Gabriele Marcotti has blogged about West Ham in The Times today a fortnight after his previous piece on the club and its new owners here.

Whilst a deal to sign Benni McCarthy from Blackburn Rovers was still being negotiated and before official verification that the club was in for Mido and Ilan, Marcotti pointed out that ‘West Ham already have four English strikers on their books. Two of them are England Under-21 internationals (Freddie Sears and Zavon Hines), another is an England Under-19 international (Frank Nouble) who cost the club all of £50,000 in the pre-Gold/Sullivan shoestring days and the fourth was capped for England in their last match (Carlton Cole). So much for local owners championing the cause of local lads, eh?’ 18-year-old Nouble, signed for an undisclosed fee from Chelsea last summer, has since been loaned to West Brom, initially for one month.

Marcotti also commented in the same article that ‘the relentless bad-mouthing of what came before (the shoestring regime run by chief executive Scott Duxbury) is unnecessary.’ As the Press Association reported a couple of days later, following the announcement that Duxbury’s tenure was over, ‘Duxbury [who joined West Ham as the club's in-house lawyer under the then chairman Terry Brown, and was subsequently promoted to chief executive by Eggert Magnusson] was effectively squeezed out when the owners brought in their former Birmingham City colleague Karren Brady as vice-chairman.’ Duxbury had signed Carlos Tevez in August 2006 in a deal which consequently breached Premier League rules and following the inquiry meant that West Ham’s new owners must pay the first quarter of a £21m settlement payment to Sheffield United this month and then repeat the installment each year to February 2013.

Today, some 24 hours after David Sullivan revealed future staff cuts at the club, not to Gianfranco Zola and his players, but to The Sun, Marcotti reiterated his question, ‘what’s weird here is that the (PR) spin, rather than making Gold and Sullivan look good, is not only hurting West Ham, it’s hurting their image too. What’s the point of their daily complaints about the club’s debt?’  It’s obviously important to the owners that they cover their own backs now, by ensuring the mess they found the club in gets detailed precisely. This is presumably to avoid any risk occuring down the line of a past matter, which would otherwise have been kept quiet, re-surfacing as though caused by the new regime.

Sullivan was quoted in Andrew Dillon’s article yesterday stating, “I can’t believe the contracts I’ve inherited. Every position is overpaid, whether in administration or on the playing side. All are earning more than they would at other clubs. We have made cutbacks already but may have to make another 20 or 30 people redundant by the summer. We have already had people in senior positions offer to take a voluntary 25 per cent reduction to keep their jobs. It’s been gratefully accepted. If someone is doing a good job but is overpaid you still want to keep them. But many people at the training ground should take a voluntary pay cut. There’s an army of people supporting the first team. Everyone at the club will be asked to take a salary cut in the summer.”

As for the timing of this ‘news’, bearing in mind that McCarthy was reported in the same publication the day after transfer deadline day to have agreed £38k a week, while fellow January transfer window signing Mido was set to be on just £52k a YEAR, it’s fair to say the likes of Scott Parker £65k a week, Kieron Dyer the same, Matthew Upson £60k a week and Manuel Da Costa £20k a week, to name but four had probably already considered that a pay cut was on the cards by the summer, if they chose to stick around that long.

On yesterdays’ revelation that ‘a ‘player liaison officer’ – who earns £50,000 a year to drive stars around – will be hit. The officer is a close family friend of a former West Ham employee’, Marcotti argues ‘their job is to smooth the transition for new players, particularly foreign ones…If you’re paying a guy £1.5m a year, does it not make sense to spend a little bit of money on somebody who can basically serve as a potential “friendly face” and “problem-solver”? Big corporations do this all the time when they relocate executives.’ In fact, Ilan is probably benefitting from the service right about now.

What this does signal is that signings such as the Brazilian (on a six month contract) won’t occur beyond the summer, which ever division West Ham find themselves. THEN more local lads will get a look in.

This is a great article:

Idil Tuncer Kilavuz, ‘The Role of Networks in Tajikistan’s Civil War: Network Activation and Violence Specialists’, Nationalities Papers, Vol. 37, No. 5, September 2009. PDF.

It has relevance far beyond the case study of war in Tajikistan. This is [part of] the intro:

This article identifies the dynamics which shaped the eruption of civil war in Tajikistan. It argues that the mechanisms of network activation by the elites, together with the establishment of local militias and their involvement in the war through the activation of violence specialists, were important factors in bringing about the eruption of violence. This article is not about the causes of the civil war. Its aim is not to answer the question of why, but the question of how: what mechanisms led Tajikistan into civil war, how networks were activated from the top down, how mobilization was achieved at the micro level in the villages. This article stresses both macro- and microlevel mechanisms, and argues that there is a connection between the two—a look at both is necessary to understand the dynamics of the war.

The part that interests me the most:

Through such a micro-level analysis this study attempts to answer the question of how ordinary people get involved in war, and why they follow the elites.

While she may not be re-inventing network analysis, Dr. Kilavuz is using it to shine a light on a dark corner of scholarship, in particular a certain under-studied conflict that is misunderstood by many (that probably includes me).

Caveat: this is not just another one of my Indiana University Central Asian academic mafia announcements. Dr. Kilavuz was done with her coursework by the time I started mine. I haven’t actually met her. I just happen to honestly think that her work is impressive, especially her fieldwork.

Note: I couldn’t get wordpress to accept Turkish letters. But google will match up the name above with the correct spelling.

I just finished up the 5th edition of the Afghanistan Analyst Bibliography. I checked all the hyperlinks, which most institutions changed because they want all links to their work to die a horrible death. That took a few eons. And it has much more content, and not just from 2009. I’ve changed around the sections a bit and made formatting alterations to shorten the page count as well. But it still goes long at almost 190 pages. Oh, and there are bookmarks. Here it is:

The Afghanistan Analyst Bibliography, 5th edition (1.1MB PDF)

If there is a source (academic article, institutional report, book) that you feel is missing, just fire me off an email (I’ll just lose it if you write anything in the comments here) and I’ll sneak it into the version that I keep at the Afghanistan Analyst.

And here’s a copy at scribd:

**********

And some table of contents from the bibliography for the search engines:

1. Ethnic Groups

2. Conflict and Mobilization: War, Ethnicity, Jihad, Taliban,
Factions, “Warlords,” etc… (Late 1970s to the present)

3. Islam: Political Islam, Sharia, “Jihad”, Sects and Religious Affairs

4. State-Building: The International Community, Reconstruction, Security,
Economy, Government and Development

5. Policy: Announcements, Recommendations and Criticisms

6. Opium: Cultivation, Drug Use and Trafficking

7. Land: Environment, Agriculture, Property Issues,
and Natural Resources

8. Human Rights

9. Women, Gender and Family

10. Military: Operations, Civil-Military Relations, PRTs and COIN

11. Security Sector: DDR, Militias, Afghan National Army and Police,
PMCs and Security Contractors

12. Population Movements: Refugees, IDPs and Migration

13. Health and Medicine

14. Education

15. Macro and Micro Economics

16. Public Opinion: Interviews, Study Groups, Polls and Surveys

17. Periodicals and Academic Journals

Phew. The Albatross is off my neck.

I was in a shared taxi in southern Tajikistan when I saw a billboard with an unfamiliar face on it. I squinted at the modified Cyrillic and caught the name. The name was very familiar.

I wanted to get out and take a picture. But…there are some people who don’t appreciate him. Some see him as a monster. As a war criminal. However, there are  those who see him as a savior, a hero.

The last thing I wanted to do was ask the taxi driver to stop in front of a mural of a man who may have killed his relatives. Of course, alternately the taxi driver might be quite fond of the man on the billboard.

So…the man defended his home turf and the fighters from down the road never made it into his area of control. But where did he get the bad side of his reputation from? Not from being a strong defender.

I haven’t done my field interviews with the relevant people yet and I’m in the process of translating some sources. So the best I can do right now is piece it together from secondary sources (no, not TIME mag). My adviser wrote:

In mid-June 1992 he was in charge of a 10-strong self defence unit of a sovkhoz near Qurghonteppa. His 65-year old father was arrested by the opposition at the city bazaar. Saidov immediately took 40 Gharmi peasants hostage and entered negotiations concerning his father’s release, which he was ultimately promised. Having set the hostages free, he discovered his father’s burnt and savagely mutilated corpse two days later. Saidov gathered his male family members, classmates and co-workers, and went to Kulob, where the now 200-strong formation was provided with arms.

What is clear is that for the next year or so the man cut a wide swath not only through his enemy, but through the population that he saw as supporting them.

But one day, the top commander of the front this man was aligned with came to pay him a visit. They disagreed on something and, like the tough guys they were, dispatched each other, taking a few of their bodyguards with them.

And that’s that.

However, if you are looking for some people with official hero status then you are in luck. Because down the road in KT is this helpful billboard:

At the top it reads “Qahramononi Tojikiston” or “Qahramanan-i Tajikistan” [Heroes of Tajikistan]. It says the same thing under the 2 guys on the left and the 3 on the right: “by declaration of the President these guys are heroes and whatnot, etc…” Under the distinguished looking gentleman left over…well, that’s the President. He gave in to the insistence of the legislature that they be allowed to declare him as a hero of Tajikistan.

Local militias, tribal militias, ethnic militias, arbakais, Social Outreach Program, community defense and happiness brigades – whatever you want to call them – have failed and failed again throughout the history of Afghanistan. Some worked short term and then ended in disaster while others went straight to disaster (1840s, 1880s, Nadir, Dostum, auxiliary whatchamacallits down south). Some appear to be a joke. For example, the AP3 in Wardak. In regards to that, I’ve got one:

Q: What do you call 4 Hazaras with AK47s in a Ford Ranger?

A: A Pashtun tribal militia.

So the AP3 doesn’t have enough Pashtuns and I couldn’t bring my ‘89 Ford Ranger to Australia. That means immediate fail. However, the AP3 was never advertised as a tribal militia. It is just a derivative failure in the making. On the other hand, I no longer have to put up with snobby grad students mocking my “redneck” truck right up until the date they need me to drive their furniture across Bloomington.

