The Race to Win Pakistani Hearts
Posted on 25. Aug, 2010 by admin in Around the Planet
Pakistan is still reeling from the torrential rains that have displaced millions of its citizens. International aid – and international media attention – have neen slow on the pickup, and there are fears that extremist terror groups will win over Pakistanis’ hearts due to their quick response.
Ali Siddiqui’s Mahvash & Jahangir Siddiqui Foundation is one moderate group trying to help. Siddiqui discusses what’s happening on the ground and the threat of extremism. (You can make flood relief donations through the Mahvash & Jahangir Siddiqui Foundation here.)
Pakistan Under Water
Posted on 23. Aug, 2010 by admin in Around the Planet
Torrential flooding has left giant swaths of Pakistan under water and driven millions of people from their homes. Ali Siddiqui, director of the Mahvash & Jahangir Siddiqui Foundation, discusses the catastrophe and its possible consequences. (You can make flood relief donations through the Mahvash & Jahangir Siddiqui Foundation here.)
The Man Who Would Be King – Redux
Posted on 17. Aug, 2010 by admin in Around the Planet
Ever wonder what it’s like to be caught in the middle of the Afghan war? Bob Shepherd can tell you. He spent time there as a security adviser and wrote about his experiences in The Circuit.
Now in his new novel The Infidel he tells the story of two British soldiers caught up in deadly political intrigues. A modern-day retelling of Rudyard Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King, it takes place, like its 19th-century predecessor, in Afghanistan’s remote Nuristan province where Shepherd spent time.
In this interview, Shepherd discusses The Infidel as well as the realities of the war in Afghanistan in 2010.
http://blip.tv/file/4002570
A Civil War – Not an Insurgency
Posted on 24. Jun, 2010 by admin in Bob Shepherd
It’s a grim milestone that with good leadership could have been avoided. This week a Royal Marine wounded in Helmund Province became the 300th British soldier to die as a result of operations in Afghanistan. The tragic death has caused many Brits to pause and reflect, not only on the sacrifices made by our brave men and woman in uniform but on the broader issue of what our country can realistically achieve in Afghanistan.
Anticipating the flood of public doubt surrounding Britain’s continued involvement, the new coalition government responded to this terrible landmark by once again linking Afghanistan to national security. ‘We are paying a high price for keeping our country safe,’ said Prime Minister David Cameron. ‘We are there because the Afghans are not yet ready to keep their own country safe and to keep terrorists and terrorist training camps out of their country.’ This, as regular readers of my posts will know, is a bogus argument in my view. If anything, Britain’s military presence in Afghanistan has compromised national security by fanning the flames of home grown terrorism. As for making the world a safer place; I’ve said since 2001 that Britain and its allies would do better to tackle al-Qaeda at its source by hitting select targets in Pakistan (al-Qaeda’s primary breeding ground) and Saudi Arabia (al-Qaeda’s financial centre). Going after terrorists one by one in Afghanistan is tantamount to swatting mosquitoes to eradicate malaria.
Can he be won over?
Those who support ‘staying the course’ in Afghanistan believe the coalition can eventually succeed in its mission to bring security and stability to the country. This misperception is not surprising given that for years now, the public has been told that Britain and its allies are waging a counter-insurgency campaign. Indeed I have been sucked into calling the conflict an insurgency. I apologize for doing so and I’d like to be perfectly clear now: Britain is not fighting counter-insurgency in Afghanistan. We have taken sides in a festering 30-year civil war. This distinction is crucial for understanding the limits of what can be achieved there. A foreign force can win a counter-insurgency by getting the people in its area of operations on side. By contrast, British and US forces operating in Pashtoon dominated Southern and Eastern Afghanistan have no chance of winning over the local population because the coalition has allied itself with the former commanders of the Northern Alliance – the mortal enemies of the Pashtoon.
Having worked for six years as a security advisor in Afghanistan, I’ve had contact with locals ranging from humble villagers to cunning warlords. When pressed, they have all come to the same dire conclusion. It doesn’t’ matter when the coalition withdraws from Afghanistan, the end result will be the same; brutal, all-out civil war. Bear in mind too that it’s not just the coalition that have taken sides in the Afghan conflict. India, Pakistan and China all have a presence in the country whether through proxies or exploiting the country’s vast mineral wealth. Russia and Iran are also working behind-the-scenes to secure their interests. That’s five regional powers – all with nuclear weapons or close to it, vying to assert their will in Afghanistan. No matter how you look at it, Afghanistan is a quagmire that defies military solutions.
It’s entirely possible to support our troops in Afghanistan and be against the war. Britain’s armed forces deserve to be honoured for their service and sacrifice. The fact that they were able to hold out in Helmand for years despite being woefully undermanned and ill-equipped is testament to their skill and prowess. They could fight on in Afghanistan indefinitely if that’s what this country asks of them. But make no mistake: achieving Afghan stability is a mission no foreign army, no matter how professional, can accomplish.
