Britain, Japan to help reintegrate Taliban foot soldiers – washingtonpost.com

Britain and Japan have agreed to head an international fund, expected to total up to $500 million over the next five years, as part of a broad plan to help lure Taliban fighters away from the insurgency with the promise of jobs, protection against retaliation, and the removal of their names from lists of U.S. and NATO targets.
….
Reintegration is a key component of the Afghanistan strategy President Obama outlined last fall. U.S. officials have said that they believe that up to 80 percent of Taliban foot soldiers are fighting for money and because of local grievances rather than in support of an ideology. Earlier reintegration efforts have failed, officials have said, because of poor planning, inadequate security and insufficient financial support.

I have a great deal of respect for David Kilcullen, and his book, The Accidental Guerilla is a must-read for those interested in the issue of insurgency and counter-insurgency.  But that said, we are likely making a fundamental mistake if we believe that these non-ideological “foot soldiers” are the center of gravity of the insurgency.

First, even if you shear off these “Taliban-for-hires,” you are still going to be left with a core of ideologically motivated or otherwise committed insurgents.  They are a disproportionate part of the challenge.

Second, unless you plan to put every man of fighting age on the payroll, there is little evidence that you will eliminate their ability to recruit.  There is also a moral hazard problem here, also.  If we pay off former-insurgents at a higher level of pay than is available through normal economic activity, you create an incentive to punch your ticket as an insurgent in order to get into a DDR program.

Third, what is the long-term here?  You out-compete the Taliban financially for the loyalty of apolitical fighters.  Then what?  The reality is that this creates a durable political economy that supports violence and warfare.  There is going to be an entire class of people whose well-being depends on continued payments, and who have the ability to extort more money simply by turning back to violence.  This is the institutionalization of an extortion scheme.

All of this is a way for us to avoid the real issue, which is the necessity of reconciling mid- and senior-level insurgent leaders.  If the issue was just about the foot soldiers, you could kill your way to victory.  But we can’t kill them nor buy them off ultimately for precisely the same reason — they aren’t the real problem.

U.S. Envoy’s Cables Show Deep Concerns on Afghan Strategy – NYTimes.com

The ambassador, who left the military last April to become Mr. Obama’s emissary, also complained about an inadequate civilian counterpart organization to the NATO military command in Afghanistan. Nearly three months later, he is still expressing concerns about too few civilian experts in Afghanistan.

He also noted worries that the success of Mr. Obama’s Afghanistan policy hinged on Pakistani forces’ eliminating militants’ havens in the mountainous region near the Afghan border.

“Pakistan will remain the single greatest source of Afghan instability so long as the border sanctuaries remain,” he wrote. “Until this sanctuary problem is fully addressed, the gains from sending additional forces may be fleeting.”

Hopefully Gen. McChrystal and the pro-COIN advocates will be proved right.  But if they aren’t, we won’t be able to say that no one was proposing a strong alternative assessment.  Ambassador Eikenberry’s concerns — never well addressed by the pro-COIN camp — may well turn out to have been chillingly prescient.  The dramatic escalation of the conflict may yet achieve positive results, but it is disturbing how much success rests on developments wholly out of our control — such as the success of good governance initiatives, anti-corruption, economic development, and most significantly the ability/desire of the Pakistanis to control their territory.

ABC News recently ran a story on “Jesus Guns”. It was reported that the Michigan-based sightings manufacturer, Trijicon, prints references to New Testament chapters and verses next to the serial numbers on its scopes. Trijicon has a contract to provide up to 800,000 of these rifle scopes to the US military. According to ABC News, these scopes are used by the US Marine Corps, the US Army, and US allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for the training of Afghan and Iraqi troops.

(watch the video)
Secret Jesus Bible Codes on U.S. Military Weapons
Brian Ross looks at the biblical verses written on firearms.
Jan 19, 2010 12:02 AM Video from Nightline ABC News

The response to the story was swift. Army officials said that they would investigate whether Trijicon had violated federal procurement rules by stamping the Biblical references on the scopes. Britain, New Zealand and Australia, U.S. allies who have purchased the scopes, were considering what, if any, action to take. Then Trijicon announced that it will no longer imprint the verses on the sides of scopes intended for the U.S. military, and will also provide kits to remove the Bible verse numbers from existing scopes.

Stephen Bindon, Trijicon president and CEO – “Trijicon has proudly served the U.S. military for more than two decades, and our decision to offer to voluntarily remove these references is both prudent and appropriate”, he said. “We want to thank the Department of Defense for the opportunity to work with them and will move as quickly as possible to provide the modification kits for deployment overseas.”

Reaction to the report on various opinion websites, blogs and social-networking sites was varied. From outrage that a defense contractor could possibly endanger the lives of military personnel by sending the wrong message (that the U.S. is on a religious crusade) to disgust that ABC News would “waste time” covering such a “trivial” topic.

