Requiem for the Surge
By Anwaar Hussain
President Obama’s decision to surge the troops’ level in Afghanistan is understandable. That is the only thing America can do in fact. They cannot just pack their bags and go home. They are losing the war with the present troop strength. All other conventional tactics have been tried out. The troop surge in Iraq has supposedly yielded positive results. Increasing troop level in Afghanistan, therefore, is the only logical next step.
That said, another fact too must be understood with complete clarity. 30,000 or 300,000 more troops, President Obama can surge all that he wants, in fact till America itself goes bust a la the Soviet Union of the yore, the United States will not succeed in Afghanistan. That is not because Americans are poor fighters, or are short of manpower or material. But more because they do not know who they are fighting and, consequently, do not know how to fight them.
Let us see why.
The Americans, perhaps, do understand a little the religion of their enemies in Afghanistan, having engaged their coreligionists on and off the battlefield for some time now. But they do not understand the Pathan (or Pashtun) culture. They do not understand the heady blend when divinity of religion is mixed with local customs, values and ancient traditions. They do not understand what it does to cognitive abilities, to tolerance level and ultimately to decision making whether at individual or group level. The biggest irony of them all is that the Americans do not know how to convince the ‘holy warrior’, a mutation of their own creations, that while fighting the Soviets was Jihad, fighting the Americans is not. Infidels all, say the Taliban.
When you make enemies of a people, know them first. Here is the a, b, c of it.
The strong cultural influence in a Pathan’s world comes from the tribal system’s emphasis on the collective rather than the individual. Remotely related Pathans can develop instant bonds as strong as any bond between close family members. So powerful are group obligations that having an issue with any one member means having an issue with the whole tribe.
The extended family has always been the center of daily activities in Pathan tribal culture. Each tribe consists of clans with its own extended families. These clans, or subtribes, are composed of a number of extended families tracing themselves back to one patriarchal father. The subtribe usually makes up the chief unit of defense. A tribe consists of four to six, sometimes more, subtribes, which are traced to a real or imaginary ancestor. At this level, the tribe is led by a ‘Malik’ and advised by a council usually called a ‘Jirga’.
Furthermore, a tribe may be part of an alliance of tribes that is governed by a chief Malik who is immensely powerful. The power in this system is extremely centralized and radiates outwards in a security net that each tribe has built around its members. Some of the benefits that a tribe member draws in this structure are having an identity, a sense of security, and an outline for resolving conflicts.
Although the ‘holy war’ idea that was sprung upon the region by the United States and Pakistan army to beat the Soviets has disturbed the traditional balance of forces in this system to some extent, the necessity for understanding of both tribal and religious structures continues to remain the same. In a given town or village, for instance, there can be multiple forms of authority, including tribal leaders, elected councils, and prominent members or ‘elders’, as well as old and new religious leaders. Therefore, even when one day the Americans take a break from bombing and want to be friendly, which come to think of it may not be very far, they must understand who has the power in a tribal society and who to approach. Should a military leader go to a civil administrator, a religious cleric, a tribal elder, or the Malik to get something done? Making the right decision is important because if he goes to the wrong person to get something done, not only would he be showing respect to the wrong person, that would be taken as a direct disrespect to the others.
Though Pathan tribal culture favors centralization of authority and superiors expect subordinates to be obedient, an occasional streak of brash independence is often overlooked and, occasionally, even admired. Interestingly, this tribal structure happens to be quite egalitarian in nature. At its heart lies a democratic process of consultation with elders. In some cases, though rare, the system affords the tribesmen to even challenge the Malik.
But from here on it really gets difficult for enemies and most welcome for friends. Underlying the whole construct is a primeval honor code called ‘Pashtunwali’.
For the past nearly 5000 years, predating Islam by long, the native Pathans of Afghanistan and Pakistan practice this ancient code of honor called ‘Pashtunwali’. It is a set of rules governing both individual and collective conduct. While the code is multi-faceted, its chief attributes are self-respect, independence, justice, right of revenge, hospitality (especially for strangers), family values, and forgiveness when the enemy repents.
A few features of this code need a special mention.
