Winning the War in Afghanistan

[Rex Brynen]

Taliban Capitalizes on Afghanistan's Election Controversy

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, September 20, 2009; 12:43 PM

KABUL, Sept. 20 -- The big winner in the fraud-ridden, never-ending Afghanistan elections is turning out to be a party not even on the ballot: the Taliban.

A stream of revelations about systematic cheating during last month's vote has given the Taliban fresh ammunition in their propaganda campaign to portray President Hamid Karzai's administration as hopelessly corrupt. Infighting among U.S., U.N. and European diplomats over whether to accept the results with Karzai the winner or force a new round of voting has also fed the Taliban line that the government in Kabul is merely a puppet of foreign powers.

Mullah Omar, the Taliban's reclusive leader, broke his silence Saturday to denounce "the so-called elections which were fraught with fraud and lies and which were categorically rejected by the people."

In a statement released on the Internet to mark the end of Ramadan, Omar also railed against what he called "the rampant corruption in the surrogate Kabul administration, the embezzlement, drug trafficking, the existence of mafia networks, the tyranny and high-handedness of the warlords," according to a translation by the NEFA Foundation, a terrorism research group.

The problem for the Afghan government and its chief benefactor, the Obama administration, is that the Taliban's rhetoric has been echoed in recent days by U.S. and European officials, as well as some Afghan leaders, who have characterized the Aug. 20 election as a debacle and Karzai's government as inept.

[MikeF]

Bob's World offered that Saudi Arabia is the decisive effort in this fight. There is merit in that argument, but I'll suggest something different.

In the short-run, Islamic terrorism is a threat. Twenty years from now, I'm convinced it will be a footnote in our history. What if we just ignored it? What if we simply shifted to a deep-seeded strategic approach of advanicing our common interests with the world?

What if we decided/strived to develop a coalition with China and Russia to defeat transnational terrorism and broker deals to impower the universal constructs of democracy and capitalism?

Just some of my Sunday afternoon light-pondering. The Carolina Panthers are headed to a horrible season so I had to concentrate on other things...

The worst thing we could do to Mullah Omar or OBL is minimize/ignore their voice.

v/r

Mike

[slapout9]

Slapout:

For agricultural reconstruction purposes, it is important to remember that farmers have a critical movement before and after crops. They don't need a permanent safe road, but a safe route movement at crop cycle times.

Pre-US, Northern Iraq was arguably no safer than today, so there were set times and rendevouz points where farmers would meet up with a police/military escort to move crops to market. The road was not safe, nor did it need to be, on a permanent basis---just needed safe movements to market at critical times.

So, the drone has two weakness: It can see more than a human analyst can follow 24/7, and, while it sees, it doesn't always know what its looking at---a wedding party, a gathering of farmers with crops to move to market, or a rally point of bad guys.

Better to understand critical movements, then lay on the route clearance, surveillance, protection when it is needed. Triage is not general on a permanent basis, but linear security for critical movements, when they are needed.

Linear forts like the PEZ aren't bad, but in Iraq, they failed to truly optimize the concept. Not just pipelines and power lines, but a secure land bridge: a road down the center with trailer/connex/oil storage terminals at critical locations.

Steve

How about this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecr7u-Z1Q3Y&NR=1

Clear the skies...Hold the skies....Build an Air Bridge to the Objective.

[Steve the Planner]

Slapout:

Where is Rube when we need him?

Steve

[slapout9]

Slapout:

Where is Rube when we need him?

Steve

Until you win the war think movable Infrastructure.....then you can build the more permanent large scale projects.

[davidbfpo]

Via an IT security blogsite ( http://www.schneier.com/blog/ ) an article on terrorist havens in US strategy: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...src=newsletter The author Paul Pillar is ex-CIA.

davidbfpo

[slapout9]

Via an IT security blogsite ( http://www.schneier.com/blog/ ) an article on terrorist havens in US strategy: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...src=newsletter The author Paul Pillar is ex-CIA.

davidbfpo

Yep, good article. Like I said one of the capabilities of AQ is that it is Terrain Independent. At the Strategy level we have never dealt with that and figured out how to counter it. We can't go around and invade every country in the world just because they have a group that is operating there. Only one thing left to do.....hire some more PhD's and pay them a few million dolllars to study it for a few years

[davidbfpo]

Accoring to this odd article: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...es-aid//print/ these warlords are offering their help against the Taliban. Rhetoric aside - is this a "quick fix" to the lack of Afghan troops i.e. ANA?

