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Why Does the U.S. Get All the Tornadoes?
Posted By Thomas E. Ricks
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - 1:21 PM
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Last night I went to see David Kilcullen, the most quotable Australian since the Brothers Gibb, report on his most recent tour of Afghanistan. This is a great way to begin a speech:
One afternoon about six weeks ago I got ambushed in a valley in Dora Nur, in Nangarhar province...
Kilcullen, who is now a consultant to NATO and the U.S. government spent much of his time explaining how the war effort in Afghanistan is being crippled by the debilitating corruption of the Kabul government. (I'd bet this is similar to the straight talk Secretary Clinton is delivering today on her visit to Afghanistan.) He said a Western diplomat in Kabul told him that the government there reminds him of the Nationalist Chinese government in 1949, with an urban elite trying to scrape together as much wealth as they can before time runs out and they have to scoot.
Kilcullen described a "cycle of corruption" that is destroying Afghanistan:
Corruption
Leads to
Rapacious behavior of government officials
Leads to
Rage and alienation of the people
Leads to
Operating space for the Taliban
Leads to
Growing Taliban strength
Leads to
Taliban encouragement of poppy cultivation
Leads to
Poppies producing funds that corrupt government officials
Leads to
More corruption
And so on
"Poppy is the Taliban CERP," he said, a chilling phrase to anyone who knows the major role that that U.S. military acronym refers to money that American commanders used to win friends and influence people. The farmers who grow the dope only make about $800 million total annually, he said, with the vast majority of revenue, more than $3 billion, being split between drug lords, the Taliban, and government officials.
His bottom line is that there are two real options in Afghanistan: Either tell the Kabul government we are pulling out, or put in enough troops to actually break the cycle of corruption, which he said would be a minimum of about 40,000. "We either put in enough to control, or we get out." The worst thing we could do, he added, is put in enough troops to get more people killed but not enough to do anything to break change the behavior of corrupt officials. Also, he said, it is more about what you do than the actual number of troops -- "If you do it wrong, you could put it a million troops and it wouldn't make any difference."
Without quite saying so, he also indicated that time is a factor right now. "We're seeing a lot of money leaving the country. We're seeing tribes associated with the Northern Alliance re-arming. ... A lot of people are getting nervous." He talked about how attuned local Afghan leaders in remote areas are to American politics, being familiar with the various stances of President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Carl Levin. "Right now we're sending kind of a message of indecision."
One surprise to me was that he isn't particularly worried about the possibility of al Qaeda moving back into Afghanistan. "I hope so," he said, explaining that it would be a strategic gain for us to see the terrorist group leave Pakistan and move into parts of Afghanistan that essentially are "the moon with gravity."
John Moore/Getty Images
(Tom writes:) "... with the vast majority of revenue, more than $3 billion, being split between drug lords, the Taliban, and government officials."
--
The Omar-Taliban's rise to power was an ISI project. The Pak military islamists believe it's their right to control Afghanistan and war in Kashmir, with the kind of fundamentalist fervor we associate with the Israeli right of conquest. ISI hasn't given up on their Afghan project, thru the last 8 years of waiting the US out.
The US is watching our cash flow to Pakistan's generals pretty closely these days. That means their islamist project has to be funded off the grid. Nuke sales are curtailed somewhat.
What would the Brits do, faced with a cash flow crisis?
The ISI does not believe its their right to control Afghanistan.However it is ISI's duty to prevent India from controlling Afghanistan.Secondly Afghanistan has always been governed by the Majority Pakhtun community.the past 8 yrs has been a negation of that concept.Karzai though a Pakhtun himself rules because of the support of the Northern alliance types and international support.his legitamacy among the pashtun populace has withered away over the years.corruption playing a major reason of that.the taliban are not from mars.they are natives of afghanistan.secondly the whole point of the war on terror was to root out alqaeda not indulge in other countries civil wars.
