Afghanistan: Why we should be there (or not), how to conduct the mission (or not) & when to leave

[MarkOttawa]

A post at Unambiguously Ambidextrous:

Today’s AfPak reading
http://unambig.com/todays-afpak-reading/

Not exactly a pretty picture (but then at this point the major media are looking for the worst; nonetheless there are, er, unencouraging things–how’s that for being UA?)..

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Post with video link of Terry Glavin on CTV News Channel, and quite a bit more:

Reasons why Afstan is still a good war
http://unambig.com/reasons-why-afstan-is-still-a-good-war/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

After Bob Rae cutting his feet from under him, this is definitely anticlimatic......


Canadian trainers should stay in Afghanistan past 2011: Ignatieff
Tuesday, June 15, 2010 1:49 PM Jane Taber
Article Link

Michael Ignatieff wants Canada to stay in Afghanistan when the combat mission ends to train police and military personnel.

The Liberal Leader is proposing the creation of an institute in Kabul, much like the Royal Military College in Kingston. He is suggesting that Canadians remain for three years, cautioning that the commitment cannot be open-ended.

Mr. Ignatieff outlined his vision in a speech to the National Forum in Toronto on Tuesday. This is the most definitive he has been so far as to what he sees as Canada’s contribution after the military mission ends in July, 2011.

This is all part of the Liberal’s foreign-policy platform, which Mr. Ignatieff is strategically releasing on the eve of the G8 and G20 summits.

And the Liberal Leader was highly critical of the Harper government’s foreign-policy position in Afghanistan, accusing the Prime Minister of simply walking away from the country and pretending the war never happened.

Once again, Mr. Ignatieff called for a national debate about the role, risks of and resources for such a mission.

He said training a cadre of officers was a mission that Canadians would be good at, noting that some of the best military trainers are in the country. As well, this is a mission, he said, that does not involve combat.
More on link

 

[MarkOttawa]

Good grief!  How crushingly, er, academic.  Just what the ANA needs right now.  How about just some ordinary staff training, basic training, technical training (including for the ANA Air Corps as we are now doing), etc. in the Kabul area?

More here:

CF and Afstan: Judicious Jeffrey Simpson exceeds his pay grade
http://unambig.com/cf-and-afstan-judicious-jeffrey-simpson-exceeds-his-pay-grade/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[a_majoor]

A potential find in Afghanistan has the prospects of:

a) providing the people of Afghanistan with economic development and wealth, and,

b) giving the "progressive movement" another meme to oppose the war.

http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/lefts-reaction-to-afghanistans-new.html

The Left's Reaction to Afghanistan's New Mineral Riches‎

Okay, NYT's got what's apparently a big deal, "U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan." I'm just now checking Memeorandum, and boy folks are excited. The Times' story is sensational. The mineral find is estimated at $1 trillion, and "Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world..."

The U.S. does not fight wars for treasure, of course (which is actually kinda dumb, when you think about it, considering how China's reaping the strategic-economic gains from America's military sacrifices). But my first thought upon seeing the headline is "Great, now all the netroots neo-communists will be attacking the Afghan deployment as an imperialist boondoggle all along, blah, blah, blah ..."

It's not, but that won't deter a new round of unhinged attacks from folks on the left who just a few short years ago argued that Iraq was distracting the U.S. from our real, more important war in Afghanistan. Michael J.W. Stickings pretty well sums up the left's cravenly antiwar political opportunism:

I will admit that, like many, I was an early supporter of the Afghan War. But I was a supporter specifically of the effort to topple the Taliban government and to remove al Qaeda from its safe haven. Since then, though, it has been a badly mismanaged war, largely because Bush shifted focus to Iraq, but also because the war, with the Taliban overthrown and al Qaeda pushed back into the mountains and the Pakistani border regions, lacks a compelling purpose, let alone any sort of realistic objective.

So, let's take a look around the 'sphere. What do we find?

At:
* AmericaBlog, "Without a strong environmental protection organization, chances are high that the dash for cash will lead to grabbing minerals in the fastest way possible without considering the environmental impact."

