Kandahar Cluster**** Watch - “We are not happy.”

[laststeamtrain]

Kandahar Cluster**** Watch
Posted by Michael Cohen

After the rousing success of US operations in Marjah, where good governance, security for local Afghans and a demoralized Taliban defines that sprawling metropolis, it seems only natural that US military planners are planning an ambitious operation for this summer in Kandahar province where a mere few Taliban dead-enders and eagerly expectant Afghan locals will be sure to greet their American and European liberators with flowers and candy.

Ok, I jest, but after reading the news out of Kandahar the past few days I'm not sure if it makes sense to laugh or to cry. As Matt Yglesias noted the other day COIN advocates have long told us that no one who supports COIN actually wants to do COIN because it's so difficult. But in Afghanistan, in the face of obvious impediments to doing effective counter-insurgency (time, political will, lack of host nation support and civilian support and the continued existence of an external safe haven) the US plows ahead convinced that a COIN fight is the only way to protect US interests there. So instead of confronting reality in Afghanistan US military planners seem increasingly committed to inventing their own.

Take the impending summer offensive in Kandahar. Week before last the Times of London reported that Kandahar elders told President Karzai in no uncertain terms that they don't want a NATO intervention in their city:

"Visiting last week to rally support for the offensive, the president was instead overwhelmed by a barrage of complaints about corruption and misrule. As he was heckled at a shura of 1,500 tribal leaders and elders, he appeared to offer them a veto over military action. “Are you happy or unhappy for the operation to be carried out?” he asked.

"The elders shouted back: “We are not happy.” "

<snip>

In short, all the warning signs about operations in Kandahar are blinking red. We have a civilian population that fears NATO intervention and is broadly sympathetic with the Taliban; we have a US military untrained in the ways of counter-insurgency and chafing at restrictive ROEs; we have an Afghan government that is hardly supportive of the mission and with Karzai's drug-dealing brother in charge of Kandahar not terribly interested in good governance and ending corruption; and of course we have a vicious insurgent force more than happy to up the ante by murdering innocent civilians and using mosques as execution chambers.

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http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2010/04/kandahar-cluster.html

[Robb]

1. Amazing as it might seem

...I believe the situation is even worse in Kandahar than the author thinks.

[tekisui]

2. This is going to be a nasty summer.

The people of Kandahar prefer the Taliban to a US military operation. Marja is already seeing a return of the Taliban, Kandahar will be no different, except that more will die with this larger population. Deeper into the quagmire we go...