It’s Gul Agha Shirzai!

The caption on the news story does not say so, but that would be him hanging out with Barack Obama in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. This picture makes me “smile”. And yes, I’m aware of the fact that Gul Agha Sherzai is now the governor of Nangarhar and it is quite a normal thing for Barack Obama to be meeting with him. But still, this picture is awesome. [sarcasm alert]

This is actually just as awesome as the time Bush was photographed next to Ismail Khan. And even more awesome than Prime Minister Harper and Mullah Naqib.

Pic: Putting the “Bear” in “Barakzai.”

OK: Barack. Barakzai. Clearly I should have played that into a snappy title for this blog entry.

To show my neutrality I promise to post any photo I can get of John McCain with a local tough guy. Although it will probably not have the same dichotomous effect.

Over reliance on air power in Afghanistan? That sound familiar. Or does it? Is the level of reliance on air power, as a percent of the total effort, if one could actually measure it, higher now than in all years of the Soviet War of the 1980s in Afghanistan? Yes, the Soviets did a lot of bombing from aircraft. But they were also out fighting a lot on the ground as well. That’s why I phrased it as ” a percentage of the total effort.”

I’m no air war historian. You may want to ask this guy:

Westermann, Edward B. (1997) The limits of Soviet airpower: the bear versus the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, 1979-1989. Thesis–Air University. Available here.

That thesis is not available [It is apparently, thanks Andy] so I’ll just say a few vague/ambiguous/open-ended things.

First, regarding Soviet losses of aircraft; as far as facts and figures of Soviet aircraft losses from the 1980s go, the Pakistani ISI was rather creative in counting the number of Soviet aircraft destroyed by their friends inside Afghanistan. “Keep sending us American money and weapons ’cause our boys are knocking the Soviets out the sky like flies.” Or something to that effect.

Photo via Ruswar: A destroyed Soviet aircraft on the ground in Afghanistan. BTW, the Soviets and the Afghan Communist forces abandoned a lot of equipment once it broke down and became too hard to repair. So a wrecked tank, APC or aircraft is not exactly a mujahideen score.

Pic via Ruswar: This one is probably a “score.”

The American government and cheerleaders gladly repeated the Pakistani numbers as fact. Many journalists then picked up the numbers with few questions. And some scholars cite government and media sources. So I completely distrust numbers from the 1980s (from all sides). I don’t think anybody could offer a quantitative analysis that would be acceptable.

Watch this 3 minute introduction to a documentary on the Soviet Afghan War. I can’t believe what the helo pilots’ job was in this case. Watch here.

The loss of nine American soldiers, along with the previous withdrawals of troops nearby, has now led to a (tactical) retreat from the Waygal District and an apparent victory for the ACM (Taliban, AQ, Hizb, Lashkar-i Taiba and/or whoever else) [added later: and/or Jaish-i Muhammad] in a strategically vital part of Nuristan. Why strategically vital? I just wrote about it. Giustozzi’s infiltration map goes something like this: Pakistan→Nuristan→Laghman→Kapisa→Kabul.

Photo via ZeroHour: US soldier in Nuristan.

I have been concentrating on Eastern Afghanistan because I feel that the region has been grossly under-reported in relation to its importance. Thank God for the Vanity Fair article on the Korengal stirring up interest in this part of Afghanistan.

You could know everything about Afghanistan and nothing about Nuristan. Calling the place “unique” does not do it justice. But the problem with Nuristan is finding informed analysis. It is not easily available, the sources I have tracked down are mostly in hard to find academic journals and occasional university libraries. I have put up a few of those sources at the end of this entry. I have been finding more of the older sources and they will be included in the next (September) bibliography I put out.

Pic via SMC: Crossing a stream in Nuristan.

I’ll get straight to the important part. Last fall I saw a notice on the Central Eurasian Studies Society listserv for a lecture on Nuristan at the American Institute for Afghanistan Studies at Boston University by two Nuristan experts, Richard Strand and David Katz. I very much would have liked to revisit Boston University, but I was working minimum wage ($6.30?) in a sandwich shop next to the Indiana University campus waiting word on PhD program applications while not paying rent at a friend’s house. So I didn’t go.

But just recently Joshua Foust, who has “crazily” been insisting for months that the security situation in Eastern Afghanistan is not all that great, pointed to the video release of the lectures. They were some rather big files so I put them up on Google video and made them embeddable. You will not find a better analysis anywhere from anybody.

