Say you are the Governor of Kunduz.
While you had been away someplace, your provincial capital had been taken by the Taliban. The Taliban had crept in to your city during the night.
There are all sorts of rumors flying around, about where you were when it happened. That you had gone from Tajikistan to Uzbekistan trying to flee to London because the Taliban had bribed you to let them in, and the like.
[T]his is not a war of facts.
Uncertainty abounds for Afghan city after Taliban takeover, Jean MacKenzie, PRI
You are not especially powerful yourself. You are not especially corrupt.
In the history of rumor of which powerful and corrupt men had taken bribes to let the Taliban through, turning sides at the right moment, you are no Qari Baba, said to have given away Ghazni. You are no Abdul Malik Pahlawan, said to have given away Balkh. You have never arrested Ismail Khan, like Pahlawan has. You are not Bashir Salangi, said to have given away the Salang tunnel, letting the Taliban through on their way north.
Four years after letting the Taliban through the tunnel, when the Americans arrived, Salangi had been with the group quickly heading south to take Kabul. For getting there early, he became Kabul chief of police. As chief of police, he personally drove the bulldozer knocking down the homes of the poor in Shinpur district, so he could steal the land.
Salangi is now the Governor of Parwan province. As Governor of Kunduz, you have compatriots like that.
But you are not like these men. You are just a technocrat, with a security background, but with no storied warlord past. You have very powerful very corrupt political opponents. They will often have both a government position, and private armies.
Your job is to take their private armies away, for the good of the country and the province.
You might start, in going after the private armies, with Mir Alam.
He [meaning you, the Governor of Kunduz] has lobbied for the arrests of top militia commanders in Kabul and was backed by the NSC, an official in Kabul told this author. It is not clear how many power brokers he [you] went after, but top militia commanders like ... Mir Alam were among them. Mir Alam is perhaps the most influential powerbroker in Kunduz. He runs various networks of ‘illegal’ militias throughout the province and is also said to have his hands in the drugs and arms trades (find more in this AAN report).
The Failed Pilot Test: Kunduz’ local governance crisis, Bethany Matta, Afghanistan Analysts Network
But Mir Alam, who is rumored to have his hands in the drug and arms trades, and who definitely has illegal militias, would just get word that you were trying to arrest him, and that the threat is serious. And so he would flee to Tajikistan to prevent this.
You have a hard job.
About your idea of disbanding the militias, your deputy governor is a problem. He will tell stories about the time he pretty much invented the things. The previous time Kunduz nearly fell to the Taliban, your deputy governor was all alone in the palace after everyone else had fled. And this is how the militias were formed.
The government asked the mujahedin to save Kunduz from falling, Daneshi said, “and they did, and that was the start of the local militias.”
Your provincial police chief is another opponent to your policy that the militias should be disbanded, for the illegal taxation, drug trafficking, robbery, rape, and murder that they bring. You have a hard job as governor. Your provincial police chief is rumored to have been involved in the assassination of a provincial governor.
[O]fficials close to the case told this author evidence showed that the police chief had played a role in the killing of provincial governor Arsala Jamal on 15 October 2013. Nasrati was said to be under investigation for some time by a Kabul-appointed commission (it is not clear what happened to the case.
Aside from your deputy governor and your police chief, other opponents to disbanding the militias you must deal with, are
the Second President of the country, and
the First Vice President.
One day last winter, the First President of the country held a video conference with you. The First President is on your side. You are a supporter of his. He gave you three weeks to clean your province up.
In three weeks, he ordered, the security situation of Kunduz had to have improved. “The new government of Afghanistan is determined to turn Kunduz into one of the safest provinces,” he said at the end of the video conference.
This might be when you got the idea of disbanding all the militias, and started lobbying for support in Kabul.
Then, in the spring, the Taliban started trying to take your capital. There was large scale fighting in the districts. You had a hundred thousand people fleeing the fighting, at spring planting time, to deal with.
This is when the proponents of the militias were able to ramp them up rather than draw them down. This is when Mir Alam came back.
[Author's note: As I attempt to bring this piece to a conclusion, asking you what you would do in the situation, there is breaking news. Newspapers are saying that you have been fired as Governor of Kunduz. Your deputy governor, the one with the story about having invented the militias, will replace you.
President Ghani has since fired the governor of the region in question, Mohammad Omar Safi, who was out of the country at the time of the Taliban attack.
Inside Kunduz: Struggle For Control of Afghan City Against Taliban Rages, Aleem Agha, Jon Williams, and Martha Raddatz, ABC
The latest rumors say that you are in Turkey, not in Tajikistan or Uzbekistan or London. Wherever you are, please stay safe.]
The proponents of the militias had been trying to get you fired. Then the Taliban crept into Kunduz during the night, taking the city. The strongmen will blame you for the fall. The newspapers will print what they say.
The battle between the technocrats and the strongmen has been called the defining battle for Afghanistan.
It pits the aspirations of Western-educated technocrats keen to transform Afghanistan against conservative ethnic and tribal strongmen determined to preserve the status quo. That struggle is becoming the definitive battle for the future of every aspect of the country’s affairs — from forming a new cabinet to tackling rampant corruption to engaging in peace talks with the Taliban.
Afghanistan’s defining fight: Technocrats vs. strongmen, Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post
You had tried to get Mir Alam arrested. Then Mir Alam had been brought back to Kunduz. Then Kunduz had fallen.
Say you are the Governor of Kunduz. The strongmen have it in for you. What now do you do?