From The Washington Times:

KASHK-E-NOKHOWD, Afghanistan | Army Capt. Casey Thoreen wiped the last bit of sleep from his eyes before the sun rose over his isolated combat outpost.

His soldiers did the same as they checked and double-checked their weapons and communications equipment. Ahead was a dangerous foot patrol into the heart of Taliban territory.

“Has anyone seen the [Afghan National Army] guys?” asked Capt. Thoreen, 30, the commander of Blackwatch Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment with the 5th Stryker Brigade. “Are they not showing up?”

A soldier, who looked ghostly in the reddish light of a headlamp, shook his head.

“We can’t do anything if we don’t have the ANA or [the Afghan National Police],” said a frustrated Capt. Thoreen.

“We have to follow the Karzai 12 rules. But the Taliban has no rules,” he said. “Our soldiers have to juggle all these rules and regulations and they do it without hesitation despite everything. It’s not easy for anyone out here.”

“Karzai 12″ refers to Afghanistan’s newly re-elected president, Hamid Karzai, and a dozen rules set down by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, to try to keep Afghan civilian casualties to a minimum.

“It’s a framework to ensure cultural sensitivity in planning and executing operations,” said Capt. Thoreen. “It’s set of rules and could be characterized as part of the ROE,” he said, referring to the rules of engagement.

Dozens of U.S. soldiers who spoke to The Washington Times during a recent visit to southern Afghanistan said these rules sometimes make a perilous mission even more difficult and dangerous.

Many times, the soldiers said, insurgents have escaped because U.S. forces are enforcing the rules. Meanwhile, they say, the toll of U.S. dead and injured is mounting.

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The Times compiled an informal list of the new rules from interviews with U.S. forces. Among them:

• No night or surprise searches.

• Villagers have to be warned prior to searches.

• ANA or ANP must accompany U.S. units on searches.

• U.S. soldiers may not fire at the enemy unless the enemy is preparing to fire first.

• U.S. forces cannot engage the enemy if civilians are present.

• Only women can search women.

• Troops can fire at an insurgent if they catch him placing an IED but not if insurgents are walking away from an area where explosives have been laid.

Analysis & Commentary

After requesting help with getting clean water to drink, the local Imam told the U.S. unit they “need to go. Get out of Afghanistan or it will never be resolved. Between Islam and the infidel there can never be a relationship.”

“In my personal opinion, the Americans won’t be able to resolve this problem,” he added. “The longer they stay the more likely there will be another attack like Sept. 11. It’s only the Afghan people who will be able to resolve this problem.”

But the local elders and villagers aren’t fighting the Taliban.  Bing West reports that:

It is not obvious that winning the hearts and minds of village elders, or linking villages to Kabul, wins the war. Our soldiers note that the Afghans are happy to accept what we give them but do not reciprocate by turning against the Taliban. The elders don’t raise militias or secure recruits for the army, and they don’t fight; there has been no replay of that scene from The Magnificent Seven in which the terrorized villagers finally rise up against their oppressors. Instead, fearful locals plead with migratory Taliban gangs to move on. A rural population, no matter how content with its government, cannot stand up to such a tough enemy…

While I have a deeply rooted personal problem with those who won’t stand up to intimidation, I have also advocated more troops (for Iraq before it was popular, and now for Afghanistan when it is unpopular).  We have seen this before, this notion that the locals don’t want the Americans around.  It happened in the Anbar Province where the dispossessed Sunni population battled the U.S. Marines for three years.  We shouldn’t make too much of it.

But the difference is that while the the U.S. Marines in Anbar were remarkably successful, they were under no such rules as we see in Afghanistan.  They didn’t cede their authority to Iraqi Security Forces or even the local Iraqi Police, night time searches, seizures and census taking were an ordinary expectation, and there was no warning prior to raids and other kinetic operations so that the enemy could prepare his exit.

U.S. Marine Corps operations in Iraq may be said to be diplomacy with a gun.

