Remembering Context
Given some of the email I’ve received lately, I think it is important to remember something: I am not arguing, nor do I intend to argue, that the situation as it is unfolding in Northwestern Pakistan is not grave, nor do I think I argue that events there do not have an occasionally tragic effect on Afghanistan. Rather, when discussing either the way it is popularly portrayed in the U.S., or the ways in which we choose to view our own strikes into Pakistani territory, I try to highlight that context matters.
This was brought home today, both by the terrible news of the attempted breach of the firebase near Wanat, in Dara-i Pech district of Kunar Province (which was eerily similar to previous attacks on U.S. bases in the Korengal Valley, just north south of Wanat), and Bill Roggio’s reporting on the “more than 100″ terror training camps in NWFP. The attack almost certainly originated in Pakistan, and while there is no reason to doubt the figures anonymous officials quoted Roggio (meaning, there is almost certainly an alarming number of highly militant training areas in NWFP and the FATA), the framing of these events matters tremendously.
Roggio places the camps, and Sunday’s attack in Wanat, in the context of the peace deals the Paksitani government signed with various militants in 2006 and 2007. While this coincides with a dramatic rise in violence in both Northwestern Pakistan and Eastern Afghanistan, there still remains little evidence the peace deals themselves are responsible for the increase in attacks. For starters, the first peace deal was signed in 2004, and was violated not by militants but by the U.S. when it killed Nek Muhammed (his successor, Baitullah Mehsud, though undeniably a fierce militant, has broken off many peace deals since, almost always in response to actions by either the U.S. or the Pakistani government). There is little evidence this had an immediate or medium-term effect on violence levels. This is because as argued in the excellent work of Antonio Giustozzi, one finds momentum for a major push in Afghanistan growing at least as far back as early 2002. Taken a bit further back, to GOA’s latest excellent post on the importance of Nuristan province—entirely ignored by the U.S. until 2006—one can see a pattern of infiltration from Pakistan into firing positions inside Afghanistan that goes back into the 1980s.
This is not a new problem, in other words, and it is important to avoid placing the blame too recently. We once exploited the loose border to our own ends when killing Russians was in our national interest; now that killing Americans in a similar setting is in someone else’s interests, we express surprise our own methods are being utilized against us. Similarly, understanding how Russia attempted to counter these moves, and given their clear ineffectiveness, ensuring we do not repeat their mistakes (such as relying on air power as a way of making up for insufficient security forces) is vitally important.
Unfortunately, given the way policymakers seem to ignore events that happened even six years ago, this does not leave me with much hope we can effectively counter the new round of incursions and build stability zones in Afghanistan. To do so, we need to pose uncomfortable questions: why did the Bush administration give up on the search for Osama bin laden? Why do we passively allow Pakistan to block our efforts to find him now? Why was nothing ever done about the supposed airlift of terror out of Kunduz in late 2001? Why was reconstruction funding cut in 2003-2006? Why, despite nearly every intelligence agency and military branch saying the primary battleground for the War on Terror is and has always been the borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan, have nearly all of our resources, focus, and effort been spent in Iraq?
These questions are politically uncomfortable for a large swatch of the crowd in DC—liberals, conservatives, military, civilian, academic, President and Congress alike. No one wants to answer them because it points to a disturbing sense of ADD within the policy community—a complete inability to focus on a single problem in a single area. This is a pretty recent phenomenon, as there seemed little issue with focusing on a single issue during the Cold War. But now, we want quick fixes. And especially in an area like Afghanistan, those simply do not exist.
Other Reading: Kip at Abu Muqawama breaks in with two good posts. In one, he notes the attack in Kunar and tells us that John Nagl, of FM 3-24 fame, calculated the per-capita risk to U.S. soldiers had remained constant in Afghanistan, and has only gotten worse since 2005 (this corresponds with reporting on this blog as well). In another, he notes the dreadful undermanning of the U.S. Marine Corps mission in Helmand might very well create the space necessary for the Taliban to permanently entrench themselves.
Parting Thought: How does this attack, which reportedly involved several hundred fighters and is only the latest in a series of attacks that have very nearly overwhelmed several U.S. firebases in upper Kunar, gel with the meme—pushed by breathless week-long accounts of embedded reporters—that the Taliban are a “defeated military force?”
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Tags: Afghanistan, Pakistan, air strikes.
Posted by Joshua Foust on July 14th, 2008
Permalink | Trackback | Comments: 8
Comments
Time: 7/14/2008, 6:12 pm
David,
I dunno, by all accounts from NATO, the attack took place in Pech, which is most definitely within the boundary of Kunar as it is a district. And there is indeed a village called Wanat in Pech (or Dara-i Pech, depending on the map) district of Kunar. At least, such a town exists according to AIMS‘ maps of the area before the 2005 district realignment. I don’t have easy access to a post-2005 map of upper Kunar, so I can’t say for certain that the town itself wasn’t later included within the boundaries of Nuristan.
But from the resources I have now, claiming the attack happened in Wanat, Dara-i Pech, Kunar, is not outrageously wrong.
