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Thursday, July 9, 2009 12:36 PM

Kandahar then and now

Omar El Akkad

It has become customary for Globe and Mail correspondents arriving in Kandahar to post their thoughts about how the NATO base here has changed since they last visited. In my case, the last visit was in late 2007.

I arrived in Kandahar Wednesday morning after clearing a Dubai airport security check-in that can best be described as casual.

Dubai’s airport authority is not at all subtle about regulating all the most, well, interesting flights to Terminal 2. In addition to my Kandahar flight Wednesday morning, the Terminal 2 departures screen showed flights to Kish (an Iranian duty-free shopping paradise, I’m told), Baghdad and Kabul. If you’ve ever been to Dubai, you know that its public face is the statement “home of the world’s blankiest blank,” where the first blank is usually something like “biggest,” “longest” or “most expensive,” and the second blank is something like “building,” “luxury yacht” or “stable of gold-plated ponies.” There are no such pretenses in Terminal 2, populated almost entirely by Third-World immigrant labourers and former-military-type contractors.

These are the people who make Kandahar Air Field – NATO’s massive base-city and my home for the next month – function. There’s plenty of money to be made in shipping cargo, digging ditches and constructing myriad other services to feed the voracious appetite of a fighting force.

There’s considerably less money to be made in shift-work at the cafeterias and the actual hands-on tasks of digging ditches and constructing buildings, but many “third-country nationals” – the vast majority of them Indian, Pakistani or Filipino – believe such work will pay better than anything they could find at home.

The guys sitting next to me on the plane wore T-shirts with the logo of Prime Projects International, a firm that specializes in getting low-wage TCNs into war zones. PPI was created shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and is probably as vital to making a large-scale war work as the suppliers of bullets and the tanks.

Last time I came out here, there were maybe a dozen people on the plane. On Wednesday, I could hardly see an empty seat.

Kandahar Air Field is growing. It has also gotten more American. The United States is in the middle of sending another 20,000 troops here, as President Barack Obama shifts focus from Iraq to Afghanistan. You can see the effect of this from the moment the plane descends towards the airfield’s runway, with ongoing construction projects and rows of helicopters visible below.

The first thing that hits you is the heat. Dubai and Kandahar have virtually nothing in common, except the searing antagonism between man and environment. But the heat is different in each place. To get a sense of the summer heat in Dubai, open the door to your dishwasher after running a hot wash – glasses fog up, the heat is wet. Afghanistan’s heat is closer to an open oven door: a straight dry blast. It almost acts like a weight vest – the five-minute walk from the media tent to a nearby Subway sandwich kiosk felt like a slog through wax.

The other environmental constant in Kandahar is dust. It gets on and in everything, and wrecks particular havoc with electronic equipment. In the media tent, we tend to go through those compressed air canisters like chewing gum.

Even as the base sprawls to accommodate its surging population, it still feels the same. From what I’ve seen, soldiers from different nationalities don’t mingle all that often. There are a few new stores, including what looks like a French bakery and a bookstore. The hallmark of architecture here is still very much the ever-versatile shipping container, accompanied by waves of concrete barriers and plenty of razor wire.

Hummers and old-school Toyota trucks drive around at walking speed, kicking up dust tornadoes in their wake. There are makeshift living rooms for the various troops: tents with big screen TVs where the soldiers can relax, usually while watching some sporting event. The Canadian tents are usually glued to hockey, but there’s none of that to watch right now.

Entertainment is a big deal on a military base. The simple fact is that you never really stop working here, and you can’t just hop in a car and get away from your surroundings. I arrived at one of the Canadian media tents to find an impressive collection of mostly pirated DVDs. (You know your copy of Wanted is legit when the blurb on the cover reads: “Mind Blowing Exicement – Siskel & Ebert.”) Every weekend the Afghan bazaar comes to the base, and virtually everyone living here stocks up on these things.

There aren’t as many reporters around here as I remember from my last trip, though I suspect that will change in the next few weeks, as the Afghan election coverage begins gearing up in August. It’ll be interesting to see how the Western nations involved in this war balance their desire to see this election go smoothly with their desire to keep a low profile and let Afghanis work their own democracy. It’ll also be interesting to see just how much more or less violent things become as (at least some) Afghans prepare to go to the polls.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 10:52 PM

The lighter side of Afghanistan

Colin Freeze

Kandahar, Afghanistan -- Forty candidates are now running for the job of Afghanistan's president, one of them saying his country risks becoming “the biggest tragedy of the 21st Century” if changes don't happen, and soon.

