Killing is more acceptable than capturing and questioning (even brutally).  David Ignatius explores the matter at the Washington Post:

Our default is killing terrorists by drone attack. Do you care?

Every war brings its own deformations, but consider this disturbing fact about America’s war against al-Qaeda: It has become easier, politically and legally, for the United States to kill suspected terrorists than to capture and interrogate them.

Predator and Reaper drones, armed with Hellfire missiles, have become the weapons of choice against al-Qaeda operatives in the tribal areas of Pakistan. They have also been used in Yemen, and the demand for these efficient tools of war, which target enemies from 10,000 feet, is likely to grow.

The pace of drone attacks on the tribal areas has increased sharply during the Obama presidency, with more assaults in September and October of this year than in all of 2008. At the same time, efforts to capture al-Qaeda suspects have virtually stopped. Indeed, if CIA operatives were to snatch a terrorist tomorrow, the agency wouldn’t be sure where it could detain him for interrogation.

Michael Hayden, a former director of the CIA, frames the puzzle this way: “Have we made detention and interrogation so legally difficult and politically risky that our default option is to kill our adversaries rather than capture and interrogate them?”

It’s curious why the American public seems so comfortable with a tactic that arguably is a form of long-range assassination, after the furor about the CIA’s use of nonlethal methods known as “enhanced interrogation.” When Israel adopted an approach of “targeted killing” against Hamas and other terrorist adversaries, it provoked an extensive debate there and abroad.

“For reasons that defy logic, people are more comfortable with drone attacks” than with killings at close range…

Another angle at the end of an earlier post–BruceR., at his post via the “Drone Porn” link, argues that once a decision has been made to target people at long range for killing, the method is not the issue:

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Grim?

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STAFF SGT. BRIAN FERGUSON / AIR FORCE
An MQ-9 Reaper taxis down a runway in Afghanistan…

Earlier:

Drone porn?

And see the Update thought here.  Canadian UAVs in Afstan are, of course, not weaponized; imagine the shock, the horror, the uproar if one of our “drones” accidentally killed one civilian, eh?

Mark
Ottawa

Lots of cautionary intellectual nutrition at Flit.

1) Today’s essential Afghan reading

Alex Strick van Lindschoten has spent more time in Kandahar City than many Kandaharis. His opinion is always worth listening to. His “Five Things David Petraeus Wants You to Believe” is cutting:

Truth #1: “It’s Working!”
Truth #2: “The Night Raids and Targeting of the Insurgency’s Leadership is an Effective Tool.”
Truth #3: “The Military Effort is Subservient to Broader Political Goals.”
Truth #4: “Mullah Mohammad Omar is irrelevant.”
Truth #5: “Don’t mind the Afghan Government.”

Another old-time Afghan hand, Tim Lynch, is with the Marines in Sangin these days. His posts give a good sense of what COIN is supposed to look like, when it’s resourced and fully committed to.

There’s no question the Marines are probably more effective man for man than most ISAF contingents at the moment…

2) A reader comment, and an ISAF return (with a Monty Python video)

A well-placed U.S. civilian official who has served in southern Afghanistan and whose opinion I’ve come to respect offers his thoughts on a couple recent posts:

You are right on the mark on pointing out the mismatch between Canada’s desire to have all of its future training positions “behind the wire” and the actual available slots in NTM-A. I haven’t seen any media reports about this. Is DND not paying attention or are they not saying anything for fear of getting smacked down by the Privy Council Office?

On another issue, I see a lot of arrogance and even hubris connected with the U.S. surge in Kandahar. Demolishing grape huts and replacing them with a “better” design?..

BruceR’s comment…

As far as hard-knock ops, I think we need to start considering that our current way of war can actively inhibit any kind of truces or negotiated settlements. The shoe that didn’t drop with the Fake Taliban Fiasco is that if we had known enough about the real Taliban leader to confirm the impostor’s identity, odds are he’d have been JPEL’d and dead long before ["joint prioritised effects list"]. By not taking prisoners of war (we don’t, really, they almost all are let go) and engaging in targetted assassination against the equivalent of section commanders and up, we’ve already removed any realistic possibility of dialogue or reconciliation. There’s no realistic role for a third-party neutral mediator, either… no insurgent leader of any weight could reasonably expect that a trip to, say, Saudi Arabia for instance, to engage in negotiations would not result in their electronic trail leading back to the crosshairs of a Hellfire in the end…

Update: This Canadian officer certainly seems a bit rash:

Canadian colonel says Taliban defeated on battlefield

The outgoing commander of Canada’s mentoring team in Kandahar says the Taliban were routed this fall and won’t present a significant threat in the future.

