The Wrongologist

What’s
Wrong Today:

During the early morning of June 5th, the Syrian army launched a surprise night attack
and overran the insurgency’s positions in Qusayr. Qusayr is only 6 miles from
the Lebanese border. Some of the insurgents managed to flee north but may have
trouble breaking through the cordon that the Syrian army has set up.

Moon of Alabama reports that the
insurgency’s supply line from Lebanon to Homs has been severed. Insurgency
positions in Homs may soon fall to the Syrian army. Freeing the insurgency-held
parts of Aleppo further north will be the next big target.

The Syrian
opposition made a fatal error. Out-gunned insurgents should never make a stand against
a better-armed government siege force equipped with artillery, tanks and
airplanes. Reinforcements came, some professing close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, but the Syrian
Army with its best troops and the urban warfare specialists, Hezbollah, prevailed.

Hezbollah’s
Deputy Chief Sheikh Naim Qassem stated on Wednesday:

The
Syrians are now preparing to move on Aleppo.  Up to 4,000 Hezbollah
fighters
moved north to Aleppo before fighting was complete in Qusayr. Aleppo, a
city of 2 million, is Syria’s commercial center and vital to the retention of
national integrity for Syria.

Events seem
to be breaking in the direction of the Syrian government over the past few
days. The Lebanon rebel supply route is closed for now. This corridor
was the transit point for weapons and
fighters from Lebanon. From Michael Collins:

Score 1
for Assad.

What will
the United States and NATO do if their hopes for Syria fail?  Rebuilding
relations with Assad is out of the question.

John
Kerry’s appointment as Secretary of State changed our direction on Syria. The US
and Russia announced on May 7 that they would try to bring representatives of
the Syrian government and its opponents together to
seek an end to a conflict. 

So instead
of sending weapons to the rebels to increase pressure on the Assad regime and
force it to the table, Kerry held out the threat of providing weapons in the
future as an inducement to make Assad negotiate. “Negotiate now, or we’ll send weapons
later” replaced the position that sending weapons now will lead to meaningful
negotiations later.

But that
strategy has blown up with the Assad regime’s success on the ground.

From Reuters:
Russian, US and UN officials meeting in Geneva on Wednesday failed to resolve
questions over proposed Syria peace talks, including who would take part.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov:

Score 2
for Assad.

As of
today, there is no date for the conference, but it is unlikely to occur before
July. In July, the US assumes the presidency of the Security Council. Samantha
Power, Mr. Obama’s new UN Representative, will replace Susan Rice at the UN.

Time to review
the bidding:

Let’s say
Assad eventually wins and the rebels escape to surrounding Arab countries
where the oil wealth of the Arab kings should provide them with a home, assuming the kings continue their legendary hospitality.

Assad can
hardly savor his victory, because Sunni sovereign and al Qaeda forces are
arrayed against him on all sides. The Sunnis and Shiites could drag this war out
for generations, which means they
might not be thinking quite as hard about New York City or Boston.

Here is
the line-up:

Pro-Assad:
Iran, Hezbollah, (both Shia) Russia

Anti-Assad:
Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, Bahrain (all Sunni)

The
US has ties (or conflicts) on both sides: We supported the Shia in our foray
into Iraq and long ago, in Iran. We have been aligned with Sunnis in Saudi,
Kuwait, and the Gulf States. Al-Qaeda is Sunni, Egypt is predominantly Sunni.  

Saudi
and Qatar are backers of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has captured Egypt.

Why is the
US continuing to listen to these calls to get involved on the Sunni side? The
Shia do not pose a threat to America, they only pose a threat to Israel,
through Iran and Hezbollah.

So
choose your proxy war in the Middle East:

Syria, where the
outcome will determine the regional pecking order. Hezbollah’s success in Syria is a
blow to Saudi Arabia and Israel, which have supported Hezbollah’s political
opponents in Lebanon. The Syrian army’s gains are a setback to the Saudis,
Qataris and Turks, all of whom have backed the rebels with money and weapons.

Israel, where their fight with Hezbollah and
the Palestinians will be run by Iran and the US. Iran needs
Hezbollah as a proxy, or it will face direct consequences from Israel and the
US.

This means that all parties are likely to step back somewhat. They will adopt a
wait and see attitude, since everyone knows that intervention on the ground is
dicey, that no clear outcome can be predicted, or engineered quickly.

