Why is Afghanistan different from the rest?

October 29, 2009 by Afan Tarar · Leave a Comment

Use usual intelligence practices to win war, including bribery

The war in Afghanistan has turned sour, much to the displeasure of our Pakistani allies. Recently, the Taliban has extended the war into its already weak neighbor.

Pakistan has answered admirably. But now the country is in a state of a practical civil war. There have been bombings or attacks almost every day for the past couple of weeks.

How should the United States respond? Should we send the additional troops our commanders have requested?
Surprisingly, my answer to these problems is very simple: Start fighting the war on terror like it’s a war on terror and not like a war against some random tribes and warlords.

The answer is clear – this war needs to be fought using intelligence and bribes, like most others are. We cannot concentrate only on guns and soldiers.

This war needs to use more drones and strategic missile strikes, not just men. To fight this war, we need to understand the Afghan psyche: These are battle-hardened people and they are nomads.

They have allegiances only to their specific leaders and no one else. The leaders care only about their own people and themselves. They owe no allegiance to President Hamid Karzai, nor do they owe anything to the Taliban.

So why are they working for the Taliban? They side with them because that’s where they see the most advantage. The Taliban probably offers them deals, money and power that we do not. They are negotiating with these leaders, not trying to kill them.

We need to start using good old capitalistic theories to show these people that dealing with us is much better than dealing with the Taliban.

It costs the government hundreds of billions of dollars to keep up this war, but rather than putting all that money into fighting a war that our commanders claim we are losing, why not just bribe these people with some hundreds of thousands?

It seems like that would be much cheaper and allow us to have a good foothold in Afghanistan. Show the Afghan people that they will have a much easier life and the U.S. will preserve their autonomy.

Greed can be a powerful ally and we should use greed to bring about stability in that region. This idea is far from original, but it seems that our policy-makers are thinking along other lines. Afghanistan is a mess and now this mess has spilled into Pakistan.

But some Pakistanis are killing and capturing Taliban leaders – they have been much more successful. We must start recruiting these warlords and tribal leaders to our cause.

Money would jumpstart the Afghan economy and allegiances would move away from the Taliban.

One similar suggestion is to help Afghanis to start growing crops instead of poppy. This was Abdullah Abdullah’s, one of the Afghani presidential hopefuls. It is ingenious and could help not only the Afghans but the U.S. too.

Now that Pakistanis are helping the U.S., this is the perfect time to strike. Taliban’s leaders are relying on these tribes. But if we can get our agents to them and use our means to get them to help us instead, we will win this war.

This is not a time for more soldiers or for indecision – this is a time to sit down and let our agencies finish this war.