MoStFab

The attacks on Afghan Shiites

2011-12-06T22:29:00.003+01:00

From the New York Times' take on the coordinated - Kabul, Kandahar and Mazar-i-Sharif - attacks on Shiites, coming during Ashura and very clearly sending a message connected to the Bonn II conference:

"Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (...) has no previous known operations in Afghanistan, however, so no one seriously thought Lashkar-e-Jhangvi could carry out a coordinated series of three nearly simultaneous bombings in three Afghan cities without substantial support from somewhere."

This is partly wrong. To my best knowledge, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi as well as its mother organisation, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, were represented in the ranks of Pakistanis fighting alongside the Taliban, before 2001, in their battles against remaining opposition forces in northern Afghanistan, for example in the battle for Taloqan.

Having said that, they went there on organised tours, so this is not to doubt the NYT's speculation about the help provided to L-e-J's militants.

The politics of coalition burden-sharing: The Steve Irwin way of doing COIN

2011-10-27T08:41:00.014+02:00

There is a new report out from the Australian Land Warfare Studies Centre by Col. Peter Connolly, on counterinsurgency in Uruzgan province. (To make this clear before somebody misunderstands me, the title of Colonel Connolly's study is much more modest and unassuming than the one I gave to this post out of my own free choice.)

The colonel has great experience in COIN operations, from past deployments to Somalia in 1993, and East Timor in 2000 -- experience already from before Afghanistan, where he was then Commanding Officer of the Australian MRTF (Mentoring and Reconstruction Task Force) Two in 2009. In his study, Connolly credibly claims similarly long-running experience for the Australian Defence Forces in general. In one telling reflection, on pages 50-51:

"The Americans at JMRC (Joint Mission Readiness Centre – Hohenfels, Germany) commented on how good our (Australian and New Zealand) soldiers were at switching from a hearts and minds focus to killing the enemy, and then switching back just as quickly to caring for the people. They asked how we had trained them to be like that, and I concluded it was our culture rather than any specific training."

Now, this may have been the well-known institutionalised bilateral patting on the back intended to encourage an ally. A matter of military-to-military diplomacy. But looking back at Australia's experience over the years along with others in southern Afghanistan who equally tried to make the most of their stay there, the ADF do indeed seem to have something in them that was missing from some of the so-called "allied caveat and stand aside forces." Maybe this is not down to Australian national culture as such, rather to a healthy organisational culture or set of norms (along with the political will from above to let this work). But it certainly is there in their case and not so much there in others' cases.

They were keen on doing dismounted patrols in dispersed operations, to try and dominate valley-floor "green zone" areas. They would rent qalas for section or platoon-level operations like this, with soldiers buying their food from locals. They would counter Taliban nightletters with nightletters of their own - in Colonel Connolly's words, quoting from page 50:

"The delivery of ‘night letters’ to population centres was occasionally employed to develop the perception amongst the population that the ANA and ISAF ‘owned the night’. These letters would counter insurgent propaganda and spread messages concerning local government initiatives and progress. This technique required immediate follow-up the next morning to reinforce the themes delivered through the night letters and assess any changes to atmospherics."

The bottomline is that they were willing to take calculated risks to a greater extent than has been the case with so many other contributors to ISAF's operations. This is what I refer to as the Steve Irwin way. Dispersed operations in areas like Uruzgan's green zones do carry much such calculated risk, and can be realistically compared to working with a stingray's barb in the vicinity.

And that is why we, with my colleague Nik Hynek, in our book on coalition burden-sharing, were determined to look at not only quantitative measures of individual countries' contributions. We assumed that their guiding role conception in ISAF, that is, whether they see themselves as, say, "strivers," or mere "servants" rather, will affect the quality of their contribution even in a dynamic sense - strivers are those countries that not only contribute significantly in qualitative terms, but adapt to the changing circumstances -- which are constantly evolving on various levels of analysis.

The politics of coalition burden-sharing: "Stand aside" forces

2011-10-23T12:12:00.009+02:00

Note the term "Allied caveat and stand aside" above. This slide may be quite telling, regarding the importance, in a negative sense, of caveats (informal, i.e. not openly declared, but officially/mutually registered restrictions on the use of different countries' armed forces in coalition operations) in affecting NATO's reputation in the future. It is an old theme of those complaining about the problems of burden-sharing in places like Afghanistan, within coalitions like ISAF. And it has come up recently once again, in a Canadian lessons-learned report which I posted on here a few days ago.

The above slide is from one of Anthony Cordesman's presentations, and in fact it figures in several of these compilations of his at CSIS. Whether or not the term comes from Anthony Cordesman himself, or from a military source on which Cordesman and his team may have relied in their work, if you do a quick Google search, you may realise that most of even the non-CSIS links that pop up with occurrences of the term "stand aside forces" contain reference to his presentations.

In our book, which I heralded at this blog in September (published back in the summer, by Routledge, in London and New York), with my colleague Nik Hynek we refer to this phenomenon slightly differently, and identify four basic role conceptions that countries may have depending on whether alliance dependence or threat balancing (or both or none of those) is/are driving their involvement in Afghanistan. Those who are alliance-dependent primarily, or not even that, will be either "servants" or "onlookers," respectively, in our categorisation. And largely it is of course these two categories of countries from which you will find Cordesman's "allied caveat and stand aside forces" deployed.

Regardless of by what terms we refer to this phenomenon, it will inevitably form an important part of security debates in the future.

The politics of coalition burden-sharing: Canadian lessons learned

2011-10-20T21:39:00.018+02:00

Over at Travels with Shiloh, there is a recent entry on my and Nik Hynek's book's chapter on Canada, which was written by Ben Zyla. A good apropos to bring up that there is a new report out on Canada's lessons learned from their operations in Kandahar - FYI.

Full reference:

David J. Bercuson - J.L. Granatstein (2011): Lessons learned? What Canada should learn from Afghanistan. Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute, October 2011. (Hyperlink)

The report focuses a lot on Canada's complaints about the informal caveats put in place by alliance partners in Afghanistan. A turn of fate after in Bosnia, Canadian battalions were sometimes referred to as "Can'tbats" because of their respective restrictions (imposed on them by decision-makers in Ottawa). Afghanistan started out similarly, but evolved fast into a largely unrestricted engagement by Canadian troops, by the time of the Canadian PRT's and Battle Group's move into Kandahar province. Press reports on Granatstein's and Bercuson's study seem to focus on this aspect mostly, claiming that "The refusal (by allies) to help Canada in Kandahar cost lives."

The report itself is more cautiously worded, and does not look to simplify causal relationships to this extent. Although who could deny, of course, that if Canada would have had to do less, and the burdens in the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan would have been more evenly shared, less Canadian soldiers would have died? Moreover, the study also refers to how in terms of MEDEVAC Canadian Forces were regulary let down, and could only count on US support in this respect with real consistency.

I would stop by yet another point here, and it is the study's discussion of the reasons for Canada's decision to go into Kandahar, and not somewhere else. Based on what I know, I can agree with the authors' conclusion that it reflected a genuine desire to be there and be important at the same time. An important exception to the Realist paradigm's "Threat balancing vs. Alliance dependence" framework of interpretation for countries' participation in coalition operations, which would not leave room for normative considerations playing a role (i.e. for a logic of appropriateness as opposed to one of consequences) - something we indicate in advance in our book's opening chapter, even while putting forward the above mentioned framework as a baseline theory of coalition contributions.

Accordingly, a Canadian DFAIT (i.e. foreign ministry) official is quoted on page 21 as saying, concerning this, that the reason for the extent of Canada's involvement was:

"We didn’t do it because someone in NATO wanted us to do it, or because the Americans made us do it… We did it because Afghanistan was a serious issue, we were a serious country… and we were determined to behave accordingly. Which is why we dismissed options like sitting on a mountain top in the middle of nowhere."

Telling enough.

I also found remarkable, after my previous post on the Netherlands (and how the G20 as a forum mattered in their case), how the G8 was an important issue here in Canada's case. Of course the G8 is generally an important foreign policy influence multiplier for Canada, but here it was explicitly connected by some Canadian officials themselves to the Afghanistan mission. PM Paul Martin's communications director, Scott Reid is quoted (p.21) as having said:

"There was a feeling that this was the price of being a G-8 country."

The politics of coalition burden-sharing: The Netherlands and "the Afghanistan card"

2011-09-26T18:19:00.014+02:00

With my colleague, Nik Hynek, we have a review of our book over at Travels with Shiloh. Consequently, I will now be moving on from just advertising our book in a never-disappearing blogpost to occasionally offering related commentary on new developments and to drawing attention to commentary on related subjects by others.

Today's post follows the latter script. First of all I will point to this study, from College of Europe's EU Diplomacy Papers series:

Bart van Liebergen (2011): American War, European Struggle? Analyzing the Influence of Domestic Politics on the ISAF Contributions of EU Member States. College of Europe EU Diplomacy Papers, 2011/3.

In this paper, Van Liebergen overviews the role of domestic politics in the British, German, French and Dutch cases. The last of these is one I have been paying much attention to myself here over the years, and so I will offer some commentary regarding interesting aspects of it below. But before delving into this, I very much recommend it to the readers to give a read to van Liebergen's study.

Regarding the Dutch case, I have some observations which challenge some of van Liebergen's observations, but very much, in my view, validate certain other, deeper insights of his. Let's take a closer look at this.

Van Liebergen points out an interesting instance of coalition politics on pages 22 and 26-27 in his paper. In his retelling, Dutch officials asked US officials in 2009 to put pressure on Dutch Labour Party leader, Finance Minister and Deputy PM, Wouter Bos, in order to get him to change his mind on the issue of extending the Dutch military's mission in Uruzgan beyond 2010. More specifically, they suggested to their American colleagues that they convince Bos by linking the issue to the Netherlands' invitation to the 2009 Pittsburgh Summit of the G20. For context, it may be useful to clarify that the Dutch government was a coalition government of left and right parties, with the Christian Democrats holding the position of Prime Minister (in the person of Jan Peter Balkenende) at the time. This coalition came to an end in early 2010 in large part because of the debate over operations in Uruzgan, and with the fall of the government that mission was then ended as well (in Uruzgan; otherwise the Netherlands still has an active role in Afghanistan).

In my view, the case van Liebergen refers to has been more complex, and this is one of the important points where I will deviate from van Liebergen's account. You may want to give a read to four "Wikileaked" cables on the basis of which I am arguing my version - here, here, here and here. From these I deduce the following narrative:

Dutch officials, including senior advisor to Dutch PM Balkenende, Karl van Oosterom, seem to have made the suggestion to US Embassy officers that Bos should be told at the G20 (not before it) that he can thank the invitation of the Netherlands to Dutch troops' presence in Uruzgan province. The US Embassy agreed with this view, and suggested that NSA General James Jones could pull aside Bos in Pittsburgh, to convey just this message, and that then perhaps Regional Envoy (the late) Richard Holbrooke could give a phone call to Dutch Development Minister Koenders (Bos' Labour Party colleague), to reiterate it. It seems that some Dutch officials, as well as the US Embassy sources concerned, were of the view that Bos "misunderstood" the reasons for the invitation of the Netherlands, attributing it simply to the country's economic importance.
As to this purported misunderstanding, one tends to strongly doubt it. Bos may have been well aware of the attempt at a "G20 invitation/Uruzgan extension" issue-linkage, but he may also have known that this would not be enforced with anything like tough love. Moreover, he may have genuinely believed that the Netherlands, by its economic and financial weight, may have deserved being invited anyway (just as it used to be invited to similar meetings before).
Furthermore, at the time, in light of the last one of the cables listed above, the Labour Party was under some pressure from its constituencies (labour unions and local governments) to deliver on promised benefits of Netherlands firms' participation in the production of the General Electric/Rolls Royce F-136 engine for the Joint Strike Fighter program - an engine whose project currently may be in the process of crashing, with the Pentagon and the White House throwing their weight decisively behind its rival, Pratt & Whitney's F-135. Since the project did not look much more promising at the time, back in 2009, Bos may well have used scoring some points on this, to alter his stance, in case he ever in fact considered that, and this may be a reason why Dutch sources were raising this issue with their US counterparts.

Of course I am not aware of all the details of the case, as someone reading Dutch sources on a daily basis would be, and in fact these details won't change the bottomline of van Liebergen's assessment of it. In his view, the US did not put much pressure on the Netherlands in the end, certainly not in the very direct way suggested by some Dutch officials themselves, and this may prove that "the Afghanistan card" may not have been so precious in the eyes of the US as some of its European partners tended to think, looking as they were to score points on it all the time in Washington. Van Liebergen goes on to argue that this eagerness to score may be a key part of the explanation concerning why European countries did not intend a big role for the EU in Afghanistan - because they were always looking to bilateralise their cooperation on Afghan matters with the US, to maximise the number of "individual points" scored for it.

I think this sounds quite sound for a proposition. My main argument against it would concern the US side of the equation. The United States may have decided not to put too much pressure on the Netherlands for several reasons, only one of which is that they may have considered the Dutch extension in Uruzgan not worthy of a try. One such reason may be that putting overt and aggressive pressure on any partner can alienate others - this is one of the major challenges for a "coalition shepherd," such as the US, when dealing with partners who define their key motivation in a coalition effort as "alliance dependence." Another such reason may be that it may have been seen as unfair to use strong pressure towards a partner that has already punched above its weight, especially compared to others - as the Netherlands did in fact. Having said that, I do think van Liebergen is correct in the sense that by Autumn 2009 the US may have considered the Dutch contribution in Uruzgan less irreplaceable than earlier on - even if a Dutch decision to leave at least some troops in Uruzgan could have served the quest for keeping a bigger Canadian footprint in Kandahar province (which at the time was slated to come to an end by 2010).

A new book: Multinational statebuilding in Afghanistan

2011-08-27T10:39:00.009+02:00

A lot of work went into this one - and I'm proud to announce that this book (see below) has finally been published, with editing and contributions by Yours Truly - and with contributions from many other authors with whom it was an honour to work together and a pleasure to write it.

I'm sharing news of it in the hope that you may find it interesting.

Statebuilding in Afghanistan: Multinational contributions to reconstruction. Edited by Nik Hynek and Péter Marton. London: Routledge, 2011.

A few words about the concept:

This edited volume empirically maps and theorises NATO-ISAF’s contribution to peacebuilding and reconstruction in Afghanistan. The book provides a contextual framework of the NATO participation in Afghanistan; it offers an outline of the security situation in Afghanistan and discusses geopolitical, historical, and military factors related to it.

It argues that a general underlying factor shaping the dynamics of the Afghanistan mission is that although its stated goals may be similarly formulated across the ISAF coalition, there are a great number of differences in the nature of coalition members’ political calculations, and share of the burden, and that this induces a dynamic of alliance politics that state actors attempt to either mitigate, navigate, or exploit - depending on their interests and views. The book asks why there are differences in countries’ share of the burden; how they manifest in different approaches; and how the actual performance of different members of the coalition ought to be assessed. It argues that understanding this offers clues as to what does not work in current state-building efforts, beyond individual countries’ experiences and the more general critique of statebuilding philosophy and practice.

This book answers key questions through a series of case studies which together form a comparative study of national contributions to the multilateral mission in Afghanistan. In so doing, it provides a uniquely sensitive analysis that can help explain coalition contributions from various countries. It will be of great interest to students of Afghanistan, Asian politics, peacebuilding, statebuilding, war and conflict studies, IR and Security Studies generally.

The contents:

Nik Hynek - Péter Marton: Introduction: what makes coalitions s/tick?

Anthony King: Operation Herrick: the British campaign in Helmand

Timo Behr: Germany and Regional Command-North: ISAF's weakest link?

Sebastiaan Rietjens: Between expectations and reality: the Dutch engagement in Uruzgan

Joshua Foust: France in Kapisa: a combined approach to statebuilding

Benjamin Zyla: Canada and collective action in Afghanistan: theory meets practice

William Maley: PRT activity in Afghanistan: the Australian experience

Stephen Hoadley: The New Zealand PRT experience in Bamyan Province: assessing political legitimacy and operational achievements

Kristian Berg Harpviken: A peace nation in the war on terror: the Norwegian engagement in Afghanistan

Charly Salonius-Pasternak: Finland's ISAF experience: rewarding, challenging and on the edge of the politically feasible

Péter Marton - Péter Wagner: Hungary's involvement in Afghanistan: Proudly going through the motions?

Łukasz Kulesa - Beata Górka-Winter: From followers to leaders as "coalition servants": the Polish engagement in Afghanistan

Nik Hynek - Jan Eichler: Post-decisional and alliance-dependent: the Czech engagement in Logar

Petros Vamvakas: Turkey's ISAF mission: a maverick with strategic depth

Egdūnas Račius: Trials and tribulations of the Lithuanian participation in the NATO ISAF mission

The cover:

Footage from Pakistan

2011-03-02T07:55:00.005+01:00

British tabloids picked up the story, not too surprisingly, nevertheless it relates to the focus of this blog. Filmed in Pakistan, the shortest mujahed. I hope this was not filmed before some kind of special martyrdom operation.

This blogpost is an information operation (sort of)

2011-02-28T12:43:00.010+01:00

Yes, all in all, I believe that Joe Harlan is right. Information operations certainly cannot work
Michael Hastings is looking for attention
as Lt.Col. Holmes suggests in Michael "McChrystal-clearer" Hastings' article for the
Michael Hastings is looking for attention
Rolling Stone magazine. Information operations are not mechanical, undetected manipulations
Michael Hastings is looking for attention
that allow you to "plant ideas" in people's heads, as Leo di Caprio would, in Inception.
Michael Hastings is looking for attention
From a civilian-military interaction point of view, though, this kind of methodical attempt
Michael Hastings is looking for attention
at persuading visiting politicians to back the military's agenda and preferences
Michael Hastings is looking for attention
is certainly worth noting, Hastings is right in at least that. But who would honestly say that by keeping PSYOP specialists
Michael Hastings is looking for attention
away from assignments of this kind you would not get similar attemtps at trying
Michael Hastings is looking for attention
to convince Congresspeople and European ministers of this or that. With uncertainty
Michael Hastings is looking for attention
in any case as to whether such an attempt will be successful, of course.
Michael Hastings is looking for attention
As to me, I probably was not successful in planting my opinion about Hastings' article
Michael Hastings is looking for attention
in your head, dear reader, by inserting it in between the lines... Anyway, I have nothing to do with this post. The NATO Training Mission made me write it (irony alert).

The NYT on the PRTs

2011-02-08T13:57:00.007+01:00

The NYT has an elegant way of blending fiction with non-fiction. Although this is not a compliment, by way of some wishful thinking perhaps, they do manage to seamlessly weave together the two in the following passages of their account... of what Hamed Karzai did not say at the Munich security conference.

Title: "Karzai Seeks End to NATO Reconstruction Teams"

Excerpt:

"Mr. Karzai also repeated his call for allied governments to stop using private security companies, contending that they, along with the civilian-military reconstruction teams, are an impediment to the central government’s expanding its authority throughout the country.

(...)

Mr. Karzai was asked several times whether he really wanted the teams to be wound up so quickly. “Yes,” he said."

You can find here, at the conference website, video of what Karzai actually said. (Pick "Sonntag -Hamed Karzai" and "Sonntag - Discussion" from the menu below the video.)

He did talk about parallel structures for spending money, for governing in terms of setting priorities, for providing security et cetera as being contrary to state-building, yes. He did mention, again, the 2014 target date for the Afghan takeover of responsibility that was set consensually with all of the external stakeholders involved (let us leave aside the question of how realistic that target date is, for now). He did indicate that by this date, actually inevitably, if we take this date seriously, PRTs and private security would be a bit of a contradiction with the, by then, supposedly accomplished goal of having built a self-sustaining Afghan state.

What Karzai did not do was call for a "so quick" "wounding up" of "NATO reconstruction teams". Altering someone's message this much seems rather negligent.

The Egypt intel failure debate

2011-02-07T15:08:00.006+01:00

Guys, the expression you are looking for is... Heisenberg's law - or, rather, what is commonly known as such; or alternatively as "Heisenberg's uncertainty principle."

The U.S. intelligence community is on the defence after some U.S. Senators, with Dianne Feinstein at the lead, are turning on them for their supposed failure to predict Egypt's future.

At the Danger Room, Spencer Ackerman wrote this in reaction the other day:

"“The ingredients of upheaval were there for a long time,” says Paul Pillar, who was the intelligence community’s top Mideast analyst from 2000 to 2005, “but it was impossible to predict in advance what particular catalyzing events would set stuff off.”
Publicly available information, like rapidly expanding opposition Facebook pages, hinted that popular anger in Egypt was bubbling over. The CIA declined to tell Danger Room what specifically it told the Obama administration about the Egyptian protests before last week. But Stephanie O’Sullivan, a longtime CIA official nominated to be intel chief James Clapper’s deputy, told a Senate panel yesterday that the agency secret warned Obama last year that anger at Mubarak’s regime was growing.
Echoing Pillar, Sullivan told senators, “We didn’t know what the triggering mechanism would be for that. And that [warning] happened at the end of the last year.” Back then, the agency concluded Mubarak was in an “untenable” situation."

And Andrew Exum observed:

"I served, though, on the Levant and Egypt team during the 2008-2009 CENTCOM Assessment Team. And looking back on that experience today, one of the things that has struck me is how long ago the U.S. government had identified the fall or death of Hosni Mubarak as a likely contingency to plan toward. Everyone knew this was going to happen eventually."

Of course, Senators politicising something like this would only be content with an intel report dated between 1 December 2010 and, say, 15 January 2011 saying "in Egypt, in next/this January, most likely on the 24th or the 25th of January, mass protests are expected that may eventually oust President Mubarak from power."

It is hard not to become involved in the same domestic politics that drives the process of the blame game. But a fairly scientific argument that may be safe to consider is Heisenberg's above mentioned principle. The more you observe something the more you may change it in the process. The level of observation required for an external agency to be able to foresee when mass protests may be organised, at least partly in secrecy and with much uncertainty, to subvert a regime in another country, would be so intrusive as to contradict with its own fundamental objective.

P.S. In this leaked memo, by the way, the US Ambassador in Cairo is writing, back in 2008, of a meeting with an April 6 activist who mentions things in preparation for the year 2011.

Combat operations over in Afghanistan?

2011-01-29T10:50:00.004+01:00

That is what President Obama said in his You Tube interview recently. "Combat operations have ended." See, after 2:54. I guess I might forgive those who think of a certain other US President's visit to an aircraft carrier at this point.

Al-Jazz and Julian Assange

2010-12-24T10:11:00.004+01:00

Interesting interview with Julian Assange on al-Jazeera. It provides some answers, and of course raises more questions, regarding things I myself was asking here about Wikileaks in the previous weeks, in posts here and here. For example, here is Assange's position on why the United States is among those most targeted by Wikileaks, and not, say, North Korea.

Omissions! Cover-up! Things we don't know!

2010-12-11T20:51:00.001+01:00

I am tired of all the talk about how the Wikileaks dump is a global public good. It is good for my research as a foreign policy analyst, it is good for some people to vent their anger at governments they didn't like in the first place, and it is also good for the Guardian's, the NYT's, and others' sites which are getting significantly more hits these days. But this is not a global public good, it just does not fit the definition. So I decided to reveal here something that... ought to be considered.

This shall also be the question of the day today. So... if tomorrow Wikileaks would suddenly decide to dump at us 250,000 diplomatic cables in Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Arabic or Russian... who would translate all that stuff to English? Any smart plans for that contingency, friends? Suggestions beyond "Google translate" are welcome.

In any case, it is interesting to note that for once, English language being the lingua franca may be a disadvantage to those concerned.

Breaking news... no, shattering is the right word... Shattering news: the Pakistani media teaches a lesson that should have been known before. No matter how enthusiastically it is reported on, similar stuff can even be faked. Omigod, the emperor may be faked.

The age of sustainable defeat

2010-12-10T10:30:00.005+01:00

The title may seem confusing, and the reason is that it is actually confusing. What it would entail is not really clear. But we do live in an age like that, where many sense something like this.

Not so long ago there used to be talk of humanitarian intervention that ambitious people wanted to turn into talk of the responsibility to protect: turning the right to intervene straight into a duty to intervene, possibly. Already prior to 9-11, but especially in its wake, a postmodern imperialist discourse developed that suggested the duty to intervene would go beyond altruism as it could also stem from national security imperatives. The West had its mission, for example to transform Russia and China into responsible stakeholders of globalisation, and to bring about good global governance, universally. The point was made that if such good global governance does not result from the use (or also the supposedly spontaneous, free-market-based availability) of carrots, and especially if there is active and subversive resistance against it, or collapse that puts areas beyond any decent degree of governance at all, the West would need to go in, and (Paul Collier and others proposed) use modern armies for the global public good. In line with this, the idea of "development in a box" emerged. If only the West, an incorruptible force for good, controlled the key independent variables in the area in the box, the dependent variable of good governance could eventually be guaranteed.

This ideologically motivated expectation did not really prove correct. Resources were missing for the grand strategic project. Cooperation and coordination within the West was insufficient. The ideology underlying the whole venture was also wrong in many of its most basic assumptions. And, from case to case, motives were not necessarily in line with the ideology.

The Iraqi undertaking turned into counterinsurgency, and while the end results may seem clearly better than what may have been expected in, say, 2006, this counterinsurgency was rearguard action to snatch the semblance of victory from the jaws of defeat. In Afghanistan, with Western leaders taking turns saying it is less than a perfect government one is looking for there, while looking at the possibilities of "reconciliation" and "negotiations" (and most importantly the responsible exit), the rearguard action nature of the ongoing efforts is even more visible. Lack of resources obviously plays a role in this. Iraq exhausted some, whereas others did not have much to spend on operations in Afghanistan to start with. And then came the economic crisis. Too bad.

