Elections in Afghanistan could be problematic

As talk swirls over whether Zalmay Khalilzad will run for Afghan president and Karzai attempts to project his authority to prepare for what could be a possible re-election bid, a U.S. Army report finds cause for worry about national elections in Afghanistan. Michael J. Metrinko, of the Army’s Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute, looks at problems with future Afghan elections in the face of deteriorating security.

A disheartening account of Afghan Police

New York Times reporter C.J. Chivers has a disheartening account of the state of Afghan police. He finds overworked and grossly underpaid and under-equipped policemen on the verge of mutinying, in charge of enormous swaths of land.

In its simplest distillation, the strategy driving this American-led war is straightforward. Western troops are an interim force to provide security, spur development and mentor indigenous security forces until the Afghan leadership can govern alone.

But in the past two years, the insurgency has blossomed, making control of many provinces a contest. The Afghan Army, under American tutelage, has made considerable progress, American officers say.

The police lag far behind. Lightly equipped, marginally trained, undermined by corruption and poor discipline, they remain weak, though their expected role is daunting. They are not asked merely to police a country that lacks the rule of law. They are being used to fight a war.

Meanwhile, former Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald E. Neumann is recommending a draft to build up the Afghan National Army.

New covert US push in Pakistan?

The US is considering sending the CIA on more aggressive, covert missions into the chaotic tribal regions of Pakistan. The New York Times article quotes anonymous senior administration sources saying that the possible missions would be very secretive but would involve CIA cooperation with Special Operations forces. These options are being discussed in response to intelligence reports that see new Taliban efforts to destabilize the Pakistani government. (Also see the earlier Afghanistan Watch post on this)

Blogger “Charlie” who writes for the respected “Abu Muqawama” counterinsurgency blog thinks that Pakistan lacks two conditions that could make these missions successful:

1) A welcoming and cooperative government, whose armed forces take the lead in ground operations.
2) Little in the way of media coverage or Pentagon/Foggy Bottom meddling.

Overcoming the Obstacles to Establishing a Democratic State in Afghanistan

Col. Dennis Young of the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College adds to the chorus of voices urging the Bush administration to divert troops, effort and financial aid to Afghanistan. He also suggests five adjustments to current ISAF and U.S. strategies:

2007 – a year of records

2007 was a year of records in Afghanistan – most of it violent: the highest US military toll, most suicide bombings and record production of opium. More than 6,500 people, including 110 US troops and almost 4500 militants, were killed last year. Poppy production soared to 93 percent of the world’s supply. The Taliban also seems to be growing more sophisticated in its attacks and targets.

Record level of violence in Afghanistan, by Jason Straziuso (The Associated Press) 1 Jan. 2007:  Taliban fighters avoided head-on battles with US, NATO and Afghan army forces in 2007, resorting instead to ambushes and suicide bombings. But militants did attack the weakest of Afghan forces to devastating effect.

More than 925 Afghan policemen died in Taliban ambushes in 2007, including 16 police killed Saturday in Helmand province during an assault on a checkpoint.

"The Taliban attack who they perceive to be the most vulnerable, and in this case it's the police," said Lt. Col. Dave Johnson, a spokesman for the US troops who train Afghan police and soldiers. "They don't travel in large formations like the army does. That puts them in an area of vulnerability."

Taliban suicide attackers set off a record number of attacks this year — more than 140 — and in many ways they became more sophisticated.

In February a suicide bomber killed 23 people outside the main US base at Bagram during a visit by US Vice President Dick Cheney. A suicide bomber in June killed 35 people on a police bus. And in November a suicide bombing that killed six lawmakers also left a total of 77 people dead after security guards opened fire on a crowd of onlookers. Sixty-one school children were killed.

A roundup from December

Here’s a short news roundup of significant developments in or concerning Afghanistan from December:

Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction
The House approved the 2008 defense authorization bill, which in addition to providing $189.4 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, creates an office for a Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) and a bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting for more oversight of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The SIGAR is a much-needed agency to track down corruption and mismanagement in Afghanistan, much as its equivalent has done in Iraq. With this extra level of oversight and ensuring that reconstruction aid is invested properly, it will hopefully help get Afghan reconstruction back on track.

Brown's Plan for Afghanistan
UK prime minister Gordon Brown outlined his new plan for Afghanistan that included increasing aid by £450 million and tough benchmarks for Afghan security forces, encouraging Afghans to take responsibility for their own security.

Brown told MPs that aid would be given for "high impact" projects such as better roads, power supplies and clean water, as well as loans for small businesses and funding for civic groups and community development projects to improve local and national government.

You can read a transcript of Brown’s plan here. His emphasis on Afghans taking “ownership” and responsibility for their future and security is important.

In testimony before the Canadian Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defence on Dec. 10, RAND analyst Seth Jones explained the fast growth of the Afghan insurgency, thusly:

“The answer is simple,” one senior Afghan government official told me in October 2007. “The people are losing faith in the government. Our security forces cannot protect local villages, and our institutions struggle to deliver basic services.”

