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October 29, 2009 05:35 AM UTC

The Karzai Brothers and FM 3-24: Year IX

  • 13 Comments
  • by: JO

( – promoted by Barron X)

Today’s revelation by the Times ( http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10… ) that the CIA has long been funding the brother of Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai–said brother reputed to be tied to heroin trafficking–for services including the recruitment of “forces” under the CIA’s direction in the Kandahar region raises a mega-question about the Afghan policy now under review at the White House.

Presumably the appointment of Stanley McChrystal to lead the military effort in Afghanistan was recognition, at rather long last, that the conflict in Afghanistan is a counter-insurgency war and needs to be fought as such.  

Not coincidentally, of course, McChrystal’s boss, David Petreus, is coauthor of Army Field Manuel 3-24 (2006), the “new” guide to fighting such conflicts. I say “new” because some critics argue that the manual is based on lessons drawn from earlier insurgent conflicts, including China, Malaya, and Indonesia, and that Afghanistan and Iraq represent a new iteration. However, one key underlying point of FM 3-24 is that counter insurgent conflicts are above all political conflicts in which military actions are just a part of a successful strategy that must include a credible central government, which means rooting out corruption and establishing customer-friendly relations with the citizenry. Absent these, the military effort is doomed, at the very least, to perpetual Sisyphean efforts. Exhibit A: Afghanistan.

It’s not too hard to imagine what sort of “forces” Brother Karzai is recruiting, and how they’re used. Persuasion doesn’t sound like it’s at the top of their arms list. More to the point, we now learn that an agency of the U.S. government is closely linked to a shady character reputed to be in the heroin trade, while with the other hand we’re trying to persuade Afghan poppy farms to plant something else that pays a fraction! Do the various hands of the U.S. government know what the others are doing? Is the CIA under control? Under whose control?

More sobering, this revelation comes atop proof, as good as it gets, that the Afghan election was entirely tainted by profound corruption, e.g. thousands of ballots from “precincts” returned with identical markings for Karzai, not even folded.

So the question arises: IF we really don’t have a credible Afghan government to uphold that pillar of an anti-insurgency after eight bloody years, and if we are knee-deep in the corrupt aspects of that government, then what in bloody hell are we doing risking the lives of American soldiers in that Gold-forsaken place? Why are we not cutting a deal with the Taliban: Hand over bin Laden and we’ll go home; refuse and we’ll bomb living shit out of Pashtunistan until we’re pretty goddamned sure bin Laden is dust. And good luck to the boys in Islamabad; get your eyes off India and see if you can control territory you claim to be yours.

As I type this, I’m watching a member of the United States military, surrounded by her fellow warriors, sing God Bless America at the 7th inning break of Game One of the World Series in the new Yankee Stadium. Cut-away shots of the flag, the Statue of Liberty. And a strong emotion arises: If our government, including and perhaps most especially the Central F’ing Intelligence Agency, can’t support our troops, then those troops need to be brought home to see Game 2 while the rest of us get busy putting the American house in order before launching into an effort to sell other nations how to organize their affairs.

There are dangers is over-simplifying the complex. There are equal dangers is over-complicating the basic.

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13 thoughts on “The Karzai Brothers and FM 3-24: Year IX”

  1. I believe that the adminsitrtion is reevaluting the Taliban to some degree.

    The Pashtun tribe isn’t going to go away.

    Some sort of incentive to bring them to a bargaining table seems reasonable.

    1. The Taliban, so far as I can tell, do not comprise a single force, not in Afghanistan and for sure not in Pakistan.

      Suspect that some contemporary version of the Vietnam-era “teach-ins” would be of value, not only to gain better understanding for all and sundry, but also to counter the rather simplistic propagandistic approach favored by the last administration and the Echo Chamber formerly known as the news media. (OK, that’s not fair; apologies to The New Yorker, New York Times, and many others.)

      The Web is ideal for such a teach-in effort. Anyone know of such a thing already in existence?

    1. .

      Petraeus didn’t write it, after all.  He made some revisions to an existing manual.  

      Most of what he added was derived from purported “lessons learned” from the British suppression of an insurgency in what is now Malaysia, 1948-50.

      Those same “lessons learned” were considered by the authors of the earlier edition, but discarded, because …

      because the “insurgents” in parts of Malaysia were ethnic Chinese, visibly distinguishable from the rest of the population.   They also lived apart in separate “Chinatowns.”