Is there an
opportunity we are missing by staying on the sidelines in Syria?

No.
The idea that we either look weak or are weakened if we don’t intervene is
agitprop peddled by America’s home-grown chicken hawks and the friends of Israel. Let’s
defend our homeland for a change. We should ignore the Chihuahuas barking at us
from the parking lot.

The Neo-Cons are
barking that we must send more arms quickly before radical rebels gain the
upper hand. But, the radicals have been in the lead from the first moments. It
was very clear at the very earliest part of this civil war when the
revolutionaries seized the city of Homs. They dynamited the local Christian
churches.

The thought
that overthrowing Assad will hurt Iran is embarrassingly optimistic. Iran would
just establish relations with any victorious Sunni government. After all, Iran
has close relations with Pakistan, another Sunni state.

Let’s
remember that supporting Sunni fighters against the Soviets gave us the
Taliban and al-Qaeda. Why would supporting their fellow travelers (and de facto
al-Qaeda themselves) in Syria give us anything better?

Here is your crib note: Assad is not our friend and the revolutionaries are our enemies.
Entering this mess on any side would show that we are again ignoring the Sunni-Shia
divide.

What’s
Wrong Today:

The 39th G8 Summit will be held on 17–18
June 2013 at the Lough Erne Resort, a five-star hotel and golf resort in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It will be the sixth G8 summit held in the United
Kingdom.

To prepare
for the arrival of the special global heavy hitters, the town of Enniskillen in Northern Ireland is getting spruced up. As
part of the plan, the town is putting up fake storefronts on shuttered
businesses:

Marco
Werman of PRI’s
The World spoke with Irish Times reporter Dan Keenan about the efforts to make
the town look prosperous. The audio feed is at the PRI link.

Marco Werman: (Emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Dan Keenan:

More from Keenan: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

Werman:

Keenan:

Werman:

Keenan:  (emphasis by
the Wrongologist)

Who
gains from this? Certainly not the G8 moguls, certainly not the people of
Enniskillen, where single home prices have fallen
24% in the last year and the official unemployment rate is 17%.

Unemployment
throughout Europe shows the triumph of the Economic Austerians over the stimulus
by government spending favored by Keynes and many others.  

If
you are a contemporary of the Wrongologist, you may remember that the Sainted Ed Koch did the same thing in the
South Bronx when many of the buildings fronting the Cross Bronx
Expressway were burned out shells. Koch put cute little pictures of windows
with flower pots and curtains on abandoned buildings.

From
ArtNet.com:

1982 saw the city install decals of plants and
venetian blinds in the windows of abandoned buildings in order to hide the
blight. By 1985 the Bronx was considered the poorest congressional district in
the United States

It
was profoundly offensive then and looked fake, probably the way
these phony storefront windows in Enniskillen look today.

Let’s
force the G8 men and women to hold their meetings at real soup kitchens until the official unemployment rates
here and in all the other G8 countries fall below 5%.

Let’s give them some practical input for their decision-making.

What’s
Wrong Today:

What’s
the difference between Iraq today and Syria today? In each country, their own
citizens are killing other citizens.  These
folks are killing one another primarily over religious/political disputes. And today,
no American young men and women are
part of those fights.

Steve
Hynd: If the civil war in Syria does in fact spill over its borders in a
big way and become a wider sectarian conflict across the region, what – if
anything – should the US do about it:

Our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan shows that we will lose no matter which side wins.
The “leaders” we back, because they are the lesser of evils, are still guys you wouldn’t trust to
babysit your family pets, much less an entire country. Seriously, we
trusted Karzai, and he needed weekly deliveries of bags of US dollars from the
CIA to be merely semi-reliable.

In Iraq, Shiites are wasting no time getting even with
Saddam Hussein’s tribe, the Sunni, who ruled Iraq before we decided on regime
change. Now, the Shiites are in, and the Sunni are out. But, the losers are not
amused and have decided to use bullets instead of ballots.

We left the two sides to get back to their 1,000-year
sectarian war against each other. DC seems to ignore that, whether we are
talking Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria or Lebanon, we are really talking one very
large thing: Shia v. Sunni.

It is an irreconcilable feud. Christian v. Jew, Jew v.
Muslim, Buddhist v. Muslim, do not come close to the Shia/Sunni split. There
has been blood and there will be blood.

