Afghanistan: Obama's Men and Women Go to War

Lieutenant Colonel Brian Mennes, U.S. Army, commander, 1st Ranger Battalion, has recently returned from Afghanistan, where he has served for fourteen months in eight provinces. One evening last week he spoke over after-dinner drinks to a few reporters about the frustrations of command in Afghanistan.

"My men can clear the village for you in two to three days -- no problem," Mennes says, recounting the conversation he has again and again with NATO officers in theater. For Mennes, this is a typical scenario: one of the twenty-six NATO forces calls upon the Rangers to clear insurgents from a town or valley. "'Now what? 'What do you want me to do next?' I ask," Mennes says, "and nobody has thought that far." The Lt. Col. gives the reporters another example of this impasse. "So now USAID comes into the village and asks, 'How can we help you?' and I turn to them and say, "Your asking that question is the problem in Afghanistan. I should be asking you the question."

The point for Mennes -- the source of his frustration and indeed his anger -- is that there is no plan for Afghanistan and beyond that any sense of a larger American foreign policy for his men on the ground to implement. The absence of an overarching vision with concomitant strategies to achieve goals in realizing that vision is a point on which not only active military leaders like Lt. Col. Mennes but also every retired general, think tank fellow, professor, NGO partner and military expert of any stripe agree, in a series of seminars for these same reporters. We are spending a week at the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland in discussion of the topic "U.S. Military: New President, New Outlook?" The consensus prediction would seem to be no -- at least in the sense that expectations are low.

The next day in seminar Lt. Col. Mennes expands on his postprandial remarks. "For the Marines going back to Helmand [province], who is in charge?" Mennes asks. As he suggested the night before, the U.S. military has mastered its own role in counterinsurgency. Relearning in Iraq the lessons that should have been incorporated into military planning after Vietnam, the Army and Marines have now got it right in waging irregular warfare. At issue is who takes over after the Marines in Helmand have done their job. Who helps the locals transition to a self-governance that will preclude their falling prey once again to insurgents? Who nurtures that leadership? What nurtures that leadership? "I wanted to break down and cry," Mennes says -- and this admission from an officer who, as a reporter observes, could play himself in the movie -- "when Marines came in and were not allowed to subordinate themselves to Afghans." How else to plant seeds of respect for Afghan governance? In Helmand, "the drug lords are the leaders, and we try to kill them," Mennes says, by way of pointing out the self-defeating dynamic of Coalition poppy policy.

"Our counterinsurgency and counter-narcotics goals are at odds," says Seth Jones, an Afghanistan specialist with the RAND Corporation who shares the podium with Lt. Col. Mennes. Maybe we should just bring in Merck Pharmaceutical and buy the poppy in Southern Afghanistan, Seth Jones suggests, because all the farmers there are indentured. When Coalition forces eradicate these crops, Lt. Col. Mennes adds, "Do we have an agricultural-hydrology plan for an alternative to poppy?"

If the lack of transition foresight and leadership in Southern Afghanistan is complicated by the drug trade, in Northern Afghanistan the geography of isolated mountain valleys is an issue. Pashtuns in one valley have heard of Pashtuns in other valleys but have never met them. How then to realize some kind of security, if not through centralized governance? "This is not a Taliban insurgency," Seth Jones says. "Politics are very localized." There are lots of criminal elements, he goes on to say, and not just black tar smugglers in the South but timber and gem dealers in the North. There are the local militia forces, Iranian elements, tribes and clans that switch sides and some Afghan government supporters of insurgents. With insurgency in Afghanistan, it all depends on "which village -- district -- province." Therefore, recent talk about cutting a deal with moderate elements of the Taliban as a way of achieving stability would seem to be a chimera. Furthermore, as both Jones and Mennes observe, there is growing unhappiness in the provinces, which historically have never accepted centralized authority anyway, with the government in Kabul. Among American and NATO leadership, "there is no will to deal with these people at the top," Seth Jones says, in reference to the administration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and its corruption, "and that is undermining us."