Firstly, the family here not only means wives, daughters, elders, parents, sons, and husbands and a sacred conviction of responsibility and duty with respect to them but also towards a combined national destiny in one union. The loyalty chain weaves first through the father’s family, then the mother’s family, then anyone within the greater tribe, then the nation or other Pathans, and finally the outsiders. Thus, while the whole Pathan nation may not rise for an individual member slighted, the individual would for a national affront.
Secondly, the right of revenge is a special privilege in ‘Pashtunwali’. Young women whose husbands were killed unjustly by an enemy are known to have reared the only male child to an age when he could handle a gun. Mother and son would then patiently stalk the enemy till the son would exact his right of revenge after years–a killing most certainly forgiven by the tribal council. The right of revenge applies to injustices committed yesterday or 1000 years ago if the offender, or his progeny, still exists.
Thirdly, justice in Pathan lore is a rather delicate subject. Even a mere taunt may be regarded as an insult calling for shedding of the taunter’s blood (and if he isn’t available, then his next closest male relation). This in turn leads to a blood feud that can, and often does, last generations and involves whole tribes with the loss of hundreds of lives.
So each time a 2000 pound bomb rips through the fabric of Afghan society, shredding many innocent lives that are callously termed as collateral damage, the Americans create for themselves enemies who have the patience honed by centuries and a strict honor code they have lived by since long before the birth of American nation. For this affront to their society, their customs, their values, their bodies and their souls, they must exact retribution. The Pathan will wait, rocking to and fro on his haunches cradling his ancient rifle, for that one perfect shot. If that shot takes time in coming, then his son, and his son after him, will wait but the shot must come. The British know that. They have taken quite a few in the past.
Such is the enemy. Now the Americans know. The solution is sprinkled here and there in the piece above…if they care.
Time then for a requiem for just the surge or…..?
X-X-X-X
I am a Vietnam Veteran & yes, you are correct….know your enemy. I’m speaking from experience, now from a life of knowledge.
Continual foreign wars will only destroy America; bankrupt us as it did with the French-Indian Wars for England; France investing so heavily in the American Revolution. Must we forget that history repeats itself?
Out of both came revolution from the citizens; a 2nd American Revolution is not out of the question now. Do read that new, underground book just out about Americans standing up to federal tyranny (i.e. taxes; foreign wars); ends up starting the 2nd American Revolution.
It’s well worth the read if you want to see what’s about to happen in the next 3 yrs.
December 28th, 2009 at 5:48 pmhttp://www.booksbyoliver.com
I agree with Mulla Omar’s statement about the American surge: The surge in Afghanistan will be like the surge in Iraq….. not so much of manpower and firepower….. but of US cash bribes so that poor people will turn against their brothers for pieces of silver and gold.
The American people are told that the surge in Iraq worked because of the surge in troop levels. The reality is that the economic suppression and starvation of Iraq, allowed US bribery to successfully promote Iraqi treason. The US troop deaths dropped in Iraq because they were confined to quarters and watched from afar as the US financed the internal bloodbath of Iraqi civil war.
Will Pashtun’s turn against one another for Yankee dollars? Omar may be surprised by what desperate people will do. Meanwhile the US enlists hundreds of native Pashtun women to turn against the tribe to provide intelligence to US forces. Yes, against the Geneva Convention, the US will turn women who are statutory non-combatants into military spies against unsuspecting Pashtun male freedom fighters.
In addition, the US has over 100,000 contract killers in Afghanistan; more contractors than their uniformed military fighting force. These extra-judicial assassins will continue to commit war crimes, as they did in Iraq, until the US proclaims success. War crimes? No way. Such judgements are reserved for those who don’t possess nuclear weapons.
The surge will come down to culture versus US cash for killings. The latter won in Iraq, but will it in Afghanistan?
December 28th, 2009 at 7:44 pmBrilliant…I say again, brilliant. That is all that I can say right now.
Someone send it to the dumbheads in the Pentagon.
December 28th, 2009 at 8:18 pmthis footage was posted March 2007. for me, it is so utterly disgusting, such a complete demonstration of ignorance on the part of the occupying army!
a must see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2F80llZ5F4
December 28th, 2009 at 10:17 pmThere has never, in modern times, been an Afghani enemy who wasn’t financially, technologically and numerically in military terms superior to the scattered tribes of the Afghans. Nonetheless there hasn’t been a single victor over the non existent Afghanistan. Like the mythical demon. You kill one tribal mob, and another vaguely related one grows in its place.
