Kandahar Province: catch all thread

[Sylvan]

Sylvan,

AWK does feature in the commentary, this is one part:

On my read AWK's role does feature.

I spent 5 months in Kandahar City (not KAF).
Shirzai is the popular leader for most of KC. Karzai's powerbase was to the North. Our fortunes fell when Shirzai was removed as Governor from Kandahar and moved North.
This is not a shared power-broker deal. This was a muscle move to emplant Karzai's younger brother to take over predominance over Kandahar City. While there have been some pay-offs to avoid civil war, Karzai used his control over the Tajik ANA to ensure Shirzai knew his place.

As to my original comment, AWK doesn't count as either a legitimate or effective counter to the Taliban. Shirzai was. And that is, IMHO, why things went to crap in the South.

[davidbfpo]

Thanks for that point. Local legitimacy in Afghanistan is IMHO a very different concept let alone practice when compared to our Western experience. More importantly you've been there and I sit faraway in an armchair watching.

[davidbfpo]

A somewhat different, if provocative article by Greg Mills (a South African commentator on COIN):http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article..._eyes?page=0,0

[davidbfpo]

Mark Urban, one of the BBC's better correspondents, was on Newsnight on the 11th this week reporting from Kandahar, a few passages:

In recent months Nato and Afghan authorities have sometimes appeared tongue-tied about the progress of Operation Hamkari, their attempt to secure the place. Contradictory stories have appeared saying it has been shelved, it is entering a higher gear, or it is hopelessly bogged down.

Operation Hamkari has indeed been underway for four months. It involves a series of ambitious initiatives by Nato and it has not been scaled back. But while the security drive is happening, it is less clear that it can keep to schedule or that people in the city have yet registered any positive effect.

The fighting in Arghandab has already cost many casualties - American and Afghan. One reporter recently embedded with troops there for two weeks told me: "Counter insurgency is impossible there - the local people have cleared out and the soldiers get hit almost as soon as they leave the base."

Link:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ht/8902527.stm and to his short blog comment:http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/markurban/

Sorry I expect the film report will not work for many.

[Dayuhan]

"Counter insurgency is impossible there - the local people have cleared out and the soldiers get hit almost as soon as they leave the base."

Why should that make counter insurgency impossible? If the local people are gone and the insurgents present and aggressive, wouldn't that be an ideal environment to engage and defeat insurgents without imposing civilian casualties?

Or is it assumed that "counter insurgency" consists by definition of winning hearts and minds...?

[davidbfpo]

The occasional, perceptive bloggers at al-Sahwa score again with this article on Kandahar and what is reality on the ground.

Link:http://al-sahwa.blogspot.com/2010/08...-kandahar.html

Yes, the article is critical of AWK, his brother in Kabul and that good governance for too many Afghans is making money, peddling influence etc.

[Jedburgh]

Lowy Institute, 16 Dec 10: Afghan Voices: How Afghans View Coalition Military Operations in Kandahar

If there is one overriding reason why locals have little confidence in US-led operations in Kandahar it is the continued failure of American and coalition forces to understand local context and dynamics and the impact of their stalled operations on the local population. Instead of narrowly focussing on a particular area, the coalition needs to understand Kandahar province, and the south, as a whole....