Since this is, I believe, in the Waygal Valley (the areas where one finds Nuristani people is not the same as the boundary of the province), I think you still have a point.
Hell, the U.S. military isn’t unaware of the area, either: just under a hundred miles away, they accidentally bombed another wedding party in Kacu, Nuristan, killing something like 47 innocent people. I’m not into worshiping the Army by any stretch, but give them a tiny bit of credit here.
Time: 7/15/2008, 3:50 am
“Why do we passively allow Pakistan to block our efforts to find him now?”
This is a great question.
I wonder, though, what could we be doing instead?
How could we push the Pakistanis harder, or better?
This is a tricky problem.
Does anybody have any good ideas on this?
Time: 7/15/2008, 3:57 am
Also, Roggio’s piece brings up the very interesting question of outside influence, but it doesn’t explore the question of links between the locals and the outsiders. How could the outsiders rouse the locals so quickly (or do I undertand the events properly)? Any comments?
Time: 7/15/2008, 7:28 am
Tom,
There are ways of applying pressure on Pakistan. Threatening to cut off the billions in aid, for example, or leaning on China to pressure the government in Islamabad.
As for “outside influence,” in this sense we have to blame ourselves. We have helped the Pashtun belt look to the outside—to wealthy and militant Wahabists—for help whenever they need to mobilize and need money. While the Taliban groups aren’t quite the same, they are able to mobilize in part because of an appeal to nationalism (which is a noticable but minor portion of militants), direct funding (i.e. hiring people to fight), and recruitment out of the madrassas (which is probably the majority of the new fighters, all of whom are very young).
Again, we created these conditions. Which is why it is so important to understand the context it is happening in, and maybe even why Islamabad, no matter who is in charge, fears an all-out war with the extremists.
Time: 7/15/2008, 8:09 am
Joshua,
The AIMS maps are incorrect and those who rely on them for anything important do so at their peril, not only in Nuristan, but also in other parts Afghanistan.
Want is the district center of Waygal district, Nuristan province. NATO is wrong on this, whether outrageously so or otherwise is a judgment call.
My basis for making this statement is direct knowledge and experience.
The military deserves lots of credit for lots of things but not for being wrong on this.
Time: 7/15/2008, 9:28 am
David,
You’re right that AIMS maps are of dubious accuracy—if you’ll notice, I said I have no idea how accurate it is, and that since the map they host is from before the 2005 realignment it could be different. After all, we’re talking about a couple of kilometers of boundary in an area where people barely recognize them anyway.
I also don’t doubt that Wan(a)t could very well be the DC of Waygal (nor, if you are who I think you are, is there any reason to question your judgment). Do you have any sources for this, like a map or a document? I’m not asking because I disbelieve you, but because I want to make sure I’m analyzing this through good data, instead of the best I can find. If you have any sources I could pour through, I would greatly appreciate it.
Time: 7/15/2008, 10:17 am
Joshua,
I have learned recently that the maps of the Afghanistan Cartography Office have better information on at least some matters than do the AIMS series.
However, it is important to examine any maps and to check them against other sources of information and to recognize the uncertainties out there which limit the accuracy of any maps concerning Afghanistan.
It is not clear who surveyed these Afghan maps and when they were produced and how they are being updated and corrected.
That said, because of Afghanistan’s unitary system, boundaries between provinces and districts have often been neglected. Now that a wholesale effort is being undertaken to invigorate sub-national administrations, establish budgets for provinces and execute projects through involvement of local councils, the importance of such boundaries probably will increase. And that presents major problems.
One key issue for Nuristan and neighboring Kunar is Ghaziabad district which Nuristan claims as part of Nuristan province. Another issue is the southern boundary of Nuristan province with Laghman province. (A significant portion of PRT Nuristan’s AO is regarded by local officials as in Laghman, even though on the AIMS maps its in Nuristan province.)
And then there’s, of course, the boundary between Waygal and Pech districts. The AIMS maps put Want and at least two Nuristani communities into Kunar. This probably was simply sloppiness and a failure to ground-truth the AIMS maps. Nevertheless, this has led to this misunderstanding about Want.
Should I learn how to obtain the Afghan maps, I’ll contact you.
But back to the Afghan maps,
Time: 7/14/2008, 5:29 pm
Want (not Wanat) is not in Kunar province. It is the district center of Waygal district, one of the seven districts of Nuristan province. It is north and a bit west of Korangul. It lies at the bottom of the Waygal valley which drains into Pech from the North. Korangal lies to the south of the Pech in a valley which drains into Pech from the South.
The fact that the Coalition press office can’t even correctly place Want in the proper province demonstrates how little situational awareness Coalition HQ has about its area of operations.
In Waygal there have been at least three other incidents of multiple casualty losses, two ambushes, one in August 2006 and another in November 2007 and also three soldiers killed in an IED attack in October 2006.
A few months ago, the bad guys nearly gained entry to a post called the Ranch House in Aranas which was further north in the Waygal valley by dressing up in ANA uniforms.
The people of Waygal valley are not positively disposed to the bad guys, but we lack an effective strategy to provide security to the people and to separate the people from the enemy.