Americans didn’t learn the one salient message from Vietnam. In the final analysis, America’s enemy is fighting in, and for, his homeland. Not for his Political and Corporate masters.
His heart, unlike the Americans, is in the fight.
December 29th, 2009 at 1:32 amObama has no intention of winning anything. He loathes the US military and has come up with a rather effective mechanism throwing the entire system into chaos (like he is doing with the economy). As Obama’s political strategists have often said “never let a serious crisis go to waste”. This situation certainly will be utilized to the fullest. Americans would not approve of a wholesale dismantling of a huge industrial complex that employs millions of people and supports the Americans largest export…. which right about now are soldiers. The budget for both wars in Iraq and the one in Afghanistan (until recently) were paid for by what is called a supplemental appropriation. Congress paid out these cost of these conflicts over and above the annual military budget. This practice has ceased and costs of both the 100,000 soldiers in Iraq and the new build up in Afghanistan will be borne out of the current annual military budget. That means that there will be no funding for other military operations or any money to replace equipment that is constantly wearing out. If current cost projections are accurate this financial strategy will require the abandonment of bases in Korea, Japan, Germany, Poland, French Somalia Diego Garcia and the numerous other places including US locations. What will be sucked into that vacuum is anybody’s guess.
December 29th, 2009 at 3:33 amIt’s all god’s punishment. Or his sadism-cynicism. It’s all arrogance, ignorance and conceit on all sides. And then the fascism factor – in religion, capitalism, family, clan, tribe, nation etc. Then there is this ancestor-worship of non-deserving ancestors coupled with backwardness and obscurantism. There is also this fascism centered around so-called revelations and prophets.
It’s a huge mix that we are burdened with. Only few humans have the intelligence to get over it.
December 29th, 2009 at 4:33 amAnwaar,
I appreciate the educational post. The Pashtunwali code has more than a few similarities to the belief system of the Shi’a, especially with regard to revenge and retribution. I have a dear Shi’a friend in the U.K. and he has patiently educated me regarding some of these very issues. The Shi’a still cry out for revenge for events which happened centuries ago. (Think Yazid,the story of Lady Zaynab, Ashura, etc. and the many couplets of poetry which speak of these things, tears and revenge.) I cannot internalize such a thought within my own make-up, that of an eternal family grudge, but do acknowledge its existence within other cultures.
Tammy Swofford
December 29th, 2009 at 4:42 amYou have to live “Pukhtunwali” to understand it. Alqaeda is as foreign as the Americans are to the Pukhtuns. However OBL was smart to understand this and threw himself at the mercy of Taliban but that is only a temporary arrangement. But if one understood Pukhtunwali than one would also know that the Taliban are an anathema to the Pukhutns. However unlike the Pukhtuns, the Americans do not have the patience or fortitude to wait for the right shot and hence the surge.
December 29th, 2009 at 6:29 amYou are absolutely right when you say, “The biggest irony of them all is that the Americans do not know how to convince the ‘holy warrior’, a mutation of their own creations, that while fighting the Soviets was Jihad, fighting the Americans is not. Infidels all, say the Taliban.”
Americans are in for a licking, no matter what they do on the battlefield. That is because they are doing something illegal. The only way out of this quagmire is OUT of Afghanistan.
Anwaar, a very incisive and, as usual, a scathingly honest piece.
December 29th, 2009 at 10:09 amWell written article Anwaar Hussain, but I fear the dynamics of traditions including ‘Pashtunwali’ have undergone a paradigm change. After all there are heinous deeds committed by ‘ Taliban’ which don’t pass Pashtunwali test.
Industrialization, besides causing global warming, brought about a phenomenon called pursuit of economic well being which meant possession of money. Morality, in ensuing hot pursuit to secure money, slowly got relegated to far lesser a level than it belonged. Ends started justifying means more than ever before. Pashtunwali has not been an exception! Money has done wonders in our beloved rugged lands. Drug trade, ransom money are considered legitimate. Aimal Kansi was sold by his own blood relations to be extradited, judicially killed.
