Afghanistan: Are we ready for unbiased analysis, or should we continue pretending

Keith Lembke

Today the exerts decide to send 8000 soldiers back to Afghanistan, maybe it’s time to reevaluate the faulty assumptions that lead us to where we are. The inverse of the assumptions, if accepted, will lead to the two practical courses of action. Regardless of the course of action selected we have a moral obligation to protect several categories of folks involved in this conflict. The interpreter/translators, the NGOs, and the journalists are already spoken for. The state department plans on evacuating all their Afghan personnel regardless of whether they qualify for the special visa or not. The last group are the young officers, soldiers, and civilians we selected, groomed, trained as good young progressives, and promoted “way” ahead of their peers. Unfortunately for them, they stayed honest as we wanted them to, and cannot buy their way out of the country like their older corrupt predecessors. They will be the ones stuck holding the proverbial stick. It is a moral imperative we evacuate them as well.

Faulty assumption one?- The government is an Islamic Republic. While the veneer of the constitution and government suggests the government is an Islamic Republic, the roots of both the government and constitution suggest the opposite. The members of the Bonn conference tasked to construct the government represented the half of the country we allied with to fight the other half. It had 3 feminists (representing values of about .00001% of the country), 7 monarchists (calling for the return of the King disposed of 29 years prior), and 15 total representatives of the Northern Alliance (representing the three minority tribes fighting against the other half of the population consisting of the Taliban). The half of the country serving as the Taliban’s recruiting base was not represented at all. Hence the Taliban’s argument that the government does represent the population resonates with their recruiting base.?

The constitutional convention was no better. More than half the members represented were secular progressives??– of which less than 1% of the country wants as a governing ideology.??None of the “Ulema” in the convention represented the Deobandi jurisprudence practiced by the majority of the Taliban’s recruiting base. The constitution ended up being a compromise between the United Nation’s secular Bill of Human Rights and a progressive Islamic jurisprudence.??The two legal philosophies are not compatible; hence, why it is largely ignored by everyone.?

????????????Faulty Assumption two?– The Afghan “people” want a Western-style of democracy. After fifteen years of deciphering polls, analyzing Human Terrain Team studies, working with Afghans, and making observations I assess 99% of Afghans want to live under “their” Sharia law and their tribal/family traditions. Of that 99%, between 43 to 50% are “ok” with the Taliban’s form of Deobandi Hanafi Jurisprudence, while 50 to 57% would rather not live by the rather strict and harsh Taliban jurisprudence. However, just because people don’t like the Taliban jurisprudence, that does not mean they support the modern liberal state the current government is trying to evolve to. If required to choose between the two, my bet has been they would choose the Taliban jurisprudence versus the current government.??

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????????????Faulty assumption number three –?It is a military and political war. Everyone will say it is a political war, but they will only talk about military solutions. Both are wrong. For 99% of the population, it is a cultural war. The Taliban wanted to force the other half of the population to accept the Pashtun form of Deobandi Hanafism as the law of the land. It is a harsh and very literal interpretation of the Holy Koran. The other half of the country, consisting of the smaller tribes and Kabulis (Kabul bureaucratic class), with the US supporting them, want to destroy the Pashtun nationalism that came with the Taliban movement and its Deobandi Hanafism. Neither side is particularly beholden to the very small, wealthy, and powerful group of progressive elites in Kabul who want to force the ignorant people of Afghanistan into the 22d century as a modern industrialized state (all getting very wealthy in the process).?

????????????Faulty assumption number four –?All Taliban are terrorists.??Afghan family tradition requires the family concurrence of one’s actions. That means every Taliban fighter has the blessings of the patriarch or matriarch of their family (yes – mothers have a LOT of power in Afghanistan). The second major tribal tradition is one must support one’s direct and extended family members. By Knowing the average Afghan family is nine people with each parent coming from a family of nine, doing the math 60,000 Taliban fighters would collectively have the support of about 11,000,000 parents, brothers sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins. That’s between 30 to 45% of the population depending on which of the extremely imprecise census reports one uses. Today, the Afghan government and US intelligence community suggest the Taliban have between 60,000 to 80,000 fighters – which seems to be about right.??So, are??11,000,000, or 30 to 45% of the population, all terrorists?

