Approaching the Tipping Point

The Fab Folk continue to work like demons to maximize their time on the ground. Yesterday they had successful test shots with their fabricated internet antennas to a local NGO and the Nangarhar Public Hospital. They work every evening setting up the XO laptops they have sent in, and early each morning, they meet for a couple of hours to learn Pashto. Their teacher comes from the local school and is a lifelong resident of the local village. He tells me that poverty is driving people to desperate measures despite the very mild winter we have had to date. Frequently, voices call out to him from the shadows at night, “We are Taliban, give us your wallet, watch, and cell phone.” They are not Taliban but men he has known for years. I asked why this was happening because our understanding of Pashtun culture would prohibit such gross criminality inside one’s community. “Yes, this is true, but we are now so poor that the elders do not ask young men where they got this or where they got that; they praise them instead for bringing anything of value, which will ease their poverty.” This is just a hint at the tension under the surface of a population in one of the more affluent portions of Afghanistan.

We have been running the road to Kabul a lot lately, taking people to and from the Airport in Kabul. A couple of days ago, we took Dr. Dave and Dr. Art Mendoza back to Kabul for their flight home and saw the aftermath of a big fight the night before. We were warned before leaving by another security firm (we share all intel at all times in the field) that there had been much fighting outside Gamberi and sure enough when we got to the point in the road where the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) had set up on the shoulders we saw this:

A group of Armed Opposition Group (AOG) fighters sneaked up the draw between the ANA and ANP positions and shot up the truck above with small arms and RPGs. They then fired at the ANP positions to their west and the ANA positions to their east before withdrawing across the Kabul River. The ANA and ANP spent the next hour or so firing at each other. By the time we rolled past the ANA had taken their casualties and withdrawn leaving the poor police to sit in their shallow little holes to suck up all the rain we have been getting of late.

We are convinced that somebody in Laghaman Province is running an RPG gunners school because we see reports of RPG-only attacks on police posts along this portion of the road every 4 to 5 weeks. Normally, they volley 10 rounds rapidly and withdraw, causing little to no damage. But we know at least one RPG mechanic (most likely in Laghman) who can put some English on his rockets and consistently make challenging shots. I bet he has a group of students he is working with, and what better way to train them than to take on the softest of soft targets, like the silly deployment of ANA and ANP forces five feet off the main road? You could tell just by looking at them that they had no fire plans, fire control measures, and probably no plan. They need no more PowerPoint lectures from DynCorp contractors; they need mentors in the field, and there are not enough here.

Yesterday I was returning from dropping off James the Marine, and because I had no choice, I had to make the return drive alone. As I rounded the Mahipar Pass, I saw a wall of trucks pulled off to the side, indicating some tunnel blockage. I moved far enough to get a look before turning around and saw a U.S. Army convoy stopped right in the middle of the pass. Once the traffic stops flowing in Afghanistan, it is very difficult to start again because all the east-bound traffic will move into every nook and cranny available to their front and block the road. Getting them out of your way takes an hour before the convoy can move again. But I was ready checking my wallet to find 100 Euros there I turned around and headed back to the German PX at the ISAF camp outside Kabul to score some premium German beer (at only 12 euro a case) figuring if I had to drive back in the dark I might as well do so with a truck load of beer.

Sure enough, when I returned to the Mahipar Pass, it was clear, and I was driving smoothly for the next 45 minutes until I got outside Surobi.   Rounding a corner, I saw all the trucks parked in the right lane, and taking the left lane, I moved far enough down to see the same convoy parked in the middle of the road. They sat there for 30 minutes and then took another 30 minutes to get moving before stopping again, maybe five miles down the road. I had worked my way up to the front of the line by then, and 45 minutes into this stop I approached the convoy tail gunner to ask if they would let me through. He got on the radio and in a few minutes said, “No, because the road to the front is blocked (by the west-bound traffic) and I couldn’t make it through anyway.” I asked him what the problem was and he replied “don’t know” which is precisely the correct answer because he has no business telling me a damn thing.

But the longer we sat, the more upset the locals behind me became. Soon, the sound of a thousand car horns filled the air. Over a hundred men stood around my vehicle, trying to get the ANA troops to let them pass. As is usually the case, several fluent English speakers amongst them came over to chat me up about what was happening. I was as pissed as they were and being a poltroon by nature freely admitted this. Then out of the crowd came a man with a very sick-looking child, and I was pressed into service to intervene on his behalf. I walked over to the tail gunner and asked if a vehicle with a medical emergency could get through. He asked how many more vehicles contain people with medical emergencies, and I glanced back, saw about a thousand cars stacked up behind me, and said “probably about a thousand,” which made the kid laugh. Again, a correct response from the tail gunner, who seems like a great trooper, because if you let one vehicle through, the rest will follow. TIA, this is Afghanistan. To make a long story short, it took me five hours to return to the Taj. Several more times, the American convoy stopped, and each time, the fluent English speaker from Leeds, England, came up to stand near my car. That is a very Pashtun thing to do. He was watching out for me to ensure none of the drivers behind took out their frustrations on the lone American in their midst. Not that I thought this would occur, but it was a nice gesture.

The struggle of the average Afghan to find enough to eat, the continued lack of performance by the Afghan security forces, and the inability of the ISAF military to operate amongst the Afghans without treating every civilian they come in contact with as a crazed jihadist killer are linked. The United States and its allies have spent billions in Afghanistan and have very little to show for it. Afghanistan is currently in a death spiral, not because of a lack of aid funds, but rather how those funds have been spent and allocated. Every indication we see on the ground is that more money will be thrown into the same failed programs currently being implemented; another demonstration that we have not learned any meaningful lessons.

