rssWhat Worked In Iraq Must Work In Afghanistan, Right?
Wednesday, December 24, 2008 at 10:13 am
- 7 Comments
In October, Gen. David McKiernan, commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan expressed skepticism over the prospect of signing up tribal militias, Anbar Province-style, to fight the Taliban. Over the last several days, it’s become increasingly clear that a Sons-of-Afghanistan style approach — the recruitment of tribal auxiliaries — is nevertheless in the cards, and evidently with the approval of McKiernan and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, his reported criticisms of the idea notwithstanding.
Today Dexter Filkins of the New York Times explores the emerging Sons of Afghanistan plan and injects a healthy dose of skepticism. Apparently a pilot tribal-militia program is on track to start in Wardak in 2009.Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, has a very unhappy history of militias doing their own thing; and also unlike Iraq, where the Anbar Province revolt was a bottom-up response to the perfidies of Al Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate, this program is a top-down directive, through the U.S. military, to get tribal leaders to raise their own militias. Add to that the fact that the plan is a complete reversal of a U.S. and U.N. joint effort in the early days of the war to disarm Afghan militiamen. And the fact that the Afghan parliament voted this plan down already a few months ago.
“There will be fighting between Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns,” said Salih Mohammad Registani, a member of the Afghan Parliament and an ethnic Tajik. Mr. Registani raised the specter of the Arbaki, a Pashtun-dominated militia turned loose on other Afghans early in the 20th century.
“A civil war will start very soon,” he said.
Is that a proposition we really ought to be testing? One that could also inflame sectarianism in Afghanistan, which, at least on the basis of my admittedly short visit, I didn’t see in evidence?
What I did see was an overwhelming desire for security among the population. Lots of people said something to me that boiled down to, “When the Taliban were in power, the roads were safe, food was cheap and gas is cheap. Now the Americans are here and none of that is true.” The major factor that made the tribal revolt in Anbar work was that the population, including the extremists, understood that Al Qaeda offered them a bleaker future than even the occupation. Nothing like that exists in Afghanistan — or, at least, there is an alarming lack of evidence for that crucial proposition.
People need to take a very deep breath. To judge by the available evidence, the Afghan population wants security. It does not want more militias. The Afghan Senate has actually rejected this proposal explicitly. Is there any actual appetite among Afghans for a Sons-of-Afghanistan program? Or is this a case of hubristic Americans coming into Afghanistan and imposing a template from Iraq upon an overwhelmingly different country and overwhelmingly different set of conditions? You can tell what I suspect from the way I framed the question.
One more thing. I get a lot wrong. I believed with absolute certainty that the surge in 2007 had no chance of tamping down violence in Iraq. And I mean absolute certainty — not just that it wouldn’t work but that it couldn’t work. And clearly that was completely wrong. (It was still strategically the wrong thing to do, but that’s a separate argument.) If the tribal-militias proposal in Afghanistan is in fact a set course, I would like to be wrong about that as well.
But notice what we’re doing here by discussing the question in this way. We’re not talking about Afghanistan-qua-Afghanistan at all. Instead we’re talking about a series of meta-propositions and who was right and who was wrong about them, not first-order concerns about the wisdom, feasability, and drawbacks of the idea itself. And that is the sort of debate that in Washington substitutes for considering first-order problems, and it gets people needlessly killed. We cannot think in these terms anymore, because we know exactly where it leads. Merry Christmas.
Follow Spencer Ackerman on Twitter
7 Comments
Comment posted December 24, 2008 @ 9:45 am
Hey Spencer. I can never get FDL to work, so I wanted to come over here and tell you that while I'm about twice as old as you (Summer Vacation 1970 on the Cambodian Border with the Cav), I sure do appreciate your music posts. Wanted to thank you for introducing me to Gaslight. That's a special find.
Also, Merry whatever…
mikey
Comment posted December 24, 2008 @ 10:05 am
Hey thanks Mikey. Merry whatev to you too. I'll bring up your FDL problems — you can't comment, I take it? — with the mods.
Comment posted December 24, 2008 @ 11:24 am
The Soviets used Dostum (Uzbek) and his militia from the north against the Kandaharis (Pashtun) when they could not “win” in that city in the 80s. They were given a “free hand” that resulted in what in other circumstances would be referred to as war crimes…never to be addressed. Will the proposed militias be used in only their home territories, ie. Uzbeks against Uzbeks, Pashtuns against Pashtuns, etc. or be used as the Soviets did? And who will monitor their actions to be sure the “trained militias” will be against the “Taliban Movement” or against some of their traditional tribal foes? As we have experienced, some of our “intelligence” has resulted in our bombing of our informants' feuding enemies instead of a gathering of “Taliban”. It seems unlikely that we can monitor the results. Do we understand what we are trying to do? Seems unlikely.
Comment posted December 24, 2008 @ 5:10 pm
Trouble with the registration, but I have a bad tendency to run fucked up linux OSs and hacked browsers, so its likely me.
Rock on!
mikey
Comment posted December 26, 2008 @ 2:22 am
That will not work in Afghanistan at first, it will make Afghanistan 2 times as bad at first.
number 1, it did not work in Iraq at first, the terrorist left then come back very fast & then it was 2 times as bad, that was unto they started to do street blocks & check points every where, then they bring in sniffer dogs metal detectors & when house to house again, then you seen a massive turnaround .
Unto the sons of Iraq seen street block & road block, they did not try help America, once they seen road block & check points, they started to help,,,,
Do you know why, check points where to go all the way around each block around the markets, after doing that the terrorist could not drive a car with explosives into the market & kill 700 people each attack, that is what worked with all the other tactics, & unto they sons of Iraq seen a massive drop in attacks / death they did nothing at all,, the check points stop the terrorist killing 700 people with 1 attack, times that by only 5 attacks a day, & you can see that 3,500 people each day would not be killed.
So that is what happened & that is why the Iraq started to help after seeing a massive stop to the terrorist tactics,,, the sons of Iraq seen check points that stoped all attacks at the market pretty much, & once they seen America with a new war plan they backed it & then the really started to help..
You can only kill 5-20 people at a check point, not 700 people,, get it, death rate / by 80%.
If you note, they had the sons of Iraq before the surge, it did nothing at all, unto 2-3 moths after the surge of troops got there, that is because they did not do every think right,, they need check point road blocks sniffer dogs to smell for explosives & needed to do them the right way,, so check points not just on a street here & a street there, but check points all the way around the markets that will stop any car with explosives driving into a crawdad place, with 8,000 people, & blowing up, killing 1,000 people each.
All the new tactics that where done 2-3 months after the surge of troops where there, won the war for them,, so, sniffer dogs smelling for explosives & gun powder after a gun what shot, then door to door every house with sniffer dogs metal detectors and a lot more things.
that’s what worked like check points all the way around places, & check points.
Just like the cement wall of sadar city,, it was done to make the terrorist run out of weapons, build a cement wall all the way around sadar city, then after 3 months they will run out of explosives & ammo, so they will in 1 month no what is going to happen, & that’s why they had a ceasefire,, we forced them into 1, that or die.
& a lot more.
Comment posted January 1, 2009 @ 8:33 am
The surge worked?
Then you should read this article:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/1872…
Comment posted January 1, 2009 @ 4:33 pm
The surge worked?
Then you should read this article:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/1872…
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
