Hi Geoffrey,
Interesting coincidence. I was in conversation with another young Pushtun who is doing a doctorate at the University of London regarding strategic communications and the lead of the Taliban and local militants over the state and ISAF in Afghanistan have over us in the media. One of the problems is that there is intellectual dishonesty involved in what you write or say and what you actually do. This leads to the following question. If Petreaus helped write the COIN Manual why did he not implement it with committment in Afghanistan when he was the top honcho calling all the shots?There is a local joke that encapsulates this dilemma. A Pushtun was speaking very loudly to his wife with whom he was on good terms. She was surprised to hear the unexplained emotional outburst from her hubby. Later at night the secret was let out by the husband when he told his wife that the display of anger was not meant for her but for his mother in law so that she should fear the son in law and leave the house quickly as she had overstayed her welcome.Petreaus help author the COIN manual but then did the opposite and offended everyone with his killing spree of 20-22 SFO each night in Afghanistan. Most of these ops were meant to pick up informed rustics for interrogation, so that they would give lead to choice targets. In the bargain the Afghan felt insulted when his home (his castle) was raided and he was insulted and in many cases wives and children were killed forcing him to seek revenge. Surely this tactic will create more enemies and not reduce them as any Pushtun would have told the General; he should have spent money to buy intelligence, we did it all the time when I was a Political Agent in Waziristan in the 1970s.The ill-conceived "Clear, Hold & Build," mantra of COIN is equally flawed. Clear whom? The land belongs to the indigenous and not the occupying force; Hold what when since it did not belong to you in the first place you have no intrinsic loyalty in claiming identity of the land and thus you will not be able to hold it and lastly Build for whom since the majority of the people think that the occupiers will leave the land and what they construct only for the sake of showman ship.In short it is this gap between the rhetoric and reality that has stood in the way of making the Taliban insignificant. More than ever before, I think the wars of the 21st century will be cultural and communication wars rather than based on kinetic operations that at best are good for a column in the New York Times or the Washington Post or sprucing up failed careers rather than winnning insurgency wars.Khalid Aziz,M. Phil, Development Studies,Cambridge, University,
2 hours ago
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