Meanwhile, the significance of the lack of realistically needed resources does not stop people from claiming that cultural differences are what in the end prevent success in Afghanistan. Cultural relativism is very much a la mode when it comes to Afghanistan, as it has always been in fact. People subscribing to these views see it as natural that you won't get too good a solution there.

Parallel to this, others are looking to transform the agenda and present other issues such as climate change as the key challenge: the precarious future of humanity's current, resource-intensive way of existence (or, slightly rewording this, the uncertain future of the humanity-intensive phase of the history of planet Earth). So, once again, the point is hammered home that you just cannot continue to pay so much attention to Afghanistan, faced with bigger problems. Throughout, you may sense the underlying declinism and fears of the end of Western hegemony (and last-minute efforts to sustainably salvage some of it) informing much of this thought.

With this, the spirit of the age, in mind, it was really interesting to read this article in Newsweek about how we might be running out of antibiotics. And how we may need to get used to a world where we can take their availability a lot less for granted. You get the point. The bacteria are takin' over -- taking back lost terrain. Of course this process is actually playing out in physical reality, whereas the security agenda, underlying perceptions and stereotypes, and the related dilemmas of resource-allocation in determining what is feasible are more a function of social reality as such: of processes playing out in the hearts and minds.

Wikileaks and freedom of information, wiki-wiki

2010-12-03T09:15:00.012+01:00

I am watching the latest wikifreaks saga unfold from the sidelines. I don't really have the time these days to delve into all that's come out myself. I need the information wiki-wiki (which is apparently a Hawaiian term for quick). I only care to read what journalists selectively mention in their reports on what were revelations to them. But I do have some fundamental observations that can perhaps inform the debate over Wikileaks.

1. I am a member of the attentive public, but my behaviour disproves the theory (in as much as there is anything like that) behind Wikileaks. I am consuming filtered reports about what fell in Julian Assange's lap. I am fed a censored version of everything. Intentionally or unintentionally, the people doing the filtering keep things secret from me.

2. Wikileaks seems to have the idea that a government, when it keeps secrets, is merely this ugly, intrusive presence in our lives: an unwanted stranger in our midst that uses asymmetrical information as a resource for its autonomous operations, to its own good. This is wrong. There are other reasons to keep secrets, too. Julian Assange just can't add up one and one to arrive at two. States keep secrets because others keep secrets, too. Social actors of all kinds. Individuals, legal persons, loose networks and hierarchichal organisations, and... and other states. And yes, you, reading this, you also keep secrets. Your friends do as well.

3. States providing security through keeping secrets against other states keeping secrets is a deeply troubling tautology if you are a well-to-do intellectual with no concern for others' safety and security. Willing to get lost in sophisticated arguments in obscure locations purely for the spiritual inspiration this causes. I am not saying the above tautology should not be concerning at all. That would be ridiculously naive. State actors (individuals, organisations, networks on behalf of states) sometimes do really nasty things really only serving their own good, and that is bad. That Julian Assange believes it is the United States' federal government that is most a source of worry when it comes to that, seems to be clear from his behaviour. Whether he is right in thinking this (if he is really thinking this), is up to you to judge. But in making the decision to see the world through Assange's eyes, you cannot in a moral sense continue to cooperate with a government that is supposedly the source of your moral worries. (In practice, of course I am aware that individuals usually tolerate a lot of cognitive dissonance, especially when they are not really sure about what they think, feel, and say. That is, most of the time.)

4. If, on the other hand, you do not want to work against state(s) Julian Assange does not happen to like, the smallest contribution you can make to these apparently, then, benign powers' smooth operation is accepting the idea that some things are going to be kept secret. Far less than what would be the norm in non-democratic countries for example. But still there are going to be secrets. You don't have to join the army and take on hostile strangers in distant lands, and you don't need to personally help capture criminals. You don't need to go on diplomatic assignment for years to a country you would have never visited otherwise, either. You just have to accept that the government keeps some secrets since you don't think (as we have agreed) that the government keeps secrets only against you and against all that you hold dear.

5. The revelation that someone thinks that Medvedev, to Vladimir Putin, is what Robin is to Batman is probably not kept secret, as long as it is a secret, against you. It is kept secret for the sake of decency.

6. When a government does not really operate autonomously but is aided by a willing informer, such as Afghan informers who give information about insurgents in Afghanistan, the identity of the informer is kept secret from you not really against you, right? It is a matter of honour as well as instrumental rationality.

7. If decency or practical rationality does not matter to you (forgive me for addressing an imaginary reader here), why don't you punch the person sitting next to you in the face right now? Alternatively, why don't you hug the person next to you, if that is what you would rather do? Let me suggest two options. Maybe because you are an anarchist, and you would hate it if I would be telling you what to do. Alternatively, maybe it is because you have just fooled yourself into thinking something about yourself that is not really true, and you are not really an anarchist. Perhaps you are just a mortal being trying to make sense of a world full of contradictions. Up to you to judge what is more probable.

8. If decency or practical rationality does matter to you but you think Wikileaks only harms people as collateral damage, what is the basis of your moral condemnation of air strikes killing civilians? What is Wikileaks' basis for morally condemning air strikes killing civilians? How do they want to help create a better world, the possibility of which they claim to believe in if they don't bother to take much precaution before off-loading on target?

9. In the end, the irony is that to the average man or woman on the street who is too busy dealing with everyday problems to go through the Wikileaks files, or even the newspaper and television reports for that matter, the presence of Wikileaks may be somewhat reassuring. We are safe from the government, they can no longer keep secrets, is what they might think. Thus Wikileaks may as well be a legitimising force in favour of governments, even with all the practical complications and problematic implications, from time to time, of the unwanted leaks.

The Bidens and inteqal

2010-11-19T11:50:00.005+01:00

The Bidens are on air with Larry King on CNN, and I have just heard Jill Biden say, paraphrasing to the extent that I don't remember this exactly word by word: "so they brought the troops out of Iraq, and now they are starting to bring them out of... of... Afghanistan." The positive: at least she was not entirely certain when she said this, and looked at her husband for a second. A smooth inteqal, everyone.

Back to the future of Afghanistan: some more additions

2010-11-02T22:14:00.007+01:00

Christine Fair discusses India's interests in Afghanistan in a two-part article series - this link goes to the second instalment. Brief comment: one understands India's concerns about insurgencies and terrorism, but I am not sure how the extensive Indian military involvement in Afghanistan, envisioned by some commentators, would mitigate India's problems. Sino-Indian relations, for example, cannot be left out of the equation, and talk and practice of Central Asian power projection might invoke the flexing of muscles by Beijing, too, where a new breed of leadership is emerging.

In other words, with harmonious Sino-Indian cooperation, tackling challenges in Afghanistan would be a lot easier, to say the obvious. In a parallel universe/reality...

Meanwhile, here is a good review/overview of recent (amazing + kinda-sorta scary) developments in robot warfare to ease your concerns. I am being ironic of course, in noting how going over-the-horizon while the Indian Army might try something more intensive back beyond that horizon does not necessarily add up to a working recipe of peace-building. Though, one must add, such a recipe perhaps does not really exist.

Anwar al-Awlaki, the "head guy"

2010-11-01T13:14:00.005+01:00

That (the title) is basically all there is, to this post. Perhaps it should have been just a tweet... Yet I feel it deserves to be emphasised in this way, in the context of the recent parcel bomb plot story. Anwar al-Awlaki was once again referred to on Sky News as the "head guy" for al-Qaida in Yemen. Brings back memory of how earlier this year CNN once discussed whether al-Awlaki might be the "new Osama bin Laden." With the difference in mind that al-Awlaki even speaks good English...! Which reminds one of how many books some people should read. Which then reminds one of how that would not be very helpful in and of itself, because what is missing in the first place is the basic ability of these people to care about what's happening beyond a cursory level. No, discussing how much more aid Yemen would require specifically in the wake of terror plots, and mostly then only, is not equal to the kind of sensitivity implied here.

Chechens in Southwest Asia...

2010-10-30T20:11:00.003+02:00

For the equivalent of slightly more than a single Euro, I managed to lay my hands on this book ("The Village of Widows" by Ravi Shankar Etteth). On its Hungarian edition, to be exact, sold as a paperback at a railway station. And remarkably I came across the following dialogue in it. Quoting, in my translation back to English, from page 38 of the edition I have:

"Thank you for not trying to resist," continued the police chief. "I don't want lose one of my best because of a bunch of idiotic and suicidal Afghans and Chechens..."

I do not remember having heard of specifically Chechen foreign fighters in Kashmir before, but the kind of motives for their mention in places distant from Chechnya, listed by Christian Bleuer in this classic of a post on the subject, seem to be relevant in the Kashmiri context as well. The thing that bothers me is the consistency with which Chechens are mentioned by many. I even heard mention of them by an Afghan friend who was there in Afghanistan very recently. So what to make of this? The question persists. Have actual Chechen Chechens become part of the history of entire "Southwest Asia"*? Or is this only myth?

* Using this deliberately out of place term in my discourse...

World Food Day, and what it means

2010-10-18T06:27:00.007+02:00

October 16 was the World Food Day, and people in Paris did this in order to make you notice:

Photo: Thibault Camus (AP)

They called this the "hunger banquet," and the point was that nothing was served there.

Now, in Afghanistan, according to 2007/2008 data used by the World Food Programme there are over 7.4 million people facing a critical lack of food security (and there are more on the brink). War, destruction of the infrastructure, drought, the unsustainable and desperate exploitation of natural resources, and recently the food price crisis have all contributed to this. The latest development is that the floods in Pakistan this year also caused the loss and the diversion of a significant amount of food aid originally headed for Afghanistan where winter is coming and WFP was facing a 40% shortfall in funding to begin with. All reasons why FAO, the Food and Agricultural Organisation has Afghanistan shortlisted along with 21 other countries as particularly severe, protracted crises.

The scary aspect of this is that I am not sure what the prospect of famines or mass starvation in Afghanistan means today to the average Western observer. I have only the assumption that some are deeply troubled by it, while others may think that primarily the war should be ended, costs what it costs, and then humanitarian aid could somehow be delivered more easily than now in a deal with whoever is in power. But of course one has serious doubts about whether that indeed would be the case: in fact it is hard to believe. And so one wonders when thinking back to the post-9/11 critical discourse about how supposedly one needs to tackle root causes and not just hunt after terrorists... Remember French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine for example, lecturing Americans about the need to do so? Are people ready to tackle root causes? Like factors that contribute to, say, bringing rural religious militias to power in lands emptied of intellectual capital via exmigration? I know, "root causes" can be defined in many ways, fitting anyone's agenda.

Future warfare - future Afghanistan?

2010-10-09T08:39:00.009+02:00

Days after U.S. President Obama presented the Medal of Honor to the family of Staff Sergeant Robert J. Miller, one of only four recipients (three of them, including Miller, posthumous) of this decoration in the war in Afghanistan, here is the trailer for the new Medal of Honor video game. Much Afghanistan-like (or, to be more precise, Kunar-like) scenery to begin with, and the familiar sights of SF gear, Chinook helos, A-10s doing strafing runs etc.

Just a brief comment: if this is the future, and Afghanistan is turned into an "SF/drone firing range" as Joshua Foust put it not long ago, reacting to the "Team B report" tacitly encouraged and selectively human-resourced by the Obama administration, i.e. if it comes down to a romantically desperate fight of SFs in an endlessly long war, the only thing missing for the ultimate feel-real experience in this trailer I think is the robots. The drones above, and all the other remotely manned warfare that gives SFs in general and operators in concreto a chance not to be outmanned in that future. I am not sure if I meant this sarcastically, or matter-of-factly... part of the explanation for this is that I can't relate so meaningfully to robots.

Drone strikes and militant attacks: two takes

2010-10-08T09:48:00.004+02:00

This is the kind of discourse you're facing in Pakistan where a recent survey found that six out of ten think the U.S. is their enemy. On the left above you see stats from the BBC, and on the right you see what hardly qualifies as real stats from a Pakistani source. They are telling different stories: the BBC's data show how the U.S. drone campaign followed in intensity the intensity of the campaign of militant attacks in Pakistan. Going beyond the "correlation/co-variation is not causation" problematique, the BBC points out how the Pakistan Army's South Waziristan offensive drew retaliation in the form of peak-points in the militant campaign's intensity.

The Pakistani source, on the other hand, was eager to highlight how U.S. drone strikes are the chief problem for Pakistan. So he (yes, I presume "he") did the following. He marked "drone strikes" in red, as that is the colour that generally attracts attention more. He drew the curve for drone strikes above the blue curve of militant attacks by using some kind of indecent incident-counting method that is not revealed - thus he made sure drone attacks seem more destructive and omnipresent whereas in reality the militants killed random civilians in a number several times higher than the number of people targeted or accidentally killed in drone strikes (note: this is not to sell you the idea that civilian casualties in drone strikes are no concern). Plus the Pakistani source drew the curves so that militant attacks show a lag to drone strikes.

Given this, you have problems when you are trying to tell people in a country like Pakistan that, well, we don't really want extremists that you wouldn't harm to get the chance to go where they please, to kill people and blow up stuff. Which is what they seem to have been preparing to do relatively intensively lately, with Ilyas Kashmiri (the commander of AQ's paramilitary wing these days, it seems) and a certain Yunis al-Mauretani involved, along with militants resident in Germany and Britain (converts, first and second generation immigrants, dual citizens, i.e. militants from these countries, of all kinds).

Crisis diplomacy

2010-09-10T19:54:00.005+02:00

I find this an odd re-enactment of the Cuban missile crisis, slightly worried that a Florida pastor would really, in the end, turn this into a Quran missile crisis. Or maybe this situation is so odd it is not reminiscent of anything. I am just trying to see patterns in a crazy world, while the occasional 9/11 "truth" movement activist in the background puts me off. In any case, call me a peace activist when faced with this kind of stand-off, and I won't call you anything worse, either. Deal?

Speaking of Afghan corruption...

2010-09-02T14:06:00.008+02:00

... I had to reappear here to reflect on these recent news, see here and here. CIA paying people considered corrupt, in Afghanistan (recapped).

My first thought was a sophisticated one. But that is not because I am so double-plus smart, but because I have been thinking about these issues since a long time now. I had time to come up with my useless sophistication, shared here for all to read.

Afghanistan is very much an integral part of the Western political imaginaire nowadays as it clearly manifests in the discourse about it, to such an extent that the interpretation of its representation there is inseparable from the study of the practices directed at re-shaping its real-life existence, on the ground.

Corruption is a good example of this. Corruption was mostly conditionally imaginaire for the Western mind, throughout all these times it has been talked about, and I have a hunch it will continue to be. I am saying this in the sense that it was constantly used as a (de-)mobilising political slogan even while most referring to it did not have the simplest of clues as to what it could exactly entail. Those blaming specifically Karzai for not doing enough against corruption mostly did not have a clue as to exactly against whom and how he should have done something. There was no need to address this, as nobody demanded a reality check for something imagined as automatically valid. They never had to bother asking annoying questions such as how could Karzai personally get the police to act in less corrupt ways down in Marjah, or how aid organisations paying off the Taliban would qualify as his government's aid-wasting corruption.

Now, the fun thing is, the most knowledgable could actually utter names, ones truly relevant to the topic in a sense. Ahmed Wali Karzai and Mohammed Zia Salehi being among them. But, hell, as it is NYT-visible now... it keeps turning out that people like them are simply important enough to be in contact with powerful outside actors... and if you are American you might appreciate that said actor in their cases happens to be the CIA... I will force myself to disregard the ill feelings many Americans get when they think of their country's intelligence community, in making this simplistic assumption. Put in this light, the bureaucratic politics involved in the imaginary unitary-actor of U.S power arm-twisting largely with its own self, seems tragic.

Yet a facepalm for a reaction is injustice because it leaves unaddressed the sole little issue addressing which could lend some morality to all the moralising about inconveniences of the current situation: namely, what would you have done yourself?

Trust me, this can be addressed in plenty of ways. The trouble is not what many policy apologists would base further arguments on, that they did their best, and under the circumstances only this and this was possible. Designing a formally one-man polity for Afghanistan (with a gigantic mess of informality beneath the surface of it) was not the only possibility. Talking of drawing down U.S. troop numbers in late-2005, planning for Spring 2006, as Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon did, was not the only possibility. And so on. One could continue this arbitrary picking of rotten cherries to mark a road to hell with them.

Insurgent snipers in southern Afghanistan

2010-08-25T20:39:00.006+02:00

Somebody is keeping the pot boiling at the right temperature with sniper-like precision, adding assets to the deadly mix of the Afghan insurgency. That is what I tend to ponder when I consider this piece of text here:

"On Aug. 13, the day the company arrived in Sangin, a Marine stepped from his armored vehicle about 100 yards from a secure U.S.-British patrol base. The sniper fired a single shot, killing the soldier, the Journal said.
On the same day, Darren Foster, 20, a British army engineer from Carlisle, England, was shot and killed as he walked in an unprotected small space that bridge two areas of bulletproof glass, the Journal reported.
"(The sniper) hit a moving target in a space this big," said Capt. Jim Nolan, Lima Company's commander, indicating a space of 9 inches with his hands."

I am thinking of "somebody's" role with the alternative in mind - that is:

- The Taliban suddenly managed to buy some good sniper rifles on the market, and could finally put to use the sniper skills of some of their best available marksmen.

- They took/take the time to have some of their own trained as snipers by pros.

Alternative nr. 1 is unlikely, while alternative nr. 2 is in the end not that different from the original proposition.

WaPo v. geography

2010-08-25T08:00:00.004+02:00

WaPo heralded major U.S. base expansions upcoming in Afghanistan yesterday. Its syndicated content reappeared elsewhere as well. Among the expansions discussed is an interesting one, in Shindand. Even more interestingly, the article says it is "north of Kabul." But in fact it isn't. In fact, more significant is its proximity to Iran, potentially. It is not really the sort of place where you would need a lot more SFs to... halt the insurgency in Afghanistan (which is not to say there is no insurgency in Shindand and its environs).

On the other hand, the article is still relevant for what it purports to be relevant for: pertaining to U.S. miliatary plans (the U.S. military's plans) to stay in Afghanistan in peak numbers longer than Obama claimed they would. For this, an intensive persuasion effort is on, with General Petraeus speaking out (in cautious terms nevertheless) in the media. See here. The message I read out from this is "please let's not take that deadline so seriously." Previously, the military managed to get its way against the White House-weaved narrative of a D-Day coming up in Kandahar where Taliban central was supposed to be invaded. They played it down and kept it cool. Let's see where they get on this one. The stakes are higher this time.

Picture of the day (July 31, 2010)

2010-07-31T10:36:00.008+02:00

Just a superficial historical comment to this excellent post by Christian Bleuer. Regarding the main point, i.e. that the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan was relatively well thought out and executed (and in a context that was in many ways different from what the context of an ISAF/OEF withdrawal would look like) - the Geneva Accords deadline was met, and the aftermath was handled with sufficient foresight considering the circumstances, indeed.

Soviet withdrawals occurred elsewhere as well in those days. Whereas Lt. Gen. Gromov was the last one out from Afghanistan, walking through the Friendship Bridge to Termez, to what is now independent Uzbekistan, another Lt. Gen., Viktor Shilov was the last Soviet soldier to leave Hungary, back on June 19, 1991. The picture (from NOL) shows him driving through the bridge at the Záhony border crossing, to what is now independent Ukraine.

Unlike the retreating Soviet troops did most of the time, he is not really driving in his own lane. Nevertheless the withdrawal was relatively well-organised here as well. Despite the logistical challenges involved (including different-width railway tracks in Hungary and in Soviet territory), the Soviet troops were out before the deadline that was set by the Moscow agreement of March 1990 between the Hungarian and the Soviet governments. The one part of the story which did not go so smoothly was the settlement of financial issues. Hungary's first government post the change-of-system from state socialism looked for compensation from the Soviet military for the environmental damage done in and around the large Soviet military bases. The Soviet government entrusted Lt. Gen. Viktor Shilov with conducting negotiations on behalf of the Soviet Union, and he had a simple formula to work with. He demanded compensation from Hungary for the military assets and the buildings left behind by his troops - the same amount the Hungarian government wanted paid. Parallel to this they also put forward their "zero solution," i.e. that the competing compensation claims should cancel out each other. This was a rather typical way for the Soviet Army to settle an affair like this, and the Hungarian government had to give in eventually.

The one major difference from the Afghanistan pull-out is something that may be obvious: for a Soviet soldier to be deployed to Hungary used to be a privilege. Deploying to Afghanistan... it was deploying to a different planet. Consequently, departing must have been quite different as well.

Update: I was called on to provide some more detail, and I will promptly and happily do so, telling what I can right now, without major effort: the Soviet pull-out started already in April 1989, before the Hungarian-Soviet agreement on the subject (in March 1990). By June 19, 1991 some 50 thousand soldiers, 19 thousand civilian employees, and 32 thousand family members of theirs left the country. They took with them 27 thousand technical assets and 560,000 tons of cargo of all kinds of military equipment. The debate about the financial issues was only fully settled by 1992, by the time when the Soviet Union no longer existed, on the occasion of Russian President Boris Yeltsin's visit to Budapest. The historical importance of that visit came from Yeltsin's apology for the 1956 Soviet intervention, however.

Transitional fun

2010-07-27T19:24:00.004+02:00

Here is a quote from one of the latest excellent pieces from The Onion - America's finest news resource etc. Slightly modified for the purposes of this blog and its focus on Afghanistan - be warned!

" "We've been at this a long time, and the truth is, this was never something we planned on doing forever. Lately, in fact, we've begun to wonder if we should move on sooner rather than later."

On numerous occasions speculation was deflected that their reign might be winding down, but these remarks Tuesday appeared to signal a shift. Now many worry that their retirement could create a void at the helm.

They have been gradually delegating key responsibilities to respected subordinates. In what seemed as an attempt to downplay concerns, reporters were told that "we are not going anywhere just yet" and that, in any case, "things were largely self-sustaining these days."

It was also emphasized that any potential retirement wouldn't mean a complete withdrawal from affairs, but would instead mark a transitional period during which they would step back a bit and take on a different role. "

Now go read what I modified. It will be telling, I think. I am not sure if the writers at The O had this in mind, but I can easily imagine they wanted to execute just this kind of "inception" in me.

Stark contrasts!

2010-07-23T16:58:00.006+02:00

This right here could as well be starting a viral meme, were it not to appear among my obscure blogposts about Afghanistan! Hence the exclamation marks! And for the irony of it!

The Independent added the following caption to this visual challenge. "The scenes of Hamid Karzai and Hillary Clinton at a crafts bazaar in Kabul yesterday were in stark contrast to the site of a suicide bomb attack in Kandahar on the same day." Some "starking" added by me to the original.

So let us compete! Who can conceive of even starker contrasts?!? How about... a Brussels candy shop vs. an LRA-run village in the DRC?!? Or... a Tesco supermarket somewhere in Europe vs. an arms bazaar in Mogadishu?!? Or... the glamour world of Sex and the City vs. the cocaine war in Mexican towns?!?

Right. You get the point. In a highly interdependent and intelinked world, and with a whole history of across-the-globe linkages, my pairs of things in STARK CONTRAST may be just as connected as the Karzai/Clinton visit to the football store is with a bomb attack in Kandahar.

Comeback, and quote of the day

2010-07-21T10:45:00.004+02:00

For all those who are still taking a look at this blog every now and then after a long period of silence from me: this is a tentative comeback post. The reason I stayed away from writing here was simply that I needed a break, and that at the same time I had all sorts of other things to work on.

For now, without writing something very profound rightaway, here is what I have just bumped into, and may be worth sharing as a very oddly telling quote about transnationalisation.

" The latest encroachment is the Internet. (...) “It’s a great danger to be connected to the outside world,” cautions one monk. “Most of the monks weren’t even informed about 9/11.” "

The source: a monk from the mount of Athos, on a peninsula reaching into the Aegean Sea in Greece, where women are not allowed to visit since 1045.

To Afghanistan, connected we stand.

Afghanistan's mineral water reserves

2010-06-17T23:08:00.004+02:00

As to the latest news of the actually old story of Afghanistan's vast mineral reserves and its recently being dubbed the Saudi Arabia of lithium, please consult the Daily Show with Jon Stewart - once again:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

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http://www.thedailyshow.com/

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Political Humor

Tea Party

The U.S. administration, reportedly, is concerned whether this sort of mineral wealth will help holy good governance in Afghanistan.

For this reason I was impressed reading this statement put out by the Afghan Embassy in Washington:

"Demands for drinking water on the Kabul Basin in Afghanistan may increase six times from its current supply according to a new study carried out by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in collaboration with the Afghan Government.

The findings significantly estimate that at least 60 percent of shallow groundwater-supply wells would be affected over the next 50 years and may become dry or inoperative as a result of climate change as documented in the new study recently unveiled at the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, DC.

Groundwater in the basin’s less widely used deep aquifer may supply future needs; however, the sustainability of this resource for large withdrawals, such as agricultural uses is uncertain. “[USGS has] been an invaluable asset for bringing advanced technology into Afghanistan and transferring their professional skills to build the capacity of our institution,” Afghanistan’s Ambassador to the United States Said Jawad said recently during a presentation of the report at the embassy.

In welcoming the USGS team led by scientist Thomas Mack and lead author on the report, Jawad said, “The training of Afghan experts and scientists will sustain the growth and maintenance of an infrastructure that will support the systematic development, extraction and monitoring of mineral deposits.”

