Ann Marlowe

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/10/AR2010121005700.html?wpisrc=nl_cuzhead

An American face on American aid

By Ann Marlowe
Sunday, December 12, 2010

“I have some gifts for your village. I’d like to give them to you to distribute to the people.”

Air Force Lt. Col. Andy Veres, commander of the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Zabul province, was addressing Haji Sayeed, the head man of a small village. We were sitting in the courtyard of Sayeed’s mud-brick house, a few hours’ drive from the provincial capital, Qalat. Veres has forged a friendship with Sayeed over the course of two deployments here, and Sayeed is old enough – perhaps 75 – to speak more frankly than the average Afghan would to an American commander.

Sayeed answered, “I would prefer if you distribute the gifts. This will prevent rumors. If I give the gifts, people will say you gave me more than this amount and I kept some for myself. I know you Americans have given millions to our people. So this will be good for you that the people know you are their friend.” He also urged Veres to distribute half of the goods to a village nearby.

This simple exchange, which I witnessed last month as a journalist embedded with the Zabul PRT, underscores critical issues in the U.S. relationship with Afghanistan that play out on a grander scale here every day, all the way up to our relations with President Hamid Karzai.

First, there is the question of “putting an Afghan face” on the good things the United States does here, vs. making the American origins of aid crystal clear. What Veres suggested is the official American policy – and it’s a terrible idea. Pretending to Afghans that their usually dysfunctional government is providing for them hurts all concerned. Last month, an Asia Foundation survey found that 74 percent of Afghans agree with the statement “I don’t think the government cares much about what people like me think,” with 30 percent agreeing “strongly.” American efforts to cover for Afghan incompetence relieve the Afghan government of pressure from the people to perform; they reinforce the beliefs of some Afghans that the United States is in league with corrupt power brokers; and they keep in the dark the many Afghans who are unaware of just how much the United States is doing for their country and its citizens.
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Recent polling by the International Council on Security and Development, a private group funded by foundations in Europe, found that 72 percent of 1,000 southern Afghan men surveyed believe that foreigners are disrespectful of their religion and culture. Reinforcing that belief are examples such as this case from Zabul: Last month, for the Muslim religious holiday of Eid al-Adha, when gifts of clothing are traditional, the Zabul PRT gave 1,700 shawls to local men. That is, the PRT paid for the shawls but didn’t hand them out directly; they were given first to the provincial ministry of Haj and Religious Affairs, which distributed them. A win for the Afghan government? Maybe – depending on the reputation of this ministry and complex local political factors. (Afghan politics obeys the cliche about academic politics – that the smaller the stakes, the more bitterly they are contested.) But it was certainly a lost chance to show American solidarity with Afghan traditions.

Second, when we put an Afghan facade on American aid, local officials are given more power than they would otherwise accrue on their own. Some local figures owe their influence to violence and crime, others to having proved themselves effective servants of their people.

Even in the best cases – and Haji Sayeed is probably one of those – our acts amplify power brokers’ influence, concentrating power in the hands of a few. In a society prone to conspiracy theories, such actions, though well-intentioned, risk swaying many Afghans to believe that the honest are corrupt. Further empowering those known to be corrupt, of course, inflicts a different kind of damage.

Finally, we risk undermining U.S. efforts to bring the rule of law and democracy to Afghanistan. Washington is seeking to create a country of laws and systems. In some ways, the fallout from these American missteps can be seen in the rule of Karzai, where far too much power and influence have been centralized in one office. Even if Karzai had been George Washington, the scenario might have worked out poorly.

Back in Shahr-e-Shafa, Veres, a highly intelligent and adaptable leader, took Sayeed’s advice. The gifts his team distributed wouldn’t have drawn attention in the poorest American slum – cheap Chinese children’s socks and gloves, polyester sweaters for the girls and women, blankets for adult men – but they were eagerly received here, where many children are barefoot and there is no electricity or running water. Sayeed watched and then hobbled off toward his house. Later, Veres told me, “He taught me a valuable lesson.”

