Local Defence in Afghanistan

[subrosa]

Bob's World cited in part:

There will be no great uprising of tribal forces( trained, enabled and led by a handful of Green Berets; or otherwise) sweeping across Afghanistan to remove the Taliban under this program.

What is your timeframe for this for not happening? now? or like a year after karzai strikes a deal with the taliban and pictures of animals are banned again? perhaps there will be even an uprising from the northern tribal forces(trained, enabled and led by a handful), again.

I dont think expanding power in the wali kandahar belt by fusing local and provincial powers is a good thing, specially if the taliban is going to be part of the official govt and this is their heartland. the shura plan sounds good but not the "fusing" part.

[Bob's World]

Bob's World cited in part:

What is your timeframe for this for not happening? now? or like a year after karzai strikes a deal with the taliban and pictures of animals are banned again? perhaps there will be even an uprising from the northern tribal forces(trained, enabled and led by a handful), again.

I dont think expanding power in the wali kandahar belt by fusing local and provincial powers is a good thing, specially if the taliban is going to be part of the official govt and this is their heartland. the shura plan sounds good but not the "fusing" part.

In so many ways the Puritans of the Mass. Coloney were very much like the Taliban; but the simple fact is that what they were selling was unsustainable once fully exposed to the light of day and difused by the inevitable (no matter how ruthlessly they tried to avoid it) immigration of people who did not hold to their harsh, strict doctrines. Similary, though the Taiban may come back, they will not likely be able to go back to the ways they ruled the dark, backwater Afghanistan of that past era that no one cared about. The world is looking now.

Karzai must reach out to that aspect of his populace that look to the Taliban for governance as that is the heart of his current insurgency. To not do so out of fear of Taliban doctrine would be extremely short-sighted. He must also do this in a way that does not alienate the populace whose support his government already has. This is the true nature of the challenge in Afghanistan is the tendency to be either "all in" or "all out." Any successful government in Afghanistan (and we should never assume that it must include Mr. Karzai, or anyone else for that matter) must be able to break this pardigmn and reach across tribal/regional/lingquistic/ethnic/religious lines and create an inclusive compromise.

We make the problems in Afghanistan worse when we either over-promote one party (say, the current GIROA); or overly work to block other parties (Haqqani, Taliban, etc) from participation. Good COIN is about fixing government and addressing popular concerns, not ensuring that the failed status quo prevails and the challenger is defeated. To assume the latter is our role is to make the US and the Coalition a pathetic bitch lap dog of the current government of Afghanistan; and if that is a course we take, it will be because we don't understand the nature of the threat in ways that have caused us to exaggerate the fears in our minds.

Karzai understands our fears and plays upon them. One thing that I am constantly struck by when I meet with senior people from Pakistan and Afghanistan both, is that these people have a far more sophisticated understanding of insurgency accross the board than virtually any US "expert" on COIN that I have either spoken with or read. Our experts have studied COIN and even executed operations they thought were COIN; but one must understand insurgency to truly understand COIN; and the people who have risen in these communities have successfully been back and forth on both sides of insurgency and counterinsurgency their entire lives. This isn't something they read about, it is the world they live in.

The same was true for America's Founding Fathers. They grew up in oppression, led an insurgency, and then immediately found themselves in a new era of complex counterinsurgency. They did not talk in terms of insurgency and counterinsurgency, they just did what they needed to do to prevail.

As to village stability operations, they are not a great panacea; but they are a great supporting effort to an effective COIN campaign. But understand this; the last thing Karzai wants is an effective COIN campaign, as that implies to a wise insurgent/counterinsurgent like himself that he must change, or perhaps even go; and he is not keen on either one. Far better for him to just leverage the fears of the West to get them to simply stay and hold the symptoms of insurgency at bay; as that enables him and his cronies to stay just the way they are.

[subrosa]

OK fair enough- now that the world is watching they probably wont ban nail polish and high heels, but still, compromises will have to be made on social policy and more restrictions will be imposed on the afghan people if radical islamists become the lawmakers. that being said, they can go many ways - join the system, indulge in the lure of money and power and fun, or try to win hearts and votes by presenting their austere image versus the lavish ways of their incumbents, push their ideology as much as they can. who knows how they will actually behave versus their intentions. could be better than we think. could be worse.

my concern is that right now alqaida and the afghan taliban operate side-by-side in the fata. lets assume that siraj haqqani becomes the new mayor of kandahar after the peace process and publicly denouncing ties with alQ. and lets assume alQ tries to return to into afghanistan and starts by funding madrassas and "development" projects in siraj's new territory. haqqani will be inclined to turn a blind eye to peripherial activities like teaching 'wiring' in PT class.
empowered BUT independent village defense forces might be a good way to keep checks and balances on the soon to be ex-bff of alQ, kind of like federalism on a local level. it is a matter of trust. as of lately karzai is under the influence of pakistan and taliban and allegedly other substances-so no wonder he his paranoid and resisting advice that may even be in his interest. just hope he is as paranoid about pakistan and taliban as he is of the village defense forces!