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Battered Population Syndrome

In a moment of synchronicity, I stumbled onto this story about Afghanistan in the NYT today, G.I.'s in Afghanistan on Hunt, but Now for Hearts and Minds [Free Reg Required]. Our military is trying a different tack with the indigenous these days. In a kind of good cop/bad cop scenario, they use bribery first and only resort to intimidation if bribery doesn't work.

...on this afternoon, his mission was not combat. It was the distribution of blankets, shirts and sewing kits to destitute Afghan villagers.

For the previous hour, American Army medics had doled out free antibiotics, asthma medication and antacids. Lieutenant Finn sipped tea with Muhammad Sani, a wizened village elder, and offered to pay for a new school or well.

"The more they help us find the bad guys," Lieutenant Finn explained, "the more good stuff they get."

As the effort to find Osama bin Laden and uproot the Taliban intensifies, the United States military is shifting tactics. A mission once limited to sweeps, raids and searches has in recent months yielded to an exercise in nation building. The hope is that a better relationship with local residents and a stronger Afghan state will produce better intelligence and a speedier American departure. But the tension between building schools one day and rounding up suspects at gunpoint the next makes the prospects for success far from clear.

November is coming on fast and the pressure is on. We're sending 150 men at a time to cover 15-25 mile chunks of land at the Pakinstani border, that contain along the lines of, "more than 300 villages, three major ethnic Pashtun tribes, countless subtribes and a smuggling route used by the Taliban and Al Qaeda to slip from Pakistan into Afghanistan."

Our guys are supposed to win over the people, who have been burned by the broken promises of many "liberators" in the decades past. I don't why they think tactics like this will help.

Visibly angry, the Americans tied the teenager's hands, placed a burlap sack on his head and pushed him down a steep hillside. As an American soldier knelt on the boy's back and pushed his face into the dirt, Sergeant Jarzab demanded to know if there were more hidden weapons.

"He's a liar, and he's going to Cuba," the sergeant shouted, although he later ordered the boy freed. The boy insisted he had found the mortar and planned to sell it.

As watching Afghan women wailed and recited prayers, one sergeant placed the mortar round on the teenager's back, and another held the captured rifles in the air. A soldier snapped a souvenir photo of the Americans and their quarry.

We destroyed their country. We alternate between bringing aid and terrorizing their villages. How are these uneducated people to know whether to welcome us or fear us?

At 6 the following morning, Captain Condrey and his soldiers woke up in the riverbed. Within an hour, 80 curious Afghan villagers were sitting on the riverbank staring at them.

The moment seemed to epitomize the overwhelming power the American military wields in Afghanistan, but also how separate it remains from Afghan society.

The article details three days with this platoon on their patrol. It's long and disturbing, but well written. As they say, worth reading in full.