So, what should the West do? A look at the map above
shows that for most Middle East countries, there is a significant religious divide.
Most of these countries have problems with their minority populations,
including one, Kurds, which are not even shown on the above.  

The New York Times has reported that Syria
is moving from revolution against a despot to a sectarian-driven fight of Sunni
against Shiite and their Alawite cousins which is now “inciting Sunnis and
Shiites in other countries to attack one another”.

The
BBC reports: A call to arms was made by influential Sunni cleric Sheikh
Qaradawi, an Egyptian based in Qatar who has a huge media and online presence. He
urged Sunnis to flock to Syria to fight against Assad, Iran and Hezbollah
saying that “They want continued massacres to kill Sunnis”.

Hatred of
“the other” has helped drive a resurgence of sectarian attacks in Iraq,too,
where 1,000 died in sectarian attacks last month, making it the
single deadliest month since 2008.

Another country must be mentioned: Iran.

Iranians are 89% Shia and they are ever so grateful
that we spent more than $1 Trillion and more than 4,000 US lives returning Iraq
to the Shia fold. Now all they need is a nuclear arsenal to make life complete.

The
problem across the Middle East is that taking sides – even trying to take both
sides to bring about a balance of power – is dangerous meddling with unforeseen
consequences.

What
should we do?

First, “do
no harm” might be a decent beginning principle to observe. That principle indicates
that we should stay the hell out of the Levant. While the Sunni/Shia feud is
certainly the main power struggle going on, there’s also a feud for Sunni leadership between the Saudis and Qatar.

Unfortunately,
the Beltway conventional wisdom has the US on a glide path to intervention on the Sunni side. That’s the religion of al-Qaeda, folks. Anybody
see an issue here?

According
to a recent Gallup
Poll, an overwhelming majority of citizens opposes any United States
military involvement in Syria: 68% of all Americans opposed involvement; 77%
of those over 65 years and 76% of college graduates represent the highest
subgroups opposed to military involvement of any kind.

When 68%
of the people oppose military involvement while Congress supports it, you are
right to ask what type of democracy these folks want to bring to other parts of
the world. 

So, what should the we do in Syria? As
little as possible.

There
seems to be little consensus in the US about a national strategy for such an
eventuality, perhaps because no-one really wants to talk about it.

President
Obama surveys the scene and sees no good option. Having repeatedly called for
regime change, there is no way Washington could claim to be an honest broker,
imposing a no-fly zone and safe havens, or even putting US boots on the ground,
purely for humanitarian reasons.

Gallup
shows that a majority of Americans agree with Obama. They lived through one
long and messy Middle East war, and don’t want another. They no longer believe
in cakewalks. They’re starting to grasp that countries don’t like being
invaded, even by Americans.

In May, Andrew Cordesman examined
the growing US security partnership with Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi
Arabia, and the UAE – established as the predominantly Sunni Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC). He analyzes the steady growth in this partnership that has led
to over $64 billion in new US arms transfer agreements during 2008-2011.

That was clearly
aimed at an alignment of allies to deter Iran, which could backfire badly if that policy now means the US
will be seen as supporting Sunnis in a religious war. US policymakers should be
thinking carefully about the corner they are being painted into by Mr. McCain
and others.

In a
region-wide conflict this security partnership may force our military
intervention on the Sunni side.

In the meantime, we need to stay out of these Muslim
sectarian skirmishes. One more thing: Don’t fall prey to the humanitarian ploy
that we have to get involved because civilians are dying. It’s laudable in
theory, but would fail in practice.

Here is a question for the humanitarian
interventionists:
24% of Americans lack food security. The American U-6 unemployment rate (% of
people unemployed and looking for work, plus the underemployed) is 13.9%. The
US poverty rate is nearly 16%, or 50 million people. If you feel all
humanitarian, how about helping some Americans??

The idea that a Christian-Judeo West should mediate or
police this fight is pure folly. It will only bleed us: Militarily, monetarily and
morally.

Pew
Research reported that the US, despite being the richest country in the world, 24%
of our citizens had trouble putting food on the table at some point last year. We
were close to Indonesia in the survey and 3
times worse than Germany.

Bob
Dylan said it:

Democratic Party, Republican Party, BEACH Party!

