" More soluable is this knot,
By gentleness than war. I want her love.
What were I nigher this altho' we dash'd
Your cities into shards and catapults." -Tennyson
A key development unfolding alongside of the imminent Afghanistan escalation announcement by President Obama is the reported
outreach by the military and the Afghan government to those Taliban who are interested in renouncing their resistant violence and cutting any ties or support for America's al-Qaeda nemesis.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai reached out to the Taliban on Friday, asking those resisting or inclined to resist his unpopular regime to reconcile their differences and join in support of the central government. “I once again call upon our brothers, the Taliban, Hezb-e-Islami and everyone who is away from their land and who have taken up arms against their soil, to come back to their country for peace, stability, prosperity,” Karzai
told reporters outside of his palace. “So that we Afghan people join hand in hand together to rebuild and prosper our beloved country.”
Indeed, Afghan tribal leaders have been solicited by the U.S.-backed regime to convince their followers to put aside their differences and accept employment with the government. Although the Afghan government has had a reconciliation program in place since 2004, it hasn't had the lasting or transforming effect desired and has lost hundreds of potential converts through inattention and outright corruption.
The new initiative is expected to be an integral part of President Obama's revamped strategy he's to announce on Tuesday. The plan is to scrap the old program and create an entirely new NATO office which will oversee the process and will offer job and literacy programs as incentives. The idea is to work to prevent a repeat of the past defections by emphasizing a long-term commitment by the government to Afghans' individual futures.
One obstacle is the prospect of a continued decline in support for reconciliation as long as the Taliban resistance feels they have the 'upper hand' in the conflict. Canada's ambassador, whose country has taken the lead in reconciliation efforts, says the initiative has suffered as the insurgency grew in strength. Another obstacle is the tendency of improving relationships with one group of Afghans often leading to resentment and reprisals from other groups left out of the coalition-favored circle of influence.
A US-led
study, which is jointly funded by AusAID, the Australian government's overseas aid agency, has concluded that aid and development assistance to Afghanistan has failed it's primary purpose of winning over recalcitrant Afghans to the NATO coalition's nation-building cause.
Andrew Wilder, US academic and Afghan expert heading the study, told Australia's The Sunday Age that the initiative begun last year, ''is struggling to find clear examples where aid projects have had significant stabilization benefits.''
''Basically, the assumption that aid projects win hearts and minds is highly problematic . . . In interviews with Afghans it comes out very strong - that aid is certainly not winning hearts and minds; if anything, it's losing hearts and minds'' Wilder said.
The difficulty with offering aid and assistance at the point of the invaders' weapons is obvious. Some see the aid which is distributed by the military to arbitrary groups as favoring supporters and tribal members who are close or related to Karzai. Others find that the aid promised has been siphoned off by corrupt or opposition forces hostile to their interests.
The Age article cited the U.S. Army handbook published in April, 'The Commander's Guide to Money as a Weapons System' which describes how commanders in the field can ''employ money as a weapons system to win the hearts and minds of the indigenous population to facilitate defeating the insurgents''.
Key findings of the guide:
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:4Gl3qclE-g4J:call.army.mil/cac2/call/docs/09-27/09-27.pdf+The+Commander%27s+Guide+to+Money+as+a+Weapons+System&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us• Money is a valuable weapons system.
• Money and contracting in a COIN environment are vital elements of combat power.
• Leaders must leverage money and contracting in operations.
• Without proactive leadership involvement, the potential for extensive fraud, waste, and abuse of funds exists in the COIN environment
The
NYT writes that, "to date, about 9,000 insurgents have turned in their weapons and agreed to abide by the Afghan Constitution, according to Muhammad Akram Khapalwak, the chief administrator for the Peace and Reconciliation Commission in Kabul."
