Pulitzer Center Untold Stories

The Problem Of Memory: Why Launching A New Strategy In Afghanistan Is Harder Than It Looks

 

By Vanessa M. Gezari, for the Pulitzer Center
Zormat, Afghanistan

Elders, including Hajji Naim on the right, at a shura in Zormat in February

The Afghan army commander motioned the American lieutenant into his office. Lt. Col. Attaullah was 48, with gelled hair, blue-framed eyeglasses and the rigid bearing of a communist general. A Pashtun from Konduz and a veteran of Najibullah’s army in the 1980s, he wore his camouflage uniform buttoned tightly at the neck, displaying the gold braid on his collar to advantage. He shook the American officer’s hand and sent one of his soldiers to bring tea.

Lt. Aaron Anderson sank into a soft, brown armchair against the wall. A 36-year-old former Army Ranger from Missouri, Anderson had studied history and anthropology in college and now commanded a company of Georgia National Guard troops in Zormat, a heavily traveled valley in eastern Afghanistan where tribal allegiances have been fractured by years of war. Anderson had served in Iraq, and he knew that the fight in Afghanistan was largely political. “I don’t think the Taliban is a bad organization,” he’d told me the night before. “I just think they have bad methods.” But in the months he’d worked with Attaullah, Anderson had come to view the Afghan as a dubious partner. Attaullah had taken the coalition’s lessons about counterinsurgency almost too much to heart, Anderson thought, seeming to enjoy the fight for public opinion – and his own resulting status as a populist hero – more than the tough and sometimes unpopular work of improving security. A month earlier, when locals complained loudly about nighttime raids by Afghan and U.S. forces, Attaullah had become among the most forceful advocates for ending them.

Afghanistan: The Base, the Mosque and the Olive Trees - What Do the Look and Feel of a Military Base Say About the Counterinsurgents Who Live There?

 

Vanessa Gezari, for the Pulitzer Center
Khost, Afghanistan

I went running. Away from the dusty plywood-floored tent where reporters stay, down the paved road that curved along the edge of the base, near where the rockets had been fired in a few nights earlier. I ran west into the setting sun. The hills were dark, the soil almost black, as if volcanic, yellowish-green grass sprouting from the slopes. The winter had been uncommonly mild, but even so, the balminess of Khost in January surprised me. It sat in the lap of mountains not far from the Pakistani border, in a valley that military people call “the bowl.” The road turned to gravel. It traced the barbed wire fence, passing guard towers where security guards looked out over the fields and hills. On the hillside far above, visible from anywhere on the base, the emphatic name of God was spelled out in white rocks in Arabic script: y’Allah. On my i-pod, Biggie Smalls was singing about picking up girls at a bar, while across the fence, Afghan men moved between a big mosque and a scattering of mud houses a quarter mile away. I ran to where the fence curved tightly and the road doubled back, and there, just on the other side of the barbed wire, lay a small Afghan graveyard: piles of stones and tattered green and silver flags whipping in the breeze. My eye had grown used to the regimented lines of the fence, which interrupted the landscape as all base architecture does. Now the vivid, organic reality of Afghanistan was so close that I could have reached through the chain links and touched it.

Afghanistan: The conduct of counterinsurgency

Journalist Vanessa Gezari answers your questions about her story on the Human Terrain program in Afghanistan for The Washington Post Magazine. She writes from Helmand Province, where she is embedded with a Human Terrain team attached to the Marines. Comments and questions for Gezari are marked in italics.

Vanessa, I enjoyed the article, thank you. I also enjoyed reading the comments, which contained many interesting points.

Given that U.S. policy appears committed to staying in Afghanistan, I think the U.S. military should consider multiple options for improving its ability to protect its troops, counter the Taliban, and provide
security for local Afghans. I understand how other posters have reached the conclusion that those goals are unattainable, and that is certainly a very important strategic discussion. However, the U.S. military is conducting what it has deemed a counterinsurgency, and I think we can discuss the conduct of that counterinsurgency independent of the broader strategic discussion.

Like many of the other posters, I would like to know more about the background of the program, the hiring of the program members, and the alleged difficulty in finding members with knowledge of Afghanistan. Mr. Rosen suggested that as a bare minimum the program members should receive several months of intensive language training. The U.S. military does have a formal lessons learned process; one can only hope that the military intends to provide that training in the future. Mr. Rosen pointed out that officers with common sense should be able to figure out for themselves many of the things that the Human Terrain members will be looking at. Undoubtedly. Countless articles suggest that officers, soldiers, and marines developed an excellent understanding of Iraqi sectarian and tribal workings. However, officers, soldiers, and marines must also plan operations, look after their troops, and fight. My guess is that they would welcome assistance from individuals with at least some formal training, be it in anthropology, tribalism, or conflict resolution, who can devote all of their energy to focusing on the problem at hand and providing candid suggestions to decision makers. Of course if the soldiers feel the human terrain members' presence is a dangerous distraction or unproductive, that should be addressed in the article or future articles.

