“The Taliban are everywhere, they are like scorpions under every stone, and they are stinging all those who get assistance or help the government and the Americans,” Mr. Rahman, the farmer, said.
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You know, sometimes the best way to understand Afghanistan, is to look at it from the eyes of the farmer on the ground that is wedged in between this fight between the Afghan/Coalition and the Taliban. And honestly, I don’t blame these farmers and their families for packing up and leaving out of fear for their lives. I can also see why they are probably mad, confused, and have no respect at all for the Afghan government and the Coalition.
The bottom line is that the Taliban are the home team, they are everywhere and they are all whispering into the ears of Afghans everywhere. They are telling them that when the coalition leaves, anyone that supported them or the Afghan government, is going to get their throats slit. They are also telling them that time is on the Taliban’s side–‘the coalition has the watches, but the Taliban have the time’.
The Taliban are also doing their best to show that they are a better government for the people, than the Afghan government, and they are doing it in classic mafia style. It’s a shadow government, and they are doing anything they can to either win support, or get that support out of fear and intimidation.
So let’s go back to how we turn this around. There is no such thing as one solution or just one thing that will fix it all. It is my belief that you have to attack problems from multiple angles, and learn from mistakes to create the better solution. So having a learning organization is important, if in fact we want to find the right solution for a specific problem. It is what John Nagl identified as one of the reasons why we lost in Vietnam, and it is a lesson that should be applied today if we want to win in Afghanistan. So are we learning from mistakes and do we have learning organizations all focused on ways to defeat this shadow government, while at the same time elevating the legitimacy of the current Afghan government? Are we learning new ways of separating the Taliban from the population, or are we stuck in old ways that just don’t work? Most of all, are we listening to customer (locals) feedback and doing all we can to win their support, or are we standing around and just allowing the Taliban to do whatever the hell they want in places like Marja?
And in true Feral Jundi fashion, I don’t just criticize, I also like to suggest solutions. The first solution I want to offer, is that we should assign squads to each farm, blocks of houses, or small cities. Tim has mentioned this on his blog, and the one thing that puts a cramp in the style of mafias, is a police or military that shows presence and hinders bad guy business on that particular patch of soil. In other words, we need to own Marja and in a big way. It’s like the ships that keep getting hijacked in the Gulf of Aden. You put security details on the ships, then pirates will have a tougher time of attacking it. Navy patrols do not stop pirates alone, and having well armed security professionals on the boat is insurance that the boat is protected if the patrols fail. We should be treating towns and farms in Afghanistan, like we should be treating ships in the Gulf of Aden. (I say should, because we are still not there completely–but close)
I also think that if there is not enough soldiers to do this, well then contract the thing out. If contractors can protect FOBs, we can protect small towns, farms, etc. This is not rocket science, and to me, it is purely a numbers game. Determine the needs in manpower, put it out for bid, and treat it just like TWISS or the CMC program that the Army Corps of Engineers put on. Instead of defending bases, we could instead be defending Farms and Ranches. (hint)
So on top of implementing sufficient defenses for these locals and showing presence to crimp the style of the Taliban shadow government/mafia, we should also be doing all we can to cause chaos within the ranks of the Taliban. I keep coming back to pseudo-operations as the best way to do that, along with relying on tips from the locals. But with pseudo-operations, the Taliban would really become paranoid, much like organized crime gets all paranoid by snitches or undercover cops posing as criminals within their organization. We should be doing all we can to insert ‘scorpions’ of our own into the Taliban machine, to share that space under the rock and get within their OODA loop. The Taliban needs some paranoia and confusion within their ranks, and the less centralized the Taliban are, the better it is for us. This would be labeled under ‘finding is better than flanking’. Hell, I would even call this tactic, ‘finding and flanking all rolled up into one big burrito of chaos’. lol Hey, the Taliban are conducting their own version of pseudo-operations every time they put on a police or soldier uniform and attack the Afghan government and/or people, we should be doing it too.