In this village, Afghans know that Americans are people of good will. But American policy of putting an Afghan face on our taxpayers’ generosity is to blame for the attitudes in other, similar places, where rural Afghans whose support we are trying to gather believe that we disrespect their traditions or are the dupes of their worst elements.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/good-news-change_520710.html

FOB Smart, Zabul PRT,
Qalat, Zabul Province

We squeeze into the cramped rear seat of a green Ford Ranger Afghan National Police truck. Neither Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Andy Veres—the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) commander—nor the State Department’s James Dayringer nor I wear the body armor and helmet that used to be mandatory for any trip outside the wire of American bases here. Yet we are about to drive 30 miles from the PRT in downtown Qalat to remote Arghandab District in an unarmored car.

On my previous visits to Zabul in November 2009 and April 2010, we would have had to go with a company of American maneuver troops in Humvees. This is Afghanistan’s second-poorest province, where the Taliban’s roots are deep. And while today’s trip takes three hours each way, a year ago it might have taken days, depending on how many IEDs were discovered and how many exploded.

In November 2009, there were weekly suicide attacks in Zabul’s biggest town, Shajoy (population 40,000). There hasn’t been one since May. The mobile phone towers used to be shut down by Taliban decree from sunset to sunrise; now they’re open.

The point of our trip is practical: to show Afghans that the road has been cleared of Taliban and is open for business. Veres—a tall, skinny recreational mountaineer with 65 marathons and ultramarathons under his belt—counts every commercial vehicle we pass along the way up to Arghandab. “Maybe there were 12 cars today. But as people learn the road is open, this will give them the opportunity to take their crops to market in Qalat.” There are now about 50 miles of paved road in Zabul besides the national ringroad, Highway One; there were none in 2007.

Veres’s remark echoes the results of a recent survey of 1,000 southern Afghan men by ICOS. They cited the main contribution of foreigners to Afghanistan as roads (74 percent), schools (53 percent), jobs (21 percent), and elections (9 percent), while only 1 percent said “removing the Taliban.”

The 60 or so Pashtun elders we meet in Arghandab are, according to the local Afghan National Army commander, all illiterate. The blanket and shawl distribution funded by the Americans is a big deal; the local bazaar has only two shops, one a butcher shop without any meat.

The struggle for places like Arghandab isn’t easy. But Zabul seems to be on an upward path. One reason is the growing competence of the Afghan National Army here. The notoriously intractable police are also coming along.

Imaginative programs have been pushed through by a series of good American commanders. A self-defense initiative by former Zabul commander Lieutenant Colonel David Oclander rewards Shajoy men who sign up to police the bazaar with $1,200 bonuses to start a business or join the security forces permanently. Veres—who also served as PRT commander here from June 2009 to March 2010—started a program that places Zabul high school graduates in provincial ministries on internships to help the under-educated directors do their jobs better. He’s part of the Afghan Hands program that aims at creating area experts in our military.

Another factor is the near-doubling of foreign troop strength in Zabul over the last 12 months. In June, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment under Colonel James R. Blackburn arrived in Zabul, joining two Romanian battalions. While the Romanians train the Afghan National Army and protect Highway One, the Stryker battalion under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Omar Jones is responsible for the more dangerous outlying areas.

The security has been won at the cost of many lives. Since June, Jones has lost 3 of his 850, and 7 other American Special Forces were killed, along with 2 Romanian soldiers. The loss among the Afghan police and army here is high: 22 dead since June. Since then, between 24 and 40 IEDs have gone off every month.

The next day, I trail Veres and State Department representative Jesse Alvarado—in his second year here—as they spend the day with Shahr-e-Safa district governor Shadi Khan Nouri. A Kandahari with a ninth-grade education, Nouri owes his position to his long relationship with President Karzai. His three advisers, paid the locally munificent sum of $500 a month each by the U.S. government, do the job he isn’t qualified to do: paperwork, email, project assessment.

