Guest post by Gary Farber. Gary's home blog is Amygdala, and he invites you to read him there.
[Eric Martin: My friend Gary is going to be pitching in for a couple of days as I adjust to the enhanced parenting techniques that my son is submitting me too. And yes, sleep deprivation is torture.]
Part I of this two-part post is here.
Pt. II:
First we have to distinguish between the Taliban and al Qaeda. Then we have to analyze what threat either actually presents. And then we have to do a cost-benefit analysis of what's the best course of action. The essential war with al Qaeda, both insofar as al Qaeda remains any kind of organization, and, more importantly, insofar as it remains an inspiration to jihadists, is an ideological war, not a military war. The Taliban now have tried a YouTube channel for propaganda. The best way to fight al Qaeda is to fight their ideology, and we're doing okay at that. From 2008:
[...] These new critics, in concert with mainstream Muslim leaders, have created a powerful coalition countering Al Qaeda's ideology. According to Pew polls, support for Al Qaeda has been dropping around the Muslim world in recent years. The numbers supporting suicide bombings in Indonesia, Lebanon, and Bangladesh, for instance, have dropped by half or more in the last five years. In Saudi Arabia, only 10 percent now have a favorable view of Al Qaeda, according to a December poll by Terror Free Tomorrow, a Washington-based think tank. Following a wave of suicide attacks in Pakistan in the past year, support for suicide operations amongst Pakistanis has dropped to 9 percent (it was 33 percent five years ago), while favorable views of bin Laden in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, around where he is believed to be hiding, have plummeted to 4 percent from 70 percent since August 2007.
We can continue presenting an alternative. Many play up contemporary al Qaeda-Taliban ties, but that's highly questionable, as Gareth Porter writes:
[...] But two former senior intelligence analysts who have long followed the issue of al Qaeda's involvement in Afghanistan question the alleged new intelligence assessments. They say that the Taliban leadership still blames Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda for their loss of power after 9/11 and that the Taliban-al Qaeda cooperation is much narrower today than it was during the period of Taliban rule.
[...]
One of the arguments for an alternative to the present counterinsurgency strategy by officials, including aides to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, is that the Taliban wouldn't allow al Qaeda to reestablish bases inside Afghanistan, The Wall Street Journal reported Oct. 5. The reasoning behind the argument, according to the report, is that the Taliban realises that its previous alliance with al Qaeda had caused it to lose power after the Sep. 11 attacks.
Officials in national security organs that are committed to the counterinsurgency strategy have now pushed back against the officials who they see as undermining the war policy. McClatchy newspapers reported Sunday that officials have cited what they call "recent U.S. intelligence assessments" that the Taliban and other Afghan insurgent groups have "much closer ties to al Qaida now than they did before 9/11" and would allow al Qaeda to re-establish bases in Afghanistan if they were to prevail.
McClatchy reporters said 15 mid-level or senior intelligence, military and diplomatic officials they interviewed had agreed with the alleged intelligence assessments.
But John McCreary, formerly a senior analyst at the Defence Intelligence Agency, wrote last week on NightWatch, an online news analysis service, that the history of Taliban-al Qaeda relations suggests a very different conclusion. After being ousted from power in 2001, he wrote, the Taliban "openly derided the Arabs of al Qaida and blamed them for the Taliban's misfortunes".
The Taliban leaders "vowed never to allow the foreigners – especially the haughty, insensitive Arabs – back into Afghanistan," wrote McCreary. "In December 2001, [Mullah Mohammad] Omar was ridiculed in public by his own commanders for inviting the 'Arabs' and other foreigners, which led to their flight to Pakistan."
McCreary concluded, "The premise that Afghanistan would become an al Qaida safe haven under any future government is alarmist and bespeaks a lack of understanding of the Pashtuns on this issue and a superficial knowledge of recent Afghan history."
The Central Intelligence Agency's former national intelligence officer for the Middle East, Paul Pillar, expressed doubt that the Taliban's relations with al Qaeda are tighter now than before the Taliban regime was ousted. "I don't see how you can say that," Pillar told IPS. "If you look at the pre-9/11 relationship between the Taliban and al Qaeda, in many ways it was far more extensive."
In the civil war between the Taliban regime and its Northern Alliance foes from 1996 through 2001, Pillar observed, "bin Laden's Arabs and money" represented a far bigger role in supporting the Taliban than the one al Qaeda is playing now. "You can say that there are more groups which have relationships with al Qaeda now, but I don't see any as close as that which existed before 9/11," said Pillar.
[...]
Gen. Jones told CNN interviewer John King Oct. 4 the presence of al Qaeda in Afghanistan today is "minimal", adding the "maximum estimate" is 100 foreign fighters. One official critical of the White House position quoted in the McClatchy story suggested the number might be as high as 200 or 250.
Both figures appears to be consistent with the estimate by Western officials of a total of only 100 to 300 foreign fighters in Afghanistan cited in the New York Times Oct. 30, 2007.
Of that total, however, only "small numbers" were Arabs and Chechens, Uzbeks or other Central Asians, who are known to have links with al Qaeda, Seth Jones of the Rand Corporation told Voice of America the following month. T
The bulk of the foreign fighters in Afghanistan are Pashtuns from across the border in Pakistan. Those Pashtun fighters are recruited from religious schools in Pakistan, but there is no evidence that they are affiliated with al Qaeda.
Just this month, U.S. intelligence has increased its estimate of Taliban armed insurgents to 17,000, compared with 10,000 in late 2007. Even if all foreign fighters were considered as al Qaeda, therefore, 250 of them would represent only 1.5 percent of the estimated total.
Not much of a threat, and as has been much previously discussed, the terrorist attacks in London and Madrid were launched by Muslim extremists from apartments in England and Spain. The September 11th attacks were launched largely by Saudis in Germany; you don't need a country to engage in terrorist attacks; thinking otherwise was the Bush administration's fixation and a contender for their supreme foreign policy error, hard as it is to settle on just one. General McChystal wants to buy off members of the Taliban:
[...] The idea, he said, would not be to try to flip the Taliban’s leaders — that’s not likely — but rather its foot soldiers. The premise of the program, McChrystal says, is that most of the Taliban’s fighters are not especially committed ideologically and could be brought into society with promises of jobs and protection. “I’d like to go pretty high up,” McChrystal said, referring to the Taliban’s hierarchy. “It could be people who are commanders with significant numbers of troops. I think they can be given the opportunity to come in.”
The effort, McChrystal said, is based on his own reading of the Taliban and of Pashtun culture: most of the people fighting the United States, he argued, are motivated by local and personal grievances. They want more of a voice in local governance, for instance, or they want jobs. “Historically, the Pashtuns are very practical people,” McChrystal told me. “Pashtun culture adjudicates disagreements in a way that mitigates blood feuds. The Pashtun people go out of their way not to do things that cause permanent feuds. They have always been willing to change positions, change sides. I don’t think much of the Taliban are ideologically driven; I think they are practically driven. I’m not sure they wouldn’t flip to our side.”
Here's an obvious problem with that:
In 1996, approximately 40 percent of Afghans were Pashtun, 11.4 of whom are of the Durrani tribal group and 13.8 percent of the Ghilzai group. Tajiks make up the second largest ethnic group with 25.3 percent of the population, followed by Hazaras, 18 percent; Uzbeks, 6.3 percent; Turkmen, 2.5 percent; Qizilbash, 1.0; 6.9 percent other. The usual caveat regarding statistics is particularly appropriate here.
To be sure, that Pushtuns are a minority, though the plurality, of Afghans, is a good reason to think that the Taliban would have trouble in retaking much of the country again; in their last incarnation in power, they never did subdue the largely Tajik, Hazara, and Uzbek Northern Alliance; the Northern Alliance maintained control over 30% of the country. But there remain problems with McChrystal's idea, inspired by the still unsettled and problematic creation of the "Sons of Iraq":
[...] With more American troops, McChrystal told me, he would be better able to squeeze the insurgents into changing sides. “I think a lot of them need to be convinced that they are not going to be successful,” he said.
An example of how badly pay-offs to the Taliban can go came last week:
When ten French soldiers were killed last year in an ambush by Afghan insurgents in what had seemed a relatively peaceful area, the French public were horrified.
Their revulsion increased with the news that many of the dead soldiers had been mutilated — and with the publication of photographs showing the militants triumphantly sporting their victims’ flak jackets and weapons. The French had been in charge of the Sarobi area, east of Kabul, for only a month, taking over from the Italians; it was one of the biggest single losses of life by Nato forces in Afghanistan.
What the grieving nation did not know was that in the months before the French soldiers arrived in mid-2008, the Italian secret service had been paying tens of thousands of dollars to Taleban commanders and local warlords to keep the area quiet, The Times has learnt.
[...]
US intelligence officials were flabbergasted when they found out through intercepted telephone conversations that the Italians had also been buying off militants, notably in Herat province in the far west. In June 2008, several weeks before the ambush, the US Ambassador in Rome made a démarche, or diplomatic protest, to the Berlusconi Government over allegations concerning the tactic.
However, a number of high-ranking officers in Nato have told The Times that payments were subsequently discovered to have been made in the Sarobi area as well. Western officials say that because the French knew nothing of the payments they made a catastrophically incorrect threat assessment.
[...]
Two Western military officials in Kabul confirmed that intelligence briefings after the ambush said that the French troops had believed they were moving through a benign area — one which the Italian military had been keen to show off to the media as a successful example of a “hearts and minds” operation.
Another Nato source confirmed the allegations of Italian money going to insurgents. “The Italian intelligence service made the payments, it wasn’t the Italian Army,” he said. “It was payments of tens of thousands of dollars regularly to individual insurgent commanders. It was to stop Italian casualties that would cause political difficulties at home.”
The Italians have denied everything:
[...] Premier Silvio Berlusconi's office called the report in the Times of London "completely groundless." The Italian defense minister denounced it as "rubbish" and said he wanted to sue the newspaper.
But the overall strategy remains questionable:
Whether or not that is true, it points to the biggest flaw in the “bribe the Taliban” argument: What happens when you stop paying?
Once again, the Iraq example is instructive. Responsibility for paying Sunni tribal militias, referred to by the U.S. military as the Sons of Iraq (SoI), was handed over to the government of Iraq, and a certain number of SoI were eventually supposed to be absorbed into Iraq’s security forces. But not all has gone to plan: Earlier this year, fighting erupted in Baghdad after the arrest of Adel Mashadani, a Sunni militia leader and key figure in the “Awakening” movement. As the central government moved to disarm and disband Awakening councils, it prompted concern about a renewed violence in Iraq as U.S. troops packed up for withdrawal.
And Afghanistan presents a much more difficult case. Iraq’s central government can count on a decent stream of revenue; Afghanistan’s government is pretty much broke. Bribery may work to a point, but it seems highly unlikely that Kabul could keep its internal opponents on the payroll when its operating budget is largely drawn from foreign aid and it can barely cover the cost of maintaining its army and police.