That may or may not be true. But whether the country's turns out to be a big tragedy or not, the small comedies that arise can't be ignored or taken for granted. They can be like silver linings on an unremitting dark cloud.

So here then are some of the goofy things witnessed in Afghanistan:

The loneliest pig in all Afghanistan

The Kabul Zoo is a sight to behold, filled as it is with smiling families and young children. They gawk at polar bears, lions and even the newborn baby monkey. There's even a rickety Ferris Wheel too. So, the zoo is a nice slice of normalcy in a country that's often bereft of it. A great place to forget the war.

But lately it's been in the news during the global spread of swine flu.

The zoo's pig – allegedly the only one in all of predominantly Muslim Afghanistan – was placed under quarantine last month. I bumped into zoo director Azis Gul Saqib and asked whether I could visit the pig in question: “Can I see?” I said.

“No,” he said.

“Why not?,” I said. “Because we not let the people and journalists to go there,” he said.

“Oh, okay,” I said. “But you don't think the pig is sick?”

“No. But it's possible the pig might get sick from humans,” he said.

“Well, I am from Canada,” I conceded. “Where we do have swine flu.”

The Karzai Times

I'm sorry to report the Kabul Times has not quite got this newspapering thing down yet. (I know, I know, nobody does, any more.) It's design editor and staff photographers appear to be mailing it in.

For example, the June 10 edition had a picture above the fold: President Hamid Karzai at a boardroom table meeting a group of wise men.

“President Karzai meets Badakshan Elders,” the headline said.

That was a lot like the front of the June 9 edition. The A1 photo was President Karzai at a boardroom table meeting a group of wise men.

“President Karzai Recieves Hussain Khil Council members,” the headline said.

These same editions had similar pictures on the inside too.

“President Karzai Instructs Ministries to Solve Smangan, Paktya, Paktika, Khost's Problems,” read one headline. The picture was of the president at a boardroom tables meeting wise men.

“Badghis elders ask President Karzai to Address their Problems,” read another headline.

You can guess what the picture was.

King Harper v. King Osama

You meet all kinds of characters on military bases, and one popped into our work tent the other day. He's ex-military and now helps operate private flights in and out of Kandahar. But he wanted to talk about his sideline, Terror Chess .

For only $250 (U.S.) you can buy a handcrafted “Canadian” set.

In it, King Stephen Harper squares off against King Osama bin Laden.

Queen Elizabeth II faces the blue burqa-wearing Taliban queen. (It's not clear who is under there, maybe it's Mullah Omar.) In the American version, King Obama has just replaced King Bush. But he remains flanked by the Statue of Liberty, with the World Trade Center towers at the corners.

A computer version of the game is in the works. In it, certain squares may be booby-trapped with improvised explosive devices.

Kafiristan

The Afghan Parliament has just passed a law banning alcohol under penalty of up to 60 lashes.

But Westerners pictured in a glossy Kabul magazine don't seem worried about this.

Scene is a monthly publication I would never have thought existed. It actually has a society column.

Afghans don't generally drink. So the five-page centre-spread features young good-looking expats.

This is the NGO crowd at play, blowing off steam in Kabul bar and restaurants.

The editors say this is the future of Afghanistan – and beyond.

“Now that Mr. Obama has come down so decisively on talking to the insurgents,” they write in the latest issue of the magazine “we're hoping to include a few photos of fiestas in Quetta in the months to come.”

Quetta, Pakistan, is the religiously austere city within which the Taliban leadership plots suicide bombings and the like.

Monday, June 15, 2009 04:33 PM

High times in Kabul

Colin Freeze

Kabul -- Sayyed Mohammed, 28, has hollow eyes, a fist full of coins, and a $4-a-day heroin habit.

“I’m addicted,” he tells me in an open air drug market in Kabul, both of us ankle-deep in rubble and ruin.

“I was treated two times in Pakistan, but for one month, I’ve been readdicted.”

Part of the reason he’s back on drugs, he says, is because they are so cheap. “Each dosage costs 100 Afgani,” he explained – the equivalent of $2.

In Afghanistan, opium, and its derivative, heroin, have long tended to be seen as export commodities. Addiction? Largely a foreign problem.

But the nation is slowly realizing the chickens have come home to roost. In rural regions such as Kandahar, the complaints centre on insurgents taxing the opium crops, funding insurgency to the tune of tens of millions of dollars a year.

In urban areas such as Kabul, where the Taliban and poppies are less visible, the complaints centre on the corrupting power of drug money, evidenced in the "poppy palaces" that have popped up around town.