More recently (last few years), government-sponsored militias have never got off the ground in the first place. Why? My best guess is that all the proposals for Pashtun tribal militias that will hopefully take on the Taliban all assume one fallacy: that Pashtun tribal identities, when and where they exist, are coherent social and/or political entities with a hierarchy of authority. They are not. There is no leader of, say, the Examplezai who can be approached, recruited and paid to deliver all of the Examplezais. THERE IS NO CHIEF. THERE IS NO LEADER. THERE ARE ONLY NOTABLE ELITES WITH FLUCTUATING LEVELS OF INFLUENCE. THIS IS NOT AL ANBAR.  But enough people haven’t bothered to actually check out the literature on that basic fact. And that fluctuating level of influence has been in a downward spiral since Amir Abdurrahman. There are at times people identified as tribal leaders with sufficient levels of influence to actually control sizable rural areas (i.e., apparently, Ajmal Khan). But will these people really work to further the interests of coalition forces and the central government? Or will they work only to further their (and hopefully their community’s) interests? And what sort of losers in the local power struggles will be created by the ascendancy of a paramount local authority? [some of this asked at the above link].

Basic argument: Pashtun tribal militias can’t be raised by outsiders to fight the Taliban.

Anyways, it has failed in the East and in the South. Can it fail in the north? RFE/RL reports From Kunduz:

One sign of that feeling in Afghanistan is the spontaneous rise of local militias in previously quiet districts like northern Konduz Province. Until just a few months ago, residents of the region had relied upon the national police and army for security.

A sign of the same sentiment in Washington is U.S. President Barack Obama’s request last week for senior U.S. officials to take a province-by-province look at Afghanistan’s local power structures. Officials say privately the goal is to weigh the possibility of partnering with benign local forces, or trying to co-opt hostile ones, against the slow progress of establishing wider central government control.

A flurry of recent reports have all argued for something similar, if not just saying that local forces can be used to push back the Taliban. But this RFE/RL article is an antidote to that. It’s as if they have been reading Josh Foust’s work. They cite an example:

But one certainty is that the Afghan central government today is not well-prepared to integrate local forces into its structure in the ways that may be needed to assure cooperation rather than competition. The experience of the Qala-e Zal district militia in Konduz Province provides an example. The local militia helps the hard-pressed national police and army to fight off Taliban incursions. But the relationship between the cooperating forces is entirely ad hoc.

The militia’s leader, Nabi, told Radio Free Afghanistan that he hopes his force one day will be integrated into the national security structure so that it can receive regular salaries from the government, rather than rely on funds from the local community. His hope comes from the fact that the governor of Konduz, who nominally reports to the Interior Ministry in Kabul, was one of the regional and local officials who urged him to raise the force.

But when Radio Free Afghanistan followed up with the Interior Ministry to see where Nabi’s prospects stood, it became clear that the ministry itself had no knowledge of his force or provisions for integrating it into its command structure.

Whoops. And furthermore, this is Nabi’s picture:

Well, I’m sure this fellow will do a good job of watching over his Turkmen or Uzbek manteqah. I just hope he doesn’t set up a roadblock. But he’s not going to be able to go after Talibs who are hanging out with other Pashtuns.

The RFE/RL quotes a critic of the various militia programs:

“Gorbachev came up with the idea of the ‘Afghanization’ of the Afghan war, and in the interest of Afghanizing the war [the Soviets] created militias, the warlords, the strongmen like General Dostum, General Atta, General ‘This’ and General ‘That,’ and those are the people that the United States is indirectly grappling with,” says Daud Sultanzoy, a member of the Afghan parliament from restive Ghazni Province.

“I think that we will be running the same risk of doing something similar. There are so many eerie similarities.”

He adds that, after three decades of war, it is difficult to find local leaders who are, in fact, truly local and who will not misuse any funds provided them. “When the Soviets came, they dismantled the tribal echelon by removing tribal leaderships, and the fundamentalists did the same thing,” Sultanzoy says.

I hope he’s not referring to Atta of Balkh. But anyways, I’m in agreement with him even if he comes from a position of bias as a representative for the central government.

If you want a more scholarly criticism of recent failures. Check out this, if you are wondering whether eastern mountain precedents can be transferred:

Susanne Schmeidl and Masood Karokhail. ‘The Role of Non-State Actors in ‘Community-Based Policing’ – An Exploration of the Arbakai (Tribal Police) in South-Eastern Afghanistan’, Contemporary Security Policy, Volume 30, Number 2, August 2009.

The abstract reads:

Despite the ousting of the Taliban and a subsequent peace agreement reached at the end of 2001, Afghanistan continues to struggle with insecurity. The existing security deficit of the Afghan state is currently filled by a wide array of (armed) non-state actors (ANSA). Even though much of the Afghan experience with ANSA has been negative, the inability of the state to provide comprehensive security necessitates a consideration of alternatives. One of such possible alternative, the community-based policing structure in south-eastern Afghanistan (arbakai) is explored in this article. We conclude that it is important to understand the context-specificity of ANSA before promoting overarching policies such as advocating a transferability of the arbakai outside their unique cultural and regional context. We also caution against the use ANSA beyond their capacities, such as for counter-insurgency purposes and formalize engagement with clear parameters to ensure accountability.

Underlining mine.

According to sources, Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership directed “a large sum of money” to Jalaluddin Haqqani to recruit 3,000 fighters for the Kabul front. However, within two months the combined affect of death and desertion left Haqqani with only 300 men.

According to Ahmed Rashid, Haqqani’s inability to personal direct the fighters on the front lines and conflicts between southern commanders and eastern troops combined to degrade this eastern Pashtun force. Personally, I find this in line with one analyst’s (I really forget who) analogy with Lebanon’s civil war militias as being supreme “defenders” of their own turf and terrible “invaders” of others. Also notable here is the Taliban leadership’s desire to take over command from a competent commander in favor of Kandaharis. But most important is Ahmed Rashid’s point that for the first time, the Taliban is suffering a crisis in recruitment and a “manpower shortage.”

Jalaludin Haqqani, with beard and turban gone wild:

Of course, you know I’m talking about 1997, right? The info above is from page 60 of Ahmed Rashid’s Taliban. Has there been a rush in the last year to find background on Haqqani? Yes, absolutely. Is there much material? Absolutely not. The old sources are littered with Massoud and Hekmatyar. As far as new and open sources, hopefully there is something in here worthwhile:

‘Loya Paktia’s insurgency: (i) the haqqani network as an autonomous entity in the taliban Universe [Thomas Ruttig] (ii) Roots of the insurgency in the Southeast [Sébastien Trives]‘ in Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field. Edited by Antonio Giustozzi. London: Hurst & Co./ New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.

As I just returned from fieldwork, I’m a little behind on the reading and book ordering. The book has positive reviews from William Maley, David B. Edwards and Gilles Dorronsoro. So I should probably get on this book (in its entirety).

The new photo header above is cropped from a photo of a wanted poster that I took in the departure section of Dushanbe International Airport:

I couldn’t resist taking a pic. Even if I knew taking a flash pic at 3am in a medium security area could result in a lengthy chat with your friendly local militsia. A closer look at the poster, in particular the guy 4th from the left on top, resulted in another pic:

For those of you who aren’t Cyrillically inclined, that is Mahmud Khudoyberdiev (I prefer Khudoberdiev). Why was I interested in his profile on a wanted poster? Well, as… uh… “Kayumars” explains, he’s likely been dead for a while, despite the rather entertaining rumors.  The basic rumor, stripped of crazy details, is that he is alive and well in Uzbekistan. The government of Tajikistan seems to concur, and issued an international arrest warrant for Mahmud-Aka.

WANTED:

Uh-oh!

It’s that time of year again:

Afghanistan in 2009: A Survey of the Afghan People

The findings from The Asia Foundation’s fifth public opinion poll in Afghanistan, Afghanistan in 2009: A Survey of the Afghan People, which covers all 34 of Afghanistan’s provinces. A democracy assessment survey. PDF (4MB)

Go on now, find something in there that suits your agenda and hi-light it. If you like something, it’s scientific fact. If not, it’s a wretched excuse for a survey in a country where no poll could ever be as accurate as your personal opinion. There’s something for everybody.

Key findings also available in Dari and Pashto.

Who’s the target of this presidential election ad?

I was curious to see any local Ashraf Ghani TV ads that are actually aimed at Afghans. I went to his Dari page and found only a video message to the Oxford Research Group in English. Perhaps a local ad will eventually appear on his youtube page? For all the rest you can check out the English section of his website.

If anyone sees a local TV ad in Afghanistan, please let me know. I would love to see a transcript (I should be able to read through it slowly if in Dari) or a copy of it online. I’m curious as to how the phrasing will go and what the message will be.

I’m not trying to pick on the guy (everybody seems to think he was a really competent minister and all that), but is does seem like he appeals more to an international audience than to locals.

[Update]: Just got the official email, the ad is specifically targeted at Afghan expats overseas.

And the only poll so far (albeit of unknown accuracy) was not kind to him.

For what it’s worth, The International Republican Institute commissioned a poll of voter intentions in Afghanistan:

• Press Release
• Summary and main points (PDF)
• Full findings (PDF)

The New York Times interpretation:

The poll, conducted by the International Republican Institute, a nonprofit pro-democracy group affiliated with the Republican Party and financed by the American government, found that only 31 percent of Afghans said they would vote for Mr. Karzai again, far less than in 2004, when he won with 54 percent of the vote.

That’s some pretty poor data reading there, NYT. You can’t compare those two figures. See further below.

The polling was conducted by The Kabul Group Consulting Group, whose “about us” page says:

BLANK

Yeah, thanks for that. So they are not exactly Pew or Zogby. Honestly, I know nothing about them. But somebody from the cocktail circuit in Kabul should be able to supply some BS rumor about them for you. As I’m told with the “utmost of certainty,” The Asia Foundation and its surveys in Afghanistan are directed by the CIA. Yeah, I read the wikipedia article on them too (they took CIA funding until 1967 for some southeast Asia stuff).

Back to the poll. It’s not as useful as the polls that have been publishing for a couple of years back and can track changes using the same methodolgy and techniques.

There is a lot to look at in there. Some random thoughts:

78% consider themselves Afghans first ahead of ethnicity. That’s rhetoric, not action.

Why do 39% of people have a negative view of Sigbatullah Mojadeddi? At least  he isn’t as far down as Rabbani, Sayyaf and Dostum at 54, 51 and 46 respectively. Seriously, I would like to know. He has always been represented as a conciliatory figure who “brings people together” etc…

Karzai is, at 24%, the person people identify most favorably. He is followed close by guys named Don’t Know and Other.

Things have generally deterioarated in many different categories. This is in line with other surveys conducted.