Finally It is in Pakistans interests to see Afghanistan stabilized.that will only happen when the Pakhtun community is in command of Kabul and running the show.instability in Afghanistan doesnt suit Pakistan because the instability as we can all see spills over into Pakistan..
options for the US is to accomodate the taliban and the Pakhtuns in the central governemnt.then exit the country gracefully after handing over reins to a peacekeeping force from muslim countries such as turkey,indonesia,bangladesh,gulf states etc
p.s:though im an ardent opponent of the talibans ideology and abhor their rule prior to 9/11 they did almost eliminate the poppy cultivation when they were calling the shots
What you just articulated is pretty much the standard Pakistani line. Which may or may not be true, but the U.S. has to learn to honor Pakistan's legitimate regional security concerns (now matter how absurd we may think they are).
The Afghan Taliban isn't going anywhere until the Afghan polity can create a party that is categorically anti-India and atleast nominally pro-Pakistan. Until that is the case, Pakistan's establishment will NEVER cease support of their natural allies in the Afghan struggle. Just as Ahmad Shah Masud and the Northern Alliance NEVER stopped fighting against the first Taliban regime.
This has little or nothing to do with the Kashmir struggle, and everything to do with Pakistan's security doctrine of resisting being surrounded on both flanks by hostile governments.
I ask again, and it may sound insane at this stage, but why is no one considering a two state solution? It's a win for every party involved.
Pashtun land E. of the Durand line
is under Pakistani occupation. The Brit Durand 'guns and butter lease' of the territories was inherited by a gov't dominated by 'Indian' moslems at the time of partition.
90's Pakistan hoped to use it's sponsorship of Omar's regime to force modern Afghanistan to permanently cede the E. half of Pashtun land to Islamabad. They refused, and the Durand lease expired. More instability.
Pakistan's play is to keep the Pasthuns divided, and Afghanistan balkanized. Reversion of the territory is unthinkable, and absorbing a united Pashtunistan into Pakistan would make Pashtuns the dominant polity in 'the land of the pure'.
However you parse their motivation, the nuclear armed military gov't behind the IRP throne sees an islamic Afghanistan as part of their build toward a much larger regional islamic sphere of influence and control. That ultimately reaches into Russia, China, and SE Asia, inshallah.
At least that's my deconstruction. The Great Game, from an Islamist perspective.
Land of the Pure, Home of the Criminally Insane
The Durand Line is definitely problematic, but very few, if any, of the serious players actually care about it any more.
I mean the last time I heard it seriously mentioned as a potential bone of contention was a few years ago, in passing, by Karzai.
Ask the various intermarried and extended families of Pashtuns spanning the two countries how they feel about the line and they usually don't care. The border is so porous and easy to cross that it's not even worth complaining about anymore. Not to mention that rarely are people turned back at the official checkpoints leading to Quetta or Peshawar.
The assertion that the various Pakistani regimes of the 90s were somehow trying to get Afghan Pashtuns to 'permanently cede' the frontier to Pakistan assumes that it was ever a seriously disputed issue in the first place. If it was such, wouldn't we see the usual signs of a suppressed and hintered people? Where was the Pashtun seperatist movement? Where was the systematic discrimination against Pashtuns in wider Pakistani Society? There is none. Pashtun's are the second largest ethnicity to staff the Pak Military. They've produced Generals and Presidents. And they're intermarried within the other ethnicities.
Naturally the Punjabi dominated military would be scared of a potential Pashtunistan movement that aims to split Pakistan, but that's just common sense. And the numbers don't really support the 'divide them to prevent them from dominating' thesis. There are a little over 11 million Pashtuns in Afghanistan, and 28 million in Pakistan. The Punjabis alone constitute 79 million strong in Pakistan. So it's hard to imagine that being a real cause for concern.
Why then are they more terrified of supposed Indian ambitions, and not a Pashtun threat? The answer is because they genuinely don't fear a break off of the country in that manner. What they fear is being surrounded by hostile governments.
We can hypothesize until the cows come home about these fantastic Islamist regional hegemonic ambitions (wal iyyaathu bilLah), but in the realm of the real and possible the central concern is Pakistan's obsession with India.
aren't the IRPaks bombing insurgent E. side Pashtuns? Isn't the most militantly islamist faction in the Pak military supporting the W. side Pashtun insurrection agin a Karzai regime whose primary sin may be misalignment with Islamabad? Didn't that faction push battallion sized attacks across the river into Soviet Asia at the end of their occupation?
