War Notes: November 14, 2009

To the simplistic Washington creature, all victory in Afghanistan takes is a tougher president who will bomb harder and send more soldiers into battle. But those on the ground in Afghanistan have long advocated a more nuanced approach to victory, especially tempering expectations of what that victory might mean. In recent days, they finally are having their voices heard, in the guise of leaked memos and resignation letters.
Instead of a jingoistic approach to "winning" militarily, we should follow the lead of Ambassador Eikenberry and others in winning the trust of the Afghan people through non-military measures. Eikenberry should have his $2.5 billion request for non-mililtary infrastructure development granted. As the former commander of the U.S forces on the ground, his word should carry at least as much weight as McChrystal's.
..........................................
We learned last week that we are paying the Taliban not to shoot at us as we transport supplies through remote areas of Afghanistan. Instead, we should follow the advice of people on the ground and create a permanent security unit that will accompany military suppliers. Surely such a unit would be able to fend off insurgent attacks. If it cannot, then we should really consider the viability of any military victory. To continue to fund our enemies on a daily basis will lead us to ruin.
...........................................
The British government, according to leaked memos, is reevaluating which members of the Taliban are enemies. The memo suggests that Karzai target disillusioned young Taliban fighters and integrate them into the Afghan military. That would be followed by winning over select regional warlords affiliated with the Taliban. The article describing the memos provided scant suggestions on how this would actually work, but Prime Minister Gordon Brown is apparently quite certain that Karzai needs to begin some form of negotiating with some elements of the Taliban. Frankly, I don't know what either side brings to the table. At this point, the entire Afghan economy is centered around drugs and war. Maybe we should just offer young Taliban fighters $9 a day not to fight, a dollar more than their Taliban salary. Since there are only 25,000 or so insurgent fighters, we could buy off all the non-ideological insurgents for $200,000 a day, which is the approximate cost of paying one for one additional American soldier to serve for four months in Afganistan.
................................
Apparently concerned that their new Kabul-based beat reporter, Alyssa Rubin, is providing too real an account of conditions in Afghanistan, the New York Times commissioned a warm and fuzzy piece to run on Friday. The article covered a small village that has given up war for clean drinking water and schools, funding by microgrants that are handed directly to the village, rather than through the corrupt central government. I'm all for grants like this one. Even in praising the progress in the village, however, the article relays the teeth-pulling involved to get the village support for a girls school. Programs like this should be emulated, but since they explicitly circumvent the Karzai government, questions remain unanswered on what role we'd prefer the central government to play in Afghanistan.