The role of city manager, as Lt. Col. Mennes calls it, or in the words of Seth Jones, "engaging the local centers of gravity," is the responsibility, from the American part of the Coalition, of the State Department. However, a further point of agreement among the Knight participants is that it has been a long time since State has stepped up to the plate, and not just in Afghanistan. Military brass and military reporters with embed experience mention "PRTs [provincial reconstruction teams] afraid to leave Kabul." There are plans afoot to change State's risk-averse culture, but they will take time. Meanwhile nothing could be more irrelevant to counterinsurgency implementation than the State Department regulation that its employees be housed in office buildings that meet certain security requirements. "My office is on the cutting edge of changing the State Department risk culture," says Ambassador John Herbst, now coordinator for a new program at State to develop a corps of trained civilians for reconstruction and stabilization. And yes, John Herbst says, when pressed by the Knight reporters, in Afghanistan that means that some will be killed.

Meanwhile, without the civilian component in place to deal with what the military in counterinsurgency calls "the problem of hold," the U.S. Army and Marines have filled the vacuum, negotiating with the tribes and clans in Afghanistan as they did with the sheiks in Anbar Province, Iraq. Lt. Col. Mennes, who speaks both Pashtun and Dari, talks about learning the local values of "subordination and respect" and what he calls the Pashtun Valley Code. He teaches his men that "these people have worth even though they treat their women so badly." Among the locals, he resolves disputes. It's justice -- not security -- that they want most, Mennes says. Warriors stepping into a warrior culture, Mennes and his peers perform the task of hold with a natural authority that Herbst's civilians may not find so easy to master.

Mennes speaks frankly about "COIN [counterinsurgency] risk," which he sees not as risk to his men or himself but to the local population he has come so far, in his mind, to serve. He can easily envision the local family, who by the Pashtun Valley Code has offered hospitality to Taliban, "cowering in the corner of the house and praying we don't fire [on] the Taliban at that moment." For this reason, Mennes says, "I rarely dropped big bombs on houses." Nevertheless, he has been responsible for the deaths of civilians, the "collateral damage" that is part of irregular warfare. He speaks, in a seemingly matter-of-fact way, of a Pashtun's three sons he killed in a fire fight with insurgents. Whether the young men were curious or foolish or in the wrong place at the wrong time Mennes does not make clear. He merely says that killing them was unavoidable.

After the fight has finished, however, Lt. Col. Mennes goes to the father's house to take responsibility for the deaths of the man's three sons and, according to the valley code, to make amends. As he has been instructed, Mennes tugs the man's beard and caresses his face. Humbling himself, Mennes strokes the distraught father's chest and shoulders. And so Mennes makes right with the clan, in a way that is completely foreign to American culture and with an outcome that for us begs credulity. How, in the end, can we have a plan and execute it in the midst of such an alien society? The experience of Brian Mennes is but one small example of why the Afghanistan experts who met with military reporters last week are dubious about a "new outlook" in this new American presidency. On the other hand, how can we not come up with a plan? Not only is the insurgency or insurgencies further destabilizing both Afghanistan and Pakistan and therefore threatening our own security. Also we are turning intelligent, gifted and honorable men like Brian Mennes into killers of sons. We had better have a good reason. We had better have a plan.

Comments

[JimRinX]

The Afghans need to be educated in such a way; perhaps with a trip to the US, or Europe, or even - say - a (mostly)Muslim country like Malaysia; that they will clearly see that their old 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' / 'surviving hell is best done like this, and always has been' (in their case, this is really the case) Feudal War-Lord led way of life, is far from the best - or only - way of life that Human Beings can create and enjoy.
Though Kabul - like Tehran - was once called 'The Paris of Central Asia'; memories of those Golden Times have been lost to all but a few, and - thus - there is little incentive to change what has worked and has been working for Eons.
I know that a Janjaweed Commander, from Darfur, was invited to the US for this reason; I know that seeing what a stable, safe 'n sane, generally Democratic, humanist society looks like - seeing how prosperous and well off it has made us - played a big role in leading his fellow (or, it might have actually been Him. Got a Picture?) Commander to go to the BBC with his story.
I know that that's why the ICC swore out a Warrant for Al Bashirs arrest!
The Afghans will only change if we can show them that there is a Clear Benefit for doing so!