“We are also excited about the news of an estimated mineral wealth of $1 trillion dollars in Afghanistan including iron, copper, cobalt, gold and coal,” the ambassador said. “These unified reports prove to be invaluable for the maximum extraction of the minerals already known and the discovery of new deposits.” (...)"

In my view, that the issue of Afghanistan's lottery "win" comes up only after so many paragraphs, about other things before it, may be interpreted naively as a sign that it is not that important to Karzai's government; constructively as a sign that they want to remind everyone of the basic and oft-forgotten fact that Afghanistan, ya know, has some more basic problems right now than mining its bowels out; and minimalistically as a sign that the people behind the statement are smart and know how to shape a message right. Opinions?

Kittens on the march

2010-06-06T07:16:00.006+02:00

Managing the various actors of peacebuilding is like trying to teach kittens to march in formation. In other words, these actors claim to rally around one flag, but they can be fatally incompatible, and their striving may resemble anything but moving in one and the same direction. Inasmuch as this is a rule, the coalition undertaking in Afghanistan is no exception. Members of this diverse whatever that we call the coalition are all playing the roles they want to play, for the goals they hold dear.

As many may know, towards the end of May, to the ambivalent dismay of many, it was revealed that the Red Cross was providing first-aid training to "members of the armed opposition" in Afghanistan. Well, to the greater happiness of all of humanity (obviously), this may be extremely useful to members of the armed opposition should they be wounded in fighting with any of the militia proxies of the coalition disarmed in UNDP's Afghanistan New Beginnings Programme, such as Commander Matiullah, of NYT fame now. The latter's men have just taken back Gizab district in Uruzgan province together with U.S. and Australian special forces (and perhaps others also on board), but one can guess on the basis of the NYT piece that the U.S. DEA already have their sights on him. The DEA's end goal: a world free of drugs.

The wider region of Afghanistan

2010-05-31T10:15:00.008+02:00

Everything connects to everything of course, but there are issues of indirect relevance to a topic that may deserve more attention than others. In Afghanistan's context, Indo-Pakistani relations are one such (highly complex) issue. Many have raised the suggestion by now that if only Pakistani calculations regarding India would be different, and in Islamabad (and Rawalpindi) the leadership would abandon quaint ideas of "strategic depth" and concerns over "strategic flanking" in Afghanistan, things could perhaps get better there.

One can perhaps be forgiven for going one step beyond this even, following the same thread: one might also assume that Indo-Pakistani relations might look somewhat different if there would be a different policy from Beijing towards Pakistan. And that policy, in turn, is determined partly by Chinese calculations regarding India.

Now, IR scholars might say there is a security dilemma between India and China. And this security dilemma proposition might occasionally be backed up by the argument of the Chinese sense of insecurity about a major part of their state territory, the relatively less densely populated "Xinjiang" and Tibet. Insecurity over these might make Chinese relations to neighbouring powers problematic in any case. But just how rational are such worries on the part of China today? Not being fully immersed in the subject, this strikes me as an interesting question, that Mayank Chhaya is raising in this article. Quote:

"If it is Beijing's unshakable conviction that Tibet was historically part of China, why is it that six decades after it incorporated the territory into the country it still feels compelled to seek India's reassurance? And why seek it from someone who has next to no role to play in the matter? A plausible answer is that at best it still remains uncertain about Tibet's cultural and emotional integration into China even though it has managed to complete its territorial integration.

It is hard to comprehend whether China harps on Tibet whenever it can because it does not want the world to forget that it owns it or because deep in its heart it still considers the incorporation tenuous. After all what difference India's position on Tibet can make in material terms for China when there is no prospect of it ever giving up a fourth of the Chinese territory that the ancient land represents? It is even more baffling considering India's frequently stated position that it considers Tibet to be an integral part of China."

Forgetting as a political factor

2010-05-24T13:07:00.004+02:00

I have just bumped into this video. Just watch it first, and then I will comment on it below.

So the voice over the video says "there has not been a single internationally planned terrorist attack in Germany." The video is meant to carry an otherwise important message. We are no fans of Big Brother, right? But the argument that is supposed to make the case against BB stronger, that there has not been an internationally planned terrorist attack in Germany, is ignorant to absurdity. What would the creators of the clip need to be reminded of, from the 1972 Munich Olympics to the Sauerland cell? By the way, although the definition of "an internationally planned terrorist attack in Germany" it does not fit, but the Hamburg cell's role in the 9/11 attacks perhaps also deserves attention in this context.

I recently mocked a Foreign Policy Magazine editor's claim that the U.S. might easily just tolerate Hamed Karzai's killing by the Taliban, because "the American people's memories of 9/11 are fading." Here, in the above video, forgetting does seem to manifest in a direct, empirically verifiable way. The relevance of this is of course not at all restricted to Germany. But it does bring up memories in me of the times I spent as an exchange student, when I used to go to some ('light-ish') Middle Eastern Studies classes together with French and German students, and I still remember my own intellectually paralysed position in a debate in which they seriously pointed out to me that militants do not target France and Germany, only the U.S. and Israel, and those other states the policies of which they despise.

In Europe, who would forget which country attacked one's own in the past? But wars/incidents of violence amongst the people are just not the same thing. To a degree, that is stating the obvious, of course. I cannot quite explain this difference in clear-cut terms for now, but perhaps it was worth noting.

K-Paxtunkhwa...

2010-05-21T14:56:00.007+02:00

Facebook's (and other randomly chosen websites' as well as, perhaps, the 21st century's) condemnation to a ban till the end of the month (and to damnation, presumably) by the judges of the Lahore High Court was preceded, as Fiza News noted, by protests in several places, including...

Yes, K-Pakhtunkhwa... That faraway, exotic place with its peculiar culture. Is it wrong if I am reminded of this movie clip? But I am reminded of it anyway, and this is only meant to be for some sarcastic fun, deliberately regardlessly of the actual peculiarities of Pashtun and other cultures in the region - and certainly not out of any lack of respect for the people living there:

That the NWFP's name was changed to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is no fresh news of course. I was merely surprised when, for this very first time, I saw its name simplified in the above way, for the purposes of better fitting it into an on-line newspaper column. But if you are interested in learning more about the re-naming, Zahid Shahab Ahmed nicely summarised the issues surrounding it here. Yours truly commented there as well.

Bagram, Kandahar, and DJ Khaled

2010-05-19T10:01:00.006+02:00

I have just seen the NYT's report about the attack on the Bagram base. By the way, here is how a previous, though smaller-scale, attack ended, in March 2009, really not for the faint of heart. The one thing I am struck by is the last sentence of the NYT article: "The back-to-back attacks came as American and Afghan leaders were preparing to launch a major offensive in the city of Kandahar to break the hold of the insurgents in southern Afghanistan."

What is that supposed to add? That this is why the insurgents attacked in Bagram? The answer is no. They attacked because spectacular, complex attacks such as this one draw attention and influence the bigger picture in the information war over perceptions. Or is it supposed to say that the U.S. and ISAF are going to fight back? Probably that is not why this sentence was added but let me address that possibility anyway.

Talking of an offensive in Kandahar is silly. And to my best knowledge the plan now is something consisting certainly not only of military operations but a series of measures in various domains (including governance), involving certainly not only military actors. And there is talk of how this all will be Afghan-led. Moreover, some are talking about a postponement of whatever it is that is coming to autumn. And what is actually happening from the part of insurgents with something potentially coming in Kandahar in mind is a stepped-up campaign of assassinations. There, in Kandahar. That is what one reads out of reports these days.

So I am interested to see if this sort of schizophrenic media coverage comes because there is still so much uncertainty (and likely turf battles and conflicting visions) in the background regarding what exactly ought to be done?

Meanwhile, I have by chance listened into Palestinian-American DJ Khaled's new hit, "We takin' over," and I was struck by how some of the lyrics reflect conventional POP-COIN (population-centric counterinsurgency) wisdom. In a twisted way of course:

"If you want to, we can supply you,
Got enough work to feed the whole town,
They won't shoot you, unless you try to,
Come around and try to stomp on our ground,
'Cause we takin' over, one city at a time..."

Put this in the context of possibly upcoming moves in Kandahar for some deeply intellectual fun.

Afghanistan, the global struggle

2010-05-17T09:20:00.002+02:00

Rick Rozoff's piece is worth a read: a good overview of how many are involved in Afghanistan these days. One sentence struck me as somewhat oddly formulated towards the end:

"Afghanistan has, whether by convenience, design or some combination of the two, been transformed into a vast training ground for the consolidation of a fifty-nation military structure that has already been extended into Central Asia, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, the Horn of Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Middle East."

Was there a design behind this? To a degree, yes, of course, but it is not as though the whole Afghanistan campaign would have been started to that end, so that sort of message certainly should not be implied here. Rozoff himself means more the sort of opportunity for joint/mixed ops experimenting that arose with this campaign. In that sense, there is a design. Afghanistan has indeed turned into a global governance exercise.
The one question that still bothers me is what sort of use it has if it fails? And as to the military aspect of this: will we see that extensive benefits of supposedly increased interoperability? Certainly not against space aliens. But I do see how this can be useful in some ways in crisis zones, perhaps in Complex Humanitarian Emergencies, elsewhere, later on. Anyways, this may be a question worth pondering in more detail.

A piece of history retold by Khalid Khawaja

2010-05-16T08:53:00.005+02:00

Wow, this is an interesting interview. The late* Khalid Khawaja just does not fit many stereotypes and that makes this interview with him very interesting reading, from 2005. Having been kicked out from ISI for complaining about Zia ul-Haq's loyalty to Islam (!), and having fought with the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, someone who thinks Indian Muslims have more rights than Pakistani Muslims and that suicide bombings killing innocents should be haram. And yet someone who thinks fondly of Osama bin Laden. How could this be? That is what you might be asking. Part of the explanation is just a totally different perspective on the world, of course. That is not something one can convey with a blogpost if one is not sharing that perspective of his. Another part of the explanation, the one I can try to convey is the rather different Osama he got to know, a long time ago, when bin Laden was still busy organising his al-qaeda as-sulbah, and not really involved in organising transnational terrorist attacks (the first of which only came at the end of 1992, in Yemen, and even at that time as one targeted against U.S. military personnel; just failing to hit its target). Abdullah Azzam was still alive. Two key excerpts are included below, as provided in the interview that was prepared by Syed Saleem Shahzad, the journalist who always delivers something new.

So Khalid Khawaja tells part of his story below, naming some key names...

"The story starts in 1986-87, when out of emotion I wrote a letter to General Zia ul-Haq saying that he was a hypocrite and he was only interested in ruling Pakistan, rather than imposing Islamic law in the country. General Zia immediately ordered my dismissal from my basic services in the Pakistan air force, where I was a squadron leader, and from the ISI, where I was deputed at the Afghan desk. I went to Afghanistan and fought side-by-side with the Afghan mujahideen against Soviet troops. There I developed a friendship with Dr Abdullah Azzam [a mentor of bin Laden], Osama bin Laden and Sheikh Abdul Majeed Zindani [another mentor of bin Laden's]. At the same time, I was still in touch with my former organization, the ISI, and its then DG [director general], retired Lieutenant General Hamid Gul."

He goes on to describe how "his and Hamid Gul's" Islamic Democratic Alliance did not work to defeat the PPP at upcoming elections in 1988. Nawaz Sharif then purportedly asked Khawaja to arrange a meeting with the ever generous Arab sheikh, Osama bin Laden. The aim was to get money, in order to challenge the PPP more effectively.

"The most historic was the meeting in the Green Palace Hotel in Medina between Nawaz Sharif, Osama and myself. Osama asked Nawaz to devote himself to "jihad in Kashmir". Nawaz immediately said, "I love jihad." Osama smiled, and then stood up from his chair and went to a nearby pillar and said. "Yes, you may love jihad, but your love for jihad is this much." He then pointed to a small portion of the pillar. "Your love for children is this much," he said, pointing to a larger portion of the pillar. "And your love for your parents is this much," he continued, pointing towards the largest portion. "I agree that you love jihad, but this love is the smallest in proportion to your other affections in life." These sorts of arguments were beyond Nawaz Sharif's comprehension and he kept asking me. "Manya key nai manya?" [Agreed or not?] He was looking for a Rs500 million [US$8.4 million at today's rate] grant from Osama."

Finally, Khawaja mentions how after this other politicians also wanted a slice of the pie, and asked for meetings with "the Sheikh."

* Showing just how busy I was in the latter weeks, I was not aware of Khalid Khawaja's recent death when I posted these comments about his interview.

Vetting jihadi recruits...

2010-05-10T13:52:00.005+02:00

Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau present here a brief discussion in Newsweek of how "vetting" is done in the case of jihadi organisations. It is quite an interesting angle to look at jihadi organisations from. It shows how for these organisations willing recruits may be just as problematic as a walk-in asset for an intelligence agency. "O, hai, thx for coming, bai!" may be an instinctive answer to someone coming with no acquaintant already inside. But obviously there is a temptation as well to accept the services of someone who is basically trying to follow, in their interpretation, the righteous path. This is all pretty obvious, and the discussion remains on the level of the obvious in the piece I linked to above.

If you want to read something going much more below the surface, here is Omar Nasiri's book (the cover) below: "Inside the jihad." It tells you a lot. An awful lot and even more. I know it is not new, but I have two good reasons to recommend it now: one is that I became aware of it only recently and I found it to be a really precious source of information (besides being an interesting story); the other is something you may appreciate more, namely that the CIA's Khost incident, at the end of 2009, in which a turned al-Qaida double agent of Jordanian origin blew himself up killing and injuring a lot of agents, could be seen in a different light when you look at the sort of operations Nasiri was involved in, and how he was handled by the services that worked with him.

And an update (May 12): it seems like Eric Breininger went through similar training as Omar Nasiri even as late as 2007/2008. (To specify: Nasiri visited the Khaldan camp for basic training back in the mid-1990s and went on to spend time at Darunta.)

Direct fire attacks: March 2009 - March 2010

2010-05-02T19:44:00.007+02:00

Look at the orange sections of the graph columns for March 2009 and March 2010, respectively. (Source: this recent DoD report.) Direct fire attacks' trend is on the rise, still. The Taliban version of "Max Leverage"? More troops equal more contact? Discuss.

Cultures and calendars

2010-04-23T21:28:00.004+02:00

I went to a conference today where the participants threw in all day long their otherwise intriguing ideas/reflections about globalisation and cultural reactions to it. Fine. I was listening to some of it as I listen to music sometimes. It brought up my own thoughts in me in association to all sorts of things. One theme that kept coming back was how "civilisations" have different conceptions of time and space. One speaker used the example of Chechens vs. Russians, saying that for Chechens the immediately relevant past goes back up to 8 generations, whereas for Russians it is a much more recent thing, not reaching back so far. Whatever - of course one should not overessentialise cultures, and definitely one should not overgeneralise conclusions of this kind, reached by often dubious methods by the sources the speaker may have relied on. But it reminded me of one very basic difference between Afghans and outsiders. It can be illustrated in the easiest way the following way:

1979 = 1399/1400 = 1357/1358

That is what the year 1979 of the Gregorian calendar corresponds to in the Islamic calendar (firstly) and in the Iranian, otherwise also "Islamic," calendar (secondly) which was used in Afghanistan since 1957, except for the Taliban's times...

Wait. Even that above is too Euro-centric a way of putting it. Why not put it this way, for example:

1400 = 1979/1980

People using such different calendars certainly are not necessarily in sync. 1979 is more of a turning point for some, 2000 is more of a turning point for others. It is no turning point for yet others... That is profound indeed.

That's it for today, but I hope to get back to posting with a bit more regularity, once my current workload is reduced somewhat.

Photo, quotes, and superficial idea of the day

2010-04-13T09:12:00.008+02:00

In the photo above, you can see troops in the area of Hawz-e-Madad's bazaar, during Operation Baaz Tsuka, at around the turn of 2006/2007. I found this picture on an internet forum, and the interesting thing about it is that this is the settlement in the vicinity of which the Taliban set up their very first checkpoint in 1994, on the Herat-Kandahar road (close to Kandahar).

The nearby section of that road nowadays is pretty dangerous. One very recent source says (dated April 10, 2010):

"I’ve realised the section of Route 1 in the vicinity of Hawz-e Madad, specifically between ISAF report lines SA16 and SA18, is ambush alley for us."

This is not very different from the past, except for guerrilla tactics employed. In Jalali and Grau's volume, this is stated about 1980s combat in the area:

"The (Soviet - P.M.) enemy columns were most vulnerable on a stretch of the road between the western suburbs of the city and Hauz-e Madad, located about 40 kilometers west of Kandahar. In this area, the Mujahideen were able to hide in the orchards and villages to ambush enemy columns."

Of course, there are plenty of other badland ambush alleys around in the south. My linking the 1980s with 1994 and with 2010 is not to convey the message that ISAF is fighting some uniquely important, mystical demon of war in Hawz-e-Madad. In fact, I see the irony of fate in how structural factors (oil wealth, arms trade, superpower rivalry, drought, Indo-Pak security dilemma etc.) produced a history which made places such as Hawz-e-Madad, Kandahar, or, for that matter, Jaji ~~Maydan~~* in Paktia (where bin Laden and his Arab friends had their first experiences of jihad on guided tours of Sayyaf and others) became important in a sense.

* Jaji ought not be confused with Jaji Maydan - Erwin Franzen, someone who visited there back in the 1980s, warned me of the importance of this.

The great puzzle

2010-04-08T11:24:00.003+02:00

If Jon Stewart and his team behind the show have such an accurate sense of the strategic picture, as evidenced by the video below, how come that 90% of the people involved in commenting on Afghanistan affairs, in the form of supposedly serious analysis, in a number of countries, get it so spectacularly wrong, given that this sort of thing - having a sharp sense for strategy - is, like, their profession...? My tentative answer is that empathy is very important for sound qualitative analysis. And a good sense of humour is usually an indicator of just that. And many of the people concerned just do not have these qualities necessarily. Or they don't intend to "waste" on Afghanistan what they reserve for other subjects they consider more important - mainly the attention to detail...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

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http://www.thedailyshow.com/

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Khyber Pass

2010-04-07T16:20:00.004+02:00

For want of a better idea to post something today, I shall post a clip below, of the song titled Khyber Pass by The Ministry. It was part of the movie soundtrack for The Hurt Locker. It really fits here, doesn't it?

Well, the answer is: to a degree, indeed. The founder of this other ministry, The Ministry of Al Jourgensen, is singing-asking where is Osama bin Laden, in the song. To add something valuable to this post, I shall bring in Steve Coll to answer their question:

"The latest hint, suggesting that at least some Al Qaeda leadership is concentrated in North Waziristan, an area dominated by the Haqqani network, is contained in the plea agreement of the American terrorist David Headley In planning an attack against a Danish cartoonist, Headley traveled to North Waziristan, to meetings facilitated by a retired Pakistani intelligence officer. There he met Ilyas Kashmiri, a senior Al Qaeda planner, who told Headley that the “elders” had approved his work. It does not necessarily follow that the elders were also in North Waziristan, but still…."

Call this smooth interagency coordination. A request promptly answered by the Ministry of State Failure.

Taking issue with people I respect, re: the Headley case and re: jihadist grievances

2010-04-01T06:54:00.006+02:00

I shall put my two cents' worth in with regards to two recent articles, debating what people whom I otherwise respect have said in those articles. Two issues shall be discussed in this post, accordingly.

1. The first is M.K. Bhadrakumar's article about the Headley case. Here is Headley's plea agreement. Bhadrakumar, just as many others in India, is upset about the FBI's plea bargain with the man who was the scout for the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. It can be sensed that he is, rightly, outraged by the restrictions on access to Headley now in place which mean that Indian interrogators will not be able to get information directly from him. I find this amazing, too - I can't wait for Foreign Policy Magazine's collection of "the 10 most important occasions when the United States didn't give a damn about others' concerns with regards to terrorism."

But Bhadrakumar, surprisingly for me, because I really appreciate his take normally, seems to me to make way too much of the fact that Daoud Syed Gilani was a U.S. DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) agent... confusing? Well, Daoud Syed Gilani is David Headley. He just changed his name before the Mumbai attacks, but had been recruited by the DEA long years before, as a Gilani. Yes, as "a Gilani." His half brother is Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani's spokesperson, Danyal Gilani. This is all amazing, but this does not allow the conclusion that the CIA or the DEA had foreknowledge of the Mumbai attacks. In my view, it only shows the DEA's amazingly retarded approach to the war on drugs that they would recruit someone like Daoud Syed Gilani - someone convicted earlier on on drugs-related charges, and occasionally going for a bit of terrorist training to the FATA, post 9/11...

In fact, Bhadrakumar seems to play right into the hands of those who may have specifically wanted to embarrass both PM Gilani and the U.S. administration with Headley's choice for the task of scouting ahead of the Mumbai attacks.

Why do I think so? Because the Mumbai attacks were connected to Pakistani military operations in the FATA ongoing at the time that were very much in the U.S.' interest. And they were meant to divert attention away from there, and, especially, to even pull troops away from there (because it could be very well anticipated that some of the troops involved in the fighting in the FATA would be redirected to the Indian border as a deterrence against a prospective Indian strike on Azad Kashmir training camps or any other target, in retaliation for Mumbai).

2. The other author whom I usually love to read, but shall criticise now, is Thomas Hegghammer. In his reaction to (or developing debate with?) Bret Stephens' take on the grievances fuelling jihadism, he is wrong, to a degree, just as Bret Stephens is, also.

Essentially, they are debating whether the issue of Palestine or the shocks of the soft power of Western culture matter more to jihadists. Deliberately simplifying things a little, Stephens is pointing out how Sayed Qutb was totally freaked out by some of what he saw in the United States and how this consequently had a defining influence on the formation of Islamist discourse, to the extent that Palestine will always be an excuse compared to other values Islamists may hold dear. Hegghammer is pointing out in return how images of dead Palestinians during times of upheaval (as during the Gaza war last year) usually mean a fresh wave of recruits for al-Qaida's cause.

So far, both are right to say what they say - thus Stephens ought to have addressed the latter point by Hegghammer about recruitment. Especially because it can be addressed. Jihadist/taqfirist Islamists will never be Palestinian nationalists, nor, for that matter, Kashmiri, Pakistani, Chechen, Moro, Uighur, Somali, Iraqi or Afghan nationalists. They will not even behave as Saudi nationalists, as evidenced by the U.S. military's exit from Saudi Arabia not having much of an effect on their rage against the West.

Of course, Palestine adds to this rage. Just like Kashmir and Chechnya and all the other issues add to it, too. Even more importantly, the existence of such issues helps the likes of al-Qaida make themselves a slightly more tolerable minority among a broad population to many of which these causes will always be much more important than the remainder of the wider set of issues forming al-Qaida's jihadist/taqfirist Islamism (causes, to some of which a major part of that population is simply hostile by the way).

These issues, that lend themselves to be common causes, do indeed help jihadist recruitment, too. But individually cited grievances of the newly arriving recruits are not particulary good indicators. They can't be very useful drivers for policy, either. They deserve to be contemplated, of course. But, euphemistically putting it, one should not necessarily be in a rush to satisfy the complaints of people turning to using terror to be heard... To illustrate the complexity of the matter: what should one make of the fact then that al-Qaida's East African embassy bombings back in the day brought a large wave of fresh recruits and even funds for al-Qaida?

Also, Stephens and Hegghammer ignore here the lessons of the somewhat artificial greed vs. grievance debate in the political economy of armed conflicts. It is one thing to analyse the grievances that motivate these people. But where would they be without opportunity coming, in various forms, to wage a militant struggle? Without oil money washing to the shores of the Gulf states? Without the covert aid to the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan?

"Hamed, we are disappointed!"

2010-03-30T12:20:00.009+02:00

Blake Hounshell decided to compose something akin to a letter on behalf of President Obama, to Hamed Karzai. I don't intend to take it on me to respond to this on behalf of President Karzai in a serious manner, but I will turn this into a fake dialogue that shall never occur, using excerpts of Blake Hounshell's monologue. The noble purpose of this is to show the kind of answers that should seem obvious options for any observer who has monitored the things going on in the region in the past decades. I am really puzzled as to how someone like Blake Hounshell could ignore these, apparently.

* * * * *

Blake Hounshell: "My dear Hamed, how are you? Sorry to drop in on you so suddenly, but as you know the security situation in your capital city is still pretty dicey."

Karzai: "I know. Haqqani and those other zealots are really nuts. Charlie "Abu al-Jihad al-Afghani" Wilson used to hang out with them, but Lala Jalaluddin really isn't that cool. And his men and his Arab guests tend to shoot and blow up stuff around here, including hotels and CIA agents. Really too bad you had to come here so suddenly. I know all about that, I live here."

BH: "Thanks for letting us bring some of your troops along for the ride. Here's hoping they'll actually be useful when we go into Kandahar later this year."

Karzai: "You are welcome to take Afghanistan's sons whom you have trained. As to Kandahar, forgive me for being a little perplexed. You do not actually mean to use troops in Marjah-style operations in an area like that, do you?"

BH: "Hamid: You're a major disappointment"

Karzai: "Sorry to hear that. Good luck living up to expectations to you."

BH: "All you seem to do is sit here in your presidential palace most days, fiddling while your country burns."

Karzai: "Good to hear you apparently do not have problems with the things I actually do. Only with the fiddling part."

BH: "The Pakistanis were in town last week, and they all but told us that your government is a joke."

Karzai: "Right... I see now! You need some very-very basic information about Pakistan. Hm. Let us see a map first. First of all I shall show you where that country is. Then there is this thing called "condom" to which people in Washington used to liken that country. The reason was..."