What we can do is focus on al Qaeda:
President Obama’s national security team is moving to reframe its war strategy by emphasizing the campaign against Al Qaeda in Pakistan while arguing that the Taliban in Afghanistan do not pose a direct threat to the United States, officials said Wednesday.
[...]
The official contrasted that with the Afghan Taliban, which the administration has begun to define as an indigenous group that aspires to reclaim territory and rule the country but does not express ambitions of attacking the United States. “When the two are aligned, it’s mainly on the tactical front,” the official said, noting that Al Qaeda has fewer than 100 fighters in Afghanistan.
Another official, who also was authorized to speak but not to be identified, said the different views of Al Qaeda and the Taliban were driving the president’s review. “To the extent that Al Qaeda has been degraded, and it has, and to the extent you believe you need to focus on destroying it going forward, what is required going forward?” the official asked. “And to prevent it from having a safe haven?”
The officials argued that while Al Qaeda was a foreign body, the Taliban could not be wholly removed from Afghanistan because they were too ingrained in the country. Moreover, the forces often described as Taliban are actually an amalgamation of militants that includes local warlords like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Haqqani network or others driven by local grievances rather than jihadist ideology.
What's the nature of these militants?
Nearly all of the insurgents battling US and NATO troops in Afghanistan are not religiously motivated Taliban and Al Qaeda warriors, but a new generation of tribal fighters vying for control of territory, mineral wealth, and smuggling routes, according to summaries of new US intelligence reports.
Some of the major insurgent groups, including one responsible for a spate of recent American casualties, actually opposed the Taliban’s harsh Islamic government in Afghanistan during the 1990s, according to the reports, described by US officials under the condition they not be identified.
“Ninety percent is a tribal, localized insurgency,’’ said one US intelligence official in Washington who helped draft the assessments. “Ten percent are hardcore ideologues fighting for the Taliban.’’
Moreover:
[...] The Afghan fighters use the threat of force to further their own economic interests - extorting payments from people shipping goods through the mountains including, in some cases, even US military supplies coming into Afghanistan from Pakistan, the officials said.
Which is to say, they're criminal gangs. Did you know, by the way, that we have a Treasury Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing? You'd think we'd be against that. (Yes, I'm kidding.) He's in charge of Treasury's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. You can read more about how that works here and here, if you're curious. Eric Schmitt describes the diversity of Taliban funding today:
The Taliban in Afghanistan are running a sophisticated financial network to pay for their insurgent operations, raising hundreds of millions of dollars from the illicit drug trade, kidnappings, extortion and foreign donations that American officials say they are struggling to cut off.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have imposed an elaborate system to tax the cultivation, processing and shipment of opium, as well as other crops like wheat grown in the territory they control, American and Afghan officials say. In the Middle East, Taliban leaders have sent fund-raisers to Arab countries to keep the insurgency’s coffers brimming with cash.
Estimates of the Taliban’s annual revenue vary widely. Proceeds from the illicit drug trade alone range from $70 million to $400 million a year, according to Pentagon and United Nations officials. By diversifying their revenue stream beyond opium, the Taliban are successfully confounding American and NATO efforts to weaken the insurgency by cutting off its economic lifelines, the officials say.
Despite efforts by the United States and its allies in the last year to cripple the Taliban’s financing, using the military and intelligence, American officials acknowledge they barely made a dent.
[...]
“In the past there was a kind of a feeling that the money all came from drugs in Afghanistan,” Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said in June. “That is simply not true.”
Supporting this view, in his Aug. 30 strategic assessment, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, voiced skepticism that clamping down on the opium trade would crimp the Taliban’s overall finances.
“Eliminating insurgent access to narco-profits — even if possible, and while disruptive — would not destroy their ability to operate so long as other funding sources remained intact,” General McChrystal said.
The C.I.A. recently estimated in a classified report that Taliban leaders and their associates had received $106 million in the past year from donors outside Afghanistan, a figure first reported last month by The Washington Post. Private citizens from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and some Persian Gulf nations are the largest individual contributors, an American counterterrorism official said.
But the important takeaway point is this:
[...] Robert Gibbs, White House press secretary, indicated yesterday that the makeup of the insurgency is playing a prominent role in the discussions. “Some in the Taliban have similar agendas that have helped Al Qaeda with safe havens,’’ he told reporters at the daily press briefing. “There’s also a significant number of Taliban that are local warlords that have far different agendas.’’
Indeed, the intelligence reports say the Taliban movement that harbored the Al Qaeda terrorist network before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is responsible for only a small share of the rising attacks - mostly in southern Afghanistan, according to the officials.
Even the hardline Frederick Kagan agrees that:
“The term [Taliban] has come to have a meaning far beyond what the United States should care about’’ militarily, said Frederick W. Kagan, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who is advising US military commanders.
Steve Hynd elaborates:
[...] The UK's DfID study, a recent Senate report and leaks of current US intelligence analysis reveal that most of the insurgency, while it might take training from the Taliban, could care less about the Taliban's ideological agenda. Between 70 and 90 percent of insurgents are motivated by resistance to occupying invaders or by the ethnic divides - the domination of Tajiks in a government ruling a Pashtun majority - that Nagl says don't exist. The Taliban just pay them to do lip service to their ideology and run under their banner.
See also Nathan Hodge's Winning Over the Taliban? Fat Chance.
What could we do instead of Nagl's only "viable alternative"?
[... The problem is that protecting all of Afghanistan, or even all the areas that the Taliban now threaten or dominate, would require many more troops than even McChrystal is requesting—by some estimates as many as 500,000 troops. Under these circumstances, if Obama agreed to send 40,000 more troops next month, it's a safe bet that the generals would request another 40,000 next year.
An alternative approach, then, is to protect not all of Afghanistan but just a few of its largest cities—say, Kabul, Kandahar, and Ghazni—and to throw at them all the resources they can absorb: military, civilian, financial, the works.
The purpose of this would be twofold.
The first would be to prevent the Taliban from taking over the central government, which is the main reason for having Western troops there at all.
The second would be to create "demonstration zones" for the eyes of Afghans all over the country.
If these zones really can be secured and supplied, if they are seen as enclaves of relative peace and prosperity, then Afghans everywhere will want the same thing and reject the Taliban (whose strength today stems less from their fundamentalist ideology than from their ability to provide order and services).
Meanwhile, under this alternative approach, U.S. and NATO forces would keep training Afghan soldiers and police, while special-ops troops and air power would continue to take out "high-value targets" such as top Taliban fighters (even pure counterinsurgency advocates don't think counterterrorist tactics should be cut off completely).
It's hard to say how many more U.S. troops would be needed for this alternative approach—but almost certainly far fewer than 40,000. Ideas along these lines are swirling around the community of scholars and soldiers who think about such matters.
Mehar Omar Khan, a major in the Pakistani army and currently a student at the U.S. Army War College, outlined just such an approach in the latest issue of Small Wars Journal.
Four specialists, including David Kilcullen, an Australian counterinsurgency veteran who advises several top U.S. officials and officers, make a similar case—which they call a "triage" or "enclave" strategy—in a recent paper published by the Center for a New American Security.
Another way to put this is go deep, not big. Gareth Porter:
[...] In a 63-page paper representing his personal views, but reflecting conversations with other officers who have served in Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis argues that it is already too late for U.S. forces to defeat the insurgency.
"Many experts in and from Afghanistan warn that our presence over the past eight years has already hardened a meaningful percentage of the population into viewing the United States as an army of occupation which should be opposed and resisted," writes Davis.
Providing the additional 40,000 troops that Gen. McChrystal has reportedly requested "is almost certain to further exacerbate" that problem, he warns.
Davis was a liaison officer between the Combined Forces Command - Afghanistan (CFC-A) and the Central Command in 2005, just as the Afghan insurgency was becoming a significant problem for the U.S. military. In that assignment he both consulted with the top U.S. officers and staff of the CFC-A and traveled widely throughout Afghanistan visiting U.S. and NATO combat units.
He also commanded a U.S. military transition team on the Iraqi border with Iran in 2008-09.
In the paper, Davis suggests what he calls a "Go Deep" strategy as an alternative to the recommendation from McChrystal for a larger counterinsurgency effort, which he calls "Go Big".
The "Go Deep" strategy proposed by Davis would establish an 18-month time frame during which the bulk of U.S. and NATO combat forces would be withdrawn from the country. It would leave U.S. Special Forces and their supporting units, and enough conventional forces in Kabul to train Afghan troops and police and provide protection for U.S. personnel.
The forces that continue to operate in insurgent-dominated areas would wage "an aggressive counterterrorism effort" aimed in part at identifying Taliban and al Qaeda operatives. The strategy would also provide support for improved Afghan governance and training for security forces.
Davis argues that a large and growing U.S. military presence would make it more difficult to achieve this counterterrorism objective. By withdrawing conventional forces from the countryside, he suggests, U.S. strategy would deprive the insurgents of "easily identifiable and lucrative targets against which to launch attacks".
Typically insurgents attack U.S. positions not for any tactical military objective, Davis writes, but to gain a propaganda victory.
[...]
After reading Davis's paper, Col. Patrick Lang, formerly the defence intelligence officer for the Middle East, told IPS he regards the "Go Deep" strategy as "a fair representation of the alternative to the one option in General McChrystal's assessment".
Lang said he doubts that those advising Obama to shift to a counterterrorism strategy are calling specifically for the withdrawal of most combat troops, but he believes such a withdrawal "is certainly implicit in the argument".
And sounding the note that turns up again and again:
[...] In the paper, Davis argues that the counterinsurgency strategy recommended by McChrystal would actually require a far larger U.S. force than is now being proposed. Citing figures given by Marine Corps Col. Julian Dale Alford at a conference last month, Davis writes that training 400,000 Afghan army and police alone would take 18 brigades of U.S. troops – as many as 100,000 U.S. troops when the necessary support troops are added.
The objective of expanding the Afghan security forces to 400,000, as declared in McChrystal's "initial assessment", poses other major problems as well, according to Davis.
He observes that the costs of such an expansion have been estimated at three to four times more than Afghanistan's entire Gross Domestic Product.
Davis asks what would happen if the economies of the states which have pledged to support those Afghan personnel come under severe pressures and do not continue the support indefinitely. "It would be irresponsible to increase the size of the military to that level," he writes, "convincing hundreds of thousands of additional Afghan men to join, giving them field training and weapons, and then at some point suddenly cease funding, throwing tens of thousands out of work."
The result, he suggests, would be similar to what followed the U.S. failure to reassemble the Iraqi Army after the invasion of March 2003.
Davis also cites "growing anecdotal evidence" that popular anger at the abuses of power by the Afghan National Police has increased support for the insurgency. He calls for scaling back the increase in Afghan security forces to the original targets of 134,000 Army troops and 80,000 national police.