* Attackerman, "And now, naturally, someone’s telling [NYT'S James] Risen about the specter of great-power resource competition that just so perfectly implies a new rationale for extended war and post-war foreign influence."

* Balloon Juice, "Maybe it’s just my sour nature and dim view of humanity, but I fail to see why the discovery of trillions of dollars of minerals in Afghanistan is Good News for America®."

* Daily Kos, "We have no need to worry that Afghanistan is suddenly going to transform itself in a stable, China-friendly minerals exporter any time soon. After we leave, it will probably collapse into civil war, which is none of our business. These discoveries are no reason to stay in Afghanistan."

* Democracy Arsenal, "The only thing this story shows is the desperation of the Pentagon in planting pie-in-the-sky news stories about Afghanistan and trying to salvage the lost cause that is our current mission there."

* Digby's Hullabaloo, "As if people and nations never fought to the death to possess humongous mineral resources."

* Kevin Drum, "I have a very bad feeling about this. It could quickly turn into a toxic combination of stupendous wealth, superpower conflict, oligarchs run wild, entire new levels of corruption, and a trillion new reasons for the Taliban to fight even harder."

* Matthew Yglesias, "In general, though, waging war for control of natural resources makes a lot of sense for third world bandits & militias or would-be coup leaders, but doesn’t cost out for citizens of a developed market oriented democracy."

* Marc Ambinder, "The general perception about the war here and overseas is that the counterinsurgency strategy has failed to prop up Hamid Karzai's government in critical areas, and is destined to ultimately fail. This is not how the war was supposed to be going, according to the theorists and policy planners in the Pentagon's policy shop ... What better way to remind people about the country's potential bright future -- and by people I mean the Chinese, the Russians, the Pakistanis, and the Americans -- than by publicizing or re-publicizing valid (but already public) information about the region's potential wealth?"

* Melissa McEwan, "I don't know what the perfect word is to describe the reserved happiness I feel on behalf of the many average people of Afghanistan who just want a functional country with a modern infrastructure bought by a stable economy, shot through with a steely bolt of panic that the very discovery which might allow that very thing will instead bring a whole new fresh hell for them as colonialists and warlords and corrupt members of their own government stake out positions around the vast reserves of minerals which have been discovered in Afghanistan by Pentagon officials and US geologists."

* Naked Capitalism, "This vastly ups the stakes. It now isn’t hard to see that we will continue to pour resources and young men’s lives into Afghanistan to make sure we control these riches, just as we continue to throw money and personnel into Iraq to hold the prize of the second largest oil reserves in the world."

* Newshoggers, "When the NYT published Risen's story to the web last night, I tweeted "What a convenient time to find $1 trillion, eh?" and "Just as McChrystal's in big trouble, liberal thinktanks starting to shift anti-war, Pentagon publicizes $1 trillion Afghan treasure trove," because this is a zombie story, resurrected yet again for political purposes."

* No More Mister Nice Blog, "If anything, this will further alienate Obama's onetime supporters from the anti-war left, just in time for 2010 -- blood-for-treasure is a recognizable narrative -- and it means Ralph Nader will have to do very little rewriting of his old campaign speeches when he runs in 2012. (An Obama defeat in 2012 isn't going to reverse this course, however -- do you really think Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin will reject the opportunity to get sanctimoniously choked up at the noble sacrifice of young men and women dying in Afghanistan for niobium?)"

* Political Carnival, "We’re never leaving now, never..."

* Prairie Weather, "You can forget about socially-awkward burqas and Taliban insurgents as viable reasons for war and occupation. The capitalist market demands Afghanistan's mineral deposits. Who does mining better than the US?"

* Steve Benen, "As a growing number of observers, here and around the world, raise questions anew about whether Afghanistan's future offers any hope at all, along comes a carefully leaked story about nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits, which could fundamentally improve the country's economy, stability, and long-term prospects."