Although negotiation can sometimes forestall violence, in Iraq it is more often the case that violence is a necessary form of negotiation. “Of the seven or eight tribes in my area,” said Maj. Morgan Mann, a Marine reservist who commanded a company in Babil province, south of Baghdad, in 2004-05, “one was the primary financiers and coordinators of most of the enemy activity.” Much as Capt. Bout did a few months later, Mann targeted the leaders of the “enemy tribe” with relentless house searches, heavy patrolling, cordon-and-search operations that shut down entire neighborhoods, and “very aggressive counterfire” — that is, shooting back intensely at attacking insurgents. “It culminated in my arresting the grand sheik of this tribe,” Mann said. “That was one of the no-no’s, supposedly. But as a result of that, we were able to get that sheik and about 20 or 30 of the sub-sheiks of this large tribe into a meeting in Baghdad to discuss how we were going to work together.” One of the subordinate sheiks put it bluntly to Mann: “I’m not your friend, but it doesn’t make sense for me to fight you” — for now.

I also know that a similar approach was employed in Operation Alljah in Fallujah in 2007.  But while the intent was all for the best, the rules’ own destruction were there in seed form.  While the intent was to win the trust of locals, the effect has been to humiliate U.S. troops and turn off the locals at the lack of force projection towards an enemy who offers no such friendship because they don’t need the help.  There intimidation works like a charm against U.S. forces whose strategy relies exclusively on the very people being intimidated.

The locals want us to chase and kill every last Taliban, even when there is the potential for collateral damage.  To be sure, efforts should be made to protect noncombatants, but dictating tactical decisions in the field by inflexible rule-making is not the stuff of victory in military campaigns, even in counterinsurgencies.  Neither is ceding authority to incompetent and corruption-ridden troops who represent a corrupt administration.

Finally, in what is perhaps the worst possible affect of the rules of engagement, troop morale is beginning to suffer.  A campaign whose troops are merely looking for an end to the deployment is doomed to failure.  The lamentable fact is that U.S. troops are battling the rules under which they operate as much or more as the enemy himself – and we are doing this to ourselves.

This informative 60 Minutes video documentary on IEDs in Afghanistan is worthwhile viewing.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

But except for the increased sophistication of IEDs in Iraq as opposed to Afghanistan (or said another way, the more basic and simple IEDs in Afghanistan), this documentary could have been made in Iraq in 2005 – 2006 if urban terrain was substituted for rural.

Defeating IEDs will require force projection, chasing and killing the insurgents, and dismantling his networks.  No amount of technology will win the asymmetric fight against IEDs.  The fight against IEDs cannot be separated from the fight against the Taliban, as if enough technology will neutralize Taliban weapons while the Taliban are still active.

This video documentary, courtesy of the Unrestricted Warfare Analysis Center, is remarkable for its summary of various themes that can be found at The Captain’s Journal over the past three or four years, from control over roads to logistics, from the need for troops and force projection to the ineptitude of much or the ANA, from the difficulty of raising a coherent and cohesive Army in a culture that is inhospitable to such a concept to allowing the enemy control over the high terrain.  Each and every one of these ideas has been rehearsed and documented ad infinitum at TCJ.

You might remember Staff Sergeant O’Brien, USMC, from an earlier video documentary showing the problems associated with startup on the ANA.  It would appear that progress is halted and the problem quite protracted in nature.

From Stars and Stripes:

SHAH JOY DISTRICT, Afghanistan — An old man approached U.S. soldiers and Afghan army troops and told them he knew of a madrassa where it was rumored that Taliban fighters had indoctrinated young men to become suicide bombers.

U.S. soldiers saw the tip as a huge break. Shortly after they had moved into the area in August, a Taliban suicide bomber had struck during a patrol in the Shah Joy bazaar, killing two civilians and wounding 12 soldiers.

The discovery of the Taliban religious school was the biggest find during a three-day operation in late October in Zabul province’s Chineh villages, which U.S. troops described as an important Taliban stronghold. No weapons or explosives were found, but graffiti inside the mud-brick compound indicated that the building had served as a Taliban safe house.

In a remote region where U.S. and Afghan security forces are scarce, villagers have largely thrown their lot in with the Taliban, either by choice or necessity. The madrassa tip was a small sign, the Americans hoped, that those sentiments may be beginning to shift.

“I think the people right now are not convinced — especially as you get farther away from the district centers — that their security interests lie with the government,” Shields said. “Our job is to convince them that their security interests do lie with the government, and that we’re here to stay.”

Long on the back burner, Zabul province has been considered primarily a transit route for Taliban fighters moving from safe havens in Pakistan into southern Afghanistan. Until recently, there were few international forces in the province.

But Zabul has suddenly gained importance as U.S. and other NATO military planners seek to improve security around the city of Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban and the most important city in southern Afghanistan.

