Go to my other blog

I've been unable to run two blogs at the same time so I'm shutting this one down. As in, there will be no more updates here in the foreseeable future. All my English-language stuff, articles, etc, will still be posted on to my other blog. Hungarian-speakers should also watch that space at http://drotontul.blog.hu

The Petraeus strategy up close

American troops in Afghanistan

The Petraeus strategy up close

Slow and bloody nation-building in Kandahar province

Oct 7th 2010 | ARGHANDAB DISTRICT, KANDAHAR

LAME, toothless and 80 years old, Haji Beardad is not exactly imposing. Yet the American soldiers in the northern Arghandab valley in Kandahar province court him assiduously, promising a school and a mosque for his village of Kuhak. For Haji Beardad, frail as he looks, is an important ally. Since he told the Americans that his people would co-operate with Afghan security forces and keep watch for outsiders, attacks in Kuhak have dropped sharply. “I’ve told everybody in the village to report if someone comes to visit or we’ll have him arrested,” he says.

Continue reading here.

Underwater Adventures and Other Summer Fun in Hungary

You could put it down to sunstroke, but, no, for Hungarians, credulous paranoia is a year-round affliction.

Transitions Online, 21 July 2010

When it comes to Hungarians, bless them, the now-tiresome cliché has been that they are pessimistic, brooding, or cynical.

Incidentally, all of these are true, mixed with a weird and twisted view of the world that sees plots, subplots, and hidden motives everywhere. These are confusions typical of societies with a long history of autocracy and little openness. Distrust breeds only distrust.

Conspiracy theories of all kind have always had a wildly enthusiastic following here, from those pertaining to why America went to war in Iraq to how the other fellow has made his money to what’s “behind” the latest swing in the value of the forint.

Some weeks ago it was widely debated whether a batch of careless and plain-stupid comments by governing-party politicos that sent the forint tumbling was actually a clever move to enrich party funds by shorting the currency. You never know what will hit you next.

(Or rather, yes, you do. The other day a reviewer said that the latest Roman Polanski movie, in which the British prime minister is in the pay of the CIA, is a “realistic” piece of work and that – wait for it – Polanski “treated his viewers as adults.”)

The point is that people here don’t so much rub the side of their nose knowingly as hit themselves in the face with a shovel.

More worryingly, the tendency to believe even the wildest stuff if it confirms an essentially dark and Kafkaesque world view seems just as widespread among the educated governing classes. A very high-ranking former defense official explained to me the other day that the Americans were actually in Afghanistan because they were trying to “surround” Russia with their bases and because this way they were closer to North Korea.

I briefly wondered, if the war were in North Korea, would he then say that it was really about trying to get closer to Afghanistan?

Another official shared with me a popular, and completely unverifiable, Afghan rumor that American helicopters were shipping weapons to the Taliban in the north of the country in the dead of night (when else?). When I expressed mild skepticism he asked me gently, and with what looked like pity, whether I had not seen the Nicholas Cage movie Lord of War in which the protagonist sells arms to unsavory third-world dictators with tacit American approval.

How, I wondered, do these people make decisions? Sane decisions, that is.

The really interesting thing about paranoia masquerading as world-weary cynicism is that the subject is also somehow prone to believing the wildest nonsense – if it only surpasses a certain threshold of implausibility.

In this sense the arming-the-Taliban story would also qualify. But that’s not what I mean. The common trait of these latter-type stories is that they are good news. The subject doesn’t go: gotcha! Rather, he is pleasantly surprised. There is good in this world, after all.

It’s as if people who feel trapped by their own warped and pessimistic reading of reality will occasionally make a desperate dash for the door, secretly hoping that a better world lies beyond.

Insane land-development ideas seem especially popular in Hungary at the moment. Massive golf or race courses with casinos that never get built sort of thing. Planning numbers that will numb your brain. By developers who have previously failed to deliver, with dodgy go-betweens with criminal records. You know the type of story I mean.

Interestingly, most of these have foreign investors behind them, which seems to lend them an aura of credibility, although why is difficult to fathom. Those American arms-dealers are foreigners too, after all.