Col. Ian Creighton says the lull in violence that’s trickled across southern Afghanistan over the past few weeks has nothing to do with onset of colder weather, as in previous years.

He says the Taliban were defeated on the battlefield.

The blatantly upbeat assessment is at odds with American officers at NATO’s southern Afghan command, who last week said it will be the spring before they can be sure the recent offensive through the Taliban heartland was successful.

Creighton, whose soldiers teach and fight alongside Afghans [that's the type of training we're going to stop doing in 2011], says militants that managed to flee will find NATO and Afghan forces holding their ground and will run into a “brick wall” if they try to return…

One can hope.  Meanwhile, further to this post on the US Marines sending tanks to Afstan,

Where Canada and Denmark led…

the conclusion of a challenging article by a US Army officer:

Tanks, But No Tanks
Why heavy armor won’t save Afghanistan.
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It may be counterintuitive, but we actually need less armor, and we need to be more flexible and unpredictable. Instead of dictating that no unit can leave its base unless in an MRAP [our Army has them too] or MATV, we must allow them to use Humvees, all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, and ruggedized pickup trucks when appropriate. Knowing their movements are being watched at all times, units need to use deception, such as varying the time of day and night they move, their routes of travel, and the types of vehicles in which they conduct missions, to keep the insurgents constantly guessing. Insurgents cannot possibly booby-trap and watch every road, trail, and wadi in Afghanistan but they can and do hammer us on the few roads that will support armored vehicles.

This is a very unconventional war being waged in the most difficult terrain possible, and we are responding very conventionally. Instead of allowing such ingenuity and its associated risk, the coalition’s default response has been to add more armor and widgets to ever larger vehicles that are the very antithesis of basic counterinsurgency operations.

We may not be able to “defeat” the IED, but we can make it irrelevant. To do so will require us to rely upon the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the junior leaders who are most in tune with the local dynamics and terrain, not on technology or defensive-minded mandates designed to prevent casualties at all costs. Marginalizing the IED will also require higher commanders to accept greater risk and allow their subordinates to sometimes make mistakes — even deadly ones. But that’s the only way to start connecting with the Afghan people, who are the ones who will defeat the Taliban in the end. It’s time to start playing to win instead of trying to avoid losing.

Maj. Michael Waltz served as the director for Afghanistan in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense and as an advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney on South Asia and counterterrorism. He currently commands a U.S. Army Special Forces unit in the reserve component that recently returned from Afghanistan.

I cannot imagine a Canadian officer writing so bluntly in our media.

Mark
Ottawa

Just a couple of British lads on summer vacation.

Not to be cheeky with the headline but, well, what do you make of this?

British-based men of Afghan origin are spending months at a time in Afghanistan fighting Nato forces before returning to the UK, the Guardian has learned. They also send money to the Taliban.

A Taliban fighter in Dhani-Ghorri in northern Afghanistan last month told the Guardian he lived most of the time in east London, but came to Afghanistan for three months of the year for combat.

“I work as a minicab driver,” said the man, who has the rank of a mid-level Taliban commander. “I make good money there [in the UK], you know. But these people are my friends and my family and it’s my duty to come to fight the jihad with them.”

Talk about your part-time summer jobs.

It’s a little odd, you’ll have to admit, to work in Britain under the safety of the rights and freedoms they then aim to destroy in Afghanistan. These people were in the bathroom when God was handing out logic.

On the other hand, it doesn’t appear to be an epidemic:

British military officials say there have been no recent reports of British Taliban in Helmand in southern Afghanistan and that the overwhelming majority of foreign fighters are Pakistanis. Not since John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban, was captured in late 2001, has the US admitted to having successfully captured an insurgent from a western country.

I’m not sure what Omar Khadr qualifies as then, but I guess I’ll take their word for it.