I can hear the critics already on relying once more on the warlords, let alone the Northern Alliance and it's human rights record. Plus the presentation aspect of non-Pashtuns campaigning in the south and east.

Could a re-mobilised "temporary ANA" deployed in the north, even around Kabul, enable ANA units re-deployment and enable R&R for those in the south? Not a "quick fix", but IMHO a good fix.

On reflection and assuming Karzai retains the presidency, which Dostum supported, could Karzai use that re-mobilisation himself and show NATO / ISAF that he can provide more ANA troops.(Note I am aware that the ANA is a mixture, but has a large core fom the North and few Pashtuns).

davidbfpo

[Old Eagle]

When we originally tried to develop a comprehensive and cohesive Ministry of Defense, one of the aims was to work the warlords out of job. Amb (then MG) Eikenberry was one of the major forces in this attempt. Recall that the 1990's success of the Taliban was due in large part to a de facto civil war among feuding warlords. Dostum himself was a large contributor to the destruction of Kabul and the surrounding areas. Returning to that model IMHO does not offer much chance of long term success. Thousands killed, millions of refugees. (Although there remains the populist argument that those killed and displaced are only little brown people.) There was and probably still is enough popular Afghan support to make some sort of civil government system work.

"I have not failed. I have discovered 10,000 ways that don't work."
Thomas Edison

[omarali50]

Empowering the warlords sounds like a very bad idea. The people who need to be empowered are the ANA. Seriously committing to training, arming and supporting the ANA is the way to go, but it doesnt look like there is any clarity about this in the US command (in fact, it increasingly looks like the US is flailing about without a strategy). Fixing Karzai's regime is the other priority. Even using less than perfect means to do so. But first you have to know what you want. I am having some doubts about this part and if those doubts are correct, that means everything else will fail. I hope to be proved wrong...

[tequila]

Agree with both Old Eagle and omarali that re-empowering the warlords is a terrible idea and probably unworkable at this point.

Empowering a Karzai government at this point, however, doesn't look a lot more feasible, unfortunately. The election's ugly results have, I fear, crippled its image in the international community, while the government's corruption and incompetence has wrecked much of its reputation amongst the Afghan population.

A runoff or new elections entirely are the best temporary route out of this morass, but Karzai's intransigence may lose us everything.

Combined, these factors are probably why the President is hesitating to commit to McChrystal's full COIN option --- COIN doesn't work if the host government is seen as illegitimate by the population.

[Steve the Planner]

I keep looking for some convincing way to punch holes in Rory Stewart's arguments, but I'm still waiting to hear it. Lots of ways, means, sub-ways, and sub-means.

Isn't targeting UBL a mission, not a war?

Steve

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n13/stew01_.html

[davidbfpo]

I've read and listened to Mr Rory Stewart, who is impressive, but what does he offer? Some experience in Iraq (note he literally arrived and asked for a job) and time in Afghanistan - with a charity. Now with sometime in the USA's academic cloisters so beloved by Europeans who seek office at home.

In the LRB article, finely written, but what does it say? IMHO not very much. Re-hashing historical and current debates that there is no "quick fix".

davidbfpo

[Steve the Planner]

David:

I'm sure Rory Stewart's core view is that he knows what he knows, and it is not comprehensive. His disclaimer in the Prince of the Marshes is pretty broad and comprehensive.

One of the big nuggets that he suggests in the lbr article is the unlikeliness of Taliban hegemony if we left. How did they sweep into power initially? By lack of focus by all the other warlords. How acceptable are they today? Not very. Who is going to oppose them? The regional warlords, urban and more settled cities and provinces in the North West, all linked to multi-regional and extra-national systems and networks---it is not just the Taliban that don't recognize Afghanistan's "borders."