And, most importantly for the election, 31% of people say that if the election is held today they would vote for Karzai. However, the repsonses include many people who are not running as well as “Others,” “Don’t know” and “Refused to answer.”

Karzai’s voter retention (people who voted for him last time but now will not) is way down. But, there is no one candidate that these disgruntled are going to.

68% want talks and reconciliation with the Taliban. Well, you got it. The Taliban says “F-off, we’re winning.”

This is an interesting question: When ISAF troops are in your community, which community representative positions should they speak with to achieve security and stability? (open-ended question). 31% say “elders” and 29% say “head of tribe.” That’s a recipe for endless tea sessions and a serious argument about who the hell is the “head” of the “tribe.”

BBC and Azadi are the two most listened to radio stations by a long shot. IO public diplomacy accomplished!

There is so much more in the survey. Check it out.

We know, relatively speaking, pretty much nothing about the acuracy of polling and surveys in Afghanistan. So the election? Your guess is as good as mine. There are no “experts” on this matter. My guess is that Karzai gets over 50% and wins in the first round due to lack of strong competition. He’ll get some rather unenthusiastic votes, but he’ll get them. Please feel free to leave your own guess. If I’m wrong I promise not to erase this blog entry.

A month ago I tongue-in-cheek announced Karzai’s election victory. But I did really believe it to be over by then. Recent events have just put the nail in the anti-Karzai electoral coffin. Karzai has clearly moved away from the speculated-upon Pashtun-centric electoral strategy with the fresh endorsements from Mohaqeq [Hazara] and Dostum (caveat below) [Uzbek] adding to the Fahim [Tajik]/Khalili [Hazara] VP and deputy VP picks. BBC Farsi with the gory details and the “imaginative” pic:

Hazaristan Times has a few details in English.

But is Dostum really involved? The Globe & Mail mentions that the deal was worked out not by Dostum, but by the acting head of Junbesh (cynics may insert their arguments about his actual authority here):

Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, a Hazara who leads the Hezb-i-Wahdat party, told Reuters he had confirmed his support for Karzai at a meeting on Saturday, after weeks of negotiations about power sharing under a future government.

A senior leader of Junbish-i-Melli party, founded by ethnic Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum, also committed his party to backing the government.

“Yesterday, we had a tripartite meeting (with Karzai and Mohaqiq) and we reached the conclusion that we would support him in the elections,” Sayed Noorullah, the head of Junbish-i- Mellei’s [sic]central council, told Reuters.

As for Dostum, I’ve been leaning towards Colla’s guess rather than TIME’s about the temporary/permanent nature of his “exile” to Turkey. But this should be cleared up within the month. If an endorsement deal included Dostum’s return, he’ll be back ASAP.

Dostum chilling out in Ankara in December (source):

As it stands, Karzai has Fahim, Khalili, the Uzbek-dominated Junbesh, the Hazara Wahdat, Atta Mohammad Nur, Sherzai, etc… This is not an election, it’s a bandwagon (which the Taliban and associates are taking shots at). This doesn’t mean at all that every Uzbek, Hazara, 4Wiloyat+Mazari+Panjshiri Tajik and *giggle* Barakzai+Popalzai+every Pashtun who isn’t loving the insurgency is going to vote for Karzai. Ethnic/tribal politics at the national electoral level is not an absolute. And there are still other candidates like Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah² who will get not just the voters who like them, but even a chunk of the protest vote.  However, Karzai has very likely secured a decent chunk of those constituents. My best guess is a first-round victory for Karzai, no run-off.

Just did a quick google search and found a second opinion:

“The opposition is so splintered and Karzai has put together a broad enough coalition that he should be a sure winner,” said Barnett Rubin, director of studies at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University.

And I like Waheed Mujda’s analysis:

“People like Dostam and Mohaqiq had other options too. They could support other candidates as well, but it seems they think that everything is going the way of Karzai and he is the winner,” Mujda said.

Dostam and Mohaqiq no longer have the same level of support as in 2004 when they were on the presidential ballot, securing 10 percent and 11.7 percent of the vote respectively.

“But they will definitely put the balance in favour of Karzai,” Mujda said.

The ticket:

As for the quid pro quo with these endorsements, your guess is as good as mine.

I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for the endorsement from Human Rights Watch.

There is a lot of dry, boring scholarship on Afghanistan. On the other hand, “good reads” on Afghanistan are usually bad scholarship. There are even books that are both bad and boring. However, there is that rare book that is both a good read and good scholarship. For example, Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan. Today, I would like to point out two books by the same author that are both good and good:

Heroes of the Age: Moral Fault Lines on the Afghan Frontier, by David B Edwards (University of California Press, 1996)

Before Taliban: Genealogies of the Afghan Jihad, by David B. Edwards (University of California Press, 2002)

And good news if you want to get your hands on these books. UofC Press has recently made these books open access, here and here. However, it’s not a download. So without further ado, here are some PDFs from the darker corners of the internet:

• Heroes of the Age (1.6MB)
• Before Taliban (2.7MB)

Read in order of publication. If Heroes doesn’t engage you, then you may be comatose.

David B Edwards is currently an anthropology professor at Williams College and is the director of the Williams Afghan Media Project. He also co-directed and produced a documentary called Kabul Transit.

No reviews. [I actually reviewed Heroes over two years ago, but I would probably now qualify parts of the review] I’m just going to do what I do with most books: go to the table on contents.

Heroes of the Age:

1. INTRODUCTION
Beginnings
Recollecting the Past
Contested Domains

2. THE MAKING OF SULTAN MUHAMMAD KHAN
Myth and History
Fathers and Sons
Men and Women
Friends and Enemies
Coda: Jandad’s Punishment

3. THE REIGN OF THE IRON AMIR
Mapping the State
The Once and Future King
The Armature of Royal Rule
Kingship and Honor
Coda: The Death of the King

4. THE LIVES OF AN AFGHAN SAINT
Twice-Told Tales
Fathers and Sons
Identity and Place
Discipline and Power
Benefit and Gratitude
Purity and Politics
Pirs and Princes
Coda: The Journey to Koh-i Qaf

5. MAD MULLAS AND ENGLISHMEN
A Passage to India
The Events of 1897 and Their Explanation
Waging Jihad
The Fault Lines of Authority
Tales of Jarobi Glen
Conclusion

6. EPILOGUE
Re: Posting on the Internet
Embedded Codes

Before Taliban:

1. Introduction: Into Forbidden Afghanistan

Part I. The Saur Revolution

2. Lives of the Party
3. The Armature of Khalqi Power
Coda: The Death of a President

Part II. The Pech [Kunar] Uprising
4. A Son of Safi
5. Anatomy of a Tribal Uprising
Coda: The Death of a Safi Daughter

Part III. The Islamic Jihad
6. Muslim Youth
7. Fault Lines in the Afghan Jihad
Coda: The Death of Majrooh

8. Epilogue: Topakan and Taliban

Now go read.

Based on final projections, the statistics and polling team here at Ghosts of Alexander has decided to call the 2009 Afghan Presidential elections….. we declare Hamid Karzai re-elected as President of The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan! Congratulations!

He has defeated his rivals in the first round and garnered over 50% of the vote, thereby avoiding a run-off. The nearest challengers include a goat, a shovel, and a bag of rocks:

So how could the man so widely criticized and rumored to be on the way out just a couple of months ago come back like this? Way back on May 3, 2009 Reuters reported:

After months of berating Karzai’s government as ineffectual and tolerant of corruption, U.S. officials have stopped chiding the man Washington helped install in power in 2001. Karzai, for his part, has toned down what had been increasingly angry complaints about U.S. troops killing Afghan civilians. Officials in both countries say the thaw represents a more realistic assessment in Washington of the challenges Karzai faces and a recognition that berating each other was doing neither side any good as they face a worsening Taliban insurgency together. “(It’s) an acknowledgment that you can’t kick this guy too much because then you weaken him to the point where he is not going to have any legitimacy at all,” said a senior U.S. official in Washington on condition he not be identified.

The unnamed senior U.S. official (whose is probably also an unpaid assistant deputy intern for coffee-fetching at CNAS) basically said that both sides realized that they were stuck with each other…for better or for worse.

And just the day before, WaPo reported:

With less than a week left before candidates must register for Afghanistan’s presidential election, opposition forces remain so divided and appear so confused that the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, is looking more and more like a winner as he heads to Washington for a summit with President Obama and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari…

What happened to all those would-be candidates? WaPo continues:

Although more than 60 people have formally expressed interest in the August presidential race, not a single candidate has registered with the Independent Election Commission.

Instead, an array of political strongmen and presidential hopefuls has spent the past week in backroom negotiations with onetime adversaries, either making last-minute attempts to form winning opposition tickets or bartering their presumed vote-getting influence for posts in a future Karzai administration.

Afghanistan hasn’t been this predictable since the last time I failed to predict something predictable like this.

And the Eye in the East grows stronger every….

“We tried to put together a team with a national agenda, but so far we have failed. As a result, Karzai is growing stronger by the hour,” said Ali Jalali, a former interior minister and one of the still-undecided candidates.

The other losers/drop-outs/undecideds include Zalmay Kalilzad, Ashraf Ghani, Gul Agha Sherzai, and some other guys (no recent updates from Abdullah²). How about the tough-guys not running?

Some of the most powerful figures in the country’s political equation are not presidential candidates but strongmen from ethnic and regional groups. Political observers said these men have been jostling behind the scenes for influence as vote-delivering kingmakers in return for quotas of power in a future administration. They include ethnic Uzbek militia leader Abdurrashid Dostum, Hazara leader Mohammad Mohaqiq, and former defense minister Mohammed Fahim, who is Tajik.

And if you don’t want to wake up with your favorite horse’s head in your bed, you pick Fahim as your running mate:

It has been widely reported that Karzai plans to choose Fahim as his top running mate, a prospect that has alarmed and dismayed many Afghans hoping for political change. Fahim, a former anti-Soviet militia boss, resisted Western-backed military reforms as Karzai’s defense minister and has been suspected of illegal business dealings.

“People are shocked that Fahim would be on the ticket,” said Nader Nadery, an official with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. “All this intense negotiation going on is not about issues or ideas. It is only about people seeking power and about Karzai getting reelected.”

Back to the present: the other candidates who ran in the election have kindly asked the local “get-out-the-vote” committees for their children to be returned. Just kidding, the candidates will be fine. It’s the voters I’m worried about. The worst part last time around was the pressuring tactics. One example would be the guy who threatened to destroy the house of any person who didn’t vote for Karzai in “his area.”