Why not just replace Nouri? Politically impossible: District governors are presidential appointees. A real villain, Mohammad Wazir, was evicted from one district for heroin-running and general evildoing after enormous effort by Oclander—only to be reassigned by Karzai to a different district. The tribal leaders there recently protested that they would drag him naked through the street if he dared return. Major Derrick Hernandez, who served under Oclander in Zabul, commented, “Just imagine how far along we would be if the people actually voted for their district and provincial leaders!” Commander Veres, on the other hand, cautions that Afghan voting is a work in progress, and elected district governors might not be any more capable, though they might better serve their local tribes.

And so it goes, in a struggle for governance, the rule of law, and civil society that can assume horrific or comic dimensions. As we walk with Nouri through the pitiful Shahr-e-Safa bazaar, we pass under the American-funded solar street lights, stripped of their solar panels by locals oblivious to the public good. “I won’t be in a hurry to replace these,” Veres says.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/11/03/bob-woodward-obamas-wars-afghanistan-opinions-book-review-ann-marlowe.html

Some of us who support the war in Afghanistan are reacting to Bob Woodward’s new book by shooting the messenger. This is unwise. Though Obama’s Wars (Simon & Schuster, $30) is completely devoid of literary value or philosophical depth, it is essential reading for anyone who purports to have an opinion on the Afghan war, Pakistan or civil-military relations–particularly the latter.

Looking forward past our engagement in Afghanistan to the unknown next war, the most important lesson in Woodward’s book is the need for healthy skepticism on the part of our president and Congress toward the professional military. Bureaucracies are bureaucracies, whether in business or the military. And the qualities needed to move up in a bureaucracy are not necessarily those needed to serve that bureaucracy’s ultimate constituency. We learned that in the recent financial crisis. Obama’s Wars suggests we take a very hard look at our military leadership, just as we would examine a financial institution that was trying to market risky derivatives.

A return to an Eisenhowerian caution is in order. Indeed, in November 2009 while agonizing over how many troops to send to Afghanistan, President Obama apparently read Eisenhower’s farewell speech on the dangers of the military-industrial complex. (One hopes Obama will read the former president’s injunction to “balance” the next time he contemplates intervening in the economy.)

Woodward’s account of the White House deliberations in fall 2009 shows that the pendulum has swung too far from the disrespect toward the military that characterized the post-Vietnam years to blanket adulation. It is possible to combine respect, even gratitude, with the same critical faculties we use in evaluating other American institutions.

The second lesson is the need for a president with substantial foreign-policy experience and familiarity with the structure of the military and with military theory. Obama himself comes across as dedicated to finding the right solution in Afghanistan, and smart enough to ask the right questions most of the time. But he is desperately inexperienced in matters of war, and handicapped by an enormous ego, telling Woodward on July 10 of this year

“I am probably the first President who is young enough that the Vietnam War wasn’t at the core of my development. … I also had a lot of confidence, I guess, coming in that the way our system of government works civilians have to make policy decisions. And then the military carries them out. … I’m neither intimidated by our military, nor am I thinking that they’re somehow trying to undermine my role as commander in chief.”

Yes, yes and yes–but Obama got blindsided by the generals. Humility might have been a better starting point.

The high-level White House and Pentagon conversations Woodward magically reproduces here suggest confusion not only in the inexperienced Obama White House, but among our senior military leaders about our strategy in Afghanistan. The wise reader will discount for Woodward’s own prejudices. A military officer close to one of the dramatis personae in the book insisted to me that the heroes/villains index is directly correlated with who opens up to Woodward and who doesn’t. He claimed McChrystal kept his mouth shut and thereby didn’t come off well.

But even at this discount, Obama’s Wars comes with a couple of heroes: the retired generals, Jim Jones and Douglas Lute, who asked, and kept asking, tough questions. (Jones recently announced his retirement.) The villains are Pakistan, first and foremost; Afghanistan’s President Karzai; and two generals, the disgraced Stanley McChrystal, and his former boss, the deified David Petraeus. Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, doesn’t come off well, and we are told that he has never seen combat, but Woodward reserves most of his darts for Petraeus.