Families speak of young men who are getting high instead of getting jobs.

Ground zero for this is Kabul’s Russian Cultural Centre, a sprawling complex shelled heavily during the civil wars of the 1990s. Faded murals still show industrious workers cast in the Soviet Realist mould, but today's denizens have succumbed to a culture of hopelessness and despair.

Dozens of addicts call the centre home, including Mr. Mohammed, who was reflective before he wandered off to exchange his coins for more drugs.

“Heroin has given a bad name to Afghanistan,” he said. He added he was more concerned about teenagers than himself. “The problem is that they are jobless,” he said. “I tell them, ‘It is not going to reduce your problems, it is going to add to your problems.’ ”

Afghanistan grows more opium than the world can use, forcing rivals such as Myanmar and Laos have cut back because their poppies can no longer compete.

“For a number of years now, Afghan opium production has exceeded [world] demand,” wrote the United Nation’s office on drugs and crime last year.

“The bottom should have fallen out of the opium market," it said. "It has not.” ( http://tinyurl.com/l94s9b )

Prices, however, have fallen somewhat, and this may also have helped spread addiction in Afghanistan “It’s an increasing problem, day by day,” said Jamal Nazir, a social worker at a Kabul rehab clinic.

Many of his patients arrive from the Russian Cultural Centre, he said, including teenagers. “I have special sympathies because they are the energy of Afghanistan.”

Families shuffled in and out of the rehab centre before Friday prayers. The visitors came from every strata, from poor farmers to the local gentry.

“My wife’s brother, he is addicted,” said Dr. Shah Mahmoud. “Our youths go out of Afghanistan, for work to Iran or neighbouring countries, and get addicted.”

He complained of “high authorities,” getting involved in the drug trade and with mafia groups.

Afghanistan’s culture of impunity has to end, he said.

“We blame the government for this problem,” he said. “The government should arrest and hand over to the law those people who are involved in this criminal business.”

Monday, June 8, 2009 04:13 PM

It's bad, but it's good it's not worse

Colin Freeze

Kandahar, Afghanistan -- Writers who go to Afghanistan tend to reach for Kipling whenever they get literary. I’m going with Yeats instead: Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned.

The Second Coming came to mind after I read two reports about Afghanistan. One, just released, contains some bleak and sobering assessments. The other goes way beyond bleak and sobering, riddled as it is with lurid accounts of a past generation’s war crimes.

So let’s start with the merely bleak. In Kandahar, positive impressions of the Taliban have reached an all-time high and fewer people feel safe than before. This, according to the Canadian government’s latest quarterly report on the Afghanistan, which came out last week.

Ottawa releases this information as part of its plans to chart the progress of its various reconstruction schemes. The tone of the latest report stays generally positive, but often seems less upbeat than its predecessor. Many portions dwell on how insurgents are fouling up many best-laid plans: “Assassinations of government officials and other prominent leaders continued and Afghan civilians suffered higher levels of violence than a year ago,” the report says. “Opinion polling in the quarter showed a decline in the percentage of Kandaharis who feel safe: 29 per cent said they felt safe or very safe, fewer than in any previous poll.”

And, it goes on to say that “favourable opinion of the Taliban, at 25 per cent, reached an all-time high. Favourable opinion of the Afghan government stood at 74 per cent, down from 81 per cent in September 2008. … Kandahar continued to rank among the most insecure of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.”

This from the Canadian government, which NATO ordered to secure Kandahar province. Ottawa continues its civilian work but seems to want to manage expectations: “Achieving even modest progress in Afghanistan remains difficult.

After decades of warfare and misrule, Afghanistan is one of the world’s poorest countries. Its government lacks capacity in nearly every part of its administration. And the insurgency –in which the Taliban is the pre-eminent but not the only force – has shown no signs of abating and in some provinces has expanded its reach.”

Because the Afghan conflict tends to polarize Canadians, frank and stark assessments such as this tend to buoy the cut-our-losses side of the debate. The argument? Canada has sunk much blood and treasure into a foreign conflict it didn’t need to fight. Because there has been little discernible gain, it’s time to pack up and go home.

There is, however, a handy rebuttal and many soldiers like to muster it: What if every NATO country arrived at the same conclusion and also pulled out their fighting forces? How badly would things fall apart?

This brings me to the second document, an eye-opening Human Rights Watch report cataloguing the atrocities that occurred in the complete political vacuum of the early 1990s. As Washington and Moscow put aside their differences, they agreed to stop spending billions on their proxy war in Afghanistan. The superpowers became abruptly disinterested in Afghanistan.