BH: "Your police forces are too busy abusing and shaking down ordinary Afghans to do their jobs."

Karzai: "Good to know cops do not shake down people in normal countries like yours. Unfortunately, this does tend to happen at times in places like Pakistan, for example. At least you trained many of our policemen. Perhaps you could pay them some more?"

BH: "Pakistanis urged us to stop trying to build up a central government in Kabul and try to work through regional power brokers instead."

Karzai: "Well, yes, ekhm, that is why I was starting to explain about Pakistan... But anyway, surely you don't mean we should rely on "regional power brokers." You cannot possibly mean "the warlords," can you? A couple of years before this I was constantly pressured by people like you to do more against them... Anyway, as to Pakistan..."

BH: "I tried to get them to commit to going after the Haqqani network, which has been giving us hell in southeastern Afghanistan and almost killed you several times. But each time I brought it up, they found some way to change the subject. I think they're hedging their bets."

Karzai: "Ah, fine. So you know about Haqqani and Pakistan then."

BH: "I tried to buy us both some more time by coming up with this confusing July 2011 "timeframe" to begin drawing down troops, but you and I both know that's a hope, not a plan."

Karzai: "I see. Of course I take all that you say very seriously, just like the Taliband and the Pakistanis will. And I hope we see each other soon. See you in mid-2012, insha'Allah. 1391, that is, for us."

BH: "We're just going to declare victory in Afghanistan and go home."

Karzai: "And then what?"

BH: "You remember what happened to Najibullah, don't you?"

Karzai: "But surely you do remember what happened on 9/11, don't you?"

BH: "The American people's memories of 9/11 are fading."

Karzai: "Memory loss? You are implying you want to see mullah Omar again here by 1391, to cure a memory loss? There is a chance mullah Omar will not want to see you."

State-sponsored and stateless insurgencies, during and after the Cold War

2010-03-26T20:30:00.010+01:00

For lack of time to do something more research-intensive, I will just stop by here to once again recommend Vanda Felbab-Brown's pretty good book, Shooting up. I have finally got down to reading the non-Afghan case studies in it, too, and Peru's example made me pause to ponder an interesting aspect of the story of the Shining Path, well known by its Spanish name Sendero Luminoso... Here is why I found it interesting, first.

So often one hears the narrative that the Cold War made the world a more easily calculable place. A few extremist-orientated go so far as to (without basis) claim that the Cold War was a joint "US/SU" venture in world control, because in some aspects, structurally speaking, it tended to work more or less like that. Ironically, there are also a few who view something similar as a benevolent phenomenon: one having made state failure and similar large-scale disorder seemingly more avoidable - even avoided, as some believe. An argument connected to this is that you supposedly could not, during the Cold War, finance taking on a government for long without orienting yourself towards powerful enough external backers. This had to mean the bloc opposing to the one the government was aligned with, by default Cold War logic. Globalisation is then presented as the process that turned this on the head, making it possible for non-state actors to develop sufficient autonomy for messing with states on their own, messing up the interstate system, questioning its fundamental tenets... After so many superpower-supported Cold War insurgencies, globalisation in the post-Cold-War period is said to have brought us insurgencies feeding on/high on all things illicit... It is oft pointed out how Operation Cyclone was needed to energise the insurgencies of the mujahedeen factions, while today the Taliban are stateless narco-terrorists etc.

But of course these views are at least partly mistaken. Not only are the Taliban no narco-terrorists and not purely (or even largely) "statelessly financed" in fact, but even the view of the Cold War is flawed. Spectacular counterexamples can be offered regarding it: there were, even then, insurgencies supporting/sustaining themselves, without a critical level of external backing and manipulation... These may have been integrated into the illicit transnational economy as the Sendero Luminoso were (who were thus able to do without Soviet/Cuban assistance)... Or they may have been feeding on arms supplied earlier on by one of the parties eventually fought during the ensuing conflict - as in Malaya where some of the insurgency consisted of elements originally nurtured by Britain, against the occupying Japanese (during World War Two). Needless to say, this kind of "shooting in one's own feet" was/is one aspect of the highly complex Afghan case, too.

Moreover, and this brings us closer to the discussion of the current insurgencies in Afghanistan, even Sendero Luminoso, much as they profited from the trade of drugs, could not be beaten by equating counternarcotics with counterinsurgency. To the contrary. And that is why it is a shame, I feel, that an otherwise brilliant book as the Antonio Giustozzi-edited Decoding the New Taliban did not start with a chapter by Felbab-Brown instead of one by Gretchen Peters. The reader may end up further from "decoding" in that case, as a result. Not to say Peters' work is not informative, but Felbab-Brown's work is just much more considerate regarding long-term, complex consequences... Whereas Peters just doesn't see the "wood" because of that single "tree" she keeps focusing on... "Uff!" I spoke.

Writing al-Qaida history

2010-03-23T16:07:00.006+01:00

Laurie Mylroie, Pentagon-commissioned author of a history of al-Qaida (available here), begins her work with a surprising statement. She says when she began her project she assumed al-Qaida had a history... but this assumption proved false. One gets the feeling this is partly implied in the sense that there is no truly good source assessing (especially) the first decade of the organisation's existence.

Of course, Mylroie is also well-known for her (not altogether uninteresting) proposition to consider much more of an Iraqi role in starting off al-Qaida as a powerful network, through what could be referred to perhaps as "the IBAQ theory," as shorthand for "Iraq/Baluchistan/al-Qaida" theory - copyright belongs here if you fancy this one ;-) - of Iraq having helped future joiners of AQ, like Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, as Baluch, against Iran originally (find details in a shorter form here). But Mylroie also overblows this of course, spectacularly in some places. Still, as I said, it is interesting. But what about the assertion that there is no truly comprehensive, good source about al-Qaida's history? May this be just selling her work better?

In any case, I am just reading one very good book on the subject, by Jean-Pierre Filiu. Les neuf vies d'Al-Qaida. You won't find it published in English yet... But I guess this shall change now, most likely as a result of this blogpost. Cover image included below to make this blog more colorful.

Crazy quote of the day, from exactly six years ago

2010-03-23T00:01:00.001+01:00

You might want to say this was "batsh*t crazy," in fact. Probably no need to comment on this. Just look at all that followed throughout the ensuing years. (And get enlightened if you have not been, so far.)

With The Christian Science Monitor, from March 23, 2004 here:

"The Pakistani military is refining its tactics in the ongoing battle to capture Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in this semi-autonomous tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.
It's targeting a specific clan, the Yargul Khel, and Monday began bulldozing all their mud houses as a punishment for a group of clansmen providing shelter to the "foreign terrorists," as Pakistani authorities describe them.
The markets of South Waziristan's capital of Wana Monday were a scene of panic, as businessmen of the clan frantically emptied hundreds of shops ahead of a 48-hour deadline to turnover the "terrorists" or face the destruction of all tribal property."

Refined tactics. Targeting a group. Woo-hoo! And, in other news, CSM also reported:

"There are two main tribes, Ahmed Zai Wazir and Mehsud, living in South Waziristan - and they are rivals. Most of the tribesmen belonging to the Ahmed Zai Wazir tribe are illiterate and staunch Islamists."

Yes. And of course THEY were war-like, and THEY were basically idiots to be enemies of anyone when everyone was so damn friendly to THEM.

Historical quote of the day, March 13, 2010

2010-03-13T18:06:00.004+01:00

Reading this interview with Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, editors of Abdul Salaam Zaeef's auto-biography, My Life with the Taliban, I stopped to ponder Felix Kuehn's reply to a question at one point because it reminded me of something very telling to quote. Felix Kuehn describes how many Taliban may generally view Osama bin Laden:
"... if you talk to a lot of Taliban members, they’re going to voice doubt over and over again about “How can it be, that that guy who was sitting in our mountains and didn’t even have a cellphone, did this?” And it’s not just their rhetoric; it’s really a broad fraction of people that doubt [bin Laden] did it."

The nature of the "information environment" under the Taliban regime, shaped by a number of fundamental factors such as unquestioned trust in the movement's leaders, illiteracy, the lack of functioning media, and informal practice of rule resembling governance only in traces, prevented information of strategic relevance from reaching a great number of people. And notably, information did not even get to them through the video messages sent by Bin Laden or al-Zawahiri to the Middle East and the West. Bin Laden, of course, was not someone without a cellphone, and this quote from Abdel Bari Atwan's The Secret History of al Qaeda might be telling illustration of that. (Abdel Bari Atwan is editor-in-chief of Al-Quds al-Arabi, and he was there to interview Osama bin Laden at his Tora Bora base back in 1996 when he noted the following.)

"As I was showed around the lower base I discovered that, in contrast with the primitive accomodation, it was well-equipped with the latest technology and powered by its own small generator. Here were computers and up-to-the-minute communications equipment. Bin Laden had access to the internet which was not then ubiquitous as it is now, and said: "These days the world is becoming like a small village."
The modernity of Bin Laden's communications network was quite at odds with the austerity recommended by the more extreme forms of Islamic fundamentalism and in particular that of his hosts, the Taliban. One of his aides laughed at this observation, and said the base was a 'republic within a republic.' "

Shooting up: Felbab-Brown on COIN and counternarcotics

2010-03-12T10:49:00.010+01:00

Here is a useful quote from Vanda Felbab-Brown's book, Shooting up, from page 155.

"... the financial impact of the Taliban's ouster from the poppy-growing areas is likely to be small. (...) Moreover, its losses will be cushioned by continued access to funds raised in Pakistan and the Middle East and funds from other illicit economies."

Vanda Felbab-Brown wrote this long before the operations around Marjah, and before last year's shift of focus to Helmand.

I also pointed out similar things in my doctoral dissertation back when I was writing it, in the early summer of last year. So how did I like the book then? There were aspects of Felbab-Brown's case study about Afghanistan in it which, I found, could have been informed with somewhat more insight into the details. Importantly, she seems to miss, for example, how U.S. cooperation with Ahmed Shah Massoud against the Taliban was also made cumbersome right up till the last period before 9/11, partly because of Massoud's militia's taking money from the drugs trade. Ironically, this missing detail only reinforces her book's overall thesis (and thus mine, too). The U.S. administration was under internal pressure against allying with a militia that took money from one out of an impoverished, destroyed country's few viable economic sectors. Massoud's men did so basically for the reason that they didn't receive sufficient support from other (external) sources to continue fighting. Faute de mieux. Thus the U.S policy towards him was almost a self-enforcing one. Otherwise, Massoud was so not the druglord type that he was there in Afghanistan on September 9, 2001 instead of having fun making phone calls to his "drug-smugglers" from a Dubai villa, or wherever. That's how he could be assassinated by al-Qaida.

When you find that a book's thesis is made stronger even by something absent in its argumentation, you have a book you certainly might be interested in. And it comes with other case studies, with further evidence from very different regions/countries, of the relationship between counterinsurgency and counternarcotics working as it is described in the book (aggressive counternarcotics being to the detriment of counterinsurgency). Her reconceptualisation of what is happening in Afghanistan and elsewhere in terms of a political capital model of how one can approach illicit economies as such, is very valid in light of what one sees, and instead of what some wish to see: a "war on drugs" and on "narco-terrorists."

A passing thought

2010-03-05T11:11:00.008+01:00

I am reading some parts of Ahmed Rashid's Jihad: The rise of militant Islam in Central Asia, and I have just bumped into a description of the 2000 battle of Taloqan, featuring the Taliban's coalition against Massoud's alliance, on page 174, where Rashid gives the following breakdown of the former party's composition: 12,000 to 15,000 on the Taliban's side altogether*, 4,000 Pakistani militants (including people from the Sipah-e-Sahaba and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi), 600 Arabs, 600 Uzbeks + miscellaneous + (support, Rashid alleges, from the Pakistan Army's Special Service Group).

Now, the trivial and yet surprisingly rarely considered thought which occurred to me is this: many of the same people, or people who have taken the "torch" over from them, so to say, but for some of the same organisations/movements, are fighting these days, too. For an Afghanistan without ISAF and the Karzai government - "Kashmiri" groups, al-Qaida, IMU, but also Haqqanis, Mansoors, Hizb-i-Islami/Hekmatyar etc.; for an Afghanistan where the Taliban's alliance can come back. That they joined the caravan is an investment by them in the future, and one they must have considered carefully, after all it is a matter of life and death.

Some helpful illustration about who is fighting where, indicating some of the active factions (plus I should add the caveat, just discussed in the comments, that given what has been reported on this blog as well, earlier on, some of this map, e.g. in the north, is just simply wrong; nevertheless it can at least convey a sense of the diversity within the ranks of the insurgency and that is why I am primarily using it in this post):

* Corrected; in the earlier version I wrote "of the Taliban's own."

The net value of network theory

2010-02-28T09:27:00.014+01:00

Slate has a series of looong articles on network theory's application in rolling up the Saddam Hussein-centred part of the Iraqi insurgency once that declaration-of-victory thing turned out to be slightly premature - that was one network out of so many that eventually fought there (here is the link to the first part of the series). It is so long you might not want to risk finishing it by the time the "long war" already ends, so I will sum up what I think is its essence for you, with this one paragraph quoted from the third part (out of five):

"... instinct alone, no matter how well-supported by a link diagram, is not a very solid basis for organizing a raid and putting American soldiers in harm's way. Maddox had to earn the trust of the special-ops commanders with proof that his diagrams reflected behavior on the battlefield. Maddox did make his share of mistakes—recommending raids that turned up no one and opposing raids that did. But as interrogations continued to confirm what the network had predicted—who was important, who wasn't—the team's commander and analyst began to take greater risks based on the network. Eventually, Maddox became a part of the team that planned and executed raids."

In other words, using scientific (and not merely intuitive) network analysis, calculating "betweenness" of nodes for example, not just doing what even ordinary policemen do all the time when connecting the dots (when they also, at least instinctively, apply the concept of networks), was important to: 1) avoid casualties in unproductive raids; 2) speeden things up.

But even that sort of use of network theory comes with caveats, discussed in the last part of Chris Wilson's series which is most worth reading (if you are not primarily interested in Iraqi history or in examples of U.S. military successes per se). That is where Marc Sageman's insightful remarks sum up for you some of what I would have put down in my own words to reflect on network theory's use in the Afghan/Pakistani borderland.

"Sageman is a natural skeptic who insists that counterterrorism scholarship is reliant on anecdotes rather than data. When I showed him a copy of the Saddam network, he was dismissive, saying he needed more information about how it was compiled. Under Sageman's "blob" theory, connections between players in terrorist groups evolve far too rapidly for a network diagram to keep up with. Expressing all relationships in terms of nodes and edges, he further argues, cannot account for the nuances of how people are really connected. Sageman believes social network analysis might be useful for drawing conclusions after the fact, when information about a terrorist group is more complete. He remains unconvinced of its utility as a battlefield tool.
While Sageman is one voice in a crowded field of terrorism experts, his point about the pace at which networks shift is a valid one. In Tikrit, players were captured, killed, and replaced at a low enough rate that the network was able to cohere. The churn rate is likely much higher in an extremist group like al-Qaida.

Saddam Hussein's network was also fairly rigid: The connections the dictator made throughout his decades years in power were not going to disappear overnight."

In Afghanistan/Pakistan, of course another problem is that you may turn up links between people, but sometimes those links will lead into the sovereign territory of neighbouring countries where you cannot go (and do a raid for example). And you could still highlight more major deviations from this "Iraqi precedent," but this definitely ought to be kept in mind. Especially as long as Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden are over on the other side of that border.

Plus here is some intellectual whining from me, too - of the kind that can make some whine in response. But I think it is important, with a long-term perspective, and so I will not hold back.

The use of network theory, gaining knowledge about networks that can help destroy them, still fits a military-centred approach to world politics "bloody" well. Hunting down network members in often lethal raids may seemingly substitute for persuasion, and more carefully devised, long-term-oriented policies. Counterinsurgency may be the graduate level of war, but when one needs to do it, it is usually after failing an "exam" in politics in one way or another; and network-hunting is no population-centric way of acknowledging that failure. Network-centric can still be enemy-centric and narrow-sighted, if not complemented by other measures.

Investigating networks may also give a false sense of knowledge and power to the one who applies this method. Like in general when intelligence as smartness and sharpness is confused with intelligence as collecting a lot of information... Even Chris Wilson, the author of the article series, could not avoid getting comfortable referring to the various people hunted after here as the "mafia" (not to mention another analogy from the article; that of people passing on sexually transmitted diseases). Somewhat inevitably everyone looked at in this big search for pieces of the puzzle becomes likened to criminals (whether or not that person may have rather been motivated by nationalism or family loyalties). "They" want to hide and conspire unbeknownst to "us;" "we" are the legitimate side and slowly but surely "we" overcome "their" resistance, uncovering "their" (dirty) little secrets along with "their" whereabouts... these being the motives driving a process of Othering.

Finally, it is also - by now - almost hilarious to see an author start out saying,

"Who should the coalition have been going after? A careful study of Iraq's tribal structure, particularly around the Tikrit region where most of Saddam's top men were from, would have uncovered an entirely different cast of troublemakers..."

to then come to note, quoting an officer,

" 'Just because two guys are in the same tribe doesn't mean they're buds,' explains Brian Reed. "

Yep. Same tribe, yet often no buds, and with different ideas.... Even in Iraq.

Are the Taliban one of the most secretive organisations in the world?

2010-02-27T11:13:00.016+01:00

The Taliban and mullah Omar are often described as "secretive." Below, a few examples follow from the discourse, merely to show that I am setting up no strawman here.

As to the Taliban, Al Jazeera thus reported on the Taliban's published laheya, or rulebook, back in the summer of 2009:

"The book, with 13 chapters and 67 articles, lays out what one of the most secretive organisations in the world today, can and cannot do."

Ahmed Rashid also referred to the Taliban as a secret society once, famously, in a chapter of his book, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (the chapter about the Taliban's political and military organisation). Of course that was back in the days when the Taliban were fighting their pre-2001 war to become the internationally recognised autocrats of Afghanistan.

"Secretive" also appears to be an "epitheton ornans," or customary decorative adjective figuring before Mullah Omar's name, when it comes up. Again, some examples...

ABC News (title):

"Secretive Taliban Leader Mullah Omar Emerges in Power Struggle"

The Independent (recently):

"The secretive Mullah Omar conveyed all his military and political messages to field commanders in Afghanistan through Baradar."

Bruce Riedel @ the Brookings Institution goes even further:

"The intensely secretive Mullah Omar has never shown much interest in laying out a program for how to govern."

Finally, one more, from the BBC:

"... the first ever pictures of the secretive Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar..."

I could continue this, but everyone gets the point. To have some fun on your own, you may also want to try searching for "shadowy" Taliban and "shadowy" Mullah Omar.

It may be worth giving a second thought to this.

First of all, it can be argued that the Taliban, especially these days, are not really all that secretive (especially considering the circumstances). Here are some arguments to back this up - if it seems counterintuitive.

1. Their name is written in this way, from right to left:

طالبان

Now, that is a problem in any case, be they secretive or not... quite an obstacle for a Western mind. Even to one that is open to studying and understanding "secrets" of the Taliban... Even when/if those secrets are put down on paper, unfortunately.

2. The rate of illiteracy makes it, well, less likely that you encounter written documents about any subject, from them. That is also a challenge, because political analysts love working with texts. In the Taliban's case, it may be very tricky to come to reliable conclusions on the basis of texts about the Taliban (which are abundant) - but most of which are not by the Taliban of course (and even those that supposedly are, available at times also in Arabic or English, need to be approached with a healthy dose of scepticism; I illustrate here and here why).

3. In fact it is not so extremely difficult to know who a Taliban dilgay meshr in an area possibly is. It is definitely not impossible. You "just" have to be one of the local people. Or know someone well from among them. Or someone who knows someone. Depending on how many circles of trust you want to extract safe answers across, access and reliability may diminish - of course.

4. There are a number of people, former and current members and associates of the Taliban who are talking or writing or responding to the world in a broader sense... Abdul Salaam Zaeef. Wakil Muttawakil. Abdul Salaam Rocketi. Abdul Hakim Munib. And there are also others active fighting today who are ready to talk to the media. But there is a diversity of views in both camps, both within that of former members and associates of the Taliban, who may regard themselves nowadays as just taliban or perhaps as something entirely different (maybe because they never saw themselves as talibs in the first place) - and within the camp of the Taliban-e jangi who wage the war these days. You can know about differences among today's "war Taliban" for example from articles by the occasional correspondent who ventures to their areas and gets back (e.g. Nir Rosen, David Beriain, Sami Yousafzai, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad et al.). Or from those who can even regularly hang out with them (e.g. Syed Saleem Shahzad). Thus it may be tricky to establish what the "Taliban position" is, on this or that - but exactly because you may be familiar with a number of Taliban positions, not necessarily just one.

5. When there is some kind of communication going on, there are/may be attempts at deception to deal with, and that, in a sense, may be interpreted as "secretive-ness." Although often such attempts at deception may come not from the Taliban themselves, but from people looking to shape others' perceptions regarding them, in their own strategic or other interests. A peculiar example of the role of such third parties is when the guerrillas themselves would be relatively open, but then someone comes from further up their chain of command, say straight from Pakistan, and the local commander feels it is necessary to say a quick good bye to a reporter. That is what happened in the end with Najibullah Quraishi, who was allowed to ask a lot of questions freely for his documentary, up to that point when this "boss" type arrived. He could interview anyone with regards to a wide range of subjects (with the exception of Arab foreign fighters who themselves really were a rather secretive bunch of people there).

6. Finally, the Taliban may be hard to know from their words, for the above mentioned reasons (different characters, illiteracy) for an ordinary Western analyst. But at least their deeds speak for them all the time (from the past as well!). To capitalise on that, building up knowledge from this source, of course some careful analysis is required, avoiding simplifications and lazy acceptance of myths, accumulating a profound knowledge of history, reading a lot of books, even talking to any non-ordinary analyst out there etc. Say, inviting some of those Afghanistan experts to conferences where otherwise it seems much more trendy to have the all-weather, all-issue, popular talking heads entertain the peoples regardless of the actual area expertise they demonstrate.

With these considerations in mind, I think one should realise that journalists, politicians and even academics and others mean something else by "secretive" when they say it - they do not mean what is described in the word's most common definition as "inclined to secrecy." Actually implied meanings include the following, depending on context and the speaker of the "speech-act" - summed up here with a touch of sarcasm.

- "As a journalist, one cannot easily talk to these guys without being treated as a potential spy who has to be tried before he/she may be allowed to continue working - if actually found innocent of charges of espionage, which these folks tend to punish by summary execution. That's kind of scary."

- "These guys are not inclined to put information in the open source that could lead to their prompt liquidation in an air strike. How shy. A pity."

- "They are not inclined to use the internets for sharing stuff and fun with us... They are not tweeting, they are not on Facebook, hell, that's boring..."

- "Right, so actually they DO have websites and other publications, but instead of giving information that can lead to their prompt liquidation in an air strike, they mostly share only their propaganda messages with us. Uninteresting."

- "This is a group working, to varying degrees, in cooperation with other truly secretive actors, in a relationship that is difficult to fathom. That's a challenge."

- "We don't have photos of theirs. How the hell do I illustrate for my magazine that Mullah Baradar was recently captured when the best pic a Google image search gives me is this low-quality photo of some dude sitting somewhere killing time that just may be the guy himself. That's lame.... Really, these people should have always had mobile phones with cameras, even back in those 1990s. They really should have tuned into that globalisation thing more."

- "An organisation that has just published stuff, as I am reporting to you - and I want to present this as sensational news that I AM bringing to you, so I am telling you that this is ++awesome because, believe me, they DON'T publish stuff... And they just did! So this is sensational!"

Finishing off, we can also safely conclude that the question posed in the title is not an accurately formulated one in the first place. The Taliban certainly may be more secretive than the United Nations or a student organisation at a university (although it is safe to assume that those organisations will all have their own secrets as well). But then this is really no wonder, as they are involved in subversive covert action most of the time. They are insurgents. The question that would make more sense if asked is whether they are more secretive than other insurgent organisations? Even better would be to ask if they are less open than other insurgent organisations to talk to the media? Or less accessible to the media? Or ideologically predisposed to less easily accept the notion of "neutral actors" in their conflicts? And so on.

The G-chief and Mullah Baradar: Cont'd

2010-02-23T09:08:00.004+01:00

I quoted correspondent Bette Dam (from here) in the previous days regarding how Hamed Karzai may have been spared during his initial post-9/11 forays into Uruzgan by Mullah Baradar himself - a hint she dug up during her research for a book she wrote while she was also covering Dutch operations in the province:

"President Karzai started to ask for Mullah Baradar's help in 2001. After the attacks of 11 September 2001, the Americans helped Karzai take control of ‘his’ region in Uruzgan from the Taliban. By talking and negotiating he convinced one tribal leader after another to support him.
When Karzai found himself in a life-threatening situation while in the Durji mountains he was rescued by Mullah Baradar, who was then the Taliban’s defence minister. In exchange, Karzai agreed not to punish Mullah Baradar for his role as a Taliban leader. Karzai assured him that he had nothing to worry about and that the Taliban would later be allowed to participate in the government. However things turned out differently. United States forces bombed Baradar’s house in Deh Rawod in spite of Karzai’s objections. Mullah Baradar fled the country and began operating in neighbouring Pakistan."