These programs won’t work because they are off-the-shelf solutions designed to make the lives of bureaucrats and contracting officers easy, rather than bringing assistance to the Afghans. The Department of State has spent 2.5 BILLION bringing in police trainers, jail guard trainers, and lawyers to train the judges. Now, what the hell does anyone at DynCorp or PAE know about Afghan police or Afghan jurisprudence? Nothing, of course, but that is not why they win these large, lucrative contracts; it is because they already have large, lucrative contracts and therefore know how to work with DS contracting officers to make their lives easier. What is the return on our investment? After the large-scale jail break in Kandahar last summer, investigators discovered over 100 illegal cell phones in the hands of inmates. When we capture important Taliban leaders and send them to the central Afghan jail at Pul-i-Charki, they are often back home before the soldiers who delivered them. The Afghan police are unreliable and prone to preying on the population. The current Afghan government is more of a problem than a solution. It is being out-governed by the Taliban in the many districts under Taliban control. Who “built capacity” with these Taliban? How many billions of dollars were spent teaching the Taliban to administer justice and civil control so effectively?

The State Department used off-the-shelf solutions, which had nothing to do with the situation in Afghanistan and everything to do with what was easy for the Department of State. After all, when you spend all your time in Afghanistan locked inside a gigantic posh embassy compound, how in the world would you know what the Afghans need? You are forced to work through the Afghan government. Have you ever read a news story about the Afghan government that was not about the appalling corruption found at every level in every ministry? I would say you have not, but as an insider, I will tell you there is one ministry, the aviation ministry, that is as honest and effective as its international counterparts.

The State Department is and has been the lead agency in Afghanistan, and its performance here is a fiasco, as it is in Iraq. Remember that Paul Brenner was President Bush’s compromise between Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon. He gave the boys at State a year to get Iraq back on its feet, but Brenner used his 12 months to destroy the country and hamstring our military. He unilaterally made decisions for which we paid in American blood. The price tag for his incompetence paid by the Iraqis is probably beyond measure. Colin Powell, who foisted Brenner upon Iraq, had more to do with the fiasco portion of that war than Rumsfeld. Still, you’d have to do some serious archival research to know it because the nitwits in the MSM would not in a million years burden the people of America with good, honest reporting that strayed from their preferred narrative.

That is not to say that the US Military has demonstrated the capacity, tactical flexibility, or ability to assess the situation on the ground, learn from past mistakes, and formulate a strategic framework under which all operations in Afghanistan can be conducted. They have not, and we are risking another Vietnam, and I am not talking about getting beaten by the ragtag assortment of Taliban and neo Taliban on the field of battle. I am talking about having the American peoples will to fight crippled by a media who can reveal that the Generals are spinning tales that are as stupid and uninformed as the old “five O’ Clock follies” in Saigon were back in Vietnam. Let me clarify: I am not critical of the American (or any other ISAF) soldier here doing his duty. All of them volunteered to join the military during wartime, and their grit, determination to do what is right, and courage are commendable.

I am critical of the generals who seem unable to implement the very doctrine they tout as the answer to the counterinsurgency battle. I am not the only one who sees things this way. Please take the time to read this excellent piece by a retired Army Colonel who is a much better writer than I am. He calls for a massive forced retirement amongst American General Officers, which would be a smart move given their lackluster performance and one with serious historical precedent.

The only reason we are not at the point where the American people start to treat their military in the manner it was treated in the early seventies is that our media is even more incompetent than the Department of State or the Pentagon. If we had the same type of reporters as the ones who worked in Vietnam year in and year out, they would be able to throw the BS flag at every single briefing they are given, because the things I hear the big Army saying about the situation here are flat-out nonsense. This situation will not last much longer. As I saw when talking with Martha Raddatz, the Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent from ABC News, the drive-by media is starting to get a clue. The only thing stopping her from getting a comprehensive first-hand view of how silly the DS and military approach is to this conflict is her own silly corporate “force protection” rules. But she got an earful from me and spent a few hours roaming the countryside like the thousands of other internationals living and working here. Not that you can do that in every district or province in Afghanistan, there are many where it would now be suicidal for a westerner to walk around, knowing where you are safe and where you are not is the most basic function of military intelligence. Why we cannot figure that out and act accordingly is beyond me.

Here is the connection to my rambling observations. If our billions of dollars went to implement the infrastructure improvements that the Afghans at the district level have been pleading for during the last six to seven years, you could instantly start employing massive amounts of idle, unemployed men. But you cannot do this with the Department of State contracting vehicles or through large, bloated, international companies like Louis Berger, DynCorp, PAE, KBR, or any other current “implementers” receiving most of the reconstruction monies. You need a company like Louis Berger to build big things like hydroelectric dams, posh embassy compounds, or international airports. You do not need Louis Berger to build roads and schools. The Afghans can do that themselves. You also don’t need the nitwits of Foggy Bottom deciding how to implement a reconstruction plan because what you get is what the average Afghan sees now. Lots of police posts, government office buildings, and training bases are being built for the very people and organizations who abuse them, steal from them, and fail to protect them from other (nonuniformed) criminals or the Taliban. The only way forward is for civil-military teams to stay in the community and green-light and supervise Afghan-designed and built irrigation, road, and micro-hydro projects. An excellent prototype of this kind of team worked in Afghanistan in the early days before the Big Army came and put all the SF teams back inside the large FOBs. It will be the topic of my next post.