The Dearing Dialogue

The New York Times posts a thought twister that bends the semantic reach of “rational” warfare (my own quotes).  Talking about the assassination of Abdul-Sattar Abu Reesha, a Sunni tribal leader in Iraq, the Times explains that he was the “leader of the American supported Sunni tribal uprising against extremist Islamist insurgents”.  This indeed, forced me to sigh and attempt to digest the meaning. 

It is an interesting suggestion that we accept some insurgents are not “extremist”, this is what I gather from the descriptive nature of the quote.  If that be the case, that gives the non-extremist insurgent a cassu belli; legitimacy against occupation? against the Iraqi government? legitimacy of some sort.  A question worth observation, but not when being observed from the eyes of the occuping power.  At this stage of the insurgency, it matters little which side has a legitimate role, in reality legitimacy is an illusion that greases the wheels of the insurgent or the state to go from one violent act to another.  An opiate that clouds reality, veils the guilt, and feeds the insatiable hunger of vengence for the insurgent and power for the empire.

Another interesting notion is our support for tribal uprisings.  How thin must that support be?  What conditions are paramount for that support.  Just listen to history shout at our ignorance and lack of attention.  Can we really expect Sunni “support” to be something more than a temporary conveniance for disempowered Sunnis to regain what they’ve lost. 

A last thing to consider.  Many of the Sunnis we’re arming now to rise up agaisnt the insurgents have killed Americans in battle.  This should be enough to infuriate the most ardent patriot and at least frustrate the apathetic. 

From NY Times, Sunday, July 22:

(…) when asked how the United States would respond if Al Qaeda were to plot a successful attack on the United States from the tribal areas (Pakistan), the answer from one intelligence officials was direct: “We’d go in and flatten it.”

Jon Lee Anderson writes a brilliant piece in the New Yorker on opium farming in Afghanistan.  Anderson travels to Oruzgan Province (red area on map) with the Afghan Eradication Force (AEF) and US DEA counternarcotics agent Douglas Wankel, who is overseeing the eradication process. 

Opium has now become a major counter-insurgency operation in Afghanistan.  Since last year, the production of opium has increased in Afghanistan by 60%.   The Taliban, who once considered opium harvesting unholy, now uses it as a means to control the population in Southern and Eastern Afghanistan - areas of greatest Taliban influence.  The coalition is at odds in how to deal with a product that is both sustaining the power of the Taliban and the livelihood of local residents.  Dutch forces are using a stand-off approach focused on making the Taliban an irrelevant presence and an unpopular choice for residents by promoting alternative crops.  DEA agent, Wankel is apprehensive:

“Most or all Europeans are opposed to eradication—they’re into winning hearts and minds,” he said. “But it’s our view that it isn’t going to work. There has to be a measured, balanced use of force along with hearts and minds.” He conceded, however, that the Uruzgan operation fell squarely on the use-of-force side of the scale. Later, he told me, aid, seed, and fertilizer would be offered to the farmers around Tirin Kot, but not yet. Other Americans were frankly contemptuous of the Dutch policy, which they regarded as softheaded.”

Of course, when alternatives don’t exist, the farmers will fall back on what they know best and what has supported them in the past.  Opium will give them over $500 an acre of harvest, while wheat may net $50 an acre.  At the same time, development from the Kabul is unequal and often corrupt.  It is based on tribal loyalties according to one local Afghan in Anderson’s article:

“The Karzai government doesn’t give the money to poor farmers growing poppy. It gives it only to its friends who grow it”—corrupt officials and landowners with political influence. (Many of the farmers were sharecroppers.) “We would be happy to stop growing opium if they would give us some help, and stop giving the money meant for us to thieves.” Instead of receiving aid from government officials, Ahmad said, “if they tell us to break the poppies, we must pay them not to.”

At the same time, areas where the Taliban are strongest tend to go untouched in the eradication process.  Whereas, areas with the greatest influence from the central government are hit hard and tend to alienate the local residents. 