Bob Shepherd is an ex-SAS soldier and bestselling author of The Circuit. His debut novel The Infidel will be published August 5th by Simon & Schuster UK. To read more posts by him, please visit www.bobshepherdauthor.com.
Six Months and Still Going
Posted on 14. Jun, 2010 by admin in Around the Planet
Although a year has passed since Iran’s contested presidential election, it is still up for debate what exactly happened in the aftermath. Juan Cole discusses the controversy in a recent blog post. The Week in Green has been closely tracking the political situation in Iran. This piece covers a protest six months after the election, giving a sense of the size and scale of the protest demonstrations.
http://www.vimeo.com/12565586
The Green Movement, Revisited
Posted on 11. Jun, 2010 by admin in Around the Planet
It has been a year since Iran’s last presidential election, the highly disputed poll in which authorities claimed the conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defeated the reformist challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi. The results, which most observers believe were manipulated, set off a wave of protests that continue to this day. One of the programs that tracked the increasingly dangerous situation, using footage that was smuggled out, was The Week in Green. As this overview documenting the movement from June 2009 to February 2010 shows, the protests continued long after the election.
http://www.vimeo.com/12501322
Not Fit to Lead
Posted on 10. Jun, 2010 by admin in Bob Shepherd
After four years, the British media have finally got it. This week, the Times published a two month investigation into who was responsible for the disastrous decision to deploy British forces to Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in insufficient numbers back in 2006. The answer was in the headline: The Officer’s Mess.
Of course, today it is obvious to a blind man that the Helmand mission was poorly planned and woefully undermanned. Nearly three hundred brave British soldiers have lost their lives in Southern Afghanistan and many have sustained horrific, life-altering wounds. But as far back as 2004 and certainly by 2005, it was clear to anyone who visited the province that it would never be pacified by a token occupying force.
In spring 2004, I escorted a media client to Helmand. We didn’t fly. We drove from Kabul to Lashkar Gah. Traveling unilaterally outside the security bubble of a military embed was a real eye opener. We found a poppy field growing outside the Governor’s mansion and Taliban frolicking on a nearby riverbank. It was no mystery who had the run of the place. In my conversations with locals, the disdain for foreign forces in Afghanistan was palpable. They warned that Helmand would put up fierce resistance if the coalition stepped up its campaign. I knew then that Helmand would be no walk-over.
Talib in Helmand, 2004
The outrageous thing is I wasn’t alone in my thinking. The Times investigation detailed how senior military chiefs and civil servants ignored multiple warnings that Britain was grossly underestimating the challenges it would face in Helmand. As one ‘senior serving officer who asked not to be named’ told The Times, ‘We who had bothered to put a bit of work in and had done the estimate realized that we needed much more than we were being given.’
The Times suggests that some military chiefs were putting politics ahead of sound military planning. I can’t say I’m surprised. Back in 2005 and early 2006, the prevailing mood was that all was going swimmingly in Afghanistan; a view I challenged frequently in conversations with military based there. Helmand was a particularly volatile subject. My argument that it was a mistake for British troops to deploy to the province was usually greeted with a mixture of denial, caution and/or veiled anger. Team players, it seemed, didn’t express such opinions.
I’ve said it before and it bears repeating now: generals who drop their pants for politicians don’t win military campaigns. The senior brass who signed off on the Helmand mission and those who remained silent after it was abundantly clear mistakes had been made should be held accountable. It is inconceivable to me that former Army Heads General Sir Mike Jackson and General Sir Richard Dannatt retired to lucrative consulting careers with chests full of medals and strings of letters after their names. I for one would like to see them stripped of their titles and medals which is generous considering that two hundred years ago, their tenures may well have ended with blindfolds and shots fired at dawn.
It’s too late for retired military brass to make amends as far as I’m concerned. But senior serving officers can still stand up and be counted — and that doesn’t include giving anonymous quotes to the press. If a senior officer believes that the soldiers he commands are being sacrificed to poor planning, he can and should resign on the spot. During the Falklands campaign, my squadron commander resigned in protest over a scenario that would have killed his men needlessly. The scenario was corrected and the squadron lived to fight another day. In 23 years of military service, it was the only instance I can recall in which a Rupert put his men before his career. He didn’t get an official title for his troubles, but his men awarded him one: HERO.
Bob Shepherd is an ex-SAS soldier and bestselling author of The Circuit. His debut novel The Infidel will be published August 5th by Simon & Schuster UK. To read more posts by him, please visit www.bobshepherdauthor.com.
Political Pissing Matches
Posted on 29. Apr, 2010 by admin in Bob Shepherd
Private security contractors working for Western PSCs in Kabul added another occupational hazard to their already considerable portfolio this week after Bill Shaw, a manager for Britain’s largest security firm was convicted of bribery by an Afghan court and sentenced to two years in prison. I have no doubt that Mr. Shaw was acting in good faith when he paid a $20,000 fine for the release of two improperly licensed vehicles owned by his employer, G4S; parent company of ArmorGroup. By all accounts, he is an upstanding manager who got caught in a political pissing match between Karzai’s government and the West over who is fuelling corruption in Afghanistan.