* Talking Points Memo, "Afghanistan's a pretty out of the way place. But it's not like it hasn't gotten a good bit of attention from great powers in the past. First the Brits, then the Russians, now us. So no one else ever looked or they didn't find anything ... And with so much in play right now about the future of the US mission in the country, the timing of the revelation is enough to raise some suspicions in my mind."

* Taylor Marsh, "Instead of pushing for people to help Afghanistan and offer troops, Afghanistan could end up being the poor girl at the prom who just won the lottery. And we all know where most lottery winners end up."

* Unqualified Offerings, "For my part, I would be content to leave Afghanistan alone and say that if somebody there somehow finds himself in control of minerals and manages to dig them out of the ground, we are willing to pay cash on delivery. We are NOT, however, willing to do our own pick-up or provide armed escorts for those who do the pick-up or the mining. The terms are cash on delivery ... Some will say that it is ruthlessly amoral to not do anything to ensure that the extraction is done by “good guys” rather than “bad guys” but I say that going in with force to ensure that the mining is done by (and profits are received by) some particular government, company, warlord, or whoever is by far a greater evil in practice than simply paying cash on delivery to whoever manages to show up with the minerals."

* Wonkette, "If you thought Afghanistan was only profitable for opium wholesalers and the defense industry, think again! According to some convenient new geological study of the mountainous, wild land that has broken the backs of so many empires, the whole place is chock full of precious metals..."
BONUS: Steve Saideman offer a thoughtful political science take on the story, "Resources in Afghanistan!?"

 

[The Bread Guy]

More on Iggy's latest utterances, short and sweet from Brian Platt:

Iggy Grows a Pair

And a bit more from the Flit blog here

For what it's worth, a larger Canadian military presence in the ANA training facilities in the Kabul area (the Kabul Military Training Centre, the National Military Academy, and the Command and General Staff College, the latter two soon to be merged into the National Defense University) would seem consistent with prior House of Commons resolutions, is probably sustainable for a long period by the army, would probably help the Americans by allowing them to reallocate training resources elsewhere, would probably do a lot of good for the Afghan army, and doesn't run into many of the problems with operational mentoring without one's own troops on the ground that have been mentioned before. Not seeing the downside here.

 

[McG]

Sticking to script on Afghanistan ridiculous stance
Saskatoon
The StarPhoenix
11 June 2010

Given the difficulty that Canadian journalists -- not to mention the public -- have in ascertaining what's going on in Afghanistan, it is remarkable that a visiting all-party parliamentary committee returned this month with the unified message that Canadian soldiers are doing good work and should remain after 2011.

Just as incomprehensible, however, is the reaction of a prime minister who spent the early part of his first term levelling testosterone-fuelled accusations of being "Taliban lovers" at anyone who questioned any aspect of the Afghan mission.

It is a line that members of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government still like to use. On Thursday, for example, parliamentary secretary of National Defence, Laurie Hawn, suggested the Taliban would be the first to cheer New Democrat Thomas Mulcair's questioning of an untendered contract to replace Canada's fighter jets.

So it's interesting that Mr. Harper insists he won't even consider the advice of the committee that Canada continue to have a robust post-mission presence in the area of Afghanistan where so many Canadians have died.

"I think we've been very clear. We are working according to the parliamentary resolution that was adopted in 2008 by which Canada's military mission will end and will transition to a civilian and development mission at the end of 2011," he said.

If the world really were unfolding as one expects, these words more likely would reflect the views of the NDP, which was reluctant to support the mission in the first place. Instead, it was left to New Democrat Jack Harris to suggest that Canada should see this mission through in order to honour the memory of those soldiers who died in making the progress that so impressed the committee.

And it was left to Liberal Bob Rae to stress that it is paramount that Canada continue to co-operate with its NATO allies and work to develop the Kandahar region.

But when it comes to the disconnect between words and deeds in Ottawa, it's been clear for some time that what has become paramount isn't what the government actually does, but the message it sends. Apparently, continuing the work that so many Canadians have died for doesn't fit the message that Mr. Harper wants to send.

According to a Canadian Press story this week, early on in the Afghan mission the government adopted "Message Event Proposals" -- a message-control tool -- to persuade Canadians that its foremost purpose in Afghanistan was to build schools and foster democracy rather than wage a war.

