There are reports this morning of new action against the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan:
KHOST, Afghanistan (AFP) — NATO warplanes killed 15 militants after rebels attacked a government building in Afghanistan Tuesday, officials said, while an Afghan policewoman was killed in the first attack of its kind.
The violence added to the toll in one of the bloodiest months so far in an insurgency launched by the ultra-Islamist Taliban movement after its ouster from government by US-led forces in 2001.
Several foreign militants were among the dead after the airstrike by the NAT0-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the eastern province of Paktia, near the troubled border with Pakistan, officials said.
Insurgents opened fire on the headquarters of the province’s Sayed Karam district but were driven away after a gunbattle which caused slight damage to the building, provincial government spokesman Rohullah Samoon said.
“NATO helicopters then bombed the militants and killed 14 militants on the spot. Our policemen arrested another four wounded, and one of the wounded also died in hospital,” Samoon told AFP.
The injured rebels were from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, he said.
“The three arrested terrorists have told police that most of the 15 Taliban killed in the air strike were Pakistani nationals and some of them from Arab countries,” he said.
Khost is within a few kilometers of the Pakistani border. As I’ve noted before I fail to see how the situation in Afghanistan can be maintained let alone brought under control so long as the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan remains uncontrolled. The Pakistanis have shown, essentially, no interest in controlling it from their side and I can’t imagine NATO (including the U. S.) putting enough troops in Afghanistan to control it from the Afghan side. As I’ve mentioned before, the costs would be prohibitive.
Former CIA analyst and Al Qaeda authority Michael Scheurer quotes Frank Holt’s book on Alexander the Great’s experience in Afghanistan:
Afghanistan cannot be subdued by half measures. Invaders must consider the deadly demands of winter warfare, since all gains from seasonal campaigns are erased at every lull. Invaders must resolve to hunt down every warlord, for the one exception will surely rot the fruits of all other victories. Invaders cannot succeed by avoiding cross-border warfare, since the mobile insurgents can otherwise hide and reinforce with impunity. Invaders must calculate where to draw the decisive line between killing and conciliation, for too much of either means interminable conflict. Finally, all invaders so far have had to face one more difficult choice: once mired in a winless situation, they have tried to cut their losses through one of two exit strategies:
1.) Retreat, as did the British and Soviets, with staggering losses.
2.) Leave a large army of occupation permanently settled in the area, as Alexander did.
Neither option seems acceptable to the United States, which must therefore learn from its predecessors’ mistakes and seek another path.
In comments recently FF proposed another alternative:
1) You mine the borders.
2) You bomb the crap out of their strongholds as you find them.
3)Any Taliban or Al Qaeda fighters you capture you interrogate, execute and bury in a pigskin, so that potential recruits get a clear message.
4) You likewise send a clear message to the new Pakistani government that a separate peace with these scum is not an option for them, and that if they are willing to help clean up this human garbage,(including access for our military) we’ll keep the aid coming in. If they won’t, we’ll do it for them- and in that case, we consider them part of the problem rather than a neutral sovereign government, with all that entails.
I think that’s a rather obvious non-starter.
I can’t say I look on any of those alternatives with any particular relish. My own view is something closer to the alternative that Dr. Holt attributed to Alexander and which I’ve characterized as “Fort Apache”: be prepared to leave a significant number of troops in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future whose missions are force protection and denying the territory to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
The first mistaken assumption is that the border CAN be controlled without pouring in hundreds of thousands of troops–minimum. It can’t. The Balochs is the South are mild-mannered and friendly compared to the Pashtun, and even with both the Iranian and Paki governments agreed on control and location of that smaller 700km border in much less forbidding terrain, and the placing of thousands of troops on both sides and hundreds of guard towers and ongoing fence-building, those two nations between them can’t control THAT border. It remains porous.