The vestigial Soviet-installed government held on to Kabul. The outlying regions were left to the formerly U.S.-backed mujahedeen strongmen. Notions of nationhood yielded to ethnic fissures and jihadist dogma.

In other words, a perfect storm was brewing for the forces of disintegration.

In 1992, feuding fanatical factions lay waste to the capital as they tried claim to it. Tens of thousands of people were killed. Up to one in five Afghans fled the country. Atrocities, once unimaginable, became commonplace.

Human Rights Watch found survivors and eyewitnesses to recall the 1992-93 Battle for Kabul in its report. Many of the accounts are heart crushing. They are certainly not for the squeamish.

For example, one Afghan described an out-and-out race war ...

“Hazaras abducted Pashtuns and Pashtuns abducted Hazaras wherever they saw each other. They pulled out the fingernails of prisoners, cut off hands, cut off legs, ... Humans were kept in [shipping] containers and containers were set on fire. . .”

Populations were devastated by rape, street-to-street gun battles, indiscriminate shelling, and the beheadings of innocents: “We found a woman in the same house, dead. She was holding a copy of the Koran in her arms, embracing it… we saw a man, Haji Hasan: his head was cut off, and his feet, and his hands. There was nowhere to bury him, and no time: they were not letting us bury the corpses. So we put him into the well there.”

This is but a small sampling of the Afghan-on-Afghan atrocity, reflected in the report. The authors write that the war crimes from two decades ago remain mostly undocumented, but they could still probably fill a bookshelf with the stories that are known.

Following the warlord wars came the rise of the Taliban, the proliferation of al-Qaeda-funded paramilitary camps, and the eventual 9/11 attacks. This in turn led to the U.S-led invasion, NATO occupation and, finally, today’s renewed insurgency.

Supporters of a continuing Canadian mission suggest Afghanistan’s bloody past actually makes the case for continued intervention: Even if Afghanistan hasn’t gotten good, even if it never gets good, it has become less awful. Even if the country is sliding from where it was seven years ago, it’s still better than it was 17 years ago.

Their fear? The centre might not hold and the blood-dimmed tide may be loosed once again.

Thursday, June 4, 2009 03:04 PM

The good idea fairy visits Afghanistan

Kandahar, Afghanistan - There’s a recurring reconstruction phenomenon in aid-delivery to Afghanistan. One NATO insider likens it to visits from The Good Idea Fairy.

Just imagine it – a magical pixie flits into a war-torn country. Her modus operandi is essentially identical to that of her cousin, The Tooth Fairy, whom you may recall.

She [allegedly] left pocket change under your pillow while you slept, in exchange for your childhood teeth that had outlived their usefulness. Well, the Good Idea Fairy works along much the same lines.

Only her transactions involve implanting ideas into the heads of grownups posted to foreign missions. Much, much larger donations are at stake, and often for less tangible outcomes.

The intentions are always pure and well-meaning. But too often turn out to be fundamentally flawed and divorced from ground truths. That means the “good” ideas prove enormously difficult, even impossible, to execute.

I thought of the Good Idea Fairy today as I browsed the United Nations Development Program “Elect” site. It highlights all the UNDP’s good works ahead of this August’s election in Afghanistan.

Click on Kandahar and you’ll see 10 distinct programs are under way.

All of them are meant to help secure free and fair elections in Afghanistan. Democracy is generally regarded as a good idea.

One of the plans, funded to the tune of $9-million over the next year by Canada, the U.S. and European countries, is titled “Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups.” Another good idea. For who could argue against beating AK-47s into plowshares?

Problem is, the program’s reach exceeds its grasp, even by its own metrics. Consider how it describes its goals and setbacks.

“In Afghanistan, as a result of the conflicts which took place in the last 20 years, there is a strong presence of armed groups,” the UNDP says.

It explains that dozens of private security militias, district militias, militias linked to government factions plague Afghanistan.

It’s not clear if the Taliban is considered one of them, but it is estimated that “there are 72 such groups acting at provincial level, of which 53 have been invited to give up their activities,” the document says. “Of these 53, 23 have been disarmed and 16 disbanded.

Twenty-eight groups still remain active, and two groups remain unknown.

“This is why the final disbandment of these groups, foreseen for the end of 2007, has been postponed until 2011.”

I keep reading that last sentence over and over and over.

Come again? No one foresaw most gunmen would refuse an “invitation” to disarm? And the “final” resolution is merely “postponed” for four years?