In August, the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment from the 5th Stryker Brigade out of Fort Lewis, Wash., became the first large U.S. combat force to operate in Zabul.

The battalion’s battle space is huge, stretching over almost 1,600 square miles. And with almost no effective government throughout most of the province, it has been tough to establish relationships.

There are only two major towns in Zabul — Shah Joy and the district center of Qalat. Most of the population lives in scattered farming villages set among arid brown hills, where residents are lucky if they are visited by Afghan army or police patrols once a week or even once a month, according to Lt. Col. Burton Shields, the 4th Battalion’s commander.

Although the Taliban presence is evident throughout Zabul, according to U.S. troops, contact with insurgent fighters has been minimal. In addition to the 12 troops wounded in the August blast, three soldiers were killed when their Stryker was hit by a roadside bomb in September. “The enemy here is very smart,” said 1st Lt. Christopher Franco, the executive officer for Company C. “They definitely won’t engage us unless they know they have the advantage. And when they can’t, they’ll throw down their guns and come out and pretend to be our friends. It’s frustrating.”

So far, efforts to engage with local villagers have been largely unsuccessful. In Shah Joy, U.S. troops are often met with outright hostility — children throw rocks and even dead birds at them nearly every time they pass through, said Franco, 24, of Port Orchard, Wash.

During one patrol, soldiers from Company C sat down with elders in a village to discuss their problems.

“We asked what can be done to improve your situation here,” Franco said. “They said, ‘Our problems will be resolved when you guys leave and we can sit down and talk to the Taliban leaders.’ At least they were honest.”

During the three-day mission in the Chinehs, a number of soldiers said that even though the area had been identified as a suspected Taliban stronghold, the villagers were the friendliest of any they had encountered in Zabul. But when officers asked about the Taliban, they were usually met with blank stares or polite, noncommittal responses. Most villagers denied knowing anything about the Taliban. Some made slashing motions across their throats.

“You stay here for one and a half hours in our village, and when you leave, the Taliban will come in our homes and beat us or worse,” said one man.

Replied 2nd Lt. James Johnson, 23, of State College, Pa.: “Well, there’s nothing I can do to help you, if you don’t help yourselves.”

You may find a good land cover map of the Zabul Province here.  This kind of story is being hawked by advocates of disengagement from Afghanistan.  We aren’t wanted, they say.  We shouldn’t make too much of a sentiment like this.  The U.S. Marines weren’t wanted in the Anbar Province either, as the Sunnis were the sect evicted from power in Iraq.  But the campaign for Anbar was a success without their consent – at least, initially.

More than likely, they simply fear the Taliban (‘” … the Taliban will come in our homes and beat us or worse”), and don’t feel that the U.S. will be around long enough and in the force necessary to make a difference.  This is yet another of the thousands of examples we have covered that argue for more troops and adequate force projection.

But hear the case of Lt. Johnson again.  There aren’t enough troops in America to secure Afghanistan unless the Afghanis themselves contribute at least something to their own security.  Leave aside the issue of the ANA and ANP for the moment.  It is unimaginable that an insurgent could threaten and intimidate folk in, let’s say, Jones Gap, South Carolina for very long.  He would be met with guns and knives and mean dogs and people willing – even happy – to use them them all.

It is the insurgent who would be in danger, not the folk, and in a place like the upper part of the State of South Carolina or Western North Carolina one had best watch how he conducts himself.  In Anderson, S.C., the exploits of folk who shot the ole boy who thought he could go around intimidating people would soon become lore and legend for the children to hear.  This is not exaggeration.  I know the folk in Anderson and Jones Gap.

The Afghanis themselves must make the first contribution to their own safety and security, and without this commitment, more U.S. troops won’t change things in Afghanistan.  Lt. Johnson was raised in a place where the first and foremost obstacle to a full blown insurgency is the people themselves, and this is the way it must be to defeat the Taliban.

Steven Pressfield has probably led the charge to engage the tribes as a solution in Afghanistan.  But there is a growing chorus of voices saying the same thing.  The New York Times published an OpEd by Deepa Narayan on going from the bottom up as our strategy.

Myth No. 2: It is a weak state that is the problem. A central tenet in the current debate is that centralism is good and fragmentation is bad. The entire focus has been on presidential politics and on how to create a strong central state.