I'm thinking that crossing the back country routes between the Pashtunistans is for arms and drug dealers, not grocery shopping these days. A history of the ISI Afghan bureau regulating the all-weather routes to favor alliances for policy purposes is there in the literature. So are stories of widespread assassination of non islamist tribal leaders. Coll's book carries some of that.
No one's doubted the pathan fighting spirit since Alexander. But they got cards off the bottom in the Brit empire deal, and know it. "Territories" breed separatism, in Pashtunistan or Puerto Rico. 'Taxation without representation' makes folks testy.
The US military is also a rainbow of diversity. But the PR, Samoan and Salvadoran recruits (or a Viet-American skipper, or a Filipino-American brigadier) have little to say about what wars we send them to fight in.
in practicality afghanistan and pakistan will become a common market eventually.i dont see afghanistan being partitioned though because the pashtuns themselves would resist it.
Pashtunistan is already partitioned
and the 'pathans' do seem to be resisting it, proportional to how the partition is enforced.
When the border was more or less open under the monarchy or Omar's Taliban, it was much as smci describes it, no big deal. When the Russians or the US start interdicting the armed tribesmen, or even bombing from drones launched from IRP airbases, the resistance can get intense.
IRP is learning the same lesson as the CIA: it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle. If we'd paid attention to the dialogue in Lawrence of Arabia, we'd have caught on to the Brit trick of not supplying the insurgents with anything heavier than a Lewis gun. But the idea of killing Russians was seductive, in the 80's
doh!
What gives him the idea that 40,000 troops are enough to matter? The US component has gone from what, about 26,000 in Dec. 2007 to 68,000 today, to no effect. If the US contingent gets increased to 108,000 troops (plus around 40,000 allied troops) will it really be enough to break the cycle of corruption he identifies?
We'll still be dealing with a population of about 28 million, in very rugged terrain with poor infrastructure. The Afghan National Army (ANA) has another 100,000 troops, but they are poorly paid ($150/month) and are probably thoroughly corrupted, so they won't be much help in breaking the cycle of corruption. Can under 150,000 US and allied troops do it by themselves? I doubt it. We're still facing an estimated 25,000 Taliban insurgents (6:1 ratio of "reliable" troops to insurgents) with ready funding from drug trafficking and a safe haven in Pakistan. Where has there been a successful counterinsurgency campaign under such conditions?
For the past seven years one of NATO’s missions has supposedly been to eliminate poppy production.
But we’re told that the Afghan poppy industry is currently booming.
Poppies need about 4 ½ months from germination to harvest.
Poppies don’t take evasive action; they stay in one place, in an open field where they can get plenty of sunlight.
Afghanistan is the size of Texas.
There are currently around 100K NATO troops in Afghanistan, plus who knows how many mercs and spooks.
Gen. McChrystal says that 40K more US troopers will be a game-changer.
Gen. McChrystal’s request looks very much like the type that Gen. Westmoreland made repeatedly, which contributed to wrecking Westmoreland's credibility and career, and the granting of which sank LBJ's presidency.
I note the Washington Post online carrying a new headline: "Afghan minister accused of taking bribe" Geez, what's the world coming to.
The more newsworthy headline would have been 'Afghan minister NOT accused of taking bribe' - now that's a real story.
Would someone please post a discussion of the utter immiscibility of our western values with those of the tribes of Afghanistan? We are trying to fix the unfixable, chasing a phantom of insurgencies and attempting to change a tribal culture that goes back eons.
Here's the real choice: either make Afghanistan our 51st state or get the hell out of there.
The Aussie Col. Kilcullen's observation that it would a strategic advantage for NATO forces if al Qaeda moved back into Afghanistan is spot on. This is a strategic insight that no American general would likely dare utter for fear of being smeared by right wing political types back home who don’t get it. They would likely construe such a remark as defeatist and not fathom the opportunity it would offer to give al Qaeda a good bashing.
Al Qaeda in returning to Afghanistan would likely be offering its head as a gift to be placed upon a block to be chopped off by American and British special op’s types. Of course the chance of that happening is about as high as Joe Biden being at a loss for words.