Sticking to that script means adhering to a 2008 parliamentary resolution that no longer makes sense. That an all-party committee of MPs should discover that Canada's soldiers are doing unparalleled work in bringing security to the people of Kandahar doesn't fit the script.

It's unlikely, however, that the development work that the government wants Canadians to believe is at the core of the mission will be able to continue once the Canadian-provided security is gone.

The Toronto Star published reports this week about the threat being posed to the $50 million Dahla Dam irrigation project, Canada's flagship development program, since an Afghan security firm with links to the Taliban and drug trade ousted the Canadian firm guarding workers there.

The problem is that these sorts of events are difficult to uncover -- particularly at times when the government exerts such tight control over all information, as made clear in the opinion piece, Gov't lockdown on information hurts democracy, on the opposite page.

To be sure, as the adage suggests, truth is the first casualty of war. Governments of all stripes use various means to secure the message to their favour. For that reason, for example, a long-anticipated massive assault on the Kandahar-based Taliban, that would have involved Canadian forces, is now being described as "a military uplift," rather than an offensive, although it isn't clear what that means.

American and British officials, including Britain's new PM David Cameron who made his first visit Thursday to Afghanistan, have suggested the tide against the Taliban must be turned this year if the sacrifices are to bear fruit.

In Canada, meanwhile, our government would like us to believe everything remains as it scripted in 2008.

 

[GAP]

If the Liberals believe in their stance so much, why don't they put a motion forward?..........


oh, they want the Conservatives to do it.....wonder why?

 

[MarkOttawa]

Post by Terry Glavin:

Ignatieff: Time for a "frank, national conversation" about Afghanistan.
http://transmontanus.blogspot.com/2010/06/ignatieff-time-for-frank-national.html

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is finally taking the brave lead of Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae ( "We have an obligation to see this thing through . . . . The door is open to serious discussion in Canada and between Canada and NATO about what the future looks like"), for which Rae has been so churlishly traduced. Ignatieff is calling for a "frank national conversation" about Canada in Afghanistan post-2011.

This is good. This is also the view of many Conservative MPs, although it is not the view from the Prime Minister's office, where Stephen Harper sits glumly, wanting no debate about it, and wanting shut of the entire business...

Let's all try to be fair about this and take Ignatieff at his word. He wants a frank, national conversation about Afghanistan, and this is the beginning of the Liberal contribution to that conversation. Here's to hoping that in their next contribution, Ignatieff will be clear that at least a healthy fraction of the $1.7 billion annual dividend that arises from the withdrawal of the Canadian Forces battle group from Kandahar, which his party proposes to spend on its "Global Networks" strategy, will be spent on building up the embryonic institutions of Afghan democracy. Perhaps the Conservatives will show some leadership now on this very point.

Perhaps Rae might raise this matter specifically as he persists in his efforts to build multi-partisan unity on the Special Committee on Afghanistan about a way forward. Rae has the advantage of an honourable opposite on that committee in the person of lead Conservative Laurie Hawn. He should use this advantage.

Ignatieff is showing real leadership on the Afghanistan question and this should not be derided, even though it does come terribly late...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[McG]

If the Liberals believe in their stance so much, why don't they put a motion forward?..........

It looks like they are starting to do just that.
A little last second, but it is about time this political level discussion is happening.  Hopefully this time will arrive at concrete determinations of an end-state (as opposed to arbitraty end-date).

 

[The Bread Guy]

It looks like they are starting to do just that.
A little last second, but it is about time this political level discussion is happening.  Hopefully this time will arrive at concrete determinations of an end-state (as opposed to arbitraty end-date).

That, or a clear, "we're not going to talk about this anymore" statement/move from the government that end of 2011 is end of 2011.  What turns my crank is the continued back-and-forth-with-information-tidbits instead of either, "yes, the right thing to do is to continue helping AFG past 2011" or "yes, the right thing to do is to wrap up now that we've done our share".  One, or the other, clearly, PLEASE.

