Comments on: C’mon, Abu

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 11:45:28 +0000

We have military types, academics, journalists, NGO types, diplomats, etc. but are there Afghans versed in COIN and region worth reading?

By: Christian

Christian — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 03:39:32 +0000

I would write about operations, but there is almost never enough primary sources on them to do much in the way of constructive criticisms. It usually comes down to journalistic-style critiques rather than a full spectrum organizational, cultural, political, tactical, strategic discussion, or anything coming even close.

A brief flurry from a PAO, the hollering of an angry local who didn’t actually witness anything and the musings of a Kabul-bound journo. The whambulance needs more primary sources!

By: Joshua Foust

Joshua Foust — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 03:26:15 +0000

MK, I think the Ishaqzai/Noorzai thing isn’t really anti-government per se. Going back into the 1980s, the Noorzai seem primarily concerned over who gets to control Spin Boldak — they didn’t under the Soviets and Mujahideen thanks to the Achakzai mujahidin commander Ismat Mulsim, did under the Taliban, and then once the U.S. invaded in 2001 control passed back to the Achakzai, who imposed illegal tolls all long the road and border crossing. In that specific case, it appears to be almost entirely an economic thing, not a political thing.

As for the Ishaqzai (who are NOT to be confused with the Achakzai), it is more complicated: they actually clashed with the Taliban in Kandahar and Quetta in 1994-5, though they eventually sided with the Taliban and displaced the Alizai in Helmand. As with the Noorzai, this again appears to revolve mostly around economic arrangements and access to power, and not necessarily being “anti-government.”

Don’t worry about “tribe” here — in a lot of conflicts in the south, that IS the qawm

Abu, I agree Christian is one of those people, though he doesn’t write about operations as often as I want him to (seriously, call the whambulance). I have serious reservations about Barno — for one, his Rumsfeldian “good news only” policy led to the abhorrent cover up of Pat Tillman’s death. Doesn’t mean he isn’t appropriate, just that his rule of this country six years ago wasn’t the best. But people evolve, though, and I am still trying to read his work at NDU.

By: Abu Muqawama

Abu Muqawama — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:17:03 +0000

Surely there are a few COINdinistas who know Afghanistan. Christian Bleuer is an Afghanistan specialist who has learned a lot about COIN, and LTG (Ret.) David Barno is a COIN specialist who knows a lot about Afghanistan.

I think the best expertise on COIN and Afghanistan, though, is to be found still inside the services. These men and women who have worked as Pol-Ads, for example, are still fighting the fight. So they’re out there — just not blogging….

By: MK

MK — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:51:23 +0000

You point out the importance of rural areas, so let me ask you this: the Canadians, in conjunction with the ANA, ANP, and more recently US forces have been battling back forth in the Panjwayi for years now, making little progress as far as I’m aware. No one, however, has provided more than one-line explanations for why the Eshaqzai and Noorzai tribes*, in particular, are so vehemently anti-government, and therefore how we might go about winning them over. Since this seems like a fairly important axis (connecting Kandahar and Helmand via Route 1), any insights on how to stop the cycle of taking and losing ground?

* I use the term ‘tribe’ with some hesitancy given your treatise on the significance of qawms. What I mean to say are groups belonging to or living in the regions attributed to those tribes.

By: Joshua Foust

Joshua Foust — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:09:35 +0000

That’s one source. Though… it was actually with one of those retired CIA guys that I had to listen to how all we need to do to win in Afghanistan was arm the tribes. I’ve found the CIA to be some hit but mostly miss. As one example, I wish Christian hadn’t deleted the blog entry in which he mocked the ludicrous claims in Gary Schroen’s book… and Schroen has been active in Afghanistan for decades.

Also, who needs Pashto or Urdu? Most of the people in Afghanistan speak Dari, which is perfectly serviceable by Farsi speakers — I work with several. Plus, Dari is a literary language, while Pashto is not (the vast majority of things written in Pashto are translated).

Also, DLI is a VERY good language school (again, I work with people who went there)… but you don’t need to be there to be military/COIN-literate and have area knowledge. IU, as one example, offers free language classes each summer, often in Pashto. Very few attend because they can’t take the time off.

I agree it’s a major problem that strategic language instruction is pathetic… but I don’t know more than a couple of phrases in Dari or Pashto. I can only sort of sound out words when I see them. And I have benefitted from the tens of thousands of pages of studies written in English about Afghanistan. The main challenge I see is filtering out the noise. As Schroen’s book demonstrates, there is a lot of stuff out there that seems authoritative but is really misleading and actually kind of dangerous.

By: zenpundit

zenpundit — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:59:41 +0000

Retired CIA guys – and not many.

The number of American graduates who specialized in Pustun and Urdu in the last twenty years is probably less than fifty given that Fed money for obscure foreign languages dried up in the 1990′s. How many of these were DLI ppl I do not know.