Regarding corruption, we never managed to resolve the cycle of corruption in the South Vietnamese government with 565,000 troops in country at one point. So I suspect that 40,000 more conventional road and base bound American troops suffering from an acute lack of situational awareness would hardly be a deterrent.
Actually we did make some progress with land reform, and curbing some corruption under Nguyen Van Thieu. It mattered not, since it was too little - to late, and the American public had decided it wasn't worth the cost after 1968 (if it ever was?). Will that be the ultimate deciding factor in Afghanistan?
Vietnamization was interesting, but from my first hand perspective it was never really logistically supported, and was only done to give us a political duck and cover to exit our conventional forces. Again, will that be our ploy in Afghanistan to stand up the Afghan in a hurry and scoot?
LtCol. Kilcullen comes from a good line of counter-insurgency stock. The Australians grasped the concept early-on in Vietnam having learned along with the British in Malaysia (which actually had a residual insurgency well into the early 70's that's relatively unknown).
They also taught me how to cool down a can of beer, by sticking it in a sock; soaking it in gasoline; swinging it around in the air, while the rapid evaporation cools it down. : )
Leave it to the Aussies to know the in's and outs of cooling beer in a tropical environment.
Any people that can play rugby like the Aussies I want on my side.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58vujCL2dJI&feature=related
As a card-carrying right-winger I find your analysis quite peculiar.
--The Aussie Col. Kilcullen's observation that it would a strategic advantage for NATO forces if al Qaeda moved back into Afghanistan is spot on. This is a strategic insight that no American general would likely dare utter for fear of being smeared by right wing political types back home who don’t get it. They would likely construe such a remark as defeatist and not fathom the opportunity it would offer to give al Qaeda a good bashing.--
Yes, we on the right are too stupid to grasp the fact that such an eventuality as Al Qaeda moving into the war zone would increase our opportunities to kill them.
You may recall that in the parallel situation in Iraq, we supported the surge of troops on just these grounds (that it would give our troops more chances to kill Al Qaeda) and that it was the left, Democrats, who shrieked that more troops would bring in more Al Qaeda, who would be mad at us, oh noes!
To clarify: as a certified right-winger (I've been called a teabagger AND a birther on this site without any cause) I can assure you that I concur with Kilcullen (a very smart man) in his analysis and especially agree that an incursion from Pakistan by Al Qaeda would be a very bad thing--for Al Qaeda! I would praise any general who made this point, since it seems to me to be an argument in favor of the troop surge in Aghanistan.
Which we on the right support.
And you on the left oppose.
Not being a cheerleader for the neocon right wing adventurers who masterminded the idiotic invasion of Iraq and fouled up the war in Afghanistan hardly makes me a lefty. So it seems to me you are doing the greater projection.
Personally, I have a stake in these wars since my kid is a veteran Navy SEAL officer who goes back and forth between Afghanistan and Iraq as if they were second homes. In my humble view these wars have been poorly conceived, poorly executed and lack strategic coherence. And yes, the year after year failures in these adventures are the direct responsibility of the ‘right wing’ Cheney/Bush administration that made arrogance and bungling an art form. Obama may do no better that remains to be seen. If he doesn’t then maybe the right’s new vacuous poster child the highly educated Sara Palin will have an opportunity to apply her deft skills in foreign policy as President.
BTW, I too think Col. Kilcullen is a smart guy whose views are well worth listening to and with regards to al Qaeda returning to Afghanistan that would be a happy opportunity for special ops. Basically, I don’t know what 40,000 fresh American troops would do in Afghanistan and my guess is you and your right wing allies don’t either. But that won’t stop them from missing an opportunity to support an escalation of a war they mismanaged for seven years. This insanity is called patriotism.
By and large all our forces with the exception of SOF’s are pretty much road and base bound as I previously stated. They are generally where the Taliban and certainly al Qaeda usually aren’t. Mostly, they perform the thankless task of being targets for IED’s and the occasional firefight. This isn’t good enough and pretty much illustrates the bankruptcy of current command and strategy.
till the gratuitous swipe at Sarah palin.
The right's view of Kilcullen . . .
. . . has been broadcast quite loudly for some time.