I've been trying to understand the rapid urbanization in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and how such urbanization changes all the contours of US understanding and strategies. Also, to understand Afghanistan through any lense other than the Taliban. Knowing your enemy (which we don't) is only a small piece of knowing where this is going. What is the rest of the story (the other Afghans).

Far be it for me to know all the answers, but my contacts on the ground are raising a lot more questions about what the US knows about this place, and how to plan and address it.

I come out of the regional, local government world, where operational governance and public service systems need to be built, staffed, operated and financed. Dumb stuff like sewer and water rates, taxes, staffing are real limitations. If you can't find Afghan recruits for the army who can read and do math, how is the rest of the system supposed to function?

Quite frankly, I don't see a credible understanding on the US civil/mil side in how, as a practical matter, any of this grand central government "high concept" stuff can be structured, staffed or funded. Just lots of misplaced, half-formed ideas that give way to waste, failed projects and corruption.

A lot of folks on SWJ are military focused, with the idea that they are going to hand their gains off to some civilian entity that is going to build and hold.

But, if you track the reconstruction side of Iraq (and Afghanistan), it has been a catastrophic failure, racked with corruption and incompetence. State's S/CRS has already stated that it can not gear up and staff anything in Afghanistan---their focus is for the "next" crisis.

Try googling Iraq, reconstruction, and you get the litany on the current status of corruption and payola investigations---not of Iraqis but of serving US Army officers, civilian contractors and CPA/ITAO staff. The most recent article was claims emerging from Anbar of US troops demanding a "cut" of CERP projects from the locals (God, I hope that proves unsubstantiated, but...)

It is against this context that I know it does no good for the military to clear against an expectation of somebody else building and holding absent an actual and viable civilian strategy (ways, means and end)----the thing that's lacking, and where Rory Stewart comes in.

Yes, I know some of his folks from "Marshes," and what he saw and learned as virtual civilian governor of Maysan in 2004. Yes, I have toured my share of US-built schools and medical clinics that never saw a patron, and some of the seriously flawed multi-million boondoggles (Basrah Children's Hospital, Kirkuk's $25 million solid waste disposal system (too expensive to operate), etc...).

All the more why it pisses me off that the military does not get it. The civilian side, to date, is a mess, until NSC gets serious and finds a new and viable civilian strategy. Actual civil practitioners are key to real planning. Foreign service officers and re-flagged "diplomats" can't make a phone system work whether at home or abroad. It is just nonsense and boondoggle (multiplied by Billions).

The general's request for more troops cannot be taken out of context from the overall game, and the ultimate civilian/political resolution.

At least, that's my concept.

Steve

[davidbfpo]

(This is an updated edition, partly due to a request for citations and one mistake by me).

The ANA thread has posts on increasing the ANA due to illiteracy and more http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...light=trainers . "Afghanisation" is deeply flawed in reality IMHO, but sounds good politically and especially if you are going to leave - announced or un-announced.

Other sources are: http://usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/b...ghan-army.aspx and the last paragraph in: http://www.esquire.com/print-this/af...r-stories-0809. Also try: http://blog.freerangeinternational.com/ for an on the ground viewpoint.

When you learn that the UK has funded drilling wells in Helmand and ended up paying a huge amount US$ for each - you realise we are been "milked" to be polite. (The figures cited were added to SWC and now cannot be found. I do recall it was similar to US$20m to the national Afghan government and forty wells were drilled. Rather expensive I'd say).

Let alone the UK's aid agency DFID allegedly supplying fertiliser in Helmand that can be used to make bombs; pretty simple thing to avoid. This one citation came from http://defenceoftherealm.blogspot.com:

As for the IEDs that have been killing "Our Boys" – many of them now home-made using agricultural fertiliser - the aid agencies thought about that as well. Very helpfully this season, they have supplied the (Taleban) Afghani farmers with a total of 4,749 metric tons, conveniently packaged in 25-kilogram bags.