The crucial factor in determining the future of the country, he argues, is not the numbers of security personnel but whether they continue to abuse the population.
If that pattern of behaviour were to change dramatically, Davis says, "the number of Taliban fighters will dwindle to manageable numbers as those presently filling their ranks will no longer be motivated to fight".
And the large point:
[...] Challenging the argument of supporters of a larger war effort that it is necessary to avoid an increased risk of new terrorist attacks, Davis argues that being "myopically focused" on Afghanistan "at the expense of the rest of the world" increases the likelihood of an attack.
The present level of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, he writes, will "make it more likely that terrorist organizations will take advantage of the opportunity to plan and train elsewhere for the next big attack."
As Rory Stewart wrote in his must-read July 9th piece in the London Review of Books
[...] Even if – as seems most unlikely – the Taliban were to take the capital, it is not clear how much of a threat this would pose to US or European national security. Would they repeat their error of providing a safe haven to al-Qaida? And how safe would this safe haven be? They could give al-Qaida land for a camp but how would they defend it against predators or US special forces? And does al-Qaida still require large terrorist training camps to organise attacks? Could they not plan in Hamburg and train at flight schools in Florida; or meet in Bradford and build morale on an adventure training course in Wales?
Furthermore, there are no self-evident connections between the key objectives of counter-terrorism, development, democracy/ state-building and counter-insurgency. Counter-insurgency is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for state-building. You could create a stable legitimate state without winning a counter-insurgency campaign (India, which is far more stable and legitimate than Afghanistan, is still fighting several long counter-insurgency campaigns from Assam to Kashmir). You could win a counter-insurgency campaign without creating a stable state (if such a state also required the rule of law and a legitimate domestic economy). Nor is there any necessary connection between state-formation and terrorism. Our confusions are well illustrated by the debates about whether Iraq was a rogue state harbouring terrorists (as Bush claimed) or an authoritarian state which excluded terrorists (as was in fact the case).
It is impossible for Britain and its allies to build an Afghan state. They have no clear picture of this promised ‘state’, and such a thing could come only from an Afghan national movement, not as a gift from foreigners.
Eric Martin wisely quoted this piece at length in a piece also much worth rereading. The entire question of why we should do more in Afghanistan than in Somalia, or various other failed states, is absolutely critical. What might we learn from our recent experience in Somalia? Jeffrey Gettleman:
[...] In 2006, the C.I.A. shoveled a few million dollars to predacious warlords in an attempt to stymie a competing Islamist movement. When that didn’t work, the American government supported Ethiopia, Somalia’s historic enemy, when it invaded. What followed was a nasty guerilla war that ended only when the Ethiopians agreed to leave earlier this year and the Islamists were allowed back in. Essentially, the 2006 status quo was returned, minus 15,000 Somalis, now dead.
Still, “most Somalis are not anti-American,” said Afyare Abdi Elmi, a Somali-Canadian political scientist at Qatar University’s International Affairs Program. “Most Somalis are pragmatic and they do not inherently oppose America’s involvement in Somalia per se. They reject when such involvement is associated with warlords or Ethiopians. Neither condition exists now.”
This could spell an opportunity, as the Obama administration seems to think. The United States and other Western powers have provided the new Islamist government with weapons, money and diplomatic support. While terribly weak, the government has proven to be relatively moderate, vowing to repel terrorist groups, and seeking a middle path in its interpretation of political Islam.
The United States, for its part, is helping the government in a crucial way, with pinprick counterterrorism attacks like the commando raid that killed Mr. Nabhan; these presumably advance the mutual interest of eliminating Qaeda terrorists and weakening the Somali insurgency, while avoiding civilian casualties.
So a new template for fighting terrorism may be emerging as the United States shows less desire to get involved in the local intricacies of nation building and more interest in narrowing its focus to Al Qaeda. The focus so far has been precise, limited and often covert, with attacks carried out with a parallel diplomatic strategy.
Some talk of a middle way in Afghanistan. But I've yet to see any rumors the administration is considering an actual downsizing path, as Austin Long outlines in detail what a "small footprint" mission could look like:
[...] First, this posture would require maintaining bases and personnel in Afghanistan. Three airfields would be sufficient: Bagram, north of Kabul, Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan, and ideally Kandahar, in the insurgency-ridden south of the country. This would enable forces to collect intelligence and rapidly target al Qaeda in the Pashtun regions where its allies would hold sway. Kandahar, in the heart of Taliban territory, might be untenable with a reduced U.S. presence, so an alternate airfield might be needed, potentially at Shindand, though this would not ideal.
In terms of special operations forces, this posture would rely on two squadrons of so-called "Tier 1" operators, one at each forward operating base. These could be drawn from U.S. special mission units or Allied units such as the British Special Air Service or Canada's Joint Task Force 2. In addition, it would require a battalion equivalent of U.S. Army Rangers, U.S. Navy SEALs, U.S. Marine Special Operations Companies, British Parachute Regiment, or some mix, with basically a company with each Tier 1 squadron and one in reserve at Bagram. These forces would work together as task forces (let's call them TF South and TF East), with the Tier 1 operators being tasked with executing direct action missions to kill or capture al Qaeda targets while the other units would serve as security and support for these missions. In addition, two of the four battalions of the 160th Special Operations Regiment, basically one at each airfield, would be used to provide helicopter transport, reconnaissance, and fire support for the task forces. One battalion might be enough but two certainly would, thus ensuring that no targets get away for lack of lift. Note that according to Sean Naylor's reporting my direct action task forces are structured like the regional task forces in Iraq in 2006 that were tasked to hunt al Qaeda in Iraq.
Both task forces would be capable of acting against targets elsewhere in the Pashtun regions, but al Qaeda operatives would likely only feel even relatively secure in a fairly limited geographic area. TF East in Jalalabad would likely need to operate principally in the heartland of the Haqqani militant network (Khost, Paktia, and Paktika provinces) as this would be where al Qaeda's principal ally in the east could best protect its members, who are not generally Pashtun. For similar reasons, TF South would principally operate against al Qaeda targets in Kandahar, where the Quetta Shura Taliban is strongest, and some of the surrounding provinces such as Helmand and Uruzgan.
In addition to these two task forces, I would retain the three Army Special Forces' battalions and other elements that appear to be assigned to Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan. While TFs South and East would focus purely on direct action, these Special Forces units would partner with local forces to collect intelligence and secure specific areas. These local forces would in many cases be from non-Pashtun ethnic groups (Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras), which would limit their ability to be effective in the Pashtun areaa but would likely include at least a few Pashtun tribes that see more benefit working with the Afghan government and the United States than against them. Rather than serving an offensive purpose against al Qaeda like TF South and East, Special Forces would essentially serve a defensive purpose to secure Afghan allies and reassure them that the United States is not going to abandon them.
This reassurance and support of local allies is a crucial and underappreciated part of a small footprint posture. The non-Pashtun groups were the United States' critical allies in 2001 and remain staunchly opposed to the Taliban and other militants. The Tajiks of the Panjshir Valley, for example, are probably more anti-Taliban than the United States is. With U.S. support, these groups will be able to prevent the expansion of militants outside Pashtun areas. Local allies in Pashtun areas will enable collection of intelligence to support the task force operations. Supporting local allies does not mean abandoning the Afghan government any more than supporting local allies in the Awakening movement in Iraq's Anbar province meant abandoning the government of Iraq. Balancing the two will require some deftness and will be the focus of another post.
Finally, a few more "enablers," to use another military term of art, would be required. First, this posture would need some additional special operations personnel focused on intelligence collection, along with a substantial complement of intelligence community personnel to collect both human and signals intelligence. Second, it would require a substantial complement of unmanned aerial vehicles including Predators, Reapers, and a few other specialized types along with their support personnel. Third, a few AC-130 gunships for air support would be needed, along with combat search and rescue teams from Air Force Special Operations Command.
It should be clear that "small footprint" is a relative term. This special operations posture alone would be roughly five battalions of ground forces, four aviation squadrons, and a few odds and ends, probably in the neighborhood of 5,000 U.S. and NATO troops. In addition, a conventional force component would be needed to serve as a quick reaction force, provide security for the bases, and protect convoys. A conservative estimate for this force would be a brigade or regimental combat team, giving a battalion to each base, another 4,000, roughly. For additional air support, two squadrons of fighter-bombers (F-15E, A-10, etc.) would probably be sufficient, adding another 2,000 personnel.
Finally, my proposed posture would require additional staff, logistics, and support personnel (medical for instance), some but not all of which can be contractors, adding another 2,000 military personnel. This would be a total force of about 13,000 military personnel and some number of supporting intelligence community personnel and contractors. This is a high-end estimate, and some military personnel I have spoken to think this mission could be done with half this number of troops, but the posture described above errs on the side of caution. This is small compared to the current posture in Afghanistan, smaller still than the forces implied in Gen. McChrystal's report, and tiny compared to the peak number of forces in Iraq. On the other hand, it is vastly larger than any other purely counterterrorism deployment, and how we get there from here will be the subject of my next post.
Many, of course, will find even 6,000 to 13,000 troops to be too many. I'm not at all sure that I don't find it too many. But I'm not, whatever I read, any kind of professional military person nor military expert. I'm not going to prescribe any precise plan, tempting as it is to simply recommend that we go down to a Marine guard at an embassy, or not even that. But these notions of demonstration zones and smaller footprints strike me as one hell of a lot more practical, and far less open-ended, than any of the other proposals I've read. And even John Nagl writes of the ink spot strategy:
[...] The alternative requires not just more troops but a different strategy. After an area is cleared of insurgents, it must be held by Afghan troops supported by American advisers and combat multipliers, including artillery and air support. Inside this bubble of security, the Afghan government can re-establish control and build a better and more prosperous community with the help of a surge of American civilian advisers. Since 30,000 more troops won't be enough to secure the whole country, we'll have to select the most important population centers, such as Kabul and Kandahar, to secure first. These "oil spots" of security will then spread over time—a long time.
Let's finish our look at Dexter Filkins's piece:
[...] Last month, I visited Richard Haass, one of the idea’s chief proponents, at his office in New York, where he is president of the Council on Foreign Relations. (Before that, through June 2003, Haass was director of policy planning at the State Department under President George W. Bush.)
Haass is particularly persuasive, in part because he does not pretend to have easy answers. After eight years of mismanagement and neglect, Haass says, every choice the United States faces in Afghanistan is dreadful.
The weight of the evidence, he says, suggests that curtailing our ambitions is the option least dreadful. “It’s not self-evident that doing more will accomplish more,” Haass told me. “And I’m skeptical about how central Afghanistan is anymore to the global effort against terror. I’m not persuaded that you can transform the situation there.”