Another point I wanted to make, is that we should also be looking more at honey pot strategies in order to lure out these ‘scorpions’. I read a great story the other day in the Stars and Stripes about a unit who is tasked with finding IED’s in Afghanistan, and they are doing a great job of it. The reason why they are doing a good job, is presence on the roads, becoming a better learning organization because of it, and looking at the roads as honey pots that draw in the enemy so they can kill them. If you give a unit the freedom to think up the solutions necessary to not only find IED’s but to actually go after the planters of IED’s and make the lives of those bomb farmers a living hell, well then now we are talking success. Matter of fact, I would take it one step further. I would provide a financial incentive to units that are able to find IED’s. Make it a game where finding the things and the makers/planters have value. If the Taliban want to make the roads a battleground, then we need to destroy them on that battleground. We also need to dominate the other battleground called people. And hey, if we actually got off the roads and hung out at the farms and villages for awhile, well then that would kind of throw a wrench into the whole IED game.
Finally, why are we not growing food for the troops in Afghanistan itself? We can also grow fennel seed and make biodiesel. (A million dollars per soldier for a year, is waaaaay too much money to spend on this stuff, and we can do better) We can partner with these farmers to grow that food and biodiesel, and create an entire industry out of supporting the troops through agriculture. We can also grow the stuff on the FOBs, and secure food stocks that way too. Of course we will still have to ship in food, but when it is harvest season there is no reason why we shouldn’t take advantage of that. We have been there 9 years, and we are still shipping in food and fuel from other places and that makes things way to expensive-both in lives lost on convoys, and in money terms. The more we can become self sufficient in Afghanistan, the better. We will also interact with and come to depend upon the people, and create real partnerships that will give a true return on investment.
The other thing to think about is what message does that send to the local farmer, when we ship in tomatoes from somewhere else? It pisses off farmers in the US when we ship in tomatoes from somewhere else and not go local, why wouldn’t it irk local Afghan farmers? To develop a food production plan/strategy (agro-strategy) to feed all of these troops for all of these years, would have been smart and cost effective. It would have also invigorated the local farms of Afghanistan, and given them something to grow other than poppy for the Taliban. It would have also given farmers something to export when we all leave, and the money made off of exports could have brought in money to the Afghan government and people for the rebuild of their country. Not to mention turning Afghanistan into the biodiesel capital of Central Asia by growing their own fuel.(ambitious, I know) We still have a chance to get them going on this path, and agro-strategy and people protection should be top priorities in Marja and in Afghanistan. –Matt
Edit: 5/19/2010 – Check out this excellent article from Strategy Page on how the war on IED’s is going in Afghanistan.
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Taliban Hold Sway in Area Taken by U.S., Farmers Say
By CARLOTTA GALL
May 16, 2010
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan — Farmers from the district of Marja, which since February has been the focus of the largest American-led military operation in Afghanistan, are fleeing the area, saying that the Taliban are terrorizing the population and that American troops cannot protect the civilians.
The departure of the farmers is one of the most telling indications that Taliban fighters have found a way to resume their insurgency, three months after thousands of troops invaded this Taliban stronghold in the opening foray of a campaign to take control of southern Afghanistan. Militants have been infiltrating back into the area and the prospect of months of more fighting is undermining public morale, residents and officials said.
As the coalition prepares for the next major offensive in the southern city of Kandahar, the uneasy standoff in Marja, where neither the American Marines nor the Taliban have gained the upper hand and clashes occur daily, provides a stark lesson in the challenges of eliminating a patient and deeply rooted insurgency.
Over 150 families have fled Marja in the last two weeks, according to the Afghan Red Crescent Society in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah.
Marja residents arriving here last week, many looking bleak and shell-shocked, said civilians had been trapped by the fighting, running a gantlet of mines laid by insurgents and firefights around government and coalition positions. The pervasive Taliban presence forbids them from having any contact with or taking assistance from the government or coalition forces.