Diana West calls him "equal parts stupid and putrid"--
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/899/Mission-Mullen-Kilcullen-Winning-Trust-Preventing-Accidents-from-Happening-to-Guerillas.aspx
And here's the Washington Times in 2007:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/may/31/20070531-085726-4381r//print/
You're welcome to that company.
but your point is a valid one, thanks. There are just as many idiots on the right as on the left.
Actually, study shows that the left long ago lost the struggle keep up with the right's population of idiots. It's clear: the wingnut right has cornered the world market on stupid.
. . . lunatic lefties yell about Bush being Hitler, and that's about it.
Lunatic righties yell about Saddam being Hitler, and they invade Iraq.
And West is a miracle-worker: she makes Palin look sentient.
PS What's it mean when there's a misspelling in the captcha? Mine's "cookbook deterioating." Yikes!
The Washington Times take on Kilcullen reveals why we were losing the fight in Iraq. The author substitutes moral indignation and self-righteousness for objectivity and analysis. Lumping all the opposition to our occupation under the label of 'jihadis' prevented our allying with the Sunnis against Al Qaeda in Iraq, which was arguably the real turning point.
Ignorance of the enemy - their origins, their motives, their commitments - is never justifiable in war. The Times piece positively celebrates ignorance.
Thanks for sharing that with us.
"If I were a Muslim, I'd probably be a jihadist. The thing that drives these guys — a sense of adventure, wanting to be part of the moment, wanting to be in the big movement of history that's happening now — that's the same thing that drives me, you know?" No. I don't know. And I sorely wish I could tell him so — "him" being David Kilcullen, senior counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, senior U.S. commander in Iraq.
Even smart guys make questionable comments... But, "...like the moon with gravity" is both humorous and telling.
I think people on the right are mostly as ignorant of world affairs as their poster guys - Dick Cheney & Sara Palin. I bet he does not know that Afghanistan is a mountainous country (unlike Iraq) and Al-Qaeda, a creation of CIA in 1979 and Taliban (created by ISI of Pakistan) know each of the peak and valley in S.Afghanistan, like the back of their palms. In any case, when U.S led the 2001 war, why could it not finish off Bin Laden and his stooges? Not only him they even could not kill or capture one eyed Mullah Omar. No one bets on General McChrstal to turn things around when Taliban is on the rebound and Al-Qaeda is learning new tricks. Like President Bush, CIA can keep handing over billion of dollars to ISI of Pakistan for each middle level Al-Qaeda operative that too once an year basis.
You cannot even get rid of corruption in US. Just look at the story below this post.
Um, excuse me, but "all" would mean 600,000 COINs
And considering that the Afghan army and police are of dubious - if any - value, "all" is not an option. How on the moon with gravity are 40,000 troops going to make a difference in Afghan corruption? When they don't, Kilcullen and the rest of the COINistas will have promoted the worst thing we could do. Any amount less than 40,000 will therefore have been a better choice.
I'm glad Kilcullen has seen the wisdom of getting out of Afghanistan. What will it take for him to make it his first choice?
And I don't care what message we're sending to Afghan leaders by debating Afghan policy in public. None of them ever thought we'd stay for the long haul anyway. President Obama, Pelosi and Levin should listen to their constituents, who are opposed to escalating this war.
PS Mullah Omar's Taliban almost eliminated poppy production. Which Taliban are now promoting it?
"'Poppy is the Taliban CERP,' [Kilcullen] said..."
I've done the paperwork to initiate, fund, and close out CERP projects. I've handled the admin requirements while the CERP projects were ongoing. That was the only staff billet that I ever served in while in the Army. I enjoyed it so much that I resigned my commission soon after redeployment. If Poppy truly were the Taliban CERP, then I suspect we would be seeing far greater attrition among their ranks.
Oh Mr. Ricks, He Who Talks to Kilcullen:
Fighting corruption is surely vital, but hardly seems part of regular army operational capabilities or training. Maybe they've picked up the skills in wrangling with Iraqi politicians and sheiks over the last few years, but if so it hasn't been widely reported. Can you ask the Kilcullen himself how another 40,000 combat troops and trainers are going to end corruption and incidentally teach the government ministries how to deliver services, particularly to the rural areas?
