Taliban control more of Kandahar
Taliban control more of Kandahar: analysis
GRAEME SMITH
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
July 15, 2008 at 7:53 PM EDT
Quote:
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — More districts of Kandahar are controlled by the Taliban than by the Afghan government, according to a U.S. assessment that casts doubt on Canada's upbeat view of the war.
A detailed analysis by U.S. security officials shows that foreign troops and their local allies hold sway over the core, highly populated districts of Kandahar, but the zone of government control remains a small part of the vast territory assigned to Canadian responsibility two years ago.
The assessment divides Kandahar's districts into four categories: contested, Taliban controlled, locally controlled, and government controlled. Only four of 16 districts were classified as government controlled. The Taliban were described as controlling six districts.
...
Many other provinces also suffer from a strong Taliban presence according to the analysis, which found insurgents controlling or contesting roughly 130 of 398 districts assessed across the country.
Most of the districts heavily influenced by the insurgency were located in the south and east, but the study also found that the militants had gained a foothold in areas near Kabul, such as Wardak and Logar provinces.
Fewer Norwegians Support Afghan Mission
Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research
Fewer Norwegians Support Afghan Mission
July 26, 2008
Quote:
Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Backing for Norway’s military engagement in Afghanistan has dwindled, according to a poll by Norstat released by NRK. 42 per cent of respondents support Norway’s participation in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), down 15 points since January.
The opposition thinks that it has found a seam...
From the NYT By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and RACHEL DONADIO Afghan Blast Raises New Doubts in Europe
Quote:
Earlier in the day, Umberto Bossi, the leader of the Northern League, arguably the most powerful party in Mr. Berlusconi’s coalition, reiterated his calls for an immediate withdrawal of Italian troops. “I hope by Christmas everyone can come home,” Mr. Bossi said, according to the news agency ANSA.
But the Italian defense minister, Ignazio La Russa, said in Parliament that the bomb attack would not stop Italy’s “firm commitment” to the international mission.
The powerful suicide car bomb exploded about noon in central Kabul near the heart of the American and NATO military command. It blew an Italian armored vehicle across two lanes of traffic and, according to Italian officials, left six soldiers dead and four wounded.
NATO airstrike kills at least 27 civilians
According to the NYTimes the attack against three vehicles near the mountain pass of Khotal Chowzar, in central Afghanistan, was not requested by troops on the ground.
Quote:
The Special Forces helicopters were hunting for insurgents who had escaped the NATO offensive in the Marja area, about 150 miles away, according to Gen. Abdul Hameed, an Afghan National Army commander in Dehrawood, which is part of Oruzgan Province. General Hameed, interviewed by telephone, said there had been no request from any ground forces to carry out an attack.
...
Quote:
“If the reports are true, this is the worst case since McChrystal has announced his new strategy of reducing the use of air power,” Nadir Nadery, commissioner of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, said Monday. “In Kunduz, the target was legitimate militarily but the bombing was disproportionate, 70-plus civilians died, but at least it was a justified military target.”
It does look bad and begs a lot of questions. A very great deal of faith seems to have been put into remote surveillance, if we consider the long distance and long hours travelled by this civilians who were believed to be insurgents.
Firn
A brief rant on civilian casualties and the onus of responsibility
Civilian deaths in strikes have caused widespread resentment in Afghanistanhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8527627.stm
This is a general response to the “moral” fallout from the death of civilians in Operation Moshtarak in the open source media and from “heated” diatribes I often hear Muslims deliver on the streets of my home town (there was a time when Hyde Park corner sufficed to satiate these types).
Our overwhelming superiority in firepower is our major strength (war, after all, is about “killing and destruction” as per Gian Gentile) , our congenital inability to apply that without second guessing ourselves or adopting ROEs with will only lead into strategic cul-de-sacs and coffins being flown home is our greatest weakness. A weakness they exploit. So what if 20 civilians die on an operation against the Taliban? Why are WE apologising? How many Muslims currently residing in the “West” condemned the attacks of 7/7, 9/11 etc.? They didn’t. They justified/absolved them (ironically, Arab public opinion seemed less clear cut) and shifted the blame/passed the buck. If the Afghan people (whoever they are and that’s a different matter) don’t like the presence of NATO forces on their soil they should be reminded of why we are there...because of the Taliban. If civilians are dying in operations conducted by NATO to destroy the Taliban who hide like cowards “amongst the people” then that is the fault of the Taliban. Just compare the range of “services” we strain ourselves to supply to the Afghans (at no cost to themselves) with what the Taliban did and make the Afghan’s decide. If the Afghans want us out why don’t we tie that demand in to the destruction of the Taliban. Once they are long gone (difficult metric to satisfy I know) so will we be and leave the Pakistanis, and Iranians to sort out the mess/responsibility (and blame should they fail); after all Pakistan’s role in this imbroglio nor its responsibility should not be forgotten. Instead of trying to “capture” the hearts and minds of the “Afghan” people why aren’t we making them participants, stakeholders or whatever buzzword is currently in fashion, in a process that will finally get us to some kind of satisfactory situation (another flammable metric) where we can get out “with honour”? Why are we adhering to these Liberal neo-colonial (there’s no two ways about it) preconceptions that somehow these “primitive children” can be “forced to be free”, that inside every Gook or Arab or Afghan is a middle-class, atheistic, latte drinking, Franz Fanon reading, sexually confused, moral-relativist trying to get out? Take for instance the following neo-developmentalist/modernisation drivel;