In other news, I have a block of 400 women’s voting cards. The bidding starts later today on Ebay. So who will be the winners in stuffing the ballot boxes with fictional women this time around? According to a quickie report sent out over Barnett Rubin’s listserv Logar has registered 72% of the voters as women. Nuristan? 71%.

In 2004, the BBC reported:

There are constant reports of individuals brandishing two or more voting cards, usually announcing they have acquired extra ones as an investment. The more optimistic hope to make $100 or more per card by selling them – serious money in a country where most people earn less than that per month.

One tale – unconfirmed – even has a woman claiming to have gained 40 voting cards by turning up repeatedly for registration with her identity concealed under an all-enveloping burqa.

In the mujahideen-dominated Panjshir Valley, the number of cards issued is two and a half times the estimated number of voters.

I’m sure it will be just as bad this time around. More on this issue at AlertNet.

So, you heard it here 17th: Hamid Karzai will be re-elected.

I think…

…probably.

Update: Karzai has officially registered and named Fahim plus Karim Khalili as his running mates.

H/T Abu Muqawama:

“The Afghans consistently lied to us, and we knew that they knew that we knew it. Yet their lying was far less malicious than it was simply pragmatic. The Afghans of the area are a practical people in survival mode. They didn’t believe that it was in their best interest to help us. Not yet. The most successful local leaders are infamous for taking what they can get from the Americans and then, reportedly, turning around and making overtures to the Haqqani network’s leadership for whatever they can extract from them. The ambitious ones play both sides, while the average villager has little or no concern about who runs the countryside—all he or she wants is to be left totally alone.”

I’m becoming increasingly disinterested in journalists’ accounts from Afghanistan while becoming increasingly interested in accounts by soldiers and NGO workers. This passage above is the type of ground level anecdote that really help out my research (even if it is just confirming Kalyvas). It’s from:

1LT Kevin Bell, ‘Pulling Teeth: An Infantry Platoon Leader’s Perspective on a Year in Afghanistan’, ARMY Magazine, May 2009 (Volume 59, Number 5). Download PDF.

Last summer The Independent newspaper ran an article titled “Afghan President pardons men convicted of bayonet gang rape.”

So what actually happened?

The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has pardoned three men who had been found guilty of gang raping a woman in the northern province of Samangan. The woman, Sara, and her family found out about the pardon only when they saw the rapists back in their village.

“Everyone was shocked,” said Sara’s husband, Dilawar, who like many Afghans uses only one name. “These were men who had been sentenced and found guilty by the Supreme Court, walking around freely.” [...]

Sara’s case highlights concerns about the close relationship between the Afghan president and men accused of war crimes and human rights abuses. The men were freed discreetly but the rape itself was public and brutal. It took place in September 2005, in the run up to Afghanistan’s first democratic parliamentary elections.

“It was evening, around the time for the last prayer, when armed men came and took my son, Islamuddin, by force. I have eye-witness statements from nine people that he was there. From that night until now, my son has never been seen.”

Dilawar said his wife publicly harangued the commander twice about their missing son. After the second time, he said, they came for her. “The commander and three of his fighters came and took my wife out of our home and took her to their house about 200 metres away and, in front of these witnesses, raped her.”

Dilawar has a sheaf of legal papers, including a doctors’ report, which said she had a 17mm wound in her private parts cut with a bayonet. Sara was left to stumble home, bleeding and without her trousers.

So at this point one may assume that this is the usual “Northern Alliance warlord” handiwork. It wouldn’t be surprising as local commanders affiliated with the various groups identified as the “Northern Alliance” [not a very helpful category these days] have done stuff like this before. I covered this ongoing phenomenon 2 years ago, and highlighted the story of a former Jamiat commander who punished a local for his public accusations by killing his two boys, putting their bodies in a bag and tossing them in a river. But he is an MP in the Afghan government so nothing was done about it.

Pic: One of the victims.

This all fits in with the official Taliban mythology of themselves as the saviors of Afghanistan, and their opposition as rapists, thieves, murderers, etc… However, there is a catch. The “bayonet” story has some extra details. The rapists in Samangan worked for a commander who had no “Northern Alliance” affiliations. In fact…

The most powerful local commander, Mawlawi Islam, was running for office despite being accused of scores of murders committed while he had been a mujahedeen commander in the 1980s and a Taliban governor in the 1990s, and since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Sara said one of his sub-commanders and body guards had been looking for young men to help in the election campaign.

Former Taliban? That doesn’t go very well with the ridiculous idea that is still being peddled of the asexual Taliban rescuing Afghanistan from evil warlords. It makes it seem like the Taliban has its share of evil. Looking into the background of this commander reveals some more interesting facts:

Mawlawi Islam Mohammadi, who represents Samangan Province in the Wolesi Jirga (People’s Council) of Afghanistan’s National Assembly,[...] Mohammadi, who was thought to be in his early 60s, once served as a provincial governor during the Taliban regime,[...] Mohammadi served as governor of Bamiyan
Province when the Taliban destroyed the colossal statues of Buddha [...]

The Taliban is not remembered fondly in Bamiyan:

Human Rights Watch. 2001. ‘Massacres of Hazaras in Afghanistan’, Human Rights Watch Report, Vol. 13, No. 1(C). Available on line at: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/afghanistan/

And the Taliban do not remember Mawlawi Islam fondly either….

…the [Taliban]website claims that in 2001 he helped the U.S.-led coalition forces to close the main road between northern and southern Afghanistan to Taliban forces retreating southward.

So…a Taliban commander who can be persuaded to switch sides and join the democratic process, etc… Wouldn’t that make him part of the “Moderate Taliban” we hear so much about? And doesn’t this raise the possibility that many potential former Taliban commanders are just as bad as those commanders who have “Northern Alliance” affiliations? I took a look at some other former Taliban commanders who have jumped on board with the Afghan government. There are some truly horrible people in that group. If the plan is to get “moderate Taliban” to switch sides, it will be a process based on pragmatism (in its worst form) rather than on any moral standards.

Back to the rape pardon:

The MP, Mir Ahmad Joyenda, said cases similar to Sara’s were actually becoming more common. The police and the courts, he said, were usually under the sway of local commanders. “The commanders, the war criminals, still have armed groups,” he said. “They’re in the government. Karzai, the Americans, the British sit down with them. They have impunity. They’ve become very courageous and can do whatever crimes they like.”

They certainly can. And some of them used to be in the Taliban.

And as a post-script, some good (old) news concerning Mawlawi Islam:

27 January 2007 – H.E. Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, strongly condemned the killing of Mawlawi Islam Muhammadi, a prominent religious scholar and member of the Afghan Parliament from the province of Samangan. According to reports, the enemies of Afghanistan killed Mawlawi Islam Muhammadi when he was on his way to attend Friday prayers at a mosque in Kart e Parwan area of Kabul.

The President expressed his deep regret at the death of Mawlawi Islam Muhammadi and said, “Mawlawi Islam Muhammadi was a prominent Jihadi figure who has made great sacrifices during the years of Jihad against the Soviet invasion. The enemies of Afghanistan must understand that they will never achieve their malicious intentions by killing our innocent Ulema.”

The President expressed his deep condolences and sympathies to the families of Mawlawi Islam Muhammadi.

The Taliban claimed it was their doing:

…a website purporting to represent the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan — the name of the country under the Taliban — claimed on January 27 that mujahedin of the “Islamic Emirate” assassinated Mohammadi.

Maybe. It could also maybe have had something to do with power struggles up north. The Taliban, or sometimes their various enthusiastic supporters, have both claimed credit for and denied any role in certain attacks. And as a disclaimer I should add that Karzai’s spokesman said he was shocked that a pardon was granted and stated that President Karzai certainly wouldn’t have issued a pardon if he had actually known the details [it's safe to assume that the pardon system is not as rigorous in Afghanistan as it is in the US where one must publicly apply for a pardon and then navigate numerous layers of lawyers and bureaucracy]. Poor spokesman:

When showed copies of the presidential pardon and court papers, President Karzai’s spokesman, Hamayun Hamidzada, was visibly shocked and said that if the documents proved genuine, Mr Karzai would be “upset and appalled.”

He said it was impossible that President Karzai could knowingly have signed a pardon for rapists, but refused to speculate on how the pardon could have come about. He promised an investigation into all aspects of the case, including the – as yet unsolved – mystery of Sara’s missing son.

The family of the rape victim also have their own problems:

Sara and Dilawar are again in hiding, having felt too vulnerable to stay in their village. Dilawar was prepared to discuss the case. In Afghanistan, speaking about rape means risking further dishonour, but when asked whether he minded Sara’s story being publicised, Dilawar said, “We’ve already lost our son, our honour, we’ve sold our land to pay for legal costs and we’ve lost our home – what else can we lose?”

So are former Taliban commanders like Mawlawi Islam and others of his type just aberrations? Will the “moderate Taliban” who we read about have a respect for the rule of law and human rights? Or are they just like so many men who rise to prominence with the gun; ready to settle every issue with violence and intimidation? Advocates of the “moderate Taliban” strategy haven’t addressed the issue of how to integrate violent men into a system that already has a serious problem with other violent men. They casually toss out “renounce violence” and “join the democratic process” as if the process of DDR (Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration) has been perfected in Afghanistan.

At least the Taliban can be relied on. Don’t expect hordes of “moderate” (or “reconcilable” ) Taliban field commanders to be switching sides anytime soon.

Please, no more articles or policy papers titled “Saving Afghanistan.” It’s really getting confusing. Seriously, google “Saving Afghanistan” and check the first few pages of returns. Anyways, it is the content that truly matters, so let’s get to it:

“Saving Afghanistan” by Robert Kaplan, The Atlantic, March 24, 2009. Online.

Whoops! Wrong picture:

The basic message is that this will be long and hard. But the details were just a little of the mark. So let the whinging begin. First excerpt:

…the military situation in Afghanistan is not nearly as dire as the one in Iraq on the eve of the surge in late 2006. Civilian casualties, despite rising 40 percent since 2007, are still 16 times lower than in pre-surge Iraq. Even today, with Iraq clearly on the mend and out of the news, it still accounts for twice as many civilian casualties as Afghanistan.