I noted, in my previous related post, that any promise made by Karzai had to be effectively broken (nothing Karzai could do about this) by a 2002 incident when a wedding was bombed where many of Baradar's relatives may have been killed, including the bride who was his brother's daugther (the U.S. military dubbed this op "Operation Full Throttle"). That sounds bad, if the above anecdote is considered on its own. Now, from page 166 of Eric Blehm's excellent book, here is a hint that may suggest that by that time, actually no love may have been lost between Baradar and Karzai. When Karzai returned with U.S. special forces (who called him the G-chief, i.e. "guerrilla chief"), to Uruzgan, Mullah Baradar may have made a profound reassessment of his importance and consequently regarding what ought to be done to him. Thus he dispatched assassins to kill Karzai; Karzai picked up news of this through his network of informants and let his U.S. escort, members of ODA-574, know about this. An important piece of the puzzle, isn't it?

But meanwhile, I should make it clear that where one reassessment could occur, many more could still happen. Therefore I don't think for a minute that this sort of past behind them might really have precluded the two, President Karzai and Mullah Baradar, from sending out feelers towards each other once again.

(A) voice of the insurgency around Marjah

2010-02-22T17:26:00.005+01:00

This insurgent, in the video report below, who describes himself/themselves as mujahid/mujahideen, and not specifically as talib/Taliban (which may or may not have significance), gives an interview here to al-Jazeera. Describes Islam/shariat as "no corruption/when innocent people are not hassled" etc. This is all interesting and revealing. But it is equally interesting to discover, halfway through the video, the infusion kit he is attached to. Having been shot in the chest during battle. He seems to have received medical assistance quite fast.

To the south of Marjah, in 2001: (Ugly) quote of the day

2010-02-22T09:14:00.005+01:00

C.J. Chivers, whom I otherwise respect a lot, posted some genuinely interesting stuff but at the same time no very considerate analysis whatsoever at @War (an NYT blog). The latest: rambling about unseen ties of the insurgency in Marjah to Iraq. I will get back to this, because this is probably more than simply a poster on the wall, but less than what Chivers seems to think of among the wildest possibilities he seems to have been instinctively contemplating.

Joshua Foust rightly criticised Chivers' post for asking the wrong questions, saying: "I’d be more curious why a few hundred impoverished farmers with machine guns were made the target of a 10,000 man military campaign just because they supported the wrong side of the conflict—did they really pose that much of a strategic threat to the overall war?"

This is not the first time this far south that a lot of extremely well-prepared Western soldiers show up to kick some mostly unknown ass. Sorry for the expression, but that really nails it. The ultimate example would be a British SAS raid back in 2001. It was a spectacular raid the British special forces conducted, with an advance team doing a HALO parachute infiltration to set up a landing zone in the Registan desert. Then they approached their designated target near Point 2213, in Helmand, very near the Pakistani border (south of Malah do Kand) and, with air support, wiped it out in a battle where they suffered some casualties, while their opponents chose to fight to the death (with no alternative options available for them). The target was statedly an "opium storage plant doubling as a local Al Qaeda command center." If you have some ill feelings, like, what the hell, wait till you see this quote from the book about the operation by Mark Nicol, from page 193:

"Al Qaeda looked so malnourished that Jock could barely make out a body beneath the pile of bloodstained, dirty rags. 'Smelly little bastards,' he thought. They already stank from living in the inhumane conditions of southern Afghanistan, a place where only the weapons are clean."

I really don't know what to say to that. In all of its aspects, the author's narrative may not have reflected a soldier's thinking even at that time. And the soldiers should certainly know better by now.

Decoding the Taliban: Two books (research note, updated, already)

2010-02-20T09:14:00.024+01:00

I shall mention two books here that I have recently read, and which are equally important to understand the Taliban movement, both that of old, and that of the newer Taliban. To illustrate their worth, I will point out seven things that I learned from them. All are important pieces of the overall puzzle which we are only slowly, gradually able to put together (those who are trying). The first three discussion points are from Kamal Matinuddin's 1999 book, The Taliban Phenomenon: Afghanistan 1994-1997 (published by Oxford University Press). The rest come from the more recent publication, edited by Antonio Giustozzi, Decoding the New Taliban: Insights from the Afghan Field - rightly praised so widely as it is for its many excellent chapters.

* * * * *

1. While the Kandahari taliban may have thought of themselves as a distinct group of likeminded people, in fact Haqqani's or Hekmatyar's recruits, as well as even Ahmed Shah Massoud's, who came from madrasas, were taliban, in the sense that they had madrasa studies behind them. That should be stressed in order to see peculiarity in how distinct the Kandahari taliban fronts' members saw themselves apparently from the rest of those fighting around them (based on Abdul Salaam Zaeef's recent book), even while they did not see themselves so distinct from other taliban (of HiG and other tanzeems) that they trained together with in Pakistan, back in the 1980s.

2. As to under whose authority the Kandahari taliban were fighting in the 1980s, the best answer seems to me to be that they were connected to several of the Islamist factions active in the south. To Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and Khalis, for example. Mullah Omar may have been connected to both. At the end of his participation in the anti-Soviet jihad he is said to have handed in ammunition and weapons to Sayyaf's men, but he was also well connected to Yunus Khalis' faction of Hizb-i-Islami, as it was HiK commander Haji Isa Khan's son, Haji Bashir Noorzai (his name is often transcribed as Haji Bashar), who gave them logistical assistance and weapons to be able to take on warlords in their area in 1994. (Remember Haji Bashir's story - he is in prison in the U.S. now.)

3. My above conclusion may seem to be confirmed in that the Taliban's early top cadres were a mixture of people affiliated with either HiK or Sayyaf's Ittihad-i-Islami. Kamal Matinuddin names as key early joiners the following: Shaikh Haji Moawin Mullah Mohammad Rabbani, Haji Mullah Mohammad Shahid, Shaikh Mullah Mohammad Hassan, Mullah Borjan and Haji Amir Mohammad Agha from HiK; Shaikh Nuruddin Turabi, Ustad Sayaf, Mullah Abbas, Shaikh Mullah Mohammad Sadiq and Shaikh Abdul Salaam Rocketi from Sayyaf's Ittihad. (See an earlier post on this blog about Abdul Salaam Rocketi; on the basis of that I don't believe Matinuddin is correct in naming him as one of the founders of the Taliban, but there may have been another Abdul Salaam, also from Zabul, just like "Rocketi," among the actual founders and this may have led to this misunderstanding. Perhaps this founding-member "Abdul Salaam" was Abdul Salaam Zaeef in reality; that would make sense based on what I know.) As to the organisation of the launching of the movement, the story here is told differently than in Abdul Salaam Zaeef's book - and my suspicion is that Abdul Salaam Zaeef's book is the superior account in fact. It suggests intensive networking in advance by many "travelling envoys" of the proto-movement, while Kamal Matinuddin cites the better known (but ultimately less realistic) explanations based on accumulating grievances and even on magical dreams either Omar or others may have had, guiding Mullah Omar in his decision and attempt to collect men against a brutal warlord nearby. (Outrage over what was going on in Kandahar at the time was important in mobilisation, of course, but the organising force had to be more than just the anger of some men.)

4. All the Uzbeks settled in Waziristan may not be originally from the IMU, as it could be comfortable to imagine. Many of the Uzbeks fighting nowadays with the IMU, the Taliban or other factions seem to have come from Dostum's force. Some suggest that they may have left it at the time when Dostum turned against the "Communist" government of Najibullah, having been its ally earlier on. I wouldn't say all the details of this, or even the logic of this, are clear to me, but I have a feeling that this is plausible, and I may be missing a detail that would even make it make clearer sense. The hint, regarding this, in the footnotes, that some of Dostum's men were actually trapped in 1991 in Khost, when the town fell to mujahideen, and that they may have ended up in South Waziristan, could be part of such an explanation. (This change of sides, if it happened, is in a way reminiscent of how many former communists, people who were organised into the Taliban movement back in 1994/1995, joined it from among Pashtun (Afghan) army officers of the Khalqi faction - with some networking assistance from people like Hamid Gul and, if one takes Hamid Gul's word on this, even British diplomat Sir Nicholas Barrington, the UK's Ambassador/High Commissioner in Afghanistan in 1987-1994, and co-author of this book.) The Uzbeks' fate is ironic, again, if the above described thesis is true: on a number of occasions some of them may have been directly fighting Rashid Dostum's JeM forces during the Taliban's advance to the north later on.

5. Naseerullah Babar, Pakistan's interior minister under Benazir Bhutto at the time when the Taliban put up their first checkpoint on the Herat-Kandahar road, in Hawz-e-Mudat, the guy who was among the first to see the chance for a new policy in partnering with the Taliban (before the ISI, actually), was also part of training Afghan Islamist forces for the first Islamist (sort-of) uprising against Kabul, back in 1975.

6. Saifurrahman Mansoor, a leader of the still potent Mansoor network active in Loya Paktia, was the one leading a mix of his own and foreign fighters' stiff resistance against Operation Enduring Freedom forces that descended on their turf in Operation Anaconda, back in 2002. Time wrote about this back in 2002, but it was only after reading Thomas Ruttig's chapter on Loya Paktia's insurgency, where he devotes a long section to "the Mansoor network," that I came to understand the significance of this faction on its own (even while it may have declined by today).

7. Finally, I will also add an important detail to my picture about mullah Omar's life. Earlier on I wasn't certain (because of contradicting accounts) whether he was from Uruzgan or from Kandahar. Now the author writing under the alias Abdul Awwal Zabulwal (from Zabul) seems to clarify this for good, stating (on page 180) that mullah Omar's family was originally from Shinkai district in Zabul province, and that they later moved to Uruzgan where Omar was born. (And based on what I know from elsewhere, his birthplace must have been the Deh Rawod area there, perhaps Deh Rawod proper.)

* * * * *

These are the books that enlightened me on all of the above:

Adding to the debate: Marjah operations + Baradar's arrest

2010-02-19T08:16:00.013+01:00

I still have a huge amount of work ahead of me today, so I will only touch upon two of the most important developments in Afghanistan and its region, and try and add to the debate regarding them.

Tactics, operations

The "battle" is (still) on for Marjah, even though the pace of the advance is not that spectacular. This very sceptical take on U.S./British/Afghan troops' performance suggests that once the "air power advantage" is gone, the Taliban gain "an edge" because they are more willing to die. Another op-ed article by somebody who seems to have woken up from a dream in the last couple of days to news of the offensive in Marjah (and with no familiarity with what's been happening in Afghanistan over the last eight and a half years) claims that the air power advantage is promptly needed (back).

My view is that both takes are mistaken. Air power is not the only tactical advantage troops can have against insurgents. Advancing slowly, or "walking the walk" on COIN as Julia Mahlejd puts it in her take on all this, is required in this sort of context, and that is what makes sense strategically.

I would put it in this way: otherwise, the standard ISAF line, that allegations of ISAF's indiscriminate destruction of villages is pure propaganda from the enemy, will only be true for intensive engagements in the sense that in fact it is the insurgents who get to choose ("discriminate") which buildings are destroyed in these instances, themselves, by shooting from those buildings at the approaching troops. Thus, the destruction would certainly not be "indiscriminate." Technically, or rather absurdly, speaking.

Just blasting compound after compound "marked" by insurgent fire cannot be the right tactic. It aggregates into flawed strategy. And it is good to see there is at least some thinking going into this nowadays, even if it is so far down the road now that it is too late perhaps, and even if it is not yet applied with real consistency. Meanwhile, one would still want to see even more innovative tactics.

You need to shoot someone running towards your position despite your warnings but doesn't seem armed? I understand you might assume he is wearing a suicide vest under his shalwar kameez. There is a chance. But can't you shoot someone in the foot then? Or try to do that? Couldn't one be prepared to use nonlethal munitions when one just needs to hold a position for example? It is nice to hear the family "understood" that, too bad, their mentally ill son had to be mowed down (though it would be a bit more credible to hear this from the family). But perhaps this could have been avoided as well.

Now, look at this photo here. Marines and Afghan soldiers there are going through a family's belongings in a deserted compound that they have cleared. They may not take anything from there, but still they are messing up somebody's home - the home of a family, members of which are likely internally displaced somewhere right now. Is that respect? Is it judged so that the intel that can be gained from this is worth it? IED materials, weapons all need to be searched for, I get it, but perhaps this could be done with the more simple and discrete use of metal and explosives detectors and not touching every single object in a house where the owners may still return.

And if a compound needs to be cleared, perhaps tear gas and other means could have some effect as well. They could be used to clear compounds, and if the insurgent body count still matters to some, they can still continue shooting once they actually do have visual contact with the enemy.

Troops involved may take this as just a clueless civilian's baseless second-guessing, and perhaps the things I am saying do not seem feasible to them for one reason or another. But they can only ignore this honest advice at their and their comrades' own long-term peril of course.

Baradar's arrest: Shaping the insurgency's prospects

Mullah Baradar "Akhund" (that is a peculiar religious/political/military title right there*) was captured. Number two in the Taliban ranks, some say, though of course Taliban don't wear numbers on either their backs or their foreheads or anywhere else. The New York Times now says it was a "lucky accident," but then it was curiously well timed up with the Marjah offensive and with other arrests of Taliban leaders in Pakistan.

There is a really intensive debate now as to how this should be interpreted for example as far as Pakistani intentions are concerned. Someone like Abdul Salam Zaeef, former Talib ambassador in Islamabad, would say that "Pakistan just removed the Taliban's address" with this - making the prospects for negotiations with the Taliban weaker. Another way of looking at it could be that perhaps Pakistan made it clear to the Taliban now that they cannot pretend to be an autonomous entity that can endlessly raise the stakes as far as it wishes.

Still regarding Baradar's capture, I would also add to the basics of COIN doctrine that just as it is not enough to "clear" territory, you have to "hold" captured insurgent leaders as well as "build" on their capture and either deliver procedural justice in the name of good governance in their case, or make some impact on the insurgents' positions by holding them. Whether holding will work here, there can be some concerns: one could quote the LWJ for example, which posted the following neatly prepared briefing on related matters:
"The (Pakistani) government has released senior Afghan Taliban leaders such as Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, the Taliban’s former minister of defense and a member of the Shura Majlis, or executive council; Abdullah Mehsud, the late Taliban commander in South Waziristan who served time at Guantanamo Bay; Mufti Yousuf, a top Taliban leader in eastern Afghanistan; and Abdulrahim Muslim Dost, a former prisoner at the US military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, who serves as a propagandist.
Al Qaeda leader Rashid Rauf escaped from custody in what certainly was an inside job to have him released. And Omar Saeed Sheikh, the man behind Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl's brutal murder, plots assassinations and runs his network from a prison in Lahore. Sheikh is said to have been behind the assassination of Major General Faisal Alavi, the former commander of Pakistan's counterterrorism Special Service Group commandos.
Pakistan has also freed radical clerics Sufi Mohammed and Maulana Abdullah Aziz. Sufi leads the radical pro-Taliban group that brokered peace deals in the Malakand Division, while Aziz was the leader of the Red Mosque and the instigator of the July 2007 insurrection in Islamabad. And just a few days ago, Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Hafiz Saeed was released from house arrest as the government could not find sufficient evidence to hold him in prison."

But more importantly, I would draw attention to what Bette Dam (Dutch correspondent who covered ISAF/Dutch operations in Uruzgan extensively) reported recently:

Karzai and Baradar are well connected to each other of course not so much by being "members" (they have no member IDs) of the same BIG Populzai tribe. But through a bunch of common contacts in the area of Deh Rawod, in Uruzgan province. That is important, as well as the anecdote above.

By the way, I will also add that it was in this area in 2002 that the U.S. military bombed a wedding, in Operation Full Throttle, during the night of June 30/July 1, where even the bride was killed. And the bride was Mullah Anwar's daughter - Mullah Anwar Akhund is Mullah Baradar's brother.

Switching off such a key node now in the sophisticated human network of contacts that is Afghanistan... a node that can very much be assumed to have been "on" with Karzai's planned renewed outreach in the wake of the London conference... I am stroking my beard.

Update (February 20, 2010): And I now realise Mullah Baradar went for the Hajj to Saudi Arabia last year, when by the way Abdul Salaam Zaeef and many others were also there...

* Originally I only put "military" there, but prof. Magda Katona has meanwhile pointed out to me that the potential religious significance of the title (meaning either someone learned in religious matters, or the descendent of a family line of mullahs, as "Ahkundzada") should not be omitted. Hence the correction - plus I also added the adjective "political." Akhund is really a concept of central importance, given the peculiar notion of "akhundism" in the past of the Pashtun regions (discussed in a sarcastic essay here for example, by Amir Taheri).

Prospects for exporting Baghlani Gouda

2010-02-12T08:39:00.004+01:00

Dion Nissenbaum, McClatchy's correspondent, writes about Baghlan's cheese factory, delicious products of which he discovered in Kabul, where they are also marketed. Three varieties of (originally Dutch) Gouda are on offer. More than three decades ago, when it was started, the factory was a Danish- or Swiss-initiated FAO project; it came to be destroyed during the last years of the jihad of the 1980s (in either 1987 or 1988). Then it was restarted at local request by the Dutch PRT that worked in Baghlan province up till 2006, and it is nowadays operating with support from the Hungarian PRT - for example, experts from the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) provide assistance with improving the factory's livestock, and also in training local experts. MARD also donated pieces of equipment and instruments.

What caugth my interest now is this hint in Nissenbaum's post regarding why it may be difficult to export Afghanistan's cheese:

"They tried once to air ship cheese to India, but Afghan Customs held it several days, to make sure it wasn’t a concealed shipment of drugs, the Indians held it as well, and the cheese spoiled."

That's bad news. Yet another way the illicit economy hurts the licit economy, after the latter's weakness (ruined state) has given life to the former in the first place. I am wondering (by default) if there might be a solution regarding such issues of trust. And how third parties could help with this. The problem, obviously, is that any third party one can think of could, at least theoretically, also be corrupted, and thus trust would either not be there (towards the 3rd party) or it would not be risked (by the 3rd party). It is hard to say how to square the circle. Still, if medical opium production can work in India, one could perhaps work out a system for this as well.

The G-chief and ODA-574: how it all began

2010-02-10T16:30:00.009+01:00

I am reading this recently published book by Eric Blehm, about U.S. special forces' infiltration into Uruzgan in the company of Hamed Karzai, back in 2001. They went there to organise an uprising against the Taliban, with Karzai's local allies, in provincial capital Tarin Kowt.

"The Only Thing Worth Dying for:" the book has a good title, I think, but when I first heard about it I whined about its subtitle a little. I thought "How Eleven Green Berets Forged a New Afghanistan" was overstating what they did, even if those concerned are all fine people, given the abundant air support they had. I also thought this sort of subtitle may reflect a kind of hubris, along the "save Afghanistan" line of reasoning eloquently discussed by Christian Bleuer in the past. But I really wanted to read the book, in any case, since I paid attention to developments in Uruzgan province for a long time on this blog. And, as documented in the book, Uruzgan was indeed where Hamed Karzai's road to climbing to the top of Afghan politics began, working together with ODA-574 of the 5th Special Forces Group (apart from a previous round of contact-building by Karzai himself which almost ended badly). Now that I have started reading the book, my preliminary complaints are gone. See the reasons below, after the book cover which I am adding here.

There are three reasons:

1) The book is a well-written, focused but also sufficiently contextualised, account of a crucial chapter of Afghanistan's recent history. Stories of SF ops as such are usually sexy for a topic, whatever their historical significance or lack thereof. Even so, often authors try to make too much of them, overly trying to sell whatever they managed to lay their hands on. That is not the case with Eric Blehm who actually did have the chance to work on golden raw material, did a good job while at it, and does not so far - towards page 80 - seem to have been tempted to sensationalise his narrative. With his work, he also offers an important addition to assessing Karzai's character (often portrayed very simplistically nowadays, over nine years down the road; I just had this argument the other day with someone who called Karzai an "incompetent nit wit," for example).

2) The second argument ties back to the previous point. The topic is really a formative moment of Afghanistan's history. Diving into the largely unknown, the Green Berets and others involved in this operation did go out there to forge a new Afghanistan. Doing their no small part in shaping the bigger picture. Internalising their perspective doesn't do injustice in any sense, to anyone.

They were working on futures. Just like those, with very different motivations, who got the late Pashtun mujahid commander Abdul Haq killed in October 2001, tipping off the Taliban about his movements. Those people were also out there to forge an Afghanistan very different from the one we have today - and they might have had Karzai get the same fate that Abdul Haq did, had it not been for his U.S. special forces escort.

Moreover, ODA-574 (and the likes of them operating elsewhere, with other objectives) also forged an Afghanistan different from the one the U.S. Air Force would have been able to "shape" (into shapelessness) on its own, in the "target-scarce" environment of Taliban country. These arguments are all directly relevant to my initial ill feelings over the subtitle.

3) Finally, the book is important in a military-strategic sense, because of what should not be thought of as conceivable on the basis of it, and for reasons that should be clear from the book's narrative itself. Namely, that while some think special forces with "tribal" allies plus over-the-horizon assets could take care of the challenges an abandoned Afghanistan could represent for U.S. national security,* in fact this would not really work so easily, given how differently the Taliban of today would behave compared to the Taliban of 2001 - compared to the fighters eagerly rushing off to kill "G-chief" Karzai and his American-Afghan escort that was building up around him, back then.

Having listed these considerations, I can't resist taking a quote from the book out of context; discover the actual page number belonging to it yourself. "For the first time, (Captain) Amerine fully understood the magnitude of his mission: There was no master plan for Afghanistan." They were forging the future of "the south" themselves; thus they were indirectly also forging Afghanistan's future themselves.

* No strawman set up here. For example, M. Chris Mason advocated an SF/tribal ally combination most recently, with RC-S' area in mind.

The HiG insurgency in Kunduz and Baghlan

2010-02-05T11:19:00.018+01:00

Najibullah Quraishi's report from Baghlan and Kunduz, for Channel 4's Dispatches, is a must-see. Here is a link to where you can watch it in its entirety.

I will put down my quick notes.
- Commander Kalakub (HiG), interviewed in the report, says Hekmatyar's Hizb-i Islami has 3,000 to 4,000 fighters in the two provinces. (Hekmatyar's men recently held talks with members of parliament in the Maldives by the way.)
- 30 to 35 active groups in Baghlan.
- "Central Group consists of 140 to 150 members."
- Commander Mirwais is named as the overall commander in the two provinces.
- A spotter network is already up and running along the Kunduz-Baghlan highway that goes on down towards the Salaang Pass and Kabul (it is an increasingly important logistical artery for ISAF).
- Foreign fighters are present (mostly from Yemen and Saudi Arabia, it seems - but there is even one man who is introduced as Chechen).

- Training in bomb-making ongoing.

- The impression created is that the Taliban (around 4,000 of them, allegedly) come to fight there during the warmer part of the year (spring to autumn) only, while HiG is fighting there year-round.
- My overall feeling about what one can see in the report? To a degree, the Western presence works almost as a sideshow to some of what these people are going through/what they are involved in. It is something like a necessary ingredient to it. The challenge that gives sense to it all. Moving around as mujahids, learning about Islam from the group's religious scholar while moving around, accepting the hardships that come with this (cold, sleeping in uncomfortable places, being up at night, taking risks etc). And also the nicer aspects: villagers usually pay you respect when you visit, they bring you food and water. Theirs may also appear and appeal to them as an institutionalised form of life, leading from somewhere to somewhere, thus giving some comfort. Otherwise, no regular ISAF patrols in the areas concerned, and no direct contact (shown here) with the Western soldiers who the insurgents want to blow up. Watching the video only, and (inappropriately) ignoring how structural factors direct people's lives in only relatively freely chosen directions, one could be completely and hopelessly clueless as to possibly what the West or anyone could give these men, for them to do something else, instead of killing/trying to kill/getting killed. Per their own words, the one thing they want most of all is a withdrawal of Western troops, and with it, perhaps, an invitation to take the struggle to the West even (one insurgent speaking in the video does go so far).
- Meanwhile, there are the recurring statements that the government "mistreated" many of the villagers who are giving support to the insurgents. I wish Najibullah Quraishi had asked about exactly how, because it would be useful to know. Though I would stress that this of course does not deduce from the extraordinary value of his reporting.

Part One (for a taster, @ You Tube)

In "retrospeculation:" The order of battle on the Taliban fronts in the 1990s

2010-02-05T08:08:00.005+01:00

I am posting here some inconclusive but substantial retrospective speculation about the exact nature of some key aspects of the al-Qaida/Taliban relationship in the 1990s, regarding which I will try to dig up more information, even while I gratefully accept if somebody puts pieces of the puzzle in place in the comments.

What I raise here could as well be a "tweet" for Twitter, but it might be better to articulate my proposition in this more extensive form. (Btw, this here is an addition to an earlier couple of posts looking at the "AQ/T relationship.")

Cutting to the heart of the matter: the more or less conventional wisdom is that the Taliban already started depending on battlefield support from/organised by al-Qaida by 1997, after their disastrous first attempt to conquer the north of Afghanistan. They were betrayed, trapped and slaughtered in Mazar-i-Sharif and elsewhere by the thousands. (Which followed earlier costly failures of theirs in war with Ismail Khan's forces in 1995 and then around Kabul, the following year.) Thus Arab (and other foreign) fighters were already much needed manpower (re)supply for them. The question is exactly how did those fighters join the Taliban front? Embedded? Or as a separate "brigade," as the name "55th brigade" might suggest? Or in several smaller but autonomous units?

As to 2001, we can more or less confidently establish the picture that Arab fighters were at that time spread out among different Taliban positions, fighting with different Taliban units, in an embed system of sorts. But this wasn't necessarily so earlier on... I quoted in a previous post an article from Time magazine which reported that Arab fighters were embedded in the autumn of 2001 so they would shoot anyone who would want to retreat from a position, being well-suited for this task given their above-average devotion to combat and to making the necessary sacrifices (including the ultimate one). My next question therefore is whether this would really have been a system in use since a while then, since long before the 2001 Northern Alliance offensive aided by U.S. and other special and air forces?