????????????Faulty assumption number five –?Get rid of the Taliban, and you will have women’s equity.?The role of women between the Islamic jurisprudence and tribal traditions of the population remains the same between all the different tribes, ethnicities, and schools of jurisprudence on both sides. The only difference is the punishment. It is spelled out in the Holy Koran for all schools of jurisprudence. The West doesn’t know this because the government makes sure the information is suppressed.??

????????????Faulty assumption number six –?The Afghan Security Force members are fighting for a just government and the Taliban are fighting for a barbaric Islamic Khalifate.?The truth is the rank and file of both sets of fighters put their families above all else.??Out of 400 to 500 army and police officers and enlisted members I have talked to over the last fifteen years, only two read the constitution. Most are fighting for the preservation of their family's cultural and financial security. Additionally, I have read hundreds of Taliban interrogations. Not one mentioned a “great Islamic Khalifate”.??About 95% of the interrogated said they are also fighting for the preservation of their family's cultural and financial security. They believed the US joined with the minority tribes to force them to change their culture.?

????????????Faulty assumption number seven –?The success of the Taliban is because of support from Pakistan.?Look at what the US has put into the war versus what Pakistan could put into the war and tell me with a straight face that the Taliban have the advantage in external support.?I have not seen one Pakistan Air force plane bomb anyone in Afghanistan – though we have bombed a lot of Afghans in both countries. We have put about $2.3 trillion into the war. Pakistan could not come even near that amount if it put its entire GDP into supporting the Taliban.??Lastly, would an Afghan Pashtun die for a Pakistani general???I don’t think so. The war is a cultural war exploited by the external stakeholders for their own purposes. The US is by far the largest contributor, and it is not going to the Taliban.??????

A test of a good assumption is if what is happening supports the assumption.??In two weeks the Taliban have taken 80% of the country after losing between 300,000 to 500,000 over the last 20 years (30 to 100 KIA’s a night, 365 nights a year, for 20 years – do the math). In an insurgency, how could they take that much area, that quickly, in so many different places without a great deal of local support in recruits, logistics, and food? Some people will still refuse to accept the obvious answer, instead claiming the Taliban get support through intimidation by forcing young men to fight for them. While there are such sporadic events, there is no way an army of slaves could possibly mobilize and act that fast on such a wide front. Besides, would the Afghan national security members surrender so quickly to a bunch of kids with guns at their back? Additionally, the traditional method of building an Army in Afghanistan is to force each participating family to provide fighters.

?It is time to get real and be honest with our assessments and call a fact a fact. The Taliban are not considered “terrorists” by a large segment of society, and they are getting support from a significant portion of the population.??

Based on the assumptions and the moral obligation to protect those who bought into our culture and schemes, there are three courses of action.?

1.?????The first, which seems to be the preference of the Warhawks and the current Afghan government, is to reject changes to the assumptions and continue doing what we have been doing. Invade Afghanistan again, keep the government in place, and continue attritting the insurgents so they can’t mass until the country finally evolves into a progressive liberal industrial democratic welfare state. That implies the central government using money and guns to continue to try and change the culture of the people.?

2.?????Conquer the entire country by establishing American provincial military governorships. That way all money can go straight to the local communities creating the roots of a new government created from the bottom up. The local traditions and culture can be appeased using local sharia as the local law. The plan would require infantry battalions and support in every one of the thirty-six provinces and a brigade in Kabul.??The entire US Army, most of the National Guard, and a large portion of the Air Force would have to be dedicated for at least a generation before slowly reducing their presence.?

3.?????Make a political deal with the Taliban requiring them to allow the US to pull out American citizens, interpreters/translators, selected ANDSF personnel, and selected government employees without interference. In return, the US will trade with, provide financial aid, and provide internal defense aid to the next Afghan government regardless of its composition and base set of national laws.?

If one accepts the inverse to the assumptions above, COA 2 and 3 are the only acceptable courses that could lead to success.??Since there probably isn’t a will to make Afghanistan into our 51st?state and commit our entire military to the development of Afghanistan, COA 3 is the best course to take with the best chance to succeed. The question is can we finally accept where the facts lead us, or will we continue to force the analysis to go to where our emotions lead us.?