      Nothing like RVN, which was the inspiration for the previous revision.  Also, nothing like Iraq War II or AfPak.

      SSG Dan knows more about Counterinsurgency than Dave Petraeus.

      .

      1. Fairness to GEN P, he did revise some stuff that HQ geeks have to have in order to write Operations Orders.

        And, other than the GITMO FM, what other Field Manual gets written from the ground up? Even the FM on NCO duties and responsibilities (it’s sad I can’t quote it now) was written during a Day Room Coffee session, and all it did was formalize what senior NCOs already knew.

        When I was a young Infantry soldier, one of the S3 Officers (former Enlisted Green Bean) gave me an SF publication from the mid 60s – it included Brit, US, Soviet authors, and even a blurb from Mao….and all of that was more useful that today’s version of FM 3-24.  

      2. …we could argue that Vietnam had elements of both a conventional war (vs. AVN) and an insurgency (VC). We tried to fight the former, whereas it was the latter that ended up winning. Or did it?

        In any case, I’d be personally v. interested in your views and those of SSG Dan in particular on

        (a) what role does eight years of misdirected effort (or 6 or 7 years, depending on how you want to count) play? I.e., “passage of time” as a factor.

        (b) given that we are today at absolute ground zero in terms of a credible central government, can we really keep on slogging while hoping to set one up? With what expectation of success?

        (c) what role does domestic exhaustion with war in general and this one in particular play?

        (d) what role does tribal identity play–a big one, I know–vis a vis a counter insurgency in Afghan? It would seem to have an impact on the Taliban…surely it has a role on counter-insurgency forces as well, but I’m unaware of our side exploiting this angle.

        and (e) at the risk of sounding like Goody Twoshoes just by asking, how would you evaluate the chances of negotiating with the Taliban on terms of a reasonably graceful exit, including a promise to leave Pakistan outside the Tribal Areas alone?

        Latest I read is that BHO plans to send more troops, but fewer than McChrystal requested. Something about protecting population centers and presumably leaving the caves etc to the Taliban. Feasible?

        What elements are left out of the foregoing?

        1. …this podcast on KCRW’s To The Point has been one of the most adult and rational I’ve heard on the subject:

          http://www.kcrw.com/news/progr…

          I agree with the majority assessment – we can’t bomb our way to victory. We also can’t win by just adding more troops to the meatgrinder. And we definitely fail by packing up and leaving.

          So what do we do? Step One, POTUS needs to tell us what victory is. Is it ensuring that Afghanistan will never be used by Extremists as a base for Terrorism? Is it bringing Osama Bin Laden’s Head on stick? Or is it setting up stable and friendly gov’t that will sign oil pipeline deals with the West?

          Step two, what resources are we willing to commit towards working for that goal? Are we willing to buy Poppies from the Afghan farmers and pay them more than the Bad Guys? Or pay them to grow saffron? How about out-bidding the Taliban and paying $20/head for their services? Will we put 10th Mountain on the AFPKA border, and march across the countryside till we find OBL’s house?

          Step three, can we provide enough of everything to make the Afghan gov’t a legitimate “side” in this war? 99% of the country gives a crap what happens in Kabul – it might as well be Mars to them. Is the key to treat the countryside like Western Samoa, where the central gov’t controls 10% of the turf and lets the Tribal Chieftans do whatever they want on the rest, provided they swear allegiance to the central gov’t? In that case, does it matter who wins the election? Is it time for a King?

          Step Four, can we keep enough fast. nimble and awesome force in the region to blast the Taliban and A-Q whenever they show their face in the countryside? Can we do it without fragging all the local population that’s going to be in the way?

          I’d actually like to hook up with B-X in person, and present a joint Diary…..

          1. You said: “We definitely fail by packing up and leaving.” How so?

            IF we can negotiate some deal w/ the Taliban to (a) leave Pakistan alone south of the Tribal Areas and (b) NOT to give OBL sanctuary–a big IF, certainly, but not out of the question–then we leave Afghanistan roughly where it was in 2001: the Pastun Taliban slugging it out with the Tajiks and Uzbeks of the Northern Alliance, along with whatever tribal rivalries exist within the Taliban. Not a happy situation, but neither is the present one.