[jobman]

The Russians, for years, got their butts kicked in this part of the world. I thought the big O was going to bring ALL THE TROOPS HOME. I guess when he found out what was really going on over there he scratched his head and said "Dammmmmmmm we got to do something with those Muslim terrorist. Sooooooo now we are in another war.

[oneviciouslife]

President Obama has said all along that he would continue the war in afghanistan to stop the taliban, the actual perpetrators of 9.11. Just because you weren't listening or hearing only what what you wanted to hear does not mean President Obama has been dishonest about his intentions, only that you weren't paying attention.

[Wuchi2me]

I worry about misplaced "subordination and respect" to people who treat 'their' women badly. (Women aren't property.) The views of Menness seem to reflect cultural relativity gone awry. Extremists love it when we dole out unearned respect. These perspectives seem to be a by-product of these absurd and wrong-headed Human Terrain Teams who have mostly been a joke - and a dangerous one at that. Culture is only on aspect of how a civil society functions. Women in Afghanistan are 'disappearing' with the resurgence of the Taliban just like they did with the surge of extremism in Iraq after being politically very active in the beginning.

[Garvagh]

Russia, Iran and China all oppose the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Why not let Russia, Iran and China work out how best to dampen the insurgency in Afghanistan? Why blow hundreds of billions of US taxpayer dollars on a military adventure that is only making the security situation worse? This is insane.

[benalbanach]

And that is why so many NATO countries are reluctant to commit troops to be under the command of the US. They would ask also "What do you want us to do ?" (Besides offering up their own to be needlessly killed)

[blood1]

OKAY, We all admit that the previous administration went to war in Iraq for no REAL reason. And had we acted less militarily and more diplomatically in Afganistan, maybe we would not be there NOW. BUT, the previous administration decided to fight only with sticks and stones and no diplomacy or statemanship, this administration has to correct 8 years of mistakes in 5 weeks or everyone complains.

Even if Pres. Obama had all the answers the day he took the oath of office, he still has to get all the people who will actually do the work on-board, in place, etc. As we have seen this far, the only response from GOP thus far has been NO...so it will take more than a "wave of a magic wand" to correct everything that Bush et al did!

Patience has not been a big virtue in the USA for a while... but this is going to take time to fix...and I think Pres. Obama will use more than the military to resolve some of these issues. So for the GOP backers to complain about "how long", the response is that it took 7 years of continual screw-ups to get us here...and you want correction in 5 weeks - reality check time!

[just saying]

We don't want it 'fixed' - we just want a 'plan' to get it fixed BEFORE our guys do the work. I don't think it's too much to ask for that.

[mjc]

All we can really hope for, if we continue to raise the troop ante in Afghanistan, is that there are men in the contingent who are like Brian Mennes. I have the same problem with Afghanistan that I had with Iraq: Why are we there? Bush never really answered that question and it looks like Obama won't either except to say that "we" will not tolerate terrorists' bases in foreign countries that could harm this nation. Yes, it is possible that we will be able to slow the progression of building such bases in Afghanistan but there will always be other remote, poorly governed regions of the world where militant groups are willing to train and risk their lives; and, yes, the US will always be the target probably because we seemed to have adopted the role of policemen of the world. NGOs are probably are best bet in "winning" in Afghanistan but their lives mean something to themselves and to their families and they get shortened to an amazing degree trying to help.

[Car84]

You say, "Why are we there? Bush never really answered that question." Well, at least he was able to articluate what "winning" meant, though the media and the left kept asking after he said it again and again and again. (If you can't remember his answer, you weren't listening.­)

It's time to start asking President Obama what winning in Afghanistan means. When will we know it's over? He should at least have a partial answer. Maybe he does, and the media is in too much awe and reverence to ask.

[mjc]

Bush and his surrogates answered that question, what "winning" means many times, always with a slightly different answer. Do you remember all of the answers? The answer most often heard at the end of the Bush term was he was bringing democracy to Iraq and we knew we won because of the purple fingers. Much like "Mission Accomplished", most of Bush's answers were skewed. There are quite a few Mid East scholars and foreign policy experts asking the question, what are we doing in Afghanistan? Obama will have to be a virtual magician to find an answer to the question, how will we know we are winning in Afghanistan? That is a region that has swallowed quite a few nations' troops, but we don't seem to learn from history.

