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How to reverse the militancy crisis
by Charles FerndaleA frequent cause of the human animal's capacity for self-deception is arrogance coupled with wishful thinking. When Robert Gates, the American secretary of defence, said recently something to the effect that America could not afford the money or time to create some sort of Valhalla in the NWFP, if that was what was required to defeat the militancy there, he was deluded by arrogance. Does he think it can be done on the cheap, according to America's timetable? Probably it can't be done at all. Ignorance and misplaced arrogance are considered virtues in the NWFP. The locals don't take kindly to outsiders trying to tinker with their age-old culture. For that matter, they don't take kindly to insiders doing so. Valhalla, in Norse mythology, is a great hall to which half of those who die in battle go and where they then live in peace. I doubt that Gates had read up on his Norse mythology. What he intended to say was that America could not afford to create an ideal land in the NWFP just to put an end to the militancy there. But what Mr Gates failed to realise is that, in the troubled areas of Pakistan, paradise is having something to eat, is not freezing to death, is not having one's family killed and injured, is not having one's home destroyed; in short, is not being terrorised. And Mr Gates seems to have overlooked the fact that this tragedy is a direct consequence of American foreign policy since 1977. Since the Americans made the dreadful mess, they should pay to have it cleaned up. What if we say we can't afford it, and the locals don't want the mess cleaned up, and we walk away from it? Mr Gates should make up his mind whether or not the present American administration wants seriously to help defeat the militants. Killing them actually does defeat them. Ask Sri Lanka. Successive US administrations have claimed that defeating the militants is vital for the security of the rest of the world, so presumably they should be deeply committed to that end. Pakistan can certainly not afford to do what is necessary alone. If the Americans really do want victory over the militants, then they must do whatever it takes. That would ideally involve killing the bad guyz where they're found, which would include Chitral and Miran Shah and even Quetta, if necessary. Here is what I think is the minimum that must be done in order to defeat the militants: Oh, pray tell on... -- The Americans should guarantee Pakistan against any first attack from India, so that the Pakistani Army can concentrate fully on the troubles on its western border. Let us count the number of times India has attacked Pakistain. A quick analysis of these four wars reveals that 1.) in no case has India attacked Pakistain and 2.) in no case has Pakistain won. -- The militants' sources of finance should be discovered and stopped. No insurgency can survive without a continuous supply of money. If, as many Pakistanis believe, a major source of funds is the Indian intelligence agency, RAW, then America must make India an offer they cannot refuse. Every time somebody goes "kaboom" in Pakistain the government whips out the "hidden hand" story. Within a day or two it comes out that it wasn't insidious (Subcontinental) foreigners, but Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which is an al-Qaeda front, or one of its taste-alikes. When there's been an open-source money trace discussed, it's originated in the UAE or thereabouts -- let's just politely say "the Arabian peninsula." No doubt the masterminds at RAW are operating through Arab frontmen and disguising the money as the donations of The Faithful. -- The resupply of arms must be stopped by whatever means it takes. I've always found that arms supply question really interesting. Afghanistan's a landlocked country and yet its southern third has more arms per square foot than anyplace in the world, with the exception of the western third of Pakistain. How does all that armament get in without anybody noticing? Once it's in, do Pashtun children file off all the serial numbers and other identifying data so that the hardware becomes untraceable?If I was still in the intel bidniz, which regrettably I'm not, I'd have a big map on the wall in my office with the paths of all those guns and ammo traced out in different colors, showing where they came from, when, and who paid for them -- and who waved them through customs. -- Anyone who has studied guerrilla warfare will know that the single most powerful weapon that can be used against insurgents is inside knowledge, so the militants must be infiltrated. They are too smart and too closed a society to be infiltrated from outside, so their own people should be induced by whatever means it takes--one of which is money--to inform on their colleagues. We're doing that. Every once in awhile somebody's head's chopped off in one of the Wazoos. -- Whatever information is gained from infiltration of the insurgents must not be allowed to leak back to the insurgents, which, given the supposed sympathy for militancy within the ISI, cannot be guaranteed except by setting up sealed cells within the intelligence services. Thank you, Captain Obvious. This is why ISI doesn't get advance notification of dronezaps or special operations raids. -- A study of successful counter-insurgencies shows that conventional armies do not do well against insurgents. Depends on the situation. Lanka's doing just fine at the moment, thankew. The