‘The government does nothing for me’ - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

‘The government does nothing for me’

HUTAL, Afghanistan — The cocks were still crowing and the rising sun had yet to banish the chill from the air, but Blackwatch Company’s clearing operation was already going well.

A couple of kilometers to the north, other elements from 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, had struck the first insurgent-laid bomb of the day, one that would cost a soldier his leg. But in the village of Hutal — a maze-like warren of narrow alleys, mud-walled compounds and lush green marijuana fields — Blackwatch’s infantry and civil affairs troops went from home to home, searching buildings and conducting a mini-census, questioning the heads of the households on their tribal affiliation and gathering information on the needs of the village.

The locals welcomed the soldiers warmly and seemed to speak freely. It was basic population-centric counterinsurgency, designed to help the troops fill gaps in their knowledge of the area while disrupting Taliban operations. But one important ingredient that most experts deem essential to a successful counterinsurgency campaign was largely missing: Afghan security forces.

Afghan National Army troops were supposed to play a role in the Nov. 17 mission, but they failed to show up by the time Blackwatch’s Stryker vehicles rolled out of Combat Outpost Rath a little after 5 a.m., a situation that soldiers here say is not entirely out of character for ANA. Eighteen of their Afghan National Police counterparts had at least turned up, but, typically, they showed almost no interest in participating in — or even listening to — the conversations with the locals.

The situation captured in a microcosm what U.S. officers here say is their greatest challenge: In a war in which they are trying to build popular support for the Afghan government, that government is almost totally absent from the lives of the population here in Maywand district, at the western edge of Kandahar province.

“The Afghan government does nothing for me or for the village,” said Sher Mohammed, a 22-year-old mechanic, through an interpreter. Asked what services he would like to see the government provide, he ticked off a list: fixing the irrigation systems for the fields, installing electricity, providing more schools and establishing security.

Like other villagers, Zia Khan, a 46-year-old teacher, responded with a dismissive wave of his hand when asked what benefit he and his neighbors derived from the Afghan government.

“None,” he said, via an interpreter. He remarked pointedly on the absence of the ANA and the ANP from the village, especially at night, when “the Taliban come and demand food.” The villagers had little choice but to comply with the Taliban’s demands, Khan said. “They have weapons; we don’t.”

The lack of any effective, trusted Afghan government presence in Maywand — a 3,195-square-kilometer patch of desert and impoverished farmland with no big towns, only one paved road and a population variously estimated at between 55,000 and 80,000 — has left a void that the Taliban have been only too willing to fill. The insurgents have established a shadow government and intimidated the locals into silence.

The district has become “Taliban central,” according to Capt. Pat Brundage, the intelligence officer for Task Force Legion, which is built around 2-1 Infantry and has Maywand as its area of operations.

“The Taliban have owned Maywand for a long, long time,” said Lt. Col. Jeff French, commander of 2-1 Infantry and TF Legion.

The district straddles Highway 1, the economic artery that circles Afghanistan. When the roughly 700-strong TF Legion assumed the Maywand mission in mid-September, it did so with strict orders to make the highway a priority. “We were told in no uncertain terms that our primary mission is to secure Highway 1,” said Maj. Dave Abrahams, TF Legion’s executive officer.

Instead of limiting itself to patrolling the highway, TF Legion has embarked on a classic counterinsurgency campaign. In French’s view, they hadn’t a moment to spare. “The sand is slipping through the hourglass on Afghanistan” and his soldiers “know this is it,” the battalion commander said. “They are part of the effort to either turn it around in Afghanistan or lose the war.”

From the moment they became the principal coalition force in Maywand, French and TF Legion set about undermining the Taliban’s hold over the population, using information operations and combat operations to loosen the insurgents’ grip while trying to leverage the mobility conferred by their Stryker vehicles, which can traverse the flat desert terrain with ease.

