May 8, 2007
Kamloops Daily News

We can win the war in Afghanistan but the tactics required
may not be acceptable to all Canadians.

One thing is for sure: the current strategy is not working.
Modern armed forces are no match against the
community-supported insurgents of Afghanistan. The superior
firepower of the NATO allies can destroy roads, bridges,
tanks, electrical grids and communications towers. But when
the enemy is indistinguishable from the local population, no
victory can be achieved.

Edward Luttwak, senior fellow for Strategic & International
Studies explains that such enemies are "low contrast" as
opposed to "high contrast" military and infrastructure
targets. "More advanced forces will have large advantages
in firepower, mobility, and operational coherence. But they
will also have no visible enemy to fight, so that the normal
operational methods and tactics of conventional warfare
cannot be applied."

The Taliban of Afghanistan seldom engages in direct combat.
They prefer roadside and suicide bombings, infiltration of
government, sabotage, kidnapping, and assassination. They
choose the time and place of attacks and then resume the
innocuous lives of civilians.

Canadians are open targets as they move troops, food, fuel
and ammunition by truck convoys. Convoys are easy pickings
from many groups: insurgents, militias in need of supplies,
highway robbers, and ordinary citizens engaged in
opportunistic looting.

Many of the local police and soldiers being trained by
Canadians are loyal to the Taliban and take orders from
them. They willing take jobs because they need money to
feed their families.

Canadians may have won the pocketbooks of Afghanis but not
their allegiance. Even those civilians who are sympathetic
to Canadian efforts to rebuild schools are not going to
inform on insurgents; sooner or later the Canadians will be
gone but the Taliban are there to stay. They are in the
community and of the community.

The Taliban's political and religious advantages can't be
overcome by military firepower. The Taliban and
neighbouring al-Qaeda leaders have successfully convinced
Afghanis that Canadians and their Christian allies have come
to steal the country's oil and destroy Islam. The arguments
are even more convincing when Canada's government gives open
support to Israel, the traditional enemy of Afghanistan.

The Muslim clerics effectively dismiss the Canadian talk of
democracy and human rights. The clerics counter the
criticism of absence of women's rights by saying that
Canadians only want to lead Afghanistan's daughters into
promiscuity and nakedness, and their wives into
impertinence.

Afghanistan is a tribal society which regards central
government with suspicion. The Western-imposed parliament
is foreign to them. And the women parliamentarians who
openly contradict men on television cause resentment.

The majority of Afghanis believe their religious leaders.
They find it hard to believe that Canadian soldiers are
prepared to die so that they might have schools and
hospitals. Afghanis would invade a foreign county only to
plunder it, not as an altruistic act.

However, there are reliable ways of defeating insurgents
says Luttwak. The first thing to realize is that insurgents
and local leaders are not the only ones who can intimidate
or terrorize civilians. For instance, whenever insurgents
are believed to be present in a village the local leaders
and clerics could be forced to surrender them to Canadians
under the threat of escalating punishments ending in mass
executions.

A powerful message would be sent to those who would hide
insurgents if a few leaders are lined up against a wall and
shot, and their bodies disposed in mass graves. Ugly, brute
force speaks volumes. That's how the Ottoman Empire
controlled entire provinces with a few feared squadrons of
cavalry.

Before the Ottoman Empire, the Romans knew how to instill
fear and suppress insurgencies. If the conquered people
were too proud to accept the benefits of foreign rule, they
were sold into slavery. Or they became target practice for
the Roman legions. A Scottish chieftain bitterly complained
of Roman invaders: "They make a wasteland and call it
peace."

The idea is to out-terrorize the insurgents as Hitler's
dreaded army did. When just one German soldier died, the
nearest farm or town was burned and anyone who happened to
be standing around was killed as a demonstration of ruthless
brutality. Word soon got out that human life was worthless
to the occupiers.

Of course, Canadians will never accept these barbaric
tactics and that's the point: Our current tactics won't
work against Afghan guerrillas and the tactics that will
work are unacceptable.

David Charbonneau is the owner of Trio Technical.
He can be reached at dcharbonneau13@shaw.ca

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