Obama has deliberated a sufficient amount before declaring surge, has made known an exit date in the same breath. Is he planning to win militarily? No sir, he is going to employ tactics, tools far more potent this time around to complement military operation; environmental warming by employing green back thus creating conducive situation to pull out in a face saving manner.
Beware the guardians of Pashtunwali!!
December 29th, 2009 at 6:46 pmI fear that all of this is merely a prelude to something much more drastic, and something that seems to be being orchestrated by those good old spooks in intelligence, that being a regional nuclear war involving India, Pakistan, China and Iran. I have spent more than half of my life involved in the military in one way or another, and I know the mind set of the “global strategic planners”. A nuclear war instigated by the USA could take care of all of our most pressing and serious global conundrums, taking out future adversaries and coming world powers, threats to Israel and the US, freeing up critical oil supplies for US use, and leaving us once again alone at the top of the heap. The fact that any nuclear exchange would almost surely lead to global nuclear war won’t mean a thing to men who believe they are smarter than everyone else, they like Hitler will work it out in their minds how it will all neatly unfold and there will be the USA standing unscathed, once again the leader of the world.
How does this apply to this situation is somewhat difficult to predict, or understand rather, but I believe it has all to do with what Anwaar has written in this piece of art, we are there to both understand who is who, and who matters, and to get everyone at each others throat. Once this has been accomplished it is merely setting things in motion to get your desired result, that is if it goes according to their plans.
December 30th, 2009 at 7:06 amRe-Masroor,
Sir,
I find more than a grain of truth in your comment. Especially when you say that money matters have dented ‘Pashtunwali’.
But look at it this way sir. Fighting among themselves or with outsiders has been a way of life with these unruly tribes for eons. Plus, there being no other occupations so to speak of, gun slinging comes naturally to them, whether for hire or for a cause. Furthermore, and here it gets really interesting, there is money to be found in resisting American occupation of their homeland. They made money when they resisted the Soviets, Americans and the Arabs paid them by the bundles. Now they are making money resisting the Americans, there being no dearth of countries in the region wanting to see America humbled. What is more, even the Americans are trying to buy them off, as you also suggest. Where else would you find such a happy marriage of a cause and a trade craft? Offering a few thousand lives of the wretched foot soldiers, always the foot soldiers whichever the army, in the bargain matters not a fig to them. Both of us have witnessed the palatial mansions and posh styles of Yunus Khalis, Abdurab Rasool Siyaf, Gulbudin Hikmatyar, Burhanuddin Rabbani et al–the so called leaders of the Soviet ‘Jihad’ time. In the melee, however, a code of conduct is still required by them to regulate their affairs. It is here that ‘Pashtunwali’, or whatever is left of it, continues to come in handy.
Perhaps you speak more of the Pakistani Taliban. They are a bunch of cuthroats as I have explained in my article ‘Taliban Defined’. The only code that they live by is nothing more than that of religiously inspired killing. Even the ‘war of national liberation’ of the Afghan warlords, as I then suggested, will turn as blood red as the inside of a Kandahari pomegranate when the mad rush for capturing Kabul begins in the aftermath of Americans and their sidekicks exiting the region.
But that is a subject for another time.
Anwaar
December 30th, 2009 at 10:49 amThank you Anwaar,
When I said, “Beware the guardians of Pashtunwali!!”, I wanted to evoke precisely the type of sentiment articulated in your comments.
I alluded to global warming polluting our environment because money is ‘heartwarming’ some ethnic Pashtuns, they part with Pashtunwali with pleasure. Reasons range from need to greed.
Late Ayub Khan used to say, “Take gun from them, hand them a yard stick for cloth trade”. He did precisely that with Afridis, you see them trading in Bara close to Peshawar.
I think that was correct strategy. They must be provided with prospects of advancement in fields other than they are caught up.
January 2nd, 2010 at 3:01 pmsir once again another splendid and subtle way to explain the core of issue BRAVO, well still on this earth if someone says that this is the only way to solve the issue then, that individual or that thinking is destruction bound.
good luck sir keep it up.
January 6th, 2010 at 6:54 pmThanks, great site
July 28th, 2010 at 6:42 pm