The US and NATO are preparing to conduct the summer offensive to secure the area around Kandahar Afghanistan. To be honest with you I dont think that fighting the battle will be the major obstacle to securing the region. The biggest hindrance to our being able to gain control of the populated areas is widespread government corruption. In order to maintain control of the real estate that we can take in combat we will need the assistance of the Afghan civilian population, otherwise the Taliban will come back in after we withdraw and set up shop all over again.
President Obama has been pressing President Karzai on this but it remains a serious problem. We must win the hearts and minds of the Afghan population but this will not be possible until they feel confident that they can trust the government which is supposed to protect them. There must be a difference in the government that will win the confidence of the population. They need to know that the new Afghan government has their best interests at heart. They need to respect the new government more than they fear the Taliban. This is just not happening to date.
Corruption is such a way of life in Afghanistan that teaching them to function as they should is a totally new and foreign concept. The only way that many of the new government officials know is the corrupt way. Change has not been easy at all.
It is critical to the process of securing Afghanistan that we put an end to this corruption. Drug use is rampant among the Afghan army and its police force. Attempts to improve this situation have met with little success. The Obama administration has attempted to provide greater incentives to the Afghan policemen and soldiers to step up their performance which have helped but have not been the total solution to the problem.
The strategy of the troop surge is to run the Taliban out of the populated areas in the region, strengthen the government forces there, and then withdraw leaving the Afghans in charge, but the Afghans will not be able to maintain order and discipline if they dont have any discipline themselves. In recent incidents they have been guilty of shaking the civilian population down for their money and goods rather than protecting them. The civilian population will just flow towards the areas of least resistance. So that if the Taliban treats them better they will cooperate with the Taliban. We will not be able to maintain control of the populated areas if there is no mutual trust. Right now it just isnt there.
President Karzai has been reaching out an olive branch to the Taliban in an effort to ensure peace after the offensive by attempting to assimilate them back into the government and the population. Many Taliban fighters at all levels have expressed interest in his plan but once again it wont work if corruption remains rampant.
Remember that about ninety percent of the worlds opium supply comes from Afghanistan, so drug smuggling is the order of the day. This leads to corruption and I will say is probably the root of the entire problem. I say this because the drug business removes all incentive to not become corrupt. How can you tell a dirt poor farmer that he cant grow poppies to make money to feed his family. The US has offered some incentives to Afghan farmers to induce them to grow crops other than poppies but I am not sure if they have been successful.
The US is facing a giant that will be extremely difficult to conquer. It will take all of the diplomacy and ingenuity that we can possibly muster to figure out a way to overcome these obstacles. The long term problem is that if we cannot help the Afghan government to prop itself up and remain stable it will collapse back into anarchy. We will probably have to maintain a significant military posture in the area for a long time to come.
Military Ring Express