It's not that I doubt the Kilcullen's smarts - but I'm one of the people who are supposed to pay for this, so it'd be nice to have a little description of how it is going to work. Are we going to destroy the poppies? Will that win us allegiance from the farmers? Buy the poppies? Wait until the warlords have them, then confiscate them? Will we arrest citizens of a sovereign nation for corruption? Do we have the legal authorities? Will we set up shadow ministries to deliver services in the name of Kabul?
Does it all need to be done at once? Or can we work on securing the cities, fixing up the government and Afghan security forces, and begin to retake the countryside when the Afghans are actually ready to do their part? It we try to pacify the countryside now before the national forces are ready, won't it create a situation that is unsustainable given the state of US forces and the doubts of the US public?
What would be really useful is to get Mr Kilcullen to agree to take questions from your readers. How about it? Despite the somewhat irreverent tone, I'm an admirer and a supported the Iraqi "surge" on the basis of his blogging.
How's 'bout it He Who Talks?
Best CAPTCHA ever: McGovern iranians.
I think this is how the Family Guy writers get their ideas.
"Poppy is the Taliban CERP," he said, a chilling phrase to anyone who knows the major role that that U.S. military acronym refers to money that American commanders used to win friends and influence people. The farmers who grow the dope only make about $800 million total annually, he said, with the vast majority of revenue, more than $3 billion, being split between drug lords, the Taliban, and government officials.
So? If you’re unable (or unwilling) to keep farmers from cultivating poppy, why not offer them a better price for their produce, say $ 1 billion?
First, an increase in demand will lead to higher prices and lower Taliban profits.
Second, instead of simply eradicating a farmer’s harvest and alienating another Afghan family, you could offer an alternative “package”:
- the first season you’d buy the complete harvest and let the farmer sign a contract that:
- the next season he’d be paid half the price for the same amount of produce, plus he’d be offered alternative crops to be cultivated henceforth;
- the third season’s harvest would have to be 100% alternative (non-poppy) crops. In case of poor harvests, ISAF should financially support these farmers.
PRTs could monitor compliance and in order to protect such farmers from Taliban retribution a security arrangement based on old but proven concepts like CAP and/or RF-PF should be implemented. Simplistic? Maybe, but a program based on complete poppy eradication will never work without offering a decent alternative. Adding some good old American economic competitiveness to this conflict would certainly dampen our opponents’ spirits.
Buying the crop or paying farmers not to grow it will not work.
1. If you provide a better price, farmers growing wheat will switch crops to get this price. And since you are entering into this "contract", which I am not sure how one would enforce such a thing, you have legitimized the growing of poppy.
2. If the U.S. buys all the poppy from these "contracted" poppy farmers, you drive up the price that "non-contracted" farmers would receive. The profits received by the insurgents and corrupted would not change since the higher price requires less product.
3. No alternative crop can compete with poppy. Afghanistan has few options for alternate livelihoods, the place is just not suitable for much.
4. PRTs cannot protect farmers, operational forces cannot even accomplish this and they are manned and equipped for protection (PRTs are not).
Unfortunately, the only way to really effect poppy production is a massive eradication campaign (not preferred since the farmers are not who we want to target), combat the demand side of the equation (not conceivable since we cannot do that domestically and nearly all Afghan heroin goes regionally, to Russia, and Europe), or a multi-pronged interdiction program that raises the cost of doing business to such an extent that it becomes unprofitable.
Anyone out there know the history of the eradication of Turkish poppy production several decades ago? I remember someone telling me it was done through buying up the existing crop, while not allowing any new production.
Thanks,
Tom
PS--I think we need a ban on people quoting the inadvertent wisdom of Captcha.
What about the Taliban eradication in the 90's?
That's a much more relevant example.
PS - No need for being the fun police, Tom
Captcha wisdom beats none at all... (present company always excepted)
Just saw your request. See if this helps:
http://www.poppyformedicine.net/documents/Political_History_Poppy_Licensing_Turkey_May_2006
Whatever we do, the worst thing we can do for our forces is to eradicate the pot fields... they're just about the only place our helos can land with no brown-out
1. If you provide a better price, farmers growing wheat will switch crops to get this price. And since you are entering into this "contract", which I am not sure how one would enforce such a thing, you have legitimized the growing of poppy.
