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A Third Way for Afghanistan?

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A Third Way for Afghanistan?

Old 8th Oct 2009, 11:12
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Dead Pan

Perhaps we could learn from the Israeli's experience of plonking new settlements in the middle of nowhere?
Nowhere? There were/are real live families, olive trees living there: they're called Palestinians. Here's some insight into your "nowhere": Concerns over olive harvest increase for families under threat of settlers :: www.uruknet.info :: informazione dall'Iraq occupato :: news from occupied Iraq :: [vs-1]

As for "settlements" in Afghanistan, they're called "forward operating bases" that would more perfectly ape the Israeli model if their populations were given farm tools and a few bags of fertilizer -- that's what the PLA does for hardship posts in China and the installations become self-sufficient for food.

And kebab is as tasty as falafel.

Oy vey... think again!
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Old 8th Oct 2009, 12:06
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Is it me or is there an echo on the line?

Msr Borges I did allude to the plight of the Palestinians in my post. I was saying that the Israeli's seem adept at creating secure communities on land that previously seemed to be fit only for grazing goats.
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Old 8th Oct 2009, 12:07
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What this guy is proposing was tried in Rhodesia during UDI. It didn't work.

It was also tried in Vietnam during The American War. It didn't work there either.

It won't work in Afghanistan either.

A much better role model would the 100% successful British Hearts & Minds operation(s) in Oman. There we didn't make any of the mistakes which this guy is proposing to make.
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Old 8th Oct 2009, 12:23
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Originally Posted by 4Greens
I like the idea. Would be interested in the views on the West buying all the opium to take the baddies out of the trade.
Buying the opium might be considered a panacea solution but opium is only part of the equation.

Opium - Taliban

Farmer grows opium poppy. Opium smuggled out to the market. Cash paid to traders and farmers - taliban take their cut.

Opium - open trade

Farmer grows opium poppy. Opium exported to legal market. Cash paid to traders and farmers - taliban take their cut.

Spot the difference.

Instead let us switch to wheat production.

Wheat trade

Farmer grows wheat. Wheat exported for cash. Cash paid to traders and farmers - taliban take their cut.

Spot the difference.

Khan's solution, and Templar before him, was to separate the baddies from the goodies to that:

Farmer grows wheat. Wheat exported for cash. Cash paid to traders and farmers - taliban excluded.

Protection of closed centres of population is what Khan is proposing but a weakness remains. The farmers' fields need protection too to prevent the taliban destroying the crops and disrupting the trade.
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Old 8th Oct 2009, 12:40
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Low flier

Sheesh, talking of harking back to past glories. Next thing you'll be proposing we send a gun-boat up the Helmand river.

The world is a very different place now, and Afghanistan a whole different ball-game to Malaya in the 50s or Oman in the 70s.

Incidentally, anyone care to name any successful British Army-led hearts & minds operations since the 80s? Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland?
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Old 8th Oct 2009, 13:36
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So Wader2,
Taliban will take a cut then no matter what he crop - cos they'll just use extortion on the farmers whatever.
But having a legal avenue for opium cash crops will make a) the farmers more likely to choose the legal market because b) the Taliban will be simply running an extortion racket which will be all the more unpopular and liable to face resistance from the (organised and protected) farmers.
Maybe not but - we seem to be faced with:
- Give up, turn tail and run out leaving the whole area to the medieval lawless terrorists types who may not be happy with just being evil in their own back yard.
- Carry on the war in some form hoping one way or the other we can find a method which will work.

Are there any more options?
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Old 8th Oct 2009, 16:14
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Dead pan, You're dead wrong about Oman in the 1970s being much different from Afghanistan in the TwentyNoughties.

Oman then, just like Afghanistan now, was a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual feudal society riven by factional warfare for centuries. Exactly the same set of problems in both cases. Very different approach and results in each case though.

In Oman we did not make the cretinous mistake of attempting to ram a Westminster or Warshington style Anglo-Saxon "democracy" down the throats of a culture which palpably is not capable or willing to absorb such an absurd misfit.

In Oman we did not try to bash a square peg into a round hole. In Afghanistan we react to the failure of the peg to go into that hole by using ever bigger and bigger sledgehammers. It hasn't worked and it won't work because it can't work.

In Oman we did not make the catastrophic mistake of excluding and marginalising 60% of the population by picking a large minority to favour, as this guy is proposing. We did the opposite. We ensured that no ethnic minorites were ever excluded or ever had any reason to feel that they might be excluded. We brought them all onside, even the really difficult ones.