 

[The Bread Guy]

And a bit more from the Flit blog here

For what it's worth, a larger Canadian military presence in the ANA training facilities in the Kabul area (the Kabul Military Training Centre, the National Military Academy, and the Command and General Staff College, the latter two soon to be merged into the National Defense University) would seem consistent with prior House of Commons resolutions, is probably sustainable for a long period by the army, would probably help the Americans by allowing them to reallocate training resources elsewhere, would probably do a lot of good for the Afghan army, and doesn't run into many of the problems with operational mentoring without one's own troops on the ground that have been mentioned before. Not seeing the downside here.

Further to this, but in a more civilian vein, look what Canada just announced:

Today, Deputy Interior Minister General Haidar Basir, Germany’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Werner H. Lauk, and Canada`s Chargé d’Affaires Cindy Termorshuizen inaugurated the new Border Police Faculty at the National Police Academy in Kabul. The Border Police Faculty will provide training for 400 police students and 50 police trainers.
Canada`s Chargé d’Affaires Cindy Termorshuizen
Government of Canada

In the presence of Deputy Minister Basir, the ambassadors highlighted the important work of the Afghan Border Police in securing the borders of Afghanistan and providing protection for the citizens.

“The Afghan Border Police plays an important role in establishing sustainable security structures,” said Ambassador Lauk. “Therefore, I am glad that today we are handing over this new training facility to the border police. In particular, I would like to thank our Canadian colleagues for their good cooperation and I would be pleased if this project was the starting point for further joint action in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.” ....

And in other non-military news:

At a ceremony held today at Camp Nathan Smith, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner David Critchley officially assumed the role of the new Commander of the Canadian Civilian Police Mission in Afghanistan, succeeding Assistant Commissioner Graham Muir who has held the position since June 2009.

Assistant Commissioner Critchley assumed his new role during a transfer of command ceremony held today at Camp Nathan Smith, home to the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team and the majority of Canada’s civilian police.

“Policing is a priority focus for Canada because a credible and professional Afghan National Police is key to fostering stability, making people and communities feel more secure and enhancing the rule of law in Afghanistan,” said Canada’s Ambassador to Afghanistan, William Crosbie ....

Here's ANOTHER way for Canada to keep helping Afghanistan (it's not military, even if it involves keeping staff in Kandahar, so it's in line with the March 2008 motion).

Do the right thing by staying to help, or explain clearly why it's the right thing to leave.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Start of a post at Unambiguously Ambidextrous:

George Will needs more Canada
http://unambig.com/george-will-needs-more-canada/

Just in case you thought the world’s opinion movers and shakers keep an eagle eye  on Canada...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[The Bread Guy]

This from the Canadian Press:

Canadian troops should stay to train the fledgling Afghan army beyond the official pullout next year, says an outspoken former general.

And retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie told a House of Commons committee that rumblings from the Liberals make him hopeful a training assignment in Kabul — where Canadian troops give classroom instruction to Afghan soldiers — will come about.

"I'm heartened by the fact there seems to be some agreement that that would be an ideal role for us," said MacKenzie, who commanded UN forces in Sarajevo during the Balkans war.

The Canadian army is exhausted and the combat mission in Kandahar must come to an end, he said, but that should not mean a halt to Canada's military involvement.

MacKenzie told MPs a future deployment should not involve soldiers embedded with Afghan troops in the field, in units known as Operational Mentoring and Liaison Teams.

"I've read Canadian public opinion and I guess I've become a realist, but I really want us to leave something behind," he said ....

 

[Dog Walker]

Women's rights will be the first casualty of surrender in Afghanistan
By Eva Sajoo, Special to the Sun June 18, 2010
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Women+rights+will+first+casualty+surrender+Afghanistan/3169695/story.html

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is eager to close the door on Canada's mission in Afghanistan next year -- and so are many Canadians. For some there is a sense of hopelessness about an intractable civil war that has claimed too many Canadian lives; others insist our presence there is a form of imperialism. Matters aren't helped by recent headlines about Afghan President Hamid Karzai seemingly wanting to talk to the Taliban at any cost, even if it means sacrificing gains Canadians have died for in his country since late 2001.