Benghazi Eye Test:

Bachmann Hurts Economy:

KFC’s Secret Recipe Is Next:

What’s
Wrong Today:

Our politics are in an
ethical crisis. From Ian Welsh:

Your
morality is what makes you a good wife or husband, dad or mother, even a good
employee or boss to the people you know personally in your place of work.

Ethics is
what makes you a good politician. It is also what makes you a humane CEO. Whether you are a politician or a CEO, most of what you do will affect
people you don’t know, people who are simply statistics. 

Change
Social Security or welfare, and people will live or die, suffer or
prosper.  Change the tax structure, healthcare mandates, trade laws, infrastructure
spending—virtually everything politicians do means some people will win and
some people will lose. 

Our
political system ensures that politicians will do harm to people they don’t
know. But that doesn’t give them the right to protect the people they do know. If they protect their friends and family, they will act
unethically. In the Great Recession of 2008, millions of homeowners and
employees unknown to politicians were hurt and the people (companies) the politicians
and treasury officials did know were bailed out. 

Today’s politicians
also ignore future consequences: They refuse to build or repair infrastructure, to
invest in basic science or education. They refuse to deal with global warming. 
These decisions overwhelmingly affect people they don’t know: Odds are, any
individual bridge collapse won’t hit the politicians. Global warming will hurt
most of its victims in the future.  The rich and powerful in particular,
believe that they will be able to avoid the consequences of these things. Welsh concludes: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

So, our
politics are in an ethical crisis, while
capitalism is in both an ethical and moral crisis:

The current
structure of our economy is designed to impoverish people we don’t know. For the
rich this means cutting the wages of the middle class.  CEOs are obsessed
with “lowering costs” and making profits, and both of those are meant to
extract maximum value from people while giving them as little as possible in
wages, goods and services in return.

Capitalism was originally thought of as a materialistic, utilitarian philosophy
in which the alpha and omega was the maximization of aggregate
utility.

Somewhere along the way, the alpha and omega of capitalism seems to have
morphed from maximizing aggregate utility to maximizing profits for the tiny minority who
possess “capital.”

In April, Forbes
wrote an article comparing Costco with Walmart:

Meanwhile,
Costco’s primary competitor, Walmart, saw an anemic 1.2% rise in sales, while
other competitors such as J.C. Penny and Target experienced even greater
problems with their sales results.

What’s
Wrong Today:

From
Michael Klare at Tom
Dispatch:

Is it
possible that we’re witnessing the beginnings of a new Cold War in the Middle
East?

Here
is what we know:

On
Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon threatened the Russian Federation, saying that if Moscow followed through
on its plan to send the S-300 air defense system to Syria, Israel would bomb
the arrays. Since the systems will be accompanied by Russian experts, any
Israeli strike on them could well kill Russian personnel and create a crisis
between nuclear states not seen since India and Pakistan played atomic chicken
in 2002.

Who
is Moshe Yaalon? He is an Israeli Neo-con who was fired as Army Chief of Staff
in 2005 for opposing the Israeli withdrawal of settlements from the Gaza Strip.
He later joined the far right Likud Party. He has called the Palestinians a
“cancer” and said Israel had to consider killing Iranian president Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad.

In
short, he is a hothead, not what you would like to see as the defense minister
of a nuclear-armed state.

From
Reuters
this morning:

Israel
is afraid that the missiles could fall into the hands of opposition forces such
as the Al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front, and could be fired at civilian
Israeli jets. They should also be afraid that if the regime was on the verge of
falling, they might be transferred to Hezbollah and so constrain Israeli
freedom of movement in southern Lebanon. Finally, the Wrongologist was an air
defense missile unit commander during the Vietnam era. Air defense missiles can
also be very accurate ground-to-ground weapons and Israel must know that.   

The
S-300 has an operational range of 200km (120 miles), well over the distance
between Daraa in Syria and Israel’s Ben Gurion airport (133km or 80 miles),
meaning that the installation of S-300s at Daraa could potentially shoot down
planes landing at and taking off from Israel’s main airport. That is a threat.

The US Air Force knows the older
export versions of the S-300 that Russia sold to Greece. They know how to
defeat those. But the systems the Russians use today have had several upgrades
in their radars, electronic systems and have new missile engines. With the
S-300s being delivered now, any attempt to enforce a “no-fly zone” is
likely to start with lots of downed “western” (Israeli) jets and a
high casualty count.

