CJ Chivers, the former Moscow bureau chief of the New York Times and now a roving foreign correspondent, has written a truly incredible series of stories about the Kunar-Nuristan area in Afghanistan. Last year, he was covering some of the bases in Nuristan, and now he’s writing gripping stories from old ambush sites in Kunar, both the village of Want and the Korengal Valley, in north-central Kunar: first about an ambush that killed several Taliban, and then about how the constant combat makes all the talk about “engagement” one hears in the media kind of moot.
As Old Blue argues, and what I can confirm, is that the Korengal is not Afghanistan. The issues, and violence, we see there are not common to the rest of the country—not even otherwise violent places in Sangin or Panjwai (or Sabari, or Andar). It is an especially violent place, in other words, and even while we oooh and ahhh about this ambush or that combat death, we should keep in mind that this is an aberration.
None of which is to detract from Chivers’ coverage of the fighting there—which is quite stellar. The only thing I’ll note—for sheer cheekiness purposes—is that one year ago, the Times spelled Korengal with an “e” but nowadays seems to prefer “Korangal” with an “a.” Actually, it’s probably on these stories, since in January they spelled it with an “e.” This doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but considering last year they didn’t know that the Want Vehicle Patrol Base was really in Nuristan and not Kunar—a mistake in spelling and geography they shared with practically everyone else at the time (but Carlotta Gall quickly corrected)—you’d think they would have a stylesheet about this place, some guide to standardized transliterations. I sympathize, as it is something my work has struggled with as well, but even if not 100% accurate it would help to spell things the same way between correspondents.
But again: major kudos to Chivers, whose work in this area remains stellar.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1801 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust
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{ 9 comments }
Well this certainly explains a lot RE Chivers’ pernicious reporting during the GE-RUS August War
No one has developed a standardized Latin transliteration for Korengali/Korungali/Korangali. My guess here is that the e/a is actually a schwa, which requires some conventional standard choice between a/e/u/i since few know the keystroke for schwa. If you choose the Persianized form, we have a standardized translit for that, but then you get things like Want=>Wanat, because Persian doesn’t like final [nt].
Our way of dealing with Pashto is bad enough in this department, much less tiny language communities like those in Nuristan.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 04/21/2009 News and Personal dispatches from the front and the home front.
The thing that was most remarkable about Chivers’ latest stories about combat in K valley (I’ll just skip spelling it) is how little this kind of fight resembles COIN. It looks a lot like the search and destroy, patrol and ambush fight of the Vietnam War. While I enjoyed the breathless rush of the account, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. If this is as good as we can do, it won’t do much in the long run.
Isn’t this the same area that Vampire 06 operates? In a recent blog post (afghanistanshrugged.com) the ETTs of Vampire 06 emphasized the importance of _not_ engaging the ACM in their area in favor of dealing directly with villagers. In Chivers’ account, there were quite a few bombs and artillery shells dropping on buildings, and, in one case, a brief encounter with a village elder who decidedly did NOT tell the Americans about an ambush he most certainly knew about. That tiny little moment, no more than a line, told me more about the fight in that area of Afghanistan than did the thrilling details of the ambush.
I agree with you that this is not how to win in Afghanistan — I was setting aside the tactical and strategic issues with what we’re doing in the Korengal (hell, and most of Kunar and Nuristan), since that is probably its own post. I was simply discussing Chivers’ reporting, which I find very impressive.
And Vampire06 operates in Bermel, which is in southeast Paktika—well south of Khost and FOB Salerno, which is itself well south of Jalalabad, which is well south of Kunar.
I also would say that Vampire06 arguably writes the most important blog about counterinsurgency right now—if only because, like most ETTs, he knows what we need to win, and he is right out in the thick of things… and just as importantly, is unafraid to criticize moronic decisions by his superiors.
No, I figured you weren’t arguing for the tactics, that you were rather admiring the prose. I got that. I was just curious to know if anyone else looked at this “success story” and came away with the same conclusion. I’m no COIN expert, but it seems to me that this ambush, however well executed, is standard issue infantry tactics we honed in Vietnam. We could do it a million times over, lopsided body counts included, and still lose.
The best line in Chivers’ piece: “Afghanistan is myriad wars within a war, with varying terrain, climates, economies and insurgent groups creating a puzzle of shifting contests for influence.”
He manages to sum up the entire war without reverting to ideological stereotypes, like, summoning images of bearded Jihadists and bloodthirsty Pashtuns and Good vs. Evil, etc., etc.
Glad to hear your admiration for Vampire 06. I like that blog, too.
… which is why I’m praising his reporting
Several issues:
I felt a sense of pride reading about their successful ambush. The ambush, a confidence builder, was necessary for the morale of the Company as evidenced by the reminder of it by the Company Commander to his men after they suffered a loss in the next battle.
But in the overall picture, it was counterproductive since the US forces are supposed to be taking a defensive posture. Around those parts, people have very long memories, unlike we Americans with a one day memory, and they attempt a worse revenge no matter how long ago the offense was committed.
Thirdly, C.J. Chivers was a former military man himself, I don’t know why he is giving away so much information about the US military: Company, Officers’ names, ranks, numbers, positions… has someone forgotten the the enemy can read English, too!
I don’t want to turn this into defending CJ hour, but with those sorts of embeds, especially the high profile ones, you don’t write anything the PAO doesn’t want to read about because otherwise you get blacklisted and never embed again.
And I agree, overall, it says something darker about the challenges we face there (see above). In the specific case of the ambush, for example, they were supposed to be meeting with some elders. Kind of puts things into perspective when they’re forced into that sort of combat.