Yet walking out of the United Nations-mandated NATO force now would put us squarely on the side of the Taliban and their friends, inside and outside of Afghanistan. It means allowing the daily headlines about violence and death to hide what ordinary Afghans, with the help of Canadians, have begun to accomplish in so much of that country: the making of civil society. Access to schools, hospitals and basic public services is the bread and butter of democratic life. And no one can claim to believe that half the population of Afghanistan -- its women -- had any prospect of that under the Taliban.
"Women's Progress Is Human Progress" was the headline of a recent piece for the Globe and Mail by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In this claim, she was echoing the conviction of economists as well as human rights organizations that the status of women is a vital measure of political stability.
Sally Armstrong, a well-known Canadian journalist and author, made a similar point on May 30 in Surrey, at a fundraising event for Afghan women -- whose plight reminded her of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where sexual violence is the worst in the world. A country with incredibly fertile soil, its food production has dropped by 70 per cent since the beginning of its conflict in 1996, rendering the population dependent on food aid. Armstrong points out that farmers are primarily women, who have had to flee to the mountains from the systematic and horrific attacks on them.
The link between the well-being of women and that of their societies is intuitive, yet advocacy for women's rights often faces unexpected barriers. Many Canadians will remember when police were reluctant to intervene in incidents of domestic violence because what took place there at home was "private." Similar arguments surface today when we raise our voices about violence against women in other countries. We are told that violations of women's rights are part of someone else's culture, and that we have no business interfering. We should just mind our own affairs.
In fact, it is those of us inclined to believe that human rights are a Western invention who are most vulnerable to this argument. If the right to food and dignity is as cultural as casual Fridays at the office, it may indeed seem offensive to criticize others for alternative practices. But this is like suggesting that the need to eat is a peculiarly Canadian characteristic. The right to equal treatment, education, and freedom from violence are not specific to one culture. They are universal entitlements that are valued as ardently among Afghan women as our own.
Canada made a promise to Afghanistan in 2001. Under the Bonn Agreement, we pledged to "promote national reconciliation, lasting peace, stability, and respect for human rights."
That includes women's rights, often the easiest to sacrifice for "peace." At extraordinary risk to themselves, Afghan women seized on these promises, speaking out and acting on their rights on the basis of our assurances the country would not return to the practices enforced by the Taliban. Security, provided by military and police forces we provide and support, is what makes basic functions such as education and work possible for Afghan girls and women. There is little enough of that now. Fleeing in 2011 would be an ignominious betrayal.
Ultimately, this is about our own values. Do we take seriously the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as "human rights" above all else?
If not, then what exactly was this country defending in two world wars -- and would we have the moral courage to stand for anything again?
Eva Sajoo holds a master's degree in international development and education. She is a member of the Vancouver chapter of Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan. For more information visit www.cw4wafghan.ca

 

[MarkOttawa]

Be rather embarrassing if the Dutch stayed on in a training role and we...
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE65G1VN.htm

NATO renewed a call on the Netherlands on Thursday [June 17] to keep troops in Afghanistan after a Dutch parliamentary election last week held to replace a government that collapsed over the troop mission.

The Dutch Labour party left the Dutch cabinet in February because it did not want the mission in the Afghan province of Uruzgan to continue beyond August. A new government is being formed after a parliamentary election held last week.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told the Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad that his request in February beforethe cabinet's collapse still stood.

"I now want to urge Dutch politicians to think in a positive way how they can remain militarily involved in Afghanistan," Rasmussen was quoted as saying by the paper.

"It could be in Uruzgan but if the geography has become too controversial it could also be somewhere else. We need trainers everywhere. We are 450 short," said.

Three of the four biggest parties in the new parliament -- the majority-holding Liberals, Labour and Christian Democrats -- are now open to a police training mission [emphasis added].