First up, Richard Strand’s lecture:

Next, David Katz’s lecture:

And finally, the post-lecture Q&A (click here if third video won’t play):

For further reading, check out these blog entries and some of the very well informed comments at the bottom of each:

Registan.net:

• Remembering context
• Retreat is not surrender, except when it is

.

And on my blog:

• Why Nuristan Matters

.

Somewhat related:

• The People of the Korengal
• Tourism in Nuristan: Book your trip now!
• Timberlords and the deforestation of Afghanistan
• Whatever happened to that photo-blogger in Nuristan?

.

Photo via Doug Grindle: Nuristan 2007.

I have written a post over at the Complex Terrain Lab about the US State Department’s massive failures of communication and policy regarding the Taliban throughout 1996. That may seem like an old analysis, but these failures are directly related to the contemporary rumors in Afghanistan of American support for the Taliban.

Read the entry here.

I wrote an article about China’s strategic and economic engagement in Afghanistan. You can read it here on page 5 of this PDF. That’s my Centre on the front page and those are my new best friends standing in front of the Centre. You may also want to read the articles in the Bulletin about micro-societies and the state in Afghanistan by Amin Saikal and about Russian-Chinese security cooperation in Central Asia by Kirill Nourzhanov. As a disclaimer, both of them are are my dissertation committee.

“China’s Entry into Central Asia’s Southern Tier” by Christian Bleuer
Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies Bulletin, Vol. 15, No.1 (2008) Download PDF.

Here’s the intro:

Over the past few years Chinese interests in Afghanistan and Central Asia have steadily increased. While China’s push to secure energy resources in the region, especially with regards to Kazakhstan, has been given much attention, its efforts in the southern tier have only become highly visible recently. The recent $3 billion winning bid by the China Metallurgical Group Corporation to develop the Aynak copper deposits in Afghanistan and the Chinese-financed expansion of the port of Gwadar in Pakistani Baluchistan are the most obvious examples of China’s recent economic expansion into Central Asia from the south. However, the potential rewards for Chinese investment may be exaggerated. Though probably not to the same degree as the earlier hype over the Caspian Sea basin’s potential energy reserves has proven to be. And the risks to Chinese long term investments due to the chronic instability in Afghanistan, although very real, are also likely being exaggerated.

Aynak Photo: There’s copper in them thar hills.

And here’s an excerpt:

An obvious obstacle to China’s entry into Central Asia via the southern approach is the security environment. China has, with the investments in Gwadar and Aynak, expressed its further confidence in the government of Pakistan and the ongoing American-led efforts in Afghanistan. It has not, however, put too much confidence in future security in the region. This is just one part of China’s many diverse investments and relationships throughout the world. And China was not the only bidder for the Aynak deposit, and in fact not even the highest bidder. Other companies from Canada, the US and the UK also tendered bids, showing that other corporations foresee a reasonable risk environment. Speculation as to why the Chinese firm was awarded the bid mostly centres on Afghanistan’s desire to diversify its international friendships and specifically to engage with a partner that arguably has the most influence with the government of Pakistan. Pakistan values its relationship with China to the highest degree and perhaps, speculation goes, China may bring in significant transportation, industrial and resource extraction infrastructure that will not be attacked by the Taliban. Though this theory may give too much credence to the idea that the current government of Pakistan can actually control the Taliban, or even what is loosely referred to as the “neo-Taliban,” a “group” with many diverse agendas and with loosely affiliated members operating at various levels of independence from the Pakistani-based and supported/tolerated Taliban.

Map: The Chinese financed port of Gwadar is at the bottom left in Pakistani Baluchistan and the Aynak mine is just southwest of Kabul.

And some speculation:

The Pakistan-China relationship brings up another possibility: could Chinese investments in Afghanistan survive the disintegration of the current international intervention in Afghanistan? Would a Taliban takeover of the Pashtun-dominated area around the Aynak mine and southwards to Baluchistan include the preservation of China’s economic deals? Whoever may potentially take control of the area around Aynak in the future, be they Pakistani-supported or merely a local strongman, would likely have China and Pakistan as the only countries willing to do business here. But beyond this being conjecture, China would probably much rather do business with a stable western-backed Afghan government than with any potential obscurantist Islamist militia or unpredictable local commander that could possibly come to power in Afghanistan’s Pashtun-dominated southeast.

Pic: Welcome to Aynak:

And who will provide the security for the mine and the facilities? The ANA? The ANP? Coalition forces? A private security firm? Local tough guys? A combination of the preceding? I’m sure “they” have a plan for security.