[wayoutleft]

i have complete faith- born out in vietnam and iraq- that the united states military will kill the greatest number of civilians and spend the most money humanly possible to either lose outright or maintain a huge occupation army at a cost beyond the grasp of even the top capitalist predators to whom the political parties are currently awarding tribute.

[leftcoastliberal]

And misguided leftists will advocate retreat from and accommodation with reactionar­y,medieval­ist third world predators like Al-queda. I miss the good old days when the left was AGAINST fascism.

[Terribleblodge]

Ohhhh I think you'll find that they still are. I think what you may be missing is the fact that they're against it HERE first and foremost.

[Garvagh]

leftcoastliberal: what connection does al-Qaeda have with fascism? Try none whatever.

[wayoutleft]

you needed to redeem those victory bonds a few years ago. fascism is a discrete, secular political philosophy. its values are security and efficiency, as opposed to freedom, or justice, or equality. fascism as we know it presupposes the means to organize and direct large numbers.
in order to make al q'aida the object of a propaganda offensive, it was neccessary to vastly overstate its numbers and capabilities. (this also helped sell a trillion-dollar war against an innocent country.)
i suppose by "retreating" you mean stop bombing civilians. yes, sorry to bore you, but we need a permanent dialogue with afghans on a local level, however un-sands-o­f-iwo-jima that may be.

[johnsonc20]

The suggestion of bringing in Merck to purchase the Southern Afghani poppy crop is the first sensible idea I have seen expressed by an American official of how to win the hearts and minds of the local people. It is win/win. We should also adopt a similar policy in Colombia with regard to the coca crop. It would be cheaper in both cases and much more effective than perpetual war.

[holeybuybull]

So your desire is to start a mini-war between Merck and the CIA for the poppy crop. My money is on the CIA. Why do you think they always show up at the source of "illegal" drugs. Whether it's the Golden Triangle, Colombia, or Afghanistan, they are there to increase their funding capabilities.

If our economic model was truly superior to others, it wouldn't be necessary to use military force.
Try reading "A Bright Shining Lie".
It's amazing that we continue to meddle in the affairs of sovereign nations and expect them to be grateful. Would anyone in the USA welcome other nations meddling in our affairs to the extent that we do?

[hildutus]

When we lost Vietnam, I was a young Army officer and bought the military line that if Congress had not shackled us and had allowed us to pursue the war with Soviet-style tactics, we would have won. Then the Soviets used their tactics in Afghanistan and lost. Now we’re in Afghanistan doing the same old thing. No superpower can defeat a determined insurgency in the field, because the insurgency is not in the field.

A winning strategy would be to find the insurgent group that most favors the US and quietly back it with arms and intelligence, but no troops (they would embarrass and hinder them). Rather, we pull out our troops and take Karzai and his government with us.

Unfortunately, the people would never accept such a solution (so the generals would be too afraid to proffer it), because they believe that a military victory has to look like a win on the football field. Unless they can wave a flag and shout “We’re number one,” they won’t understand it. So again we lose.

[TheBurdicks]

American people and the administration have no understanding of Afghanistan and continue to ignore the voice of those with on the ground experience.
With no understanding, there can be no strategy. With no strategy, no effective tactics can be employed.
We lost this war long ago.
Hopefully, we are not there for a pipeline or oil, to force democracy, to punish them for 9/11, to protect Pakistan, or to destroy poppies. Maybe to crush the Taliban. Likely to banish Al Quaeda. But we don't really know why.
The only viable excuse may be to prevent terrorism. This calls for counterterrorism - intelligence gathering, infiltration, and special forces teams carrying out surgical operations when intervention is indicated.
There is no role for conventional military operations, and we have already been dealing with the adverse consequences of paying, arming, and training sects to fight our battles - every since Russia bailed out.
We are making the situation worse every day.
We must get out now.