Yay for quantitative analysis. It has just shown the the situation in Afghanistan is “not nearly as dire” as Iraq in 2006, based on civilian casualties. Using a single quantitative variable across two different case studies is a rather bad start. Check Cordesman’s number crunching (i.e., this pdf ) to see how “dire” things in Afghanistan based on all the trackable variables across a long period.

Despite the disappointment with the American-led coalition, fewer than ten percent of the Afghan population support the Taliban, according to recent polling; neither do the Taliban and the other anti-government insurgents have a unifying or charismatic leader. There is no Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, or even a Muqtada al-Sadr. While resilient—that is, able to quickly replace leaders who are killed—the Taliban are not resurgent as news reports have claimed.

No Ho here:

No unifying leader? Well, that’s what makes the insurgency strong. Cf. Sinno, and overcentralized movements that die with their leaders. And they are not resurgent? Check Cordesman above. I would say they are both resilient and resurgent.

The capital of Kabul has never been in danger of falling, notwithstanding periodic, spectacular attacks that energize the world media, such as those against the Indian Embassy and the Serena Hotel in Kabul, as well as the one on February 11 in which three ministries were targeted. In fact, that last attack was seen as a victory for the government because the ministries were quickly retaken by the Afghan army and police with little help from the NATO coalition.

Kabul is not in danger of falling? If urban enclaves of relative stability are a measure of success, then communist-era President Najibullah was a military genius. Still, it didn’t work out for him. Nor for Amanullah. Nor for…etc..

Not Kaplan’s first go-around:

More excerpts:

As American commanders repeatedly told me and three other reporters during a week of travel, a Taliban victory is not only not inevitable, “it is not even probable.”

Fantastic news… The kind that Public Affairs Officers love to relay from high-ranking commanders to the public.

Finally, the Americans, in spite of all the reports of civilian casualties from air strikes, are still the most popular outsider in the eyes of Afghans, says Christopher Alexander of the United Nations office in Kabul.

Did Chris Alexander really say this? Because polling shows India, Iran and Germany are liked better (pdf). And the long-term trend of Afghans’ opinion towards the US, from the same source (probably worth noting?):

On the other hand, the raw material for modern nationhood in Afghanistan is much weaker than what exists in in Iraq. Literacy rates in the Pushtun belt of the south and east that has seen most of the serious fighting is under ten percent, with women’s literacy hovering near zero in many places. Starting with the 1979 Soviet invasion, 30 years of warfare have decimated traditional structures of authority and the human capital here: there are little or no skill sets among the population for the most basic administrative tasks. Afghanistan exhibits the same stage of human development as the poorest sub-Saharan African countries. .

Destruction of traditional authority structures is one of the paths to nationhood (i.e., the state), not a happy path, but one that many historians (i.e., modernists) are fond of pointing out [though I am not in full agreement on that]. And conflict as a shared tragedy has actually reinforced the idea of a nation among Afghans over the last thirty years.

Indeed, the government of President Hamid Karzai is weak, corrupt, and tribal to the core, with members of his family such as Ahmad Wali Karzai complicit in the drug trade. Karzai governs through his own Popolzai tribe of the Pushtun ethnic group, even as many positions in his government are manned by ethnic Tajiks from the north,…

One of those many non-tribal exceptions that are so numerous they form the rule:

Is it tribal or is it not? What’s with the “even as” qualifier? Are all the exceptions actually more the rule than the exception? Discounting non-Pashtuns (a significant “discount”) such as the governor of Balkh above still leaves many, many non-Popolzai Pashtuns in positions of power, united by common/self-interests and pragmatism.

Karzai has also permitted former mujahidin commanders such as Ismael Khan, Rasul Sayyaf, and Mohammed Fahim to emerge as corrupt oligarchs.

Really? All of these guys have become progressively weaker over time. Their informal power is still considerable (two of these were de facto fired from their jobs), but I argue they are weaker now than they have ever been. I’m not in total disagreement, I just don’t see these guys as products of Karzai permitting them. They just did so and Karzai could do nothing.

The ustad himself, back in the day:

There is of course corruption much closer to home that Karzai has enabled…

The result is that despite Karzai’s own royal Pushtun lineage and his dependence on blood relations rather than institutions, he is increasingly disliked by his fellow Pushtuns.

Karzai doesn’t have that many blood relatives… He relies a great deal on non-kin as stated above.

The Taliban, in this sense, are merely the latest incarnation of Pushtun nationalism on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

They most certainly are not a product of nationalism. Afghan Mellat, Daoud and Khalq are good examples of nationalism.

Afghanistan Mellat:

The Taliban are a rather complex product that has nationalism infused in the smallest dose.

But just as the central government is weak, so are the insurgents. The Taliban are just one of many anti-government syndicates that fight often at cross purposes with each other. In the south stretching from the Pakistani border town of Quetta to Kandahar are the Taliban-proper. In the southeast, stretching from Pakistani Waziristan into Khost, Gardez, and unto Kabul itself is the network run by former Afghan mujahidin leader Jalaluddin Haqqani. In the east is the HIG, or Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin, run by another former mujahidin fighter against the Soviets, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

The insurgents are weak because there are multiple groups? I really fail to follow. A similar situation didn’t really help the Soviets. And the insurgents today are far nicer to each other than the old days of Hizb versus Jamiat versus etc… The insurgents are weak in the sense that they couldn’t form a coherent government tomorrow, but as insurgents they are quite strong despite not having a unified command system.

And these represent only a few of the groups operating here, not to mention the insurgent factions inside Pakistan, which are more ideological than the ones in Afghanistan, owing to the more ideological nature of Pakistani Islam.

The ideological nature of “Pakistani Islam?” Which “Pakistani” Islam would this be? Or is there some generalizable “Pakistani Islam” whose definition has eluded scholars? Is Pakistan full of Brother Qutbs and Afghanistan full of quietist twirling Sufis straight out of the Turkish Ministry of Tourism website?

The rugged, utterly porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border is recognized by neither side, but is instead an informal line demarcated by the British in 1893.

Not recognized by locals and various Afghan governments? Sure, but most definitely by many governments of Pakistan.

Nice work Durand. Good job:

In the south and east, the radical Islamist insurgency is itself a reassertion of the concept of Pushtunistan on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Quit hanging out with Afghan Mellat. Nobody firing an RPG at the moment is fighting for Pashtunistan. In fact, Islamists would reject the idea of fighting for an ethnically defined state. And most of the insurgency is not “Islamist.” The above passage is beyond problematic.

Western Afghanistan is coming under the political and economic domination of Iran, which supplies the city of Herat with electricity, even as the Iranian rial is the main currency in circulation. The Iranians are sending arms and military trainers into this part of Afghanistan. While the Shiite Iranians are against a takeover of Afghanistan by the Sunni extremist Taliban, they also want to keep Afghanistan weak, and to bleed the Americans as much as they can. (The Spanish contingent of several hundred NATO troops in western Badghis province—in the heart of Afghani Greater Iran—practically never leaves its base.

“Afghani Greater Iran?” Iranian electricity and currency in Herat does not equal “domination.” The above passage is just a wee bit of an exaggeration. Iran is no angel here. But whatever problem Iran is is outweighed many, many times over by elements of society and government in Pakistan. So lets not lose focus.

And yet set against this whole legacy is another tendency, equally as compelling. Throughout the mid-part of the 20th century, Afghanistan had a credible central government under King Zahir Shah that boasted many accomplishments from eradicating malaria to overseeing the construction of a ring road uniting the major cities. Following the chaos of the early- and mid-1990s that came with the collapse of the Soviet puppet regime of Mohammed Najibullah, Afghans yearned so much for a central government that they initially welcomed the tyranny of the Taliban.

Uh huh. The “credible” central government (mostly Daoud’s doing) had to put down numerous revolts and then went begging to the Soviets and Americans rentier state-style to build nice things for the cities (including that ring road). And that central government didn’t get too far out of the provincial capitals. As for malaria, it was reduced by destroying wetlands and turning it into irrigated farmland. For that “accomplishment” you may want to, for example, credit the Spin Zar company up in Kunduz.

Nice ring road! Ochen Khorosho!

And must we go over this yet again? Many, many Afghans did not welcome the Taliban.

And today, all polls indicate that Afghans want strong national leadership emanating from Kabul. Indeed, there is a hue and cry for roads, wells, culverts, dams, and other infrastructure that can help with farming. The problem is that decades of strife, in which central authority went from monarchy to communism, to anarchy, to theocracy, to enfeebled democracy, have left tribal affiliations as the only constant.

Kaplan just said that traditional authority structures were eroded. Now they are a constant?

Helping the Taliban are hundreds of millions of dollars in annual profits siphoned off from a $4 billion opium trade, making the Taliban, in effect, narco-terrorists akin to those in Latin America.

And the state? What is its role in the narcotics sector? And PS: The Taliban is not FARC.

The American military is leading an effort to establish the Afghan equivalents of West Point and the National Defense University, in addition to basic training and advanced combat schools, a noncommissioned officer academy, an officer candidate school, and a counterinsurgency academy. There are also plans to dramatically scale up the number of police and to increase the size of the Afghan National Army Air Corps from 35 to 128 planes by 2016. This budding military complex promises to suck away the country’s very limited, literate elite, leaving comparatively fewer educated Afghans to be recruited for civilian jobs in business and government.

There is a danger of the military stealing the educated elite? I highly doubt that. That blame lays with NGOs, the business sector and the various foreign contractors.

While the coalition builds an army from the top down, they hope to improve security in the countryside from the bottom up through the Afghan Public Protection Program or AP3. As described by American Brig. Gen. Mark Milley, the AP3 recruits, trains, and arms locals across tribal and ethnic lines, making them answerable to provincial governors who are, in turn, appointed by the democratically elected president. A pilot AP3 is being developed in Wardak province, which guards the southwestern gates of Kabul. Wardak’s governor, Mohammed Fe’dai, speaks fluent English, is pro-American, and has a background in the professional world of non-governmental organizations or NGOs. He is one of a group of governors with whom the Americans are working, in effect, to circumvent total reliance on Karzai.

A pro-American governor? That’s good news. And it’s nice to hear that I can start using “AP3″ to refer to a militia that is being used to circumvent Karai ….through a Karzai appointee who can be removed by Karzai with little constitutional fuss. But did I not hear that Hanif Atmar will be managing this little militia experiment? Is he not on board with Karzai? And really, I’m glad that a former NGO professional is (according to Kaplan) running a militia. Everybody else gets to, why not somebody from the NGO community? And finally, Kaplan talks of circumventing the central government, while earlier in his article he spoke of the importance of a “credible central government.” How does the circumvention reconcile with the supposed yearning for this central government?