Afghanistan: The ethics of embedding anthropologists

Journalist Vanessa Gezari answers your questions about her story on the Human Terrain program in Afghanistan for The Washington Post Magazine. She writes from Helmand Province, where she is embedded with a Human Terrain team attached to the Marines. Comments and questions for Gezari are marked in italics.

Check back soon for additional responses!

I'm thinking People Magazine after reading this. Well written, of course, but absent much substantive depth. I'm guessing the writer gets a passing grade by the Imbed Program Vetting Personnel as she obviously will be returning for more. Not her fault, I believe. This is the standard for MSM reporting on HTS. Don;t forget this is General Patreous' program. And don't forget that the WAPO, NYT and WSJ really are the official organs of the US Gov/Corp state.Once you get that, it is easier to digest information filtered through their information gatherers. I await the Life Time Channel movie on the Human Terrain It should be based on John Tesh's Entertainment Tonight music background.

Editor's note: This comment originally appeared on the Washington Post site.
Posted by: sponge1 | August 31, 2009 at 07:35 PM

Hi sponge1, In the interest of full disclosure, the author of this post, John Stanton, has written frequently and critically about HTS.
I’ve never aspired to write for People magazine, and while I’d happily watch a Lifetime channel movie about HTS, I don’t have any plans to help craft one. I do think that narrative journalism is a great vehicle for writing about complicated subjects, and I’d like to see it used much more often in foreign policy stories. Real human characters and a comprehensible chain of events can engage people who wouldn’t normally read something about Afghanistan or a new Army program that offers a window into bigger strategic changes there.

I don’t think I’m wrong in detecting an element of gender bias in this comment, one that’s all too common in the mostly male world of foreign policy and analysis. The thinking is that men write (often unreadable) stories of great “substantive depth” and women (while taking a break from watching the Lifetime channel) produce superficial, “well-written” stories about people and their hopes and dreams. But telling a complex story with real human characters is neither easy nor shallow. A detailed account of human experience has value, especially when you’re writing about something as complicated and overwhelming as war.

Democracy in Afghanistan, and a response to Nir Rosen

Journalist Vanessa Gezari answers your questions about her story on the Human Terrain program in Afghanistan for The Washington Post Magazine. She writes from Helmand Province, where she is embedded with a Human Terrain team attached to the Marines.

Check back soon for additional responses!

In Iraq, WMD gave validation for our troops in a war. Now Afghanistan has been occupying our troops for too many years with what result? Is this loss of life justified? A lesson learned should be: One cannot impose democracy on a country that in no way demonstrates it ability to carry out this obligation.

Posted by: JB Silberman | August 31, 2009 at 07:05 PM

Weapons of mass destruction were a false premise for the war in Iraq. And to be fair, we haven’t exactly modeled pure democratic principals during our engagement in Afghanistan. From the beginning, we’ve supported people with guns over people without them. US soldiers have made tremendous sacrifices here, but soldiers take their orders from military and civilian leaders, and our Afghanistan policy has been pretty incoherent. When I first got here in 2002, the U.S. soldiers I met seemed to believe that all Afghans were Taliban. They knew little about this country, and weren’t eager to learn. After a while, commanders started saying that since Afghan girls were back at school, we were winning. While I’m a huge supporter of female education, this wasn’t our strategic goal in Afghanistan. You’re right that the onus is on Afghans to pull together and make their country work, but we aren’t innocent bystanders here. Many Afghans want a voice in their country’s affairs, and there’s nothing that makes them constitutionally unable to take part in a democratic system. But for many years, might has made right in Afghanistan, and we’ve so far done little to change that.

Afghanistan: Embedded anthropologists and the state of the war

Journalist Vanessa Gezari answers your questions about her story on the Human Terrain program in Afghanistan for The Washington Post Magazine. She writes from Helmand Province, where she is embedded with a Human Terrain team attached to the Marines.

Check back soon for additional responses! 

Hi Vanessa!

I hope that this finds you well. I'm curious about the hiring and vetting process for the anthropologists who sign onto the human terrain program. In the article you mention that most anthropologists who have knowledge about Afghanistan don't want to work with the military, but what is the skill level of those who are eventually hired? Do Karl and Banger speak Pashto? Do you feel like they are well-informed about Afghanistan's history and government?

Also, what is the Afghan government's view of the program, and is that likely to change after the election results?