It has also proven virtually impossible to conduct in districts where the Taliban are relatively strong, thereby inevitably penalizing farmers in pro-government districts.”

And corruption is enemic within the central government.  In a previous entry, I explained how one governor was arrested for holding tons of opium in his provincial office.  In Anderson’s article, he finds the AEF police providing security are working with sticky hands:

I walked past one of the jeeps where some of Qassem’s policemen, dressed in robes and sparkly skullcaps, were laughing and talking with the opium growers. I caught a whiff of something burning as I passed. They were smoking hashish.

The opium harvest is a linchpin that must be addressed in the broader context of the Taliban insurgency.  We must focus on alternatives for local farmers and provide those as incentives to steer residents away from Taliban influence.  Understanding the human terrain of Oruzgan and other provinces is the only way to ensure we quell insurgent complicity, but to prevent it from perpetuating itself.

A video report by Jeffrey Gettleman on the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) in eastern portion of Ethiopia.  The Ogaden people are ethnic Somalis.  The ONLF are fighting a political battle for independence from Ethiopia.  Their mission statement states they are “a grassroots social and political movement (…) as both an advocate for and defender of the people is dedicated to restoring the rights of Somalis in Ogaden to self-determination, peace, development, and democracy”.

Understanding this organization is paramount in attempting to stabilize Somalia. 

ONLF website

I read a few days back, as I do nearly everyday, the list of names printed in the NY Times of soldiers that have died.  One name stood out:  Lt. Andrew Bacevich Jr.  I recognized the name from a professor I had listened to back in 2005 at Berkeley.  I was hoping the connection was not real.  But I was wrong.  The son of Prof. Andrew Bacevich died from a suicide car bomber in Iraq.  He was the only son of the professor.  It is a shame that it came to this.  I can’t even imagine the grief he is going through.  Grief that is only beginning to work its way into the fabric of our society as a whole.

Former Soldier, Now a Professor, Losses his Only Son to a War He Actively Opposed

On the other side of the connection between war and drugs is the case in New York, where federal prosecutors are trying to convict 8 Samalis for possession of Khat (Making a Federal Case of an Obscure Leaf).  Khat is a shrub chewed in Africa and the Middle East that acts much like an espresso does.  The idea is to link the possession to terrorism in Somali.  This is a hard sell, primarily since Khat was banned by the Islamic government that was in power and recently collapsed, and the primary dealers in Khat are warlords supported by the US.  Are you shaking your head yet?

“Hell hath no fury like a zealous federal prosecutor on a mission,” said Tim Gresback, a Moscow, Idaho, defense attorney who has been following the federal cases. “If your ideology impels you to conclude that an expensive prosecution of Somalis for chewing on a shrub will somehow reduce terrorism, common-sense financial considerations become irrelevant. When obsessed with terrorism you see it everywhere, even hiding in a shrub.”

The irrationality of how this so-called “War on Terror” has been fought is mind-boggling.  This is a good example of the unwarranted effects of the Patriot Act.

James Risen’s article in the NY Times (Poppy Fields Are Now a Front Line in Afghanistan War) has given a greater perspective on the urgent need to confront the drug trade in Afghanistan.  The drug trade inevitably fuels the insurgency as Taliban commanders profit off of the trade of poppy for international arms.  More so, as Risen points out, many in the Afghan government leadership also profit off of the drug trade (one regional governor being caught with a stash of 9 tons in his office).  The US leadership is slow to react to the poppy economy, which fuels roughly 50% of Afghan exports.  The current operation is slow and disoriented.  Their is no plan to transition farmers from poppy to another profitable crop.  The US can not use another Columbian effort that has yet to curb the flow of cocaine from Columbia after 20 years. 