There´s a difference between promoting poppy cultivation and implementing a transition phase to facilitate changing crops. Ban poppy production, but at the same time offer an alternative.
2. If the U.S. buys all the poppy from these "contracted" poppy farmers, you drive up the price that "non-contracted" farmers would receive. The profits received by the insurgents and corrupted would not change since the higher price requires less product.
I was suggesting a complete eradication of poppy, countrywide. Good point, though. Legalizing heroin would really shake up the market, but you might consider this suggestion even more perverse ;)
3. No alternative crop can compete with poppy.
As far as profit is concerned, probably. But an alternative use for poppy also exists: http://www.poppyformedicine.net/
Apparently a similar program was implemented in Turkey, as Mr. Ricks was referring to.
Afghanistan has few options for alternate livelihoods, the place is just not suitable for much.
“Only a very small share of Afghanistan's land (about 15 percent), mostly in scattered valleys, is suitable for farming; about 6 percent of the land is actually cultivated. At least two-thirds of this farmland requires irrigation. (…)Wheat is the most important crop, followed by barley, corn, and rice. Cotton is another important and widely cultivated crop. Fruit and nuts are among Afghanistan's most important exports. Afghanistan is noted for its unusually sweet grapes and melons, grown mostly in the southwest, north of the Hindu Kush, and in the fertile regions around Herat. Raisins are also an important export. Other important fruits are apricots, cherries, figs, mulberries, and pomegranates. “
Source: http://www.afghanistans.com/information/Economy/Agriculture.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/3491421/Afghanistan-promotes-pomegranates-over-opium-poppies-in-farming-overhaul.html
4. PRTs cannot protect farmers, operational forces cannot even accomplish this and they are manned and equipped for protection (PRTs are not).
PRTs shouldn’t be burdened with protecting the farmers, that’s a task a Combined Action Platoon could fulfill, in addition to its enforcement role. The PRTs could check on both the farmers and local government officials, plus offer advice on the rule of law, reconstruction and development, agriculture, and governance.
http://www.centcom.mil/en/news/kansas-guardsmen-afghan-farmers-explore-poppy-alternatives.html
Study of the Turkish campaign against poppies
A helpful reader suggests this:
http://www.poppyformedicine.net/documents/Political_History_Poppy_Licensing_Turkey_May_2006
I haven't read it yet.
Cheers,
Tom
I remember reading a while back that Afghan poppy production (or perhaps it was opium exports) was down during the Najibullah presidency. Does anyone have a link to a few decades worth of stats? DEA maybe?
Try the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. I have pulled tremendous amount of data from the sight. There are reports specifically on Afghanistan on poppy production and breaks it down by provinces. Will try to find the exact link.
As a caveat, crop sizes, usually measured in "hectares" differs between the UN and CIA, based on how data is collected (which I believe the CIA bases their numbers on imagery...i believe)
http://www.unodc.org/
A quick look at that site reveals some informative data. Although it doesn’t go back to Najibullah’s time (1987-92), their chart shows that for Afghanistan between 1994 and 2008, both for hectares in cultivation and tons of opium produced, 2001 was by far the lowest year, and 2007 and 2008 were the highest.
Corruption is a battlefield phenomena, like it or not. It works against our efforts to effectively stabilize and secure the country, which is the goal. Kinetic action, which is still necessary (and preferred), is not the path to success. Focusing efforts on the Center of Gravity, the people, will move us closer to our goal, since the people are the ones most affected by corruption.
Fighting corruption is not a DoD core competency and most leaders do not know where to even begin. However, since DoD is the "biggest show in town", it falls on that institution to combat it (funny how DoD continues to become burdened with these nontraditional missions). Just a little education (training) and some effort (moving out of ones comfort zone) will go a long way in addressing corruption; particularly through oversight and transparency.