He testified that people are turning to the Taliban, not because they believe in extremism but because they are losing patience with the government’s inefficacy and corruption.

Indeed, the primary challenge in Afghanistan is one of governance. Governance includes the set of institutions by which authority in a country is exercised.11 It involves the government’s ability at the national or sub-national level to establish law and order, effectively manage resources, and implement sound policies. An insurgency reflects a process of alternative state building, where insurgents compete to provide governance to the population. Insurgents take advantage of weak governance and assume state-like functions. They tax and set up administrative structures for the population they control.

A Key Test for the Afghan National Army
The Afghan National Army seems to have proven itself in a key test last month – retaking the small dusty, but strategic toehold town of Musa Qala from the Taliban. Its symbolism was tied mainly to the fact that it was the only significant town controlled by the Taliban. As Guardian reporter Jason Burke put it, “For both sides, the struggle for the small country town represents in microcosm the battle for the country as a whole.”

But the offensive also spotlights the fact that despite its success, the Afghan National Army remains severely under-equipped and under-helped.

While U.S. officials cite the achievements of the Afghan military, the force has historically suffered from high attrition rates. It has also lacked sufficient military aid and trainers, and has been hobbled by old weaponry, Afghan defense officials say.

Video: Interview with Gen. McNeill, Rashid, MacDonald

Yesterday, the NewsHour with Jim Leherer ran a good segment on Afghanistan featuring commentary by Gen. Dan McNeill, Ahmed Rashid, and Norine MacDonald (from Senlis Council). The transcript, along with streaming video, is available here.

Assessing Afghanistan: NATO's 63 new metrics

Reuters reports yesterday that NATO has drawn up a "standardized system" of 63 metrics it will use to track progress in Afghanistan. U.S. Army Gen. John Craddock said that "I would submit to you that, to date, most of the assessments of progress have been against anecdotal information," or measured in terms of outputs such as schools built or roads paved. "All good things," he notes, "But the question in my mind is: What's the effect it's produced?" Were the roads blocked? Were the classrooms empty?

I find it more than a little bit troubling that NATO is only getting to this discussion six years in to the intervention. This sort of thinking should have been integrated from day one. In their defense, they probably had metrics, and are now revisiting them to make them meaningful.

It is, of course, a devilishly complicated undertaking. Which metrics to choose? How to weight one against another? And how to gather reliable data from the multitude of unverified sources that include donor countries, the UN, GOA, NGOs? Everyone is keeping score, but based on a different set of rules. Just thinking about it makes my head spin. I would love to see the 63 metrics NATO settled on, and hear how it plans to measure them (if anyone has insights on this, drop a line or a comment...)

NATO revamps measures of Afghan progress, by Andrew Gray (Reuters) 5 December 2007: WASHINGTON -- NATO has developed a standardized system for tracking progress in Afghanistan because the war so far has been judged largely using anecdotal evidence, the alliance's top commander said on Tuesday.

             

Quoteboard

"I'm not in the business of turning down jobs I haven't been offered."
  - Paddy Ashdown

"I can put a guy out on a ridge with an AK-47 and have him take a couple of shots. The Americans will shoot back with their big guns and disrupt the whole valley...Being an insurgent would be so easy."
  - Sgt. Jacob Stockdill

"All you have to do is not screw up, and, even if you do, you just blame it on the Americans."
  - Capt. Chris Rowe
MORE

Thinking like an insurgent: the Army's new academy

The Wall St Journal has a front page, 2,300 word piece this morning on the U.S. Army's "Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Academy", which was established this April to improve tactics. Last year the Army unveiled a new counterinsurgency doctrine, but its dissemination has been slow; when one of its authors, Lt. Col. John Nagl went to Afghanistan he saw "uneven understanding of counterinsurgency principles."

Capt. Dan Helmer, the 26-year old Rhode Scholar who set up the 'school' in six weeks notes that "We're trying to win an argument that supporting the government is worth risking your life for." That's a tough sell right now, and requires an approach which is 80% military and 20% political, according to Helmer. 

The Army says they've made great progress this year in giving troops Afghanistan-specific training before deployment, but current deployment patterns aren't providing enough time for learning. "There isn't enough time between being told that they're going and getting them through the training," says Lou Gelling, deputy commander of the Army's battle command training program. "That's the reality of it." Sounds like a lot of the training right now is supplemental, not comprehensive: five day courses for 60 soldiers at a time in a makeshift classroom.

As usual, one of the central problems ties back to Afghanistan's status as America's "second war":

The counterinsurgency training sometimes seems targeted more toward Iraq, according to Capt. Helmer and Col. Nagl. Of the 90 men under Col. Nagl's command, almost all are Iraq veterans and just one has served in Afghanistan. Even Capt. Helmer's orders to Afghanistan included the mistaken, but telling, instruction to take a course in Arabic -- a language spoken in Iraq, but not in Afghanistan.