Sure, we always retained the capability to call in an airstrike from the Hunters and Strikemasters, but on the rare occasions when that was the only course of last resort, we always felt that we had failed miserably. There were never any cheers or high-fives when the bomb(s) struck the target. Only a feeling that we had buggered things up so badly that we could find no more intelligent way of interacting with fellow human beings than to bomb them to bits.
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Old 8th Oct 2009, 17:15
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A much better role model would the 100% successful British Hearts & Minds operation(s) in Oman. There we didn't make any of the mistakes which this guy is proposing to make.
Brits in charge of a Brit outfit. No septics (politicians) with ever changing strategies, trying to produce results for Billy Bob and Marleene in time for the evening news bulletins.

(although the UK governments sticky, unwashed fingerprints weren't as much in evidence either)

That's why it worked.
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Old 9th Oct 2009, 10:26
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ArthurBorges: Thanks very much for the links - I'll include them in my bedtime reading

Rgds
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Old 9th Oct 2009, 11:38
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Originally Posted by Load Toad
So Wader2,
Taliban will take a cut then no matter what he crop - cos they'll just use extortion on the farmers whatever.
Quite.

But having a legal avenue for opium cash crops will make
a) the farmers more likely to choose the legal market because
b) the Taliban will be simply running an extortion racket which will be all the more unpopular and liable to face resistance from the (organised and protected) farmers.
True, legal market as it would be the easier option. As for b) I believe similar extortion rackets have been run much closer to home too. It might be possible to safeguard the farmers within secure bases but as I said before, the Taliban could simply torch the fields. They are not trying to win a populatirty contest but to kick us out and gain power - power of an AK47.

we seem to be faced with:
1. - Give up, turn tail and run out leaving the whole area to the medieval lawless terrorists types who may not be happy with just being evil in their own back yard.
2. - Carry on the war in some form hoping one way or the other we can find a method which will work.
Option 1 is probably the popular option today
Option 2 seems to be what Khan is suggesting. We are doing what we can to build or rebuild an infrastructure but Khan's other main point was a political one and not a civil or military one.

We took hundreds of years to evolve democracy. We deported the Lockean model successfully to several countries to a greater or lesser extent and have had plenty of signal failures too. The Communist model has also been exported and worked, after a fashion, for a good number of years before it too crashed and burnt.

The only other model that has endured with time is tribalism and we have proven that you cannot change from tribalism to democracy overnight.
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Old 19th Oct 2009, 06:08
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That was an interesting read though a tad conceited IMHO. This is not really a new idea. If anyone is interested in this theory then can I recommend that you read up on the British policy of villagization during the Malayan Emergency? I have sometimes considered whether or not this could be utilized to pacify and then win over the Pashtun.

I fear that these pockets of civilization must be heavily protected otherwise it defeats the exercise in the first place. Protection might mean a physical barrier or at the very least a "digital wall" (can I copywrite that term? ) restricting movement to and from the area. In the heavily agricultural based afghanistan this might not be practical and it is certainly an alien concept for the people.

Sadly in previous attempts at villagization there has always been a level of coercion which would be quite unpalatable in the world today. The British were succesful in Malya in he absence of visual news cover. The Americans employed a similiar policy in Vietnam which proved to be highly controversial. I know that the proposal put forward in the report is different in many ways to these historic events but truely I think the same difficulties would arise.

In my opinion the end results of this policy would be succesful and have positive outcomes for not only ISAF but also for the participating Afghans. However getting to that point I fear would be so traumatic and unpopular that it might be impossible to work. On the otherhand taking half measures would likely result in failure as well, at least in respect to what is already being achieved with todays strategies.

Digital Wall ©2009

Last edited by Caspian237; 19th Oct 2009 at 06:25.
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Old 19th Oct 2009, 07:13
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[QUOTE][Can’t ‘govern’ this country: It is historically incorrect to call Afghanistan a country or even a place. It has always been and is a people. Afghanistan represents a people who have always been divided and loosely managed; never properly ‘governed’ /QUOTE]

As threatfull as it is you sir have defined freedom in this statement. A lack of governance "proper governance" "managed"... Hah loosley managed?? Close to correct. Men, sons and grandsons of war, their culture is war. No man needs to be managed just influenced, the russians developed this culture, we americans supported it (not having a clue of the fallout in their extremeist culture)....We could not percieve.

Bull****, their culture is managed with a defined influence of extremeist muslim belief, some of their hearts may differ thus is the complexity of the true strugle.

Truth is we are seeking out a man we have not found, binladen. Makes me feel impotent that we have not drawn blood from the source that killed so many innocent lives.
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Old 20th Oct 2009, 07:05
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Mucklace

Shortly before her death, Ms. Benazir Bhutto was interviewed by David Frost. She added in passing that bin Laden had been for two years -- and Mr. Frost went directly into his next question without blinking.

