RandomGuy
03-10-2009, 12:36 PM
Executive summary:
British journalist, upon hearing that the US has retained anthropologists to sort out tribal interactions in Afghanistan, applies the same kind of look at the NATO+ western allies on his second day in-country journal entry.
Dry brit humor at its best. :toast
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13253784&source=hptextfeature&CFID=46231535&CFTOKEN=94548472
Afghanistan
Hearts, minds and guns
Mar 10th 2009
From Economist.com
Waging war or peace in the Hindu Kush
Monday
A SOLDIER on the eve of war single-mindedly checks and rechecks his weapon, but the journalist preparing to write about the soldier at war faces indecision over his kit. Before heading off to Afghanistan, I gather on my bed all that I might sensibly need: passport, cash (dollars), a stack of think-tank reports, pens, notebooks, laptop, satellite and mobile phones, assorted cables and plug adapters, Swiss Army knife, map, compass, sleeping bag, towel, thermal underwear, boots, mess tin, a tube of laundry soap, toiletries, drugs for every eventuality, water purifier, spare needles, plasma bags, trauma dressings…
I begin to feel like William Boot in Scoop, Evelyn Waugh’s novel about a hapless war correspondent who sets out for Africa with carriage-loads of gear, including cleft-sticks to carry his dispatches. It is not just fear of ridicule that restrains my packing, but a sense of self-preservation.
A dangerous bubbleIn a warzone you want to carry as little as possible so you can run for cover. The flak-jacket and helmet alone are heavy enough to leave you panting after a hundred yards. So the pens and notebooks are thinned out (I’ll write in smaller handwriting); the half-decent shirt, trousers and shoes are sacrificed (too bad if I get an interview with President Karzai); the toiletries are pared back (better not to shave in Taliban country); the battle dressings are abandoned (the Americans will patch me up if I survive a bomb).
The bulky sleeping bag is the most obvious target for pruning. As part of a VIP trip with an American general we should be given proper beds. But military flights in Afghanistan are notoriously unreliable. I was once stranded with fellow journalists in Kandahar, our bags lost. We were put up in an unheated tent without enough bedding to go around. My colleagues drew lots to share sleeping bags; the unlucky one wrapped himself up with as many sweaters and hats are we could spare (he covered his feet with my satchel). I was the luckiest, having carried my sleeping bag by hand (a single cocoon). I’ll risk a bullet wound without bandages, but not a cold night like that one. The sleeping bag goes in, and I’ll make do with fewer underpants.
Travelling to Afghanistan with the American air force is a more dignified way to go than with the clapped-out RAF or Afghan airlines. But I am less happy once we are on the ground in Kabul and we travel in the general’s security bubble. Our convoy is an obvious a target for suicide bombers. Military vehicles used to zigzag aggressively, spread out across the lanes to prevent cars from overtaking and push unwary drivers onto the kerb.
But these days NATO is trying to learn the art of winning hearts and minds, so macho driving is out. General David McKiernan, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, has ordered that blue signs encapsulating the new wisdom be pinned up all around the headquarters in Kabul: “WE can’t win if YOU drive recklessly. Think about it.”
But as we sit in Kabul’s traffic all I can think is that we are sitting ducks. On previous visits, the convoy leader would give passengers a briefing about what to do in case of attack: watch out for such-and-such suspicious vehicles; this is the route we are taking today; here are the jammers; this is where the emergency radio is kept; and remember today’s code-word to be able to use it. On this occasion our leader, a small barrel of a Scot, does away with the mumbo-jumbo: “If anything happens follow me and keep up. I may be short but I can run like hell.”
Tuesday
WESTERN soldiers in Afghanistan are by necessity becoming amateur anthropologists. The Americans, in fact, have even hired a few of the professional sort to help them understand tribal dynamics in the wild provinces of Afghanistan. But a study of the tribes of ISAF, the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, might be just as important to win the war. What would it conclude? The different shades and patterns of fatigues, headwear and eating habits in the Kabul headquarters suggest complex intermixing.