So, this looks like a checkmate
move.

As
we reported yesterday,
Russia is determined to shore up the regime of Bashar al-Assad and strengthening
Syria’s air defenses is key to the regime’s survival. That strengthening does
not help against the rebel Free Syrian Army, which has no air force.  

Putin
took a very dim view of what NATO did in Libya and is determined to prevent a
repeat of that intervention against a client state of Russia’s. He is also
concerned that continued Israeli air strikes on Syria could weaken the fragile government
in Damascus.

If
Putin is to be taken seriously, he might call Israel’s bluff. At that point,
Yaalon will have to risk escalation with Russia, or quietly accept that Syria
is in the latter’s sphere of influence, not Tel Aviv’s.

Either
step will represent a big change in the geopolitics of the Middle East.

Given
that both Israel and Russia are nuclear states, and given the complete US
backing for Israel, conflict between those two is extremely dangerous for the US and for the
world.

What
is the US to do? Escalate further and risk widening the war throughout the
Middle East, including substantial Russian involvement? Stand down and stop
supplying additional weapons to the rebels in Syria?

How will the US keep the reins on Israel once S-300s are operational in Syria?

What are
the other alternatives?

Russia
looks like it could be the last man standing in Syria. And rebuilding this
quagmire will be up to them.

Let
‘em have it. It will be their new Afghanistan, or Chechnya.

What ‘s
Wrong Today:

Sen.
John McCain (R-AZ) visited Syria over the Memorial Day weekend. According to
the The Daily
Beast, he made the
trip from Turkey into Syria alongside Gen. Salam Idris, who leads the Supreme Military
Council of the Free Syrian Army and accompanied McCain as they met with rebel
leaders from throughout the country.

Idris told
the Daily Beast:

McCain on Twitter:

Remember John McCain strolling through a Baghdad market in a
bulletproof vest accompanied by one hundred soldiers, three
Blackhawks, and two Apache Gunships? Well,
he’s now become a Syrian expert.

Meanwhile,
the Masters of War are building the global case that the Assad regime must
go as soon as possible. There was the sarin gas use, possibly against the
rebels, or possibly by the rebels.

France
worked to get the European Union to
lift its ban on sending weapons to the Syrian theater of the global war
on chaos. They succeeded last night.

In
response, yesterday’s news brought
this headline:

That means
sending S-300 Air Defense Missiles to Syria. The S-300 is a powerful weapon
with a range of up to 125 miles and the capability to track down and strike
multiple targets simultaneously. The weapon would be a quantum leap in Syria’s
air defense capability, particularly against Israel’s recent bombing runs, or
the McCain desire to establish a “no-fly” zone.

CBS reported that Deputy
Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Moscow isn’t going to abandon the
deal despite strong Western and Israeli criticism. He states the air defense
weapons can’t be used in the civil war against the opposition, which doesn’t
have aircraft. Ryabkov said:

Further
complicating the conflict is Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah’s decision to support
Assad militarily, which was formally announced Saturday. Hassan Nasrallah’s announcement
that it will use Hezbollah’s military power on the side of the Syrian
government brings a new dimension to the fight. It is likely that Hezbollah’s role is to control the supply
lines to and from Syria, not to fight rebels on the ground.

This is
turning into a bigger mess than anyone imagined it would be. Are we again
heading toward the inevitable?

The key
global actors (Russia, US) continue to circle each other regarding what to do
in Syria. There are a few assumptions that are seen as universal truths:

• The regime will be
  eventually be deposed of by freedom-loving Syrians

• International intervention
  in Syria is inevitable: Sooner or later the free world will be forced to take
  action to save the country’s civilian population

• “Assad must go” has
  been the US viewpoint until Kerry met with Russia earlier in the month, when we
  modified that position

Really? Is any of this true? McCain and
the other Masters of War have a learning disability. Think of all the data we
have on Islam, Muslim groups and the tribal cultures in the Middle East,
including data presented here,
here
and here
by the Wrongologist.

Dexter Filkins in
the New Yorker
underscored the complexity and potential pitfalls of arming a rebellion that is
fractured and potentially extreme in nature. In recent months, with urging from
the US and its allies, a large number of the estimated 70,000 rebel fighters
have been brought together under a joint military command, a coalition of 30
armed groups, which American officials imagine as a nascent national army.