The bulk of Al Qaeda’s leadership, Haass pointed out, is now in Pakistan. That’s where the United States should really be focused — in Pakistan, with a population six times larger than Afghanistan’s and with at least 60 nuclear warheads. “No one wants Afghanistan to become a sponge that absorbs a disproportionate share of our country’s resources,” he said.
Let's not let Afghanistan continue to be a sponge to soak up a never-ending flow of the blood of our young women and men.
How bad could that get? In August of 2008, Brandon Friedman pointed out:
Afghanistan is now deadlier than Iraq ever was.
When the Iraq War reached its deadliest peak during a 10-week period in April, May, and June of 2007, 308 coalition troops died. That was 1 out of every 575 troops on the ground at the time.* It was a terrible period in which even the most die-hard Bush supporters began to question the sense in continuing the occupation. By contrast, 105 coalition troops have died in Afghanistan during the past 10 weeks. But because there are only 52,700 troops in Afghanistan, this represents 1 out of every 502 troops on the ground.
The war in Iraq--at its most violent peak--was never as dangerous for our troops as Afghanistan now is.
[...]
The fatality rate in Afghanistan during the past 10 weeks would be equivalent to 353 deaths in Iraq at the same time--a rate not even seen during the bloody crescendo of 2007.
[...] In August 2009, a soldier in Afghanistan was more than 16 times as likely to get killed as a soldier in Iraq. So far this year, 242 soldiers have died in Afghanistan compared to 128 in Iraq though there are just over half as many troops on the ground in Afghanistan.
In fact, Afghanistan is overall the more lethal conflict for soldiers on the ground, according to the analysis of the ratio of troop deaths from 2002 to September 2009, with an average monthly ratio of more than 42 deaths per 100,000 troops compared to 39 in Iraq. Though many more troops have died in Iraq -- 4349 compared to 873 in Afghanistan as of Monday -- the ratio remains higher in Afghanistan due to the far-smaller U.S. troop levels in that country. (The ratio still pales in comparison to previous wars -- by some estimates, the Vietnam War ratio of deaths per 100,000 was more than 10 times higher: 667.)
There are charts at that link.
How is our Army holding up, by the way? Sleight of hand semi-conceals the answer:
In fact, however, fewer people joined the Army this year than last year. The Army exceeded its recruitment goals not because recruitment went up but rather because recruitment goals were lowered.
See Kaplan's article for more details. Meanwhile, journalists prepare to say Goodbye Baghdad, Hello Kabul. And how's that drone war going in Afghanistan? Up to 320 Civilians Killed in Pakistan Drone War.
And we're still shaky on the intel -- not being so shaky is, you'll recall, one of the rationales for a large footprint in Afghanistan -- resulting in our killing al Qaeda leaders who inconveniently hold press conferences as to how they've alive.
If you'd like to consider an unconventional idea for the Afghanistan problem, how about turning it over to the Chinese?
[...] There's a fair bit to like in such a plan, for almost all concerned. The US gets out of a quagmire intact, China gets resources and the chance to act like a super-power. Russia gets regional stability, the other SCO nations get increased trade and the opportunity to act beneficially on the world stage. Pakistan gets strategic depth. The main losers would be Al Qaida, the Pakistani Taliban and India. The latter would need some pretty big economic carrots from China and America to swallow losing short-term influence in Afghanistan to its Chinese rival. But India would benefit too from removal of Pakistan's reasons to use proxies and in the longer term from the chance to grow into the super-power it should be without having to waste energy on Pakistan or China for at least a couple of decades.
Steve Hynd thinks the Chinese "will propose some solution along these lines sometime in the next 12 months." Check with him to see if he's taking bets. Another option:
[...] US and Western troops should leave. But because Afghanistan will remain dependent on international aid for development and security, troops cannot leave without something to fill the vacancy.
The solution? Muslim and regional states must fill the void.
[...]
The Organization of the Islamic Conference, the association of more than four dozen Muslim states, should set up an Afghanistan contact group, led by Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. The group would lead a coalition of Muslim states responsible for political reconciliation, peacekeeping, economic development, and governmental capacity building in Afghanistan.
Wealthy Muslim states such as Malaysia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates can provide funding. Members of NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes China and Russia, can also contribute donations and offer expertise.
But the military presence must be limited to personnel from Muslim states. Given Afghanistan's problematic relations with its neighbors, peacekeepers should come from nonneighboring Muslim states, including Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, and Turkey.
Many of those nations have valuable experience to offer. Bangladesh, for example, is a leading troop contributor to United Nations peacekeeping missions. Turkey (a NATO member) and the UAE already have a physical presence in Afghanistan. Peacekeeping in Afghanistan would be a natural extension of their present foreign missions.
Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey have the most developed bureaucracies and armies among Muslim states. They can help train the Afghan civil, foreign, and security services. A Muslim-led mission in Afghanistan would offer middle powers such as Egypt and Turkey an opportunity to revitalize regional leadership roles they once had. It would also provide regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia with a platform to constructively resolve a problem integral to their security concerns and interests.
And a number of international organizations, such as the Islamic Development Bank as well as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, should help continue to rebuild Afghanistan's economy.
Yeah, I'm not going to hold my breath on this, either.
But ultimately a huge American commitment of U.S. troops to Afghanistan is unsustainable.
The threat to the U.S. that we're allegedly suppressing is immensely unclear at best.
The cost that is being proposed we pay, in blood, and treasure, is far too high.
And fewer families should have to visit that chapel at Fort Carson.
-- Gary Farber, not Eric Martin. Many thanks to Eric for this opportunity!
First Gary, glad to read you; it's a nice change of pace reading and responding to a piece with meat on the bones. Of course that makes the response all the more fun*:
"The threat to the U.S. that we're allegedly suppressing is immensely unclear at best. The cost that is being proposed we pay, in blood, and treasure, is far too high."
As luck would have it, there's a good counterpoint to this on TNR today.
*Alas, today has turned into one of those tough work days for me -- so I won't be able to engage this as much as I'd like.
Posted by: Point | October 19, 2009 at 04:59 PM
For the record, I initially screwed up the paragraphing when I first posted this, but have now -- pshew -- finished fixing it all.
I hope.
It turns out that trying to format for both Blogger and Typepad simultaneously = not easiest thing in the world.
If anyone happens to find that I've gotten the paragraphing of anything off from the original articles, please point it out to me so I can fix it. Thanks.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 19, 2009 at 05:59 PM
Gary,
Great to see you here at Obsidian Wings, and I'm a big fan of your work.
But not a big fan of this whole "go deep" or "CT-only" strategy.
I'm going to articulate my own objections, not the objections of an imagined Obama Administration or what the U.S. has historically done, or what it should do. I can only defend my own position.
I'm for the McChrystal COIN strategy because:
1) It's the right thing to do for the Afghan people, including the Pashtuns, and it's what the majority of Afghans want. Polling in Afghanistan is hardly the most reliable, but every nationwide poll done indicates overwhelming preference of the Afghan people even for their own current incompetent government than for the Taliban. It also indicates big majorities in favor of continued presence of foreign troops. Foreign troops remain far more popular than the Taliban, even, and the Afghan National Army more popular than both.
2) I don't buy that the Taliban and al-Qaeda aren't buddies anymore. The Nightwatch article is assertion rather than fact. Peter Bergen writes up why at TNR here:
http://www.tnr.com/article/world/the-front
I'll point you specifically at the passages where Taliban fighters talk about the joint training and command with Arab fighters, which is drawn from this NEWSWEEK article:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/216235
Bergen also has extensive quotes from Mullah Dadullah, formerly the top Taliban field commander in 2005-2007, and numerous al-Qaeda figures. There has been absolutely no public break between Mullah Omar and bin Laden --- quite the opposite, in fact.
David Rohde's article makes clear that the Taliban have clearly grown more radical over time and under aerial assault in the FATA, not less.
Gotta run now, but I'll tack on a few more reasons later.
Posted by: tequila | October 19, 2009 at 06:04 PM
And here I was impressed at the length and breadth of your comments… ;)
In all seriousness though – it’s great to see you on the front page here Gary.
Posted by: OCSteve | October 19, 2009 at 06:09 PM
Steve, this was actually the short version. Really.
I cut all the stuff I had on the elections, and a couple of dozen more links, besides.
As it is, I expect it's only the exhaustion of a new infant that keeps Eric from flying in to kill me for taking advantage of the fact that -- as I'm sure he now regrets -- he forgot to give me a length limit. (Or if he did, I conveniently forgot.)
I should have another couple of posts tomorrow, but nothing quite so door-stoppy.
Assuming nothing goes wrong (I figured to be well finished with it by early this afternoon, but got hung up on stupid Typepad formatting issues for hours, instead), a hint on one: can we say "PATRIOT Act"?
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 19, 2009 at 06:24 PM
I read through the "leaked" McChrystal report today and found it a mix of good and bad.
The good: It recognizes that killing civilians is bad.
The bad: I'm not convinced that the next 12 months are dramatically more important than the prior 12 months (or the prior 8 years, frankly).
Had he written his report in 2007, I doubt he would have written: The next 24 months aren't very important and require no new strategy. The 12 months after that will be very significant.
The Ugly: Military acronyms, including CIVCAS -- for those who thought the term collateral damage was too sentimental.
Posted by: elm | October 19, 2009 at 06:35 PM
Bergen: "Though it may be tempting to think otherwise, we cannot defeat Al Qaeda without securing Afghanistan."
And Pakistan. And Somalia. And Yemen. And the South American terror triangle. And the unsecured militant regions of India. And all of Indonesia. And the Philippines. And Sudan. And everywhere on earth al Qaeda could flee.
Chasing this will-o'-the-wisp is what Osama bin Laden has said all along is his goal and strategy: why do we want to fulfill bin Laden's plan for him?
"But wouldn't the Taliban change its tune if it returned to power? Wouldn't Mullah Omar and his allies become deterrable in the same way that leaders of most other states are deterrable--and realize it is in their interest to drop Al Qaeda?"
This makes the mistake of treating the Taliban as a homogenous set of people, which they're not remotely. Which McChrystal and his aides know perfectly well.
In a section of this article I didn't quote for reasons of space:
Then there are all the local "Taliban," who vary from simple bandits and gangsters, to men who deeply resent foreign troops, to men who simply resent outside forces, as well as those with other motives.Bergen then answers his own question: "It's impossible to know for sure."
Yes, it is. But harking back to pre-September 11th, 2001, is no answer. That was then; this is now; circumstances are very different.
"The point about Somalia and Yemen is unconvincing. Jihadists based there have shown no ability to hit targets anywhere but in their immediate neighborhoods. Many years after September 11, there is scant evidence that any senior Al Qaeda leaders have relocated to either place."