This country is filthy with guns. Kalashnikov assault rifles are to Afghanistan what hockey sticks are to Canada. The ubiquity of weaponry continues despite the multiyear UN disarming initiative, which can be read about more fully here: http://tinyurl.com/qvxxjx .

There is no question that Afghanistan, broadly, needs to disarm, but good intentions from the West keep bumping into a some gory realities. For one, bloodshed and score-settling begets bloodshed and score-settling. For another, the problems go right to the top.

The Taliban-led insurgency is the most major militant problem, but it’s not the only one.

Human Rights Watch has long argued former Afghan warlords have not only evaded justice, but actually been rewarded for their crimes. ( http://tinyurl.com/qbyjpq ) Too often, such figures end up in government.

Who appoints them? Well, these days it’s often President Hamid Karzai, a shoe-in to be re-elected in the looming election, which the West touts as a potential game changer for Afghanistan.

Karzai recently announced his vice-presidential running mate will be a Tajik Northern Alliance strongman. General Mohammed Qasim Fahim’s rights record – including allegations he has never disbanded his own militias – had forced him off the Karzai ticket in the past. But it no longer appears to be much of an impediment.

And recently other ethnic warlord leaders have set aside their own presidential aspirations following meetings with Karzai. That means that they too may be in for big jobs in the post-election administration.

Building a big tent and inviting in others is shrewd politics, no question, especially in a country that cleaves on ethnic lines.

Equally undoubtedly, warlords in cabinet bode poorly for governance.

Many ordinary Afghans about this. The best governments lead by example – and no outsider needs to tell the locals that this would be a really, really good idea.

Thursday, May 28, 2009 08:22 PM

Know thy military: The Canadian Forces reading list

Colin Freeze

Kandahar, Afghanistan -- Canada's Parliament made its intentions very clear last year: We're not in Southern Afghanistan for the long haul.

"The government of Canada [will] notify NATO that Canada will end its presence in Kandahar as of July 2011, and, as of that date, the redeployment of Canadian Forces troops out of Kandahar and their replacement by Afghan forces start as soon as possible, so that it will have been completed by December 2011," the motion reads.

(Note that the language of the motion is particular only to the Canadian military "presence" in "Kandahar" -- distinctions that may be important in coming months as the post-2011 future of the mission is debated.)

In any event, just a few months later the military brass finally came up with its own counterinsurgency manual. The document, now public, reveals top generals had been putting down their weapons and picking up books -- a lot of books.

A partial list of the Canadian Forces' "suggested readings in counterinsurgency," follows below.

The upshot? Counterinsurgency (COIN, in military vernacular) ain't easy -- never was, never is, never will be.

And just because a country fears being drawn into a bloody quagmire, doesn't mean that it can't try to discern lessons from the bloody quagmires of ages past.

- Islam, Karen Armstrong (2002)

- Inside al-Qaeda, Rohan Gunarathna (2002)

- The War of Ideas: Jihad Against Democracy, Walid Phares (2007)

- The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism (2001)

- The Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahedeen Tactics in the Soviet Afghanistan War, Colonel Jalali (2000)

- Revolt in the Desert, T.E. Lawrence (2004)

- History of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire,

- Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya, Caroline Elkins, (2005)

- Pacification in Algeria: 1956-1958, David Galula (2005)

- The Irish War: The Hidden Conflict Between the IRA and British Intelligence, Tony Geraghty (2000)

- Fighting for Ireland? The Military Strategy of the IRA, M.L.R. Smith (1995)

- Strategy in Vietnam: The Marines and Revolutionary Warfare in I Corps, Michael Hennessy, (1997)

- Communist Revolutionary Warfare: From the Vietminh to Viet Cong, George Tanham, (1967)

- Defeating Communist Insurgency, The Lessons of Malaya and Vietnam, Sir Robert Thompson (2005)

- Counter-Guerrilla Operations: The Philippine Experience, Charles Bohannan (1962)

- COIN in a Test Tube: Analyzing the Success of the Regional Assistance Mission, Solomon Islands, Russell Glenn (2007)

- Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency Roger Trinquier (1964)

- War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History, Robert B. Asprey (1994)

- Mars Learning: The Marine Corps Development of Small Wars Doctrine 1915-1940, Keith Bickel (2001)

- U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine 1860-1941, Andrew Birtle (1998)

- U.S. Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations Doctrine 1942-1976, Andrew Birtle (1998)

And so on. ...

Feeback? colinfreezeisinafghanistan@gmail.com

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 03:07 AM

A walk on the wild side in Kandahar's markets

Colin Freeze

Kandahar, Afghanistan - “Hey” screamed the young Canadian soldier. "HEY"

With that, he fired off a round inside a crowded marketplace in Kandahar City.