Take, for example, this recent story from Kiskunhalas, in the south of the country, where a developer said a fortnight ago that he planned a new underwater luxury hotel. The hotel, specializing in wellness (what else?), would be four stories high, three of which would be under water. Salt water.

This was picked up by the entire Hungarian press as a plausible piece of news.

An underwater luxury hotel? Because there is a salt lake there? Good lord.

Why people would fall for the umpteenth city-sized and blatantly crazy development scam in a country that suspects a dark motive behind almost everything is hard to understand.

Is it that the paranoid man will, on occasion, hoping against hope, light out for the sunny uplands? If so, it’s a pity that all this confusion will inevitably lead him to stumble over his own leg and bang his head against something.

Or is it simply that we will now believe everything because possibilities have become really and truly endless, the wonders astonishing?

I mean, have you seen Dubai?

(And have you seen what’s become of it after the bubble burst? Well then.)

Anyway, the latest on the Kiskunhalas story is that the city development office has no idea what all this is about and has never heard of such a thing. Index.hu, a newspaper that took the trouble to investigate, reported that officials reacted to the story “with uproarious laughter.”

There is some sanity here still.

Democracy in Afghanistan

Democracy in Afghanistan

Wise council

Village-development councils are taking on more serious roles

Mar 25th 2010 | BEHRE KAMAL | From The Economist print edition

IT TOOK a while to sort out Jama Khan’s estate, a small plot at the foot of the Hindu Kush. Endless wars had made refugees of the whole village. What government they had was remote, slow and corrupt. And so Jama Khan’s land lay fallow for 30 years after his death, his family squabbling over his inheritance all the while.

Until, at long last, the village itself intervened. In the absence of formal government, and even of a traditional council of respected elders, or shura, the local-development council was left to take charge. After consulting the village mullah, it allotted half the land to Jama Khan’s brother, with half to be divided between his two sisters; for Islamic law says a woman shall inherit half of a man’s share. Thus the matter was resolved.

As Afghanistan’s bloody insurgency has worsened over the past few years, critics at home and abroad complain that it was a mistake for the West to try planting such an alien institution as democracy in this rugged land. The debacle of the 2009 elections sharpened their scepticism.

The ostensibly democratic government in Kabul is indeed a mess. But there are signs that in quiet corners of the country, local democracy is making strides. Development councils, established in many villages in 2004 to manage the national government’s development programmes and staffed by locally elected citizens, have flourished in many places. The National Solidarity Programme (NSP) finances small-scale projects—water pumps, small dams, hydropower generators—chosen by the councils themselves. The idea is that locals know their own needs better than do remote ministries and foreign agencies. Annual audits, in which the books are checked publicly and the councillors subjected to questioning by other villagers, are said to be lively affairs. By last April the NSP had spent $593m this way, an average of $33,000 per village per year.

In some places the system has become so popular that after the annual funding runs out the villagers find other sources to petition for further projects—foreign NGOs for example—or even pool resources among themselves. In Behre Kamal, in Baghlan province, locals raised $16,000 to build a mosque. In nearby Markaza Khinjan the local council launched women’s education courses. “We’re not just spending the government’s money. We’re planning for our future,” says Abdul Jabar, the council’s chairman, beaming with pride.

Councils have begun picking up responsibilities that were abandoned by the government. In a country where many official institutions are paralysed by incompetence and corruption, there is an obvious void. When development councils have stepped in, they have sometimes pushed aside the shuras, which tend to be composed of the richer and more powerful villagers. Jama Khan’s relatives had tried to get the district court—three hours’ drive each way—to settle their inheritance dispute. But the case dragged on endlessly, the judge demanding bribes from both parties. In the end, they turned to the one body they trusted. “This is better than a faraway court. We live here, we know these things better,” explains Mahmad Azar, Behre Kamal’s council chair.

These councils are now settling ordinary criminal cases as well as family disputes. Markaza Khinjan’s council stopped the practice of using women as payment in blood feuds, with guidance from the Aga Khan Foundation, an NGO that trains many of the councils. The foundation has praised the councils’ responsiveness to local needs. It also suggests that the rigour of standing for election may have helped focus the minds of the councillors.

