Problems With U.S. Civilian Surge Could Upset Afghanistan Timetable

[tekisui]

Source: Kansas City/McClatchy Newspapers

The Obama administration's "surge" of U.S. civilian officials and experts into Afghanistan is beset by a shortage of qualified personnel, a lack of housing and other problems that could disrupt its timetable for turning over full control of the country to the Afghan government, according to a report released Friday.

"Even with the able leadership of Kabul's senior (civilian) officers, the best of intentions and the most dedicated efforts, Embassy Kabul faces serious challenges in meeting the administration's deadline for 'success' in Afghanistan," said the report by the State Department Inspector General's Office.

The civilian buildup is a key component of the strategy that President Barack Obama unveiled in December for defeating the Taliban-led insurgency, which continues to rage more than eight years after the United States invaded.

Inspectors found that Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and his staff have made "impressive progress" overseeing the personnel increase since his arrival in May.

But they said the effort is dogged by problems, including its "unprecedented pace and scope," the need to deploy personnel before there are places to house them and difficulty finding civilians with adequate training and expertise.

Eikenberry and his staff often put in 80-hour workweeks, with no days off. Video teleconferences with senior administration officials in Washington can keep them awake until 4:30 a.m., reducing productivity, the report said.

Some of the U.S. diplomats who are assigned to tracking and analyzing Afghanistan's complex politics and social dynamics lack training and expertise, the report said. IG inspectors found that there was no one in the embassy's political affairs office who's assigned full time to monitoring Afghanistan's relations with neighboring countries, including Iran, which U.S. officials have accused of providing weapons to the Taliban.

more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/03/05/1791907/problems-with-us-civilian-surge.html

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Is it drip, drip, drip or moving goalposts?

[jody]

1. Does the U.S. have enough civilian officials and experts to build a democratic nation of Afghanistan

Does anybody in the world know how to do that task since it's never been done before?

[tekisui]

3. We'll see.

It may take us a generation or more, but by-god we will do it with American money and American pride!

[bigtree]

9. I think the best they could hope for would be some 'surge' of support from Afghans

. . . who would supplant or assume our troops' role fighting their fellow (resisting) residents and dying in pursuit of America's war on terror. Saddled behind our military forces' escalated, offensive activity, that strategy seems to be undermined from the start. It's the business of creating more difficulties and resistance than our military can reasonably put down. At this rate, there will never be enough manpower or resources to overcome the problems which arise from the deliberate, self-perpetuated cycle of attacks and reprisals.

[jody]

10. One problem is police recruits are 75% illiterate. I assume that applies to military recruits also.

Fit To Fail

March 5, 2010: In Afghanistan, two-thirds of police recruits fail to complete their training. Despite that, the national police force has been expanded to 76,000. A major issue is the illiteracy problem (most recruits, like most Afghans, can't read). Afghanistan is finding that illiteracy is a growing problem in the army and police. Only about 25 percent of recruits are literate, and only 35 percent of all policemen are literate. While this can be ignored for the lower ranking troops, police supervisors need to read. Illiterate recruits also take longer to train, and more effort to work with. The U.S. has provided an intensive literacy course for soldiers, which gets most of them to basic ("functional") literacy within a year. A similar program has been implemented for the police. They need it. In addition taught to read signs and maps, the newly semi-literate police are taught to sign their names, and write out the serial number of their weapon. Illiterate police selected for promotion to sergeant, are given more literacy training. That's because being able to read and write has long been a critical asset for any paramilitary force. The Roman Empire, at its height 1800 years ago, had an army over 100,000 troops, a third of which were literate. But with modern forces, an abundance of technology makes literacy even more necessary. The Afghans can get by without it, but can do a lot better with it.

[bigtree]

11. The U.S. dilemma

. . . in trying to 'win' the war in Afghanistan - and in staunching the support of fellow Pashtuns from Pakistan's tribal areas - arises from not only a failure to learn from history but also a total ignorance of the Pashtun's immemorial adherence to their Pashtunwali code that cherishes freedom from any foreign domination.

These blind spots in U.S. foreign policy have led to three giant missteps. They are:

First, is the cardinal sin of the invasion of the Pashtun-dominated government of Taliban Afghanistan as U.S. revenge for the 9/11 attacks. The Pashtuns saw this revenge as unjust because none of them were physically involved in those attacks. The hijackers were all Arabs. Their only sin was to offer sanctuary to Osama bin Ladin and his al-Qa'ida cohort because of the tenets of their Pashtunwali code that enjoin protection to those seeking refuge (nanawati) and accompanying hospitality (melmastia). While bin Ladin may have bankrolled the Taliban regime under Mullah Omar, the narrative remains to this day among ordinary rural Pashtuns that the 2001 invasion was a breach of the tenets of their Pashtunwali code. As a result, this breach has generated another tenet of their Pashtunwali code - badal or revenge - against those who have invaded their country.

Second, is the imposition of a non-Pashtun Tajik-dominated minority government after 9/11 on a historically Pashtun-led Afghanistan ever since it was founded in 1747. The Pashtuns are a plurality of at least 45 percent of the population and the Tajiks are no more than 25 percent. While President Hamid Karzai is a Pashtun, and there are several Soviet-era Pashtun mujahidin warlords in the government and parliament, the vast majority of rural Pashtuns despise them as quislings.

Third, is the knee-jerk support by the United States (and its NATO allies) of this non-representative and corrupt Kabul government at the expense of the rural Pashtuns in eastern and southern Afghanistan. This support is creating an Afghan national army and police force composed of a majority of non-Pashtuns - mostly Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks - who are unwelcome in the Pashtun areas. As a result, the Taliban, who are Pashtuns, have taken over the governance there.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/afzal-khan/the-pashtun-concept-of-ji_b_485541.html

[unhappycamper]

2. It sure looks like moving goalposts to me.

Another smooth move out of the now discredited Vietnam manual.

[Lothrop]

4. Sounds familiar

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. Afghanistan + FUBAR = As Usual

[Mari333]

8. ditto

[bigtree]

6. The mission is based on public optimism and private resignation

. . . that their Afghanistan play will likely not perpetuate itself without the constant, heavy-hand of our military prompting and intimidating residents into lining up behind the line we draw with our advancing forces. What the Obama administration hoped was that they could pump up the U.S. beneficence to the degree that Afghans would cheer us on and join us in attacking and killing their fellow Afghans; even as they buried their dead friends, family, and neighbors killed and maimed as a result or consequence of our opportunistic militarism. And, surprise . . . they can't even get that right.

If we had, somehow, actually contracted with these folks in the military and administration to 'fix' Afghanistan (as occupation supporters insist we must), they'd deserve to be fired and sued for breach of contract. It just makes it worse that there really isn't a credible U.S. consensus on what they're actually engaged on in Afghanistan. Most folks think we're chasing bin-Laden in Afghanistan and killing 9-11 participants and accomplices there. I'd be floored though, if they produced just ONE individual they've decided is an enemy of the U.S. in Afghanistan who knew ANYTHING about plane crashes before 9-11, or knew of anyone 'plotting' anything remotely related to that day.

[tuckessee]

7. Exporting Ugly Americans by the planeload. n/t