The Other War

What with the forces of good seizing the initiative in the Sirius-XM merger proceeding, I'm catching up on my reading, and recommend Michael Fumento's analysis of the war in Afghanistan, from the June 11th Weekly Standard:

Iraqis are world champion complainers. Not so here. "I have never heard an Afghan complain," says Lt. [Kevin] Stofan. "It is always in the form of 'if you have this' or 'we could really use this.'" It is always followed by the disclaimer "We are very thankful for what you have already given us." Even the elderly Pashtun aren't nearly as reserved as you'd expect. They love to chat, always accompanied by chai tea (which in Afghanistan is simply black or green tea sweetened with sugar). That's understandable because with virtually no TVs, computers, iPods, or reading ability, chatting is about the only pastime there is. Further, observes Stofan, "one thing I appreciate about them is that although they may believe in one thing or another they are not judgmental on our values or traditions. They respect the fact that we shave or keep our shoes on indoors, for example, because it is what we do. They are not offended by it or frown upon it."

But morale needs money to survive: Fumento bunked with Romanians,


(source: Michael Fumento's web page.)

whose combat mission was to support the newly-reconstituted Afghan police:

The police themselves are a ragtag bunch, ranging in age from perhaps 14 to 70. A few wear raggedy blue official summer uniforms, while some of the younger guys at one outpost wear thick wool winter gray uniforms that look like they came from a stockpile of the Confederate States of America. Even the caps look Confederate. But most of the police wear civilian clothes, which isn't good. A uniform helps hold a unit together, and it gives a man pride.

The worst deficiency, though, is pay. While their salaries are merely $70 a month, none of the police had been paid in three months. . . Obviously this discourages recruiting, and when those police do finally get paid it may encourage them to take the money and run. Less obvious, except to anybody who knows the history of Afghanistan, is that bribes are more important than bullets. In fact, the conquest of the country from the Taliban began when the CIA flew in $3 million in cash (they would eventually spend many times that) to win over warlords to the Northern Alliance.

So the Taliban know that far more important than any weapon in their arsenal is the wad of cash supplied by sympathetic Arab oil sheikhs, Islamic charity front groups, and Osama bin Laden himself. According to a February report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "In some reported cases, the Taliban are paying up to $12 a day, three times as much as the [Afghan National Army] field soldiers, and there is evidence of defection from the national security forces to the Taliban ranks."

More than that, a lack of funds encourages some police to sell what weapons they do have. I asked B Company executive officer Lt. Keith Wei if it would be possible to supply the police with DShKs (pronounced "dishka"), a Russian-made 12.7 millimeter antiaircraft weapon adapted for ground combat. It would clean the Taliban's clocks. He was politely aghast at my ignorance. "Because they're receiving no salaries, there would be tremendous temptation to sell those to the Taliban," he said. And DShK rounds can slice through Humvee armor.

Retired General Barry R. McCaffrey's February 2007 Afghanistan report, based on personal observation but primarily outside data, is generally upbeat. "We are now on the right path," it concludes. Nevertheless it also states, "We have no real grasp of what actual [Afghan National Police] presence exists at the 355 District level operations. . . . We do know that 50 percent more Afghan police were KIA last year than [Afghan army] soldiers." It continues, "The task of creating 82,000 Afghan policemen (currently a notional 62,000 force) is a ten-year job that we must fully resource," and we are now beginning that. Yet "the effort to create the Afghan police is currently grossly under-resourced with 700 U.S. trainers." By contrast, he notes that in Kosovo we had 5,000 police mentors for 6,500 Kosovo police.

In the short term, though--which is to say right now--the police need weapons and ammo and proper uniforms for hot and cold weather. Most critically, we need to pay them their lousy $70 a month.

Fumento is optimistic:

I can't say how often I heard officers or noncoms say, "This war is winnable." Implicit is that it's also losable; but what they really mean is winnable in comparison to Iraq. It's strange but true that Afghanistan--with four major ethnic groups, two official languages, and almost countless lesser languages--is far more of a proud, united nation than Iraq. They have Sunni and Shia, but their differences are just another excuse for a chat over chai. It's way too early to say if the Iraqi "surge" is working, but the much-anticipated massive Taliban spring offensive in Afghanistan has thus far proved a trickle rather than a deluge.

But he understands why U.S. support for the war in Afghanistan will continue to erode:

One of the AP reporters says he believes 9/11 was a Bush administration conspiracy hung on al Qaeda. [Capt. Richard] Slusher gives him hell about it--albeit in a good-natured way. I don't hear the other reporter sound out on the subject, but he never takes off his Che Guevara T-shirt. Maybe these two will provide unbiased footage and commentary notwithstanding their personal views--maybe not.

I'll go with door number two.