A sonic crack from his assault rifle. A puff of dust from the bullet, fired harmlessly into the road.

The Afghan driver -- finally -- got the point. Heedless or careless until then, he applied his brakes. He stopped a safe distance from the foot patrol

Thank goodness.

The dozen Canadian soldiers – with me in tow as an observer -- resumed their march. The Afghans went back to haggling for trinkets, bangles, dresses and vegetables. The rhythm of daily life in the market resumed once the interlopers passed through.

This mission wasn’t aggression -- it was outreach. Two of the soldiers were flanked by interpreters, to help them take the pulse of the community. Getting outside the wire and having conversations with ordinary people, it's felt, helps win hearts and minds.

But tagging along on walks makes me realize it's a fine balance. I feel like an extra in a movie, something like Robocop Meets the Flintstones.

This analogy is a bit unkind to the soldiers but, then again, they pack so much body armour and gear that only their lower faces are left exposed. It's more unkind to the Afghans but, then again, some of the mud-wall compounds in the market stalls in Kandahar don't look like they’ve changed in centuries.

The cultural chasm makes it difficult for soldiers to establish rapport. When fear factors come into play, it can be a fine line between daily life unfolding as it should -- and tragedy.

Trust too much, and you could end up Lieutenant-Colonel Trevor Greene. Three years ago, that Canadian soldier took off his helmet to sit down for tea with Afghan elders. A youngster in the room took the opportunity to strike him in the head with a stone axe.

The teenager was shot dead. Lt. Col Greene survived, but is still recovering.

Trust too little, you might become like those Blackwater security contractors in Iraq. Five of them were indicted last year on manslaughter charges, after killing 34 civilians in a crowded marketplace. The young contractors, formerly American soldiers, rained down a maelstrom of bullets and grenades on ordinary Iraqis. The accused say they felt like they were mortal peril – but prosecutors allege that no real threat ever existed.

Soldiers (and contractors for that matter) might avoid tragedy with enough discipline, street smarts and sufficiently helpful rules of engagement. But there are no guarantees. Only one thing is certain: Canada’s new focus on reconstruction work inside Kandahar City raise the stakes, and much will depend on cool-headed conversation.

Some of the Afghans I saw had enjoyed the spectacle of soldiers in the marketplace. Others seemed wary.

For example, one-legged old man in a turban was selling silver platters. I declined his offers, but had the interpreter ask what happened to the other leg.

A Russian helicopter crew shot it off 20 years ago, the old man said.

I asked if he saw much difference between that army and this army.

“Because I’m poor there is no difference,” he said. “They’re not helping me and you’re not helping me.”

I looked at him befuddled. Surely he knew that NATO wasn’t killing civilians indiscriminately the way the Russians did.

“Sometimes,” he said, “you do.”

He looked at me like I was being naïve.

Time was up. Conversations are short, since the foot patrol had to move on. After all, the intermittent goat herds were already tying up traffic, and we didn't want to frustrate anyone any more than we had to.

The Canadian Forces soldiers left the marketplace and returned to the base. There, all the abundant comforts and luxuries of a mini-North America are to be found, tucked away as they are behind massive fortifications.

Friday, May 22, 2009 12:19 PM

They could win - just ask the Godfather

Life as an embedded reporter in Afghanistan means you're almost always kept inside the wire.

But being stuck on a army base isn't as bad as you might think. There are many comforts and distractions. You can even rent DVDs, for example.

I picked up The Godfather series this week. Not to watch the entire trilogy. Just one scene.

In Part II, the reluctant mobster Michael Corleone (played by a young Al Pacino) finds himself in pre-revolutionary 1950s Havana. He's part of a crooked consortium from Las Vegas that's plotting to take over Cuba's gambling resorts.

The politicians are all onside. The only problem is a growing insurgency.

“I assure you this: We will tolerate no guerrillas in the casinos and the swimming pools,” a Cuban official jokes, as he courts investment from the gangsters.

But Corleone is skeptical, especially after his car is stuck in traffic. He sees police try – and fail – to arrest a revolutionary.

“I saw an interesting thing happen today. A rebel was being arrested by the military police,” he tells his fellow gangsters.

“And rather than being taken alive, he exploded a grenade he had hidden in his jacket,” he continues.

“He killed himself and he took a captain of the command with him.”

The mobsters mutter that the rebels are lunatics.

“Maybe so,” says Corleone. “But it occurred to me: The soldiers are paid to fight. The rebels aren't.”