Is it as Mikey Weinstein, the President and Founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), the first organization to report the existence of
“Jesus Guns” says: “It is nothing short of a vile national security threat that, despite our nation’s efforts to convince the Muslim world we are not pursuing a holy war against them, our military and its contractors time again resort to unlawful fundamentalist evangelical Christian practices, even on the battlefield.” Or should a finger be pointed at ABC News for shedding light on what many perceive as a trivial matter resulting in the creation of a problem where there had been none?

The “Jesus Guns” report initially struck me as a bit trivial and also inflammatory. However, the bottom line is that Biblical codes branded on weapons used by the US and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan could certainly add to the perception that the impetus for our military’s presence abroad is based on religion rather than national security. And if that perception results in the further endangerment for our troops then yes, it was a story worthy of coverage.

In audio message, bin Laden says he endorsed Dec. 25 airline bomb plot – washingtonpost.com

Osama bin Laden endorsed the failed attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner Christmas Day and threatened new attacks against the United States in an audio message released Sunday that appeared aimed at asserting that he maintains some direct command over al-Qaeda-inspired offshoots.

U.S. officials and several researchers who track terrorist groups, however, said there is no indication that bin Laden or any of his top lieutenants had anything to do with or even knew in advance of the plot by a Yemen-based group that is one of several largely independent al-Qaeda franchises.

There is a major debate right now in the terrorism/counter-terrorism field.  One side believes that al Qaeda is essentially resurgent.  They believe that AQ has adjusted its strategy recently, has been coordinating attacks more extensively with the Quetta Shura Taliban and other Afghan insurgents.  They also believe that the recent spate of attacks linked to Yemen, including the Fort Hood shootings and the Christmas (attempted) bombing were AQ inspired.

On the other hand, many analysts believe that AQ is increasingly irrelevant.  Some of them believe that the main challenge is now among self-radicalized lone wolves, with little connection to AQ-central.

The reality is that we simply do not know.  The profile of the analysts is high on both sides.  The evidence in support of either position is circumstantial and inadequate.

Ultimately, from a policy perspective, the debate may be irrelevant.  American counter-terrorism policy needs to a remain a defense-in-depth, and one of the largest risks is being overly reactive to the point of overemphasizing one challenge over others.  Yemen is certainly a significant problem, but focusing too much on threat emanating from there is likely to be counter-productive, given that terrorist threats can rapidly shift and materialize elsewhere.

Google, in an attempt to live up to their corporate credo “don’t be evil,” has taken a stand and reversed its controversial decision to censor results China’s Google search engine. In their announcement, Google’s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond stated that the cyber attacks on more than 20 companies were part of a coordinated attempt for hackers to gain illegal access to the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights workers.  Increased government censorship over the past year, including the recent decision to block YouTube, also owned by Google, appears to be another significant factor in this decision that may ultimately lead to Google’s withdrawal from the Chinese market. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a pointed admonition of these alleged activities, stating that “Those who disrupt the free flow of information in our society or any other pose a threat to our economy, our government and our civil society.” The Chinese Foreign Ministry was quick to respond that taking a commercial conflict into the political arena could be detrimental their relationship with the United States and insisted that “The Chinese internet is open.”

Questions will ultimately arise in the coming days at how seriously the Obama administration is willing to assert its views on China’s human rights and censorship record. A clash with the Chinese government could literally not come at a worse time, as the US seeks to create consensus on issues ranging from Iran’s nuclear capacity to international climate change agreements. However, the fact of the matters is that these cyber attacks, regardless of their origin, point to real vulnerabilities in our capacity to protect sensitive information from being intercepted by anyone with an internet connection. A December 2009 report exposed the fact that Iraqi insurgents have been able to intercept video feeds from unmanned military drones by using $26 software program available for purchase online. The message from this is clear: the United States cannot afford to shortchange cyber security. These incidents serve to underscore the need for internet freedom and enhanced information security.

The Wall Street Journal reports on criticism of a statement in a 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which warned of rapid “glacial retreat” in the Himalayas. According to one portion of the report now under question by the UN, it was predicted that the Himalayan glaciers are in danger of disappearing by the year 2035. Although no one disputes the evidence of glacial depletion in the region, researchers are now examining how exactly data were used to reach this conclusion. According to Dr. J Graham Cogley of Trent University in Ontario, a glaciologist who contributed to the 2007 IPCC report, although the Himalayan glaciers are receding, they are not experiencing the effects of climate change at the fastest rate, nor is it likely true that they will disappear entirely by 2035. This incident is further compounded by the controversy in England over hacked emails between American and British climatologists that publicized the conspiracy to withhold or manipulate scientific to combat global warming skeptics. Although opposition to the United States adopting policies to limit the impact of climate change on future generations has been vehement, scientists must resist the temptation to frame this issue in alarmist terms. There is no need to exaggerate the unpredictable threat that climate change poses to national security, and to do so only invites criticism that detracts from progress being made on a political front. As Andrew Revkin of The New York Times wrote, “The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument.” The concern now is what to do about climate change, and our reliance on guidance from the scientific community requires accuracy and honesty.   ASP wrote more about this topic here.