Last I saw of the FBI website several years ago, Mr. bin Laden was wanted for all sorts of interesting things, but 9/11 did not figure among them.
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Old 20th Oct 2009, 07:20
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Osama bin Laden is irrelevant. Dead or alive the Alchlamydia idea is out there like a viral video. The post 9-11 reaction of building the terrorist organisation into some almighty supergroup with complex underground bunkers descending 14 floors down like some sort of Tracey Island and cells operating everywhere ready to rain down fire in any country they wished just made the swine even more attractive to those that feel they need a figurehead in their battles against the great satan, little satan and all their minions.
Every time we announce we've killed a senior commander or terror #2 or such it is like that sorcerers apprentice scene in Fantasia - another mad mop just turns up out of the wreckage.
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Old 20th Oct 2009, 09:02
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It’s perhaps both disturbing and ironic that Government words of solace and encouragement to the homeland voters probably does have that very same galvanising and inspiring effect on the Islamic fanatics (or maybe any individual who generally detests the “West” and what we represent).

It must be very difficult in the ‘Stan where one region is being subject to a softly-softly, hearts and minds campaign when, elsewhere, there are regions subject to focused aggression and overwhelming fire power.
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Old 20th Oct 2009, 10:08
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It's puzzling that no one has followed up in the Italian initiative of
keeping peace - pay the local insurgents to stay away. It is probably
cheaper in the long run and the West's financial resources would be
able to outbid any counter offer.
However, the current political climate in Westminister would make the morality of such scheme somewhat unpalatable and suspect.
Such a pity...
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Old 20th Oct 2009, 10:47
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LurkerBelow - From Defence of the Realm, 15 Oct 09

Bribing our way to victory

Much shock and indignation is attendant on the revelation in The Times that Italian forces in charge of the Sarobi area, east of Kabul, had been "been paying tens of thousands of dollars to Taleban commanders and local warlords to keep the area quiet."

This has come to light after the incident last year when ten French soldiers were killed in an ambush by Afghan "insurgents" in what was thought to be a relatively peaceful area.

It is reported. however, that the Italians hid the existence of these payments from the incoming French forces. Thus, no further payments were forthcoming after the departure of the Italians. Haji Abdul Rahman, a tribal elder from Sarobi, recalls how a benign environment then became hostile overnight. But, with the French unaware of what had been going on, they made a "catastrophically incorrect threat assessment", sending out lightly equipped patrol into the area, with the tragic result recorded.

What is perhaps best demonstrated by this affair, however, is the fact that the Italians were able to "buy" peace in the areas under their control, and that this was maintained for as long as, but only for as long as, the payments were forthcoming.

So, while The Times is reporting that, once the US discovered that payments were being made, they made a diplomatic protest to Silvio Berlusconi's government in June 2008, this was perhaps entirely the wrong reaction. A more intelligent response might have been to investigate how, and under what circumstances payments were made, and then to replicate what seems to have been a highly successful pacification strategy.

The use of bribes or "allowances" has, in fact, been a long-standing instrument of political control in this region and, indeed, we made reference to its use in our earlier piece, where we recalled the insurrection led by the Faqir of Ipi.

Author Milan Hauner noted that the British had paid allowances in cash to tribal maliks which for the year 1940 amounted to nearly one million Rupees for the whole Tribal Territory spanning what is now the Afghan-Pakistan border. While these payments were theoretically for services rendered, Hauner notes that Wazirs and other Pathan tribes came to the conclusion that the shortest cut to lucrative allowances was not through loyal service, but by occasional demonstration of their nuisance value.

The thrust of this observation was picked up recently in another piece in the context of contemporary suggestions that bribing the Taleban could again bring peace to the region. Author Martin Parsons noted that the Pushtun (Pathan) tribes had been given muwajib - an "allowance" - to live peacefully. They accepted the allowance, claimed Parsons, then a year or so later rose up against the government until they received another allowance.

Parsons may, however, be misunderstanding the position, and certainly the nature of the mawajib allowances. It is certainly the case that ad hoc payments had very little lasting effect, but it also appears that the system of payments did continue and became highly formalised – to the extent that, on partition, it was adopted by the Pakistani government and became one of the primary mechanisms of control in its Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

According to this source, there was a structured system which comprised in the first instance the maliki. This was a hereditary allowance to the head of a tribe, paid subject to "good conduct" of the heir of the Malik (head of the tribe), and approval of the government.

There was also the lungi, a personal allowance for individual service, which could be modified on the death of the lungi holder, and then there were the mawajib allowances which were paid to the entire tribe biannually. In other words, these were continuous payments, the purpose of which was "to maintain amicable political relations with the tribes, to bind them to the government of Pakistan by excluding other 'influences' and hence outside interference in the area."

Interestingly, the maliks and elders who received allowances for a tribe/section were perceived as the political medium and were required to restrain and control their tribesmen from committing any act hostile or subversive to the state – exactly the purpose for which the Italians paid their "bribes" to the Taleban.