The article is subscriber only content, but here are a few excerpts:

In Counterinsurgency Class, Soldiers Think Like Taliban, Wall Street Journal, By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS, Nov 30, KABUL:A natural-born insurgent, Sgt. First Class Jacob Stockdill was brimming with malicious suggestions when a group of American soldiers and Afghan security men sat down last month to plot their own defeat. MORE

Suicide bomb hits governor's compound in Nimruz; another averted in Kabul

Another fatal suicide attack in a province that rarely sees them (Nimruz).

Note also the clip on a Pakistani suicide bomber that stopped in Kabul as he attempted to board a bus filled with military trainers. Disaster was averted because of the quick thinking of a guard. MORE

Quoteboard

"If you're coming as our friends, don't. If you're coming as our enemies, we will fight you."
     - Zmarai, Arghandab district police chief, in response to Taliban threats.
MORE...

Gordon Adams on the Pentagon-Pakistan "slush fund"

Gordon Adams has a great post on Democracy Arsenal which takes a closer look at Pentagon payments to Pakistan (which are only now coming under scrutiny in congress). Here's a clip (Note: there's more on DoD's usurpation of roles once performed by State in Adam's Bulletin of Atomic Scientists article...):

The Los Angeles Times of November 18, 2007 reports that the Pentagon is looking into Coalition Support payments to Pakistan (of which $5.3 b have been made to date), because documentation of the Pakistani spending supposedly being reimbursed is too thin...One unnamed official, who tracks these payments, told the LA Times: “"Backdoor subsidies is what it can look like to some more skeptical observers, because there hasn't been good oversight and the amounts involved have been so great.  There is suspicion that it's a slush fund."

No kidding! Count me a “skeptical observer.”  So now the Pentagon, which has no expertise at making foreign assistance payments directly to other governments or at tracking them after they are made, are going to play catch-up ball with this program. MORE

Sarah Chayes on Arghandab, the Taliban, and GoA meddling

Sarah Chayes has a piece today in the Washington Post in which she recalls, from her front row seat, the Taliban incursion into Arghandab in the wake of Mullah Naqib's heart attack.

Her verdict is deeply troubling: despite a successful coalition counterattack, the Taliban operation  "was a deft, successful psychological operations action":

It said that, despite the likelihood that they would attack after the death of Mullah Naqib, no obstacle was thrown up to oppose them, and they were able to walk into the district. The targeting of the mullah's house was a deliberate affront. It said: "You see, o men of no honor? You can't even protect his house. You are nothing now." The sum of these messages was aimed at the ordinary people who are the prize in any insurgency: Our encroachment is inevitable, the Taliban said. You should align yourselves with the inevitable.

Equally troubling is the Government of Afghanistan's response. Immediately after Mullah Naqib's death, President Karzai, along with his two brothers and the governor of Kandahar, "interfered in the recent selection of a new elder, sidelining a man who had been Mullah Naqib's deputy during the anti-Soviet jihad." "If anyone knew how to fight the Taliban in Arghandab, it was he," argues Chayes, "And yet the government's machinations were plainly aimed at shutting him out" in favor of a more pliable replacement, the untried son of Mullah Naqib. Their goal, she implies, is to ram through an alluring -- but dangerously flawed  -- reconciliation with the Taliban.

A Mullah Dies, and War Comes Knocking, By Sarah Chayes, Nov 18, KANDAHAR: Wednesday, Oct. 31: I woke to the sound of artillery thudding -- like the beat of a heavy heart. It was Afghan army batteries firing into Arghandab, at new Taliban positions there. Through several nights, I had been listening, my ears pricking like a dog's, to the faint popping of gunfire, the clattering of helicopters, the whine of personnel carriers speeding along the roads, falling asleep only when the morning call to prayer rang out in the pre-dawn chill.

I can't explain how this felt, the penetration of war to this crucial part of Kandahar, where I have lived for six years. Arghandab district, with its riot of tangled fruit trees, is the lung of Kandahar province; its meandering, stone-studded river is the artery of the whole region. Arghandab is shade and water, and mud-walled orchards, and mulberries and apricots, and pomegranates the size of grapefruits hanging from the willowy branches. MORE

World Policy Journal piece

Below is an excerpt from a piece I wrote for this month's World Policy Journal. In it I argue that a too-narrow focus on counterinsurgency operations has undermined the mission in Afghanistan. The challenge today is recalibrating our approach to combine the right combination of military and non-military tools. You can download the full article here.

Buying Time in Afghanistan By Carl Robichaud, World Policy Journal, Fall 2007:   Afghanistan is increasingly seen as Iraq in slow motion. It is not. The headlines of car bombs and casualty tolls echo each other, but mask deep differences in each society and in the dynamics of each insurgency. As Iraq has descended into civil war, Afghanistan’s center has held. The government remains weak, but power holders and the public show no appetite for a return to internecine fighting. The insurgency remains solvent because of safe havens across the border in Pakistan, but has been unable to expand upon its toehold in Afghanistan or offer a compelling alternative to the status quo. MORE

Death toll up to 68, two arrested in attack

Sixty eight civilians have been buried, a hundred more are wounded, and countless questions remain. The provincial police chief Gen. Abdul Rahman Sayed Khail said two suspects had been arrested; these men apparently ordered women to leave the area shortly before the blast.

