The fishermen of Afghanistan ; an allegory about ‘catching insurgents’
October 13, 2009 by
Filed under Journey Updates
The fishermen of Afghanistan ; an allegory about ‘catching insurgents’
Asking Why, and not only Who and How Many, in the Afghan strategy for international security
Please watch 2 young Afghan boys on their fishing trip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7CSThmlKRQ
Transcript of the fisher-boys’ conversation
Ali Jan, what are you doing?
Fishing.
How many will you catch today? We’ll see…the question is if there’s ANY fish.
Are you a fisherman?
A little bit of a fisherman.
Is having fish beneficial?
Yes, if we can first catch them…
Why are you laughing?
We should keep our word ; you said you’ll catch 10 fish, so catch the 10 & bring them!
You yourself go catch just ONE fish. When will you catch that ONE fish?
That ONE fish, inshallah ( God willing ), will be caught.
When?
When we lower the hook.
Lower it then.
Don’t be crazy…can YOU catch your 10 fish?
You’ll see..I’ll catch 30 fish.
How did you tie the hook?
Don’t boast! Don’t ‘short circuit’ my mind.
Can your mind be short circuited?
Why can’t it be short circuited?
Let’s go…don’t laugh. Don’t laugh like that.
I’m setting off to fish then…
Heh..Abdul Ali..take this…
The bold italics below are allegorical thoughts on ‘catching insurgents’ in Afghanistan, in which the fish are the ‘insurgents’ and the fishermen are the troops. In essence, it suggests that in Obama’s current re-assessment of the Afghan strategy, more attention should be given to the WHY, and not only to the WHO and HOW MANY. The rigorous questioning of WHY would guide humanity in creatively choosing civilian options, over the military options that unfortunately only address objects and numbers, not people.
American, NATO and Afghan forces, what are you doing?
???
Post September 11 eight years ago, the urgent response to the threats on America’s national security posed the reactionary question of “WHO did this?”
It was an appropriate initial question, but it is not the same as another more basic and important question of “WHY did they do this?”
Asking WHY helps us to analyze the root causes of ‘terrorism and guides us on what we should be doing to tackle the root problems; it gives us a clearer goal for the ‘Afg/Pak’ strategy, a goal more relevant to American and international security and which therefore, we cannot afford to ignore.
In addition to asking WHO the ‘fish’ are, we should surely ask, like scientists, psychologists, behavioural psychiatrists or simply as people who aspire to think and feel broadly, WHY the ‘fish’ would hate Ali so much as to plot his murder?
Unfortunately, everyone got angrily and foggily wrapped up in the WHO, which remorselessly lead to the frantic embracing of an all-out, no-alternatives, victory-at-all-cost goal of ‘disrupting, defeating and dismantling Al-Qaeda and its allies (including presumably the Taliban in Afghanistan).
“The administration’s stated goals in Afghanistan have ranged from eliminating the threat posed by Al Qaeda — which is based in neighboring Pakistan, not in Afghanistan — and building a stable democratic state.” Nancy A. Youssef, Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel , the McClatchy Newspapers
Podesta: “From the perspective of the American people, how do you define clear objectives of what you’re trying to succeed as outputs…Richard Holbrooke: “But I would say this about defining success in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the simplest sense, the Supreme Court test for another issue, we’ll know it when we see it.”
“We’re lost — that’s how I feel. I’m not exactly sure why we’re here,” said Specialist Raquime Mercer, 20, whose closest friend was shot dead by a renegade Afghan policeman last Friday. “I need a clear-cut purpose if I’m going to get hurt out here or if I’m going to die.”
Briefly, whatever ‘war’ was needed to deal with the WHO (Al-Qaeda and its allies) of ‘terrorism’ was arguably and ‘successfully won’ with the bombardment of Afghanistan after September 11.
The ‘victory’ was arguable because in the WHO list of the nineteen Sept 11 perpetrators, none of them were Afghan ; they were 17 Arabs, 1 Egyptian and 1 Lebanese who resided in Germany, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia and who were trained (in part) in flying schools set up by the CIA in Florida.
So for the proponents of military action, the post September 11 bombings, besides targeting Afghanistan, should have at least included Germany, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and perhaps even all international flying schools with Arabs, Egyptians and Lebanese enrolled in learning to fly.