Headlines from the three most important US newspapers (WSJ, NYT, WaPo–not in that order); try to figure out which one each is in:

Pentagon Report Cites Gains in Afghanistan

Pentagon Reports Afghan Setbacks

Progress in Afghan war called ‘uneven’

Update: A good point at Milnews.ca’s daily news round-up, a must-read:

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Remember way back, when Canadian politicians complained about European countries imposing caveats on their forces in Afghanistan, preventing their armies from contributing to the fight if it was at all risky?  Well, according to Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno (who has spent a fair bit of time in Afghanistan), let he who is without caveat cast the first stone: “Make no mistake. Dress it up as both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff might like: If this new stay-in plan is put to effect as advertised — and I have my doubts about that — Canadian troops, highly valued for their combat skills in everything from reconnaissance to sniper proficiency, will be little more than decorative tassels on the Afghanistan uniform, their primary value to pick up the mentoring slack left behind by other bolting allies so that Americans can carry on their terrorist-tracking pursuits.” Ouch!..

Upperdate: And from what used to be a great paper:

Pentagon offers grim status report on Afghanistan

Mark
Ottawa

Not that much to choose between the Canadian Peace Alliance, Ceasefire.ca (open fire for effect,  say I) and the Talibs:

Comparative Analysis: The Taliban Position and the Troops-Out Position.
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To assist you in your inquiries, here is the Reponse of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan As Regards Lisbon Meeting. Here is what the Canadian Peace Alliance (such an amusing boast) has to say about the directly-related Canadian decision to stick around with a military troop-training project in Afghanistan. Plus a Ceasefire petition. Plus various ruminations from the towering intellectual giant Steve Staples on the subject…

But wait!  There’s more at Mr Glavin’s post!  Or as George Orwell put it: “Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense…” Who’d a thunk that, eh? There’s also more scattered here on “the towering intellectual giant”, St. Steve Staples.

Mark
Ottawa

Read all about us at Milnews.ca.  Plus a piece by David Ignatius in the Washington Post, based on some recent polling in Afstan (do check that out in conjunction with Ignatius):

How to win over the Afghans
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The poll results convey a stark reality about this war: People in the Pashtun region of southern Afghanistan resent foreign fighters. Most don’t comprehend why they have come or how they might offer a better future than would the Taliban. They feel that America and its allies don’t respect their traditions…

NATO forces have done better over the past six months at winning “hearts and minds” in southern Afghanistan – but probably still not well enough to succeed without some changes in tactics…

Perceptions of the Afghan army and police are improving in Helmand and Kandahar, but not sufficiently that people are confident they can take control. Fifty-two percent say the Afghan army is effective, and 39 percent say that about the police. But on the big question of transferring power, 61 percent believe that the Afghan security forces will be unable to provide security in areas from which foreign forces are withdrawing…

Gen. David Petraeus has stepped up the “enemy-centric” side of counterinsurgency, tripling the number of U.S. Special Operations raids from a year ago. But MacDonald’s polling data make clear that the “protect the population” side isn’t succeeding yet. The trends are improving, but not enough.

Whilst from Terry Glavin:

Clarity and Cluelessness on Canada’s New Mission in Afghanistan.

…I would bet a dollar to a dime that most Canadians believe the lie that most Afghans want NATO forces to leave their country. The primary function of Canada’s so-called “anti-war” activists is to make you to believe that lie, and Canada’s punditocracy has encouraged you to believe it.

I would also bet a dollar to a dime that if most Canadians knew the truth, which is that the overwhelming majority of Afghans have consistently supported and continue to support NATO’s efforts in their country, Canadian support for a robust Afghan mission would be overwhelmingly favorable, and we’d be closer to the relative sophistication of Indians, Kenyans and Nigerians. And then we could move the Canadian debates out of the weeds, to questions that really matter.

Here’s just one question we should be debating: How can Canadians best put their backs into the cause Prime Minister Harper articulated in Lisbon – the cause of Afghan democracy, the rule of law and fair elections, human rights, and good governance?

