What do I mean by ‘win’?
I am not using this in strictly a military sense, but I do believe we can do a much better job than is being done today on the military front of this conflict.
We also still have a chance (though it is fading) to win the hearts and minds of the Afghans, as there are still many Afghans who hope we will change strategy and help their nation become more self sufficient. I have never seen such optimism in the face of disaster in my life.
But unless some serious changes are made in the manner the US, NATO and the Afghan government itself are handling things, not only Afghans will live to regret these errors, the world will see another blowback that will leave us all less safe. Just as we saw happen when the world walked away from Afghanistan not long after the Soviets left in 1989.
More after the fold....
I strongly believe that the Bush administration has made it very hard for NATO nations to really step up and do more to help in Afghanistan. Of those who are there, most have caveats that prevent their troops from engaging in security or any other war-type efforts. I believe that the distrust of Bush has caused a widespread opposition to the Afghan operation. Despite the obvious need of more troops from the member nations, few are stepping up. And because of this, NATO is at risk of becoming useless.
In 2002 we had 68 nations participating in the Afghanistan war, 27 having representation at CENTCOM. We also had widespread support at the time, even in Muslim nations.
Bush had campaigned on the notion that nation building was ill advised, and proved this view when we went into Afghanistan. Instead of using a strategy that included fighting the insurgency (Taliban and al Qaeda) along with a strategy that included reconstruction and security, Bush only focused on the former. Many nations were disillusioned and left the operation. They knew that going after the Taliban and al Qaeda was not going to work alone. Once Bush went into Iraq, things got worse.
NATO's ISAF (International Security Assistance Force)and the US military were operating separately, on separate issues, vs working together to capture the bad guys, achieve security, and create potential for advancement in the country. This disconnect resulted in failure of all their goals, as we see today with the return of the Taliban and the lack of reconstruction in the country.
And the Taliban is back, with a vengeance. Some who live in the country wonder if the Karzai and western governments are not in fact enabling the Taliban to return.
An excellent article by Sarah Chayes, who has lived in Kandahar for 6 years and runs a cooperative called Arghand talks about this possibility. She described a battle in the district she lives and runs a co-op, Arghandab district in Kandahar. She wonders if the world is going to enable Karzai to bring the Taliban into the government, instead of cleaning up it's own act.
the Khakrez district chief -- a friend of the Karzais' -- had struck a deal with the Taliban, according to numerous Khakrez residents, a deal reportedly sealed with a transfer of some weapons and some wheat. They could go where they liked, as long as they didn't attack the police....
...There is suddenly this backbeat -- persistent references in the media, unchallenged pronouncements by Karzai -- that the only way to end the "insurgency" is to negotiate, to invite the Taliban back to share power....
But far from taking steps to prevent the Taliban attack, those leaders did exactly what would help bring it about, almost as if they wanted it to happen. If they did, perhaps they too sought the battle for its psy-ops value. In the West, the message would be: "You see, there's just no way to achieve a military victory over the Taliban. You don't have the forces or the political will. You will always be putting out fires. You should let us negotiate."
As if echoing this message, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown emerged from a meeting with Karzai in late October to say that solutions in Afghanistan require "reconciliation of all the groups." Karzai alluded to "the need for political activity alongside our military campaign."
In this article she discussed a Mullah of the region (Mullah Naqib) who recently died, and who had successfully kept the Taliban from taking over the region.
The latest in the line of Alokozai leaders was the gentle, jocular military genius Mullah Naqib, who died of a heart attack in mid-October. Mullah Naqib fought the Soviets from his base in Arghandab; they were never able to dislodge the mujahideen from this place.
As the Taliban gathered strength and insolence recently, they would contact the mullah from time to time, trying to strike a deal, telling him that they wished him no ill, but just to pass through Arghandab. He would bellow his retort. He would get on the radio and vow by God that if they dared set foot inside his Arghandab, the whole population would rise up. And thus he held his fractious, disgruntled tribesmen firm against them.
After the Mullah died, the police chief tried to keep the peace. But Karzai, two of his brothers and the governor of Kandahar prevented a successor that was as dedicated to fighting the Taliban as the Mullah had been.
This is only one story of many incidents where the Taliban has been successful. But it doesn't have to be this way.
Many assume many if not most Afghans support the Taliban, this is simply not true. Poverty and lack of jobs is causing many to end up in the Taliban by necessity, not ideology.
The Taliban pay three times what the ANA (Afghan National Army) pays it's troops. ($12 per day vs $4 with the ANA
If you had a bunch of hungry kids, what would you do? A main reason many are not chasing the Taliban from their villages is economic need. Starve, or join the men in black turbans.....
The police are not doing much better. They earn only $77 a month, despite promises of a raise to $150 (which is paid by international donations to the Ministry of the Interior I might add. This is not enough to live on even in Afghanistan, that is, when they are paid at all.
