GOP disappointed in new drug chief?

According to a press report this week, Congressional Republicans are upset with the appointment of a State Department official to a newly created post of an anti-narcotics chief in Afghanistan. According to one staffer, the position was intended for someone to "knock heads together;" when someone from Foggy Bottom was tapped they've argued that "all this has done is put another player on the field."

There seem to be two worries: first that Thomas Schweich, most recently of the INL and a former chief of staff at the US Mission to the UN, is not senior enough to make this happen, and second that he harbors "soft on drug" inclinations (one staffer said "It's putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.")

Schweich's positions are not clear yet. From his comments he certainly doesn't seem one of those namby-pamby incrementalists so derided by the drug warriors. On alternative livelihoods without eradication, he has said "we don't think that's ever worked anywhere in the world." He's a clear proponent of spraying (though with the Afghan government's consent.)

Perhaps its his "pessimism" that has earned him enmity: he has said that eliminating poppies in the south is "a longer term proposition, maybe five or 10 years." For congress, that sounds hopelessly long. For those familiar with the challenge, it seems more than a bit optimistic...

House GOP protests drug czar for Afghanistan:WASHINGTON, March 27 (UPI) By SHAUN WATERMAN: Republicans in Congress are angry at the Bush administration's choice of a State Department official to fill a new post to oversee U.S. efforts against drug smuggling and corruption in Afghanistan. "It's putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop," said one senior House GOP staffer. A little-noticed announcement from the White House last week named Thomas Schweich to the new job: coordinator for counter-narcotics and justice reform in Afghanistan. MORE

Resource: Army Counterinsurgency Manual

It's been 20 years since the U.S. Army published a counterinsurgency field manual. Last year a new version was commissioned, and is available online here.

All the news that fits: 3 opeds from the NY Times

Three excellent op-eds in the Times today on Afghanistan and the region:

• Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid writes about his frustration as a liberal who supported Musharraf five years ago. "An exaggerated fear of Pakistan's people," he writes, must not prevent Americans from acknowledging that Musharraf is losing support: "Pakistan has grown increasingly divided between the relatively urban and prosperous regions that border India and the relatively rural, conservative and violent regions that border Afghanistan. The two mainstream political parties have historically bridged that divide and vastly outperformed religious extremists in free elections, but under General Musharraf they have been marginalized..." Musharraf has done some good, he says, but his time has come...

• Nicholas Kristof writes about Kiva, a site that allows ordinary people to make direct loans overseas. He was in Afghanistan this week checking up on his two loans (of $25 each) to a baker and a TV repairman in Kabul. Kiva loans are administered directly by local partners and with little overhead (Kristof's New York to Kabul flight represents an older model of administering aid...) Kiva is a terrific mechanism--and hopefully Kristof's article will bring them some attention from the mainstream.
  
  • For more details, see www.Kiva.org.

• Rory Stewart stays on message: humility, humility, humility.  Actions justified on moral grounds is nonsensical if they cannot be acheived; "we have no moral obligation to do what we cannot do." Stewart does no service by conflating US policies in Iraq and Afghanistan for rhetorical reasons, but he has some sober and sage advice:

"We will have to focus on projects that Iraqis and Afghans demand; prioritize and set aside moral perfectionism; work with people of whom we don’t approve; and choose among lesser evils. We will have to be patient. We should aim to stop illegal opium growth and change the way that Iraqis or Afghans treat their women. But we will not achieve this in the next three years. We may never be able to build a democratic state in Iraq or southern Afghanistan. Trying to do so through a presence based on foreign troops creates insurgency and resentment and can only end in failure."

Update: the battle for Kajaki dam

How is Operation Achilles going? Joe Friesen answers one facet of that question by looking at one of the operation's goals: to secure Kajaki dam and create a "safe zone" that would permit repair.

The dam currently supplies 380,000 people with sporadic power; if refurbished it could provide 2,000,000 with steady power, not to mention irrigation and employment. It would serve as a symbol of what the government can deliver that the Taliban cannot.

Friesen reports, however, that despite military progress by NATO forces "the Sangin valley south of the dam remains a hotbed of Taliban activity. Until it is secured, construction on a road leading from the highway to the dam cannot begin." Things will take a while to sort themselves out.

Of course, even if Kajaki dam is secured, the region will not be home free. Transmission lines will need to be upgraded as well, and insurgents could still blow up power lines and transformers to turn out the lights. Friesan notes this would risk alienating the population, but this hasn't stopped similar tactics in Iraq.