And my preliminary answer or suspicion is that the sort of "embed system" described above suited rather the one particular historical occasion of the unsuccessful defence of the northern front only. Retreat in the face of the massive force moving in to pierce the Taliban front was quite likely then, and Arab fighters might have seemed useful to strengthen the Taliban's lines. Earlier on a Taliban offensive would not really have required this. Usually, the key to such offensives would rather be a timely arrival of (say, Pakistani) expertise* in guiding artillery to well soften up targets before an attempted advance (for which "Ansar strom troops" were still quite useful, one suspects - and on their own rather than in a human wave of mixed composition; thus sparing the Taliban of some blood sacrifice of their own). Alternatively, in the case of other advances, enemy commanders might be bought off with some careful help from strategists looking to advance the Taliban's cause and having the financial means to bring such betrayals about.

Another hint that could suggest that before 2001 the Ansars may have moved more on their own, and not in the small-team dispersal format seen in the autumn in 2001, is the reference I quoted in a previous post to the "Bilal position," one of the positions as part of which Arab fighters took part in combat. In my earlier post I mistakenly concluded that reference to something like this seems to confirm the assumption of a long-functioning embed system being in place. This in itself can, and perhaps should, be interpreted differently. Perhaps it is rather confirmation that earlier on there was a separation of foreign fighter units, and the Bilal position may as well have been an Arab-only "position" (or unit).

This would also seem to be a more rationally reformed account of developments, given an old weakness of narratives about the "Afghan Arabs:" in the 1980s their role is relatively well-documented as having been rather irrelevant across most of Afghanistan, and their combat skills do not seem to have been very exceptional (to the contrary, by some accounts). But then, suddenly, as to the 1990s and 2001, there is a discourse of how awesome/awe-inspiring fighters these Arab Ansars suddenly were. Such incoherence may be abridged if one assumes that throughout the 1990s only their relative propensity to martyr themselves set them apart from the rest of the Taliban; while by 2001 the Taliban's own army was downgraded in some respects, having many truly poorly equipped and poorly motivated conscipts within its ranks, even, compared to whom "bin Laden's" by then well-trained fighters may indeed have been exceptional warriors.

I will leave it at that. I will gladly share anything here later on that further clarifies all this for me, but meanwhile, as I said above, I am equally grateful for anyone else's suggestions or references to key information/sources I have missed so far.

* Regarding how the Taliban inexplicably abruptly raised their game on several occasions see this section of a 2001 report from Human Rights Watch (the report's entire third chapter, on Pakistan's and Saudi Arabia's role, is worth reading).

The puzzling lack of consistency in the coalition's approach to counternarcotics

2010-02-03T14:50:00.001+01:00

On an earlier occasion, I noted the following with regards to the coalition's counternarcotics activities in Afghanistan:

"... an incident was mentioned here where U.S. Marines paid compensation to an opium poppy farmer for having a C-17 airdrop land on his field, crushing some plants. Back in December last year, another incident was covered at this site, whereby a U.S.-led police team, there with an escort of Canadian soldiers, thought it the best approach to winning the hearts and minds of an outlying village in Kandahar province, to destroy all the marijuana plants that were found there. I have also written of Polish soldiers participating in destroying hashish plants in Ghazni, and of Dutch forces only reluctantly helping an Afghan Eradication Force/Dyncorp team once they got into trouble back in 2007 (originally covered by Mr. Anderson for the New Yorker). I know of countries that would not care a bit if somebody would be growing poppies right beside their main base (...) and now I learned that for the Danes, theoretically, it is cheaper to drive on poppies than it is on wheat..."

My main "anti-conclusion" there was that this sort of incoherence in counternarcotics is puzzling, when one of the things absolutely necessary to defeat a rural insurgency, even in the absence of external support to the insurgents, is to have a smart approach to how one should treat farmers' crops.

What I am not saying is that everywhere people should do the same thing. A smart approach has to mean a set of different approaches in different local contexts. Strategic rewards and punishments may be generated, short- and long-term pay-offs may be different depending on all sorts of specific factors etc. But overall it is puzzling that some think hearts and minds can be won when the Marines and/or the Afghan National Army enter villages to first of all kill the poppies. Even now, when the focus supposedly moved towards interdiction and the killing or capturing of key targets (traders).

See this picture, from the NYT. And read this article.

The caption to the pic says: "... the Marines of Weapons Company, along with Afghan government troops, confiscated and burned poppy seeds." The article claims: "In several houses, Afghan soldiers found sacks of poppy seeds, which they carried outside, slashed open with knives and set on fire."

This is happening in an area in Helmand where insurgents are in control for now. So fine, government officials, police or anyone else will not really be involved in this. Some of the money from the opium produced here definitely may go to insurgents. But otherwise, what does a raid like this achieve? If the Marines are not going to stay there, they are just leaving behind local people likely in some serious debt now, with some obvious career options such as founding an IED planting cell from the qawm of theirs. If the Marines are staying, these people could be persuaded to do something else next season (with the right incentives). So why be keen on killing the poppies this time around?

And how can some people hope that farmers will see fertiliser-based IEDs as a threat and not as a solution (or a revenge tool) in cases like that? Seriously, some recent pyschological operations aim to achieve success telling local farmers that insurgents mining their fields are dangerous. Which is true, of course, provided/when the insurgents are so clearly apart from the population. And from the farmers.

To clarify my position, I am asking open questions here. It may be that this approach to poppies is a very area-specific approach. As noted above as well, I have heard of occasions before when the Marines were tolerant of the poppies. But even if it is the case that it is specifically around Marjah, identified as a trading hub for opium, that nowadays crop eradication and confiscation is practiced in this sort of way, I still fail to see the rationale of it.

The AQ/T relationship (still)

2010-01-29T13:11:00.012+01:00

I am following up on earlier posts here - the subject is worth investigating, right?

For starters today, here is a link to an absolute must-read on the fate of some ninety Arab fighters who took part in combat around Kandahar when the Americans came in. And the rather interesting developments that impact their legacy there. Why start with this? Well, just because, partly. This is an interesting story. But it also underlines the enormous respect that there is in some places, for Arab fighters, who "have come even before the Taliban" as one Kandahari man says in the video embedded in Christian Bleuer's post.

Now, what I want to do, with that added to our perspective, is to bring in a key quote from Olivier Roy and Mariam Abou Zahab, to present an example of the narrative that a revision of AQ's importance in Afghanistan should (but in my view cannot) defeat.

It comes from this book, from pages 48-49:

"The encounter between Bin Laden and the Taliban changed the rules. The Taliban entrusted Bin Laden control of the non-Pakistani militants (...) During this period Bin Laden brought the Arabs under his control and isolated them from the Afghan population. The leaders were installed in what amounted to residential complexes near Kandahar and Jalalabad, while the ordinary fighters were grouped together in cantonments in Kabul and Kunduz. At the same time a third echelon was established made up of militants from Western countries who were being trained to return home and carry out terrorist activities. A select group functioned in Afghanistan under the leadership of Abu Zubayda; this Palestinian from Gaza, born in the Saudi capital Riyadh in 1971 and holding an Egyptian passport, was a former member of Islamic Jihad and resident in Afghanistan."

Regarding the combat role of al-Qaida volunteers, they have this to say (on page 51):

"They fought bravely, as their resistance to the joint attacks of the Americans and the Northern Alliance in 2001 proved, but their separation from the population and their ignorance of the local language and society made them vulnerable and unfit for guerrilla warfare. However, their methods of combat, which were completely distinct from the Afghan tradition and included the suicide attack on Massoud on 9 September and the uprising of the prisoners of Qala-i-Jangi on 25 November 2001, demonstrated that they could overturn the traditional order."

Mention of Massoud's assassination is itself highly relevant to the subject. That was no small contribution by al-Qaida to the Taliban's campaign... Well, for the span of the entire two days until it became clear why they did this huge "favour." The favour that brought in U.S. special forces with abundant air support...

(As to the Qala-i-Jangi uprising, of course the people involved in that were not only al-Qaida volunteers of, for example, John Walker Lindh's kind. One of my sharpest memories about the uprising is from a video documentary, part of which was shot before the uprising, in which a Pakistani man looks in astonishment at the reporter, when asked of why they had surrendered, repeatedly saying "No. We not surrender...")

Roy and Abou Zahab then go on to describe also the key link that developed between the Taliban's and al-Qaida's top leadership, with the latter increasingly influencing the former, and how this was reflected in the increasing radicalisation of the Taliban's policies, manifesting for example in the eventual decision to destroy the Buddha statues in Bamiyan (see page 52). This is something that Roy Gutman, with his archival and interview-based research, also elaborates on in detail, in his book How we missed the story. I may still get back to this issue later on. On page 58 of Roy and Abou Zahab's book there is one more sentence I would quote here: "(on the top level which is implied here - P.M.) the transnational links between the Pakistani Islamists and the Taliban and al-Qaida do not appear to have an organisational base. In reality everything rests on personal connections, the connections of the madrasas, and chance meetings in training camps and community of interest." Yes, that doesn't sound like love.

As to the exact chain of command (anything resembling that) in this pseudo-organisation, Vahid Brown directed my attention to a discussion here, where many key individuals are named in connection with the Ansar/55th brigade. For a starter, for those who research this, here are the combatant status review documents regarding these individuals from the NYT's Guantanamo Docket.

- Abdul Rahman Uthman Ahmed

- Said Ibrahim Ramzi al-Zahrani

- Buad (or Bijad) Thif Allah al-Atabi

Al-Atabi fought till captured by Dostum's forces (Dostum's Uzbeks weren't fighting an Uzbek civil war with Ansars made up only of IMU fighters as one could mistakenly deduce from certain sources*). Abdul Rahman Uthman Ahmed was another fighter who ended up surrendering to Dostum's forces. Just like al-Zahrani, too, who is alleged to have seen combat earlier on at "the Bilal Position," with what presumably was "the Bilal unit" as such - this could as well be a hint regarding the so-called brigade's organisation (ironically, it seems to have mirrored the SFs' embed system in 2001).

Seeming to confirm just this, I have dug up this article on the 55th brigade from the past. An article in Time Magazine, in 2001, soberly describes the unit not as one that would have been organised according to a Euro-centric conception of what a "brigade" is:

"Despite the name, the 55th isn't a brigade in the traditional sense. Rather than deploying as one unit backed up by a range of artillery, members fan out in small groups to help reinforce their Afghan brothers, often taking the forward positions. By threat or persuasion, the 55th tries to instill its sense of fearlessness, and discipline, in the Afghan rank-and-file--and goes so far as to shoot those daring to retreat. Even among all the notorious players in Afghanistan, the brigade enjoys a particularly brutal reputation for butchering opposition forces."

Finally, here is this Jamestown piece by Brian Glyn Williams which mentions the brigade as the International Islamic Brigade. Now that is a better name for this unit from every stakeholders' perspective (I was wondering about a (geo)politically correct name like this in a comment to my previous post on the issue). How many times one can actually find it mentioned in the discourse of those concerned, in retrospect, should also be interesting for research (though I don't think one will find this used with anything like consistency, and Ansars is still the most likely hit in my view). Anyway here is the relevant bit of the article: "Afghan watchers were quite familiar with the Taliban's increasing reliance on the al Qaeda's "International Islamic Brigade" (that is, the 055 Brigade, a shock unit made up of Uzbek extremists from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Arab jihadis, and Pakistani militants)."

* Leah Farrall writes in a post on her blog: "I asked him (Abu Walid al-Masri - P.M.) about the foreign mujahideen stationed in Kabul under the authority of the IMU (who are often mistakenly called the 055 brigade and labelled an al Qaeda strike force)."

Back to Vahid Brown and the al-Qaida/Taliban relationship

2010-01-28T17:09:00.012+01:00

Vahid Brown commented on a post here yesterday. I reacted, he reacted, and at one point he said there never was an 055 brigade or a 55th Arab Brigade among the Taliban's forces, this is a myth, and the Taliban never needed al-Qaida or even Arab fighters all that much. This is quite revolutionary to me, I must say, so I need to ask if this is fair enough for an interpretation of what he said? No, it can still be fairer. I will paste the relevant part of Brown's comment here:

"There was no 055 Brigade - this is a totally unsubstantiated myth. Multiple insider primary sources from both the Taliban and the foreign jihadi side confirm that Bin Ladin had no interest in sending his followers to the Taliban's front lines. The large numbers of Arab muj volunteers there were independent of Bin Ladin and were not members of al-Qa'ida."

This fundamentally contradicts with the view held by many sources. And if you ask me, I for one also think it is wrong.

Now, many sources can be quoted here. But firstly let's just go for a source that I think has the chance to clarify a lot of things. And then for some more quotes, for further elaboration. And then for some finishing comments. And then it's over to everyone else who wants a piece of the action and has something to offer for further clarification.

Huh. Deep breath. So here is the first quote, over to John Walker Lindh:

"WALKER: The Taliban have suffered much in the army, and they have the Afghans, and they have the non-Afghans. I was with the separate branch of the non-Afghans.
PELTON: And what is the non-Afghani branch called?
WALKER: It's called Ansar. It means the helpers.
PELTON: Is that the same as the 055 brigade and the...
WALKER: I'm not familiar with that.
PELTON: That's the term -- I was with the Taliban in 1995, and they were explaining, they had the 055 brigade, and then the...
WALKER: It has -- they have a number name. I don't remember the number."

Might it have been that for the simple organisation of this battlefield formation, all its foot soldiers were really required to know is they were Ansars? Would they have needed to believe that they were also a "55th Arab Brigade" of a larger organisation, which, hey, sounds just like being subservient to a national army, which is, like, possibly blasphemous in light of what God Almighty might expect from the umma, in certain interpretations?

Here is a quote from Brian Glyn Williams then, to shed more light on the use of the term Ansars, from his defence of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, "bin Laden's (Yemeni) driver" (quoting pages 6-7):

"These fighters formed an elite Al Qaeda support army for the Taliban known as the 055 Brigade, or more colloquially as the Ansars. This unit had thousands of Egyptians, Yemenis, Uzbeks, Uighurs, Saudis, Algerians, Sudanese, and even one American named Johnny Walker Lindh (the socalled “American Taliban”) in its ranks.
The 055 Brigade was deployed primarily against Northern Alliance opposition in north-eastern Afghanistan. There its soldiers fought under a black banner known as the rayah. They were armed with light artillery, outdated Soviet T-62 tanks, multiple rocket launcher systems, and light infantry weapons (AK-47s and -74s, PK machine guns, RPG-7s etc). The Taliban prisoners told me that the foreign fighters had better weapons, better training and discipline (many had served in the armies of the home countries), and even uniforms (of a sort, this was Afghanistan after all). Their uniforms consisted of black turbans or Arab keffiyeh headscarves, camouflage jackets and pants, and Western style boots or sneakers (a rarity in Afghanistan where men wore robe-like shalwar kameez and sandals). They also had a well organized command structure.
The 055 fighters were in a class of their own in Afghanistan and were known as the cutting edge of the Taliban sword. My Uzbek Northern Alliance hosts told me of numerous occasions when the Ansars stormed their positions as shock troops for the Taliban. When the US invaded, these foreign foot-soldiers were deployed against Coalition forces."

Seems like "Ansar" was the term that the other side, the Northern Alliance fighters, in this case Dostum's fighters came to use, too.

The Taliban's use of the Ansars only grew over time. Roy Gutman covers, in his book, How we missed the story, quite well how the Taliban became more and more dependent. Bin Laden's former body guard, Abu Jandal is quoted on page 98 as having said that "The blood of the Arabs and the Afghans was spilled at the Afghan fronts and this was an important factor in strengthening the relationship and bolstering links between the Al-Qaeda Organization and the Taliban Movement and their leaderships." Which is part of the reason why people like Phyllis Oakley were referring to Afghanistan by 1999 as a "hijacked" state (see p. 161).

And it was more than just the men that the Taliban could use. Everyone seems fixated on the Ansars/55'ers, whoever, but hey, money flow was a major concern in those days (also). Abdul Salam Zaeef, in his book, doesn't describe the Taliban defence ministry's working budget as exactly huge; he says it was insufficient (on page 85 he says the weekly budget in September 1998 was 300,000 dollars). Which is why many of their men were fighting in sandals, by the way. The presence of bin Laden's men meant access to rather generous donations which they couldn't have done without. Like I said in a comment myself yesterday, in the 1990s combat environment, or political economy, of Afghanistan, even the relatively modest Stinger buyback program was an injection of critical resources to many, earlier on. Which is why people in the CIA referred to Afghanistan by 1998 as a "terrorist-sponsored state" (p. 164. in Gutman's book).

As to post-9/11, the Arab fighters by that stage were absolutely vital for the Taliban. Here is a quote from the Pentagon military historians' volume, A Different Kind of War. It is from the chapter Collapse of the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, p. 80.

"Of the foreign troops, those associated with al-Qaida had received the best training and displayed the most zeal in combat against Coalition and NA forces. Stephen Biddle, an analyst at the US Army Strategic Studies Institute, has pointed out that the Taliban recognized the superiority of the foreign elements and relied greatly on them in the fall of 2001."

So. The circle has come full. That's where/when Lindh was captured.

Getting back to yesterday's post of mine, this wasn't "al-Qaida being subservient to the Taliban." No strawman ever thought that. It was strategic cooperation. It was a deal. D-E-A-L. Ansars at the local front, bases for the global front. Pretty simple, right? (I think it's more simple than to assume that all those exotic creatures on Pandora are mystically bound by cultural rules, and matters of survival and strategy do not affect their behaviour all that much.)

And telling us that HuJI and other "Kashmiris," other Pakistanis, the IMU and so many others were also involved in this mix is not new - and this mix is something that continues to this day. Neither is this something that would contradict the notion that bin Laden was very important, even if we do not up till today understand exactly how, in every aspect.

So what I would want to see more from people like Vahid Brown is to become better at sourcing (like, more extensively and critically addressing the exact profile of some of the people they extensively quote), to face some basic facts (e.g. that discourse analysis will be skewed in a generally information-starved environment, when there is much motivation on the part of those quoted to deceive, much potential also to have been manipulated themselves, while many others who should have a say are... well... kind of illiterate you know?); and to open more towards political economy/strategic interpretations of events, to address their abstract logic better, also. Otherwise, I am ready to accept their truly precious opinion when I see it sufficiently backed up. I am generally open to reinterpretations, and what I described above is just the method by the use of which people with good language skills can find as opposed to make a difference.

Bin Laden's bay'a that wasn't

2010-01-27T11:57:00.007+01:00

I do not mean to be offensive here, but I really needed to stop reading the conclusion of Vahid Brown's article about how Abu Walid al-Masri's story of Osama bin Laden's avoidance of a bay'a to mullah Omar should be interpreted. In disbelief. That Brown seriously put down what he did.

Quote:

"The ambiguity of Bin Ladin’s bay`a challenges the notion that al-Qa`ida is, or ever was, subservient to the aims and methods of the Afghan Taliban."

There are problems later on as well, with Brown's conception of Pakistan, but this already is sufficient to pause and contemplate. The notion after 9/11 certainly wasn't that al-Qaida, an organisation that was willing to blow stuff up around the globe, was hijacked by the Taliban with the latters' narrow focus on defeating the remaining Northern Alliance.

Of the latter goal of the Taliban, Abu Walid al-Masri had this to say, by the way, and this is quoted by Brown himself: the Taliban could not effectively oppose Osama bin Laden's plans as long as they "remained unable to control the remaining territory held by the northern resistance." * (correction: see comments below)

Anyway, what follows from all this? That all or nothing of Afghanistan shall be ruled by the Taliban, from a U.S. national security perspective? Or from a "counterterrorism community" perspective?

Twitting...

2010-01-26T22:28:00.006+01:00

As those who visited this blog during the day might have already seen, I am now twitting, (or tweeting or twittering, whatever). With my posts via this (for me) new medium, I might actually widen my coverage of Afghanistan and state-failure-related global developments, and do this in a new form that can always be inspiring. In other words, this is fun, and for the same reasons that others have named (in some cases long) before me.

A true talib, and guardians and guards of vicious circles of mutual harm

2010-01-21T01:05:00.050+01:00

A review of Abdul Salam Zaeef’s book, My life with the Taliban (Hurts and Co., London, 2010; eds.: Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn)

Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef (pictured with an iPhone, talking to the Associated Press, to the right; photo by Rafiq Maqbool, AP, February 25, 2009) was the Taliban’s ambassador to Pakistan and the Afghan Emirate’s face to the world in 2000-2001. The one to complain to, the one to demand from, the one to lecture, the one to be lectured by in return, and occasionally the one to try and make a deal with. He was also one of the early organisers of the movement of the taliban in 1994; one who put his life at risk again, in a dire moment of Kandahar's history, teaming up with old comrades from the jihad of the 1980s, to radically transform the situation in their land for the better. Now he tells us the story of his life with the mediation of editors and translators of his personal account, Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn.

Mullah Zaeef is good with words, and the editors have also done a fine job. There is a vast amount of research behind them and they supply the reader with an abundance of additional information. But the subject material needed no particular enhancement to merit interest to start with, either.

Based on mullah Zaeef's background as mullah come diplomat, one could expect two things from him by default. Firstly, that in his book, My life with the Taliban, he would clearly assert that he is not a moderate talib as such but simply a true talib, a “seeker.” The title of the book pretty much makes that clear, right? Secondly, one could also expect that he would demonstrate more pragmatism in his argumentation than many others in his movement, having been a diplomat. He might have had it in him before, or he might have learned it, or some of it, on the job. In any case, he might legitimately be expected to have a significantly less parochial outlook than some of his former comrades (perhaps an outlook not parochial at all). And more readiness for a dialogue; why else would he bother to write a book as a call for peace and reconciliation? Last year he even accomplished the hajj (something the reader may learn from the useful background material included in the book, prepared by Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn).

Reading mullah Zaeef’s account does leave a mixed impression in the reader, and the end result may fall short of what some would wishfully anticipate from him – Barnett Rubin notes essentially the same in his brief but excellent foreword to the book. This of course should not make mullah Zaeef's account uninteresting. To the contrary! It is a narrative that is important addition to assessing the role of all those involved in it.

Assessing Mullah Zaeef

It is a true talib’s voice we can hear here. He is not playing the tune of someone who is just a step away from transforming into one of “us” (whatever that means). He is not about to shed his identity as a talib, or his deep respect for mullah Omar, as a result of using his iPhone or one more good argument in the name of holy good governance, peace be upon its name. But why should he? An awkward answer to that question could be that he would be better off as a result, because the first instinct of a distant reader, like the one whose comments you are reading, may be to pounce on real or assumed inconsistencies and omissions in his narrative, taking him on as though he would still be the Taliban's face to the world, writing the official history of the Taliban. He is not, of course: he is no longer an official face of the Taliban, and he is not writing its official history, either. Clearly, he should be spared of some of the verbal combat. Trying to get him to account for crimes of comrades and crimes of the friends of those comrades could constitute a symbolic repetition of his earlier lawless treatment in Bagram and Guantanamo; just as seeing a shameless attempt at historical revision in his "frustrating silences" would (borrowing Barnett Rubin's expression).

Still, at first, just that sort of enumeration of possible complaints is about to follow here - but to rub less salt in the wound(s), throughout some caveats shall be highlighted as well, before a substantial debate might make one reconsider even more of the critical observations outlined below. Proceeding like this could perhaps be justified as not shying away from addressing the seemingly obvious points of criticism. Here I am, setting up a strawman, talking.

To start with, there are very rigid aspects to mullah Zaeef's thinking. Among the things that one may find spectacularly objectionable, Mullah Zaeef is a man who, in his own retelling, rather impatiently lectured a Japanese delegation on one occasion, however arrogant or ignorant or unaware of certain sensitivities this delegation may have been, about how Buddhism, someone else’s religion, someone else’s path to a virtuous life, was “void” and “without any basis” (p. 127). Elsewhere he says that “tolerance is the most necessary quality on earth; it can make the world into one home” (p. 224), but in light of what he said before, it may seem like what he really means by this is that the Taliban’s faithful intolerance of deviations should have been uncritically tolerated by others at least in the Taliban’s own, appropriated corner of the world.

Another seemingly telling illustration of his thinking could be mullah Zaeef’s attitude towards the ISI, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. That attitude is also remarkable for some potentially telling inconsistency. In general, Mullah Zaeef derides the ISI for its constant meddling in Afghanistan’s affairs, and even likens it to a cancer spreading, one that eats you or may even spit you out. Yet he notes, with what appears to have been approval in the given context, how General Mahmud Ahmed, the head of ISI, referred to Pakistan’s interior minister Moinuddin Haider as a “silly donkey” once, because of the latter’s attempt to argue in the defence of the Buddha statues in Bamiyan and because of his attempt to warn the Taliban of the threat of a future American attack “over the Osama issue” (p. 125). Mullah Zaeef finds it fitting that both Mahmud Ahmed, just back at the time from Washington where he had been staying in the morning of 9/11, and the legendary old Afghan hand „Colonel Imam,” shed tears, on separate occasions, over the fate of the Afghan Emirate (see pp. 148 and 154). However, inconsistency of attitude towards ISI is something that ought to be viewed in a context in which, for mullah Zaeef just like to a number of other observers, there seem to be two or more different ISIs sometimes, including one that wanted very specific things from mullah Zaeef upon the fall of the regime of mullah Omar – things which he would not do (see p. 153). Having an ambiguous attitude may thus be simply the result of a reality check.