Still, Filkins
reports that Mr. Obama has little
confidence in the rebels, arguing that they are ideologically
fractured, that the rebellion lacks a coherent structure, and that individual
groups would be impossible to control and would probably fight each other. Some
of the guns, he believes, will ultimately make their way to Islamist groups.

According
to The
NYT in April, the overwhelming majority of the rebels are fighting for an
Sharia-based Islamic republic.

Moreover,
citizens of most of Syria’s neighbors, especially Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan are
now fighting in Syria, acquiring skills that their home countries fear will be
turned against them when they return. And the problem isn’t confined to Arab
countries: Hundreds of European
Muslims are also fighting in Syria, where they are being further radicalized
and learning military skills that will make them serious terror risks when they
return.

So why is
Russia so solid in their support of Assad? There has been a parade of senior
diplomats to Moscow, seeking to find common ground in the Syria crisis. First,
US Secretary of State John Kerry, then British Prime Minister David Cameron,
next Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and most recently, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

These
leaders see Russia as the key to resolving the Syria quandary.

But to get
Russia to cooperate on any stabilization plan, the United States and its allies
will have to understand Russia’s significant interests in the Mediterranean
region.

What are Russia’s strategic interests?

Syria buys Russian arms,
maintains the sole Russian naval base in the Mediterranean (in the Syrian port
city of Tartus), has energy development deals with Russia in both oil and
natural gas, and is closely allied with Iran, a major Russian arms customer.
Iran is also a big customer for Russian natural gas. From Reuters:

We
should have great respect for McCain’s Vietnam service and imprisonment.
However, McCain and his ilk believe America’s Exceptionalism will trump local
culture, beat back factionalism and create democratic societies through sheer
force of military will.

That isn’t America anymore, if it ever was America. We were wounded by the
neo-con wars started by Mr. Bush and continued by Mr. Obama. Fighting the wrong
wars at the wrong time in the Middle East has been our financial and military
undoing.

We
do not presently have the financial resources or military readiness to conduct
another long war in the Middle East. Our priorities should be elsewhere. We have
played the game wrong from the planning phase, we can’t control the situation,
we do not even truly understand it. 

We need to take a longer view on the global political environment and take the time to restore
our financial and military might.

Hang
up your spurs John.

Memorial
Day was originally known as Decoration Day and was
perhaps our most solemn holiday. It was established by a
General Order issued by Gen. John Logan, the national commander of the Grand Army of the
Republic. It was first observed on May 30, 1868, when flowers were
placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington
National Cemetery.

But we now see it as the beginning of summer….celebrated with parades and
picnics and fun and games and three-day sales. The Wrongologist and Ms. Oh So Right will attend a wedding.

The
change began after Congress passed the National Holiday
Act of 1971, which made the day into a three-day weekend.

Here is a photo of the Wrongologist’s father, taken in France during WWII. He was Gen. Patton’s photographer:

Let’s come together to honor those who fought, particularly those who gave their all.

Benjamin Franklin, not necessarily in an eerie foreshadowing of the efforts of John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, Michael Mukasey and Eric Holder, but appropriate for Memorial Day Weekend:

Remember those who died to protect our freedoms:

Sen. Inhofe (R-OK) twists his position:

On the way to the Congressional Hearings:

New Normal on Graduation Day:

What’s
Wrong Today:

A new book,
War
Comes to Garmser: Thirty Years of Conflict on the Afghan Frontier by former
State Department officer Carter Malkasian takes a penetrating look at a
district in southern Afghanistan.

From the Washington
Post in 2011, about Malkasian and the Garmser district:

The WaPo
continues:

Fluent in
Pashto, Malkasian interviewed elders, officials, notables, villagers, American soldiers,
and even many Taliban. His book chronicles the Garmser district from rebellions
against the communists in 1979 through to the present day.

He speaks
about three crucial themes that show why our effort to nation-build in
Afghanistan failed. They are: administrative competence, tribal politics, and
control of land. It was our failure to understand their historical interplay
that has doomed our efforts from the start.

He reviews
how, in the late ‘70s, the communists brought schooling, land reform, and an
official presence to the district. This led to resistance and then to open
rebellion from those who Malkasian calls the notables (elders, landowners) who
lost land and power, and from mullahs who resented non-religious education. In
the course of the war, many notables were killed or went into exile, and the
mullahs, previously a politically unimportant group, rose to prominence in
local affairs.