Certainly, the can-do spirit of the American, British, Canadian, and other soldiers here is infectious, even as the gargantuan size of the operation, with its attendant planes, helicopters, up-armored Humvees, and massively fortified bases is simply stunning.

Is this some verbalization of a WWII propaganda poster? Well, the gargantuan part is sorta right:

The stakes are vast. An Afghanistan that can inch its way back to the modest and fragile stability of the mid-20th century will leverage Pakistan back toward normalcy, in addition to becoming a conduit for energy pipelines that promise to unite oil- and natural gas-rich Central Asia with the Indian Ocean—thus linking India and Pakistan in a peaceful system of commerce. But an Afghanistan that crumbles into granular ethnic and tribal elements will bring down Pakistan, too, in addition to enlarging Iran’s new and unconventional terrorist empire.

Bomb, bomb, bomb,…bomb bomb Iran? Keep beating that drum Kaplan (while ignoring Pakistan in this article). As for those pipelines…

At the moment, American military officials tell journalists that the situation is much better than is being reported, even as they wear body armor and move in mini-convoys when they travel from one base in Kabul to another.

PAOs and commanders: your source for completely unbiased assessments that are completely contradicted by numerous reports based on quantitative and qualitative analysis (including their own).

“This is not easy sh*t,” says one American Army colonel. “But what’s the alternative?” That’s why American Brig. Gen. John Nicholson, Jr. says that what is required is “strategic patience.” [...] But does the home front have the stomach for it? Our reaction to the fighting about to unfold this summer will speak volumes.

The home front? Hey, that’s us! Now if only our pundits could write coherent articles.

If you don’t mind, I’ll review the second-in-a-row of military journal articles. Up next (h/t SWJ) is an article on SF tribal engagement:

‘Tribal Engagement in Afghanistan’, by Major Darin J. Blatt, Captain Eric Long, Captain Brian Mulhern and Staff Sergeant Michael Ploskunak. Special Warfare, January-February 2009, Volume 22, Issue 1.

Have these US Army special forces soldiers come up with a workable model of  “tribal engagement” in Loya Paktia that should become a model? They certainly seem to think so:

During a recent rotation to Operation Enduring Freedom, Special Forces A-detachments 3321 and 3315 developed models in the Paktia and Paktika provinces of what can be accomplished in terms of tribal engagement by working within the existing tribal power structure in Afghanistan. An examination of the detachments’ understanding of the operational environment and subsequent methods of engagement can provide a model for others to use throughout Afghanistan.

Before dismissing this as mere public relations, consider that this article is published in a military journal that is published essentially for internal reasons (and at the worst, self-promotion). It is not the same as a Public Affairs Officer lavishing praise on some US military operation or tactic. Their audience is intended to be other military professionals. But I gave it a read anyway and I have a few things to say.

Pic: not SF, but it’s from the same area.

There is much in the way of basic introductory stuff, such as describing the Pashtun/Pakhtun population of their area of operations:

Each tribe is divided into sub-tribes, all possessing unique cultures, norms and hierarchy of needs. Concepts such as national identity are far outweighed by loyalty to family, clan and tribe. Through the SF detachments’ analysis, it became clear that tactics, techniques and procedures used against a relatively sophisticated and networked adversary were going to need adjusting. Because all the tribes are concerned mostly with providing for their immediate future, successful engagement is simply a matter of making their lives a little better.

So the sub-tribes are unique, yet have in common a hierarchy of loyalties that give precedent to the local, plus a dose of rational economic behavior thrown in. Now I’ll get straight to the parts I find problematic:

In eastern Paktia, three centers of gravity are the real power needed to influence the population: the tribal elder, the local political leadership (the subgovernors; commanders of the Afghan National Security Forces, or ANSF; and other IROA/CF-sponsored leaders) and the local mullah. The power-broker who holds primacy is determined more by strength of personality, the problem at hand and the current local conditions than by any set of ideological values. If an element can influence the balance of power by tipping it to one side with incremental inputs, then that player has become the de facto power broker in the region. This was the genesis of the Moqbil Project.

This immediately illustrates the issue with any prospective “tribal” engagement: the “tribal elder” is not the only source of authority and leadership.  The religious and government factors are also at play here, in what seems to be nearly an unspoken competition between the “power-brokers” who draw their authority from contradictory sources: God, the government and local authority (i.e., “tribal”) structures (not that this stops some people from attempting to draw on multiple sources).

Pic: according to the flickr tags, these would be the authors’ predecessors in the Chamkani District of Paktia, doing some sort of “tribal engagement”.

Back to the article:

The Moqbil Project (named for the predominant tribe that straddles the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan) required an in-depth understanding of the local cultural norms. In eastern Paktia, the population’s ethical decisions are not governed by a rigid moral compass based on moral imperatives. Ethics are based on self-interest and self-preservation. Using one’s position to better one’s family, clan, village or tribe is expected. Why else would a public official hold an office, if not to advance his tribe’s interests? Understanding the culture, and working within the culture of eastern Paktia, not of the Western world, was essential if the teams were to make progress. The goal was to manage a tolerable level of what might be looked on as corruption in the Western world. The challenge was to get the mix right.

So, “the population’s ethical decisions are not governed by a rigid moral compass based on moral imperatives. Ethics are based on self-interest and self-preservation.” Is this an unspoken rejection of Pashtunwali? It does seem so. And that makes sense. I believe that using Pashtunwali to ‘anticipate’  individual and group actions will heap failure upon you. Using a basic rational choice model (self-interest/preservation), as posited above, will still bring a level of failure, but will be far, far better that referring to Pashtunwali.

But… “Understanding the culture, and working within the culture of eastern Paktia, not of the Western world, was essential if the teams were to make progress.” Does it not seem like the behavior described above is essentially the same as that of the “Western world”? Especially the Western world during its periods of war and unrest? Self-interest and self-preservation are not unique to rural Pashtuns.

The above passage immediately moves on to this statement:

The goal was to manage a tolerable level of what might be looked on as corruption in the Western world. The challenge was to get the mix right.

Well, that basically says that “we” and these rural Pashtuns are essentially the same in the behavioral sense, we just have some semantic differences (i.e., “corruption” versus “self-interest”).

And parts of the article are far too brief:

Although Arbaki (tribal militia) are not an official part of the security team, their support in the local villages is essential.

Now given the relatively lively debate over the issue of “tribal” militias, I was hoping there would be more information forthcoming. Unfortunately there is not.

Next up:

The JTOC provides a physical structure for sharing the common intelligence picture. It enables the leaders of the local tribes to report information to the IROA, vet the information against personal vendettas and leverage the responsiveness of the ANP and ABP, combat-advised by U.S. Special Forces, to respond to the requirement. Furthermore, through a tip line, locals can call information into the JCC/JTOC. The JTOC not only provides the ability to deconflict but also provides a venue for synchronizing operations in order to prevent the tribes from playing one element of the security force against another.

Hopefully this runs as smoothly as described, because calling in an airstrike or a raid on your neighbors “the Taliban” has been far to common in the past.

Pic: Hopefully, as the description says, this bonfire in Paktika was a Taliban safe-house.

There is at least one passage that sound a wee bit like a Public Affairs Officer:

The ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces] presence was warmly received by the locals. In Pesho Ghar, the local merchants stated that they could go home without worrying about criminals robbing their shops. What is more interesting, at the Naray Pass checkpoint, 50 locals came out with shovels and pickaxes to help the ANSF construct the checkpoint.

Now, I’m sure this actually did happen. The PAO comment was not the main point. The point is that insurgents, the government and foreign troops are not the only problem for locals here. Criminals, of both the government-uniformed and common variety, are a real concern that needs to be addressed. There is a reason that the semi-official Taliban mythology stresses the pre-Taliban crime levels: it resonates with a lot of people.

Now, I complained about the Arbaki militias getting too short of a treatment in the article, but this episode has many more words but still a lingering confusion (my underlining):

There are many ways to separate the insurgents from the population. At times, the method of choice is through lethal targeting. At other times, it is through nonlethal engagement. In the Moqbil tribal region, one venue for engaging the tribes was the repatriation of Mullah Noor Kabahr. Noor Kabahr, a key leader and respected elder of the Moqbil tribe in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, had been detained by coalition forces in mid-2007. First, Team Chamkani was able to articulate why Noor Kabahr’s repatriation would facilitate connecting the IROA to the population. Then, Team Chamkani gained influence over Noor Kabahr, and by working with the Moqbil tribal elders, the ABP and the Patan subgovernor, the ODA was able to leverage his release to develop influence with the Moqbil tribe (the population in the area).

The ODA leveraged SOTF-33’s excellent relationship with the Combined Joint Task Force, or CJTF, at Bagram to coordinate a large ceremony for Noor Kabahr’s release from detention. Following an overnight stay at the firebase, Team Chamkani escorted Mullah Noor Kabahr back to the Moqbil tribal area. A key leader engagement, or KLE, was held near Noor Kabahr’s home. The Patan subgovernor spoke to the many Moqbil elders in attendance. Following the KLE, Kabahr invited the ODA to a small lunch. Immediately following lunch, Team Chamkani and the ANSF established the series of checkpoints along the border of Pakistan in the Moqbil area. The following day, Noor Kabahr held a shura with the elders from the Pakistan side of the tribe. During the shura, the elders focused on securing their tribal areas and recognizing the importance of the new security positions along the border.

So, for some unstated reason, Mullah Noor (Nur) Kabahr was detained and held at Bagram. And then he is released by the Americans and given some sort of bat mitzvah/quinceañero/sweet 16th celebration with his new friends followed by a US Army pajama sleep-over? And then he is a successful KLE? Um…more information please?

Pic: Ain’t no party like a NATO party (pic is not of Mullah Kabahr).

In a perfect world, “our” new Mullah friend has see the light and will work to inform the locals of the benefits offered by cooperating the Americans and the Afghan government. And in reality? Is this the self-preservation that was spoken of earlier? And what of the medium-term? Do some of the locals consider him a lapdog of the Americans? Is their a price on his head? Is he going back to his old ways, whatever those were? Has he lost whatever independence he had? Would Mullah Kabahr be embarrased if he found out that he is being offered as a model for coopting local elites? I could keep piling up these questions. But on to the next excerpt:

The ability to target the key tribal facilitators within an area is essential to building a bond between the IROA and the tribe.