To a very considerable extent, this system seems to have been successful up and until the Soviet invasion of 1979, before which the threat had been neighbouring Afghanistan. Its governments had been hostile to the creation of Pakistan and were blamed for assisting and abetting Pukhtan (Pashtun) demands for a separate homeland for which the term "Pukhtunistan" had been coined. Thus, the Pakistan government sought to counteract Afghan propaganda and influences with the help of those who received allowances, namely the maliks and elders.

What appears to have broken the system was the Soviet invasion. Quite how devastating the breakdown was is recorded in great detail in a PhD thesis by a Pakistani researcher, available from the Pakistan Research Repository. The effects were later to bring Dr Christian Tripodi, writing for RUSI to conclude that the colonial model of laissez faire administration no longer had any lessons for us.

The flood of radical elements into that region during the Afghan-Soviet war since 1980, he wrote - a trend that has only accelerated since the coalition invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 - and the increasingly ambitious political agenda of certain of those elements has only highlighted the weaknesses of what is to all intents and purposes the British colonial system, in the face of a radically changed strategic environment.

Even more recently though, Fred Kaplan has reactivated the debate, asking whether we can bribe our way to victory. For certain constituents, he writes, such as officials and tribal chiefs, a barrelful of money fits the bill - and could ease the path for letting us, or the central government, pursue more broadly appealing programs, such as building roads, providing jobs, and sowing crops other than poppies.

The idea, he notes, may seem outrageous, until one considers that we're currently spending about $4 billion a month on this war. A discreet and well-planned bribery program would cost pennies on the dollar - a mere rounding error in a calculation of the budget.

Outrageous it may seem, but what might one ask are the subsidies paid by the UK government to the outlying regions of Wales and Scotland, and the massive payments made to Northern Ireland, if not "bribes" by any other name?

It is difficult to find any firm evidence of a structured system of allowances or "subsidies" paid in the main areas of Afghanistan, although this report suggests that allowances of the nature suggested by Kaplan have long been a central part of the governance of the country.

And, with our own government recently announcing a £12-million scheme to fight working-class "extremism" in Britain, it might not be untoward to suggest that the Italians, in spending a somewhat smaller sum to counter "extremism" in their own sector of Afghanistan, were not altogether misguided. Their only mistake, it would seem, was in not telling the French.
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Old 20th Oct 2009, 11:05
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Perhaps just pull out, leave the whole sorry mess to the locals and turn a very blind eye and deaf ear to the wailings and rantings of the huggy left/women's liberationists about the way that women are being treated in that tearful part of the world.

One wonders where the huggy left/wl are now, now that we are giving Afghani women a modicum of freedom? I guess when it comes to bullets and bodies they just fade away
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Old 20th Oct 2009, 22:34
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An oversimplifiction certainly, because there were many very complex elements involved, but what do many consider to be the 'magic bullet' (no pun intended) that ended the Malayan 'Emergency'? (The only instance where a communist insurgency has been totally defeated by a colonial power.)

The answer is cash for bullets/guns.

The British came to a similar conclusion as the Italians and the writer of the article above - that it was cheaper to pay the communists (and turn them into capitalists) for turning in their bullets and guns than to have to take them off them in a far more costly to all concerned firefight.

They came up with a price per bullet, per pistol, per rifle and per machine gun. One communist became an instant multimillionaire when he led the British to a huge cache of buried arms and ammunition that THEY had dropped to the CTs during WW2. But they paid up, and the communists, almost overwhelmingly Chinese, (and therefore really businessmen at heart), quickly saw the error of their ways when they saw ex-colleagues, forgiven and granted full amnesty, buying mansions and businesses.

If there's anyone out there with no life willing to troll through the PPrune archives, you'll see that I predicted back in 2003 that this would be the only way the Americans had any chance of winning in Iraq.

Exactly the same system won't work with the Afghans, (no rural Afghan is going to give up all his guns), but a variation, even if it isn't totally successful, will probably achieve as close to success as any foreigner's going to get in Afghanistan, and be a damn sight cheaper, if only in that most valuable asset of all - our soldiers' lives - than Plan 'A'.
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Old 22nd Oct 2009, 10:42
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Templar's Malayan villages plan and the US version in Vietnam - 'Strategic Hamlets' did work. Albeit, the Strat Hamlets plan failed once the US had colluded with those plotting Diem's assasination.... and regretted it instantly.

However, using the sucess of the Malayan strategy as an exemplar is flawed... as it was in Vietnam... because the key factor that the British had in their favour was that they were able to effectively control things going in and out of Malaya. With the porous borders today (and with the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and Cambodia during VN) this is impossible.

As an aside, Robert Thomson, Templar's COIN expert and later adviser to Kennedy and Nixon, was an ex RAF officer who had been an ALO with the Chindit columns. His autobig 'Run for the Hills' is well worth a read.

Who says ELCs aren't a good thing!
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