Alix Kroeger of the BBC gives voice to what many of us are wondering…

Another puzzling aspect of the Baghlan bombing is the sheer number of people killed, making it the deadliest such attack in Afghanistan's history. Put bluntly, most suicide bombings here kill only the bombers themselves.

There are still some people who believe, partly because of the devastating death toll, that it was not a suicide bomb at all. Forensic investigators are now at work in Baghlan, but it will be some time before their findings are released.

I have no special knowledge here, but count me among the skeptics. Have you ever seen this level of carnage from a single suicide bomber? Virtually all of the massive attacks in Iraq have been from vehicle bombs or pre-positioned explosives. That's not to say that the bombing was not from the Taliban, but there are some key details missing. MORE

Massive terror attack in Baghlan strikes parliamentarians

Today Baghlan -- a northern city that had been relatively peaceful -- suffered one of the worst suicide attacks in Afghanistan's history. The attack targeted a delegation of 18 lawmakers visiting from Kabul, killing at least two dozen and injured many more. Casualty estimates vary, and could be much, much higher (The AP reported 64 dead, Afghan TV 100...)

The bomb struck as the visiting delegates from the lower house were entering a sugar factory to celebrate its re-opening (Baghlan is the country's top producer of sugar beets).

The Taliban immediately issued a denial, but such denials have proved fallacious in the past. Hekmatyar's men are active in Baghlan.

The attack killed five parliamentarians, including Sayed Mustafa Kazemi, a former minister of commerce who was recently a leader and spokesmen for the National Front opposition group.

Afghan National Television reported that several other members of Parliament were killed: 

• Abdul Mateen, a former communist engineer from the southern province of Helmand;
• Qudrutallah Zaki from the northern province of Takhar;
• Said Rahman Hehmat from Kunar Province in the east;
• Muhammed Arif Zarif from Kabul.

In addition, dozens of civilians, including elders and children, were among the dead and injured.

None of the news reports I've seen describe the attack itself. It seems unlikely a single bomber on foot could have wreaked such carnage. Was it a vehicle bomb? Were the bombs planted in advance? 

Photo: Sayed Mustafa Kazemi in a 2002 meeting with American Ambassador Robert Finn.

Updates on fighting in Kandahar and Farah

Coalition forces continue to fight on two fronts this week against Taliban offensives in both Arghandab (Kandahar Province) and Gulistan (Farah Province).

Kandahar:  The Taliban have been driven from Arghandab for now, with the loss of fifty men (“They have received heavy casualties, faced humiliation, and they are gone,” assured Assadullah Khalid, governor of Kandahar Province.)

But will they be gone for long? The big question mark is the longer term implications of the loss of Mullah Naqib, the  Alokozai leader who died of a heart attack two weeks ago. Abdul Rahim Jan, a tribal elder from Panjwai, was quoted by the Globe and Mail saying “Mullah Naqib protected Kandahar...This is a big loss. It’s like a thousand people died.” In the same story, Sarah Chayes noted that “Arghandab was the finger in the dike. Now you have a wall of water bearing down on the city.”

Chayes argues, in a comment on Registan.net, that Mullah Naqib was "the recognized and universally respected 'elder' of one of the most important tribes in the Afghan south. His moral authority was accorded him by his tribesmen, based on his human and leadership qualities." She notes that "Over the next few weeks, Mullah Naqib’s tribe will put forth a new leader, and he is someone whom, along with government officials, it would make sense for international officials to have contact with, since he will be the democratically selected representative of a large and crucial segment of the population of this region." It is a promising sign that the local population rejected the Taliban when they sought to move into the power vacuum.

Farah: The other front making news this week is in westerly Farah province, where a Taliban force (estimated by one official at 700 men) raided a police outpost and held some terrain. Fighting has gone on for five days now.

In Farah, skirmishes have been commonplace since February between rebels and the British troops. The province is arid and sparsely populated with marginal strategic value outside of its proximity to Iran.  Are the recent attacks receiving attention because of their significance or their timing? In any case, the local authorities featured in this Reuters story were alarmed by the scale of Taliban attacks, and have called for coalition airstrikes.

"Gulistan district is still controlled by the Taliban," Ikramuddin Yawar, the police chief for western Afghanistan, told Reuters. "We want assistance from NATO to support us from the air."...in the west, the chief of a district near Gulistan and Bakwa warned his area would also fall to the rebels unless foreign air power was brought into play

Taliban occupy Arghandab district after Mullah Naqibullah's death

Today the Times reports that Taliban militants have occupied a strategic area north of Kandahar city for the first time since 2001. While we shouldn't make too much of the tactical implications of this advance (especially since a counterattack is already underway) there are other reasons to be concerned.