Afghanistan was not an issue during the election campaign, which focused on fiscal austerity measures, but the new government will be able to decide if the Netherlands will keep a presence in Afghanistan...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Excellent article in the NY Times Magazine (LGEN Leslie gets a mention near the end, note the criticism of the US Army Stryker BCT--usual copyright disclaimer):

Afghanistan’s Civic War
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/magazine/20Afghanistan-t.html?ref=magazine

Lt. Col. Guy Jones, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division’s Second Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry, is on his fourth tour of Afghanistan. The first time around, in June 2002, when he was a 31-year-old company commander, his job was to find Osama bin Laden. He still has happy memories of working alongside Gul Agha Shirzai, the local strongman in Kandahar, who may have been loathed by the people but could be counted on to deliver American war materiel to anywhere in the region for only $5,000 a truckload.

Now Colonel Jones has returned to the region to fight a very different war. Based in the Arghandab District, just north of Kandahar, he and his troops are at the epicenter of the looming American showdown with the Taliban. This time, he cannot win by making common cause with warlords. He can’t even win by shooting people. “I almost never do kinetic operations,” he said to me one night in April, using military talk for classic operations. We were sitting in an office in the Arghandab District Center — the seat of local government rather than of military operations. Just then his troops were seeking to clear insurgents from some villages to the north. “How do you separate the enemy from the people?” asked Jones, a natural-born pedagogue much given to the rhetorical question. “Well, one way is I can go out and just hang out there. Eventually they’ll get so frustrated that they’ll just leave. And then I know who to look for.”

The war Colonel Jones is fighting is, of course, the counterinsurgency war that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, regional commander of the U.S. military, urged President Obama to adopt during the fierce and protracted policy debate over Afghan strategy last year. Some of the president’s closest advisers, including Vice President Joe Biden, argued that after seven years of American neglect and the Afghans’ corrupt and incompetent governance, it was simply too late to fight for hearts and minds. But Obama accepted most of his generals’ advice...

COIN strategy not only commits the military to civilian goals, but it also elevates civilians to a status equal to that of military personnel. The civilian “uplift” that President Obama mandated will triple the number of government officials in Afghanistan to more than 1,000 and, perhaps more important, disperse them into the countryside, where only a few have been working. Until recently, the work of distributing aid and fostering good government has been carried out largely by officials in “provincial-reconstruction teams.” Those teams continue to operate, but the new plan drives the effort to the local level, placing a district-support team in critical areas, especially in the contested south and east of the country.

The Operational Coordination Center for Arghandab is home to members of Jones’s battalion; detachments of Afghanistan’s police, intelligence services and army; the district-support team and a contingent of Canadian civilians also working on development [emphasis added]...

The Arghandab valley funnels directly into Kandahar. For many years Mullah Naqib, chief of the dominant Alokozai tribe and a feared and respected mujahedeen, kept the district firmly under his thumb; he did not oppose the Taliban but warned them that if they brought their battles to Arghandab, “I’ll hang you from a tree,” as an Afghan Army officer told me. This is what passes locally for good governance. The roads were safe, and the crops could make their way to market.

Mullah Naqib died in 2007, and Karzai, acting against all local custom, imposed the old man’s son as successor rather than allowing the tribe to make its own choice. The Alokozai split, and the rejectionists made common cause with the insurgents. The Taliban had already begun making major inroads across the south and east of the country; Arghandab, along with Panjwayi and Zhari, the districts immediately to the west, was rapidly overrun by insurgents. The violence overwhelmed the Canadian troops assigned to Kandahar Province. By last summer, with the new strategy taking shape, military officials concluded that they would have to reassert control over the region [emphasis added]. A Stryker brigade from the U.S. Army was deployed there...

...Soldiers inside giant armored vehicles crashed and crawled through tiny villages, making themselves targets for huge improvised-explosive devices. Kevin Melton, an official with the U.S. Agency for International Development who works with Harich on the district-support team, came in with the Strykers and remembers saying to officers, “You guys are enemy-centric, and that’s not what this is about.” The brigade commander, Melton says, “didn’t get COIN.” In December, the battered Stryker detachment handed off to the 82nd Airborne’s 2/508th [emphasis added]. Colonel Jones arrived the following month...