They point out that $1.3 billion has been set aside in the Defense Appropriations bill for the Commanders Emergency Response Program (CERP), which is for development by can be used for “reintegration into Afghan society” of defecting combatants. Yet, the results of the military outreach to would-be defectors in the resistance has been mostly a wash, with loyalties dependent on which side Afghans find themselves of the line in the dirt drawn by our advancing and occupying forces. Further complicating the implementation of the reconciliation initiative is the apparent lack of effective oversight of billions of dollars in reconstruction contracts.
In May, the GAO published a report critical of the government's implementation of the counterinsurgency program entitled, “
Actions Needed to Improve Oversight and Interagency Coordination for the Commander’s Emergency Response Program in Afghanistan.” It concluded that:
"Although DOD has used CERP to fund projects that it believes significantly benefit the Afghan people, it faces significant challenges in providing adequate management and oversight because of an insufficient number of trained personnel. GAO has frequently reported that inadequate numbers of management and oversight personnel hinders DOD’s use of contractors in contingency operations . . . While mechanisms exist to facilitate coordination, DOD and USAID lack information that would provide greater visibility on all U.S. government development projects. DOD and USAID generally coordinate projects at the headquarters and unit level as well as through military-led provincial reconstruction teams which include USAID representatives."
In other words, the military is throwing money around in Afghanistan without a sufficient clue as to its destination, its ultimate use, or its eventual effect. If the administration intends to point to the outreach efforts as a mitigating factor in their otherwise contradictory plan to escalate the occupation to end it, they will also need to present and explain whatever mechanism they've decided on deploying to keep track of where and to what purpose the generals' walking-around money is destined.
One major caution is the concern that any aid or assistance coming from NATO forces is going to be seen by many Afghans as tainted and compromising to their own interests. Still, a consensus is forming among allies such as Canada and Britain that the success of such outreach is going to be critical to eventually drawing-down the investments of lives, livelihoods, and resources their nations are being asked to ante-up one more time. And, even though there haven't yet been any concessions granted from insurgency leaders, there's optimism among planners that there can be an Iraq-style 'awakening' there of Afghan resistance to the Afghan resistance.
Karzai's call this week for the Taliban to disarm and participate in peace talks with his regime - although met with predictable defiance and derision from the most vocal Taliban leaders - is seen as the most promising initiative so far. Karzai said Sunday that he is considering inviting Taliban and other militarized resistance in opposition to his regime, to a Loya Jirga, or grand council meeting.
Although the administration has not changed their policy of no negotiations, the State Dept. has indicated that they are open to the effort (with caveats). "Obviously, we are going to ask questions about how it proceeds," Hillary Clinton
said last week. "But the general idea of exploring this is one that we have been open to. With respect to the outcome of any such discussions, however, we have urged caution and real standards that are expected to be met by anyone who is engaged in these conversations, so that whatever process there is can actually further the stability and peace of Afghanistan, not undermine it."
"She laid out the conditions by which the U.S. believes people fighting with the Taliban can rejoin, reintegrate into Afghan society," said Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. "And the first point she mentioned was renounce al-Qaida. Remember and never forget, we are in Afghanistan because of 9/11 the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States," he said. "And the other thing was to renounce violence and to lay down their arms and participate in life peacefully. In fact, many, many Taliban have done that since 2002."
The obvious, central question is how effective those efforts at reconciliation have actually been if they're now talking about the need to escalate the occupation. Currently, there is more evidence that our very military presence and activity is having a counterproductive, overshadowing effect on reconciliation than there is some sort of rallying around the protected Afghan regime by the citizens there. More importantly, any effort toward reconciliation will undoubtedly influenced by the increased military force and whatever collateral disruption and devastation their larger numbers are bound to cause.
The president can only hope that his new initiative is visibly weighted enough toward that rapprochement he seeks, in order to avoid the influx of this latest round of deployed troops being seen by Afghans as just another assault on them and their homeland. However, it's hard to imagine we'll find any significant numbers of Afghans who will recognize our military forces' outstretched hands - turning away from their desperate resistance to our occupation - as their focus will be inevitably drawn to the point of our dominating weapons.
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