Mark
Ottawa

Just not our thing anymore, actually.  In Canada it now seems the rule for politicians, pundits and the public that the Army really doesn’t engage in combat if the dead go over 100–unless perhaps it truly is a situation of clear and supreme national interest, or else a clear and convincing victory is won with rapidity.  See the posts from Daimnation! in late 2005 and early 2006 here and here (so much for the prime minister as a war leader).  I think I had the finger on the country’s pulse then, such as it is.

Americans do not have the peacekeeping-obsessed (that’s what we will be doing in Afstan, eh?) culture Canada has in spades, Nor do the Brits.  In fact I venture that “peacekeeping” has almost zero, er, resonance in either country, and very little in Australia.  Canadians have been brainwashed, in large measure by our own governments seeking to reflect (correctly) perceived popular sentiment.

Anyone want to bet that any Canadian government will put the Army into any real combat during the next decade, if not longer, even should a situation arise that might well make it seem the right thing to do?

Not that most Euros, Danes aside, are any different.  The conclusion of an earlier post:

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It is a sad reflection of Canadian realities that this country of 33 million will not fight for more than five and half years, can only deploy just under 3,000 CF personnel to do so, and cannot tolerate it when the death toll moves past 100.

Predate: There was brief moment when attitudes were more robust–but then soldiers died:

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Defence analysts and politicians from the NDP and the Conservative Party said it is time for a military leader like General Rick Hillier, who speaks from the heart about the role of the Canadian Forces in the war on terror.

“Controlled anger, given what’s happened, is an appropriate response,” NDP Leader Jack Layton said [emphasis added, worm turned] . “We have a very committed, level-headed head of our armed forces, who isn’t afraid to express the passion that underlies the mission that front-line personnel are going to be taking on.

“A bit of strong language in the circumstances, I don’t find that to be wrong.”..

In a media briefing two days ago, Gen. Hillier laid out the mission for the more than 2,000 troops who are headed to Afghanistan in the coming year: provide security in the country and, more importantly, go on the hunt for terrorists.As part of the deployment, the Canadian Forces are sending commando soldiers from Joint Task Force 2 with the expectation that they will be involved in combat.

“We are going to Afghanistan to actually take down the folks that are trying to blow up men and women,” Gen. Hillier said.

He also gave a blunt assessment of the role of the Canadian Forces, which he said are designed to protect Canadian interests at home and abroad.

“We’re not the public service of Canada, we’re not just another department. We are the Canadian Forces, and our job is to be able to kill people,” Gen. Hillier said…

We’ll not hear anything like this again from anyone in government service about our enemies for quite a while:

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“These are detestable murderers and scumbags. I’ll tell you that right up front,” said Hillier…

Mark
Ottawa

Excerpts from a very useful post at Milnews.ca (worth checking every day):

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• What does this mean for the Canadian-led and run Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (PDF copy of page here if link doesn’t work?  This from the Globe & Mail:  “Canada is slashing aid to Afghanistan and abandoning any presence in Kandahar by withdrawing not only troops but civilian aid officials next year. Despite the approval of a new training mission, the moves mark a turning point where Canada is significantly disengaging from Afghanistan: dramatically reducing the outlay of cash, reducing the risk to troops, and quitting the war-scarred southern province where Canada has led military and civilian efforts. There will be a deep cut to aid for Afghanistan. International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda said Canada will provide $100-million a year in development assistance for Afghanistan over the next three years, less than half the $205-million the government reported spending last year ….”
• According to Postmedia News, late decision on new mission = rush to get ready for it...
• Who’s happy?  “The White House and the NATO military alliance applauded Canada’s plan for a military training mission in Afghanistan Tuesday as Prime Minister Stephen Harper assured opposition parties that the armed forces will work safely “in classrooms behind the wire on bases.” ….” Here’s what NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen had to say: “I warmly welcome Prime Minister Harper’s announcement that Canada will deploy a substantial number of trainers to the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan. Canada has contributed substantially, over many years, to the operation in Afghanistan. Canadian forces have made a real difference in the lives of the Afghan people, often at a high cost ….” More from the Canadian Press on that…
• Meanwhile, the transition continues on the ground in Afghanistan:  “A scouting party from the NATO unit that could replace Canadian troops in Kandahar will be touring the area over the next few days. Planning for the departure of Task Force Kandahar is underway and a proposal on how the transition will take place is still being finalized, a senior U.S. officer with the alliance’s southern headquarters said Tuesday. The Canadians “are in a critical location,” said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was authorized to discuss the situation on background only. “We’ve got to make sure that area is still covered, and covered well.” ….”