[Wozzeck]

US involvement in Afghanistan has nothing to do with freedom, democracy, nation building, or "the war on terror". It's all about Caspian Basin oil and who will control it.

http://everything2.com/e2node/The%2520geo-strategical%2520importance%2520of%2520Afghanistan

[CaptainStormfield]

Thanks for your post.

[Novista]

Well, golly gosh that someone else should think buying the poppy crop would not be an outlandish idea.

If there had been a plan before now, that would have been an option, a realistic one that would not have disadvantaged the Afghans. This idea could be implemented TODAY, not wait [patiently] for six months in hope.

[sypage]

It amazes me that so many people think the fact that their particular area of interest has not been transformed overnight proves that the Obama Administration is no different from the Bush Administration. I think that's a childish conclusion. Of course the troops on the ground are frustrated, but this administration is, I believe, interested in input from soldiers like Lt. Col. Mennes, and is willing to listen. That they have not acted immediately is not evidence that there is no plan and that nothing will change. The Afghanistan war has been going on for over seven years, and Obama has been in office only 37 days. A little patience, please. Come back in 6 months with the same criticism and I will be more inclined to listen.

[ExRepublican]

"that's a childish conclusion­."

What amazes me is people such as yourself. No offense intended.

You honestly want someone to come back on here 6 months to a year AFTER the fact to tell you what YOU can (should be able to) figure out on your own, right now? How childish.

That's kinda like me telling you now, this Real Estate bubble that burst, was a fraud from the very beginning. Which it was and SHOULD have been apparent to anyone with 1/2 a brain many, many years ago. VERY apparent. But you didn't want to hear it way back when.

Or that in the late 90's, this tech 'revolution' was a fraud of MASSIVE proportions and most people were going to eat sh*t getting long tech. You didn't want to hear it 10 years ago. You put your fingers in your ears and screamed "neener, neener" over and over until it put you to sleep (in debt).

Or me/whoever telling you to buy gold......­...9 years after you SHOULD have bought gold/silver (underlined), 9 YEARS after the fact. But you didnt' want to hear it back then and still dont! Amazing!

Or someone telling you now, long after the fact , that Iraq was a DISASTER from the very beginning. But you didn't want to hear it.

How about the expert 'economists' telling you after the fact that we are NOW in the midst of a disaster of epic proportions. Kinda late, eh?

[wayoutleft]

all i can add- as an obama supporter- is that the world did not revert to "let-obama­-get-up-to­-speed" standard time on election night. events are not driven by how much experience he does or does not have.

[Wozzeck]

In other words, stop doing all this tiresome thinking, and just lay back , relax, and place your blind trust in one man.

[peaceplez]

I agree with you sypage. Well said.

[just saying]

If they aren't ready for our troops to do work with a plan, then our troops should not be there in harms way 'waiting'.

[propitiousmoment]

wozzeck & exrepublican - you are responding to something sypage didn't say. He or she is right - with all the best input and perspective in the world, Obama is not going to transform *everything* overnight.

[ExRepublican]

Same ole, same ole.

Obama lovers are being duped to the max re: Afghanistan. Not to mention Iraq.

Obama can give a great speech delineating the horrors of our economy - and then turn around and CONTINUE empire building. That is all it is. Nothing more.

Trillions of $'s down a rat hole. And yet he asks us to buckle up. Heh, hypocrite or what? Quit the silly a*s wars (which he will NOT do) and all the whiners out there can have their 3 trillion bazillion $ 'stimulus' money given to them, no problem.

Combine the two, warmongering and bailouts, WON'T WORK. Ever. Never has, and it won't now.

If possible, watch CNBC's "House of Cards" which aired tonight. Actually basic stuff that most should have KNOWN years ago. Dupes to the left of us. Dupes to the right us - never ending how easy it is to dupe us Americanos. Sad. Pathetic actually. Remember how many people were convinced Alan Greenspan was a true genius? Why?

We're being duped yet again ... on most everything.

Mr O, how's that secret rendition thing going of late? Change? I think not.

Now, about Iraq, you were saying ........

[FrozenNorthObserver]

yep.