Outside the capital, however, a pattern emerges. There are two main tribal confederations. The north of Afghanistan is settled by tribes speaking Romance and Germanic languages; they think they are in Afghanistan to make peace. A core of English-speaking tribes descended from the noble britanee dominates the south; they think they are there to wage war (Scandinavians are split among both groups).
ReutersThe northerners have overcome centuries of internecine tribal conflict at home and do not understand why others cannot do the same; they look upon the southerners as brutes, preferring blood to women and good food. The southerners, in turn, look upon the northerners as lazy and effete; their wiser heads know that winning is impossible, but say any business with foes must be conducted from a position from strength.
Dapper in their desert fatigues and regimental caps, the britanee are much reduced in strength but remain the aristocracy, and are bards of ISAF, preserving the memory of their ancient passage through the Hindu Kush in works such as the Flashman series of novels. The britanee nowadays form a permanent alliance with their descendants, the big, brash, rich and war-like amerikanzoi.
The latter have the best kit but refuse to heed the wisdom of the britanee who warn that invading Afghanistan is easier than holding it. The words of a revered high priest of the English-speaking federation, Winston Churchill, writing about the character of the Afghan tribesman, might just as easily be applied to the amerikanzoi: he “embarks on war with careless levity”.
Two smaller groups complete the English-speaking confederation. The kanadee, who speak a similar dialect as their amerikanzoi neighbours and are often mistaken for them, once tried to distinguish themselves from the amerikanzoi by adopting northern habits of peacefulness and social security. But have latterly reverted to southern-style martial toughness.
The australzoi are a distant tribe, hailing from the other side of the world, but their love of fighting has brought them to wage war alongside the amerikanzoi cousins. Sundry other groups have attached themselves to this southern federation, such as the hollandee, a small Germanic people who wish to distinguish themselves from the now-pacific Germans. The polonee are poor but fight with the amerikanzoi in the hope of protection from their Slavic foes closer to home, the russee, who also came to grief in the Hindu Kush.
So for ISAF the art of war in Afghanistan involves two aims: to identify cleavages among hostile Afghan tribes than can be exploited, and to stop its own tribes from falling out and losing heart.
British journalist, upon hearing that the US has retained anthropologists to sort out tribal interactions in Afghanistan, applies the same kind of look at the NATO+ western allies on his second day in-country journal entry.
Dry brit humor at its best. :toast
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13253784&source=hptextfeature&CFID=46231535&CFTOKEN=94548472
Afghanistan
Hearts, minds and guns
Mar 10th 2009
From Economist.com
Waging war or peace in the Hindu Kush
Monday
A SOLDIER on the eve of war single-mindedly checks and rechecks his weapon, but the journalist preparing to write about the soldier at war faces indecision over his kit. Before heading off to Afghanistan, I gather on my bed all that I might sensibly need: passport, cash (dollars), a stack of think-tank reports, pens, notebooks, laptop, satellite and mobile phones, assorted cables and plug adapters, Swiss Army knife, map, compass, sleeping bag, towel, thermal underwear, boots, mess tin, a tube of laundry soap, toiletries, drugs for every eventuality, water purifier, spare needles, plasma bags, trauma dressings…
I begin to feel like William Boot in Scoop, Evelyn Waugh’s novel about a hapless war correspondent who sets out for Africa with carriage-loads of gear, including cleft-sticks to carry his dispatches. It is not just fear of ridicule that restrains my packing, but a sense of self-preservation.
A dangerous bubbleIn a warzone you want to carry as little as possible so you can run for cover. The flak-jacket and helmet alone are heavy enough to leave you panting after a hundred yards. So the pens and notebooks are thinned out (I’ll write in smaller handwriting); the half-decent shirt, trousers and shoes are sacrificed (too bad if I get an interview with President Karzai); the toiletries are pared back (better not to shave in Taliban country); the battle dressings are abandoned (the Americans will patch me up if I survive a bomb).