Bergen wants to have his cake and eat it, too. He goes back to the days of the Taliban government sheltering bin Laden to use that as evidence of one point, and then blithely avoids mentioning that al Qaeda used to be based in Somalia until U.S. pressure forced bin Laden and company to leave Somalia for Afghanistan. This is hardly a small or irrelevant point.
And this point seems downright cuckoo: "For its part, Somalia is probably too anarchic, and possibly too African as well, for the largely middle-class Arab membership of Al Qaeda."
What, compared to Afghanistan? I'd laugh if it weren't such serious business. Instead I simply snort and dismiss such "logic."
I mean, Somalia already was al Qaeda's base. Add to that that the wilds of Afghanistan is hardly a comfy middle-class place.
Bergen then hand-waves Pakistan aside. Well, "[t]he point about Pakistan serving as a safe haven is a bit more complicated," he says. And argues that not conquering all of Afghanistan "will almost certainly give Al Qaeda new momentum and the greater freedom of action that an expanded geographical ambit will facilitate."
And then he doesn't mention Pakistan again.
Well, that takes care of that question.
Bergen then switches to arguing Afghan polling. Change subjects rapidly is not an argument.
Bergen concludes that Afghanistan "can be a peaceful nation again. And, if America is to keep Al Qaeda at bay, it must be."
But arguing backwards from a desirable goal is neither a plan nor an analysis of what's practical, nor a comparison of costs versus benefits. It's simply assuming a conclusion. We call that "begging the question."
Which is, to say: a fallacy.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 19, 2009 at 07:49 PM
Excellent collection of different views. I've been trying to get a post up at TiO, but distractions abound.
I'm really glad to see the Chinese mentioned along with a look at this from a different perspective. The question I see is if someone doesn't step up, is it in the long term interest of the US to have a vacuum of power in Afghanistan? A lot of our debates have simply viewed this as a two player game and it is not.
While tequila has a similar position to mine, I don't necessarily agree completely with the assumptions some of the sources he notes bring. If one accepts that there will be some kind of US military presence in Afghanistan, what HRC asked becomes relevant:
"If the President decides not to send more troops to Afghanistan, morally, can he still keep 68,000 U.S. troops there?"
Given that I don't see how we can imagine a complete and total withdrawal from Afghanistan, I hope it's understandable why I have argued for following the McChrystal plan.
There was also this in the NYTimes, there was this about the Taliban's financial network.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have imposed an elaborate system to tax the cultivation, processing and shipment of opium, as well as other crops like wheat grown in the territory they control, American and Afghan officials say. In the Middle East, Taliban leaders have sent fund-raisers to Arab countries to keep the insurgency’s coffers brimming with cash.
While the article goes on to argue that because everything is so cheap there, it may be impossible to do anything about it, I take that to mean that plans to disrupt these networks from a distance are illusory at best. Any attempt to address the problem is going to require engagement on multiple fronts, and to my mind, withdrawal is the opposite of this.
A lot of our discussions also treat Afghanistan as a singular entity rather than looking at the possibility of choosing particular areas of Afghanistan to make an impact. Frex, Japan recently dispatched a small number of civilian staff to a Provincial reconstruction team in Ghowr province (where the Lithuanian contingent is based), which led the PRT commander, Colonel Alvydas Siuparis, to note that “provinces like Ghowr [are] in need of greater support from international community than what it [receives at the] moment: being relatively more peaceful than surrounding regions, Ghowr does not always attract all the attention necessary for development of vital sectors.” (via Shingetsu Institute)
I'd also like to mention the new Japanese PM's recent discussions with Obama which put forward agricultural and job training support. It is impossible to imagine these kind of initiatives taking place alongside a commitment to a withdrawal to the levels where Americans wouldn't be in harm's way. The link isn't the best, but the most detailed discussions are in Japanese and are tied to Japan cancelling the refueling mission in the Indian ocean.
To make this a question about defeating the Taliban puts too narrow a focus on this. The problem is not what arises in the conditions that are found in Afghanistan, but the conditions themselves. It does not seem a coincidence that India is dealing with its own indigenous rebels, who claim a much different belief system than the Taliban. Not meaning to be too unserious, the phrase 'It's hard to remember your goal was to drain the swamp when you up to your ass in alligators' is what I find myself thinking. If you believe that draining the swamp is a vital task, you deal with the alligators. If you don't think it important and can be left for someone else to handle down the road, you leave it be. I can understand arguments that say the alligators are piled too high, but I don't like arguments that dismiss the problem of the swamp.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | October 19, 2009 at 07:53 PM
reply hung up in sp-m folder. if someone could release it, I'd appreciate it.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | October 19, 2009 at 08:14 PM
"There has been absolutely no public break between Mullah Omar and bin Laden"
Who has claimed there has been?
elm: good point.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 19, 2009 at 08:30 PM
elm: good point
Gary, nice to hear from you, great post.
Posted by: Marty | October 19, 2009 at 08:42 PM
Took a moment's look and thought to figure out how to do that, LJ, but done.
"...is it in the long term interest of the US to have a vacuum of power in Afghanistan?"
Easily answered: no, it isn't.
But innumerable things in the world aren't in the long term interest of the U.S.
"Given that I don't see how we can imagine a complete and total withdrawal from Afghanistan, I hope it's understandable why I have argued for following the McChrystal plan."
How does Austin Long's plan, which I quoted at length, equate to "a complete and total withdrawal from Afghanistan"? Ditto the idea in general, as outlined by Fred Kaplan, of demonstration zones?
I'm also rather unclear why you're quoting Eric Schmitt's article to me when I quoted it at length in my post, above, starting with "Eric Schmitt describes the diversity of Taliban funding today...."
"A lot of our discussions also treat Afghanistan as a singular entity rather than looking at the possibility of choosing particular areas of Afghanistan to make an impact."
This is exactly what I didn't do. Your reply seems oddly unresponsive to what I wrote.
"If you don't think it important and can be left for someone else to handle down the road, you leave it be. I can understand arguments that say the alligators are piled too high, but I don't like arguments that dismiss the problem of the swamp."
If you could quote the sentences in which I did this, I'd appreciate it.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 19, 2009 at 08:43 PM
"...it takes one back to Part II."
Thanks muchly for pointing that out, Jay C. Fixed.
I blame the stupid Typepad software which doesn't actually show you HTML, or let you hand-type it, unless you use the alternative where it inserts vast amounts of its own HTML, which makes it even more almost-impossible to write your own HTML unless you're one heck of a lot more expert at HTML than I am.
(In fairness, Blogger is now offering an "upgraded" editor that works the same stupid way; both prevent using simple, hand-written, HTML, and seem to assume that users are either complete idiots, or immensely expert at HTML, leaving no middle ground possible; but at least Blogger still offers the "upgrade" only as an option, and leaves the simple version available, as well -- though not if you want to make use of more recent templates, sigh.)
Honestly, though I'm going to be completely understanding of anyone who takes to breaking into software company offices and putting guns to the heads of executives and saying stop complicating your software -- it's not an "improvement."
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 19, 2009 at 09:26 PM
elm: "The bad: I'm not convinced that the next 12 months are dramatically more important than the prior 12 months (or the prior 8 years, frankly)."
One of those various links/articles I didn't work in was this, by A. J. Rossmiller, which includes:
Just to expand upon my "good point." :-)Posted by: Gary Farber | October 19, 2009 at 09:44 PM
A few other pieces I'd have worked in, if not for already being overlong, but responsive to LJ's comments about agricultural and job training support, and the general need for foreign civilian support.
The Civilian Surge Myth: The U.S. needs to stop pretending it can do nation-building:
See also Civilian Goals Largely Unmet in Afghanistan and Civilian, Military Officials at Odds Over Resources Needed for Afghan Mission.Posted by: Gary Farber | October 19, 2009 at 09:51 PM
Thanks Gary. Very impressive amounts of research. I do think the million dollar question is what the Taliban would do with AQ if they reestablished control.
thx for helping out!
Posted by: publius | October 19, 2009 at 11:13 PM
"Very impressive amounts of research."
Not research, actually; research is going out and looking for stuff. I just bookmarked stuff I read, and narrowed it down a great deal to what I could squeeze into something resembling a narrative.
As to the question, I think the many different people in the many different factions of the Taliban would do very different things from each other as regards the various factions of al Qaeda.
None of them, in my view, seems to call for the U.S. spending trillions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of soldiers at a time, losing thousands of soldiers per year, and spending many decades, to prevent any of them from happening.
Not when we have the rest of the world to pay attention to, as well.
Thanks muchly for kind words.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 19, 2009 at 11:24 PM
Some opinions about the Taliban/al Qaeda relationship from Anand Gopal.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 19, 2009 at 11:32 PM
Gary, a lot of people are going to be citing Peter Bergen on the alleged Taliban/AQ leadership alliance soon. In advance, I'll tell you that Leah Farrall, a former Aussie police expert on AQ and CT ops fact-checked Bergen today - and he was left wanting.
Great post, though.
Regards, Steve
Posted by: Steve Hynd | October 20, 2009 at 12:41 AM
The next question is who is involved with and who is dominating the decision making process. So far I have actually been surprised at the willingness of the adminstration to wait on making a final decision for troop deployment. Is this play or is this an agreement that things aren't so easily decided?
Posted by: SusanF | October 20, 2009 at 01:13 AM
Thanks for releasing my comment and sorry about missing the Schmitt quote,, splitting the post over two posts makes it hard for me to remember what you quoted and what I am remembering. Trying to take your points in order
"...is it in the long term interest of the US to have a vacuum of power in Afghanistan?"
Easily answered: no, it isn't.
But innumerable things in the world aren't in the long term interest of the U.S.
But is there another region that is in the shape that Afghanistan is in that has our fingerprints all over it?
Long's plan is good, but might it not be better if more US troops were put in areas where they could provide security for humanitarian projects? How would a plan that aims for the smallest possible footprint encourage other countries to help with rebuilding and humanitarian aid?
I'd also point out that what Kaplan has proposed is basically the same as what I have said in several comments to Eric (here for an example). However, as this discussion has developed on this blog, those caveats have been ignored, so my reply should be taken as a reply to the wider discussion rather than just to your points. I have to admit, I don't remember precisely what plan Eric as put forward as acceptable, but my impression is that he has argued for a withdrawal with all due haste. You seem to support that view when you conclude with
But ultimately a huge American commitment of U.S. troops to Afghanistan is unsustainable.
If I've unfairly conflated your viewpoint with Eric's, my apologies, but that's one of the dangers of group blogging ;^)
I also appreciate the civilian surge article. That actually underlines a point that I have made several times, that if security is not established (note the lack of an agent in that sentence), it is impossible to imagine a civilian surge doing anything. In fact, I feel like this could have been in any one of my comments
If we are unwilling to pay the price for a serious civilian capability--and admit that foisting the job of development and political assistance on the military is a bad idea--the only option is to alter our basic strategy.
