In this and subsequent discussions, I used a car-mechanic analogy to describe the mindset I wanted us to maintain. We were to avoid becoming emotionally tied to any particular course of action or outcome. As “car mechanics,” we would diagnose what was wrong with the car and recommend what actions and resources we would need to fix it. It was up to the car owner to decide whether they wanted the car fixed, whether they wanted only limited repairs, or, indeed, whether the car was worth fixing at all. Our role was to conduct an accurate diagnosis and offer effective fixes.
“Remember,” I reminded them, “we don’t own the car.”
The team then traveled across the country to speak with every regional command, several brigades and battalions, most Afghan ministries, and a variety of government officials and local Afghan elders. What they saw in many places astonished them and matched what I saw on my own circulations. They noted a persistent focus on force protection. In many places, our forces had actually sealed themselves off from the Afghan population, whether on base, while driving, or even on dismounted patrols. Few units appeared to take interaction with the population seriously. Most units had little idea what ordinary Afghans were thinking. Those Afghans’ decisions to side with either the government or the Taliban would determine our success, but many distrusted our efforts and those of the government.
“The government robs us, the Taliban beat us, and ISAF bombs us,” said one group of elders. “We do not support any side.” Partnering with the Afghan Security Forces was episodic at best. In most places, ISAF and the Afghan National Security Forces operated separately. ISAF units would sometimes ask for a few Afghan National Army soldiers to “put an Afghan face” on a mission.
The assessment team’s inputs and my own observations, which had been building since my listening tour, convinced me that more than anything else, Afghanistan was gripped by fear. Lack of faith in their government, concern, bordering on paranoia, over Pakistani-supported Taliban expansion, and an almost primal fear of abandonment by the West: These factors left Afghans angst-ridden about the future. Whatever actions ISAF took would have to be as much about building Afghan confidence as killing Taliban insurgents.
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When I’d arrived on June 13, one of the largest operations ISAF had yet conducted was to begin in less than a week. In the pitch of night on June 19, twelve Chinooks, their elongated hulls loaded with 350 troops from the 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland, known as the Black Watch, descended into Babaji—a heavily contested area northwest of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand. The Scots’ first steps out of the blacked-out helos and into the caked sandy ground marked the opening stage of a systematic campaign that summer to retake control of Helmand Province.
Their operation to clear Babaji initiated Operation Panchai Palang, or Panther’s Claw. It would soon introduce more than three thousand British, Afghan, Estonian, and Danish troops into a series of towns along the Helmand River valley. They aimed to secure and connect key population centers and agricultural areas, many long controlled by the Taliban, with the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah and then Kandahar. In the near term, we hoped expanded security in the Helmand River valley would enable greater participation in the August elections, but we knew at the outset that real progress would be measured in months, if not years. Indeed, the problems we faced had been gestating that long.
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The intersection of tribes, corruption, insurgency, poppy, tyranny, and family feuds and loyalties that would make waging counterinsurgency in Helmand so complicated had its most visible roots in the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s. Although 92 percent Pashtun, Helmand’s tribal structure was a rich tapestry of tribes and subtribes. Competition for power and resources among the Barakzai, Alizai, Noorzai, and Ishaqzai was old and remained, and in some districts twenty or more tribes were represented and sought sway. Since the 1980s, the power of maliks, khans, and elders to represent constituents to the government and control land had been largely superseded by the rise of nontraditional strongmen.