The bulky sleeping bag is the most obvious target for pruning. As part of a VIP trip with an American general we should be given proper beds. But military flights in Afghanistan are notoriously unreliable. I was once stranded with fellow journalists in Kandahar, our bags lost. We were put up in an unheated tent without enough bedding to go around. My colleagues drew lots to share sleeping bags; the unlucky one wrapped himself up with as many sweaters and hats are we could spare (he covered his feet with my satchel). I was the luckiest, having carried my sleeping bag by hand (a single cocoon). I’ll risk a bullet wound without bandages, but not a cold night like that one. The sleeping bag goes in, and I’ll make do with fewer underpants.
Travelling to Afghanistan with the American air force is a more dignified way to go than with the clapped-out RAF or Afghan airlines. But I am less happy once we are on the ground in Kabul and we travel in the general’s security bubble. Our convoy is an obvious a target for suicide bombers. Military vehicles used to zigzag aggressively, spread out across the lanes to prevent cars from overtaking and push unwary drivers onto the kerb.
But these days NATO is trying to learn the art of winning hearts and minds, so macho driving is out. General David McKiernan, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, has ordered that blue signs encapsulating the new wisdom be pinned up all around the headquarters in Kabul: “WE can’t win if YOU drive recklessly. Think about it.”
But as we sit in Kabul’s traffic all I can think is that we are sitting ducks. On previous visits, the convoy leader would give passengers a briefing about what to do in case of attack: watch out for such-and-such suspicious vehicles; this is the route we are taking today; here are the jammers; this is where the emergency radio is kept; and remember today’s code-word to be able to use it. On this occasion our leader, a small barrel of a Scot, does away with the mumbo-jumbo: “If anything happens follow me and keep up. I may be short but I can run like hell.”
Tuesday
WESTERN soldiers in Afghanistan are by necessity becoming amateur anthropologists. The Americans, in fact, have even hired a few of the professional sort to help them understand tribal dynamics in the wild provinces of Afghanistan. But a study of the tribes of ISAF, the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, might be just as important to win the war. What would it conclude? The different shades and patterns of fatigues, headwear and eating habits in the Kabul headquarters suggest complex intermixing.
Outside the capital, however, a pattern emerges. There are two main tribal confederations. The north of Afghanistan is settled by tribes speaking Romance and Germanic languages; they think they are in Afghanistan to make peace. A core of English-speaking tribes descended from the noble britanee dominates the south; they think they are there to wage war (Scandinavians are split among both groups).
ReutersThe northerners have overcome centuries of internecine tribal conflict at home and do not understand why others cannot do the same; they look upon the southerners as brutes, preferring blood to women and good food. The southerners, in turn, look upon the northerners as lazy and effete; their wiser heads know that winning is impossible, but say any business with foes must be conducted from a position from strength.
Dapper in their desert fatigues and regimental caps, the britanee are much reduced in strength but remain the aristocracy, and are bards of ISAF, preserving the memory of their ancient passage through the Hindu Kush in works such as the Flashman series of novels. The britanee nowadays form a permanent alliance with their descendants, the big, brash, rich and war-like amerikanzoi.
The latter have the best kit but refuse to heed the wisdom of the britanee who warn that invading Afghanistan is easier than holding it. The words of a revered high priest of the English-speaking federation, Winston Churchill, writing about the character of the Afghan tribesman, might just as easily be applied to the amerikanzoi: he “embarks on war with careless levity”.
Two smaller groups complete the English-speaking confederation. The kanadee, who speak a similar dialect as their amerikanzoi neighbours and are often mistaken for them, once tried to distinguish themselves from the amerikanzoi by adopting northern habits of peacefulness and social security. But have latterly reverted to southern-style martial toughness.
The australzoi are a distant tribe, hailing from the other side of the world, but their love of fighting has brought them to wage war alongside the amerikanzoi cousins. Sundry other groups have attached themselves to this southern federation, such as the hollandee, a small Germanic people who wish to distinguish themselves from the now-pacific Germans. The polonee are poor but fight with the amerikanzoi in the hope of protection from their Slavic foes closer to home, the russee, who also came to grief in the Hindu Kush.
So for ISAF the art of war in Afghanistan involves two aims: to identify cleavages among hostile Afghan tribes than can be exploited, and to stop its own tribes from falling out and losing heart.