[Lt. Ross] Weinshenker [a platoon commander]  shared Jones’s COIN instincts but not his optimism. By sitting down with village maliks, he was able to learn the name, age, tribe and occupation of every family head, along with their attitudes toward the government and the NATO forces. Several soldiers in his company doing intelligence work clamored for the data, but his company commander shrugged it off, so it hadn’t been shared and put to use. COIN was still counterintuitive for many soldiers. “Nobody makes the big picture for anybody,” Weinshenker lamented, as we sat hunched over the computer in his tent. “I feel like the whole time here we’re treading water.” The Taliban were maddeningly elusive — “like water.” But he could also see why the Taliban’s criticism of a corrupt and indifferent government made such headway. Maybe it made more sense to try to talk to them than to fight them.

Arghandab was something of a show district. General McChrystal had already been there twice. One morning, Lt. Gen. Andrew Leslie, commander of the Canadian Army, paid a visit. After listening to one of Jones’s passionate briefings, the general asked for the microphone and congratulated his host for “truly understanding and operationalizing counterinsurgency theory [emphasis added].” The auguries, in fact, were generally positive: Taliban attacks were down from the previous summer; farmers were expecting a bumper crop of pomegranates; a few closed schools had reopened. The district shura I attended consisted mostly of bearded gentlemen arguing over who was responsible for breakdowns in security and the district governor’s berating the whole lot of them; but, as Jones put it, “If they’re arguing like kids, and they’re doing it in a nonviolent way, then they’ve just experienced governance.” As recently as a year ago, the district was too dangerous for the shura to meet at all. Now people were beginning to see the shura as a place to get problems solved... 

...But how could you win over the people of Kandahar Province if they viewed government as a charade propagated by Ahmed Wali Karzai?..

...In our last conversation, in the tent where he lives and mostly works, Jones told me that Afghanistan has been transformed since he first came in 2002. Kabul was bustling; the Afghan National Army was learning to stand on its own; the governance program had made huge strides. He added: “And the timelines will all get shorter as you build.” In five more years, he said, Afghanistan should have a proper state. But American troops begin leaving in mid-2011; it’s not clear that Afghanistan has five years.

James Traub is a contributing writer for the magazine. His most recent article was about the West African drug trade.

Postscript: June 19, 2010

An article on Page 24 this weekend about the importance of self-government in Afghanistan refers to an influential Afghan district governor, Hajji Abdul Jabbar, whose cooperation was sought by American commanders. On Tuesday, after the magazine had gone to press, Abdul Jabbar was killed in a bombing, according to Afghan and United States officials.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[The Bread Guy]

....according to the Toronto Sun/QMI (highlights mine):

OTTAWA - The Conservative government is open to a Liberal pitch to keep troops in Afghanistan post-2011, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said Monday.

Last week, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Canada should end its combat role as scheduled, but deploy soldiers in a safer region like Kabul training Afghanistan's police and military. MacKay said there is "great interest" in that proposal - but hinted the ball is in the opposition’s court as the government is bound by an existing motion to pull out next year.

"I'm very interested. I know the Prime Minister has expressed interest in what Mr. Ignatieff said. But the parliamentary motion is very clear so that is where we are today," he said ....  ""Throughout this mission there have been changes - we've seen extensions in the past. But that motion is rock solid in the mind of the government" ....

Said motion is clear about leaving KANDAHAR, not AFGHANISTAN.  I'll believe it when I hear it from the PM, clearly.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Why must the government continue to be so economical about the truth of the 2008 Commons' (not Parliamentary) motion as to be mendacious?

It's also interesting that the Conservatives after becoming the government said they would seek Commons' approval of foreign troop deployments generally--but did not do so in the case of the major, if fairly brief, mission to Haiti.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

More:

So staying in Afstan’s about “the Canadian brand”, eh?/Update: St Steve Staples wants different Canadian brand now
http://unambig.com/so-staying-in-afstans-about-the-canadian-brand-eh/

Mark
Ottawa