Ethiops did find against the Islamic Courts. The Northern Alliance did just fine against the Talibs. And the Russers, using an army of draftees with some fairly incompetent officers, did pretty well against the Chechens once they'd leveled most of Grozny (which is Russian for Terrible). What is needed is undercover special forces who are as hard to detect as are the insurgents. Those'd be the hunter-killer teams I've talked about a time or two here. They have a definite place within a combined arms scenario. The Pakistani Army has little experience in this type of warfare, ... and they don't do real well at the warfare they have experience with... so they should find those who do and get them to train the Pakhtuns as a counter-insurgency guerrilla force. I think we're setting similar things up on the other side of the border, modeled on the Iraqi experience. However, they're not a cure-all. The Paks have lots of experience with tribal lashkars, which have become a running joke on the 'Burg. Going back to the Vietnam experience, there were village defense forces that did okay against Viet Cong, but which folded in the face of North Vietnamese regulars. The trainers could be sympathetic Mujahideen who fought the Russians, Vietnamese who defeated the Americans, the mountain warfare sections of the British Marines and the British SAS, the Canadians, and so on. The sympathetic mujaheddin who fought the Russers were mostly the Northern Alliance. The "Vietnamese who defeated the Americans" are now pushing 60 and live in an entirely different climate and society. The Brits have done okay when their government hasn't put their feet in buckets, but that's happened in almost every operation they've been on. Basra's not going in the books next to Torres Vedras, by any means. And the Canucks, while fine soldiers, could really give a crap. What the writer's left out is the Americans, who're now possessed of the world's best military, bar none. -- Chairman Mao, the great Chinese insurgent, said that guerrilla fighters are fish that swim in the sea of the people. Take away the cover of the people among whom they hide and they become fish out of water. Yeah, yeah. "The guerilla is the fish, the people are the sea, and the party's the hook." Got any other good quotes? The only effective way to do this is to take back and secure, permanently against re-incursion, every village and town in which the insurgents seek cover, food, medical care and resupply. America's record in Vietnam for successfully doing this was bad; maybe the Pakistanis, especially well trained Pakhtuns, can do a better job because they are of the people. The Pakhtuns are the problem, not the solution. They're the ones chopping people's heads off. The bad boyz originate in the villages and towns -- they're not seeking cover there. The solution's not the cannon fodder, but the leadership, and the leadership appears to be sacrosanct. The Paks won't even take out an idiot like Mangal Bagh, which would decapitate Lashkar-e-Islami and relieve the pressure on Peshawar. Mullah Fazlullah drives around in a mobile FM transmitter, but no one's taken an RDF fix on him, followed by about 40 rounds of HE Frag. His father-in-law, Sufi Mohammad, hasn't met with an unfortunate accident since being released from jug. And despite having Mullah Omar's address in Quetta, there hasn't been one more unexplained explosion in that fair city. Furthermore, with the number of Arabs and Chechens wandering around NWFP and FATA, it should be fairly easy to pick the Qaeda fish out of the Pashtun sea. They don't even speak the same languages fergawdsake. The Arabs are the ones with the gutterals, the Chechens and Uzbeks the guys with the cedillas. And the Uighurs are the short guys that look like Chinamen. Shoot them. -- With villages and towns permanently secured, ... which means the head cheeses have been Swissed ... the damage done by the army and militants can be undone, and people can return to nearly normal life Normal life in the NWFP is enough to make a strong but civilized man shudder... in the sure knowledge that they will not be killed by the army or militants later. Putting guards on schools so as to lure back girl students is a hopeless idea unless the area is permanently secured. The smaller the area the easier this strategy should be. So start in the small villages and broadcast successes. Good idea. This will lure the turbans back like bees to honey... The people of the towns and villages should also be armed and trained by Pakhtuns already armed and trained in counter-insurgency. They can form tribal lashkars or village defense councils... Having broadcast the successful freeing of a village from militants, these guerrilla counter-insurgents should lie in wait for militants returning to take revenge on the newly freed village. Ah, yes. The old flypaper technique. -- To guard against arrogant and indifferent abuses of power by the army, as many Pakhtun commanders as possible should lead the conventional army in the NWFP operations. Special operations should be largely made up of Pakhtuns from the areas in which they fight. You're making the assumption they're good at that sort of thing and that they're immune to arrogance and abuse of power. -- Stop killing non-combatants in the areas affected by insurgency. Sounds good. What should you do about human shields, though? Seriously? If Paw's a head-chopping fishy in the great sea of the Pashtun people, and he bravely keeps Maw and the kiddies around him at all times for