The Sandbox and Areas Reports Thread (May '08)

[GAP]

Articles found May 31, 2008

Afghanistan trip opens eyes of MP
Robert Barron ,  Daily News Published: Saturday, May 31, 2008
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A meeting with Afghan president Hamid Karzai while visiting Kabul was an eye opener for James Lunney.

The MP for Nanaimo-Alberni spent the last six days touring parts of Afghanistan and meeting officials and common people as a member of Ottawa's defence committee.

He said he concluded after talking with Karzai that the president is "the right man for the job."
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Canadian troops in battle to clear out Taliban
May 31, 2008 Murray Brewster The Canadian Press
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KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN

Canadian troops have swept through a volatile district west of Kandahar in an operation designed to ferret out nests of insurgents.

The four-day swing, code-named Operation Rolling Thunder, was conducted alongside Afghan government forces.

The operation saw several firefights in Zhari district, long a hotbed of Taliban activity.

No Canadian casualties were reported yesterday by military officials who released information about the operation. An unknown number of militants were believed killed in the operation.

The Taliban had for months been using roadside bombs and booby traps to chip away at better armed NATO troops. Over the last few weeks, however, they have chosen to stand and fight small-arms engagements, using AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades.

Speaking on background, Canadian commanders conceded there has been a "significant increase'' in direct-fire attacks, but they are not ready to conclude that the Taliban have switched tactics.

The Zhari district has been repeatedly cleared of militants, only to have them sneak back in because the Afghan National Army or the police have not established a permanent presence.

Over the last year, Canadian troops have been mounting an increasingly sophisticated campaign to go after bomb-makers and small explosives factories.

With the arrival of 3,200 U.S. marines in southern Afghanistan, the Canadian battle group has been able to concentrate on the troublesome districts of Zhari and Panjwaii. For the last few weeks, the marines and British troops have been fighting in neighbouring Helmand province, taking down a substantial number of Taliban fighters.
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Four foreign troops injured in Afghan blast: officials
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KABUL (AFP) — Four international troops were injured in an explosion in volatile eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, officials said, but there were conflicting claims about how the blast was caused.

The Afghan interior ministry said a suicide car bomb targeted foreign troops, while the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said an improvised explosive device (IED) had caused the casualties.

"I can confirm there was a suicide car bomb against a foreign military convoy," ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP after the blast in Jalalabad city.

An interior ministry statement later said five civilians were also wounded.

But ISAF spokesman contradicted the account, saying "there was an IED attack on an ISAF convoy and four soldiers have been injured." He added that the force was unaware of any civilian casualties.
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Canadian troops hunt for roadside bomb and booby trap-makers
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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Disrupting Taliban bomb-making networks was a major objective of this week's Canadian army operation west of Kandahar, a senior officer said Saturday.

"The aim was to get out there and cause them to be off balance," said Maj. Fraser Auld, a battle group planner.

Militant bombers have a routine.

They observe the movements of NATO troops and try to anticipate where and when convoys - or patrols - will come by next. And then they plant lethal roadside bombs and booby traps that kill and maim not only Canadians, but local Afghans.

"We want to take them out of their cycle of watching us and planting (improvised explosive devices)," said Auld, the day after a security blackout on the operation was lifted.

There were several firefights as troops of Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry came across several nests of militants.
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Canada to send Chinooks, unmanned planes to Afghanistan
Sat May 31, 2008 1:46am EDT
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By Melanie Lee

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Canada will move helicopters and unmanned aircraft to Afghanistan to increase surveillance of roads, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said on Saturday, as the Taliban stepped up attacks in spite of a large NATO force in the country.

Canadian troops are based in the southern province of Kandahar and have seen some of the highest casualties as 55,000 foreign troops led by NATO and the United States battle the Taliban-led insurgency.

MacKay told Reuters on the sidelines of a security conference that six to 10 medium-heavy lift helicopters, such as Chinooks, and some unmanned aircraft would be delivered to Afghanistan by February 2009.

"Hopefully we are going to have some of that equipment arrive late summer, early fall and our intention is to have all that equipment in place by February 2009."

MacKay said the unmanned aircraft would be used to patrol roads used by Canada and her allies. Canada would also move staff to Afghanistan to man the equipment.

Eighty Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan,
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[MarkOttawa]

Poland to take over security in Afghan province
Reuters, May 30
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL301798120080530

Polish troops in Afghanistan will soon take over responsibility for security in a central province of the country from U.S. forces, the Polish defense ministry said on Friday.