To be sure, elections alone are no guarantee of anything. Corruption may become a greater problem. And some councils have been hijacked by local strongmen just the same. But even that is not all bad: it suggests the bullies are starting to recognise the councils’ power. In the life of Afghanistan’s villages even a modicum of democracy is worth something.

Garmsir, Now Zad 2.

Operation Mushtarak

All together now

A military offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan shows some early success

Feb 16th 2010 | KABUL | From The Economist online

AP

OPERATION Mushtarak, which was launched on Saturday February 13th as a joint effort between Afghan and NATO forces, has so far proven to be a moderately successful affair. The goal was to clear Marja, a big opium-producing town and the main Taliban stronghold in the southern province of Helmand. The territory was well suited to defenders, who could have taken advantage of an intricate web of irrigation ditches, small alleys winding between mudbrick houses and mounds of earth between the canals. One American commander described it as the worst terrain on earth, ideal for slowing down the advance of even the most powerful army. Yet the fighting has, reportedly, been limited.

The biggest allied offensive in Afghanistan since 2001 is a part of the recent Western push to turn the war against the Taliban. Operation Mushtarak—“Together” in Dari Persian—makes use of some 15,000 allied troops, roughly half of them Afghans, most of the rest American Marines and British soldiers. By Tuesday the offensive had succeeded in putting NATO and Afghan forces in control of most of the target area, according to coalition officials. But occasional fighting continues between militants and coalition troops who are moving from house to house. The danger of explosives is particularly severe. Clearing the town entirely could take weeks.

It is problematic that civilians have suffered in an operation that is, in part, designed to win support from local people. So far at least 15 non-combatants have been killed, 12 of them when a coalition rocket missed its target (although Afghan officials say three of the victims may have been militants). At least four NATO soldiers have died, three in a bomb explosion and one in a gun battle. And at least 30 insurgents have died. More than a 1,000 Marjan families have streamed into Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, refugees from the well-advertised operation. The government says it is looking after them, though a local human-rights group says supplies have not been forthcoming. Amir Mohammad, a Marja refugee interviewed in Kabul, said the Taliban had tried to stop people leaving.

Marine commanders say that the insurgents have shown less resistance than had been anticipated. Many are believed to have fled in advance of the invasion, although American forces have come under fire from snipers and there have been reports of day-long gun battles and attempted suicide attacks. As expected, the biggest obstacle is hidden explosives: roads are mined, houses are booby-trapped. The roads into Marja, especially, are dangerous. British forces, given the task of taking Nad Ali, a town north-east of Marja, have been quicker to reach their target.

Marja, a town of nearly a 100,000 people, had previously been cleared in May when a four-day operation killed dozens of militants and saw narcotics seized. But NATO forces withdrew after the battle and the Taliban slipped back. By the end of last year American commanders estimated that Marja was home to as many as 1,000 enemy fighters and served as the insurgents' capital.

This time the coalition claims that it intends to stay. Under a new doctrine of “clear, hold, and build” it plans to patrol the roads of the area, build new schools and clinics, establish decent local government and create jobs. But convincing locals that this will really happen will not be easy. Many of them support the Taliban, if only out of fear and an expectation that, in the long run, the insurgents will be back. NATO forces are for now disinclined to destroy the poppy crop, which provides a livelihood for many residents.

Nonetheless, many locals will be happy to be rid of the Taliban's heavy-handed rule. Haji Wali Jan, a local MP, says the militants were taking money and food from people to “defend” them from the infidel government. But previous operations in Helmand have shown that clearing, bloody as it sometimes gets, is the easy part. Insurgents who melt away at the first push, tend to slip back to mount a bombing campaign later. This winter has already been bloodier for NATO than any since the war began, although that is partly the result of recent troop increases. An incompetent and corrupt Afghan administration, a mostly hopeless police force, and little economic development have so far ensured that any gains in security remain tenuous at best.

Garmsir, Now Zad

There are some more pictures here. Click to enlarge. Originally they appeared in the World Politics Review.

Helmand hath less fury?