However, I don't see any other organization with the capabilities and capacity, or the hierarchical structure, to carry out such a plan. So I have consistently argued that we have to find a way to retask the military to do this. I certainly understand that the military isn't going to 'want' to do this, as one commentor pointed out, but I really don't see any alternative, if we are serious about our commitments and our responsibilities.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | October 20, 2009 at 08:51 AM
"Long's plan is good, but might it not be better if more US troops were put in areas where they could provide security for humanitarian projects? How would a plan that aims for the smallest possible footprint encourage other countries to help with rebuilding and humanitarian aid?"
Short answer, LJ: the sum of what I pointed to/suggested/proposed isn't to go for "the smallest possible footprint."
The "smallest possible footprint" would indeed be the kind of complete pullout you abhor. Or we could just stay in Kabul and train troops there.
The proposal, or set of proposals, I outlined, is intead to choose certain areas of Afghanistan where sympathies already lie largely with the government, and proceed to give these limited areas -- demonstration zones -- lots of humanitarian aid, while maintaining security, and let these areas become relative flowers of good government and flourishing economics.
And when Afghans elsewhere see these fruits of success, they'll ask for such benefits to be extended to their areas, and they'll actively want help from Kabul and NATO and foreign aid workers.
And when and if enough Afghans start clamoring for such help and success to be extended to their areas, support for the Taliban forces will wither, and slowly die. The idea is that such Taliban territory will slowly become smaller and smaller, and slip out of their hands.
The whole point of COIN is to accomplish that: win hearts and minds, and kill as few of the "enemy" as possible, because, as McChrystal has stated many times, every time you kill an Afghan, no matter that he's Taliban or al Qaeda, you generate ten times more new enemies.
This is McChrystal's plan; I simply question the need to go all out in huge areas of the country with a major expansion of U.S. troops that won't be sustainable for very long, and who, when they will have to leave, won't have left areas that can be held, and thus will simply, in the mid-term and longer-term, provide more examples of the failures of the foreigners and the Kabul regime.
That would be counter-productive in a huge way.
And help isn't something you can force on people: they have to want it.
To be sure, the key flaw in this idea is that it's still dependent on the Kabul government, whether of Karzai or some "unity" government, somehow magically changing into a relatively non-corrupt, relatively effective, government, in the near future, and I remain deeply pessimistic about this, as there are no signs whatever that Karzai has such a capacity, or interest.
If you haven't read Elizabeth Rubin's Karzai in His Labyrinth, I urge you to, for a picture of just what a dithering mess Karzai has proven to me. (Yes, I've linked to and recommended a whole lot of articles: what can I say, but that the more info one has, the more perspective one has.)
The bottom line is that we can't do anything beyond what's sustainable in the long term of many many years. Everyone agrees that if there's any chance of improving things in Afghanistan that it's a project of many years, and ultimately decades.
Any realistic plan has to accept this as a basis.
So any commitment, be it military or civilian, American, NATO, Japanese, or from anywhere, has to be set up with a very long-term view that's realistically sustainable, unless the idea is to simply pay foremost attention to domestic policy at home, and keep punting the problem with short-term palliatives as best you can.
And that's why I believe that an attempt to massively extend government control throughout much or all of Afghanistan in the immediate short term of the next two years or so is both immensely unlikely to succeed in the short run, or sustainable in the long run if we try to do it all at once.
If there's any chance at all of long-term success, nobody should bite off more than they can chew, and starting (as we are doing now: restarting) with a realistic plan for what can realistically be accomplished in the short term, and then, and only then, expanding as possible with a sustainable commitment of forces -- which can't be huge -- seems to me to be the only practical way to proceed, short of that which you abhor, a total or near-total pull-out.
And to underline one last time: if there isn't a decent government in Kabul, any effort from outside Afghanistan truly is doomed to failure, no matter what else we do, or how much we don't like it. Afghanistan belongs to Afghans; foreigners can't remake it on our own. Thinking otherwise is classic American hubris.
I hope this goes some way towards answering your question.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 20, 2009 at 09:35 AM
Gary, no offense to Eric, but I hope you stick around these parts for a while -- and don't worry too much about the long posts. A subject like this deserves a little more than a couple of paragraphs (or whatever the limit is).
I'll start with the positive -- I greatly appreciate Gary's breakdown of the Taliban in his 7:49 comment. Am I right to conclude from that analysis that it's just the HQN faction that's still keeping ties to AQ?
"But arguing backwards from a desirable goal is neither a plan nor an analysis of what's practical, nor a comparison of costs versus benefits."
First, I fully grant that Bergen gives far too little attention to the question of whether "victory" is possible.
Whether this is a "desirable goal" or a "national security priority" is a key part of this discussion. If denying AQ sanctuary in Afghanistan is key to denying them the means to carrying out massive attacks against other nations, than that goal becomes more than "desirable", and it is proper to start by saying "Here's what we need to do".
"He goes back to the days of the Taliban government sheltering bin Laden to use that as evidence of one point, and then blithely avoids mentioning that al Qaeda used to be based in Somalia until U.S. pressure forced bin Laden and company to leave Somalia for Afghanistan. This is hardly a small or irrelevant point."
Yes, the US managed to pressure Somalia into forcing out bin Laden before they had committed a MTA. But that only strengthens the argument that AQ couldn't relocate there -- to this day (as I understand it) the ICU has stated that OBL and his like would not be welcome in Africa's horn.
In fact, it looks like the only regime or local power willing to give AQ sanctuary are the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- and only factions are maintaining ties at that.
Well, at any rate, in the realm of matter, it looks like I'm once again at the start of a full day, so I've only got a few minutes. I seriously envy you guys who are getting so much deeper into this. I'll get back to you when I can.
Posted by: Point | October 20, 2009 at 09:47 AM
Quick catch up:
There's a lot I like in Gary's last comment. Definitely worth some thought.
Also, TBC, I'm not sold on McChrystal's analysis -- many of the doubts have already been raised here (why now?, etc).
Posted by: Point | October 20, 2009 at 10:01 AM
No time for more, but I'll just say this: I think it's a bit telling that Gary has mistaken Somalia for Sudan in his analysis.
Posted by: tequila | October 20, 2009 at 11:12 AM
Gary, you pointed to Austin Long's proposal, which is for 13,000 troops. It puts the elite forces, Green Berets, Navy Seals, Army Rangers there. We can argue what 'smallest' means, but a force like that is the military equivalent of never having to say you are sorry...
As I've stated in the comments, I am with you 100% about not thinking that we should be dealing with Afghanistan as a whole, and I think that I've stated something very similar to this
The proposal, or set of proposals, I outlined, is intead to choose certain areas of Afghanistan where sympathies already lie largely with the government, and proceed to give these limited areas -- demonstration zones -- lots of humanitarian aid, while maintaining security, and let these areas become relative flowers of good government and flourishing economics.
Perhaps it is my lack of clarity, but that suggestion has been met with skepticism, if not outright ridicule, yet, as you say, it is the only way to proceed. And if we proceed in that way, we had better not try to do it on the cheap. Yet much of the discussion here has failed to acknowledge that we are going to have a presence in Afghanistan whether you like it or not, so cutting down to a small, if not smallest footprint is creating a situation that is completely the opposite of the MacChrystal recs.
Certainly, McChrystal's report mentions 'country wide', but there are hints that a dividing of Afghanistan is acceptable. For instance, take this
An isolating geography and a natural aversion to foreign intervention further works against ISAF. Historical grievances reinforce connections to tribal or ethnic identity and can diminish the appeal of a centralized state. All ethnicities, particularly the Pashtuns, have traditionally sought a degree of independence from the central government, particularly when it is not seen as acting in the best interests of the population. These and other factors result in elements of the population tolerating the insurgency and calling to push out foreigners.
I suspect that something like that is being discussed, but for obvious reasons, partitioning Afghanistan is the strategy that dare not speak its name.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | October 20, 2009 at 11:32 AM
"No time for more, but I'll just say this: I think it's a bit telling that Gary has mistaken Somalia for Sudan in his analysis."
I accidentally wrote bin Laden had been in Somalia, rather than Sudan, and the latter, of course, is correct, and the former incorrect, yes. You are welcome to draw any conclusions you like from such an accidental substitution.
I suggest that if you believe I actually am unfamiliar with the history of either country, or bin Laden's history in Sudan, or that I actually have the countries confused, you are mistaken, but you remain welcome to come to any conclusions you wish to, of course.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 20, 2009 at 11:36 AM
And a quicker drop still:
"No time for more, but I'll just say this: I think it's a bit telling that Gary has mistaken Somalia for Sudan in his analysis."
Well, seeing as I went along with the confusion, I feel something of a goof for it not hitting me -- I mean, I know this stuff! I guess you could put it to my stressed morning overall, but that doesn't really put me at ease.
Posted by: Point | October 20, 2009 at 12:11 PM
"David Rohde's article makes clear that the Taliban have clearly grown more radical over time and under aerial assault in the FATA, not less."
So far, David Rodhe's quite interesting account makes clear that he met a handful of low level Taliban people, viewed at a distance a lot of members of the Haqqani network, met one local leader, Abu Tayyeb, and and met one senior commander of the Haqqani network, Badruddin Haqqani. I'm unclear just how far anyone can reasonably generalize about everyone who fights for the Taliban from that, but I do think it doesn't at all extend to everyone who fights for the Taliban.
Rhode does say of Abu Tayyeb that: "One morning, he wept at news that a NATO airstrike had killed women and children in southern Afghanistan. A guard explained to me that Abu Tayyeb reviled the United States because of the civilian deaths."
Rhode does say of his guards that "They all had relatives or friends who had been killed by Soviet or American troops. They grew up in a culture where teenage boys reached manhood and made a name for themselves by showing their bravery."
He also says: "Their rigidity was the opposite of the tolerant attitudes I had found among the vast majority of Muslims I had met in Afghanistan and Pakistan."
And: "I realized that he and other fighters might be exaggerating their views to frighten me. The virulence I saw among the Haqqani foot soldiers was not as monolithic as it sometimes seemed."
And: "DURING our months in Miram Shah, patterns emerged. When certain commanders visited, the atmosphere was tense, and discussions centered on what they saw as Western injustices against Muslims. When we were alone with the guards who lived with us, moments of levity emerged."
And his closing part of today's third installment:
Point: "Am I right to conclude from that analysis that it's just the HQN faction that's still keeping ties to AQ?"No, I think it's fair to say that the Quetta shura/Mullah Omar's outfit is still keeping ties to al Qaeda. How significant the ties are in either case, or how strong, or how much agreement within the Afghan groups versus dissension there might be, I certainly don't feel competent to speak to. I find most assertions that I've read in either direction unconvincing, as yet.
I find a lot of sure assertions by foreigners about Afghanistan, and what significant numbers of various groups are thinking, unconvincing, as I often find sure assertions about rather opague people far far away, unconvincing.