“1-18. The Narrative: Mobilising the Population. The narrative is central to the counterinsurgency effort. The narrative must be a carefully crafted message which aims to strengthen the legitimacy and build the authority of the indigenous government in the eyes of the population. It has to resonate with the local population, use their words and imagery in a way that taps into deep cultural undercurrents. The narrative aims to convince the people that the indigenous government, supported by international forces and organisations, can deliver a better future in terms of security, justice and material wealth.” (British Army Field Manual, Vol.1, Pt. 10, Counter Insurgency, October 2009)
Yet those “deep cultural undercurrents”, their words and imagery (or symbols and the narratives that they “illustrate”) are part of the whole problem in the first place. Don’t get me started with the Pushtunwali code or even the meaning of “deliver” (liberal-economic analogies be damned! ...how well do our own governments “deliver” on their pledges) or of the meaning of “justice” (man-made law anyone?). As J. K. Akins points out,
“To fight today’s international terrorism, we must fight jihad. To fight jihad, we must understand Islam, and to understand Islam, we must first put away our own ethnocentric view of religion and values and try to comprehend a culture in which women bear and raise children just so they can become suicide bombers and kill Jews. We must also recognize that Islamist terrorism is more accurately understood as the product of the history of Islam than as the product of the history of terrorism” (“A Broader Conceptualisation of Islam and Terrorism”, Joint Forces Quarterly, No. 45, 2007, p. 72)
WE are not in business of propping up failed states or building new ones (there’s a pun in there somewhere). I don’t think we got out of the imperial policing business just to return and make the same mistakes. Just think of all the filoos/money that we have spent pouring down the drain in Afghanistan (amongst other places) that could have been spent in our recession hit economies and, more importantly, on homeland defence. WE do not have the answers for THEM (and it’s important we remember that distinction) nor do we need to waste the lives of our young men and women on installing dams or generators when they will be inoperable within a decade after we have gone. Let’s admit that, get the job done (i.e., make a point of killing as many Taliban as possible to send a message to anyone who tries that in the future) and get out of there. And if we really must educate them in the ways of democracy then let’s introduce them to the concept of accountability for ones actions. Why aren’t we being straight with everyone concerned? “Look”, we say, “we are here because AQ launched attacks on us from your territory with the aid/acquiescence of the Taliban and we are not leaving until AQ and the Taliban in Afghanistan have been wiped off the face of the map. If your civilians get killed along the way you know who to blame...that’s right, the Taliban. So if you want us out then help us kill every last Taliban fighter and their foreign friends and we will leave you alone to go back to your tribal feuds. Inshallah”. Perhaps that’s the language of a bygone era but it was an era in which our self-confidence, honour and prestige was unmatched for the ferocity of its “delivery”.
Our real front lines are, IMO, our rear areas or home fronts. Once we inoculate ourselves against Islam and everything it touches ( a touchy subject given our inability to treat Islam as anything other than a religion. Cf comments above and below re: church/state) at home while rediscovering pride in ourselves and our civilisation what, then, must we fear from our enemies abroad? They manage to smuggle a suicide bomber onto our planes, trains and automobiles (jocularity aside) then we TLAM a village (perhaps where we went wrong in Afghanistan was occupying territory when we should simply have toppled the regime and let local forces battle it out to stalemate).
Ruthless?
Definitely, but that’s a language THEY understand (psychologically speaking); in the face of overwhelming power Islam retreats (even to the extent of releasing its spell on Muslims); “The situation changed rapidly a month into the Allied campaign against the Taliban. Muslims saw the unequivocal power of American military might, and turned away from bin Laden and the Taliban” (Lazar Berman , “Understanding Arab Culture”, Small Wars Journal, p.6). That Islam and Muslims recoil in the face of power is a historical fact (i.e., the Battle of Tours and the Siege of Vienna) and a psychological-semiotic sore-nerve in their system in which the MASTER/SLAVE (Domination/ subordination) dialectic has been taken to the extreme (but without hope of an aufhebung) i.e., God is the Master and Muslims, those who have submitted, are his slaves (notice the popularity of the prefix ‘Abd for male names, flippant as observations go, but ethnographically telling all the same)...their only consolation from resignation to their earthly misery being the ability to enslave others themselves (ghanima) and thus feel like masters... but never of their own destiny [al-mustaqbal ‘ind-Allah].
Do they threaten our oil lines of communication, or SLOC for that matter, then seek alternatives or get our buddies in the region who profit from us (while funding our enemies I might add) to do the leg work or lose our support (offshore balancing I think they call it). Trying to export a foreign way of life (and all the tacit premises, which we forget, that underpin it) to people for whom it represents a greater threat than the presence of our troops (who are seen to be advancing that “unintended” colonial/anti-Islamic agenda anyway) is hardly money or, more importantly, lives well spent; Afghanistan is not worth the lives of even one Allied grenadier.
Am I being more than usually naive?
Maybe I need a latte?
Rant over.
Apologies to all those who are offended and there will, no doubt, be many and for good reason which passion blinds me from seeing at the present moment in time. I take full responsibility for the above opinions, offensive as they may be to some, and am aware that my opinions may lead to my banishment/disbarment from the SWC. I accept that responsibility (I am used to the “wilderness”). I just needed to get that frustration off my chest and, well who knows, maybe wiser heads (and, thankfully, there are many of those in the SWC), will prevail and counsel me (no pun intended) regarding these doubts/fears/frustrations.