his safety, what're y'gonna do? Think fast now, 'cause he's planning on sending faceless minions to chop off your head. The present curfew policy--shooting curfew-breakers on sight--is an obscenity. Are the curfew breakers armed? Then it's not. Anyone who is not an insurgent and is willing to risk life by breaking the curfew is clearly in urgent need of help, which they should be given. But how do you know they're not insurgents? How do you know they're not myrmidons, skulking about and up to no good? How do yo know they're not coming to chop your head off? The Punjabi dominated army should be reminded that it is their job to protect, not to kill, non-combatants. Oh. Yeah. That'll work. Why didn't we think of that before? This is something the Americans have never understood, ... because Americans are dumb, unlike the writer... for the simple reason that all the wars they have fought in the last 63 years have been in other people's countries, where they have shown indifference to the deaths and injuries they have inflicted upon the indigenous people. The Pakistani army often behaves as if the NWFP were a foreign country. But they're not good at killing people who speak languages other than native tongues. How much effort does it take for a Punjabi to pot an Arab, anyway? -- Deprive the insurgents of their means of communication, both in military and in propaganda terms. Why the army has not jammed the militants' FM radio, or bombed it out of existence, is beyond me. Radio triangulation is not rocket science. I've mentioned that a time or two in the past, right in these pages. Neither is artillery rocket science. Unless you're firing rockets, of course. -- Launch effective and honest information services (radio and television) to counter the propaganda put out by the insurgents, and to inform people isolated by war of what is going on around them (set up a Tribal Broadcasting Network). The holy men will then shut it down or take it over... Set up communication systems so that people within range can call in rapid assistance teams (medical, military, food, information). The people whom the militants terrorise must have good reason not to feel abandoned by the government and the militants must know that their attacks on those people will cost them their lives. The supply of personnel to the militants will dry up if non-combatants feel safe and are not enraged by suffering they perceive to have been caused by the central government. You've got a multiple set of problems, Chuck, and you're trying to solve it as one. If you set the hunter-killer teams on the Arabs, Chechens, and Uzbeks (and any Avars, Huns, Goths or Gepids who're included in their number) then you're decapitating the bad guy network. The supply of militants includes places like Mosul and Jeddah, so it's not gonna be an overnight process, but if you make NWFP unhealthy for furriners, you'll kill the insurgency there. Coupled with that, you've got to cut off the supply of heavy armaments and trace them back to their points of origin, where terrible accidents should occur. And if you trace the money flow, no doubt "hackers" will be happy to divert all that cash to their own accounts. Pashtuns represent mostly cheap and easily replaced muscle, with the exception of people like Sami ul-Haq, who should have met with unfortunate accidents years ago. They're the middle men between the Arabs and their henchmen and the locals. -- Within the secured areas, undertake intensive, effective, projects that will employ the people and make them self-sufficient. Almost universal literacy could be accomplished within a year at most (in Nicaragua, the Sandanistas changed 85 percent illiteracy to 5 percent in six months, though their population and area was larger). Set up clinics, schools, agricultural advice centres, technical colleges, markets and especially agencies whose job it is to listen to people's grievances and to seek honest solutions to their problems. Perhaps they should hire Sandinistas. The Paks aren't even competent to set up elementary schools throughout the country. People send their kids to madrassahs because they're free and (mostly) clean. -- Address all the grievances of the local people with impartial courts and jirgas comprised of only trustworthy indigenous people and deprive the bullying intruders of all power and, if necessary, of their ill-gotten property too. Ohfergawdsake. The reason the locals are supportive of shariah courts in places like Swat is because the legal system is so riddled with corruption and incompetence they can't get anything resembling "justice." Cases drag on for years. You can murder somebody and unless somebody else files a FIR nothing will happen to you. "State vs. Mahmoud" doesn't appear to exist in Pak jurisprudence. It's all civil unless you're a big cheese -- and even then probably not. Witness how many people have been hung for killing Benazir. In my view, these are the necessary, if not sufficient, conditions for a successful reversal in the NWFP of the present militant terror. Of course, if they were implemented, it would mean that the NWFP would become an area in which social justice would truly exist, for the first time in Pakistan. That would not be Valhalla, it would be a miracle. The writer has degrees from the Royal College of Art, Oxford University, and the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London. He divides his time between the UK and Pakistan Posted by: john frum 2009-02-06 |
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