Such surety of views too often tends to be more a mark of either a little knowledge being a dangerous thing, or someone needing to sell a convincing article, or justify a well-paying think tank/military/political/academic/expert/blogger position, in my view.
LJ: "...so cutting down to a small, if not smallest footprint is creating a situation that is completely the opposite of the MacChrystal recs."
It's the opposite of a key element of McChrystal's recommendations, yes. He had a lot to say, and in sum, I've agreed with some of what he said, and disagreed with other parts.
"I suspect that something like that is being discussed, but for obvious reasons, partitioning Afghanistan is the strategy that dare not speak its name."
I don't disagree, but I'd note that temporary focus on some areas doesn't amount to any kind of long-term partition; it simply amounts to doing what you can where you reasonably can, and seeing what comes of it. I certainly don't see that as necessarily amounting to anything like, say, the armistice agreement with North Korea, and think any such longterm outcome is pretty unlikely.
(Not that you were asserting such an outcome, exactly, but I'm trying to continue to clarify the borders of my views.)
A sort of "rolling partition" that one would hope expands outwards with minimal fighting, as the locals come to seek the aid and security that, one would hope, the central government could eventually supply, might not be a completely unfair restating of what I'm suggesting, though.
But I always have to keep returning to my caveat that if a central government that is vaguely competent, not terribly corrupt, and more and more seen as legitimate, can't be assembled, most any kind of project beyond very limited humanitarian aid seems hopeless. And right now there aren't great signs of such a government emerging.
One can only hope that will change in the near or midterm future, but the need for such change is within a matter of months, at most, not years.
This doesn't make me optimistic.
I'd love to be pleasantly surprised in the next six months.
Certainly as unsteady and unstable and still highly violent as Iraq remains -- and much though I don't think whatever the future will bring retroactively justifies the U.S. invasion and its cost both to Iraqis and ourselves -- Iraq in recent months has made more progress than I'd thought most likely. I've never held myself out as someone who is a seer, or necessarily gets foreign policy critiques right. Indeed, I've been completely wrong on the most serious of issues on at least two critical occasions.
I'm just a guy with an armchair, and I'm ready to use it at times. (No pajamas, though.)
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 20, 2009 at 12:18 PM
Actually, it's more of an old-fashioned wooden office chair, and rather uncomfortable, to boot. My more modern office chair in Boulder was more comfortable, though not perfectly so, but I couldn't afford to ship it. I know everyone wanted to know this.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 20, 2009 at 12:19 PM
Steve Hynd, as always, you give great link. That Leah Farrall piece at All Things Counter Terrorism is indeed tremendously interesting.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 20, 2009 at 12:36 PM
"I find a lot of sure assertions by foreigners about Afghanistan, and what significant numbers of various groups are thinking, unconvincing, as I often find sure assertions about rather opague people far far away, unconvincing."
Fair enough -- though, given our involvement, I wouldn't think it a bad thing that we're trying to understand them, even if it will always be riddled with uncertainty.
Posted by: Point | October 20, 2009 at 12:37 PM
There's trying to understand them, and trying to sound as if you know you understand them.
To be sure, I might be engaging in some of the latter, myself, but I want to be clear that I know I'm just a guy who reads a lot of books and a lot of articles, who speaks no other language than English, and hasn't traveled off the North American continent, and that's all.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 20, 2009 at 12:45 PM
I completely get you, Gary*.
Also, FWIW, my day got a lot lighter, so I can give this thread some attention for the next couple of hours (yay!).
*If that's not too assuming ;)
Posted by: Point | October 20, 2009 at 12:57 PM
Once again an excellent post. As a muslim-American I know first hand how counterproductive this "permanent war" strategy really is. I can only hope Gary is being tongue-in-cheek about China, however, as that would be disastrous for all concerned.
Posted by: Ali H. | October 20, 2009 at 01:09 PM
On a related matter*:
"Can the government in Kabul become one that most Afghans regard as legitimate? That is the antepenultimate question... The penultimate question is: if so, can we help the government in Kabul become that legitimate government?"
Does Karzai's agreement to have a runoff election affect how we answer these questions?
*Actually, if you just want to do a separate post for this, that's cool too.
Posted by: Point | October 20, 2009 at 01:34 PM
On a related matter*:
"Can the government in Kabul become one that most Afghans regard as legitimate? That is the antepenultimate question... The penultimate question is: if so, can we help the government in Kabul become that legitimate government?"
Does Karzai's agreement to have a run-off affect how we answer these questions?
*Gary, if you want to do this in a different post, that's cool too.
Posted by: Point | October 20, 2009 at 01:37 PM
Gah, double post!
Posted by: Point | October 20, 2009 at 01:52 PM
Gah, double post!
Posted by: Point | October 20, 2009 at 02:02 PM
"Does Karzai's agreement to have a runoff election affect how we answer these questions?"
I think it very much remains to be seen how meaningful -- or not -- the election is.
I'm skeptical it will be particularly meaningful, regardless of the results.
Specifically, if Abdullah Abdullah somehow wins the run-off, I'll be immensely surprised.
Even if he somehow did -- and astonished might be a better word for my reaction if he does -- what difference he'd make seems to me a completely open question.
Could he somehow, by dint of the very limited powers of the Afghan presidency, grossly lessen corruption, make the government vastly more effective, deal with the powers of the many tribes and warlords, and otherwise make a huge difference?
I wouldn't say it's impossible, but it seems to be a considerable stretch to assume that he could do much of that, even if he were to win, which, well, I won't repeat myself.
Maybe, if Abdullah Abdullah wins, he could convene another loya jirga, appoint a whole new, strong, supportive, cabinet, change the local governors for the better, make major changes to greatly reduce corruption in Kabul and in the countryside/provinces, etc.
Maybe. But I don't know any reason to assume that would happen.
Meanwhile, I don't know any reason to think that Abdullah Abdullah would win an honest run-off.
So if Karzai wins, after an "honest" run-off election, in which much of the country still doesn't vote, and tribes and clans still remain tribes and clans, is Karzai suddenly going to become much more capable than he's been for the last five years? Is he suddenly going to start cleaning up corruption, and etc., see above?
Y'know, maybe, but I'd want to see some evidence of this happening -- some strong evidence -- before I start putting much credence or hope in the idea.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 20, 2009 at 02:05 PM
"So if Karzai wins, after an "honest" run-off election, in which much of the country still doesn't vote, and tribes and clans still remain tribes and clans, is Karzai suddenly going to become much more capable than he's been for the last five years? Is he suddenly going to... grossly lessen corruption, make the government vastly more effective, deal with the powers of the many tribes and warlords, and otherwise make a huge difference?"
I'm wondering if the Kabul government needs to be "effective", in this sense, for it to be legitimate -- after all, prior to the Soviet invasion, the country had a widely accepted, though highly decentralized, government.
Now, to keep from double posting...
"So if Karzai wins, after an "honest" run-off election..."
Damn it! ;)
Posted by: Point | October 20, 2009 at 02:46 PM
Rohde's analysis is an excellent picture of what some senior and junior level Haqqani network people are thinking and what they're like. The picture is that they are quite politically extreme and unwilling to compromise, and their worldview doesn't have much room for an Afghanistan with either a Western presence or a non-Taliban government.
And for all the relative tolerance of the rank and file for Rohde's singing of the Beatles, the commanders are the ones who set the tone and give the orders, and they are quite extreme.
As Rohde himself summarizes:
Over those months, I came to a simple realization. After seven years of reporting in the region, I did not fully understand how extreme many of the Taliban had become. Before the kidnapping, I viewed the organization as a form of “Al Qaeda lite,” a religiously motivated movement primarily focused on controlling Afghanistan.
Living side by side with the Haqqanis’ followers, I learned that the goal of the hard-line Taliban was far more ambitious. Contact with foreign militants in the tribal areas appeared to have deeply affected many young Taliban fighters. They wanted to create a fundamentalist Islamic emirate with Al Qaeda that spanned the Muslim world.
Posted by: tequila | October 20, 2009 at 03:35 PM
"I'm wondering if the Kabul government needs to be 'effective', in this sense, for it to be legitimate -- after all, prior to the Soviet invasion, the country had a widely accepted, though highly decentralized, government."
The uprising against the communist government began significantly before the Soviet invasion; it's what caused the Soviet invasion.
I'm going to assume that what you actually mean is either the Mohammed Daoud Khan government which ran from his coup in 1973 until the Saur Revolution of 1978, or to Mohammed Zahir Shah's, the last king/shah of Afghanistan, regime, which ran from 1933 until 1973.
tequila: "And for all the relative tolerance of the rank and file for Rohde's singing of the Beatles, the commanders [of the Haqqani network] are the ones who set the tone and give the orders, and they are quite extreme."
Yes, I'm sure most of them are.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 20, 2009 at 04:01 PM
"are referring to" would have been a better choice of words, Point, than "actually mean." Sorry about that.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 20, 2009 at 04:02 PM
The Leah Farrell blog is pretty interesting stuff, but I think she is perhaps focusing a bit too much on AQ's command structure alone. Arguing that AQ only numbers, at most, a few hundred and focusing on those who have sworn the blood oath to bin Laden as amir underestimates the foreign fighter phenomenon in the Taliban, I think.
The Taliban oral history article in NEWSWEEK mentions Arab fighters directly integrated into the training and equipping structure, and Arabs in command of Taliban forces in the field. Are these necessarily al-Qaeda hardcore? That's hard to know. They may be more loosely organized than that, not directly part of AQ but certainly affiliated, and certainly jihadist.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/216235/output/print
At first I didn't hear the Afghans talking about going back to fight. But the Arabs did, and they encouraged the Afghans and the local tribal people not to give up. Nothing much happened for the first year or so, but then the Arabs started organizing some training camps. The first one I heard about was at Shin Warsak village, near Wana. When I had some time off from school, I decided to visit. I was really impressed. There was more than one camp. One was run by Arabs, and another by Chechens and Uzbeks.
Thanks to my madrassa studies I could speak Arabic; I made friends with Egyptians, Saudis, Libyans, and Yemenis. Nek Mohammad Wazir [a pro-Taliban Pakistani tribal leader who was killed by a June 2004 Predator strike] gave the Arabs places to train and access to weapons and other supplies. They moved openly on the main roads and in the towns and villages, showing no concern about security. I decided to leave my studies and join their resistance.
...
In our camp there were about 150 Arabs, along with some Afghans, Chechens, and local tribal militants. The Arab instructors taught us how to fire Kalashnikovs, especially in close-range fighting; how to gather intelligence on the enemy; and how to fire mortars and rockets accurately. It was a friendly place; we all felt a commitment to help and sacrifice for each other. At the start of 2003, the weather became bitterly cold, and the camp closed. But the commander called me back that March. He told me he was working with Nek Mohammad to arrange for one of the first cross-border attacks against American forces in Afghanistan. Even with Nek Mohammad's help, we only had usable weapons for 50 of the roughly 200 mujahedin who had been trained. But 50 of us—a couple dozen Arabs, three or four Afghans like myself, and some Waziri and Mehsud tribals—were armed and ready to go.
