Hammering a Screw

Canada day is July 1st. Canada is at war but life goes on here undisturbed. We have little idea of what's happening in Afghanistan. In most of most of the country the central government is nothing more than a rumor and in the east the American military is racking up a high civilian body count creating widespread unhappiness among Afghans. This path will only lead to trouble.


Canadians are posted in the province of Kandahar (15), birthplace of the Taliban.


As an immigrant Canadian from a war-torn country I find it strange to think that our country is at war. Every week we hear about more soldiers dying in Afghanistan while at home most Canadians couldn't point to Kandahar on a map or tell you the difference between Pashtuns and Tajiks.
Many are under the misconception that Canada is engaged in "peacekeeping operations." That Canadians are dying to provide security and stability and help the Afghan government stand alone. Well Canada is not.
The Canadian military is fighting a, so far, low level insurgency (if Iraq is high level). The goal, as stated publicly, is to wrestle control Kandahar province away from the the Taliban and other local militias.
That's all well and good but the fight is going on in complete opacity. The NATO and Canadian spokespeople only offer vague platitudes espousing "progress" and "good-will." Reporters covering the conflict rarely leave the military bases and when they do they are accompanying a military mission or patrol. If they do ever run into locals they do so within eyesight of soldiers. Additionally locals probably don't see much difference between the foreign troops and the reporters along for the ride. Odds are neither group will ever discover the true local sentiment.
And when fighting insurgencies unvarnished information from locals is crucial.

Fighting a war against and army is like hammering a nail. The more force the better. In this situation the military is trying, as I heard a US soldier say once, "to break things and kill people."
Fighting an insurgency and against a guerrilla force is like tightening a screw. The right tool and precision is key to success. Counter insurgency depends more on small, correctly calibrated actions than large scale shows of force.
From a NATO perspective, there is one big problem in Afghanistan right now. First is that both strategies (counter-insurgency and traditional war-fighting) are active in the theater at the same time. In the east Americans are bombing, attacking villages trying to kill any opposition.
Meanwhile Canadian, British and Dutch troops are trying to mount a classic counter-insurgency in the south with a limited number of soldiers.
Both these regions are majority Pashtun, the biggest ethnic group in Afghanistan and the ethnicity of the majority of Taliban fighters. Any heavy handed measure undertaken by the US military (like killing school children last week) is going to have blow back all across the Pashtun heartland. No matter how careful the Canadian, British and Dutch troika try to be as they try to drain Taliban support they will be continuously undermined by inevitable errors in the US controlled zone.
(Errors are inevitable when bombing from from the air in civilian areas. Even a success rate of 90% in picking out and hitting the right targets will result in many civilian casualties.)

It's also important to point out that not all Afghans shooting and bombing Canadians are Taliban.
The new western-backed central government in Kabul is dominated by warlords who made up the Northern Alliance, an organization made up of mostly Tajiks and Uzbeks, although President Karzai is a Pashtun. The Northern Alliance fought a long civil war against the majority Pashtun Taliban for a long time (which they won thanks to American air support after 9/11). So trying to to bring the south and east under government control will inspire some ethnically based resistance (which will probably only be expanded by civilian casualties). In addition to, there are probably many drug-lords in the area who dislike foreign eyes snooping around.
Fighting an insurgency requires dividing your enemies and co-opting as many groups as possible. Lumping together all resistance under the moniker of Taliban is a self-fulfilling prophecy, it will unify the resistance and make it harder to defeat.
Events in Anbar province in Iraq are perfect example of this. During the Rumsfeld era all Iraqi resistance was labeled al-Qaeda or terrorists and not to be talked to or negotiated with. During this period resistance was fierce and Anbar fell completely out of US control. Recently the American military has managed to co-opt several militias -Islamic Army, 1920 Revolutionary brigades, etc- so that they are now shooting at al-Qaeda and not Americans. Anbar has gone form al-Qaeda safe haven to a contested area again.
Just because someone shot at you before doesn't mean they have to shoot at you forever. In tribal societies switching sides during a conflict is a deeply rooted tradition.

The Canadian mission in Afghanistan is trouble. Undermined by American tactics and our own denial. But it can be turned around.
We live in a democracy, a democracy were politicians are extremely sensitive to changes in public opinion. By becoming more informed and demanding more lucid, more truthful and detailed information from our government a change in policy is still possible (putting pressure on the US to be more discriminate would help, for one).
Unless the Canadian public becomes more involved this endeavor is likely to end in failure. That would be a black mark on us all and a tragedy for Afghanistan.

"You don't send an army to war. You take a country to war."
- Tim Russert, NBC

A Guardian article about one of many raids in Afghanistan showing how hard it is to get at the true facts.