            It’s no disrespect to the abilities and dedication of the US armed forces to think that Afghanistan is a place where others who have preceded in their footsteps have been unable to conquer the real enemy, which is the Himalayas and the mountain-tribal culture which they breed. IF we reconsider this conflict in that light, i.e. the Afghanistan national light, instead of in the “world Islamic caliphate threat that is the successor to the world Communist threat,” as Al Qaeda and Dick Cheney would have us believe, our definition of winning and losing might differ significantly.

            All of which really comes back around to your first point: what is our strategic goal there? If we captured bin Laden and Zawahiri tomorrow, then would we leave the day after that? Somehow I doubt it. Is Afghanistan really suitable territory for pipelines (from where to where?), versus say Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan? How does Paki-Indian rivalry fit into this picture?

            I’ll try the podcast. Thanks.

            1. …getting into the C-17’s and leaving. Unlike Iraq, we could probably bail pretty fast from AFPAK.

              Even in the face of negotiation, we wouldn’t really broker anything that would leave even uncertain peace. Why? For the same reason we can’t broker it now – the Taliban are not some representative gov’t -they’re hundreds of tribes.

              Even if we managed to bribe enough of them to pull out quickly, those deals go away the moment the sun goes down. Rivalries and Alliances get re-draw, and two major groups fight over the country again. And either the Taliban or another group put us back to 2000.

              If that’s the case, A-Q and the rest of their ilk set up shop again. Now, we MIGHT be able to keep enough firepower around to blow the crap out of them on odd-numbered Thursdays, but they’re still able to do some damage exporting their Jihadist philosophy via the internet and social media.

              As far as signing sweetheart deals with the energy industry, start here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T…

              It’s why Karzai wants to keep calling the shots.

              1. …except to say they will turn out to be damned expensive and insecure when there are cheaper and more secure alternatives to the north. What went through the mind of Cheney in this respect I don’t know, but he is yesteryear’s man.

                Agree that neither we nor anyone else will be able to negotiate a lasting peace in Afghanistan. But we might be able to do a deal vis a vis Al Qaeda in Afghanistan that would stick. That was our nominal reason for going in initially and could provide a reasonable cover for departing, made all the more possible by evidence that Al Qaeda seems to be moving into Yemen, possibily Somalia, with Sudan as a backstop (again). All three of these, possible exception of Yemen, seem like more likely theatres than Afghanistan.  

          2. .

            I think that the best bet for the US would be to keep acting like we really want to consolidate power at the top central government level,

            but at the same time work to help popular Provincial Governors get into office and strengthen them.  

            Today, the governors are all appointed by Karzai.  In some Pashtun provinces, the Provincial Governor doesn’t even speak Pashtun language.  

            100 or so years ago, the name “Afghanistan” actually referred to what we now call the Pashtuns.  The Pashtuns think that the Hazaras and Tadjiks and Uzbeks and Turcomans and Kazakhs and Uigers and all them Mexicans ought to be pushed out of “their” country.  

            They are the majority, almost (about 18 million out of 38 million, give or take.)

            All the minorities, ganging up against the Pashtuns is what we call the “Northern Alliance.”  

            I think we need to reduce NATO troops, from around 100K to about 40K, and increase USAID and development bureaucrats from about 400 to about 20,000.  That doesn’t include USAID contractors, which I think are between 2,500 – 10,000.

            As an aside, I was selected for a State Dept job, out in the provinces, back in July.  I might find out about my security clearance by March NEXT YEAR.  There is zero sense of urgency at State Department Headquarters.  

            SSG Dan,

            I’d be happy to contribute to a joint diary, but I think you know more about that theater than me.  Use my Stabilize (underscore) Iraq at Yahoo email.  

            .

            1. … an intelligent, informed, and sophisticated discussion this topic. Any recommendations?

              More substantively, should we reconsider recognizing arbitrary lines on maps, such as the Durand Line, which have no relationship (as far as I know) to the people living there? Should we accept as a given that a strong central government ain’t gonna happen in Afghanistan, and focus our attention on the provinces? (I guess that’s your point above)?

              I get the strong sense that the public discussion of our involvement in Afghanistan is weighted down by ignorance, misconceptions, and prejudices rooted in the events of 9/11. I’m curious whether anyone can point us to an existing source of de facto “teach-in” on this topic.

              As for your security clearance, well, you could start by eliminating phrases like “I don’t know.” If you want to succeed in government, surely you start with the phrase: “I know all that needs to be known.”

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