According to Sarah Chayes, who knows the region as well as anyone, the Taliban offensive has demonstrated that the fatal heart attack two weeks of Mullah Naqibullah --  an influential former mujahideen in Afghandab who had thrown his support behind the Karzai government -- has had major repercussions:

Over the last several years, Mullah Naqibullah survived multiple attempts by the Taliban to kill him, she said, and was “the bulwark” that blocked the hard-line Islamic group from entering Kandahar from the north. But in a sign of the weakness of President Hamid Karzai’s government in the area, joyous Taliban fighters seized control of Mullah Naqibullah’s home village in Arghandab within two weeks of his death.

In her book, The Punishment of Virtue, Sarah Chayes details  Mullah Naqib's on-again, off-again collaboration with the Taliban, and his rivalry with Gul Agha Shirzai. Naqib was a major player in the region, and his absence has already been felt.

WPR piece on private security contractors

Below is a piece I wrote, published today in the World Politics Review (an online foreign policy daily.)

Private Military Contractors in Afghanistan, Carl Robichaud | 30 Oct 2007

After the Sept. 16 Blackwater scandal, which drew unprecedented attention to the role played by private security contractors (PSCs) in Iraq, these firms have increasingly come under scrutiny in other theaters of war, such as Afghanistan. But while efforts in Afghanistan to rein in PSCs seem to parallel those in Iraq, they are driven by different dynamics -- and have very different implications. MORE 

Karzai's primetime appeal: curtail the airstrikes

President Karzai made a primetime appearance on CBS's 60 Minutes this Sunday to call for a rollback of airstrikes in Afghanistan.

When 60 Minutes asked whether Karzai had directly requested that President George W. Bush end the airstrikes he said "Absolutely. Oh, yes, in clear words."  He implied that his appearance on 60 Minutes was part of an attempt to go public now that direct conversations have failed to get results: "I want to repeat that, alternatives to the use of air force. And I will speak for it again through your media."

"You're demanding that?" - Pelley (in reference to a rollback of airstrikes)
"Absolutely," - Karzai.

• Watch the video

The rest of the piece is worth watching, if only because it is the first time a camera team was permitted into the Combined Air Operations Center, America's high-tech command post situated in an undisclosed Persian Gulf country (Qatar?) It is a scene that is both surreal and yet somehow mundane: walls lined with massive monitors, people seated at rows of desks with computers. It is here that decisions are made on each airstrike in Afghanistan and Iraq -- decisions that will mean life or death for people hundreds or thousands of miles away. MORE

NATO leases out? Helicopters to be rented...

In an unprecedented move, NATO this weekend approved money to lease cargo helicopters for the alliance's transport needs --  a move made necessary because members of the alliance again refused to provide airlift out of their own military assets.

The diplomats were careful not to assign blame, but Canada's Globe and Mail notes that  "Italy, Spain and France are among the Western European countries with large numbers of big, modern helicopters protected by sophisticated anti-missile defences and flown by highly trained crews." Canada, which has relied upon it allies' helicopters to support its operations in Kandahar, would stand the most to gain from a boost in transport capacity.

The airlift shortfall has long been an issue, and came to a head this summer when the US extended the tour of a helicopter unit in Kandahar until the end of the year. The helicopters -- which may be leased from Ukraine and Russia -- will mostly fill this gap and permit the coalition's other helicopters to transport troops and evacuate the wounded.

Some argue that having additional airlift will make coalition troops safer, since many of the casualties in Afghanistan have come from roadside bombs. However, using helicopters is often just as risky: since 2001, 18 helicopters have gone down in Afghanistan, resulting in 110 deaths. So it should come as no surprise that many NATO allies are reluctant to risk their airmen.

The alternatives, however, come at a high cost, both in Euros and credibility. According to the Globe and Mail:

The cost of chartering large helicopters is expected to be very high. At standard commercial rates, an Mi-17 - the civilian version of the widely used and rugged Russian workhorse capable of lifting four tonnes - could exceed $100,000 a week, yet fly far less than the punishing days endured by U.S., British and Dutch crews. Given the high costs of maintenance and the premium civilian pilots can be expected to demand for risking their lives, the cost could easily soar. A flock of 20 Mi-17s or a smaller number of the even larger Mi-26s, might cost more than $100-million a year, one industry source said.

Secretary Robert Gates resigned himself to the move, even if his frustration showed in responding to reporters that "it's not the best option. It may be the only option." (More excerpts from his transcript below...) MORE

Image: Troops board a CH-47 Chinook helicopter in Daychopan district on their way back to Kandahar Army Air Field on Sept. 4, 2003. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Kyle Davis.

A softer, cuddlier Blackwater

On Monday, the Times reported that Blackwater changed its logo "from macho to corporate." A company spokesmen says the decision was taken long before the Sept 17 incident. Sure...

As the Times reports:

The rifle-scope crosshairs so obvious in the old Blackwater logo have been reduced to a set of horizontal elipses that bracket, but no longer enclose, the paw print, which has also changed to more closely resemble an actual bear-paw imprint. The original Blackwater logo had thick white serif lettering draped over the crosshairs on a menacing black field. The new logo separates the image and the letters, which now appear in buttoned-down sans-serif black and slightly italicized on a white field.