In Loya Paktia (Paktia, Paktika and Khost) or in the broader region? Because many argue that tribal structures are strongest in Loya Paktia and significantly weaker elsewhere. Perhaps instead of “tribal” we could switch semantically to “local” and note that there are a wide variety of local elites/authority figures that don’t neatly correspond to any sort of fixed tribal hierarchical leadership. Onward:

One of the essential aspects of tribal engagement is that it is done through the IROA [Islamic Republic of Afghanistan] subgovernors. Tribal engagement was a means of establishing the legitimacy of the IROA, not supplanting it. Likewise, in an area where the tribal elders speak for the tribe, Team Chamkani’s approach moved the local population toward a representative form of government, not away from it.

So, the goal is to use tribal enagement to strengthen the central government, an entity that has in more recent Afghan history (i.e., Abdur Rahman, Daoud, etc…) attempted to supplant the tribal/local leadership? Even if the “masses” want more government involvement in their lives, do the local elites?  I’m sure some locals see the contradiction in “working themselves out of a job.” As regarding the last sentence, noting that there are areas where “tribal elders speak for the tribe” means that there are areas where tribal elders do not “speak for the tribe.”

On to the very next paragraph:

For example, in the Serangur village, historically an insurgent support site, the ODA lent its firebase bulldozer to the village elders. The ODA provided fuel and an operator. The village elders were entrusted with the bulldozer for three weeks. This single action caused a major change in insurgent tactics. The insurgents were no longer welcomed into the village by the elders and were forced to move through the mountains. Although that did not stop insurgent infiltration, it did deny the insurgents the use of a high-speed avenue of approach. Alone, the action does not sound significant, but coupled with similar programs, it went a long way toward separating the insurgents from the population.

Pic: bulldozer-based COIN? (864th Engineer Battalion in Paktika).

No commentary on that, other than to say that reaping quid pro quo benefits from lending people your bulldozer does not require any strong cultural knowledge. Related to providing locals with material benefits:

Another of the keys to engaging the tribes through the IROA leadership is coordinating government officials’ actions. First, the ODA conducted internal team planning and coordination (including the CAT and TPT). The ODA knew what resources that it could offer and what it wanted to achieve. Then the ODA organized a weekly security meeting at the firebase. The subgovernors from the surrounding districts, as well as the ANP and ABP chiefs, met to discuss pertinent security issues. At first, the Afghans were hesitant to talk. Over time, and when they came to realize that the ODA could facilitate certain resources, the Afghans began to take the lead. The CF simply sat in the back and observed the IROA officials discussing concerns and conducting coordination for items of mutual interest.

Does this not reflect the supremacy of material needs? Again, no deep understanding of local culture needed, just the understanding of local needs (check out Joshua Foust’s related article on local needs).

And what of the progress of this tribal engagement model?

While it is tough to measure the effectiveness of tribal engagement, there are regular indications of improvement. For example, the ODA commander was invited to a shura held by the Chamkani subgovernor. The issue at hand was the debt between two individuals from the Jaji and Mangal tribes. The Mangal man had kidnapped the Jaji because of an unpaid debt. A month earlier, the Chamkani subgovernor, with the support of the ABP and ANP (advised by the ODA), conducted a patrol to the Mangal’s village and freed the Jaji man. At that point, the Paktia provincial governor ordered the Jaji man to remain in the custody of the Chamkani police during the subsequent investigation. A jirga, or assembly of elders, was held that included the IROA and elders from each tribe. With the blessing of the provincial governor, the decision was made by the elders for the Jaji man to repay his debt, minus an amount to compensate for his time while detained.

What the authors are making clear here (other than the honesty in saying that measuring progress is difficult) is that tribal engagement is just one component: the above anecdote includes Afghan government secuity forces, civilian governors, tribal elders and a US Army commander.

Now for a very problematic interpretation of another anecdote:

Another example is the detention of the target Abdul Jalil. Abdul Jalil lives in the Martwarkh village, but he would move between Pakistan, Khowst, Paktia, etc., on a regular basis. On April 12, 2008, the ANP received a tip that Jalil was back at his house (Jalil enjoyed freedom of maneuver because the ANP was not willing or capable to mount an operation to capture him.) The ANP chief decided to act. Following a cordon and search, the chief held a shura with the local elders. These are the same elders that the ODA/IROA had been working with over the past several months. The chief told the elders to have Jalil turn himself in to the ANP or subgovernor as soon as possible. He told the elders that Jalil would be arrested, “either tomorrow or 20 years from now.” When Jalil returned home, the elders forced Jalil to go see the subgovernor. Jalil did. The subgovernor thanked Jalil for being forthcoming and then brought him to the firebase.

The key take-away from this scenario is IROA tribal engagement. The decision in these specific cases was for the IROA to empower the tribal elders to have a voice in a criminal case that clearly involved elements of traditional Pashtunwali, or hospitality. This integration of Pashtunwali into IROA tribal engagement was not lost on the tribes. Having a coalition-force representative present (the ODA commander) in support of the IROA gave great credibility to the CF in the eyes of the tribal elders.

Minor point first: Pashtunwali is not “hospitality,” melmastia is (which is just one component of Pashtunwali). And just how Pashtunwali is on display here is not convincingly demonstrated. And in fact, it could just as easily be argued that the tribal elders violated nanawatey (sanctuary/asylum) – a key  concept of Pashtunwali – when, under pressure from the ANP, they forced Abdul Jalil to turn himself into the government. The shura/jirga was resolved in the government’s/American’s favor only after the big stick was waved around.

More vagaries:

Each week, the Bermel subgovernor holds a shura in the Bermel district center for the Bermel tribes. The Waziris have a majority, with minor tribes also in attendance. The SF teams operating in the area hold a weekly shura for the same Waziris from Bermel and the Kharoutis from northern Gomal. Forty elders regularly attend the Shkin shura — half from the Waziri tribe and half from the Kharouti tribe.

The actual authority of these tribal elders is unknown. At best they are respected community leaders whose input is valued by all, but at worst they are bored old men with white beards who are rounded up and lectured to (and the allowed to mumble a few complaints that are immediately ignored). Do not assume that power and authority rests in the hands of those who are identified as community leaders. [As an aside, the Kharoti (Kharouti) tribe mentioned above includes the Hizb-i Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the very dead Communist leader Hafizullah Amin as members, neither of whom seemed to make use of tribal identity.] So I am not convinced that this shura is effective.

Pic: Shura-yi Kanadayi.

OK, this is getting way too long. I’ll make it a two-parter and pick this up in the next entry.

The 4th edition of the Afghanistan Analyst Bibliography is now available for download:

• Afghanistan Analyst Bibliography (pdf)

I’ve changed the sections a little and eliminated double listing sources. The page count is now at 148 pages.  There are many new sources from 2008 and 2009, plus some older sources that I missed. Here’s what’s inside:

1. Ethnic Groups

2. Conflict and Mobilization: War, Ethnicity, Jihad, Factions, “Warlords,” etc… (Late 1970s to the present)

3. Islam, Political Islam, Sharia, Jihad, Sects, and Religious Affairs

4. The International Community, Reconstruction, Security, Economy, Government, and Development

5. Policy Recommendations and Criticisms

6. Opium Cultivation, Drug Use and Trafficking

7. Environment, Agriculture, Land/Property Issues, Health and Natural Resources

8. Human Rights

9. Women, Gender and Family

10. Civil-Military Relations, Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), Counterinsurgency and Military Issues

11. Refugees, Internal Displacement, Migration and Diaspora Issues

12. Macro and Micro Economics

13. Opinion Polls, Interviews, Study Groups and Surveys

14. Periodicals and Academic Journals

Think I missed a good source? Feel free to email and let me know. Just make sure to check the introduction to the bibliography for source standards to make sure it’s a source that I can include.

Nathaniel Fick and John Nagl have written an article on counterinsurgency in the newest edition of Foreign Policy. The article, titled “Counterinsurgency Field Manual: Afghanistan Edition” , is quite straight forward and I agree with most of the points. But I have attempted to muddy it up in regards to certain points that I have reservations about.

You can read my response at the Complex Terrain Laboratory.

It’s official. Any chance of an application of the Iraqi Awakening/ Sons of Iraq/Concerned Citizens/Anbar militia strategy making it to Afghanistan in the form of US-supported Pashtun militias (Lashkars, Arbakais, Arbakis, Arbakees) is dead. I was worried when the idea was making its rounds through various newspapers, media outlets and blogs. The Brits started it around mid-December 2007 with PM Brown openly advocating the idea. I wrote at CT Lab about why it was a bad idea in a quick and incomplete entry that didn’t reflect fully what a bad idea the proposed tribal strategy was. However, other analaysis is available. Josh Foust was so annoyed that he wrote about it once, twice, three times. But what the heck do Josh Foust and I know? [To be fair, Péter Marton beat us to it.]

I was heartened when NPR quoted Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, who commands all U.S. and allied troops in eastern Afghanistan:

Among the questions being asked: Can Afghan forces be expanded rapidly by organizing — even arming — the country’s tribes, much like the tribes in Iraq were brought into the fight against al-Qaida two years ago? That effort started in Iraq’s Anbar province, which at one time was among the most violent. Now it’s one of the most peaceful provinces.

“I don’t think there’s any broad consensus on arming the tribes,” says Schloesser. “There’s a fear that going back to any kind of warlordism or armed militias is a step backward. But I think there is an attempt to empower the tribal elders and tribes to try to help in security.”

Well, we and other uppity skeptics got our comeuppance when the Army Times, on October 21st quoted General Petraeus:

Petraeus said it is “conceivable” that the Taliban and the Haqqani and Hekmatyar groups might include elements open to such reconciliation, and that the U.S. and its allies might support — in very close coordination with the Afghan government — the establishment of local anti-extremist militias similar to the “Sons of Iraq” Sunni groups who helped turn the tide in Anbar province against al-Qaida in Iraq.

I couldn’t believe it when I read this. I though that officers on the ground and any analyst who cares to actually read a few books by anyone French or just a couple of reports/essays by anyone German about Afghanistan would realize that this is a wretched idea (OK, there are of course more great authors other than just Roy, Dorronsoro, Glatzer and Schetter). My opinion of Petraeus at the time dropped more than a few notches.

