by Daniel Korski | Jan 7, 2009 | Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Global Dashboard
One of the presumed parts of Obama’s Afghan strategy will be to look at ways of coopting the country’s various tribes, much like General David Petraeus did it in Iraq. The idea has sparked off a torrent of criticism in the foreign policy community.
One of the smartest young Democratic things, Brookings security expert Vanda Felbab-Brown, wrote to Obama that his administration should cultivate Afghan tribal leaders, but it would be a mistake to expect them to play a military role in the counterinsurgency. Michael Williams, the US-born British academic spoke for many when he called the idea “a very high-risk strategy that cuts directly against counter-insurgency theory and will most likely be seen in hindsight as a serious mistake.”
Those with longer memories talk about the failure of the Red Army to work with the Afghan tribes. The Russians spent large sums of money arming and supporting tribes in their own “Vietnamization” strategy. So much money was, in fact, spent that Kandahar in the south of the country, saw an in-flux of clothes from Pakistan and shoes from France, were the norm. For a short period it worked. The defection of one commander, Esmat Muslim, to the Afghan government’s side was said to be a blow for the mujahedeen, who suddenly found all their routes to Pakistan had been compromised. But once the Soviets left the in-fighting began. Even Esmat Muslim was not able to manage all the problems in Kandahar.
Those who reject any comparison between Iraq and Afghanistan, like author Alex Strick van Linschoten highlight key differences in the two countries. The Taliban movement, even if it contains foreign fighters, has deep roots in Afghan society. Many Taliban commanders grew up through the 1980s jihad against the Soviets. In this, the Taliban are different than Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, who were run by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and seen by many tribesmen as foreigners.
A key factor in Iraq was also the cruelty of Al Qaeda, which proved too much for the Anbari tribesmen. Though the Taliban have displayed similar cruelty -– for example in the recent Maiwand atrocities where many Laghmani civilians were killed –- but the Afghan government has not been able to spread information about such acts. The final problem in transferring solutions from Iraq to Afghanistan is the nature of the Taliban’s recent success. Since 2005, the Taliban has bandied together with a strong network of drug barons, while forcing many tribesmen to be supportive or, at the very least, remain passive towards the insurgency. Reaching out to these groups is unlikely to succeed, it is claimed, as they benefit from the status quo and the U.S cannot offer a better, long-term alternative.
But in Rageh Omar’s latest documentary for Al Jazeera — Pakistan’s War: On The Frontline – another side emerges. In Bajaur province – where Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s second in command, is believed to be hiding – the documentary shows how the Pakistani army has managed to do exactly what the U.S is now contemplating. In their fight against the Pakistani Taliban the army has armed a particular tribe, which is now charged with keeping the peace in a number of cities. So far, it has proven successful and is being emulated in other places.
Yesterday, Omar was careful not to say the strategy could necessarily work elsewhere. But he was emphatic that it seemed to work in Bajaur; and that he knew of several examples where tribesmen had asked to be armed or had risen up against the Pakistani Taliban spontaneously.
So far, both the strategy of working with the tribes -– and the backlash against the idea –- seemed to be based on speculation and hunches rather than the kind of hard empirical research the question merits. Before any steps are taken let us hope the Obama administration commissions research on the tribes, and comparative experiences. For this is exactly the kind of complex policy dilemma that requires an evidence-based approach rather than the gut-based policy-making of the Bush administration or the arm-chair soldiering so beloved by left and right alike in Washington, DC.
by Richard Gowan | Jan 6, 2009 | Influence and networks, South Asia
So, Benazir Bhutto’s daughter has released a rap video lamenting the loss of her mother just over a year ago:
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RxgiLARd5I&feature=related]
Now, I’ll admit I didn’t expect that. But those arbiters of taste at Vanity Fair know what this means. It means they can diss Puff Daddy (a.k.a Sean “Diddy”… you know the rest):
As tributes go, Bhutto’s video is superior to “I’ll Be Missing You,” Puffy and Evans’s musical memorial to the Notorious B.I.G., who was murdered on March 9, 1997. For one thing, Puffy’s big budget (and bigger ego) lured him off-topic, and there are too many shots of him riding his tricked-out motorcycle and spinning in the rain.