Poland has about 1,200 troops in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) fighting the Taliban and backing the Kabul government and plans to boost this figure by a further 400 soldiers.

"We are moving to take over Ghazni province... The next contingent heading to Afghanistan in late October to early November will be deployed there," ministry spokesman Robert Rochowicz said.

"We will have full responsibility for the province but we will be able to seek American help if needed."..

Afghanistan: colonialism or counterinsurgency?
Americans bring Afghans their new 60-year plan
Globe and Mail, May 31, by Doug Saunders
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080530.wreckoning0531/BNStory/International/

NARAY, Afghanistan — To get to Naray, which may be the most lawless place in Afghanistan today, you have to make the long journey up the sniper-filled Kunar River Valley from Jalalabad to Asadabad, where the road ends, and then hitch a ride on a Black Hawk helicopter to this outpost in the far northeast, near the Pakistani border. Here, in the hills, you will find 200 wild-eyed U.S. Army soldiers living in a cluster of tents, sheltering themselves from regular rocket attacks.

I was greeted in a swirl of dust by Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Kolenda, a clean-cut, steel-eyed officer in the 173rd Airborne, who dragged me into a large tent filled with other officers. They promptly began one of the key battlefield tactics of the new American military — the two-hour PowerPoint presentation.

"The heart of the matter here, as we see it, is a socio-economic dislocation," Col. Kolenda told me, before quoting at length from Kaffirs of the Hindu Kush (Sir George Scott Robertson, 1900) and explaining in detail the anthropology and tribal politics of this region, including some new research he had commissioned from the U.S. government's elite squad of battlefield anthropologists, better known as Human Terrain Specialists.

"There's been an atomization of society here — the elders lost control over their people, and a new elite of fighters came in to fill the vacuum, so what we need to do out here is to re-empower the traditional leadership structures," he continued.

"As you can see here," he said at one point, "as you approach the possibility of self-sufficient development, then you reach what I'll call the developmental asymptote, which is the point we're striving to reach."

This, I pointed out, was not the sort of talk I had expected from the 173rd Airborne, an infantry brigade known for its battlefield ruthlessness. Here at the headwaters of the river, I felt I had encountered some latter-day Colonel Kurtzes, losing themselves in Cartesian twists of logic amid all the mud and dust...

It certainly is quite a mind shift, one that may have occurred five years too late. When fellow North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations such as Canada are told about plans to "re-Americanize" the Afghanistan war, this new thinking is central to the plan.

The Petraeus doctrine

Within the U.S. military, this is known as population-centric counterinsurgency, an approach that has a cultish following among some officers. It was attempted and then dropped in the Vietnam War (the infamous "strategic hamlets" were at its centre) and there are still officers who believe that Vietnam would have been won if counterinsurgency had been practised to the end.

One of its strongest advocates happens to be General David Petraeus, who has just become the head of the U.S. Central Command, making him responsible for both the Iraq and the Afghanistan wars.

In practice, I found, it looks and sounds a lot more like old-fashioned colonialism. In the tents of Naray, I had the distinct feeling that I had strolled into Uttar Pradesh at some point after 1858, in the early days of the British Raj...

[UP, or United Provinces, were not created until 1902 as the "United Provinces of Agra and Oudh", shortened to "United Provinces" in 1935; Independent India changed the name to Uttar Pradesh in 1950--see last para here, as well as second link:
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/United_Provinces_Of_Agra_And_Oudh#History
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/oldworld/middle_east/uttarpradesh.html

There are good reasons to be suspicious of this approach.

"We do not believe in counterinsurgency," a senior French commander tells me. "If you find yourself needing to use counterinsurgency, it means the entire population has become the subject of your war, and you either will have to stay there forever or you have lost."

The Americans obviously see it differently...

I ask one officer how long it is going to take to make this new strategy bear fruit.

"Look," he says, "we're still in Germany and Japan 60 years after that war ended. That's how long it can take. I fully expect to have grandchildren who will be fighting out here."

Earlier articles on the same subject:

Building Bridges in the Back of Beyond
Washington Post, May 1, by David Ignatius
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/30/AR2008043003253.html?wpisrc=newsletter

The Longest War
Washington Post, March 31, by Richard Holbrooke
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/30/AR2008033001837.html

Mark
Ottawa