The fight to win Kajaki dam KANDAHAR, March 24, by Joe Friesen:...  The alliance says British forces have won the high ground in the area, giving them a significant strategic advantage. They have been clearing Taliban positions, blowing up arms caches and slowly gaining ground. Coalition forces have also encircled most of northern Helmand, with Canadians from the Royal Canadian Regiment on the eastern edge of that movement. But the Sangin valley south of the dam remains a hotbed of Taliban activity. Until it is secured, construction on a road leading from the highway to the dam cannot begin, and without a safe road it's impossible to supply the operation. MORE

Photo: DOD: Paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division patrol the Ghorak Valley of Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan during Operation Achilles, March 6.

Afghanwire launches new site, podcasts

Afghanwire.com, an excellent site that monitors Afghan media and provides background, has launched a new website "to give experts, both local and foreign, another outlet to voice their opinions about the current events and issues." They will also have a podcast every two weeks that will offer voices from the field and "Around Afghanistan with Vanni Cappelli."

Seems like they don't have any podcasts up yet. They are hard to do well. Does anyone know of any good podcasts on Afghanistan?

By the Numbers

Number of different (and often conflicting) land registries in Helmand:            17

Arrests by the British-supported Criminal Justice Task Force since May 2005: 830

Percent that resulted in a conviction:                                                           42%

Estimated years of opium exports that traffickers have stored in reserve:       4

                                                                                    Source: The Guardian

MORE BY THE NUMBERS BELOW
 

Should we end the counterinsurgency and refocus?

Getting a lot of buzz is Rory Stewart's guest column in the NY Times, in which he concludes that the West has bit off more than it can chew and that "the original strategy of limiting our role was correct."

It's a thoughtful piece, and Stewart writes well; however, his own policy prescriptions are no more coherent than the muddled thinking he dissects. MORE

After the Mastrogiacomo kidnapping

Fred Burton of Stratfor (subsc. req) writes that the Mastrogiacomo kidnapping (and subsequent negotiation for release of prisoners) is a sign that "reporters (and other Western noncombatants) have now become a valuable commodity in Afghanistan -- a 'get out of jail free card' for jihadists or criminals." Seems like he's jumping the gun here; statistically speaking, Afghanistan has not been an especially dangerous conflict zone for foreign journalists to operate. But Burton is right that the high-profile event could inspire copycats:

The problem is, even if this is not the beginning of a larger Taliban strategy to commoditize foreigners, their actions have in effect already done this. Other actors at large in Afghanistan, including al Qaeda, non-Taliban jihadists, criminal groups and even the various tribes, could decide to follow Dadullah's lead in order to gain the freedom of their own colleagues or family members.

Whether higher risks are reality or mostly perception, incidents like this effect how reporting and reconstruction is done (deteriorating security has crippled each in Iraq; it's impossible to do these jobs right from the green zone.)

Afghanistan Watch by the Numbers

By the numbers

Click here to see the latest By the Numbers.

• Suicide bombing attempts in 2006:                                142
• Total Afghan soldiers and police killed in these attacks:  46
• Foreign soldiers killed:                                                  15
• Afghan civilians killed:                                                206
• Suicide bombing attempts, Jan-Feb 2007:                      22
• Suicide bombers dead or captured:                                22
• Total foreign or Afghan security forces killed:                  8

                    Source: "Afghanistan's Record of Suicide Attacks in 2006"
MORE

Amnesty law passes; what next?

Alex Thier and Scott Worden have a piece in the Christian Science monitor that suggests that Karzai, if he plays his cards right, can "seize this opportunity to cement his leadership by transforming a self-serving attempt by warlords to avoid justice into a measure that truly sets a course for reconciliation and peace."

They argue that the outcry the bill spurred--especially from the National Council of Islamic Clerics who say it violates sharia law--is a positive sign; moreover, because of language within the amnesty provision, it "does not really protect any individual from answering for his crimes -- so long as a victim is brave enough to bring a claim." Thier and Worden argue that the best way to proceed is to implement the bill within the context of Karzai's Action Plan for Transitional Justice, which precludes amnesty for "crimes against humanity" (which are also prosecutable under international law.) In sum--and like Barney Rubin last week--they believe there's some lemonade to be wrung from these lemons. Worth a read...

Healing the wounds of the civil war requires both reconciliation and accountability
WASHINGTON (CSM) By J Alexander Thier and Scott Worden

Like every country facing the aftermath of civil war, Afghanistan is struggling to balance the need for peace and stability with demands for justice and accountability...Although President Hamid Karzai successfully negotiated a crucial amendment to protect the rights of victims of war crimes, the new amnesty law still favors the powerful warlords who sponsored the bill.