Wired's Danger Room is not impressed, but has taken on some of the hard work for Blackwater. Readers have created six options for Blackwater's new look. Go weigh in on your favorite...

 

A look inside the Asia Foundation survey

The Asia Foundation released it's third survey of the Afghan people today. Polling in Afghanistan should by no means be seen as dispositive, but this data can provide insights unavailable elsewhere (especially compared with prior baseline surveys by the Asia Foundation in 2004 and 2006). Here's a look inside...

Predictably, media reports framed the poll as a referendum on security (see AFP: “Security fears up sharply among Afghans: survey”) It’s true that pessimism about security rose among Afghans--with 32 percent citing security as their top concern (up from 22 percent last year.)

But the picture is more complicated, since security concerns vary significantly by region and two thirds of Afghans felt that security in their area was good. Moreover, among those who believe the country is headed in the right direction, good security is cited as the second most important reason (34%) after development.

So the Survey paints a nuanced picture and provides some fascinating data on everything from support for traditional institutions (such as Shuras and Jirga) to democracy and women’s rights. A few trends worth noting:

Right Direction / Wrong Direction:

• People are still optimistic, even if there was a slight decline in those who said the country was headed in the right direction (from 44 percent to 42 percent).
• Three-quarters of Afghans continue to assess government performance positively (i.e. either strongly (25%) or somewhat strongly (55%).)
• Afghans continue to espouse confidence in national security forces (both army and police) as well as in traditional institutions such as Shuras and Jirgas. However, “less than half of the respondents had confidence in the government's justice system, political parties and local militias.”
•  Corruption is an issue for many Afghans, but it is not clear that it has grown more acute. Some poll questions suggest an increase in perceptions of corruption while others suggest a decrease.
  

Security:

• Among people who felt the country was going in the wrong direction, security was cited as the top reason. This may seem unsurprising, until you realize that even in last year’s survey security was only rarely mentioned as a reason for a “wrong direction” response.
• On the other hand, among those who said the country was going in the right direction, good security was cited as the second biggest reason (34%).
• Perceptions of security varied greatly by region. Nationwide, “sixty-six percent of the respondents felt that security in their area was good or quite good, and 50 percent said they rarely or never feared for their own or their family's safety. Eighty-two percent said no one in their family had been a victim of any crime or violence during the last one year.” 

Reconstruction:

• Last year, respondents cited “rebuilding of the country” as only the fourth most important reason why the country was headed in the right direction; this year it became the most important reason for believing so (39%). It’s not clear whether people feel reconstruction is going better, or that the other trends they cited as reasons for optimism last year (security, peace, disarmament) are simply going worse. MORE
  

The story behind the "crackdown" on PSCs...

Cracking down on illicit private military contractors (aka private security contractors) in Afghanistan may well be in order, but is that what's really happening?

Barnett Rubin writes on Informed Comment that "Word on the street is that rather than a sincere "crackdown" on private security firms, the government's actions are more similar to its counter-narcotics actions: use of the government by one criminal group to suppress its competitors."

In response, a "well-informed friend in Kabul" argues that this was not a crackdown (the arrests comprised 100 employees in an industry of 10,000) and suggests instead that "some competitors closely linked to the President are trying to (a) extract bribes from the PSCs for not being shut down arbitrarily and (b) eliminate rivals."

This Kabul reader offers some more insights which suggest a) the indispensability of PSCs for certain roles and b) the difference between Afghan and foreign-led PSCs, and C) the political nature of this "crackdown":

The real challenge to the government is the fact that the Ministry of Interior does not have the capacity to replace the protection guaranteed by the private companies outside of Kabul. While there might be enough room in the police to replace some guards inside the capital, capacity and morale of the police are insufficient to take on the task of guarding let's say Kajaki dam in Helmand....
 
Pointing to international contractors and their problems is deflecting attention from the biggest problem - the Afghan PSCs. In foreign firms the foot soldiers might come from an illegal armed group, but the command and logistics elements are all foreign and will collapse in crisis or not lend them easily to factional agendas. The Afghan firms unify the foot soldiers with C2 [command and control] from one faction and are therefore much more dangerous - best example provided by Khawar of Jurat.
 
Nobody so far has questioned the PSCs owned by illustrious people such as [names of relatives of current or past ministers]. Nobody has looked into the firms operating under the control of local warlords [names of former top provincial officials] in the East and South either.

Two more Afghan security firms shut down

In an effort that parallels Iraq's attempt to reign in PMCs, Afghanistan has shut down two more private security firms (bringing the total to four in the past week).  So far all the closures have been Afghan firms (rather than international firms) but that could soon change. The police last week said they plan to shut down a dozen firms all told -- if PMCs tied to donor countries or powerful Afghans are among them, expect a scuffle.