“What does that tell you?”

“They could win,” Corleone says.

A senior gangster chokes on that one.

“Michael,” he says, patiently. “We're bigger than U.S. Steel.”

I fell asleep. The rest of the movie is about how Cuba falls, before everything devolves into anarchy and assassination.

I woke up. I read a small item on the news wire.

It's the kind of story that's so commonplace it doesn't really rate as news any more.

A Taliban rebel exploded a suicide vest at a police chief's compound near Kandahar this week. He killed himself and three police.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 05:07 PM

Does the key to cracking Kandahar lie in the ruins of Killinochi?

Kandahar, Afghanistan – Is the key to Kandahar tucked away in Killinochi? The death of Tamil Tigers leader Velupillai Prabhakaran has got me wondering.

To be sure, Sri Lanka is far from Afghanistan, and the Tamil Tigers most unlike the Taliban (save for the suicide bombings and use of human shields.) But some valuable lessons in fighting counterinsurgencies might be discerned from the former and, conceivably applied to the latter.

A few years ago, I was covering the Canadian Forces tsunami relief mission to Sri Lanka. I squeezed in a side trip to the Tamil Tigers home base in the island nation's north.

The jungle village of Killinochi was the capital of a would-be breakaway state. Everywhere, a cult of personality was built around "Praba" whose avuncular smile hung in every market stall. Loudspeakers urged the villagers to celebrate “Martyr’s Day” for slain Tiger fighters. Mothers wept in the graveyards mourning lost sons. A brave Catholic priest – knowing a foreign reporter was in attendance – slyly used his homily urge the Tigers to stop taking his orphans as conscripts.

It was a deeply disturbing, war-ravaged place. But unthinkable that it would fall. Nationhood, as least as the Tigers envisioned it, seemed a fait accompli. They controlled their own borders. They ran a parallel government. Through intimidation and nationalism, they had won over the people.

Fast forward to today. The screaming Tiger standard flies freely in Toronto, where diaspora mobs chant “Tamil Tigers Freedom Fighters” and yet the militant movement has been wiped from Sri Lanka. Killinochi fell months ago. The insurgency’s last tiny bastion fell this week. Praba's death has been announced.

To be sure, Colombo committed its share of atrocities en route to the victory. Many Toronto Tamils will mourn Praba, and argue that Sri Lanka generals behaved worse in their pursuit of him.

What's important is that key victory didn’t occur on the battlefield. Colombo effectively broke the Tigers by exploiting a leadership schism.

As a top-ranking Tiger, Colonel Karuna Amman had irreconcilable differences with Praba and left the fold five years ago. The Eastern commander took thousands of his soldiers with him. This depleted the Tigers of half their strength, and led to an internecine insurgent-on-insurgent war.

Today, Col. Amman is now a minister in the Sri Lankan government.

That's longshot job for a Tamil nationalist, and one branded a terrorist, a traitor, a war criminal, and a child-soldier recruiter at that. There may be little admirable about the man, but he fared much better than his former boss. A veneer of legitimacy surrounds Col. Amman as 30 years of civil war ends after 70,000 deaths.

Now, consider what's happening in Afghanistan: Reports suggest U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke and Britain's MI6 are separately working with pots of money and through back channels to peel away insurgent elements from core Taliban.

There may be some movement. The speculation is that the senior members of the infamous Islamist faction led by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar are poised to do Amman-esque turns and join the government. President Hamid Karzai, to the revulsion of many in the West, has also picked a warlord, Mohamed Fahim, from the Northern Alliance to be his running mate for re-election.

Neither move strikes at the Taliban proper, nor would seem to strengthen the calibre with the Afghan government. Yet there is hope that other fissures, even ones among the Taliban, can erupt and be exploited as time goes on.

Afghans themselves know best that strange alliances form where every side has blood on its hands. Deals with devils are rarely pretty. But as a strategy, divide-and-conquer can work where pure military power fails.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009 04:27 PM

In-flight reading: Canada's counter-insurgency manual

Colin Freeze

Kandahar, Afghanistan – It's hardly En Route magazine, but the Canadian government's new manual on “Counter-insurgency Operations”can make for some scintillating – and sobering – in-flight reading.

Especially if you're flying to Afghanistan.

This morning, for the second time in 18 months, I touched down at Kandahar Air Field. The job is to work as an embedded reporter with the military and, to that end, I had brought along the manual, more of a "maybe read" than a a “must read."

