I felt the need to sit down and write this after hearing about the tragedy that happened Friday night when Taliban insurgents shot down a Chinook helicopter, killing 30 Americans, most of whom were Navy SEALs. It marks the single largest loss of life in the history of SEAL Team Six, surpassing the previously highest death toll that occurred six years ago during Operation Red Wing.
On June 28, 2005, nineteen American Special Operators were killed by Taliban forces in northwestern Afghanistan. In the midst of the mission, called Operation Red Wing, some local goat herders stumbled upon the SEALs’ hiding place. Because the herders were unarmed and showed no evidence of hostility, the commandos decided to let them go. The Americans were afraid that if they killed the herders (which they considered the correct military decision), the media would label them as murderers. Shortly after letting the herders go, the SEALs were ambushed by between 80 and 200 Taliban militants. They were overwhelmed by the sheer number of insurgents and enemy firepower, and only one American survived the ordeal.
The only survivor of the operation assumes that the herders told the Taliban about the SEALs’ whereabouts. In his book, he blames American Leftists and the liberal media for forcing the military to adhere to the standards of the Geneva Conventions in Afghanistan, which led to the decision to let the herders live. Many of the more hawkish conservatives agree with him, and the human rights issues surrounding the War on Terror have been widely debated since its inception. While I understand that it is difficult to adhere to standards of human rights when the other side is murdering innocent civilians indiscriminately, we can’t allow ourselves to be lowered to the standards of of groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Personally, I find it difficult to feel bad for terrorists when they are denied their individual rights. Those who use women and children as suicide bombers and human shields hardly deserve a court-martial. But we simply can’t meet our objectives and achieve an honorable exit if we disregard our commitment to rights and liberties.
Why? Because we cannot gain security or stability without the support of the tribal leaders and village elders throughout Afghanistan. It seems like an obvious conclusion, but most people really don’t understand the critical role this factor plays in deciding the outcome of the war.
The Taliban have regained their strongest foothold in the northwestern areas of Afghanistan that run along the border with Pakistan, especially those opposite of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Kunar province, where Operation Red Wing was carried out, is in this area.
For years, our goal has been to get Kunar province under control of the Afghan government, but that goal has proven to be elusive. I couldn’t imagine why: Kunar is about 150 miles from Kabul. That may not seem like a lot, but consider the fact that almost 86 percent of the province is mountainous or semi-mountainous terrain. There’s basically one road for the entire region. In the mountain villages, where the Taliban are strongest, there are no roads. There is no running water or electricity. They have no telephone wires. The villages consist of huts literally built into the sides of mountains. Essentially, they are ungovernable – from the outside, that is.
The villages in this region have their own form of government with roots much deeper to them than the corrupt Karzai regime. About 95 percent of the inhabitants are Pashtuns, who also happen to make up a majority of the Taliban. Pashtuns have a strict pre-Islamic honor code called Pashtunwali. One of the major tenets of this code is called Badal, or revenge. If there is perceived injustice, members of this ethnic group must take revenge. The saying, “Revenge is a dish best served cold” is actually a Pashtun proverb that was adopted by the British. These guys don’t mess around.
That’s why the American military can’t ignore the rules of engagement. We can’t firebomb a mountain village then expect the inhabitants to happily vote in the next national elections. If we do injustice to Pashtun villagers, we lose the cooperation of village elders and tribal leaders, and the village is lost to the Taliban. The Taliban cannot survive without the support of these kinds of villages.
But how much support can we really hope to receive? Top strategic leaders within the US military, led by Gen. Petraeus, have thrown all hope for victory behind the theory of Counterinsurgency. COIN emphasizes the use of non-kinetic operations (like building schools), over kinetic ones (like kicking down doors and going after insurgents).
It’s easy to understand, then, why the military fell in love with people like Greg Mortenson, the author of the bestseller Three Cups of Tea. Mortenson’s story made it seem like the US could win the hearts and minds of Afghans by learning the culture and drinking tea with tribal leaders.
But after the controversy over the alleged fraud surrounding Mortenson and his books, the top brass is starting to question the theory.
My criticism of blind allegiance to COIN theory and the pictures that people like Mortenson like to draw is this: it’s too simple. Afghanistan is far more complicated than most people understand, and tea alone won’t fix it. I do believe that non-kinetic actions are critical for progress, but they aren’t enough by themselves. Non-kinetic operations must be carried out in concert with kinetic operations. The best example of use of this kind of integrated strategy in Afghanistian is Operation Moshtarak.
Operation Moshtarak was the offensive launched in February of last year to drive the Taliban out of Marja, which was the last Taliban stronghold in Helmand province at the time. The Marines went in guns blazing, but they also brought Afghan administrators, a governor, almost 2,000 police, and even utility engineers. As Gen. McChrystal said, “We’ve got a government in a box, ready to roll in.”
More than a year after the start of the assault in Marja, it is difficult to tell how much progress has really been made. But what we do know is that more than 300 Afghan men “have joined a local defense force known as the ISCI, or Interim Security for Critical Infrastructure” in northern Marja. The local population is taking responsibility of their own security, which is exactly what we need.
But to expect anything more than that in such a short period of time is naive. We’ve known all along that the campaign in Afghanistan was going to be long and difficult. We created an insurgency to topple the regime, but that was the easy part. Defeating the other insurgency (the remnants of the Taliban) and rebuilding the country is going to be extremely complicated, and as Americans we either have to accept that or cut our losses.
I think Michael Miklaucic, an official with USAID, said it best: “No amount of tea with Afghans will persuade them that we are like them, that our war is their war or that our interests are their interests. The war in Afghanistan isn’t about persuasion or tea. It is about power.”
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Note: a portion of this post was originally published here, at The Politicizer.
