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In non-shoe-throwing news, Anand Gopal of the Christian Science Monitor does some great reporting about something called the Afghan Social Outreach Program, which is the Karzai government’s attempt at fracturing the insurgency and cleaving the "small-T" Taliban away from Al Qaeda. This would complement the top-down talks between Karzai and the Taliban:
According to officials at the Afghan Social Outreach Program, part of an Afghan government initiative to strengthen local governance, a new body is being formed to reconcile such fighters with the government that will use the promise of government jobs and cash inducements. This body will replace an already existing government organization that many say is corrupt and ineffective.
The second approach will be to sow divisions in the insurgency’s leadership and isolate elements close to Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda and the Taliban have differing strategies: Al Qaeda’s policy of global warfare has brought it into confrontation with the Pakistani government, while the Afghan Taliban are on good terms with Islamabad and restrict its fight to Afghanistan.
There is, of course, no guarantee of this program working. But the Monitor reports that there are some indications of potential fractures — for instance, a letter sent in the spring from longtime warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to Karzai saying that Hekmatyar (a truly disgusting human being who enjoys such niceties at throwing acid at women’s uncovered faces) might be getting too old to fight. Also, the Monitor says that follow-on talks between Karzai and the Taliban could be hosted in Dubai, but it’s right now too soon to tell.
Meanwhile, via Noah Shachtman, I see that Sarah Chayes, a former NPR Afghanistan correspondent who now runs a business in Kandahar, has an op-ed in yesterday’s Washington Post arguing against any power-sharing deal with the Taliban — big T or small T:
The solution to this problem is not to bring the perpetrators of the daily horrors we suffer in Kandahar to the table to carve up the Afghan pie. (For no matter how we package the idea of negotiating with the Taliban, that’s what Afghans are sure it will amount to: cutting a power-sharing deal.)
She’s right on that front: any deal is going to be a power-sharing deal. But her alternative solution is kind of confusing:
The solution is to call to account the officials we installed here beginning in 2001 — to reach beyond the power brokers to ordinary Afghan citizens and give their grievances a fair hearing. If the complaints prove to be well founded, Western officials should press for redress, using some of their enormous leverage. The successful mentoring program under which military personnel work side-by-side with Afghan National Army officers should be expanded to the civilian administration. Western governments should send experienced former mayors, district commissioners and water and health department officials to mentor Afghans in those roles.
I don’t wish to appear indifferent to the grievances of ordinary Afghans. They should be listened to in any case, and I tried to solicit their perspectives when I was in Afghanistan in September. But I’m left unclear as to how Chayes’ proposal would reduce or end the insurgency. Is the idea to out-governance the Taliban?
Crossposted to The Streak.
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disclaimer: i live and work in kabul.
i think it’s very important to avoiding using the word “taliban” and instead talk about the particular commanders, tribal militias, or organized forces in play. for example, we have the quetta shura with mullah omar, the peshawar shura, hekmatyar/hezb-i-islami, and beitullah mesud – all of which frequently get labeled as “taliban”, in spite of the fact that they sometimes fight and are decidedly not a coherent entity with centralized command-and-control, finance, or ideological operations.
attemps to disarm various factions and tribes have had various degrees of success – there was DDR and DIAG and a few other ones. however, these were never wholeheartedly backed by the US, and in fact were undermined by all the talk of creating rearmed-but-unaccountable tribal militias (lashkars) based on the anbar awakening model. ugh… talk about a footshoot.
duh, of course fighters putting down their weapons sounds great, but who is going to provide security for them if they do? who will protect them from the various warlords, goons, fanatics, and government employees that operate with near-impunity in their home valleys?
till the US embassy/army/etc stops worrying as much about poppy farmers and starts worrying about physical, economic, and environmental security of the afghan people, we won’t win. we may “win”, but we won’t win.
the ball’s in our court, yall…
This is a great point. Disaggregation and clarity are always preferable. When I was in Afghanistan, the soldiers I was with used “Taliban” as a shorthand but also talked about the Haqqani network, Hekmatyar, etc. as under the “Taliban” umbrella. I agree 100 percent that it’s preferable to use the actual name of the actual group being discussed. But for a shorthand when it’s not clear who’s responsible for what action, is “insurgent group” or some-such acceptable?