Petraeus emerges as unwilling to provide his president with any real options in Afghanistan other than a troop-intensive counterinsurgency. The Petraeus line is that he turned around the Iraq War so he could do the same thing in Afghanistan. His team appears to have circled the wagons intellectually, with little room for dissenting interpretations of the Iraq surge.

Woodward doesn’t seem sufficiently plugged into the military community to know it, but there is a substantial minority opinion that the surge succeeded not because of the wonders of counterinsurgency but because of a combination of mundane factors: the physical separation of Shiites and Sunnis in Baghdad, our bribing the sheiks and the killing of a lot of bad guys. (See the writings of Col. Gian Gentile for the most cogent presentations of these arguments.)

There is also an ongoing debate in military intellectual circles on how to measure the effectiveness of counterinsurgency. The Petraeus camp, rather than participating in this essential discussion, has insisted that they need more time and more inputs before judging the results. Their unwillingness to formulate COIN principles in falsifiable terms makes the doctrine more like witchcraft than like science.

Petraeus also comes across as dangerously political, appearing on CNN on Veteran’s Day 2009 with a double amputee he “miraculously” healed–just before a Situation Room strategy review session. The Obama team was furious at this defiance of an implicit media silence period.

Even if Petraeus was right about the need for a “fully resourced counterinsurgency strategy” in Afghanistan–and I don’t think he was, or is–the evidence presented in the Woodward book raises serious questions about the quality of the advice Obama got from the military as well as his ability to evaluate it.

At least two former American commanders in Afghanistan disagree with Petraeus. There’s our Ambassador to Afghanistan, retired Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, who served 30 months over two tours in Afghanistan. He famously warned the Obama administration on Nov. 6, 2009, by a later leaked cable that Petraeus’ plan could lead to “an indefinite large scale U.S. military role,” increasing “Afghan dependency.”

Retired Lt. Gen. Dave Barno, who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2005, recently published an interesting take on the Woodward book, decrying both Obama’s decision to rely mainly on his national security staff without seeking outside experts and the “narrow set of options presented to the president by his military commanders”–nothing but “a population-centered counterinsurgency strategy” was really offered.

Another current running through the book is the utter worthlessness of our “ally” Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Even Petraeus calls the Karzai government “a criminal syndicate.”

Woodward is far from an old Afghan hand. One of his trips with National Security Advisor Jim Jones hit Afghanistan, India and Pakistan in just six days. Yet Woodward extracted from his brief look at Helmand an important truth that eluded the vastly more experienced war planners: “Why was 12% of the U.S. troop presence in an area with less than 1% of the population? What did protecting the population mean here?” He discusses the death of Marine Corporal Matthew Lembke, killed by a mine while patrolling a ghost town called Now Zad. “This was not counterinsurgency. There was no population to protect. It was an aimless stalemate in the town.”

Woodward clearly believes that his own good self is a figure of gravitas equivalent to four-star generals and presidents. His ego is right up there with Obama’s. But annoying as Woodward’s public persona can be, Obama’s Wars is largely free of chest-thumping. The faults Woodward is often savaged for–irrelevant detail, bland equivocation–are not to be found here. The narrative is pared down (an excellent idea given Woodward’s very modest descriptive gifts), and the author makes it abundantly clear throughout the book that he has doubts about the strategy of the Afghan War. (Woodward, for those who have forgotten, was initially in favor of the Iraq War but later turned against it.).

Meanwhile, despite Obama’s insistence that the U.S. will begin to draw down its forces next summer, the physical evidence suggests that the military is planning for a very long-term commitment indeed. CBS ( CBS – news – people ) news reported on Nov. 22 that construction of American bases in Afghanistan is proceeding at a feverish pace. Projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars are in the works, some not due to be completed until late 2011. Perhaps Woodward will get another book out of this war. But if conservatives are wise, they will read this one closely.