Our study shows, however, that in Afghanistan, with its rugged terrain, strong tribal affinities and extreme poverty, it is localism that will defeat poverty and corruption and knit a nation together.

More than 19 million people have participated in a community planning and budgeting process to decide how to best use government grants of around $30,000 per village. In a community in Kabul Province that was layered with 12,000 land mines, without a single standing building in 2002, the men decided to invest funds in reviving irrigation canals, and the women in electricity generators. Men in the village told us that animosities between the Tajiks and the Pashtuns had eroded as a result of the collective budgeting negotiations.

This assessment seems confused in that Narayan first hitches her wagon to the notion of strong tribal affinities, and then turns the argument on animosities between tribes being eroded by circumstances.  But if this assessment is confused, Tim Lynch has a better set of arguments for engaging the tribes.

But a seemingly definitive anthropological study on Afghanistan seems to debunk the idea that we can rely heavily on tribes.  It is entitled My Cousin’s Enemy is My Friend: A Study of Pashtun “Tribes” in Afghanistan, by the U.S. Army Human Terrain System.  This study doesn’t merely throw cold water on the idea of relying on strong tribal affinities.  It calls into question the very idea of reliance on local control at all.  The fractured nature of Afghan society, the treachery that underlies the familial structure (if there is any structure at all), and the constant internecine fighting, casts a dark shadow over plans to foment anything like what we saw in the Anbar Province in 2006 and 2007.  A few seed quotes follow.

“No clear evidence exists of tribes actually coalescing into large-scale corporate bodies for joint action, even defensively, even for defense of territory.”

“The tribal system is weak in most parts of Afghanistan and cannot provide alternatives to the Taliban or U.S. control. The Pashtuns generally have a tribal identity. Tribal identity is a rather flexible and open notion and should not be confused with tribal institutions, which are what establish enforceable obligations on members of a tribe.”

“… As a matter of fact in most cases tribes do not have observable organizations which could enable them to perform collective actions as a tribe.”

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One reason why the “family tree” model of tribes doesn’t apply to Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan is because of the unique relationship between male father’s-side first cousins. It is so unique to Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan that one anthropologist goes so far as to say that first-cousin hostility is a defining feature of the Pashtun ethnicity.

The word in Pashto for “male father’s-side first cousin” is tarbur, which is, at the same time, also one way of saying “enemy” in Pashto.

Why would first cousins in a tribal society be enemies with each other? The standard model of a Middle Eastern “tribal society” says that close male relatives should be a source of support against more distant “relatives” in other tribes, not enemies.   For Pashtuns, it comes down to competition over the inheritance of land from common ancestors—especially from one’s grandfather on the father’s side.

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“As an example, two […] cousins had neighboring plots. The cousin whose field was more distant from the village walked to his field on an ancient pathway which verged on the plot of his tarbur . There was a simmering dispute over the right to this narrow path which ended in a gunfight and the death of one of the man’s sons.”

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The result of this special kind of intra-family relationship is that, during times when conflicts aggravate first-cousin hostility, the sides don’t necessarily break down along “closest male relative” lines. Whereas in a classical Middle East tribal situation, all the participants in a conflict pick sides based on which side represents their closest male relative, Pashtuns establish temporary factional groupings that are unpredictable and not necessarily based on familial relationships.

The entire document is worthy study for the thinking man or woman on Afghanistan.

My Cousin’s Enemy is My Friend: A Study of Pashtun “Tribes”

But even if there is a case to be made for stronger engagement of the locals in Afghanistan, we aren’t anywhere near the tipping point for such a strategy in Afghanistan.  In the Anbar Province in 2006 and 2007 the U.S. Marines were relentless and forceful enough that the idea of joining the insurgency was a distant third or fourth place in priority to joining the coalition.  In Fallujah in 2007 enough al Qaeda and indigenous insurgents had been killed and enough aggressive patrols had been conducted that the remaining locals respected the Marines to the point that every action and reaction by the IPs and Sons of Iraq were taken not only to suppress the insurgency but also to impress the U.S. Marines who were mentoring them.

We are currently on the defensive in Afghanistan and badly in need of more troops.  The advocate of tribal engagement has been bequeathed a high bar with this Leavenworth study, and even if there is a case to be made for such a strategy, it would appear many months and even years into the future, and indeed many Marines and Soldiers, from being a viable strategy.