What will strike readers of the NY Times:

Canada to End Combat Role in Afghanistan at End of 2011

Does the world need more Canada? As far as I can find the British media ignored the government’s decision rather completely. Typical.

Meanwhile Maj.-Gen. (ret’d) Lew MacKenzie explains clearly, to enlighten those who scream otherwise, the future non-combat role of our forces (as I have tried to do):

Our trainers won’t be ‘Omleteers’

Regarding our civilian presence at Kandahar, I wrote this ten days ago:

…I have heard from someone well up on Canadian activities in Afstan that the government is currently planning to remove all or almost all Canadian civilians and civilian police from Kandahar as the CF withdraw, and have our civilians based in Kabul. So there goes Canadian participation in the PRT…

Yesterday:

Fighting the good fight for Afghans–and all of us

Update: A very good Nov. 9 story (via Defense Industry Daily) on what’s happening in the Canadian sector of Kandahar Province now that the US surge has peaked:

Afghanistan: Before fighting season ends, one last push
Photos: Coalition troops sweep through remaining Taliban strongholds.

A month ago:

Canadians work to corral Taliban as major operation begins
U.S., Afghan forces launch air assault in Horn of Panjwaii stronghold

Mark
Ottawa

Almost body-line bowling, ideologically speaking:

First women’s cricket team for Afghanistan

KABUL — Afghanistan is to get its first national women’s cricket team, the sport’s governing body in the country said on Thursday, announcing plans for it to compete in an international tournament next year.

“This development is so exciting for our young women cricketers and their families and supporters,” said Diana, women’s cricket development officer at the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB), in a statement.

“We love our country and hope to support it through our sport. Seeing a women’s cricket team in the Asian Cup will do so much to raise the hopes of many women here,” added Diana, who like many Afghans uses only one name.

Women’s participation in sport in Afghanistan has increased since the 2001 fall of the hardline Islamist Taliban, who banned education for girls and forced women to retreat behind the all-enveloping burqa.

Sprinter-turned-lawmaker Robina Jalali made it to the Olympic Games in 2004 and 2008, competing in a hijab or traditional Muslim headscarf.

Football and basketball teams have sprung up in some urban areas, but women’s full involvement in sports is still lacking — as in other areas of society — and in many rural areas women rarely leave their homes.

The ACB said the team’s participation in next February’s short-format Twenty20 tournament in Kuwait would be the first time Afghan women will have taken part in cricket matches abroad.

More than 100 young women currently play the game in the capital Kabul and three have recently attended umpire training courses. The ACB has also set up coaching sessions to attract more girls and young women to the sport…

Cricket in Afghanistan is taking off after the men’s national side qualified for the Twenty20 World Cup held in the West Indies earlier this year.

The team is currently preparing to play in the Asian Games from Saturday…

Many Afghan cricketers learned the sport in neighbouring Pakistan after fleeing the violence as refugees…

Take a look at the “Home Ground of Afghan Cricket on the Web”.  Many Afghans are not the fanatical (except for cricket) mediæval primitives a lot of people seem to think they virtually all are.

By the way, there’s a very informative Update, via BruceR. at Flit, at this post on the government’s plans to keep the CF on in Afstan in a training role.

Update: At the game:

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Photo via Spotlight on Military News and International Affairs.

Mark
Ottawa

This at first glance looks like non-governmental intelligence of a pretty high order:

Executive Summary
The Battle for Afghanistan
Militancy and Conflict in Kandahar

By Anand Gopal
November 9, 2010 | New America Foundation [right click "new window" to enlarge map]

Go to ‘Battle for Afghanistan’ home

As Afghanistan’s cultural and political heartland, Kandahar is a province of key strategic importance for foreign forces, the Afghan government, and the insurgency. A sizable chunk of the Taliban’s senior leadership hails from the province, and the cultural and political dynamics of rural Kandahar shape aspects of the movement’s character to this day.