Bhutto’s video, while amateurish, is filled with inspiring montages of her mother campaigning shortly before her death and of the masses mourning her.
The songs are different too. Puffy’s shameless sample of the Police’s “Every Breath You Take” may have won him a Grammy, but it was also the first sign of his impending ubiquity. It’s all about him missing his dead friend. Bhutto keeps the focus on her late mother…
Which, evidently, would be too much effort for the VF guys. That’s 2009 off to a tasteful start.
by Richard Gowan | Jan 6, 2009 | Conflict and security, Influence and networks, North America, South Asia
Bob Herbert of the New York Times:
Our interest in Afghanistan is to prevent it from becoming a haven for terrorists bent on attacking us. That does not require the scale of military operations that the incoming administration is contemplating. It does not require a wholesale occupation. It does not require the endless funneling of human treasure and countless billions of taxpayer dollars to the Afghan government at the expense of rebuilding the United States, which is falling apart before our very eyes.
The government we are supporting in Afghanistan is a fetid hothouse of corruption, a government of gangsters and weasels whose customary salute is the upturned palm. Listen to this devastating assessment by Dexter Filkins of The Times:
“Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American and other foreign aid, the government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption and graft. From the lowliest traffic policeman to the family of President Hamid Karzai himself, the state built on the ruins of the Taliban government seven years ago now often seems to exist for little more than the enrichment of those who run it.”
Think about putting your life on the line for that gang.
If Mr. Obama does send more troops to Afghanistan, he should go on television and tell the American people, in the clearest possible language, what he is trying to achieve. He should spell out the mission’s goals, and lay out an exit strategy.
He will owe that to the public because he will own the conflict at that point. It will be Barack Obama’s war.
by Alex Evans | Jan 6, 2009 | Global system, Influence and networks
James Meek’s meditation in G2 yesterday on how the credit crunch was born was a tour de force, both fresh and considered. Definitely worth a look if you missed it.
“Nowadays,” wrote Saul Bellow in his novel Humboldt’s Gift, “the categories are grasped by those who belong to them.” It’s not just that we see the economic crisis rearing up out of the sea in the distance, like a slow-motion tsunami from which, despite its creeping speed, we cannot escape. What makes the situation peculiar is that the crisis that threatens us also seems to be us; we are simultaneously menaced by the wave, and exist as elements of the wave. After all, that is what an economic crisis is: the sum of all the individual actions of billions of people around the world, deciding whether to lend or hoard, borrow or save, sell or buy, move or stay, hire or fire, study or look for work, be pessimistic or optimistic.
It’s like those mysterious polls of “consumer confidence” in which pundits set so much store. How confident am I about the future? Well, I’m confident if everybody else is confident. I’ll tell the survey how confident I am when I see what that confidence survey says.
by Mark Weston | Jan 5, 2009 | Africa, Conflict and security
As the US responds to Somali piracy the only way it knows how – through force – Johann Hari in the Independent reveals that it is not just illegal foreign fishing vessels (which steal $300m worth of fish every year) that have aggravated Somalis and encouraged them to resort to piracy. Europeans have also been dumping nuclear waste in the sea off the Somali coast:
As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.
The UN envoy to Somalia told Hari, “Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it.” According to Hari, “Much of the waste can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to “dispose” of cheaply…This is the context in which the “pirates” have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a “tax” on them.”
The buccaneers are popular with local people. 70 per cent of Somalis interviewed by a local news site “strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence.” The case against pirates has never been as black and white as the world’s great powers like to paint it. Hari tells the story of one of their number who was captured by an earlier superpower in the 4th century BC:
He was brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know “what he meant by keeping possession of the sea.” The pirate smiled, and responded: “What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor.”