The regulations on these firms is so lax that there is not even a publicly-available register for them (!) The MoI says 60 firms have registered with it, but the AP suspects there are perhaps two dozen others in operation. Without regulation, accountability and a mandate for when and how force can be used, how are these "firms" anything more than guys with guns?

Here's the original AP story:

Kabul shuts down two more security firms (AP) October 18, 2007, KABUL: Two more private Afghan security firms were closed down on Wednesday, police said, in a continuing crackdown on a lucrative but largely unregulated security industry. Authorities raided Falcon and Millet after both companies’ licenses to operate in Afghanistan expired, recovering more than 80 illegal weapons, police said in a statement.

Draft GoA rules for private security contractors

The Associated Press obtained a draft of the policy being discussed by the Government of Afghanistan on security contractors. The document must receive approval from the Cabinet before entering into effect. It notes that "the GOA (government of Afghanistan) has allowed for limited PSC operations and activities. However, increasingly, the absence of targeted regulation ... in parallel with unstable security environment has generated an unfortunate and nearly anarchical PSC market with a long series of security problems and criminal activities." Here are the highlights:

Extensive reliance of PSCs (private security companies), risks deepening the current state of instability in at least 4 ways: MORE

Marines seek transfer from Iraq to Afghanistan

What should we make of yesterday's news that the Marines have requested a shift from Iraq to Afghanistan? ("Marines Press to Remove Their Forces From Iraq, (NYT) Oct 11)

Noah Schactman of "The Danger Room" (Wired) posts some perspectives:

• Air Force officer John Noonan: "it makes sense from an air war perspective. The Marines have self-contained air wings, Harriers, Cobras, Hornets, etc that should fill the Afghan mission nicely. That leaves the Air Force to support the Army in Iraq."
• The LA Times " portrays the Marines' proposal in a much different light": the Corps is arguing that since combat is winding down in Anbar they are eager to take on Afghanistan, where combat is escalating.
• Schactman himself observes that "The shift would also allow the Marines to "declare victory" in Anbar, while things are calm there.   If the province starts to unravel later... well, hey, that was the Army's fault."
• Click below to read the Times article...MORE

Photo: U.S. Marines (3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment) in Sept 2004 preparing for a Chinook insertion to the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. Today there are no major Marine deployments in Afghanistan. Photo by Lance Cpl. Justin M. Mason

The joyride of Blackwater 61

The recent spotlight on Blackwater and contractor accountability led Der Spiegel to print the transcript of a 2004 Blackwater transport flight in Afghanistan. The crew diverted their mission into a joyride through a canyon which ended badly. It gives a sense of the rules and beliefs some of these guys are operating under. It's morbid -- and completely transfixing -- reading.

The Transcript of the Deadly Flight Der Spiegel 10/06/2007: A newly released transcript shows how Blackwater pilots in Afghanistan took their plane on a joyride and died in a crash. On November 27, 2004, transport flight Blackwater 61, a turboprop CASA 212-CC, crashed in the mountains of Afghanistan. The plane was operated by Presidential Airways, a subsidiary of the private security company Blackwater, also operating as Blackwater Aviation under contract for the United States Department of Defense. The crew had left their regular flight route for "fun" to fly through a canyon, at the end of which they crashed into a rock wall. The words of the pilots reveal in stunning detail the cynicism of a war between audacity and folly, where men reach the edge of reason.

What follows are excerpts from the cockpit voice recorder transcript, as provided by the National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB), with the voices of pilot Noel English, co-pilot Loren Hammer and flight mechanic Melvin Rowe. Also on board were US Army soldiers Lieutenant Colonel Michael McMahon, Chief Warrant Officer Travis Grogan and Specialist Harley Miller. Miller -- who had almost missed the flight -- was the only one to survive the crash, but he froze to death before the search teams could find him.

Korb and Wadhams: Five steps

Larry Korb and Caroline Wadhams argue today in a Newsday op-ed that "the United States and NATO must increase troop levels by at least 20,000" in Afghanistan. This rise in troop levels is part of a five-point plan that includes bolstering reconstruction assistance, focusing on rule of law, and reforming U.S. aid channels to Pakistan. The steps they sketch out will be supported by a more comprehensive report in the coming months -- keep your eyes peeled ...

U.S.

must put more focus on Afghan insurgency, Oct 9, 2007: Sunday marked the sixth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban and al-Qaida....But the mission in Afghanistan is going alarmingly awry, and the United States must refocus and re-energize its policy. The administration and Congress cannot allow the sinking ship of Iraq to take Afghanistan down with it...

To achieve our security objectives, the United States, and especially Congress, must provide increased funds, attention and manpower - both civilian and military. U.S. leaders must also engage the American people, as they may become increasingly pessimistic about U.S. involvement in the Muslim world as a result of the war in Iraq. There are five concrete steps Congress and the administration should pursue immediately. MORE

Have PhD in Anthropology, will travel...

I was surprised to find this piece had climbed to the second most emailed article in the New York Times today, but perhaps I shouldn't have been. Interesting, well-reported, and counterintuitive.