This study attempts to understand the Taliban of Kandahar by looking at the factors that spurred their rise and the networks and structures through which they operate. The findings include:

• The Taliban’s resurgence in Kandahar post-2001 was not inevitable or preordained. The Taliban—from senior leadership levels down to the rank and file—by and large surrendered to the new government and retired to their homes. But in the early years after 2001, there was a lack of a genuine, broad-based reconciliation process in which the Taliban leadership would be allowed to surrender in exchange for amnesty and protection from persecution. Rather, foreign forces and their proxies pursued an unrelenting drive against former regime members, driving many of them to flee to Pakistan and launch an insurgency.
• Once the Taliban leadership decided to stand against the Afghan government and its foreign backers, they were able to take advantage of growing disillusionment in the countryside. In particular, the dominance of one particular set of tribes caused members of other, marginalized tribes to look to the insurgency as a source of protection and access to resources. The weakness of the judiciary and police forced many to turn to the Taliban’s provision of law and order, while widespread torture and abuse at the hands of pro-government strongmen eroded government support. At the same time, the heavy-handed tactics of U.S. forces turned many against the foreign presence.
• Despite popular belief, the Taliban in Kandahar cannot easily be divided into an “ideological core” and rank-and-file fighters motivated mainly by material concerns. After 2001, most senior Taliban leaders in the province had accepted the new government, or at least rejected it but declined to fight against it. Most did not invoke the notion of jihad as an immediate reaction to the new government. Rather, only after a protracted campaign against former Taliban did many of them feel they had no place in the new state of affairs and began to see the presence of the government and foreign fighters as necessitating jihad. And after the emergence of the insurgency, there were a number of attempts by senior leaders to come to terms with the Afghan government, yet at the same time there were very few attempts to do so by rank-and-file field commanders.
• The Taliban have developed an intricate shadow government apparatus. At the top is the shadow governor, who works closely with a body called the Military Commission. In theory, the governor directs strategy, coordinates with leadership in Pakistan, and liaises with other actors in the province, while the Military Commission adjudicates disputes and serves in an advisory role. There is also a detailed district-level apparatus, including shadow district governors and, in some districts police chiefs and district shuras.
• Parallel to this formal structure are numerous informal networks through which the Taliban make decisions and propagate influence. Although there are detailed mechanisms in place, involving the provincial shadow apparatus, to deal with battlefield strategy or intra-Taliban disputes, many times strategic decisions or punitive actions are taken through informal means. These include cases where senior leaders in Pakistan direct operations through their network of commanders in Kandahar.
• Contrary to popular perception, the Taliban in Kandahar do not appear to receive regular salaries. Rather, each commander is responsible for raising funds for his group, which is typically done through capturing spoils in operations or collecting (sometimes forcefully) local taxes. Some funding also comes from external sources, such as merchants in Pakistan and wealthy donors in the Persian Gulf states.
• In addition to winning support from marginalized communities and offering law and order, the Taliban were able to gain influence through severe intimidation and widespread human rights abuses. Moreover, a brutal assassination campaign against anyone even remotely connected to the government—tribal elders, government officials, aid workers, religious clerics, and others—succeeded in widening the gap between the local communities and the government.
• The Taliban’s rise in Kandahar after 2001 can be divided into four periods. From 2001 to 2004, the group was involved in reorganizing itself, resuscitating old networks, and forging new connections. Between 2004 and 2006, the burgeoning movement was focused on consolidating itself, while winning rank-and-file recruits outside those who had worked with the Taliban in the 1990s; it began to amass members in large numbers. A turning point came in the western part of the province in 2006, when the Taliban suffered a major battlefield loss against foreign forces in Operation Medusa [emphasis added, most of those forces were Canadian]. This was one factor that spurred the next phase, asymmetric warfare, between 2006 and 2009. These years were marked by the increased use of suicide bombings and roadside attacks. The year 2010 marks a new phase in the struggle. While the insurgents are still relying heavily on suicide attacks and roadside bombs, foreign troops are giving unprecedented attention to the province, and violence has escalated to levels not previously seen in this war.

For the full text of this 44-page report, please click here.

Anand Gopal is an Afghanistan-based journalist. He is the coauthor of the New America Foundation’s “Battle For Pakistan” paper on militancy and conflict in North Waziristan.

Mark
Ottawa