The second mistaken assumption is that both Afghanistan and Pakistan are even interested in establishing a mutually accepted border line through the FATA. They’re not. The national “border” in the FATA (the Durand Line) remains in dispute–just as it has for over a century. The FATA on both sides of the Durand Line is still a no man’s land, controlled only by the tribes if controlled by anyone. Any time either country moves in a large number of troops, mutual distrust results in the other country counter-positioning. At best, either country can control one small area for a time…and doing so results in the other country moving up to control their side of that one small area. Escalation by either nation in troop numbers at any given spot is not a good idea…it leads directly to counter-escalation. AQ and Taliban cheer it on…and go where the troops aren’t.
The third mistaken assumption is that there is any alliance at all between Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is not. The Afghans are aligned with the Americans, and the Americans are aligned with the Pakistanis, but the Afghans are not aligned with the Pakistanis. Coordinated cross-border action is only vaguely possible in small doses at best, and that brokered through mutiple layers of both nationals and locals. By the time you can achieve that agreement, the AQ/Taliban factions have long been forewarned and moved to another area.
Fourth bad assumption is that Musharraf, however friendly and cooperative he may be, is actually in autocratic control of his nation and military and can order them to do what he wants and be obeyed, even in such a seemingly small thing as allowing US and Afghan troops to raid cross-border into Paki territory. Just not true. The military is quite powerful in its own right, and somewhat independent. If Musharraf insisted, Musharraf would be out of power (and probably dead) and Pakistan would quickly be back under control of the military. Which is somewhat less friendly towards us than is Musharraf.
The Pashtun are not interested in the national border being controlled unless they are controlling it. They do not want their people divided by the politics of outsiders. They have no interest in helping us assault the AQ/Taliban. As far as they’re concerned both governments can just bleep off. Very real ethnic divide there.
I’d add that FF’s #2 is the best we can manage. The other three are DEFINITE non-starters. Alexander the Great’s advice remains as true today as it was 2000 years ago.
You bomb the crap out of their strongholds as you find them.
The problem with this approach is that the “strongholds” are often just villages that the fighters happen to occupy at a given time. Bomb the crap out of them and significant civilian casualties from our bombs are assured. That would be a sure way to lose hearts & minds, which could (probably would) lead to more fighters in more villages, leading to more civilian deaths at our hands, etc.
And your Fort Apache reference is quite appropriate. If we are to make progress in Afghanistan it will have to be on a time frame comparable to that which tamed the Wild West and will require similar force commitments. (Which is to say, the forces will garrisons or hardened professional military personnel that are seemingly too small for the task. In Afghanistan, even more than in Iraq, persistance is THE prerequisite for victory, or something approximating victory.) Warfare in Afghanistan is of an older type than what Westerners typically think of warfare.
Hi Y’all,
I would remind you that IMO the problem is not ‘subduing Afghanistan’ but defeating the Taliban, keeping them out of Afghanistan and denying them a safe haven next door in Pakistan. With those goals in mind, my little 4 point plan works quite well, I think, provided it’s all done as a comprehensive strategy . The Brits and the Soviets, on the other hand WERE trying to subdue and conquer Afghanistan…different scenario.
I’d hate to think that we’re at a point where some 7th centriy brigands are calling the shots and we just respond. That’s a certain recipe for defeat.
There are some interesting parallels between Afghanistan and Iraq although there are obvious differences. There were tribalk chiefs of different ethnicities there too, and just as the Iraqi Sunnis had a nice snootful of Al Qaeda, the local chiefs don’t particularly relish being under theTaliban’s thumb. And they can also be bought, provided we also back them up with some muscle and they realize we’re there to win. Th eperception of strength is everything in this part of the world.
Mine the borders to make it more difficult to come in from Pakistan ( it had good results in India in Kashmir); bomb the crap out of their strongholds wherever you find them, just as we did with the Germans and Japanese in WWII (ah, for the wit and wisdom of Curtis LeMay);make sure that any potential recruits understand that not only are they likely to die, but without the propaganda benefit of ending up in ‘paradise’; and force the Pakistani government to pick whether they want to be part of the problem or part of the solution.
That’s how you fight a war to win, I think..not by staying on the defensive and reacting to whatever the enemy throws at you.
Regards,
ff
*With those goals in mind, my little 4 point plan works quite well, I think, provided it’s all done as a comprehensive strategy.*
Except that both logistically and politically, it’s a completely unworkable fantasy. Details….