Download the PDF and read the whole thing.

The short answer to this would be to just show you the Nuristan-Kunar anti-coalition infiltration corridor that crosses the Pakistani border. Via page 65 of Antonio Giustozzi’s book Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop:

Nuristan Taliban

Show this map to an old Soviet officer who served in the region and he will tell you that those routes look exactly like the mujahideen infiltration routes from the 1980s. But even before the Soviet invasion Nuristan was in revolt against the Communist government in May 1978.[1] Some of the Nuristani elite, since the region’s forced conversion to Islam after the invasion of the army of the Afghan Amir Abdurrahman in 1895-96,[2] were given a favored position in Afghan government, especially in the Afghan military.[3] Louis Dupree, in the 1970s, provided a version of the “ethnic pecking order in Afghanistan: Pashtun, Tajik, Nuristani, Uzbek, Turkmen, Aimaq, and then Hazara at the bottom.[4] The new Communist government purged these Nuristanis (or they fled from Kabul with their lives, if they were lucky). But given the fragmented nature of Nuristan (a region with a great deal of diversity) the initial revolt could have had more to do with local issues than with the dire situation of one of those army officers with the surname “Nuristani.”

Photo by Max Klimburg of Nuristani Village in Waigal Valley:

Waigal Nuristan

Religion is, to grossly understate it, a very important factor in the recent history of Nuristan. Originally home to a host of deities, the Muslim invasion marked the end of the polytheistic beliefs. The Muslim army destroyed the temples, shrines, effigies and numerous ancestor figures while mullahs were imported to “re-educate” the population. They did face difficulties in destroying the traditional belief system but eventually triumphed over the local beliefs.[5] The region, previously referred to by outsiders as Kafiristan (Land of the Infidels) was renamed Nuristan (Land of Light/Enlightenment). But this was not the final conversion, there came another wave of “conversion.” Antonio Giustozzi notes that Nuristan was “colonized” by Salafis by the 1990s.[6] Klimburg refers to this influence as Wahhabi (loosely, a Saudi brand of Salafism):

“Islam is on the rise also in Nuristan, where one finds nowadays an ever increasing number of haji, for the most part unemployed, and mullahs educated in different madrassas in Pakistan. The northern valleys even have gone through a period of ‘re-Islamisation’, as they were converted to Wahhabism. Wahhabi and other religious village schools provide some education, and several of the local mullahs now pride themselves on having completed higher religious studies in Saudi Arabia. In most parts of present-day Nuristan, music and dance, once greatly cherished and widely performed, have virtually disappeared, the victims of Sunni or Wahhabi fundamentalism.”[7]

Pre-Islamic ancestor effigies at a burial ground (source):

As far as the Taliban was concerned, it was better to strike a deal with the local power brokers in Nuristan than to invade. After the fall of the Taliban government the same pattern was repeated with no “strongman” who could prevent the continuing fragmentation in Nuristan post 2001. The weak central government, like the Taliban, instead made arrangements with various local leaders. (pg 64) But early in the post-2001 era anti-coalition foreign fighters were already active in Nuristan as well as Khost, Paktika and Kunar. Giuztozzi claims that by 2002-3 insurgents in Nuristan operated with little check on their activities.[8]

So what of the current situation in Nuristan? Nuristan is like another Afghanistan within Afghanistan. To make any generalizations about a region with such a high level of diversity, based on the available published material, is quite risky. Even Richard Strand, one of the very few authorities on Nuristan, admitted he had recently provided incorrect analysis because of a deceptive source. What seems to be clear is that the situation is “not good.”

And on the military front? Anti-coalition forces here are both from Pakistan and local. How many? Giustozzi estimated, based on press reports, UN, US military and NATO/ISAF sources, that there were about 200 fighters in Nuristan in 2006.[9] They seem to have a high level of capability, according to Abu Muqawama. The situation today? Who knows.

The situation in Nuristan, aside from the conflict, is quite dire. The region is isolated, underdeveloped, neglected and has undergone environmental devastation, as you can see from this satellite image of tree cover:

The environmental analysis can be found here.

Here’s a bibliography for Nuristan that I’m continually updating for The Afghanistan Analyst:

“This world wasn’t made so that we could enjoy life, it was made so that we could obey God.”