But this is already being facetious and be-labouring an eye-sore fact. The ‘war’ solution played out its ‘useful’ role in the ‘WHO goal’ 8 years ago and should have ended then.
This ‘WHO goal’ is not clear because it doesn’t satisfy our intuition about solving the root problems. It also doesn’t sit too well on common-sense ground realities and on our conscience.
To truly make America and the world safe against ‘terrorist acts’, we must stop to ask WHY ‘extremists’ threaten international security in such ‘suicidal’ ways, besides knowing WHO they are.
The WHY involves multiple historical, geographical, socio-political, cultural and religious factors, all culminating in escalating anger, distrust, hate, fear and sectarianism amidst a void of meaningful relations ; these form some of the roots of ‘terrorism’.
Disrupting, defeating and dismantling these roots requires a multi-prong civil approach which cannot include war ; let any human being stand up, religious or a-religious, to reason and justify how war can end anger, distrust, hate, fear and sectarianism or build meaningful relations.
In increasingly clear contrast, the current strategy of waging war against the WHO is feeding the roots of ‘terrorism’ and making all of us less safe. This realization is not counter-intuitive but logical and conscionable, recognized by all humans, including civilians, diplomats and ‘warriors’.
Crux of Afghan Debate: Will More Troops Curb Terror? Does the United States need a large and growing ground force in Afghanistan to prevent another major terrorist attack on American soil? Eric Schmitt and Scott Shane, NY Times
“The war in Afghanistan is increasing the likelihood that Americans will be killed in a future terrorist attack. Today, Al Qaeda no longer exists in Afghanistan. Defeating their erstwhile allies, the Taliban, will do nothing to stop terrorist attacks on the U.S., because the Taliban has never aspired to attack Americans on U.S. soil.Yet, because of the U.S. occupation, extremists are being pushed across the border into Pakistan, creating the very real risk of nuclear-armed terrorist cells.There is no “victory” to be won in Afghanistan. There is only the prospect of further destabilization of Pakistan, increased hostility against Americans throughout the Muslim world, and an increased likelihood of future terrorist attacks on the United States.” Robert Greenwald, Rethink Afghanistan
“Americans have turned against the war in Afghanistan,” Carter said. “Every time we launch one of our unmanned drones from Kansas and kill 100 people, we make 100,000 new enemies.” Former US President, Jimmy Carter
“The more military-first strategies that are employed with regard to Afghanistan, the worse it’s going to be. The counter, you know, impact is what’s happening now. More troops become occupiers, as perceived by the Afghani people. The hostility, the violence continues to increase. And in fact, I’m not willing to warrant our young men and women placed in harm’s way. It has not worked over the last eight years. We’re digging ourselves deeper in a hole. There is no military solution in Afghanistan. And, of course, I support and believe that our national security is a first priority for all of us, and we have to ensure that. But I believe that there are better ways to ensure our national interest in our national security interest. “ Republican Congresswoman Barbara Lee
Paul Pillar, the former deputy chief of the CIA’s counterterrorist center has argued that al-Qaeda’s terrorist threat is “less one of commander than of ideological lodestar, and for that role a haven is almost meaningless.” Afghanistan and Pakistan are two of the most corrupt nations on the face of the earth. US aid to both countries has been siphoned off to individuals and institutions that do not contribute to US national security.
We need to clarify our WHY goal, so that, if anyone asks the international in Afghanistan, including Specialist Mercer, “Mercer, what are you doing?”, he can answer “Escalating anger, distrust, hate, fear and sectarianism amidst a void of meaningful relations wrecked the Twin Towers and many lives. I am part of a global effort and struggle for peace that seeks to resolve these roots of ‘terrorism’ , hopefully by winning the ‘hearts and minds’ of ‘Afghans and insurgents’.”
In pensive and considerate re-thinking, Mercer may conclude that war is not the primary ‘fishing’ strategy he would choose, that the post-traumatic stress he may be experiencing is a natural ORDER of the human condition, and not a disorder, which alerts him to better alternatives.
How many insurgents will you catch today? We’ll see…the question is if there’s ANY insurgent.
The Obama administration and the world ought to challenge the US ‘intelligence’ estimate and the London think-tank claim of an increase in Taliban presence by asking, “How did you identify and count them in those porous mountains?”