From 2007-2008 I worked as a BN operations officer working with the Afghan police. One of the biggest problems we struggled to solve was police pay issues. District police officers (I use that term very loosely) were not being paid regularly, completely, or most of the time not at all. Although funds were being distributed from the EU LOTFA fund to the MOI, the money was being siphoned off at so many points in the system that the district cops were not receiving their pay. So the result was that these officers were extorting shop keepers and truckers, shaking down citizens, and working with and for the insurgents to subsidize their lost pay.
However, providing a little bit of oversight to the system (tracking the money as well as the pay rosters-since every Provincial Police Chief in our AO inflated the number of officers working by 10%-25%), we can dramatically improve conditions on the ground.
Now I am not saying this will be easy, just necessity. We have got to fight the war we have, not the war we wish we had. We have to adapt to the conditions we find and educate our leaders how to combat.
On another point made above. It is true that in 2001 the Taliban did nearly wipe out poppy production. However, this was not done altruistically. The Taliban were hoping this gesture would gain them some legitimacy they were desperately seeking. Also, the ban was just on poppy growth not the trafficking of the plant or its derivatives. Since opium paste has a multi-year shelf life and the Taliban had extensive stockpiles, the ban effectively drove up the price they would receive on the commodity. When demand is unchanged and supply drops 90%, there is a tremendous rise in price. The Taliban did profit quite a bit from this Economic move.
MAJ Jim Walker
US Army
ILE Student
"The views expressed above are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the position of the Command and Staff College, the Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense."
Major Walker,
Thanks for your testimony. It is one step towards answering the vital question raised by Rick's piece: How would increasing the number of US troops in Afghanistan break the cycle of corruption?
Implicit in your account is a claim - the police weren't shaking down the merchants simply because they could. They thought they should get paid for their police work, and were improvising a rather unsystematic tax on the merchants. Hence, when they actually got paid, the shakedowns stopped. Is this correct? Was it borne out by your experience?
To ask you to take it one step further, since poppies are the key to the cycle of corruption, how would supplying more troops address the problem of poppy production and drug money?
Working under the same disclaimer that these are my own ideas (since I am required to Blog during this course, identifying myself necessitates the addition of the disclaimer).
To be honest, we never got to a point where shake downs completely stopped because the pay system NEVER achieved the three key components for it to work: timely, correct, and regularly. My belief is that the pay incentive only works when the Police receive the correct amount of money each month and every month they are working. Without that incentive the process breaks down. Other employers are competing for this labor source, especially the other power brokers (warlords, drug traffickers, insurgents, etc.)
As for the employment of the 40,000, I need to think on this. Most of these Soldiers will be combat arms, so their logical use is to secure and kill bad guys (which is a good use). However, there are other methods to create stability that are not core competencies of the military, yet could be trained to affect. Battling corruption, implementing quality assurance controls, developmental tasks (Economic) are ideas that come to mind that although not truly core competencies, there are present in some of our members.
This is a great topic and I appreciate the feedback on all I write here. I co-authored a paper on the Afghan drug crisis a few years ago. That and my experience with the police, I continue to struggle over what, if anything, can be done to stabilize the country.
Jim
Kilcullen: It’s all or nothing, Mr. President
One thing that puzzles me about the US/Afghan situation is the fact that during President Bushs' era, the US ignored UN reports that indicated the Taleban have been able to control the growing of coca. How come now the same Taleban is being accused of encouraging poppy cultivation?
I believe they are not allied to the Karzai regime or is it just a case of giving a dog a bad name to hang it?
If there is corruption in Afghanistan today, it was either ignored or tolerated by the US and her allies. Who put Karzai where he is today?
There is a real need for the US to step back and reflect the Afghanistan crisis. Military power alone cannot solve a political problems complicated by tribalism and lack of accountability. The military contractors and manufacturers wil make their billion dollar profits but then what? It is not a question of sanctuary to AlQaeda, there are other reasons simmering and waiting for a catalyst to manifest. Is all this bloodshed really necesssary? I believe no. Afterall pakistan is heading to a tribal/civil war if the US does not reflect soon enough.
On length of stay in theatre...
This all just illustrates why people like Alexander had his troops marry into the population. Maybe instead of rotating Officers out of Afghanistan so quickly, we should start setting up veteran retirement communities there. Add an 'Emerikani' tribe to the place.
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May/June 2013
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