This is unbelievable. Imran Raza’s documentary “Karachi Kids”, based on the trailer, seems like an amazing documentary, but both depressing and frightening. Actually, it’s believable and that’s what’s scary: American kids sent by their parents fathers to a madrassa in Pakistan for an indoctrination. First they hate the madrassa and want to go back to America, then they admit they are becoming robots and then finally they have nothing but hate to express.

These kids are victims. Not just the American kids but also the kids of all nationalities whose minds are destroyed in these types of madrassas (there are madrassas that are nothing like this one featured). The bozo who runs this madrassa doesn’t seem to have much of an appreciation for the strong history of science and literature in Islamic civilization. If anything, he’s weakening Islam.

You can find out more about the documentary and these kids at Karachikids.com. There is some frightening information there (more so than the usual amount of frightening that the process of radicalization in parts of Pakistan engenders). 100 “graduates” of a pro-Taliban madrassa have gone back to America? Hopefully they have been deprogrammed and lead normal lives.

And hopefully someday all of these children will receive an education that includes reading, writing, math, science and no hate.

Read the Karachi Kids blog for regular updates.

All Afghanistan experts are equal. But Boston University anthropologist Thomas J. Barfield is more equal than most. With a long involvement in Afghanistan (since the 1970s), Barfield brings some much needed expertise on Pashtuns and the broader society of Afghanistan to the issues that need to be addressed. Look up his work in The Afghanistan Analyst bibliography (pdf). His writings are essential reading (his dissertation and book were on the Afghan Arabs).

I have to admit that I mostly skip over a lot of what’s written on Afghanistan these days as quality most definitely has not kept pace with quantity. So I dig through the last 30-40 years to find relevant writings. And I came across an academic conference paper by Barfield from just last year that I had missed:

‘Weapons of the not so Weak in Afghanistan: Pashtun Agrarian Structure and Tribal Organization for Times of War & Peace’, Thomas J. Barfield, Boston University, for Agrarian Studies Colloquium Series “Hinterlands, Frontiers, Cities and States: Transactions and Identities” at Yale University.  February 23, 2007. Download PDF.

Photo by Vindemiatrix: Fields on the road to Jalalabad.

Barfield’s Pashtun question that he addresses is this:

So why was it that the Ghilzai seemed to thrive politically in time of war and anarchy and so often produced the major military figures who were self made men? Why did the Durranis end up winning the peace from a position of weakness and were able to restore leadership to families that had dominated Afghan politics for generations with leaders who lacked a strong military base? And what light does this throw on the renewed Taliban insurgency, one of the first in Afghan history to have its base in the Durrani south rather than the Ghilzai east?

I do not believe that the answer lies in ideology but in the dynamics of social organization that itself is rooted in the long term structure of their respective agrarian economies. The more the agrarian structure was subsistence based and patterns of land ownership fragmented, the less scope there was for the emergence of powerful hereditary leaders, let alone dynastic families.

Old Soviet Poster of Pashtun farmer/fighter (source):

So why do the Ghilzais, whose members did far more fighting against the British than did the Durranis, dominated the Khalq Communist faction, dominated the Afghan Communist military, provided the majority of the best mujahideen commanders and the bulk of the Taliban leadership (plus Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar) keep losing out when it comes to national level politics?

…Successful [Ghilzai] leaders in this system were aggressive risk takers whose positions were based on their personal achievements that were hard to institutionalize. By contrast the Durrani Pashtuns in southern Afghanistan had come into possession of large tracts of lightly taxed agricultural land during the founding of the Durrani Empire. These rich irrigated lands located around Kandahar and Peshawar supported a hierarchical political system that required large agricultural surpluses to sustain them. It supported an elite of landowners whose tribal followers had in many cases been reduced to their economic clients.

In this system, power was relatively easy to maintain and pass on to descendants who rarely faced the personal power struggles required of Ghilzai leaders. Perhaps more important they could count on the support of their home regions if they entered national government. Ghilzai leaders could not-if they left their territories to enter the national stage rivals at home resented their success and undermined them at every turn.

Pic: Jalaluddin Haqqani.

Barfield, while noting the importance of the Ghilzai-Durrani differences, shows that the religious nature of the Taliban helps to mute this rivalry.

…ibn Khaldun noted, religious leaders were often more successful than tribal ones in uniting large groups. Coming from outside the system and calling on God’s authority, they could better circumvent tribal rivalries.

…An advantage of a religious movement for rival Pashtun leaders was that there was no honor or prestige lost in subordinating oneself to the will of God or God’s agents.