The Soviet
withdrawal in 1989 meant victory for the mujahedin bands but it also brought
infighting and chaos.

Malkasian
shows how this situation played out in Kandahar (east of Garmser) where a
tightly-knit group of former mujahedeen and students – the emerging Taliban –
suppressed warring bands, established their rule, and determined to take over
the country.

The Taliban’s rise in Garmser was based
more on politics than on warfare. In the absence of a unified opposition or
appealing alternative, Garmser fell with very little fighting.

The first
Taliban government found support from the younger mullahs, who became teachers, judges and administrators, and from the poor, who benefited from the communist
land reform, which was overturned by notables, but reinstated by the Taliban.

But the
Taliban’s appeal declined. Enforcement of austere religious codes and
conscription for the interminable war against the Northern Alliance were
unpopular. The mullahs knew nothing about getting products to markets, building
bridges and roads, or maintaining the canals that run through the district.
Education and healthcare saw no improvement.

When the US-backed
Northern Alliance swept south after 9/11, the Taliban fled without a fight into
Pakistan and the old Garmser notables returned to power – and with them came bickering,
delay, and indecision. Local government was often inept and corrupt, leaving
many residents to recall the Taliban as at least evenhanded and based on
external law, not personal or tribal interest.

Efforts at reconciliation were minimal: many mullahs were
harassed and beaten, and land was taken back from the poor.

Regrouping
in Pakistan, the Taliban saw Garmser as ripe for retaking, though not for
attacking. Mullahs were sent to agitate against Garmser notables and settle
disputes independent of the government. Cadres later came to recruit and train
local youths, who rallied to the mullahs’ denunciations of government
corruption and its reliance on foreign troops.

The District
government could not counter the growing threat. There was insufficient elite
consensus to form a strategy against the better organized Taliban. There were
no American, British, or Afghan troops in the district. By the autumn of 2006,
with only sporadic opposition, Garmser was again in Taliban hands.

The second
Taliban government found support from tribes that felt slighted by the former
district governor, from people who had been wronged by his administrators, and
from the poor who, under the Taliban, had their own land – the same land that
the communists had given them, that the notables had taken back, that the first
Taliban government had returned to them, and that the notables had again taken back.

The
Taliban’s old failings recurred in their second government. Economic
development remained weak, education worsened. The first Taliban government had
made schools chiefly religious in nature; the second closed them altogether.

In late
2008, the US Marines established control in Garmser. The Taliban were driven
far to the south of Garmser and then into Pakistan.

Malkasian,
pg 81: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

The remaining
guerrillas still plant IED’s and intimidate or assassinate government officials.
Most ominously, many locals still think of the Taliban as fair administrators
and guarantors of land for the poor.

Today,
schools are reopened. The economy is doing better; average income is up. Tribal
militias have been integrated with the national police force, reducing the
potential for warlordism. Despite signs of progress, Malkasian notes that Garmser’s
future is in danger as American forces withdraw, and local confidence in their future
is again falling.

With
several hundred fighters just across the Pakistani border, the Taliban are
beginning to reassert their presence in Garmser, increasingly by infiltrating
the police and army.

Most
critically, Malkasian reports that the hope that absent US troops, there would
be greater cooperation between the district government, tribal elders and
landowners, has thus far not been borne out. Without such cooperation, the
Taliban will likely take over the district, just as they did twice before in
the last twenty years.

The
“counterinsurgency” (COIN) model espoused by Gen. Petraeus is a form
of muscular colonialism applied in the 21st Century, allowing President Karzai
time to try to control a country that he couldn’t control.

In
place of Petraeus’ 50,000 foot view, Malkasian gives us a micro view in one
Afghan district, where the insurgents, tribes, government officials and
Americans clash, conspire and compete to install a Taliban, a tribal, or a Kabul-centric
government dominance, respectively.

Where
was this analysis when Mr. Bush turned from Iraq back to Afghanistan?

Where
was this analysis when Mr. Obama “surged” our troops (and awesome civil
servants like Mr. Malkasian) without a true exit strategy and (apparently) very
little hope of making a true difference on the ground?

A government that is losing to an
insurgency isn’t being out-fought, it’s being out-governed (Bernard Fall)