resistance insurgency.
The 66% increase in violent attacks is clear. What will happen next year is less clear, and I submit will be impacted far more by how we engage the high-level political drivers between Karzai and the Quetta Shura than by any nation building or security efforts in the rural areas.
Steve, I was probably unclear.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Steve the Planner
Bob:
I, for one, really found Clolin Powell's doctrine of "You break it, you buy it," to be an bizarre bureaucratic concept not at all consistent with history.
What would have happened if we just broke something and left it for those folks to clean up? Hasn't that strategy been viable and applied many times throughout history without this British/Empirical Model of "Clear, Hold, Build" until the empire has bled itself to death.
Massive retaliation/intervention with no holding purpose was, after all, used to some effect along the Durand for centuries without too much detriment. Once the climate changes a century ago and the Silk Road broke down, these areas have been marginal/challenging. Shall we fix that little climate stuff, too?
Is there a field manual for Smash, Grab, Run, then Threaten from a Distance.
Dahuyan's point is well said: Not every actor has the same traditional power structure focus that some do. Most just want to keep their riches flowing and could care less about "the people" or anything else. To assume they share our visions is a mistake.
What I meant is that insurgencies happen when governments lose the bubble on their populace. A series of neglects over years, leading to the growth of conditions of insurgency among some segment(s) of the society which are then expolited by some internal or external actor to rise up, organize and challenge the government. At which point the civilians tend to punt the problem to the military to fight the "war" to "defeat the insurgent" so that the same civilians can get back to doing the same stuff that led to the insurgency in the first place. This is why I am all for dropping COIN from the "war" rolls, and addressing it as a civil emergency with civilian leadership being held to task to solve the problems they created. To fix themselves. They broke the country, they must fix the country.
Now, a resistance insurgnecy in an other matter. An external country invades, destroys the government of that country, releasing all of the suppressed insurgent movements caused by the government they took out; and inititating a whole new batch of resistance insurgents caused by their very presence as occupiers. (think IRAQ as the textbook example of this). A good plan going in would have been designed to maintain sufficient aspects of the HN government to keep the existing insurgencies in check until changes of governance can be developed and implemented to address the causal conditions. As to the resistance? It can be mitigated through good actions, good messages, but one needs to expect it as a fact. Zinni had such a plan for Iraq on the books, but it got tossed for the one we employed.
BL is to hold civil governance to task. Also to recognize those in civil government who are the great COIN warriors.
One such was Lyndon Johnson. All anyone talks about is Vietnam and how he escalated the conflict there. True. But his real COIN legacy is how he knowingly destroyed his own personal political career to pass three landmark pieces of civil rights legislation that actually may well have unleashed some racial violence to begin with (Watts came on the heals of one bill passing), but ultimately changed the domestic policies that were leading America into insurgency. That kind of moral courage is rare in a politician. The lack of recognition for his work, combined with the misplaced adoration on Kennedy contributed to his rapid decline upon leaving office.