To this could be added the effect of so many Pashtuns having been in refugee camps (reducing tribal influences) and the effects of a market economy affecting hierarchies in society. Barfield goes on to provide much in the way of a supporting argument and even applies (with some tweaking) the historical center-periphery cycle theories of ibn Khaldun to Afghanistan.

So, what does Barfield have to say about the post-2001 Durrani preeminence?

Their Durrani elite by its very nature had higher levels of education and sophistication than their Ghilzai counterparts. This gave them an advantage in the world of diplomacy where dealing with non-Afghans was key to success. Indeed the bulk of the cabinet officials in the new government were educated Afghans who had been in exile in western countries, a fact that riled the existing mujahideen commanders who saw them as carpetbaggers. Still, money talks: the Durrani were past masters of winning subsidies from world powers, while the Ghilzai mujahideen leadership had dealt only with Pakistan.* In a continuing civil war conflict situation, Karzai would have never emerged at the top. But in a contest where dealing with the outside world took precedence he had signal advantage over Ghilzai rivals. The latter were not secure enough in their own regions to make a play for national power. Karzai was because the Durrani elite stood to back him regionally as a way back to national prominence for the Pashtuns as a whole and the Kandaharis in particular. In this political ecology, assets in time of war became liabilities in times of peace.

Via PRTkand: The coronation of Ahmad Shah Durrani:

So the Ghilzai-Durrani factor does matter. But note that he does not say anything along the lines of the Taliban being all Ghilzai and the government being all Durrani. Although Barfield does not argue that it should be the lens to explain all conflict in Afghanistan today (this view would immediately come up against examples of Durrani vs Durrani and members of either affiliation on both or neither sides), he does, in a very original manner, show that Ghilzai and Durrani affiliations are often a real recurring historical factor.

Download article.

What would a computation model of Afghan power structures (qawm) and the decision making processes within and amongst them look like? Armando Geller and Scott Moss come up with this computation on their way to building a model:

Ok, it’s actually gets easier to understand. Read my review of their article at The Complex Terrain Lab.

Alright, another awesome 10-minute mini-documentary by John D McHugh on Charlie Company in Khost. (H/T Kotare). The elementary school principal routine at 3:55 is kind of funny: “Insurgency is bad, m’kay?” Anyways, the report is excellent. I highly recommend you watch it.

But what really bothered me was the chainsaws. That’s right, the chainsaws. These guys have to use axes to clear the line of fire because the (ancient) chainsaws that were delivered do not work. McHugh wrote on this earlier. I couldn’t get a good look at the pieces of crap…, I mean chainsaws, but they look like they may be Stihl brand saws from the 1980s or perhaps they are from from the Ching Boa Tsung Chainsaw Collective factory in Heilonjiang Province. I don’t know. That’s not the point. What is important is that the United States military (or some contractor) is not sending these guys equipment that works. That’s disgraceful.

Photo: No comment.

Chainsaws are a ridiculously simple piece of equipment. In every town in North America you can buy a saw made by Stihl, Husqvarna, Jonsered, etc… that will, if you stick to the Scandanavian/German brands, last a long time under bad conditions. Could the US military perhaps go to Home Depot, buy some saws and put them on a plane to Afghanistan?

Sorry about all that, but chainsaws and treefalling are an imagined “expertise” for pretty much everybody in British Columbia outside of Vancouver. Though I admit my expertise is somewhat limited. Here’s a slight problem I had when trying to fall a Pine Bark beetle-infested tree against its lean into a 20 degree radius to avoid the structures behind and to the right of me and the larger trees around it:

I hope my sister doesn’t see this photo since that’s her chainsaw stuck in there ( I should have just let her fall the tree). But my point is that chainsaws are nearly indestructible (compared to other machinery/tools). This saw has seen far worse and it still works. I treated my chainsaw horribly for years and it still worked. Perhaps the US military (or a contractor) can start delivering working equipment? But then again, they are not even providing axes that work. Axes should last 30 years with regular use. Was this axe bought at the Dollar Store?

Photo of Chinese axe in Khost by John D McHugh:

I guess I’m just ignorant of logistics and supply issues. But why can’t soldiers be provided with the equipment that they need? I get frustrated just watching the video. I wonder how these guys, fighting a war for 12 months, feel? I would probably have thrown that chainsaw too. I also wonder if a contractor charged $32,000 per decrepit chainsaw delivered? I hope not.

Watch the video.