For many Afghans, it is not always as simple as choosing one side over the other, choosing the "good guys" over the "bad guys."
The Shembowut Bazaar is the site of frequent gunbattles between U.S. soldiers and Afghan insurgents.Editor's Note: This column is part of a series by Lt. Col. Mark E. Borowski, a native of South Hadley, called “Afghanistan Journal: A Soldier’s Stories.” See below for more about the series.
By Lt. Col. MARK E. BOROWSKI
I remember vividly the widespread frustration of our soldiers in Iraq in 2005. It was generally expressed along the lines of: “Why don’t these people stand up to the insurgents or tell us where they are?” “Why do they just let them plant (improvised explosive devices) near where their kids play?” “Why don’t they appreciate what we’re trying to do for them?”
Here in Afghanistan in 2011, I find that in many ways it is “déjà vu all over again.”
Soldiers patrol day after day in areas rife with observed or reported insurgent activity, and the people tell them “No bad guys around here,” or “All the bad guys are from Pakistan.”
IEDs go off in places where it is highly unlikely that someone did not see them being emplaced. A school gets built somewhere, and someone comes and blows it up, and no one sees anything or does anything.
I have walked through bazaars and shook hands and drunk tea with smiling, friendly shopkeepers, only to have my soldiers shot at in the same bazaar the next day.
Why does this happen? Why does it often appear we haven’t “won their hearts and minds” and turned them against the insurgents?
It is understandable how frustrating the situation can be not only for our soldiers, but also for the American people, who have been footing the bill for our efforts here in blood and treasure for nearly 10 years. I can understand how some people might be quick to say that we will never be successful, and that we should just leave Afghanistan to the Afghans.
My aim here is not to address the many and varied reasons why we are still fighting in Afghanistan, or to explore all of the reasons why some Afghans might oppose us and our efforts. It is to try to help people understand the predicament of the Afghan people, many of whom do stand up to the insurgents and fight for what they hope will be a better future for their country. For many, however, it is not always as simple as choosing one side over the other, choosing the “good guys” over the “bad guys.”
Oftentimes, people associate counterinsurgency with the phrase I used earlier, “winning hearts and minds,” but that trite expression is a gross oversimplification of what must occur for a counterinsurgency to be successful.
According to counterinsurgency theorist David Kilcullen, “Counterinsurgency is a competition with the insurgent for the right to win the hearts, minds and acquiescence of the population. For your side to win, the people don’t have to like you but they must respect you, accept that your actions benefit them, and trust your integrity and ability to deliver on promises, particularly regarding their security.”
What I believe he means, and what my experience has taught me, is that it is not really about peoples’ hearts at all, but about their minds, and getting them to make a rational choice in your favor. If it were about their hearts, one could argue everyone ought to adore us by this point, after all of the money we’ve spent in this country.
The Afghan people are some of the friendliest, most generous, hospitable people I have ever met. It can be truly humbling to be around them, knowing what they have suffered, and I personally believe that the overwhelming majority of them do not want anything to do with the Taliban or what they have to offer.
The Afghan people are also incredibly hard, and they are survivors.
Much of the rural population lives in what we would consider indescribable poverty and austerity: illiterate, with no electricity, no running water, and little to no access to the most basic of services. They have survived 30 years of war and civil war, and they still do not know how this one is going to turn out.
Many of them are still hedging their bets. They know that someday we are leaving. The other guys are staying.
And those other guys are not always just the “bad guys” who come over from Pakistan. More often than not, those other guys can be neighbors or even family members.
The insurgency and the insurgents are usually not some foreign body that can be isolated and eliminated from an area. They are often a part of the fabric of society.
In our area of operations, the Haqqani militant network roots grow deep. Many elders fought the Soviets under Jalaluddin Haqqani, and they remain loyal to the family to this day. Many are just afraid. Think of it like a stereotypical mafia neighborhood in certain parts of the U.S.
My boss, Col. Chris Toner, a veteran of a previous Afghanistan tour in this very same area, likes to use the analogy of “The Grinch.” We all remember “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” eyeing the happy villagers through his telescope from up on the mountain.
When we are in a village talking with the people, the “Grinch” is watching. He is watching to see who talks with us; who might be telling us things or cooperating. When we leave, the “Grinch” comes down from the mountain. In this case, though, he doesn’t steal the tree or the presents, he kills you, or he kills your family.
Before we arrived here, people in one of our districts were starting to participate in the local government. There were signs of progress.
Then, men came to the village in the middle of the night and abducted several elders who had been attending “shuras,” or traditional Afghan council meetings, at the district center. Seven of them were beheaded, and the rest were released to warn the people not to support the government. That can be the cost of attending a town hall meeting in Afghanistan. The effects of those killings still loom large, and probably will for quite some time.
A mountain village in the area of operations for Borowski's unit, Army 1st Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade Combat Team.So how do we get them to make that rational choice in the favor of their government? How do we get them to do what, to us, seems so obviously to be the “right thing”?
I do not pretend to have the answer to that question, but I do know that our efforts here are all about working hard to help create the conditions to make that choice easier.
They won’t make it just because they like us. They won’t make it just because we tell them they have to because we’re leaving someday.
They must see that it’s worth the risk. They must be convinced that the benefits outweigh the costs.
They must be convinced that the threat will be defeated, and that a better alternative lies with their government and with their security forces than with the Taliban, or Haqqani, or the other insurgents.
Admittedly, we’ve been at this for a long time, and there is still a lot of convincing to do, and a lot of minds to win.