The current export revenue of poppy in Afghanistan is 3 billion a year.  We could easily purchase the entirety of poppy, use it for morphine production in the US, and offer incentives for the growth of new crops (how about corn?).  Instead, the DEA is thinking of flying crop dusters over Afghan farms.  Imagine the cultural implications. 

In the meantime, Afghans are picking and choosing farms to destroy based on tribal loyalties.  They send out a hundred or so men to destroy poppy plants by hand while US contractors provide security from Taliban reprisals.  However, the growth of poppy production is scheduled to grow.  It is currently producing at levels above global demand.  A new, logical alternative is needed for farmers and for the Afgan government.

So says Senator Harry Reid, as quoted by the NY Times.  I agree with him.  Of course, it was lost years ago when we failed to take account of thousands of years of history and culture.  It is not an indictment on our servicemen and women who spill blood everyday, rather one on the incompent administration in Washington.  Dwelling on this matter is of little consequence.  What will come about with a collapsed state of Iraq?  That is more important. 

• A clash of cultures.  Shia and Sunnis will battle it out in the streets.  It does not help that both sides are funded by outside sources.  The Sunnis by America, Saudia Arabia, and Pakistan.  The Shia by Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.  Iraq is thus a proxy war, much like Vietnam was between the Americans and Soviets.
• The inevitable rise of an Islamic state.  No matter which side wins out the bloodfest, an Islamic state will materialize.  That is what any democratic vote would bring today or any long-fought battle.  With Shiia representing the majority (60%) in Iraq, and making up the vast majority in Iran - the dawning of a Shiia empire has already shown its light.
• The Fall of Saudi Arabia.  The Saudi regime has called for the war in Iraq since the 90s since it provides their Wahhabi extremists an outlet.  The regime is corrupt to the bone and every Saudi outside the regime knows it and despises it.  A Shiia Iraq will likely bring strength to the Shiia minority in Saudi Arabia.  All of those weapons the Saud family purchases from Boeing for its personal protection would not likely stop an all out rebellion. 
• Worldwide Recession.  Robert Baer in the first chapter of Sleeping with the Devil  paints a picture of a virtual plug to the oil spigots if the Al Jubayl oil field were taken out.  A rebellion in Saudi Arabia would send oil prices through the roof and cut-off supplies to world markets in a way that would send us into one of the deepest recessions we’d ever see.  The US economy thrives due to a constant and steady flow of Saudi crude.  If that were suddenly stopped due to instability in Saudi Arabia, I can only imagine what would happen.

Of course all of this could have been prevented if Americans actually paid more attention and were more active in the administration of their government.  Instead we were governed by fear, and like sheep, led over the cliff. 

One area of the current global war on terror I’m finding intriguing is a rather unfamiliar but controversial idea of exploiting culture in order to achieve desired results.  This is not necessarily something new.  In fact, unconvential and even conventional wars have in some way used culture as a “weapon”.  The best modern example of this is the Abu Ghraib method of torture where inmates were subjected to sexual activities they found unacceptable in their Islamic culture.  This was used as a means to coerce inmates to give in to interrogation by breaking their will to resist.  An article I recently read: Anthropology in the Military  provided a brief history on culture as a weapon and argued for a more active involvment of anthropologists in the service of the state.  Of course, this runs contrary to the anthropologists moral creed against using the culture of another people.  Such an action by your typical academic anthropologist would not only break the bond of trust between the studied culture and the academic, but also prevent future academics from regaining the trust of other cultures.  One can see the dilemma for both researcher and state operative.  While the lack of cultural understanding has certainly prevented the US from gaining lasting political compromises, the exploitation of it could equally undermine such political gains.  A balance is needed.

This year the US military may have found a way to bypass the anthropologist dilemma by creating its own source of cultural intelligence gatherers, otherwise known as Human Terrain Teams (HTT).  They are 5 man teams whose mission will consist of collecting cultural, ethnographic data on specific geographical regions in the Middle East.  What will be done with this data presents an important question.  Another look at the Human Terrain System