The Economist, February 11th

A faint glimmer from Afghanistan’s most troubled province

CAPTAIN Jason Brezler of the US Marine Corps had never imagined he might spend his tour of duty chasing truant children to school. At least not in Now Zad, one of Afghanistan’s most infamous battle zones, a place destroyed so conclusively by years of fighting between British forces and Taliban insurgents that its centre is now little more than a pile of rubble. Yet here he is, shouting gamely after the little devils while walking through the bazaar, unescorted but for a single marine and one Afghan policeman. He stops to chat with shopkeepers who have just started returning to a market that had stood empty for years. It was recently secured by the marines.

"I have to thank the Americans more than my own father," says a beaming Muhammad Yunus, the very first man to have returned to Now Zad. He is working as a day labourer, paid by the marines, clearing away rubble alongside 500 other men. Even the video rental store has reopened, albeit with only one movie. The pharmacy seems to be well stocked; it even carries Viagra.

An important shift may be under way in Helmand, Afghanistan’s most troubled province. An influx of thousands of American troops last year has helped push the Taliban out of much of the Helmand river valley. Higher troop levels mean that hard-won battles are no longer followed by retreat behind safe lines but instead by stepped-up patrols everywhere. Previously hostile areas, such as Garmser in the south, Nawa in the middle and Now Zad in the north are now controlled by American and Afghan national forces. Any day a new offensive is expected to be launched into Marja, the last big population centre to remain under Taliban control. General Stanley McChrystal, the coalition commander in Afghanistan, said recently that he thinks the situation is no longer deteriorating.

An important measure of success in the recently cleared areas is the willingness of their residents to co-operate in the face of Taliban intimidation. With coalition forces increasingly out and about, it seems that many locals are no longer afraid to be seen as supporting the government. Now Zad’s citizens are returning, despite a prohibition by the Taliban. In Garmser most roadside bombs are now found by the marines—acting on local tip-offs—before they can do their damage. This is all the more remarkable in a place without a mobile phone network: Afghan informants have to report in person.

None of this means the war is being won. There may be less fighting, but the Taliban have not disappeared: they simply plant roadside bombs instead of setting ambushes. Coalition casualties were actually higher in January than a year before, though this is partly a function of the increased troop numbers (soon to rise to nearly 30,000 in Helmand). Open fighting may well resume in the spring as blooming poppy fields offer better cover to the militants. Garmser suffered bloody riots in January after allegations that American troops had desecrated the Koran. The marines say that was only a rumour, provocation spread by an increasingly desperate enemy. In any case, distrust of the foreigners still runs high.

More importantly, it is unclear whether there are sustainable structures in place to keep the militancy tamped down. On the one hand, USAID is promoting agricultural projects in Nawa that might wean farmers off poppy growing. Falling opium prices, due to a glut on the market, mean that wheat is now a viable alternative. Schools and a clinic have been built in Garmser, and two miles of road have been paved. But such development seems sporadic, ad hoc and very much foreign-run. Captain Brezler is forced to use his own discretionary funds to pay local labourers. He reckons about a tenth of his workers are former Taliban fighters who have found other sources of income as the tide of war has turned. No one seems to know who will pick up the tab after the marines have gone.

And while the marines speak highly of the local governments, both in Now Zad and Garmser, the locals seem less sure. There have been reports of police stealing money from labourers in Now Zad and beating those who complained. The Afghan security forces are weak and under-equipped—and yet necessary to securing recently cleared areas, even with the upgraded Western presence. These are the very conditions that have fed the insurgency and kept it growing. Neyad Muhammad, an elder of Now Zad, does not sound hopeful. "When the Americans leave, so will I," he says.

Gambling on Afghan Security Forces in Helmand

World Politics Review, February 11th

HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan -- For Gen. Nick Carter, commander of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, and Gen. Larry Nicholson, commander of the U.S. Marines in Helmand, taking a walk late last month in the Garmsir district center's bazaar without a flak jacket was no big deal.

The northern bit of the district, known as the Snake's Head, has been relatively stable for about a year -- unusual for the troubled province of Helmand, which is home to a massive insurgency that makes it a dangerous place to visit even in heavily armored vehicles.

But perhaps the most noteworthy thing about the generals' promenade is that security in the area is no longer provided by NATO troops. That task has already been transferred to Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), mainly the army and police.

