Afghan peace comes at the point of
a gun By Philip Smucker
ASSADABAD, Afghanistan - Even as a
75-person US military civil affairs team tries to
mold a stable and functioning government in Kunar,
the most violent province in the country, US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has warned
that the military's mission is not one of
peacekeeping, but fighting extremists.
Speaking in London after a meeting with
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Rice said, "I
do think the alliance [NATO - North Atlantic
Treaty Organization] is facing a real test here.
Our populations need to understand this is not a
peacekeeping mission but rather a long-term fight
against extremists."
Rice said a bigger
troop contribution was needed from European
members of NATO, while US Defense Secretary Robert Gates
expressed frustration that he
had not received any response to a letter he had
sent to all defense ministers in NATO asking them
to contribute more troops and equipment. Rice and
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband then on
Thursday made a surprise visit to Afghanistan's
volatile Kandahar province, a former Taliban
stronghold.
The two, who arrived in the
country Thursday, were expected to meet with
NATO-led forces on the frontlines of the fight
against the resurgent Taliban.
The US
contributes a third of NATO's 42,000-strong
International Security Assistance Force mission,
making it the largest participant, in addition to
the 12,000 American troops operating
independently.
The 75-person civil affairs
team based in Assadabad, the capital of Kunar, is
unlikely to be heartened by Rice's words; they are
already understaffed and hard-pressed to produce
results.
Uphill struggle In his
Afghan wool jacket and American jeans, the US Army
captain explores the dank, dreary confines of the
provincial jail.
Dozens of filthy
prisoners complain they have only a single latrine
and an unsanitary kitchen to service their needs.
A pair of French investigators from the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC,)
on the scene when we arrive, describe the facility
as "disgusting".
"Unfortunately, sometimes
we focus too much on roads and bridges," says
Captain Coughenour, a US Army reserve officer with
a background in urban development.
He vows
he will try to use the expected ICRC report on the
jail's abysmal conditions to convince the US
government that a properly built and sanitary
prison is an essential building block for "good
governance", one of the catch phrases that guides
the US military's non-combat mission here.
Coughenour is no prison
expert. Still, as a senior official with the US
Department of Housing and Urban Development in Los
Angeles in his other life, he regularly works with
the homeless
and the disabled. And he knows what it
takes to try to squeeze his own government for
resources.
"Call us well-meaning amateurs,
but at least we showed up for the job," says Naval
Commander Larry LeGree, a Michigan native who
commands the 75-man civil affairs team under which
Coughenour serves. The team is the central actor
in the US government's own stated efforts to quell
an insurgency and transform a nation. "Everything
we do goes to the idea of looking for an end state
in Afghanistan," adds LeGree, who regularly
ventures into free fire zones with his road
engineers.
For now, the US mission here is
imperiled by several complicating factors. Just
over the rushing Kunar River and up the rugged
mountainside into Pakistan, foreign-backed
insurgent groups plot to undermine the Afghan
government and its Western allies. Abu Ikhlas
al-Masri, a leading al-Qaeda operative, roams
Kunar's highlands where his loyal insurgents
intimidate locals.
If this were not enough
to discourage outsiders with good intentions,
senior Afghan officials in the province have, in
recent years, proven less than competent.
An official US report in 2005 describes
the province's then governor, Assadullah Wafa, as
"ill tempered, easily frustrated" and one who
"routinely walked out on development meetings". A
US soldier who knew him personally is less polite:
"He was a hash smoker and an ornery
son-of-a-bitch," he insists.
Wafa was
later assigned by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to
rule the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's
British sector, the drug haven of Helmand
province, where he now faces similar derision.
(Indeed, the Afghan government-run game of
musical chairs' for corrupt strong men is one of
the best indications that any semblance of "good
governance" in Afghanistan is still an idealistic
pipe dream.)
The next Kunar governor,
Hajji Mohammed Didar, ousted in November of last
year, was not much better than Wafa, say his
former handlers. Described kindly in US reports as
"lacking administrative skills" and maintaining
ties to insurgents fighting US forces, he became
infamous for spending US$500,000 in Western aid
money to give away 5,000 goats to bolster his
popularity.
Didar, who remains in touch
with his American friends, now plans to take his
posh lifestyle to Dubai in the United Arab
Emirates, where he expects to start a new business
with his unofficial earnings. Coughenour concedes
that the US military must sometimes play with the
cards with which it is dealt. This time around,
however, he is confident he has a better hand.
Later in the day of the prison visit,
Sayed Fazlullah Wahidi, Kunar's new
development-savvy governor, presents the American
captain with a detailed plan for a prison that can
hold several hundred inmates. "We should build
everything double in size here in Kunar," he
chuckles. "We think there are at least 2,000 bad
guys up in those mountains and if we ever catch
them, we'll have to have some place to put them."
The leading tribes of Kunar province are
mostly poor Pashtuns with limited interest in the
insurgency that grips the region. These simple and
devout folk may be the last best hope for
Afghanistan.
In a newly-built conference
center and administration building in the Kunar
governor's compound, hundreds of district elders
and women have met in recent weeks to devise local
development frameworks supported by the United
Nations Development Program and the US government.
The scenes of Afghan men and women sitting
in a circle venting their frustration at the lack
of public services are a sign of progress, maybe
more so if they produce results.
"We've
had an astounding turnout so far," says
Coughenour, sitting in a circle as a earnest
district elder explains a large drawing of what is
known as a "problem tree". Men and women
brainstorm and scribble their own ideas on scrap
paper to define the "root causes" of their
government's incompetence and inaccessibility.
"One of their biggest complaints is a lack
of access to good services," says the captain.
"But one of the major surprises from this effort
has been the unprecedented participation of women
and other under-represented groups, especially the
disabled. We've been able to bring many of those
groups in and facilitated access for them at the
table."
Kunar's hope for good governance
is, however, complicated by endemic corruption.
The illegal timber and gem trade in the highlands
keeps corrupt leaders in power and insurgents
flush with guns and ammunition. For now, the
timber trade has been (officially) shut down by US
and Afghan security forces.
"Getting a
good government in place here is paramount and
this is all about addressing nepotism and
corruption," says Coughenour.
What are the
prospects for success in the long run?
The
jury is still out. Some international experts
still believe that a US stress on combat actions
in the hinterlands, often led by elite special
forces, works at cross purposes to the long-term
development of a strong and viable local
government. Though US soldiers might not like to
admit it, they are still a magnet for insurgents
in Pakistan.
A shortage of Western funds
is not an obvious problem. The US military dropped
some $40 million in tiny Kunar in 2007, which
amounts to about $100 per individual. How much
money has ended up in the coffers of former
governors and their cronies is only guess work.
Still, for now, there may be too few
Coughenours with long-term working experience in
professional fields that are essential for
development. Even the mild-mannered captain admits
there still are not enough US soldiers willing to
discard their uniforms in public and delve into
the messy (often discouraging and depressing)
business of nation-building.
"If we work
hard, these people can have their voices heard,"
he insists over lunch with the governor and an
entourage of tribal elders. "Yes, we are in a
Third World country, but the issues that arise are
the same as many that we deal with in the United
States. Especially with our most disenfranchised
or disassociated populations."
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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and the disabled. And he knows what it
takes to try to squeeze his own government for
resources. 