I appreciate from this "armchair" criticism is easy and undoubtedly some projects are solidly based. IMHO many more are not. freerangeinternational comments today on this with a privately organised work scheme in Jalalabad, achieving more than the huge PRT.

Also I noted last week after the Kunduz incident that a senior German police officer commented that few of his staff wanted to volunteer for service in Afghanistan (I cannot now find the reference). Echoed IIRC by others about finding enough military trainers.

Germany's initial role was in the development of the Afghan National Police. The Germans provided training, but could not perform the operational mentoring that is needed to really make lasting progress. From: http://billandbobsadventure.blogspot.com/ has a short comment and the failure has been commented upon widely IIRC.

Urbanisation in Afghanistan I knew was increasing; can you supply any figures in support? IIRC 80-85% rural population is usually cited when the population-centric approach is mooted.

Elsewhere Kandahar city is possibly out of Afghan control. I cite the Kagan ppt (http://www.irantracker.org/sites/ira...an_-_Kagan.pdf slide 29. In July I came across this concise explanation of the Canadian-Afghan role around Kandahar, with open source mapping overlay: http://www.snappingturtle.net/flit/a...11.html#006414

I would suggest that ISAF contributors would prefer to stay out of the cities (except Kabul) for all manner of reasons.

I increasingly fear ISAF / NATO etc will create a "hard shell' of security and there will be nothing behind it. OK, let the Afghans develop in their own way the foundations and develop. We are not really that patient as Ken reminds us.

daviidbfpo

[Steve the Planner]

David:

Anne Marlowe, writing in Forbes (Sep. 3, 2009), writes a piece (A Humane Afghan City) ostensibly on real estate development in Mazar-i-Sharif---emerging "New Towns" and gated communities for the affluent.

In that article, she cites Afghan Ministry of Finance figures that the share of agriculture is 30%, industry 28% and services as 39%, and seeks to dispel the notion that Afghanistan is a population of tiny rural villages:

"There's a popular notion that most Afghans live in tiny villages, but the population may be as much as 50% urban now, due to the push-pull of years of drought and superior urban job opportunities created by rapid economic growth. Farming is still the livelihood of most Afghans, but other activities are now contributing more to GDP. According to Ministry of Finance adviser Dallas Newby, the share of agriculture in the overall economy is just 30%, while industry provides 28% and services 39%. "

She is citing the urban/rural pop stats National Settlement Programme/UN Habitat Report (April 2009) from the Ministry of Urban Development. In that report, they note the results of the continued pattern of urbanization---mostly in informal urban settlements created to serve the rush of urban migration resulting from refugee movements, including from drought.

This pattern of "rural flight" to the cities is very typical of the Middle East and Asia, and, in part, exacerbated in conflict areas. Conflict aside, drought, and other rural hardships, always serve as an independent driver for what has been called the "ruralization" of cities in these areas---highly unstable informal settlements springing up to accommodate a largely rural and uneducated farm flight population. The rates of shift, as much as 5-10% percent, really accelerate during conflicts, and, as with distorted economies like Afghanistan's where such large percentage of the economy is preoccupied by international aid.

David, I absolutely agree that the US should seek to avoid urban conflict if possible, but, to some extent, we are applying the law of the hammer rather than seeking tools appropriate to the problems that actually exist in the conflict zone.What happens if, two years from now, Afghanistan is solidly 60% urban (as the rate and projections suggest), with Sadr Cities everywhere, and we are still chasing around the mountainsides.

We know from Sadr City (and Pakistan) that these rural slums are a substantial breeding ground for dissenters of all types. Do we wait for a Sadr to emerge, and then, all of a sudden, discover our selves in a very much more serious urban conflict setting?

Demographics may not be destiny, but major population trends will run over any of our multi-year "strategies" that do not recognize them.

Steve

[davidbfpo]

Steve and others,

Within a long article by Micheal Yon on other matters (UK PR in Helmand) he says (dated 25th):

This dispatch is being written in downtown Kandahar City and I have not seen a soldier in days. The Taliban is slowing winning this city. There have been many bombings and shootings since I arrived in disguise.