Dion, who started working with the nine members of the Afghan National Police in Pashmul in the middle of September, says they have received only one of the three months of pay they are due.
"It's a big problem now. Some guys have family in Kabul. Now three months they were unable to pay their rent," said Dion.
You might be wondering why I think there is still hope after all that bad news. Well, I have been to Afghanistan, I know many Afghans, I volunteer with Afghans4Tomorrow, an all volunteer charity that focuses on reconstruction projects in education, health and agriculture. I see the desire in them to succeed, to make their country a better place. To educate their children and work to earn a living, instead of needing constant aid.
So how do we win? We change our current strategy, get more troops on the ground, and end the bombing that kills civilians at wedding parties. Use some of these additional forces to train the Afghan army and police so they have enough troops to retain peace in a village once it is cleared of Taliban. According to Oxfam, there are four times as many air strikes in Afghanistan as in Iraq. A hell of a way to win hearts and minds huh?
We need to increase aid so that it at least matches the military expenditures! There is increasing disillusion and anger from Afghans who were promised many things that never materialized.
U.S. spending on aid work in Afghanistan is only a fraction of what the American military spends, and too much of the aid money pays the high salaries of expatriate employees, an international aid agency said Tuesday. ....
Though the government aid arm U.S. Agency for International Development has spent more than $4.4 billion in Afghanistan since 2002, the British-based aid agency Oxfam said that figure is dwarfed by U.S. military spending here — some $35 billion in 2007 alone....
"As in Iraq, too much aid is absorbed by profits of companies and subcontractors, on non-Afghan resources and on high expatriate salaries and living costs," said the report, which was prepared for a British parliament committee. "Each full-time expatriate consultant costs up to half a million dollars a year."
USAID allocates close to half its funds to the five largest U.S. contractors in Afghanistan. and yet Kabul is still without electricity in many parts of the city, and where it exists, it is not reliable. How can a city grow economically when they do not even have electricity?
Corpwatch reported Contractors in Afghanistan are making big money for bad work.
Massive open-ended contracts have been granted without competitive bidding or with limited competition to many of the same politically connected corporations which are doing similar work in Iraq: Kellogg, Brown & Root (a subsidiary of Halliburton ), DynCorp, Blackwater, The Louis Berger Group, The Rendon Group and many more. Engineers, consultants, and mercenaries make as much as $1,000 a day, while the Afghans they employ make $5 per day.
These companies are pocketing millions, and leaving behind a people increasingly frustrated and angry with the results.
Bush has little interest in Afghanistan, much less bin Laden. You might remember when he forgot to include aid for Afghanistan in his budget in 2003! But we also know he has a soft spot for the contractors who are making a killing in Afghanistan and Iraq. This has got to stop, the congress can do something to change this dynamic.
Aid needs to be coordinated, right now the various large agencies are all doing their own thing. Aid also needs to be spent based on community needs.
For example, Afghans4Tomorrow worked with the village elders before raising money to build a school, and hired the locals to build it! This is not being done today with USAID and other large NGOs. It must change, and change soon.
More money needs to go to train Afghans teachers.
One study showed that only five per cent of primary school teachers could pass the exams which their pupils must take.!
More than half of Afghan children are still not attending school. I am a firm believer that success of any nation is impossible when nearly 80% are illiterate!
Girls are particularly losing out with just one in five girls in primary education and one in 20 going to secondary school.
Over half of pupils do not go to school because there is no school nearby. More than half of Afghanistan’s schools need major repairs, the majority are without clean drinking water or toilet facilities while two million children study in tents or the open air.
The notion that their fathers will not let them go to school is greatly exaggerated. The simple fact is, there is no place for the kids to get an education!
So, what can we do?
First of all, we need to demand from the current presidential candidates and our current politicians that they provide a comprehensive aid policy for Afghanistan, with a major increase of reconstruction aid.
We need the next administration to pull strings, use carrots and sticks on NATO members to increase their troops, without caveats. We need them to change their policy of air attacks on villages, as it is counter productive to say the least.
And we can help in small ways, by donating to small organizations (like the one I volunteer with, Afghans4Tomorrow) where your money goes to Afghanistan directly, not a consultant's pocket. (Afghans4Tomorrow is all volunteer, no one is paid except our teachers and staff in Afghanistan.) We are not the only organization that works this way.
This diary is not a fund raising effort even though it is suggested. I am just trying to bring more information to those who know little about Afghanistan, who think it is a waste of our time, who think it is just like Iraq. (it isn't)
There is a lot I have left out, such as Pakistan's responsibility for aiding the Taliban. I'll be happy to share what I have learned after 3 years of research on Afghanistan with anyone who cares to comment.
Tashakor (thank you in Dari)