It’s also helpful to ask WHY Taliban numbers are increasing, in addition to guessing HOW MANY Taliban there are.
Here again, if anger, distrust, hate, fear and sectarianism are the roots of escalating ‘Taliban or insurgent’ numbers, we would do well to reconcile them ; we’ll probably find some of the ‘Taliban or insurgents’ sympathetic to our cause!
If the ‘intelligence’ and ‘think-tank’ reply is that they obtained figures from deceitful, blood and money-thirsty local warlords, druglords, security forces and ‘intelligence’, good luck! Afghanistan hasn’t even been able to do a normal population census yet, far less count the Taliban.
We mustn’t forget the tragic incidents of bomb raids on happy weddings and grieving funerals based on such fatal ‘intelligence’.
“We make a mistake labeling everyone that is not for us with the same name. On the ground what you have is a collection of a lot of young people who resist central government. Those [people] really are not ideologically motivated. Dr. Marc Sageman who served in the CIA on the Afghan Task Force.
Are you an ‘insurgent catcher’?
A little bit of an ‘insurgent catcher’.
The international ‘insurgent catcher’ has challenges un-related to his expertise and area of training, including language, tribal and cultural unknowns. Even if he rapidly learnt local lingo and customs, he is faced with a people who have survived by constant, habitual lying, betrayals and shifting allegiances, complicated by tribal loyalties and honorary codes of endless revenge, part of what Gates calls a ‘mystery’.
Even in an infrequent activity like fishing in land-locked Afghanistan, the Afghan fisherman is a lot more capable than the international fisherman, not in terms of skills but in knowing which fish and which river. Despite his local knowledge, the honest Afghan would tell you that he knows and distrusts his own countrymen enough not to be hook-sure on any issue, especially if it involves life and death.
The Afghan ‘insurgent catcher’ can work out their local security through the age-old tribal systems and councils which they have. They know how to do this the Afghan way; it will be messy but NOT messier than having suspicious foreign ‘trainers’ around.
So, yes, Afghan security should be better trained, but trained by they themselves and NOT through funding them.
Police officials from some of Afghanistan‘s most violent regions questioned the need for more U.S. troops, saying it would increase the perception they are an occupying power. “Increasing troops in Afghanistan is not effective. This has been our experience over the past years,” said Gen. Abdul Jalal Jalal, a board member of the national police academy, who used to be the police chief for eastern Kunar province. “From the experience I have from Kunar province, our Army and police were very effective in all operations that we launched.”
U.S. officers in Afghanistan said Afghan security forces also are helping smuggle weapons the Taliban use to attack U.S.-led troops from Pakistan into Afghanistan. In addition, said a senior Afghan officer, weapons and ammunition supplied to the Afghan army and police are also being stolen and sold to the Taliban. “There is great corruption in the Ministry of Defense,” the officer said. “Everyone is looking for money.” by Nancy A. Youssef, Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel , the McClatchy Newspapers
Is catching the ‘insurgent’ beneficial?
Yes, if we can first catch them…
Why are you laughing?
It’s hard to spot the ‘insurgent’; especially to the foreigner, ‘insurgents’ can’t be physically differentiated from civilians. They have no Insurgent or Taliban Identity Card. They speak a different language that can lie perfectly. They are practically ‘invisible’, like the fish Ali was trying to catch.
“The soldiers’ biggest question is: what can we do to make this war stop. Catch one person? Assault one objective? Soldiers want definite answers, other than to stop the Taleban, because that almost seems impossible. It’s hard to catch someone you can’t see,” said Specialist Mercer.
We should keep our word ; you said you’ll catch Al-Qaeda insurgents, so catch them & bring them!
You yourself go catch just ONE of them, Osama. When will you catch that ONE insurgent?
That ONE insurgent, inshallah ( God willing ), will be caught.
When?
When we lower the hook.
Lower it then.
Don’t be crazy…can YOU catch your 100 plus-minus Al-Qaeda insurgents?
You’ll see..I’ll catch 30 of them.
General Petreaus had said that Al Qaeda is no longer in Afghanistan.
And we haven’t debated or questioned enough about Osama’s whereabouts yet, though even with Osama, it may be more effective and less costly to turn things around through diplomacy.
How did you tie the hook?
Don’t boast! Don’t ‘short circuit’ my mind.
Can your mind be short circuited?
