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2 Winning Afghan hearts and splitting
hairs By Philip Smucker
spokesman for the NATO-commanded
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in
Afghanistan.
"We're really the same," he
said. "Fundamentally, we have the same doctrine
that guides us." One serious difference, though,
is that "ISAF does not do counter-terrorism
missions".
Provided with a concrete
scenario, however, that NATO forces are trying to
take back a Taliban stronghold and are coming face to
face
with a few dozen al-Qaeda affiliates, the colonel
clarified. (After all, NATO isn't going to turn
and run. In Afghanistan, where cowardice is
abhorred, that would do nothing but draw public
chuckles and inspire the enemy.) "Well, the way we
put it is really a nuance," continued Collins.
"NATO does counterinsurgency, not
counter-terrorism. I'll be quite frank, it is
dancing around words to a degree, but at the North
Atlantic Council level, our mandate does not
include counter-terrorism."
That may be
because most NATO members - apart from the United
States - rarely even refer to the "war on terror"
anymore. It is a phrase too closely associated
with the administration of US President George W
Bush, which is not popular in the Islamic world.
The most genuine or real difference,
however, is that there are specific US-led
coalition "counter-terrorism forces" in
Afghanistan, working outside of NATO, who, as
Collins said, "have a very specific thing that
they are going after".
This can also sound
like splitting hairs, though. After all, NATO
admits to having its own "special forces" on the
ground in Afghanistan, albeit lurking in the
shadows. If Delta Force gets into trouble in the
Hindu Kush, you can be sure that the Special Air
Service will be on call to bail it out.
Blurring the lines further, NATO's former
supreme allied commander, retired General James L
Jones, testified in front of the US Senate Foreign
Relations Committee on March 8 that NATO ISAF's
assumption of control over the entire Afghan
stability mission is "testament to its growing
capacity to engage in defense against common
security challenges, including terrorism".
So is NATO's obsession with projecting "a
new brand" apart from that of the US-led coalition
really a key to the success of the Afghan mission?
In the hinterlands, such as the city of Assadabad,
hard up against the rocky Hindu Kush, verbal
distinctions are lost on a wizened Mullah
Nakibullah, who fought the Russians but has now -
unlike most of his neighbors - embraced the US
commanders in Kunar province.
He regularly
confers with the local US leader and NATO
reconstruction-team chief, Commander "Doc" Scholl,
over tea and crumpets. For that he says he has
earned the ire of many fellow residents in
Assadabad, even government officials, who are
under pressure from locals to distance themselves
from the American "infidels".
Many Afghan
farmers have been alienated by the aggressive
tactics of US forces in the past five years, said
Mullah Nakibullah. They do not want to be
associated with the US brand, and if you ask them
about the difference between the "coalition" and
the "alliance", they scratch their heads or stroke
their beards.
One thing that US Army
officers and NATO spokespeople agree on, however,
is that Afghanistan will likely be won or lost in
the next several years not by counter-terrorism in
the remote mountains, but by good deeds and honest
words in the valleys. Development and stability,
they hope, will put the "bad guys" out of
business.
Lunt, a student of military
history, says this will not require the
reinvention of the wheel. Winning hearts and minds
in the hinterland implies a lot of boot leather
and hard work.
"It is a certain rehashing
of the ideas of T E Lawrence [of Arabia] and
making them relevant for today," he said,
referring to the famed British officer who helped
persuade Arab leaders to coordinate a revolt
against the Ottomans to aid British interests.
That translates into knowing the culture,
speaking the language and finding common ground,
all of which could well prove challenges enough
for both NATO and the US-led coalition.
Philip Smucker is a commentator
and journalist based in South Asia and the Middle
East. He is the author of Al Qaeda's Great
Escape: The Military and the Media on Terror's
Trail (2004).
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