Mullah Zaeef’s more negative feelings about the ISI also stem from what he says was Pakistan’s support to the Emirate’s enemies, „even while it maintained a close relationship” with the Taliban, as he puts it. There is truth in claiming that the ISI (just like many other intelligence services) was always playing several options at the same time. For example, Hamed Karzai, generally no fan of Pakistan-the-state, either, could get along quite well for a while over on the other side of the Khyber Pass, till not long before 9/11 (on one occasion back in 1994, Karzai was allegedly beaten up by Mohammed Qasim Fahim personally, on suspicion of conspiring with Pakistani intelligence). But of course there might be a big difference between "close" and "very close" relationships, and the closeness of any particular relationship tends to change over time... Was the ISI playing all its options with the same enthusiasm?

How close (or vital) the relationship between the Taliban and the Pakistani leadership and the ISI happened to be in general is probably something that mullah Zaeef could not exactly assess, even if he wanted to. One might assume this in light of how his appointment to the post of Ambassador to Pakistan occurred (see p. 102). The innermost workings of the Taliban regime were at times apparently unfathomable even to someone like mullah Zaeef (as unfathomable as the interagency process in Washington can be for an observer). But altogether the lack of truly sufficient explanation regarding how the Taliban movement could expand so fast beyond its original area is striking to such a degree one may be forgiven for thinking that there must have been more external assistance in the process than what mullah Zaeef was prepared to discuss. Equally telling is the absence of a reasonable narrative of how the Taliban could sustain their operations after major losses in northern Afghanistan. Telling a detailed account of that campaign was no aim of the author, but still this is something that people could easily call for.

Other things missing from mullah Zaeef’s narrative, things that are likely to be missed by some future readers, also include the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud on September 9, 2001. It would be interesting to know how he felt when he learned of what had happened. Did he feel it did not bode well, at the time? Or were his first impressions different? But this sort of pondering is only relevant if mullah Zaeef learned of the assassination before September 11, and so far one can only speculate that this may have been the case.

There are yet more possibly conscious omissions, too. Women, Hazaras and others are not treated the way they were, in mullah Zaeef’s narrative. Although, of course, mullah Zaeef did not personally affect the general treatment of women, and he had no personal involvement in the rather "enemy-centric" campaign in the Hazara areas (to use a military euphemism fashionable in Western discourse nowadays).

Compared to a lack of elaboration on a number of relevant issues, his repeatedly voiced, albeit cautious and unaccusing, wish for a careful investigation by the United States into what happened on 9/11 seems naïve. If many among the Taliban really believed that bin Laden’s organisation was not capable and willing to prepare and carry out the 9/11 attacks, or even the East African embassy bombings, regarding which doubts are also voiced in the book, only another major, alleged miscalculation by mullah Omar can match this in terms of the enormity of unforeseen consequences: namely that mullah Omar might have believed there was less than 10 percent of a chance that the U.S. might carry through with its threats against the Emirate.

Having listed these real or presumed inconsistencies in mullah Zaeef’s account and inevitably alienating from his narrative to a degree (just like one should from anyone’s narrative, in any case), it could also be argued that men like mullah Zaeef are among the potentially least harmful prospective social leaders in Greater Kandahar's area, the following two counter-factual conditions permitting (this will be complicated but I will try to put this into exact terms): firstly, if Western-led state-building can really only be the botched peace-building in-name-only, or the “quagmire-building,” that it can seem to be, and/or if one assumes that the situation could and would be quickly spoiled from Pakistani sources in any case; secondly, if in the absence of a committed Western-led state-building effort one could only have the devastating feuding of the militias (the "men with the guns," the topakiyaan) that Kandaharis were witnesses to in the early 1990s... Which brings us to the almost obligatory, inconclusive rambling about the Taliban's prospects, others' prospects with the Taliban in mind, and prospects without the Taliban.

Assessing the taliban, the neo-Taliban, and the topakiyaan

If we accept the above counter-factuals, the hypothesis could be that there would be an inevitable role for taliban like mullah Zaeef in southern Afghanistan. (Along with the ulema, perhaps... Notably, many of the Kandahari Ulemaa Shura's members were assassinated by insurgents since 2001 - around 24 of about 150 of them by one count). Religious sources of authority may seem vital as the glue that could hold society together; to provide social cohesion amongst a well-armed, fractured populace in a resource-scarce environment – to provide this cohesion in the form of an Islamic collective, transcending tribal and other fault-lines and keeping in check a moral vacuum from overtaking even a minimal semblance of order in (dys)functioning, neopatrimonial state institutions.

An important question, if I may ask, is: would the taliban necessarily have to rule themselves, in order to play this role, provided they could, in reality, take over power again? Would this role need to be formalised, normally? Is the legitimacy of a rural Kandahari, Sunni version of a broader wilayat-e faqih automatically established, by the argumentation above, over all parts of Afghanistan that before 2001 used to be controlled (to varying degrees) by the Taliban? This is why the Taliban's uneven but country-wide spread is likely to be a major complication in resolving the conflict with them. Should there be such a deal, how would the Taliban extricate themselves from the politics outside their core areas? Could they do so? Would they be willing to do so?

The early organising of the Taliban in 1994 and the first checkpoint battles, such as the one with Daru Khan’s ragtag forces, were of monumental importance. That was the historical moment when the would-be honest Islamic mediators of disputes and impartial Islamic judges of crimes turned into power-brokers. As such, they became party to conflicts. They no longer played the role of smootheners of justice, peace-makers or mere servants to the cause of a wider jihad. They became stokers of conflict, exploiters of conflict, and makers of conflict themselves. From the sphere of religious morality they stepped into the ugly Machiavellian world called power politics. It was a moment that transformed their cause fundamentally and perhaps irreversibly, and it was all of the legacy of this transformation and its aftermath that mullah Zaeef was unjustly called on to personally account for, above.

As to today’s movement, the neo-Taliban, as some refer to them, the picture is even more complex. Some NATO sources apparently refer with regularity to how the “small t” taliban mingle among the ranks of the “big T” (neo-)Taliban. Well, at least in a sense, sort of. Thomas Rid writes in The Wilson Quarterly:

‘coalition soldiers see (…) a fissure between what they call “big T” Taliban and “small t” Taliban. The “big T” ideologues fight for more global spiritual or political reasons; the “little t” opportunists fight for power, for money, or just to survive, to hedge their bets.’

While this statement does capture something important, it is also, inevitably, a very distorting way of using the terms “taliban” and “Taliban.” There is no differentiation akin to this in for example mullah Zaeef’s or other Afghans' mind. But back in the 1980s, and based on mullah Zaeef's account, there was conscious self-differentiation from the rest of the mujahedeen in the taliban fronts. The sad irony of this is that in moral terms, the pettier mujahedeen of the 1980s, of whom the taliban clearly stood apart, may still have been, possibly, a class above some of the more distant fellow travellers of even the Taliban insurgency nowadays, after the past decades of devastation and breakdown of basic order and its impact on society. Alluded to here are some of the very many fighters who significantly contributed to the growth of the insurgency, especially outside its core areas, joining it as part-timers in some cases, because of the lack of better opportunities, and/or because of grievances suffered from corrupt institutions and predatory strongmen (and the militiamen of these strongmen, the "topakiyaan" of today, occasionally in ANP uniform, at other times not). To point out some truly extreme examples, one even hears of supposedly “taliban” commanders in some areas with a liking for video messages of dancing boys sent around on mobile phones (a phenomenon thought to be less exceptional among the ranks of strongmen's militias, bandits or, say, corrupt auxiliary police units; while assumed almost beyond plausible, by definition, among the ranks of people referring to themselves as "taliban;" disapproval of the phenomenon could even be read out of rule no. 19 in the Taliban's earlier book of rules, or laheya). Elsewhere, on some occasions in the past, coalition soldiers reported having found syringes in insurgents’ deserted firing positions (signs of heroin abuse that is haraam, banned; of course this, again, cannot be said to be a typical experience with regards to the insurgents). Other, actually widespread signs of major change include the rampant use of IEDs and suicide bombings as a tactic (although frequently with foreign fighters' participation in the case of suicide attacks), and the use of DVD recordings and well-illustrated on-line publications in promoting the insurgency's cause. The Taliban are now flexible enough to co-opt, and thus grow by the inclusion of, even some former opponents of theirs. Meanwhile, across the border in Pakistan, the Taliban "brand" took on a life of its own...

But in fact the diversity of the insurgents' background may breed some hope at the same time as at least some observers opine - of course not with the previous extreme examples in mind. That listening to music and other traditional entertainments are now more tolerated within the Taliban's ranks may suggest that they might have become less rigidly ideological and generally more ready for pragmatic compromises, required in the world of politics. But the terror tactics employed against real and symbolic enemies of the movement still make caution recommended in forming such predictions about their potential future character, even if they may have entered a "softening-up" phase. The precarious havens they have in Pakistan where they likely need to watch out for a number of actors' plots and counter-plots all the time, may teach a lot of lessons about survival but not necessarily in more sober, pragmatic governance.

The core Taliban movement is very much there, and this Quetta Shura Taliban would certainly have some legacy of strange camaraderie to deal with, should they come to power again in some form. With the execution of some of the more unreliable commanders acting in their name, as well as with rotation of their commanders from province to province and from district to district, they have in fact always been working on this in their own way. Thus the above observations are certainly not to suggest that overall the Quetta Shura has fundamental authority problems these days in controlling the strategic shape and direction of the southern insurgency. It can be demonstrated, related to a number of issues, that theirs can and does work as a centralised movement. And it provides guidance to other groups as well. Insurgent factions even as far from the south as in the Korengal valley, in Kunar province, are ready to declare acceptance of mullah Omar as Amir ul-Mu'mineen (leader of the faithful); although an observer may reserve some scepticism and assume that such declarations of allegiance could as well be patronage-inspired responses to efforts at building credibility for the Quetta Shura, at a time when deal-making with it is certainly on the agenda. As an effective test of the respect that mullah Omar has, however, his letters are reportedly powerful enough messages to get commanders in most areas, where the Taliban are active, to allow polio vaccination rounds to go ahead. The movement also fares remarkably well in managing revenue flows that stem at the grassroots level, from various sources, avoiding the corruption and the fragmentation often seen in other conflicts where grassroots commanders have potentially autonomous revenue streams.

Thus we could assume that ultimately the Taliban would be able to gain full, practical control of their movement as well as of what is happening in its name, reigning it in, at least in an area around Kandahar, especially in rural Kandahar, where in many places they are providing the actually functioning justice system. Although exactly how much (if more than a minority) of the local population would be really, voluntarily receptive of that is up to anyone to guess, in the absence of truly reliable polls. Regardless, we can also assume that the West would be neither willing nor capable of fighting endlessly to try to annul the Taliban’s chances of any kind of comeback, however, should the possibility not clearly emerge on the horizon soon, as a result of the push effect that the surge inevitably exerts on the insurgents. The question then is whether the Taliban would truly be able to operate on their own, without backing from the sort of sources that they relied on in the past, thus opening up Afghan matters to much destructive foreign influence. Influence that serves the agendas of those whose key interest in Afghanistan is exactly the opposite of letting Afghans sort it out for themselves in a sustainable manner; agendas of those whose agenda itself might draw in the intervention of other parties.

This is crucial, since latently, in the discourse about Afghanistan, one can often sense the influence of the concept of a potential grand, Faustian bargain that could, in the view of some, be struck with the Taliban. A deal, that the West could perhaps tolerate Taliban rule as a least bad option from a human rights perspective in parts of southern Afghanistan that are usually not specified; in return for which the Taliban would need to exercise positive sovereignty, or effective authority, in these areas, and credibly commit to not letting anyone undermine others’ security from their territory. Some go as far as suggesting that official recognition may need to be extended as part of this deal to the Taliban who could then either be part of the Internationally Recognised Government of Afghanistan, or, at the extreme, such a government themselves. (It is one of mullah Zaeef’s principal complaints by the way that the West made a major mistake in only dealing with the Emirate through Islamabad). But it remains to be seen what the Taliban would content with and when (after all "foreign troops" have already left?) – and any grand compromise could still be spoiled by others not willing to be bound by it.

Assessing America and the West

One also needs to address issues of trust with regards to the West, and definitely not only with the Taliban in mind; although the Taliban's perspective could also be telling illustration of this. Western decision-makers did not care so much about the plight of Kabul or Kandahar in the 1990s, at least compared to how important the country, the plight of the Afghan people, and the cause of the mujahedeen may have seemed to them on the basis of their, or their predecessors,’ approach earlier on. Handing over Osama bin Laden, or even the presenting of truly decisive evidence in a court against him (i.e. against a spiritual and covert financial supporter of terrorism) would have been much more difficult than many diplomats and officials were ready to admit when they demanded bin Laden’s extradition from the Taliban, who were in the end ousted from power because of this (and not because of the dreadful treatment of women, Hazaras or anyone else). The West’s approach to the issue of opium production was generally no less ingenuine, either, than that of the Taliban (tacit encouragement during the jihad, lobbying the Taliban for a ban post-1994, then intermittently tacit ignorance and calls for stepped-up eradication of even ordinary farmers' crops post-2001; it was, by intention at least, a strategic approach in other words).

At the same time, mullah Zaeef’s complaint that the U.S. or Great Britain did not help al-hajji mullah Mohammad Rabbani when he needed medical treatment for cancer will not really strike a chord in most of the Western readership (p. 129). Many injustices were committed against Afghanistan in its history but this is not one of them; although it may very well be the case that the opportunity to gain some trust and goodwill from the Taliban by providing just this sort of assistance was underestimated on the occasion.

Connected to this, one in fact also finds it difficult to understand how a former diplomatic representative of the aspiring-to-be sovereign Afghan Emirate, regularly and genuinely stressing in his discourse the importance of independence for Afghanistan, feels no contradiction between his preference of independence and what he mentions as senior Taliban leaders’ habit of regularly going for medical treatment to Pakistan – or, when the treatment was required for more severe problems, say for Ministry of Defence officials, to the supposedly decadent West (see p. 111). Such dependencies work against independence... And nor does mullah Zaeef feel there to be a contradiction, apparently, between the idea of national resistance against occupation and how thousands of Arab and other fighters poured in for the combat post-2001, in his own account (p. 155). It is not difficult at all to understand why and how he might see welcome warriors of justice in these Arab and other volunteers, faced with, mind you, a whole coalition of opponents. But their activity is not the basis of a really national sort of resistance, either; certainly no more than the Taliban are "anti-Afghan" forces, as in the coalition's rhetoric. Would one be terribly wrong to imagine that in fact many of the foreign fighters themselves would find simply outrageous or at least uninspiring the idea that they are involved in a national sort of war in Afghanistan? Foreign fighters could refer here to both ISAF troops and non-Afghan Pakistanis and Arabs, by the way...

But while all the Pakistani and Arab volunteers render it implausible to consider the new Taliban campaign as a national resistance war, what is nowadays also talked of as Obama’s war is in fact more Bush’s or America’s war as such. It resembled, in some of its early aspects, more a targeted revenge campaign and a round of meant-to-be preventive violence (a "signal" as some refer to it) than peace-building or state-building of any kind, and this needs to be remembered. By its legacy, it is thus a war of the Bagram prison guard who took the Qur’an from a prisoner in front of mullah Zaeef’s eyes, to urinate on it. It is by the same token the war of the military barber who slapped mullah Zaeef for complaining about being force-shaved. It is the war of all those who were happy to use the cover of a belief in their own righteousness to relate to human beings in a fundamentally inhumane way, as many of the guards in places such as Bagram or Guantanamo regularly did. Mullah Zaeef's book is an important document of this, being the first-hand account that it is.

And there are not only "isolated moments of inappropriateness" to bring up, on the part of the West. The troubles, in case anyone failed to notice by now, extend to the strategic level. The current Afghan war is by legacy the war of those who launched a war on terrorism making the prime enemy, Osama bin Laden, even more of a legend than what he used to be, right at the outset – allowing bin Laden a somewhat lucky but not altogether unpredictable and spectacular escape from the Tora Bora mountains. It is the war of those who gave the Taliban a new sense of transnational brotherhood by having many of them go through a common ordeal with Arab and other fighters (as well as some ordinary people from several Islamic countries) held in Guantanamo, Bagram and other detention facilities, thus convincing the Taliban and many others of the validity of some of their worst beliefs regarding distant America. It is also the war of those who could only think of setting up the primitive polity of a weak, albeit in provincial affairs quite intrusive, king (President Karzai), a pro-consul of "good global governance," so to say, faced with quarrelling princes (the members of parliament), to thus counter the Taliban’s and al-Qaida’s influence for the future.

Harsh criticism of Western efforts in Afghanistan also brings us to mullah Zaeef’s temptation to identify with America’s indigenous Indians’ plight, however, of which he writes at one point, notably when recounting some of the most desperate moments of his life, during his captivity in Guantanamo (p. 193-194). This could itself be criticised as an exaggerating and overly ideological view of what came to happen (and is happening still). In effect mullah Zaeef is likening the Taliban movement to brutally oppressed native resistance against imperialism. But one perhaps also needs to remember the Taliban’s own history with prisoners at this point. That is nothing that mullah Zaeef was personally involved in, and this shall be remembered - but still there are past events that do matter and that also need to be recounted in this context. Shi’a leader Abdul Ali Mazari’s fate, for example, after he had been captured by the Taliban. Or how Communist leader Najibullah was treated after Kabul had been taken. Or atrocities (in revenge for previous failures) in Mazar-i-Sharif. Taliban counterinsurgency tactics in Bamiyan.

Two or many more wrongs don't make a right, of course. Approaching this from a more constructive point of view, without an interest in manufacturing counternarratives or counter-counternarratives: if there is a trivial but important lesson in what mullah Zaeef and others went through in Guantanamo, it could be that people who think they can righteously cause harm to others are always dangerous. Be they revenge-minded prison guards, overzealous guardians of the true faith, or even cold-headed but ultimately short-sighted Realpolitikers.

Assessing the reviewer

On that note, this reviewer will cease talking. The reader probably ought to have stopped reading by this point, to start reading mullah Zaeef's story instead. It is a well-told story and reading it is a unique chance to inhale Afghanistan's and Afghans' history through the fabric of its narrative, every aspect of which would have been impossible to discuss even in a much more extensive review. And the Epilogue might re-arrange every preceding impression one may develop in a linear reading of the text. Just like this reviewer also had to overhaul his initial approach to it. But I shall really not give away more, or I shall be a very bad reviewer.

* * * * *

Related material on this blog:

Summary and translation of an interview by Péter Wagner with Abdul Salaam Rocketi, a former fighter of the war against the Soviets and a former member of the Taliban's government who was detained for months at Bagram, but then ran for a place in the Afghan parliament. In 2009, he was even one of the presidential candidates. Just like mullah Zaeef's family, he also hails from among the Suleiman Khel of Qalat/Zabul.

The story of the Uruzgan governorship of Abdul Hakim Munib, another former member of the Taliban government. Ghilzai Pashtun, just like mullah Zaeef and Abdul Salaam Rocketi - a son of the Ali Khel of Paktia.

A trio from southern Afghanistan. Parts of the interwoven stories of mullah Mohammed Omar, Haji Bashir Noorzai and Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil.

ANO fighting in Waziristan?

2010-01-20T18:48:00.007+01:00

AQ, AQI, AQIM, AQAP, ANO... What? Wait. You mean, ANO is one of the militant groups that the U.S. is fighting these days? But the last time I checked, Abu Nidal was still dead. Somebody should tell the FBI...

Of course, that is not the most interesting angle from which one can look at this. The most interesting aspect is perhaps the ideological aspect. Abu Nidal's organisation was called Abu Nidal's organisation because it was run rather despotically by the man called Abu Nidal; but remarkably it worked with a leftist ideology and worldview. How an operative of this network ended up being killed in one of the drone strikes usually targeting al-Qaida operatives in north Waziristan, on January 9 this year, is interesting to ponder.

The Huffington Post has some key details:

"Rahim had been tried and convicted by Pakistan, but he and three suspected accomplices were apparently released in January 2008. All four were added to the FBI list late last year."

So, to recap: Palestinian Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim who was first part of an ANO plot in Karachi, back in 1986, went on to spend 22 years in a Pakistani jail, imprisoned there supposedly for life, after he had earlier been sentenced to death, was then released in early 2008, and was then apparently killed in rather interesting company, or at least in a rather interesting location, just about two years after he had been set free.

A counter-narrative

2010-01-16T08:45:00.019+01:00

I am reading mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef's book, My life with the Taliban. A book by a founding member of the post-1994 Taliban movement who was the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan in 2001. That sentence in itself could be sufficient for a blogpost perhaps. This book is a piece of history, and, unsurprisingly, a treasure trove of information for observers of Afghan matters. I am including the book cover's image here, to draw attention, by putting an end to the visual starving of those who are now curious.

As it is noted on the book's webpage, My life with the Taliban offers a counter-narrative of standard accounts of Afghanistan since 1979, plus, as it is noted in Kandahar: Portrait of a city (pp. ix-xxiv) by editors Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, it offers not simply gap-filling but essentially it fulfills a void-filling role as to Kandahar's history, of which you could hardly read much in English before.

I will still get back to writing a more thorough review of the book, but I want to contemplate what I have to say in such a review (it is not easy at all).

As illustration of the worth of the book, I am including some examples below of what kind of new details I can add now to an earlier, sort of "OSINT version" of the Taliban's rise that I assembled at this blog back in 2007.

* * * * *

1) Pp. 21-55. The chapters in this section offer fascinating insight into the "small t" taliban's history. Into the story of the groups of madrasa students who either fought for (partly religiously defined, Kandahari) public good, so to say, or mediated and played judge in good faith in local disputes in southern Afghanistan's history, including during the 1980s' jihad. Reconciliation is something they were particularly well-positioned to do back then just as much as nowadays, given their aspiration to transcend tribal and other dividing lines and their reference to Islamic principles.

The book's narrative of the 1980s jihad offers an unconventional portrayal of the combat around Kandahar, especially in Zhari-Panjwai, where taliban groups as such may have played a far greater role than many standard accounts tell us. Often the likes of Mohammed Omar are mentioned as just fighters of Hizb-i-Islami's Khalis faction during the jihad. In fact, their "fronts," the "taliban fronts," while they were certainly supported from somewhere logistically, through HIK networks as well, probably, were autonomous from central control at least in an ideological sense (in their own, quasi-anti-ideological way). They clearly saw themselves as apart from the rest of the mujahedeen to a degree.

2) The Taliban's start is detailed in the chapter titled Taking action. Light is shed on the up-till-now rather murky sequence of events. Abdul Qudus and mullah Neda Mohammad are named as key initiators of the movement (the former was killed on the Shomali plains, fighting Massoud's forces; the latter was killed already post-2001, in a coalition raid); although I presume that at around the same time others like them were also asking around, looking to mobilise the dormant taliban networks that went partially inactive after Kandahar was seized by feuding mujahedeen militias. The latter development could take place, in Zaeef's narrative, essentially because the taliban took their eyes off the ball at the end of the jihad.

Abdul Salam Zaeef seems to have been a vital link in the early organising, based on his own narrative, and Pashmol and Sangisar (mullah Mohammed Omar's home village) were apparently the key meeting points early on. The first Taliban checkpoint was set up at Hawz-e Mudat, on the Herat-Kandahar road, and it was after defeating a neighbouring checkpoint commander, Daru Khan, that the Taliban's expansion began (bandwagoning clearly playing into this as well). If you check out Kandahar's map, you can find Hawz-e Mudat (or "Hawz-e Madad") in today's Zhari district. Zhari's shape as it is today was tailored in 2005, and so I cannot say with absolute certainty where Hawz-e-Madad fell back then. Abdul Salam Zaeef refers to this area as "Maiwand and Panjwai districts." It was from there that the Taliban set out to raid Spin Boldak and, meanwhile, gradually take over Kandahar with mullah Naqib's help...

* * * * *

Too many names? Need some explanation? I am not giving away more. Find it all in the book.

This should be enough encouragement to check out a book that you must not only have, but one that you could read a couple of times, including all the endnotes, while taking notes yourself, if you want to be knowledgeable about southern Afghanistan. Moreover, after his account of the Taliban's rise, Abdul Salam Zaeef covers the years of which his narrative becomes even more of a counter-narrative...

A linguistic innovation on the battlefield

2010-01-14T12:34:00.005+01:00

(From a couple of days ago.) The Washington Post quotes an anonymous Marine officer telling them:

"During the Bar Now Zad operation, the Marines have killed 20 or fewer suspected insurgents, according to one Marine officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the operation was ongoing."

Highlighting by me. I would actually prefer this (so far unusual) wording by default.

2009: the year of spectacularly more careful application of air power?

2010-01-14T11:36:00.008+01:00

A friend of mine posted UNAMA's latest report on civilian casualties of the conflict in Afghanistan recently, and highlighted how 2009 was the deadliest year yet for civilians in Afghanistan (since 2001, of course!).

That is certainly true and relevant, but I needed to react in a comment saying:

"It should also be noted that while civilian casualties may have risen by 14 percent, along with the significantly intensifying combat, casualties from collateral harm by coalition operations decreased by about 28 percent. In some cases air strikes were pulled while troops were in contact. In other words, mostly the insurgents were doing the killing of civilians in 2009, based on the UN's figures."

Indeed it is striking how "civilian deaths caused by the armed opposition increased by 41 per cent between 2008 and 2009 from 1,160 to 1,630" largely as a result of increased use of suicide bombings and IEDs according to the accompanying press release by UNAMA. The conflict has become much more asymmetrical in this respect, even with significantly more coalition and Afghan troops on the ground... In some cases air strikes were pulled, to conform to the new COIN guidelines, even while troops were in contact. And in a twisted way the exceptions are notable, too, such as the case of the Kunduz bombing, ordered by German troops - the incident which significantly added to the final toll and was the result of a predictably bad decision. It could be telling to deduce that from the figure to thus make coalition forces' performance look even more impressive, but unfortunately that would not make sense at all. The Kunduz case needs to be remembered and counted in any case. Anyway, the UNAMA report is there for you, me, all of us, to read.