Why can’t it be short circuited?
These are the current ‘how did you tie the hook’ strategy questions that Obama the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate is thankfully deliberating over.
It’s courageous and humane to acknowledge that we could have been proud, requiring a creative meekness to learn and change and that our thoughts could have been ‘short-circuited’, requiring our anger fuse to be reformed.
Obama is wise in stating that the strategy needs to be clear before resources are allocated ; I humbly suggest that in order for the strategy to be clear, his administration needs to pressingly ask, “WHY ‘terrorism’?”
The ‘necessity’ in the Afghan strategy needs to be re-defined for the sake of American and international security, by addressing the escalating anger, distrust, hate, fear and sectarianism seen today not only among ‘insurgents’ , but also vividly among the elite of America. And we can’t heal those hurts in a void of meaningful relations!
Mr Obama, you would not address these WHYs, these roots, among your own elite or countrymen through a military surge. You would do so through a surge of imaginative, hopeful and kind civil ways. Please do the same for Afghanistan and the world.
On the floor of the House on September 14th, 2001, three days after the 9/11 attacks, “REP. BARBARA LEE: This unspeakable act on the United States has really forced me, however, to rely on my moral compass, my conscience and my God for direction. September 11th changed the world. Our deepest fears now haunt us. Yet I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States. As a member of the clergy so eloquently said, “As we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore.”
Robert Grenier and Dr. Marc Sageman–both of whom served in the CIA, as station chief in Pakistan and on the Afghan Task Force, respectively–concurred that escalation would only further spread anti-American sentiment among Afghans and other Muslims, and that nonmilitary initiatives to contain Al Qaeda and foster civic development in Afghanistan would prove far more effective. Sageman spoke of utilizing a small “cadre of folks” that understands Afghanistan and can “cut deals with local power brokers to make the peace.” He believes we need “a small military presence” in the region for “focused action” when needed against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. He said we need to “Afghanize” economic development and work with NGOs and local entrepreneurs to “do things in their own communities” rather than using “outside contractors, [where] all the money for development ends up in their pocket or in Switzerland.”
Stephen Henthorne says the U.S. army puts too much emphasis on combat while paying lip service to working with civilian agencies and Afghans, and figuring out a plan to establish stability in Afghanistan. “The Canadians, the British and the Dutch do better at this because they do listen and they understand the culture,” Henthorne said in an interview. “We claim we have tons of culture classes for our soldiers and even for our civilians, but we really don’t have a clue. We think one Muslim is just like any other Muslim.” For Americans, Henthorne said, an overemphasis on combat means “we’ll be spending a lot of time, money and resources going back constantly redoing things or we’ll be stuck where we don’t want to be stuck for long periods of time.”
Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted in the recent Joint Forces Quarterly: “We hurt ourselves more [with Muslim nations] when our words don’t align with our actions….Our messages lack credibility because we haven’t invested enough in building trust and relationships, and we haven’t always delivered on promises. Each time we fail to live up to our values or don’t follow up on a promise, we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are.”
Let’s go…don’t laugh. Don’t laugh like that.
I’m setting off to fish then…
Heh..Abdul Ali..take this…
The fisher-boys of Afghanistan ; an allegory on ‘catching insurgents’
We need to ask WHY, and not only Who and How Many, in the Afghan strategy for international security.
We need to recover the joy, safety and peace which we see in Ali and his fishing friend. There is NO laughter in the grief and in-humanity of militarism. We cannot find joy or safety or peace in more war and violent deaths.
We need to set off on a new path, on a path more reconciliatory, on those relationships of love and frank conversation that we observe in these Afghan fisher-boys.
In our short lifetimes, we need to work for the true security of truthful and easier-going friendships which all of us are hopefully still capable of.
There is an ever growing opinion, even if it is difficult to accept, that the climate of distrust, of fear and threat, that exists between The West and The Rest –as Roger Scruton puts it in his insightful book by the same title- is due more to non-existent relations or to reluctant will to understand beyond the proper cultural or religious schemes, than to real and seemingly insurmountable cultural and religious differences. It is due to wrong patterns of relations, based mainly on arrogance, challenges and reciprocal malfeasance; and also to literature, interpretations and experience of respective cultural and religious codices, that are exclusive rather than inclusive. H.E. Archbishop Celestino Migliore