• Video

It's odd to find that a field so synonymous with The Academy has become a coveted commodity (much to the chagrin of certain professors, cited in the article, who seem philosophically averse to using their discipline for anything pragmatic...)

Can you imagine all the Anthropology majors emailing their parents to say "I told you so?" And can you imagine what better shape we'd be today if we entered Afghanistan with a modicum of understanding of its cultural context? The Army seems to now appreciate the importance of these skills, but it's a steep learning curve. (One could also question whether the Army is the right institution to be delivering governance and services...)

Anthropologists help U.S. Army in Afghanistan and Iraq, By David Rohde, Oct 4 (NYT):  SHABAK VALLEY, Afghanistan: In this isolated Taliban stronghold in eastern Afghanistan, American paratroopers are fielding what they consider a crucial new weapon in counterinsurgency operations here: a demure civilian anthropologist named Tracy.

Tracy, who asked that her surname not be used for security reasons, is a member of the first-ever Human Terrain Team, an experimental Pentagon program that assigns anthropologists and other social scientists to American combat units in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they act as cultural advisers and suggest ways to win local support without using military force.

Colonel Martin Schweitzer, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division unit working with anthropologists here, said the unit's combat operations had been reduced by 60 percent since the anthropologists arrived this spring. He said the focus had shifted from combat to improving security, health care and education for the population.

"We're looking at this from a human perspective, from a social scientist's perspective," he said. "We're not focused on the enemy. We're focused on bringing governance down to the people."

Last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates authorized a $40 million expansion of the program, which will assign teams of anthropologists and social scientists to each of the 26 American combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a result, military officials are scrambling to find more scholars willing to deploy to the front lines to interpret tribal structures and explain cultural differences. MORE

Part II of the Rubin/Marshall talk

TPMtv with Barnett Rubin

Barnett Rubin, in a video interview with Joshua Micah Marshall

A Chat with Barnett Rubin, Part I: A few weeks ago Dr. Barnett Rubin, one of the world's premier Afghanistan experts at NYU, created a stir with a series of blog posts about signs the Bush administration might be gearing up for a military campaign against Iran. Last week I interviewed Rubin about the Bush administration's war talk against Iran and I asked him, Is there really any evidence that Iran is helping arm the Taliban, as the Bush administration keeps claiming?

The serpents of Medusa's hair

The latest epilogue to Operation Medusa: Canadian forces have re-established control in Zhare and Panjwai (in August, Taliban militants overran local authorities when Canadian troops rotated...) However, this week’s victory was hardly decisive -- the Taliban mostly ceded ground, as has been their modus operandi in recent months -- and will retaliate against the lightly armed police force left behind to consolidate NATO’s gains.

A spokesman for the Canadian forces argued that incorporated learning and new approaches -- e.g. joint checkpoints -- will ensure that this time is different. Army and police training has advanced, and Canada even forced the resignation of a corrupt police chief in Zhari district. Patience is key, as General Champoux has argued: "This has been a shaping year,'' he said, "I think next year will be a decisive year."

But we’ve heard this before. The Canadians have a lot of terrain to cover and a low density of force -- is it realistic to expect the ANA and ANP to hold this area on its own? Can this week’s gains be anything more than ephemeral without additional resources or a new approach?

Canadian Forces Regain Part of Strategic Area in Southern Afghanistan KABUL, Sept. 14, by David Rohde — Canadian forces this week regained control of roughly half of a strategic area outside of the southern city of Kandahar that fell to the Taliban in August, according to Afghan and Canadian officials…Seven hundred Canadian troops, backed by airstrikes and Leopard tanks, met little resistance from Taliban fighters…The Taliban generally have avoided direct clashes with heavily armed NATO forces and instead attacked lightly armed Afghan police forces or carried out suicide and roadside bomb attacks. MORE

Image: Tête de Méduse by Rubens

Controversy over direct US military action in Pakistan misses the point

The latest of Richard Weitz's excellent articles on Afghanistan and Pakistan is available at the World Politics Review (a great new site that provides exclusive daily foreign policy analysis from contributors across 40 countries.)

Weitz argues that the discovery, during the Tillman investigation, of specific US rules of engagement for when US forces are authorized to enter Pakistan -- along with Barack Obama's remarks that "if President Musharraf won't act, we will" -- leaves the impression that US efforts to capture the Big Three (bin Laden, al-Zawahri, and Mullah Omar) are primarily about direct military action. The assumption that seriousness of purpose against the Taliban and Al Qaeda can be measured by one's willingness to cross the border is mistaken and counterproductive. Moreover, as Weitz notes, a focus on what the Pentagon is doing threatens "to obscure the small role that such direct military operations play in the overall U.S. effort to prevent Taliban insurgents from using Pakistan as a support base for their operations in Afghanistan."

Non-Military Tools Neglected in Debate Over Afghan-Pakistani Border Operations, by Richard Weitz 31 Aug 2007 World Politics Review Exclusive

Ahmed Rashid on Washington's Pakistan plan

Rashid argues that the army's moral