The positive Somali spill-over?

2010-01-13T17:14:00.006+01:00

Having discussed, towards the end of last year, how supposedly toxic "failed states" of the international (i.e. interstate) system in fact come to absorb a lot of spill-over effects themselves, like illegal fishing for example, here is the same thing from another aspect: pirates fighting back may represent a positive effect, creating a positive externality, for others around. Kenyan fishermen are quite happy with piracy off the coast of Somalia, apparently. Quote:

"In past years, illegal commercial trawlers parked off Somalia's coast and scooped up the ocean's contents. Now, fishermen on the northern coast of neighboring Kenya say, the trawlers are not coming because of pirates.
"There is a lot of fish now, there is plenty of fish. There is more fish than people can actually use because the international fishermen have been scared away by the pirates," said Athman Seif, the director of the Malindi Marine Association."

Do note also, however, that:

"fishermen here acknowledge the horror of the attacks — they occasionally are harassed by pirates themselves."

Altogether it is a complex tale, and AP covers it well for a wire report. The illegal fishing in Somali waters, which used to be worth between $90 million and $300 million, certainly helped create piracy. And it is certainly ironic how "nations contributing warships to anti-piracy efforts are in some cases directly linked to the foreign fishing vessels." But this does not justify holding over 200 hostages, and perhaps the Kenyan bright side of piracy is suddenly overstated somewhat. Fishing in Kenya is apparently much more significant around Lake Victoria.

The Pak-Af borderland conglomerate II.

2010-01-11T23:50:00.006+01:00

This is what I concluded regarding the Khost attack on the CIA outpost at the Chapman base a couple of days ago:

"It seems like the borderland conglomerate as such may have been behind the attack, as the CIA is allegedly demanding the hunting down of, and extradition by, Pakistan of Ilyas Kashmiri, an ex-SSG Afghan hand, ex-Kashmiri, then and now HuJI militant, now anti-Pakistani government operative (a living legend in jihadi circles, essentially), in connection with the bombing, while the Haqqanis and AQ also remain in the limelight."

The link @ "borderland conglomerate" explains what that term entails in my vocabulary.

When even Hakimullah Mehsud appeared beside the Khost bomber I thought it was some confirmation of the above thesis, as beside AQ, the Haqqanis and HuJI, even the TTP became implicated. (Of course Mehsud had to speak from Haqqani land which is something observers tend to forget.)

Now, I may or may not have some additional confirmation regarding the validity of my usage of the term "borderland conglomerate" and the validity of the concept, via Joshua Foust and Acorn, from Pakistan's The News. I am not sure Lashkar-e Zil is a term all of the guys implied would readily use to describe themselves, but, anyway, this article talks about them implying just that. Quote:

"The Lashkar has distinguished itself by carrying out unusual guerrilla operations, like the one targeting the CIA base in Khost. While the LeZ is mainly active in Pakistani tribal areas of North and South Waziristan, Bajaur, Peshawar, Khyber, and Swat in the NWFP, it has already carried but several deadly bombings against the US-led allied forces in the Afghan provinces of Khost, Kabul, Kandahar, Nuristan, Nangahar, Wardak, Paktika, Ghazni and Kunar, killing dozens of people.The sources say the Lashkar-e-Zil mainly consists of Tehrik-e-Taliban, Pakistan (TTP) led by Commander Hakimullah Mehsud, the Azad Kashmir chapter of the Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI) led by Commander Ilyas Kashmiri, and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) led by its jailed leader Akram Lahori, the Afghan Taliban militia led by its Amir Mulla Omar, the Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HeI) led by Gulbadin Hikmatyar and the Haqqani militant network."

The funny or not-so-funny thing (function of POV) about the above quote is that it basically says anybody committing anything anywhere might or might not be LeZ. I am this much wiser tonight.

Quote of the day for January 10, 2010

2010-01-10T09:26:00.004+01:00

"South Yemen and the United States have only one thing in common: they were the only British colonies that won independence through a guerrilla war and that remained in conflict with their former colonizers for years afterward. Both waged struggles rooted in a political radicalism that prevented any easy reconciliation with the imperial power. The United States seems to have forgotten its early radicalism. (...) It has taken Britain's place as protector and guarantor of the conservative monarchies."

From: Fred Halliday: Proxyland for Cold Warriors. The Nation, May 26, 1984, p.640 (pp.638-640.)

The regime in what used to be South Yemen or the PDRY (People's Democratic Republic of Yemen) was in deep conflict with Saudi Arabia which sought to turn the Yemeni Arab Republic (the "North") into a buffer zone against influence from the South. The conflict with Britain that is referred to in the text was the Dhofari insurgency in Oman, supported by the PDRY, which ended in 1975.

This region altogether was one more battleground of ideas where Marxism and conservatism as well as Islamism clashed, with the U.S. joining the struggle on the anti-Marxist side, supporting the Saudi monarchy, tribes and even madrasa networks, with its Cold War priorities.

This involvement preceded U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, but 1979 was an equally important year for the region of the Yemens. President Carter approved 415 million dollars worth of emergency assistance to "North" Yemen as its conflict, including cross-border insurgencies, intensified with South Yemen (in the same year when support to Afghan insurgents, of about 500,000 dollars, was approved by him, during the summer).

Yemen clearly matters, and what is happening there does have significance. As these random historical reflexions show, it has significance connected to Afghanistan even, especially as there is a myriad of personal connections through the Afghan jihad (beyond the Yemeni origins of Osama bin Laden's family) which globalised the fight for Yemeni Islamists, too (see, merely for illustration, for example Abdul Majeed al-Zindani's interesting story here - he was in Afghanistan/Pakistan till 1987, as he states in this interview, and was an important associate for bin Laden at least up till then; and he is founder and leader of the Iman University*, or the University of Faith, in Sana'a, and also one of the leaders of the Islah Party).

But those who point out that AQAP seems to receive an improportionate amount of attention because of the failed Detroit plane bomber, compared to AQ core that has just successfully attacked a major CIA outpost in Khost, Afghanistan, certainly seem to be right.

* John Walker Lindh as well as Anwar al-Awlaki used to attend this institution in the past.

Flynn's presentation: the state of COIN in Afghanistan

2010-01-08T17:15:00.009+01:00

Here are my quick notes on (the head of U.S. military intelligence in Afghanistan) Major General Michael Flynn's presentation, titled State of the Insurgency : Trends, Intentions and Objectives (I got to it via the Danger Room). I will go backward through the slides.

- If you look at the last slide, you could be forgiven for thinking that the aim of the U.S. COIN campaign in Afghanistan is to beat the IED threat. In fact this is not the case, as the last three slides were shown to the audience, on the occasion, after a Q/A session, which came at the end of the general assessment of the insurgency by Flynn.

- Since most casualties are the result of IEDs, however, and since IEDs require Ammonium Nitrate (AN), diesel fuel, aluminium powder, sugar and fuel oil which are the lethal ingredients counter-IED efforts need to find the antidose for, a ban on the selling of AN is proposed on Slide 10 as a crucial ingredient of military success. It is concluded that since AN "accounts for only five percent of legitimate fertiliser use," and yet is used 85% of the time in homemade IEDs, the ban would be necessary and it would have minimal effect on agriculture. My observation: one could also presume that illegitimate AN use would not be particularly severely affected, either.

- Slide 9: 2005 was not so clearly the year of change in terms of IEDs used as it was for suicide bombings. Numbers grow steadily from 2004. The year 2007 seems to be an interesting break in the pattern, as indicated, as that was when an observable switch took place from the predominant use of military ordnance to the use of largely AN- or fertiliser-based bombs.

- On Slide 5 the point is made that "GIRoA weakness enables insurgent strength." I really want to see the more consistent use of an alternative: "International Community/GIRoA weakness enables insurgent strength." Would it not be more simple?

- Slide 3 shows, among other things, the area where the IMU is said to operate. It is interesting to see them shown in Uruzgan and Zabul. They seem to be organised on top of existing Taliban infrastructure mostly, but they are shown as operating on their own in what seems to be Faryab province. I am not sure what to make of this, as map-colouring could be, well, just map-colouring in the end, as opposed to empirical reality. I am not sure what to make of indication that Hizb-i-Islami's Khalis faction is said to operate in the east in some parts (the yellow patch on the map).

Anyway, I am including said map below.

Las Casas v. Kilcullen

2010-01-07T10:41:00.003+01:00

Foreign Policy ran this article some time ago, and I only noticed it now. In it, the author is arguing that since small terrorist groups still tend to turn towards the Big Terrorist Group which is al-Qaida, network theory should tell us that killing the Big Terrorist Group would make the small terrorist groups more dangerous. If only the small terrorist groups would realise this and make themselves more dangerous by not turning to the Big Terrorist Group for a change! Lucky for us they don't! So let them aggregate! (Essentially as opposed to the disaggregation that David Kilcullen is arguing for as the right global strategy - hence the title of my post).

Things like this are argued there, at least implicitly. But do read the article to see if I am right with this interpretation, anyway.

I have just a final remark in criticism. If the only reason Afghanistan's fate is acknowledged to matter from a U.S. perspective is that al-Qaida could return there one day, then why exactly would a U.S. decision-maker opt for following las Casas' guidance and let it be, provided there is a chance to finish it off?

(P.S. Some probably do not realise the effect carelessly recycled second-hand ideas can have on the ideological aspect of taking on terrorism and on global public support for it. Consider what thoughts people get reading dailies in their own languages with articles titled "U.S. foreign policy expert says the U.S. should keep alive al-Qaida.")

The Khost attack on the CIA

2010-01-07T08:55:00.006+01:00

Now that there is so much written about the bloody attack by Jordanian Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi on the CIA agents operating from FOB Chapman (see here and here) as well as on what can be assumed to be retaliatory drone attacks (see here), much of the attention seems to zero in on how CIA agents may have decided to personally meet with their supposed AQ double agent, "inherited" as he was, for the very first time, not even shying away from meeting him with so many of them there at the same time, getting conveniently near to someone who was only looking to apply a very kinetic kind of effect on them. An anonymous intelligence source is suggesting this may have been because he already gave information that was sufficient for kills in the past for the CIA, thus establishing a track record of reliability.

But there is an aspect to the story that is not thought through so much, in the press reports at least. How would an AQ "brick" suddenly decide he should go and meet CIA operatives deep in the middle of Haqqani land? How does he feel safe doing so? How does he think he will not be noticed or monitored rather? How can one assume he would have felt safe to go back after this meeting to his AQ associates?

(As an interesting aside, one may add that the Taliban have also claimed responsibility for the attack, stating that an ANA member committed the attack. H/t 2 Jihadica.)

Update: it seems like the borderland conglomerate as such may have been behind the attack, as the CIA is allegedly demanding the hunting down of, and extradition by, Pakistan of Ilyas Kashmiri, an ex-SSG Afghan hand, ex-Kashmiri, then and now HuJI militant, now anti-Pakistani government operative (a living legend in jihadi circles, essentially), in connection with the bombing, while the Haqqanis and AQ also remain in the limelight.

The TTP murals

2010-01-06T23:51:00.008+01:00

Here is video of the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan's murals from Nawaz Kot, South Waziristan, if all is true. Read the background here, but in fact CNN's report is just late follow up to previous Pakistani news reports (like this) about the "jannat" or artificial paradise that was allegedly set up for training children for combat roles (including suicide bombing) by the TTP, apparently. It is really fascinating to read stories like this, or see reports like this. They show how much change radically transformed circumstances have pushed through people now using the "taliban" brand post-2001, including those belonging to a spawn organisation like the TTP, or "the taliban of the mountains" as they refer to themselves sometimes, as shown in this video. My personal reflection on this: there were different times when I would object, to a degree, to the idea of discussing Pakistan/Afghanistan within the child soldier discourse - just because teenage boys would also wield AK-47s among the "jihadis," growing up to be men in the fight against the Soviets and the regime they were backing, in the 1980s. In the context of news like this, however, those objections disappear in me.

I would love to embed the video but in its embedded form it wouldn't play in some browsers. So anyway, go to CNN, watch it there.

One man's pirate is another man's green peace warrior (corrected)

2010-01-06T18:26:00.010+01:00

Somali piracy started largely as a grassroots response to illegal fishing in Somali waters and the dumping of all sorts of waste (possibly including nuclear waste) in Somali waters. I have already commented on why this might be interesting for the sometimes embarrassingly ideological and actually dumb discourse about failed states.

Now, what happened today is that ~~Greenpeace~~ the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society tried, with their "batboat," a high-speed trimaran, to make a point against whale-hunting, and had their boat rammed by Japanese whalers in response, either accidentally or not (not up to me to judge this here). It is interesting to look at the side of the batboat where you can discover even the skull and bones (look for it on this picture).

I am including this here just to make a little (more) fun of this this dud of an FP post again, I have to admit. The point of the author there, in the cited post, was essentially that it is funny to see Somali pirates talk like Greenpeace sometimes. Well, now, ~~Greenpeace~~ the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is taking a leaf of pirates' book sometimes, apparently. Which, from me, is not a general value judgement about either pirates or the .~~Greenpeace.~~ the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Correction: I made a mistake here. It is small excuse that I was misled by the first news of this incident which I heard on TV. I quickly wanted to post on it, and I did not do sufficient fact-checking. I was overinterested in the Somali analogy to do justice to Greenpeace who were not involved in this incident and who are in fact not approving of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's direct tactics and were thus misrepresented by me as well. My apologies for that. The title of the post remains as it is, although it could also be changed to "One man's pirate is another man's sea shepherd." And now I do note that a sea shepherd is no green peace warrior of Greenpeace in fact.

On Yemen-related affairs, back from holiday

2010-01-04T07:54:00.013+01:00

I went off-line for the last couple of days. Then, when I returned, I looked first to find out about Yemen-related developments. Gordon Brown is advocating a big summit meeting about Yemen, probably to give Yemenis and others in the broader Middle East and the Arab world the impression that big global summits with lots of behind-doors meetings and conspiracies of wishful thinkers are in fact governing their countries. As to the Obama administration's reaction: "Washington this year will more than double the $67 million in counterterrorism aid that it provided Yemen in 2009." That money is largely for equipment and financial assistance to CT-related tasks, besides the Pentagon's own so-called 1206 funds, to a country that supposedly would pay for this itself if it would be such a pressing problem for them. The central, rampant belief around Washington is firmly held in what I sometimes call the dual concept of aided attention (DUCAAT): this theory posits on the one hand that other governments ought to be given money to pay attention to problems, and, on the other hand, that if more money is given to these governments to pay attention to said problems the attention they pay "in return" will also grow, in a linear relationship. In other words, really crazy global governance continues (though I have to say my worst fears, while away, were that somebody might have cooked up plans for a larger-scale training mission to rebuild Yemeni security forces).

The interesting thing is that all this is justified with regards to Yemen, because someone from Nigeria, possibly with a helper of "Indian" appearance, tried to bomb an airplane. Eyewitnesses are saying that the helper was there, possibly even in Detroit, where US Customs and Border Protection may have detained him; while the Dutch counterterrorist agency is claiming that they are either all wrong or lied as "their investigation 'into Abdulmutallab's passport pokes holes in the theory that the alleged bomber had help evading security.' "

One would like to see a bit clearer before diving into strategising over what to do with Yemen, right? Well, not exactly. Of course the argument could be made that something different should be done about Yemen in any case. But not on the basis of the Detroit plot for now. And not (or not only) along the lines of DUCAAT, because that is not really different from what we have had before.

Update: as far as the seeing clearer about Detroit part is concerned, in this eyewitness account one of the passangers on board that plane to Detroit states that there was a man detained in Detroit, but probably not the man of Indian appearance who was seen in Amsterdam by the Haskells. The man statedly detained in Detroit was apparently of Middle Eastern origin. I found the video via Kurt Haskell's post at his wife's blog. That crowdsourcing and social media ecosystem blabla notwithstanding, information is still very slow to emerge about this case which still looks interesting enough to me to warrant some inspired reporting and analysis.

As far as the question of what to do WRT Yemen beyond (and possibly instead of) DUCAAT: here is Gregory D. Johnsen's take as a list of five basic recommendations from December 31 - including challenging ones, e.g. that U.S. diplomats should not abstain from a khat chew every now and then, rejecting Yemenese khat as a matter of (stupid) principle; I say this is a challenge given that Western embassies are instead busy closing by now.

Update (January 6) About Detroit, Reuters reports: "Some of the passengers on the plane had said they saw him (Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab - P.M.) accompanied at the gate in Amsterdam by an older, well-dressed Indian or Pakistani man. But the review of more than 200 hours of video showed no one with him, the officials said."

The multi-dimensional geography of transnational terrorism: Yemen, Detroit, Iraq etc.

2009-12-30T20:06:00.008+01:00

There is now bound to be some serious dot-connecting and some investigation into what happened back during Christmas, when the Nigerian "underpants bomber" struck.

I finally came across a source that did not shy away from mentioning what the "mysterious" second man at the airport in Amsterdam looked like (if he was there, as eye witnesses say). Excerpt:

"In an extraordinary twist, which will increase concerns over security failures, an American lawyer claimed he had watched at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport as Abdulmutallab was assisted by a "second man" as he tried to board without a passport.
Kurt Haskell, who was standing in line with his wife Lori on Christmas morning, said the Nigerian was with a man aged about 50 of Indian appearance in an expensive suit, talking to the ticket agent.
Haskell said the second man claimed Abdulmutallab was from Sudan and had no passport.
The ticket agent referred the men to her manager down the hall, and Haskell did not see Abdulmutallab again until after the failed bombing."

Amsterdam is no unguarded gateway to international aviation. Even the U.S. Customs and Border Protection is present there. So it will be interesting to see what is reported about this later on, and it is understandable that Obama and the rest of the White House are angry.

Meanwhile, a friend asked during the day why there was a six-year silent period as far as AQ in Yemen is concerned. Look at this chronology of Yemen-related major incidents to understand what we are talking about. There is a gap between 2002 and 2008.

Well, my tentative answer would be Iraq. Many now fighting in Yemen were there trying to fight U.S. troops in those years. (And of course the whole AQI phenomenon was boosted significantly, in several ways, by AQ-central, as it looked to react to its radically changed strategic environment with the U.S. in Afghanistan.)

China in Afghanistan

2009-12-30T16:02:00.008+01:00

Michael Vines at the New York Times weighs in on the (Western) debate over the rights and wrongs of China's natural resources-related investments abroad. From his predictably incoherent account of the "dragon" with that "voracious" apetite, one may learn that the Chinese are these supersmart, superstrategic calculators when it comes to investments and that their buying into the Aynak copper mine might have been foolish greed. Or that NATO may have unfortunately "conducted an unacknowledged preparatory phase for the Chinese economic penetration of Afghanistan" while benefitting from the fact that someone had the courage to invest there eventually, and that this may allow the Afghan government to cover more of the costs of the Afghan security forces instead of the West...

The article comes as the Aynak investment is the subject of an anti-corruption investigation - reflecting on this Thomas Ruttig rightly observed the other day that it strongly smells "as if at least a part of the anti-corruption fight is for US business dominance." This is amazing, in a negative sense, as the Aynak investment is something that indicates a Chinese readiness to more constructively engage the challenges in Afghanistan (and Pakistan). Viewing Chinese foreign policy as the single-issue policy of a voracious dragon with an insatiable apetite is just the perfect justification to have only a single-issue policy about it, I guess.

Memo - Yemen and counterterrorism strategy

2009-12-29T11:46:00.008+01:00

Stephen Walt tried the other day to list the ten greatest gifts (from states) in the history of foreign policy. His somewhat weird mention of "martyrs in the cause of peace and justice," including "soldiers who have fought for just causes" brought up interesting associations in me, of course.

And it also makes me mention two further, rather provocative examples of such gifts focusing not on the world of interstate relations, but in general on strategy-making actors and strategic thinkers aligned with one or another of those.

It is a paradox, when you are devising strategy, that you have to first try and defeat yourself, playing your enemy in a virtual role game, in order to understand what vulnerabilities you have to look out for, on your side. Now, where this gets especially interesting, more than just an intellectual paradox slightly disturbing your calm as you sit back in your armschair, is when you put out all that stuff in the open source.

I have just read the first, highly thought-stimulating chapter of David Kilcullen's book, with its template for al-Qaida conquest in a four-phase model, including the key processes of "infection" and "rejection:" establishing a foothold, pulling in an external intervention, then accelerating a rejection of the external intervention by the local social context (as by antibodies in a human system). Brilliant, except of course that you need to use many caveats regarding where it can work, as it is really not only, or even dominantly, a tribal terrain out there that al-Qaida and the likes are trying to work on.

Now I have also, in the past, read of Baghram-escapee Abu Yahya al-Libi's advice to the West regarding how one ought to defeat a movement like the one coordinated by al-Qaida. And it was equally interesting reading. Highly thought-stimulating and all that. Recommendations regarding how one ought to do the counter-ideological struggle. What tools to use. Etc.

And parts of both plans are of course being put to use. Which makes this quite interesting. Not that the actors involved in putting them to use may not have had these ideas occur to them without external help. But even so it is interesting to see how the two sides exchange strategic advice so generously with each other. I am not saying this should not happen (see the point above about both sides thinking for themselves, on their own, quite a lot anyway), or that this is a new thing between strategic adversaries. I am just remarking that this flow of strategic concepts is one of those aspects to the relation between strategic adversaries that Walt could have remarked, especially as the "realist in an idological world" that he portrays himself to be.

An added question of interest then is how one should operationalise either Kilcullen's and Abu Yahya's ideas regarding the recently oft-suggested intensification of U.S. involvement in the conflict in Yemen. (Of course you might want to read about these ideas before looking at what I am putting down below.)

"Rejection" should definitely be more of a concern than it currently is, regarding any increase of U.S. involvement there. "Endorsing" truly "local initiatives" regarding the fight against a local insurgency, as part of "disaggregation," at the same time "addressing legitimate grievances" about sub-optimal governance, these are also important benchmarks to keep in mind - ones that current U.S. policy already seems to fall far from. You really can't expect perfect results when you go up to a government telling them "Hey Mr. Yemen, you have terrists out there in that Hadramw... Hadar... whatever region, so please go attack them for your own good, here is our SIGINT and our air power that you can use." But sometimes it may be better to live with imperfect results. Also, "provocation" (such as an attempted plane-bombing) may not be the best guidance for policy: it is meant by ill-willing people to be your guidance for a policy. Yes, 9-11 was a provocation but one to which it made strategic sense to give a response, even if that response was partly a botched attempt at a response, in many aspects of it. As to a widening of the war on al-Qaida in Yemen (which is already on, given how the U.S. does already give assistance to government forces), it does not figure on Abu Yahya's list of things to do. So consider adding that item at your responsibility.

Should it be added, I think there would be a legitimate chance of some mission creep occurring. Like, let us fight the Yemeni narcotics industry also, we cannot ignore khat etc... Wise talking heads could warn you of how interrelated the issue of water use, khat, corruption, the insurgency and al-Qaida terrorism is, and we would most likely build an ugly quagmire that would leave room in the end for... having empty discussions about how every agent of our influence is just hopelessly corrupt and in the end not really our agent of influence. Only, since the money is running out, this could happen sooner than in Afghanistan. (But it would also hasten the process parallel to this in Afghanistan.)

And I now realise that I haven't mentioned the al-Houthi insurgency yet. Take that for complexity.

Yemen

2009-12-28T23:08:00.008+01:00

Just a quick unloading of two links to Yemen-related reading. Not much in-depth to offer from me here (rather, interesting stuff is there from the authors of the two referenced pieces).

Here is the story of Sayid Imam al-Sharif. He worked as a doctor in Yemen for a while, before he was arrested there and extradited to Egypt, with already quite an interesting story behind him, which was to take more of a turn in Egypt.

And then here is the story of Anwar al-Awlaki, American-born Salafi preacher in Yemen, the guy to whom the Fort Hood attacker had links - also worth a read.

Just a glimpse into the complexity and the diversity that there is, in a place that some now, apparently, want to do something about.

Now, reacting to that Huffington Post piece I just linked to, if escalating and de-escalating would happen in the way the title of the article suggests...

Should one deescalate whenever somebody does something somewhere outside one's current area of escalation?

And can "escalate" entail only the introduction of U.S. ground troops somewhere? Or will the already happening air strikes and proxy involvement do in Yemen?

And would "re-escalate" (if that is thought of as an option) entail first throwing away Afghanistan (again) and then going back there to do state-building with someone again if somebody again, say, happens to "pick up explosives there?"

And...

Etc.

Update: do stop by to read the story of "Khalid the jihadi" @ Rolling Stones, too.

Related (much) more to the current events, read Gregory D. Johnsen and Brian O'Neill's blog - and also, as especially interesting, this post by Johnsen from before this month' air strikes were carried out by the U.S., and from before the subsequent attack of the Nigerian wannabe plane-bomber. Johnsen's argument there was that we were seeing a repeat of the 2001-2002 cycle of U.S. involvement which turned out to be quite successful back then, but may hardly prove successful now, with AQAP's (al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula's) much deeper entrenchment there. Its prediction was spot on, and now there is also deviation from the original pattern given that the coming air strikes were more destructive, that there were civilian casualties and much more of an outcry in Yemen, plus, as you will all know, that there was an attempt by AQAP at retaliating within the U.S. homeland.