Posted by: David Sasaki | August 31, 2009 at 10:58 AM

Hi David,

Good to hear from you! You raise some excellent questions. I’m still trying to piece together a coherent picture of the hiring and vetting process for anthropologists and other Human Terrain team members. My understanding is that BAE Systems has the contract to recruit and hire for the Human Terrain System (HTS), meaning that they and their subcontractors advertise when personnel are needed, collect resumes and conduct job interviews. This is true even though the people working for HTS are no longer contractors but government employees (I just got an email last week from a guy who told me that BAE hired him for the program and he’s about to start his training). At least one former Human Terrain team member told me that the people who interviewed him knew nothing about the region or anthropology, which surprised and dismayed him. I’ve been told that the people who run the program conduct additional vetting during stateside training, which can last up to seven months. (If any current or former HTS staffers or team members know more about this, feel free to comment.)

Q&A with Pulitzer journalist on Afghanistan human terrain program

Post Your Questions and Comments Now!

An experimental Pentagon program embeds civilian anthropologists and social scientists with combat teams in Iraq and Afghanistan to help soldiers understand the local culture, known in military-speak as “human terrain."

Journalist Vanessa Gezari whose reporting on the Human Terrain program was supported by the Pulitzer Center, is responding to your questions and comments about her story in The Washington Post Magazine. 

Post your questions and comments for Gezari by September 1, 2009, and check back the week following to see her responses.

See Gezari's project page at the Pulitzer Center's website, where you can find slideshows and related and useful links to additional resources. Visit "Afghanistan: Human Terrain" to see all her dispatches from the field.

Listen to an interview with Gezari on NPR's Tell Me More on September 1st. See local listings here.

See Gezari's answers to your questions and comments:  

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

The Theft of the Mullah Kit

Vanessa Gezari, for the Pulitzer Center

DOORAI, Afghanistan – The Taliban rolled into the village at dusk. The call to prayer had gone out over the cold fields, and the dirt lanes were empty. The men were in the mosques, the women and children gathered in their homes. Shadows lengthened as the late winter sun slipped behind the mountains.

            In the main mosque, the men knelt on a reddish-brown carpet, a recent gift from the American soldiers who had built their base a few miles down the road. The village elders had been hesitant to accept anything from the Americans. The soldiers had offered to dig a well in Doorai, but the elders feared that the Taliban would punish them. The same went for a clinic, which would make the whole village a target.

“What about something for your mosque?” one of the Americans finally asked.

At first, the elders said no. Then they started talking among themselves.

“It’s not a gift for us,” one man finally said. “It’s for God.”

The Taliban wouldn’t be angry over a gift for God. Or would they?

Afghanistan: This is what a revolution looks like

Vanessa M. Gezari, for the Pulitzer Center

When 4,000 Marines marched across the dry ground of Helmand Province last week, walking into villages and unrolling sleeping bags to live among the Afghans, you could almost hear the foundation stones shifting beneath the weight of a changing U.S. military. The operation in Helmand – called Khanjar, or “dagger” – epitomized the approach laid out in the Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, co-written in 2006 by Gen. David Petraeus, then an Army lieutenant general, and Marine Gen. James Amos. Yet until last week, the military had never executed this strategy in such textbook fashion in Afghanistan. The Marines in Helmand are not just leaving fortified bases for long, exposed foot patrols through enemy territory. They aren’t just spending a few nights camped out in the desert within a secure perimeter. They appear to be moving into the Taliban heartland and taking up residence there, minus the signed leases and cable bills. As the Marines’ commander, Brig. Gen. Larry D. Nicholson said in a much-quoted statement: “What makes Operation Kanjar different from those that have occurred before is the massive size of the force introduced, the speed at which it will insert, and the fact that where we go, we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build, and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces.”

There are many remarkable things about this, but one is that living in Afghan villages greatly increases troops’ physical risk, contradicting decades of history during which force protection has been among the U.S. military’s chief goals. One of the “radical” things about the counterinsurgency field manual, as Sarah Sewell, former head of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and a recent Defense Policy Board appointee, notes in her introduction, is that it “tells American troops something they may not want to hear: in order to win, they must assume more risk.”

Dead man talking

Vanessa M. Gezari, for the Pulitzer Center

On April 1, suicide attackers invaded the headquarters of Kandahar’s provincial council. A bomb-laden car blew open the gates and four men ran into the compound shooting. They wore the dark green uniforms of the Afghan National Army and suicide vests.

Afghan security forces fought back. Two of the bombers detonated their explosives; the others were killed in the battle. When it was over, a handful of police and seven civilians lay dead alongside the attackers. Among the casualties were two Kandahar provincial officials, the director of education and the deputy director of health.

The attack didn’t kill any American or international soldiers, so it probably escaped the notice of all but the most devoted Afghanistan watchers back home. But it was notable for its size and careful organization. The use of multiple attackers, the plan of entry, even the targeting seemed designed to terrorize, not just to kill. It occurred two days after another big attack near Kandahar city, in which a suicide bomber in an Afghan police uniform blew himself up inside a government building, killing eight. The similarities – the use of uniforms as a disguise, the choice of official targets – are striking.