While the ANSF has taken care of security in Kabul, the nation's capital, and other relatively calm areas since 2008, better-equipped and better-trained Western forces are generally needed to secure volatile areas in the east and south of the country. But security in the Snake's Head recently became the responsibility of the ANSF, with about 500 Afghan soldiers and policemen currently stationed in and around the district center, and about 7,000 in Helmand altogether.

Transferring security duties to the ANSF is now a central plank of NATO's strategy in Afghanistan. Even with some 20,000 Western troops in Helmand alone, there just aren't enough to both clear and hold ground, meaning that NATO must gradually hand over territory to ANSF forces after clearing it of insurgents.

Tenuous Handover

To be sure, the security handover in the Snake's Head isn't nearly complete. Although there are no longer any Marine rifle companies there, about 400 Marines remain, fulfilling various other duties, such as training and mentoring. They are heavily armed, with air support as close as 15 minutes away, providing a backstop to the Afghan forces if something goes wrong.

Marines also still patrol together with the ANSF, at least once a day. And during their tour, Gens. Carter and Nicholson were protected not just by ANSF personnel, but by American and British troops as well as European private security contractors.

And the Snake's Head is not without tensions. In mid-January, bloody riots broke out over rumors that American troops had desecrated the Quran. (The coalition denies the allegation, claiming the rumor was Taliban propaganda.)

But Marine commanders held even this incident up as proof of the ANSF's growing ability to provide security for their own country. Although Marine snipers shot and killed at least one armed Afghan when the rioters attacked their compound near the Garmsir district center, they say security was eventually restored by the ANSF in cooperation with local elders.

"We never even stepped out of our compound," says Gunnery Sgt. John Leroy of the 2-2 Marines, who is assigned to train and mentor the local Afghan police. He lives and works with them on their compound with 17 other Marines.

Gunnery Sgt. Leroy says the police are for the most part self-sufficient, but adds that they are still unable to devise detailed patrol plans for themselves. He said their biggest problem was logistics, and that they were often short on fuel.

Most of the Garmsir police have already been through an 8-week American training program. But many policemen elsewhere are put on duty without any training whatsoever - and it shows: It is not unusual to see policemen wandering around with the safeties of their AK-47s switched off, and corruption persists.

As for the army, generally acknowledged to be head and shoulders above the police, plenty of questions also remain, especially when it comes to logistics, equipment and discipline. Interestingly, most Marines who have served in Iraq compare the Afghan soldiers very favorably with the Iraqi Army.

"It's a good, committed fighting force, and they are determined to develop," says Lt. Troy Van Zuckermann, an army mentor with the 2-2 Marines. But if most U.S. officers sound quite positive, the lower-ranking Marines generally held less favorable opinions, while views about the Afghans' discipline vary widely.

The Afghans themselves acknowledge their shortcomings, but they mostly complain about their equipment. "We have nothing. No armored trucks, no air force, no proper accommodation, no night-vision equipment, no GPS, no maps," says 1st Lt. Abdul Alim of the 4th battalion, 205th Corps of the Afghan army, stationed in Garmsir. "Only ancient radios and old M16s that you have to clean all the time, otherwise they jam."

Meanwhile, desertion is a major problem, with up to 20 percent of the army AWOL at any given time. This is not entirely surprising. Even though pay was recently raised to $160 a month ($240 with combat bonus), it remains low. And because soldiers are routinely deployed well beyond the target date of six months -- and sometimes as long as 11 months -- many simply choose to disappear, pushing the attrition rate to about 3,000 per month.

It is anybody's guess if these forces can stand up to the Taliban unassisted. But some American officers hope that cash-for-works programs can turn enough people away from the Taliban so that the Afghan army will never really have to face them. The strategy is based on the belief that most low-level insurgent fighters are fighting for money, not ideology.

Cpt. Jason Brezler, Lima company, 3rd battalion, 4th Marine regiment, in Now Zad, Helmand, estimates that up to 15 percent of the 500 men he pays to clear the rubble away in Now Zad are former Taliban fighters. "If you can give these people work, they won't go back to fight, and then the Taliban is dead," says Brezler. "Why would they go back to fight? For Allah's name? Come on."

A good part of NATO's strategy depends on Brezler being right.

Afghans

These photos were mostly taken in Now Zad and Garmsir districts, Helmand, Afghanistan.