While French’s task force tries to conduct a traditional, population-centric counterinsurgency, in which the goals are to protect the population, separate the insurgents from the population and persuade the population to support the Afghan government, that approach is contingent on having government institutions in place that play a positive role in the people’s lives. However, the Afghan government is almost completely absent from the lives of the people of Maywand.

“There are absolutely no government services that are functioning,” said Capt. Casey Thoreen, commander of Blackwatch Company at Combat Outpost Rath in Hutal. Thoreen is the battalion’s principal interlocutor with the local representatives of the Afghan government: the district chief, the police chief, the ANA leadership and the local head of Afghan’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security.

“The people need to look at the government and ANSF [Afghan national security forces] and have some confidence in their ability to exist in the long term, and right now, they don’t,” Thoreen said.

In order for the counterinsurgency campaign against the Taliban to succeed in Maywand, the Afghan government needs to provide “some kind of functioning government that the people will at some point support,” Thoreen said. “It has to be responsive to the people’s needs, it has to provide some kind of essential services to the people. There’s no power here, there’s no centralized water system.”

The real weakness of the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in Maywand is “there’s no justice system,” Abrahams said. “The last judge was killed and he hasn’t been replaced.”

The Taliban shadow government is filling the vacuum. “There are Taliban courts, there are Taliban judges, and they are adjudicating differences between families and tribes, and giving out punishment,” Thoreen said. “There are Taliban jails.”

“The Taliban provide a very responsive justice system, especially when it comes to punishment,” French said, noting that if a local took an issue to a shadow government official for adjudication, he would get a response in less than 48 hours.

Thoreen cited a case where a local man complained to the ANP that his son had been beaten up by a neighbor. The ANP’s response was “we don’t care — what are we going to do about it?” Thoreen said. So the man took his case to the Taliban instead.

“The Taliban went and arrested the guy [and] determined punishment for him,” Thoreen said.

But before even basic government services like the provision of justice can be established, there has to be security.

“The most important thing the government could give us is security,” said Zia Khan, the teacher Thoreen’s troops encountered Nov. 17 during their clearing operation. “If we had security, I could do everything else myself.”

But although the locals look to coalition forces to provide that security, such a task is beyond Task Force Legion, according to Thoreen. “That requires an effective and functional ANSF that’s out doing patrols beyond just the bazaar.”

U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine holds that the police are often the most important front-line force. But in Maywand, that force is corrupt, undermanned, poorly trained and distrusted, according to Thoreen.

“They’ve become kind of local thugs,” Thoreen said. “They steal, they coerce, they tax people, they set up checkpoints. They don’t actually do anything for the people.”

The checkpoints on Highway 1 represent a particularly egregious and hated abuse of police power. There are typically twice as many police at the checkpoints as there are at the police district headquarters, because of the possibilities for extortion, Thoreen said. “They charge every vehicle that comes through a certain amount of money,” he said.

“We have a lot of bad guys in the ANP,” agreed Haji Obidullah Bawari, the Afghan government’s district chief for Maywand. Speaking through an interpreter, he said some police are heroin addicts and that others smoke hashish.

“We trust the ANA, not the ANP,” Sher Mohammed said, echoing a view Thoreen has heard repeatedly. “People do not respect the ANP,” Thoreen said. “They’re scared of the ANP.”

The ANP force in Maywand is also hollow. The district is authorized 207 police and has 150 on the books, but only about 60 are present at any one time, Thoreen said.

In January, the force will go through the focused district development process — an intense training course intended to produce a more professional police force, he said. There are already signs of progress, Thoreen said.

“Our guys are pretty careful about reining them back in when they’re out of control a little bit. But they have certainly become more professional, more respectful, and I think people are appreciating it.”

The new commander assigned to the ANA company stationed in Maywand can at least talk the talk of counterinsurgency.

“The key thing is to treat the people well and have a good relationship with them,” said Capt. Sayed Asif during a recent meeting with Capt. Matt Quiggle, commander of TF Legion’s A Troop, 8th Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment. “This is the thing that will lead us to the enemy.”