But then, surprise! It seems that the Army Times, which is a private independent paper, got it a little wrong. A mishap that has nothing at all to do with the Army Times journalist’s Canadian background. Perhaps bad communication on the Army side?

On Halloween, in the Finacial Times, Petreaus’s skepticism shone through:

Given his success in Iraq , Gen Petraeus has been asked whether some of the counter-insurgency efforts that worked in Iraq could be imported to Afghanistan . But he has always stressed the “unique” nature of each situation, saying recently that, “some of the concepts used in Iraq are transplantable. Others perhaps are not”.

OK, vague…but at least he is not swallowing the concept whole. And just a day before General McKiernan, in the NY Times, also expressed caution:

American commanders have also spoken of the importance of better engaging Afghan tribes as a weapon against Taliban encroachment. Some have suggested using the model of the “tribal awakening” that occurred in Iraq, when the American military teamed with some former Sunni insurgents to try to drive out Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

But General McKiernan has cited significant differences in the history and culture of Afghanistan, as well as a greater complexity in the Afghan tribal system, as reasons why the Iraqi model does not directly apply in Afghanistan. Of the more than 400 major tribal networks inside Afghanistan, the general said recently, most have been “traumatized by over 30 years of war, so a lot of that traditional tribal structure has broken down.”

Spencer Ackerman picked up the general vagueness of the whole affair and wondered aloud if the answer is to Anbar or not to Anbar?:

Now, it could be that Petraeus isn’t talking about creating what might be called Sons Of Afghanistan, and is instead concerned with the general strategic option of separating irreconcilable enemies of the Afghan government from those who can be bought off or otherwise induced to abandon insurgency.

Ackerman, who is on the lists of journalists I don’t make fun of, possesses the capability of asking the big shots big questions. So he asked McKiernan and he was unenthusiastic. A WaPo journalist asked a follow up question and I’ll excerpt from the General’s response to that:

…..But I think it’s much more complex environment of tribal linkages, and intertribal complexity than there is in Iraq. It’s not as simple as taking the Sunni Awakening and doing the Pashtun Awakening in Afghanistan. It’s much more complex than that.

And how’s this for a high level civilian rebuttal?:

For his part, Barack Obama expressed doubts about how far the Iraqi template would stretch. “I agree with Gen. Petraeus that a topic worth exploring is whether similar types of opportunities exist in Afghanistan,” he replied, also via e-mail. “[But] Iraq and Afghanistan are very different countries. We cannot expect to simply export the Awakening strategy from the tribes of Al-Anbar to the tribes of Helmand …”

So…let’s just declare the concept of pro-American tribal militias rising up to dutifully take on the Taliban as DOA. It was a bad idea to begin with and now the highest levels of the military and the likely occupant of the White House have declared it so.

Thanks to Sir Max Hastings and his ramblings on Afghanistan we have a new oxymoron:

The highest aspiration must be for controlled warlordism, not conventional democracy. A civil war may prove an essential preliminary before some crude equilibrium between factions can be achieved. If this sounds a wretched prognosis, it is hard to find informed westerners with higher expectations.

So there is some legion of informed westerners advocating the need for yet another civil war and then some neo-warlordism to sort out the Afghans? Ignorant 19th century British tabloid trash redux. Somewhat reminiscent of the drunk ramblings from the table at the back of the officers’ club, somewhere in Burma.

Whole article, which doesn’t really dive until the end, @ The Guardian.

Well, the insurgency is interesting, I give it that. So “interesting” that the media needs to lump every insurgent into the “Taliban” category so as not to make things too complicated. Let’s take a ride with some reporters down south to hang out with the “Taliban.” I can’t embed the video but you can watch it here. It is distributed through Journeyman Pictures, which in regards to its Afghanistan content varies from gold to garbage. This report is somewhere in between.

This is their description, if you don’t feel like watching the 8-minute video:

For this exceptional report, the crew gained access to a Taliban compound near Kandahar. In exclusive interviews, Taliban fighters reveal their growing confidence and rising popularity among Afghans.

I would like to make a few comments on the content.

1. The Pakistani trainer sure wasn’t shy about his (comparatively) clean-shaven face being shown on TV.
2. The locals say that the compound used to belong to Mullah Dadullah.
3. According to the reporters, these “Talibs” are short on AQ/Jihadi rhetoric and long on anti-government, anti-foreigner and economic grievance rhetoric.
4. They cite the good wages of insurgency, but of course say they are motivated by Islam.
5. They say they won’t negotiate with the government.
6. They are unhappy that the government hasn’t fixed the flood damage in their village.
7. According to the reporter, they like whiskey, music and fighting “goats.”

Well, these “Taliban”-embedded reporters are just like most reporters embedded with coalition forces: they are prone to reporting much of the rhetoric as fact and just regurgitating the superficial things that they are told without the necessary skepticism or further investigation.

But there is something wrong with this report beyond the usual superficial stuff. Did you notice? Hint: It has to do with those “Talibs” and their “goats.”

That soldier is holding what is colloquially referred to as a “goat.” Those animals in the report butting each other in the head for the betting “Talibs” are more accurately termed “sheep.” OK, so what? I’ve written up all this just to point out that those goats were actually sheep? (I double checked with an Aussie bloke who farms sheep on the weekend).

Actually, I’ve pointed this out to make a parallel comparison to those “Taliban fighters.” They are not actually Taliban, unless your definition of Taliban is an insurgent who targets both the government and coalition forces. They are, as was sort of given away by the reporter, fighters affiliated with Hizb-i Islami Gulbuddin. That would be what remains of the Gulbuddin Hekmatyar faction of Hizb-i Islami. (Note that the locals said the compound used to belong to Mullah Dadullah).

Caricature of Hekmatyar via warlordsofafghanistan.com, your one-stop shop for warlord caricatures:

I’ve consistently belittled Hekmatyar, especially when the Taliban and AQ told him that he just wasn’t their type. But I’m also open-minded to the fact that Hizbi-i Islami Gulduddin (HIG) may be making a modest comeback (in comparison to its peak in the early 1990s). A google search will show that they have been “credited” with numerous attacks in the last year (albeit much, much less than what the Taliban gets credited for). Is Hekmatyar back? I don’t have the access to the sort of information that could confirm that so I couldn’t say for sure.

Some background info on HIG is necessary here. HIG was the favored (by the Pakistani ISI) mujahideen party during from the 1980s until the rise of the Taliban. It was a very centralized party, only Massoud’s group could compare in terms of organizational control (according to Abdulkader Sinno’s analysis). The other factions of the time were generally based on the distribution of patronage. It is possible that HIG is back, but mostly as a patronage distribution organization. Basically what happens is a local group (qawm, extended family, guys who used to fight together, whatever…) has some strong local motivations mixed in with the usual camouflage of defending Islam. They need some weapons and materiel. A sponsor (Hekmatyar) offers to be the sponsor or is solicited to be so. He has funds from the Gulf Arabs countries, Pakistan, his refugee camps, wherever… He is glad to send the goods across the border. Maybe he still knows some of his commanders from back in the day who can train these guys, maybe he knows a Pakistani officer who is willing to train these guys, maybe he can facilitate ties between commanders on the ground and with those Hizbis who have ostensibly left HIG and joined the government (there are lots). Anyways, lots of speculation in there. But I just can’t imagine that HIG is a group with the same level of organizational control it once had. Though maybe not in regards to all the HIG guys out east in Kunar, Nuristan etc.. who may be in much closer contact/vicinity to Hekmatyar.

Therefore, I don’t think the diffuse group known as HIG can be decapitated. I believe that these guys on the ground are operating mostly independently of their sponsor/leader. Not that Hekmatyar being dispatched would be any great tragedy.

And about this group near Kandahar that may previously have been affiliated with Dadullah? Now who would, so far from the traditional strongholds of HIG, have some old contacts with Hekmatyar to revive once they had lost their use for the Taliban or experienced some other sort of mutual disaffection or lost their main Taliban sponsor? [Super-speculation warning] Check out this map of the situation in 1992, by Gilles Dorronsoro (pg 247):

If that’s too small then take a look at this bigger file. So if you were wondering how a HIG group magically sprouted in the middle of Taliban country, that map may help to show that there were some far-flung Hizb affiliates. I’m not saying to bomb that little vertical line blob to the west of Kandahar, I’m just saying that it is not surprising that HIG is down there considering that they used to be there.

There is endless speculation to be had in there. But the point I want to make is that the insurgency is increasingly diverse, that’s what the report got right.

Further reading:

• Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Return to the Insurgency
• Insurgency and Counterinsurgency Franchisees
• Goat-based Insurgency

About a year and a half ago Afghanistanica wrote about deliberate misinformation leading to innocent civilian casualties:

…recent bouts of civilian casualties in Afghanistan might have been the result of deliberate misinformation by “tribal rivals.” [...]. I would hope that NATO/US troops are no longer falling for this BS. I’ve heard that they have become quite skeptical about local information and are especially wary of walk-in informers. [But] I imagine that they just don’t have the time and resources to follow up on every report. I would also hope the situation is not as bad as late 2001/early 2002 when on the say-so of some random guy the Americans wiped out a convoy of tribal leaders on the way to a (the?) Jirga.

But as illustrated by the recent raid on Azizabad this is still happening.

Al Jazeera English visited the village of Azizabad and confirmed earlier reports that the villagers blame a tribal rival by the name of Nadir Tawakil (or Tawakal) for providing the Americans with the false information that a Taliban meeting was taking place in the village.

I try to stay away from discussing issues that are well covered by others. So I’m not posting this to point out the American military’s wretched communication skills, nor to discuss the moral implications or the issue of “hearts and minds.” I’m posting this to illustrate how sophisticated many of the players on the ground are. Many of them may lack a formal education, they may even be illiterate. They may have never been outside of Afghanistan, save perhaps some time spent in a refugee camp in Pakistan or Iran. They may remain silent, saying little or nothing at all. They may feign ignorance. They might just concur with everything that you say. They might not even be visible, instead operating through proxies.

But never assume that you are smarter than anyone in this country. Your education does not count for much here. The social cues you are accustomed to watch for are very different here. There have been cases of “simple villagers and peasants” deceiving anthropologists who lived amongst them for as long as a year. Comparatively speaking, a US Army officer is easy “prey” for deception by men such as Nadir Tawakil.

I have written (skeptically) about the potential for the al Anbar strategy to be replicated in Afghanistan at the CT Lab. Click here to read.

Pic: Her Majesty’s “loyal” local allies about to kill their allies.