In light of the recent rows between Karzai and his western backers, the railroading of Mr. Shaw certainly smacks of the Afghan President getting a little of his own back. But harassment of foreign PSCs in Afghanistan is certainly nothing new. Since at least 2006, Afghan authorities have been stopping foreign contractors at police roadblocks, confiscating weapons, communications systems and vehicles, raiding security company compounds and arresting consultants on fabricated charges. Some have argued that such activities are needed to rein in rogue contractors. While a small minority of foreign security personnel in Afghanistan have behaved like cowboys, it’s my firm belief that the hounding of foreign PSCs has nothing to do with law enforcement and everything to do with lining the pockets of corrupt Afghans.
So-called ‘fines’ are just the tip of the iceberg. There are shed loads of cash to be made servicing commercial security contracts in Afghanistan and the country’s warlords and Generals who run their own local PSCs/militias have been trying to get rid of the foreign competition for years. As poor Bill Shaw discovered, that agenda has now converged with Karzai’s need to demonstrate that the international community is also to blame for corruption in his country.
Political Pawns?
The Times reported that Mr. Shaw cleared the fine with his head office in London before paying it and that immediately prior to his arrest; ‘someone’ suggested he ‘leave the country on a British military flight.’ Having managed commercial security teams in Afghanistan since 2004, I would have thought G4S’s managers in London would have insisted he leave the country the second he was called in for questioning. They were incredibly naïve in my view. There are no objective rules in Afghanistan. The Afghans make them up as they go along. After nine years, G4S and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office which encourages British businesses to come to Afghanistan should know this. I hope both are playing hardball right now to secure Mr. Shaw’s release.
Of course, the real sting in the tail is that the judicial system that convicted Mr. Shaw is partially funded by the British tax payer. How can Britain continue to justify pouring money and troops into Afghanistan when men like Bill Shaw who are trying to facilitate business and development in the country are hung out to dry?
Finally, let’s not forget Maiwand Limar, the Afghan G4S employee who was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison alongside Bill Shaw. You can guarantee poor Mr. Limar won’t be enjoying any special treatment in Kabul’s notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison. I hope G4S are working as hard to clear his name as they are Mr. Shaw’s and that both men’s families will be fully provided for while this political storm rages.
Bob Shepherd is an ex-SAS soldier and bestselling author of The Circuit. To read more posts by him, please visit www.bobshepherdauthor.com.
“If I’m Kidnapped, I’m Gone”
Posted on 12. Mar, 2010 by admin in Around the Planet, Clickables
Any journalist who goes to Afghanistan knows he (or she) is only as good as his fixer. This would be the person who acts as interpreter, reporter and producer, setting up interviews and accompanying Western journalists around the country, often into dangerous circumstances.
Christian Parenti’s fixer was Ajmal Naqshband, who was only 24 when he was killed in a botched prisoner exchange, a murder that is significant not just from a humanistic perspective but as it reflects the current state of Afghanistan as well.
Parenti, who produced and is featured in the documentary “Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi,” explains how the film was made, and why.
“Fixer” is currently playing at the Mayles Cinemas in New York City.
A Blast in the Proxy War
Posted on 26. Feb, 2010 by admin in Around the Planet, Clickables
Two longtime Afghanistan hands, Elizabeth Rubin and Bob Shepherd, have told us repeatedly about the struggle between Pakistan and India playing out on the field of Afghanistan. And, by all accounts, the three suicide bombings today in Kabul targeted Indian nationals.
Two of the explosions occurred at guesthouses for Indians working in Afghanistan, and a Taliban spokesman told Al Jazeera that the goal had been to strike at the “enemies of Afghanistan from among the foreign Indians.”
So what does this mean as the US steps up its involvement?
Well, for one thing, as Bob Shepherd tells us today, “It would appear as several steps back from the exit strategy if McChrystal has to put troops back into securing Kabul again.
No Love for India
“It makes the flag raising on the dot on the landscape of Marjah look very insignificant when NATO have nothing to do with securing the capital.”
The Pakistani government, as we know, has been working with the US to track down—and successfully so—Taliban members. Additionally, only yesterday, the foreign ministers of Pakistan and India met, for the first time since the Mumbai bombing. “The attack looks to have more to do with [that] meeting, given the amount of Indian deaths in the attacks and Indian managed establishments that were hit,” Shepherd points out.
The Taliban—and others—have a vested interest in keeping up tensions. For one thing, more trouble between Pakistan and India means less heat on them. Seven out of 15 members of Mullah Omar’s branch of the Taliban have been captured by Pakistan in the past few weeks.
- Michele Mitchell