Conversations with Gizab leaders and Special Forces officers suggest that there was no single proximate cause. The uprising appears to have been the result of a combination of Taliban overreaching, U.S. encouragement and local resentment.
“We’re looking for the patterns,” said a State Department official in southern Afghanistan. “If we can find it, we’ll be on the verge of a breakthrough.”
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I really liked this article for several reasons. For one, good for Lalay for taking matter into his own hands and rallying the village for the defense. The second part I like, is the strategy development aspect of this article. They are trying to see the patterns that led up to Lalay taking matters into his own hands, and the keys to success of a tribal defense force like this.
So let’s look at some of the factors of success which I keyed in on, and also what is required to replicate this. (in my opinion at least)
The first is motivation. There must be motivation within the village to rise up against the Taliban. You also need a leader who has the motivation to rise up, and manage the revolt. So motivation is important. And consequence do to inaction is also important. These guys had both.
You also need a leader who has the will or resolve to do this. Not everyone can be a Lalay–someone that folks look up to and think of as a strong leader. This guy has to be someone that people respect and identify with. And that ‘Lalay’ needs to be pissed off enough to act. Which goes back to motivation. The Taliban pissed off Lalay by wanting the money that the government gave Lalay for the loss of his family, due to a Taliban IED. That would piss me off too. But acting on that anger, and putting action to words takes a special kind of individual.
Notice also that Lalay executed three prisoners. Culturally speaking, this was acceptable to them and at that time. This shows the kind of resolve Lalay has, and how much hatred he has for the Taliban. Acts like that may be be repulsive to the west, but in Afghanistan, that is an act of someone with determination and little regard for an enemy that has little regard for him. It also shows that Lalay has the strength necessary to kill the bad guy–no weakness there, and a village in dire straights needs a leader who has that strength. And notice in the article that folks are flocking to his program of village defense. Of course we would like him to not kill prisoners, and I don’t condone that here. I am just saying that the act itself is something he felt he had to do in order to get the respect(from the village, from the Taliban) necessary to do what he had to do. To him, showing compassion (weakness) was not part of the game plan.
It kind of reminds me of the old west movies, where a town is held captive by some bad people, and no one has the courage to step up. And then some contract sheriff comes into town, or some stranger on a pale horse, and motivates the people to do something about it (of course after the pale rider has that motivation to do so). Meanwhile, that individual shows great resolve in defeating those bad people. And usually in those movies, that leader had to be more ruthless and effective than those bad guys. In the case of Lalay, he was that stranger riding into town on the horse. He was that guy that said ‘follow me’.
Now the next point is where I can inject some common sense free market warfare principles into this conversation, that the military planners and strategists continue to miss or forget. You must provide reward or interest, much like General George Washington provided such things to his troops in order to maintain a standing army(or village defense force). If you want to make this the most popular team to be on, then pay them accordingly and give them the weapons and training necessary to do the job. I cannot emphasize this enough. Pay them more than the Taliban offers, and pay them enough to be competitive with the military or police.
If that won’t work, then provide a bounty system for the endeavor. Put a price on the heads of Taliban that are wanted by the government. It worked in the wild west, and it could work in Afghanistan if set up properly. The point with all of this is there must be incentive. Because without incentive, a volunteer force will eventually dissolve because they have more important things to do like take care of their family, farm, etc. Stuff to think about, and I think any effort dedicated to understanding the dynamics of this event is time well spent.
Finally, I have to inject another point into this discussion that is not talked about. If the Taliban are giving up to Lalay, then Lalay is in a prime position to set up pseudo-operations, and use those former enemy combatants to find even more of these booger eaters. If Lalay declared that if these former Taliban want redemption in the village, that they ‘must do this one thing’ for the village, then this might be a way to turn some of these guys. These former Taliban would be outstanding tools to use for really screwing up their former employers. That is how you find out who the shadow government is, what they are up to and where they are at. We could be making awesome matrixes off of this information, and doing some heavy duty damage. You could also find out who is sympathetic to the Taliban in these villages, all because you have turned Taliban who can walk the walk, and talk the talk. No acting really required there, and turning these guys and using Lalay for that process should be considered. –Matt
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U.S. eager to replicate Afghan villagers’ successful revolt against Taliban
By Rajiv ChandrasekaranMonday, June 21, 2010
GIZAB, AFGHANISTAN — The revolt of the Gizab Good Guys began with a clandestine 2 a.m. meeting. By sunrise, 15 angry villagers had set up checkpoints on the main road and captured their first prisoners. In the following hours, their ranks swelled with dozens of rifle-toting neighbors eager to join.
Gunfights erupted and a panicked request for help was sent to the nearest U.S. troops, but the residents of this mountain-ringed hamlet in southern Afghanistan held their ground. By sundown, they managed to pull off a most unusual feat: They kicked out the Taliban.
“We had enough of their oppression,” Lalay, the one-named shopkeeper who organized the uprising, said in recounting the late April battle. “So we decided to fight back.”
U.S. diplomats and military officials view the rebellion as a milestone in the nearly nine-year-long war. For the first time in this phase of the conflict, ordinary Afghans in the violence-racked south have risen on their own to reclaim territory under insurgent control.