...
The first thing I learned was to shoot, field-strip, and maintain an AK-47. Then we did ambush and guerrilla-war exercises day and night in the hills. The Arabs taught us how to make an IED by mixing nitrate fertilizer and diesel fuel, and how to pack plastic explosives and to connect them to detonators and remote-control devices like mobile phones. We learned how to do this blindfolded so we could safely plant IEDs in the dark.
...
We were divided up into 10 groups. Each had two or three Arabs assigned to it as commanders and instructors.
...
Arab and Iraqi mujahedin began visiting us, transferring the latest IED technology and suicide-bomber tactics they had learned in the Iraqi resistance during combat with U.S. forces. The American invasion of Iraq was very positive for us. It distracted the United States from Afghanistan. Until 2004 or so, we were using traditional means of fighting like we used against the Soviets—AK-47s and RPGs. But then our resistance became more lethal, with new weapons and techniques: bigger and better IEDs for roadside bombings, and suicide attacks.
...
Those first groups crossing the border were almost totally sponsored, organized, and led by Arab mujahedin. The Afghan Taliban were weak and disorganized. But slowly the situation began to change.
To be fair, the one fighter who seems to really dislike the Arabs also says:
Our jihad is more solid and deep than individual commanders and fighters—and we are not dependent on foreigners, on the ISI [Pakistan's intelligence agency], or Al Qaeda. Personally I think all this talk about Al Qaeda being strong is U.S. propaganda. As far as I know, Al Qaeda is weak, and they are few in numbers. Now that we control large amounts of territory, we should have a strict code of conduct for any foreigners working with us. We can no longer allow these camels to roam freely without bridles and control.
For those who laugh at the idea that American troops on the ground cannot gather intel in Afghanistan:
That base on top of the mountain [in Barge Matal] had to go. The Americans there were monitoring our phone calls and walkie-talkies, and they ran intelligence operations with Afghan spies from there. So [last June] we began carefully planning an attack.
Posted by: tequila | October 20, 2009 at 05:17 PM
I also agree with Spencer Ackerman here.
"For those who laugh at the idea that American troops on the ground cannot gather intel in Afghanistan...."
I take it as read that you mean can gather intel, but I don't know anyone who asserts that American troops can't gather any intel.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 20, 2009 at 05:56 PM
""are referring to" would have been a better choice of words, Point, than "actually mean." Sorry about that."
No worries -- FWIW Mohammed Zahir Shah was who I had in mind.
Posted by: Point | October 20, 2009 at 07:36 PM
Run-off on November 7th.
"'I call upon this country to take this as an opportunity to move this country forward and participate in this new round of elections,' Mr. Karzai said, according to the English translation of his remarks, adding that he was grateful to the international community for its help."
Only a cynic might doubt that Karzai was thrilled to have massive fraud revealed and reported upon, a third of his votes taken away, and be forced into a run-off, by foreign pressure.
"'Unfortunately, the election of Afghanistan was defamed,' Mr. Karzai said. 'Any result that we were getting out of it was not able to bring legitimacy.'"
Defamation has to be an untrue claim.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 20, 2009 at 08:08 PM
Sorry, this bothered me a bit, so I wanted to comment on it, though it was a ways back.
only then, expanding as possible with a sustainable commitment of forces -- which can't be huge -- seems to me to be the only practical way to proceed, short of that which you abhor, a total or near-total pull-out.
I want to underline that it is not what I abhor, it is what I think is unavoidable. I imagine that at least a combat brigade would remain in Afghanistan, along with the necessary logistical tail. Long posits 13,000 elite troops there, and as the numbers reduce, the units stationed there would be compelled to adopt a more defensive posture. This could lead to another Marine barracks type attack, it could lead to a steady trickle of casualties. Either way, it is not a pretty thought.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | October 21, 2009 at 07:45 AM
The pressure on Karzai to hold a run-off:
More there.Posted by: Gary Farber | October 21, 2009 at 10:10 AM
Defamation has to be an untrue claim.
At common law, truth was no defense to a charge of seditious libel. A true accusation is frequently more damaging than a false one.
Posted by: I Hate Chavs | October 21, 2009 at 11:07 AM
"At common law, truth was no defense to a charge of seditious libel."
In the common law of Wales and England until overturned by section 6 of the Libel Act 1843 (defense of justification for the public benefit).
Since we're not living in in 1842 or earlier, the relevance of this is unclear to me. To be sure, I have no idea what Afghan law says about defamation.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 21, 2009 at 08:26 PM
And we can't defeat al Qaeda without obliterating them in Mali.
The list goes ever on.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 22, 2009 at 09:55 AM
From the look of it, the Mali government is handling AQ in their territory fine enough.
If keeping the organization down means continuing military aid, I wouldn't be too concerned -- especially if, while we're at it, we back it up with civilian and economic aid.
Posted by: Point | October 22, 2009 at 10:17 AM
In which Nicholas Kristof agrees with me.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 22, 2009 at 10:36 AM
John Kerry is such a liberal wimp, he could never play hardball.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 22, 2009 at 09:54 PM
Correction to a bit in my post: I cited Fred Kaplan on Army recruitment numbers. Kaplan now writes that he got the numbers wrong.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 22, 2009 at 10:07 PM
Of course, now Karzai appears more the puppet than ever.
Anyone interested in discussing any of this?
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 22, 2009 at 11:01 PM
So how's that standing up the Afghan police going?
Not so well.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 23, 2009 at 01:27 AM
interesting stuff, Gary, and I'm wondering how we could avoid making Karzai look like a puppet while simultaneously dealing with the problems with the election. Most of the comments on this have argued that Obama is dead wrong and he's got some JFK complex. Yet the last paragraph of your last link, along with reports that an increase in troops was made provisional on acceptance of a runoff election and Kerry's appearance suggest that there is a lot more going on below the surface.
I found this piece from the Telegraph, of all places, and it's in response to this Johann Hari piece that probably encapsulates the other side, though the fact that I am on a side that Hitchens and Kamm are on make me seriously doubt its wisdom.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | October 23, 2009 at 01:51 AM
Thanks for the links, LJ. I appreciate your final clause, too. :-)
Heaven's piece seems entirely unpersuasive to me; it doesn't even attempt to address reality in any way; it simply argues that there's a moral duty to fix Afghanistan -- with no discussion whatever of mere means or limits.
End question: "But with a possible troop surge do we really need to fantasise?"
Yes, because "tropp surge" are not magic words, and as I've written at length, whatever can be done in Iraq isn't answerable with those two magic words.
"...and I'm wondering how we could avoid making Karzai look like a puppet while simultaneously dealing with the problems with the election."
As I wrote, we couldn't/camp.
And that encapsulates the whole problem: an outside power can't legitimatize a government in the eyes of its own people, and an outside power certainly can't relieve that government of the perception that it's a puppet of foreign powers while enforcing the outside powers' will on that government to make sure that government does as it's told.
We can't win a civil war, or a counterinsurgency war, for someone else.
If the Karzai government can start to legitimize itself with its own people, against the highly downward trend of the last five years, great.
But let's start seeing some of that, then. All the focus on what the U.S. or NATO, or other foreign powers, can do, is a focus on the wrong ball. People need to pay attention to what Afghans do: it's their country, not ours.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 23, 2009 at 09:32 AM
"As I wrote, we couldn't/camp."
Er, couldn't/can't.
Still waking up, and I feel like crap, actually, after a huge cough and headache last night, which persist this morning, having added stuffed head to stuffed chest, and otherwise feeling illish. :-(
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 23, 2009 at 09:34 AM
Since we're not living in in 1842 or earlier, the relevance of this is unclear to me. To be sure, I have no idea what Afghan law says about defamation.
You were the one who brought up defamation law and asserted, "Defamation has to be an untrue claim." I was just pointing out that's not always true. The relevance of the whole thing is unclear to me, but I'm not the one who brought it up.
Posted by: I Hate Chavs | October 23, 2009 at 10:55 AM
As far as Afghan defamation law goes, it looks pre-1842 to me:
(RSF/IFEX) - Reporters Without Borders welcomes TV reporter and presenter Fahim Kohdamani's release on 19 April 2009 after four weeks of detention in Kabul and calls for the withdrawal of the "defamation" and "insult" charges still pending against him, especially as the organisation has obtained a letter proving that his arrest was the result of a complaint by Iranian officials.
"It is deplorable that an Afghan journalist was detained like a criminal because of a complaint by the Islamic Republic of Iran," Reporters Without Borders said. "The public prosecutor and the government must resist foreign pressures that lead to the press law being applied arbitrarily. All Kohdamani did was criticise certain religious superstitions."
Reporters Without Borders has obtained a copy of a letter that Iranian ambassador Fada Hossein Maleki sent to Afghan prosecutor general Mohamad Ehssagh Alko on 23 March requesting "legal proceedings" against the privately-owned TV station Kohdamani works for, Emroz, for insulting "senior officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran," including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Calling for Emroz to be punished under the Afghan criminal code for "suspect, separatist and insulting actions," the letter warned the prosecutor that a failure to take preventive action would have a "negative influence" on relations between the two countries.
Kohdamani told Reporters Without Borders that during interrogation by members of the prosecutors office he was questioned about his opinion of Ayatollah Khomenei, the Islamic Republic of Iran's founder. He said they accused him of criticising passages of a book by Khomenei in an edition of the Emroz programme Obor Az Khat (Beyond the Line) that was about the book.
Kohdamani explained that he had not criticised Khomenei, just certain religious superstitions."
Available at http://www.ifex.org/afghanistan/2009/04/24/tv_reporter_released_defamation/
Posted by: I Hate Chavs | October 23, 2009 at 11:03 AM
A half a day's drive from Kabul:
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 23, 2009 at 01:19 PM
Dexter Filkins: The Great American Arm-Twist in Afghanistan:
But, you know, this democracy in action will change everything.I'm reminded of how much difference this made.
Back to Filkins:
Does this sound familiar to anyone?Posted by: Gary Farber | October 25, 2009 at 12:24 AM
Fareed Zakaria's GPS program was particularly interesting. (video link, can't find transcript) Tom Ricks on the Battle of Wanat and Shashi Tharoor and a discussion of what India has been doing in Afghanistan.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | October 25, 2009 at 11:24 AM
This explains a great deal: Brother of Afghan Leader Is Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll.
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 27, 2009 at 10:33 PM
The government is following my advice, which, of course, worries me: U.S. to Protect Populous Afghan Areas, Officials Say
Posted by: Gary Farber | October 28, 2009 at 09:36 AM