But was surprised to find Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie's treatise on “Counter-Insurgency Operations” was a page turner. It gripped me from the takeoff, until I saw a familiar dun desert landscape come into focus through the descending plane's windows.

As the plane landed, it struck me that someone had supersized the NATO military base in my absence. Since my last visit it has gotten much bigger, and more fortified. The vehicles appear to be more heavily armoured. One of my fellow passengers quipped I was lucky to even find a bed — given the influx of soldiers, mostly American, of late.

Though larger, the base seems more an outpost than ever. The stepped-up military presence is meant to keep pace with the growing Taliban-led insurgency that now lurks just outside the gates. This, nearly nine years after Mullah Mohammed Omar and his minions beat a hasty retreat, on motorcycles, from Kandahar — and were thought to have been vanquished by U.S.-led forces for good.

So how did we – the West, NATO, the Canadian Forces contingent — all get it so wrong? How did we get back here today?

Gen. Leslie, who helped lead Canada's early forays into Afghanistan, seems to have some insights. Now the head of Land Forces for the Canadian military, he wrote the Canadian Force's manual on counterinsurgency, which became a public document earlier this year.

The General frames his treatise as a walk through history's lessons, and doesn't often cite specific live lessons from Afghanistan. He does, however, point out that Canada had to become a quick study in counterinsurgency, given it hasn't focused much on the practice since the Northwest Rebellion of 1885.

“Although much of the publication's content is generally known and practised currently,” Gen. Leslie writes, “the publication is to be formally implemented in force operations and training institutes as appropriate.”

Considering the grim reality of Afghanistan today, one wishes the 200-odd page document had been produced before December, 2008. It has been years since politicians volunteered our small army to NATO, to patrol the very large and very restive Kandahar province.

The essence of the Gen. Leslie's treatise is fundamentally simple and maybe obvious — at least today. Insurgencies are not wars. They are best viewed as “protracted contests of wills.”

That means that threatened governments need to live up to the rule of law and build public works to win back the populace, whose feelings are “the centre of gravity” in such struggles, he argues. Indigenous and occupying armies can help do this, but in order to do this they must deploy vast numbers of disciplined soldiers who use minimal force in the support of the government.

“Successful campaign may require a security-force-to-insurgent-ratio of nearly 20-to1,” Gen Leslie writes. But more boots should not equate to more bullets and bombs, he says. That's because, over time, heavy handedness is as apt as any half-measure to strengthen the insurgent cause.

“Aggressive offensive actions should be viewed as necessary, but secondary,” Gen. Leslie writes, arguing military victories can do more harm than good if civilians are caught in the crossfire. Imprecise air strikes, he points out, can be particularly damaging.

“Collateral damages and civilian casualties will do much to undermine the campaign and its public support, both indigenously and abroad,” he says. “Insurgents will exploit such incidents through propaganda and will be the first to ensure international media coverage.”

Propaganda-savvy bands ragtag rebels, though undermanned and outgunned, often have a much easier job as time goes on. To win, they need only to create a seeming state of chaos the spreads fear and confusion. That means terrorism — especially if it provokes government overreaction — is the often the preferred course.

“The more spectacular or outrageous the action, the louder it speaks,” Gen. Leslie writes.

“Insurgents understand that they do not have to win a decisive battle,” he adds, “but have to make the campaign too expensive and demanding,”

So, the general says, what needs to be destroyed, more than killing enemies or capturing ground, is the insurgents' narrative itself. That makes it crucial that governments and armies team up to address the society's root grievances. They authorities must also build intelligence and “influence” networks, and work to co-opt less radical elements from the rebels through dialogue or whatever works.

“In short,” Gen Leslie writes, “the insurgency must be deprived of any claim to moral superiority.”

Though complex, none of this amounts to rocket science.

But the strategy was made all the more sobering, given the other reading I brought onto the flight.

One newspaper article yesterday laid out how up to 10 Taliban suicide bombers coordinated an attack on a government complex in Khost, in a failed attempt to assassinate a regional governor.

Another described how U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates sacked his top soldier in Afghanistan, complaining he was taking “too conventional” an approach to counterinsurgency. He opted to replace him with a general more expert in clandestine intelligence operations. President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan continued to condemn indiscriminate use of U.S. air strikes.

A third article described how a delegation of influential Kandaharis made their way to Kabul this week — by air, since the highway was too dangerous — to complain that foreign soldiers are all but “blind” in the district. They said that this is partly because they lack good intelligence to pinpoint insurgents and partly because they have failed to curtail corruption that's alienating the population.

In any event, this should be an interesting visit to Kandahar.