Cited from: http://www.michaelyon-online.com/bull####-bob.htm

Perhaps my first posting (above and now edited ) was wrong - when I said Kandahar was 'out of control', but Yon suggests there is no real ANA / ANP activity nor as expected any ISAF presence in the city.

Apologies now as an "armchair" observer. What is going on in Kandahar city? I read about a population-centric approach and this is happening. Despair.

davidbfpo

[Steve the Planner]

David:

The more I watch from my armchair, the more I see the emergence of a substantial potential for growing urban conflict, especially in Kandahar.

The in the Wash Post's outlook section, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, raises the same issue:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...d=opinionsbox1

"If more forces are not forthcoming to mount counterinsurgency operations in those parts of the province, he concluded, the overall U.S. effort to stabilize Kandahar -- and by extension, the rest of Afghanistan -- will fail.

"We might as well pack our bags and go home . . . and just keep a few Predators flying overhead to whack the al-Qaeda guys who return," he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "There's no point in doing half-measures here." "

So what do I make of this Afghan rural village stuff? We are chasing the wrong thing.

A rapidly emerging "informal urban settlement pattern" is a pattern of desperate, disenfranchised, and largely uneducated farmers waiting for the next Sadr.

Knowing the costs, complexity and consequences of urban warfare, I am increasingly uncomfortable.

Steve

[Steve the Planner]

David:

I read the recent Kagan powerpoint, which cites AIM population data. According to that data, Afghanistan has between 26 and 30 million people---that's plus or minus 4 million by my mark.

Assume 42% of that "uncertain" figure are Pashtun, and ten percent of them are active opponents: 168,000 opponents that do or don't exist---somewhere...maybe twice that many.

And if we don't even know whether 30% of them are urban, or 50%+, how could we really be planning and implementing any kind of effective civilian post-conflict or reconstruction strategy, except "in the land of make believe?"

Is it incompetence, or just recklessness that we aren't out there trying to screw that number down to a gnats ass?

Maybe they are up a valley in some abandoned inks pot, or, more likely, anonymously blending into informal urban settlements.

Steve (Urban Planner & Demographer by the way)

[jmm99]

The WP article has this:

McChrystal's 66-page confidential assessment makes the case for a far more expansive counterinsurgency mission, one that would involve sending more troops and civilian reconstruction personnel to Kandahar and other key population centers to improve security, governance and economic opportunities for Afghans. Although the general never used the term in the assessment, his strategy amounts to a comprehensive nation-building endeavor.

He wants U.S. and NATO personnel to expand training programs for Afghan soldiers and policemen, reform the justice system, promote more effective local administration and ramp up reconstruction. If that occurs, he and other counterinsurgency experts contend, then Afghans who have sided with the Taliban out of fear or necessity will eventually switch sides and support the government. Building an effective state, in McChrystal's view, is the only way to defeat the insurgency.

I don't necessarily see the GEN's report as a call for "a comprehensive nation-building endeavor"; but as more of a call for enhancing the security sector according to what are presently considered "best COIN practices". That will be difficult enough.

For those who accept the WP's author's view of the report - "a comprehensive nation-building endeavor" - they should plow through James Dobbins, Seth G. Jones, Keith Crane, Beth Cole DeGrasse, The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building (2007) - RAND download here. They should pay particular attention to the (other than military) constituent elements that make up any nation-building mission: police, rule of law, humanitarian relief, governance, economic stabilization, democratization, and development. And, those should be considered in light of the size, topography and population of Astan.

To conclude, I steal a thought from Taiko (in another thread and in another context):

I think that's worth repeating, without a viable and functioning 'state' there is no security. South Vietman during the late 60's-70's perfect example. Again, this is CvC's paradoxical trinity at work. You can surge all you want, 100 000-200 000 soilders but it is important to remember that the military is only one side of the trinity, there is also the people and the government. At the end of the day if you do not have a stable government as the head of state then you are heading into a protracted war which will cost blood and treasure without a necessarily beneficial outcome for the people.

Regards to all

Mike