CongressDaily – Obama To Request $14.2B To Train, Equip Afghan Forces

President Obama is preparing to ask Congress for another $14.2 billion to grow, train and equip the Afghan National Security Forces for the remainder of this fiscal year and in FY11

This is roughly equivalent to Afghanistan’s GDP.  Think about that.  And is just addition train and equip spending.  The total cost of U.S. military operations there, including funding to train and equip Afghan forces is well over $100 billion.  That is AT LEAST five times Afghanistan’s GDP, and perhaps as much as eight times as large depending on whether you use exchange rate or purchasing power parity measures.  If you just gave that money to the Afghans, you could bring them up from 184th place in terms of national income to roughly 120th place — essentially in the Morocco, Honduras, Indonesia — class.

U.S. ambassador puts brakes on plan to utilize Afghan militias against Taliban – washingtonpost.com

Afghan officials and Eikenberry have also expressed concern that unless there is a detailed plan to connect these village security forces to Ministry of Interior oversight, they could fuel the rise of warlords and undermine the already fragile government in Kabul. Another worry is that the local tribal leaders could manipulate U.S. officers who do not understand politics and tribal grievances in a particular area, said U.S. officials.

“Our level of intelligence is so lacking,” said an adviser to the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan. “We could be supporting people whose interests are not what we think they are.” Eikenberry has argued that without Afghan government support, the program could be quickly disbanded if one of the village security forces is turned by the Taliban or gets into a dispute with government security forces.

“It’s a two-edged sword,” Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said in an interview. “One person’s community defense initiative can be another person’s warlord militia.”

Yet more evidence that we decided on a massive escalation of the conflict in Afghanistan without doing our homework.  We’ll soon have 100,000 troops in country, and yet we’re still befuddled about some very basic issues.

Groups under Al-Qaeda’s ‘syndicate’ in Afghanistan and Pakistan are trying ‘to destabilise not just Afghanistan, not just Pakistan, but potentially the whole region by provoking a conflict perhaps between India and Pakistan through some provocative act.’

               – Secretary Robert Gates, New Delhi, January 20, 2010

It was just over a year ago that India demonstrated its capacity for restraint following the attack in Mumbai at the hands of Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).  ‘”I think it’s not unreasonable to assume India [sic] patience would be limited were there to be further attacks,’” Secretary Gates continued during his conversation with reporters in New Delhi on Wednesday. 

Gates is certainly not the only one to recognize and shed light on the room for and potential fallout from a similar terrorist attack.  Only a month ago, Secretary Hillary Clinton testified similarly alongside her Defense Department counterpart in front of Congress.  The academic world has expressed the same concerns.  Recently, Daniel Markey at the Council on Foreign relations wrote:

Al-Qaeda has historically focused its efforts outside India, but if the group’s leadership feels threatened in the Pakistan Afghanistan border areas, it might direct and assist regional proxies to attack India as a way to ignite a distracting Indo-Pakistani confrontation.

Especially disconcerting are the amply stocked nuclear arsenals of both countries.  “‘The worst-case scenarios in Pakistan are worse than anywhere else,’” American Security’s Project’s Bernard Finel told the Boston Globe last May.  Were there to be another attack on Indian soil volatility in the region would undoubtedly soar.

According to one U.S.  official, “blond-haired, blue-eyed types,” with American passports, are among those training in Al-Qaeda’s Yemen camps, reports the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Al Qaeda in Yemen and Somalia: A Ticking Time Bomb, released yesterday.

If it was not clear already, this information only makes it only more obvious that racially profiling at our borders and airports harms the American people  – not only because it is poor public diplomacy, but also because this method will also likely fail to stop the next “underwear bomber.”  Spencer Ackerman also highlighted this point on Attackerman yesterday. 

It is with this in mind, that the withdrawal of President’s Obama’s choice for TSA head, Erroll Southers, is particularly troublesome.  Blocked by Senator Jim DeMint, Southers, nominated in September 2009, cited his failure to move forward as the result of a ‘political agenda’ in his statement on Wednesday.  Given the potential threat of radicalized Americans attempting to re-enter the country, not to mention others like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, it is imperative TSA have a permanent head in place – and soon – to develop and put in place sustainable security measures.   

Just to mention a few of the items on the future administrator’s plate: the already-controversial full-body scanner’s ability to actually locate bomb making materials is in question and more research and development must be completed if there is potential for achieving enhanced security through the use of biometrics.  Also, more resources are required if our TSA agents are to properly and effectively profile based on behavior and actually watch the thousands of people which populate our terrorist watch lists.

White House spokesman Nicholas Shapiro failed to mention possible nominees in Wednesday morning’s statement, though Acting Administrator Gale Rossides may be the President’s choice.