NYT Dexter Filkins on Emergent anti-Taliban militia

I identify some key points from and make a few comments on the following article by Dexter Filkins.

Dexter Filkins, “As Afghans Resist Taliban, U.S. Spurs Rise of Militias, New York Times, November 22, 2009

http:www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/world/asia/22militias.html?hp

Dexter Filkins, a reporter and best-selling author (The Forever War), has an article in The New York Times today. The title: “As Afghans Resist Taliban, US Spurs Rise of Militias.” The first sentence captures the thrust of the article: “American and Afghan officials have begun helping a number of anti-Taliban militias that have independently taken up arms against insurgents in several parts of Afghanistan, prompting hopes of a large-scale tribal rebellion against the Taliban.”

Many areas of the country outside of southern Afghanistan are already dominated by warlords with militia. Some have even been fighting the Taliban in places such as Kabul. A number of articles on this blog, especially those involving Malalai Joya, have described the non-Taliban warlords as just as repressive and exploitative of the populations under their control as the Taliban. Thus it remains to be seen whether the newly emergent tribal militias will be fighting for the advancement of the people in their areas.

What excites US military officials is the emergence of some anti-Taliban forces in parts of southern Afghanistan that have had significant Taliban influence. Filkins gives this example. The tribal elders of the Shinwari tribes have begun to battle the Taliban in their part of the Achin District of Nangarhar Province on the border with Pakistan. The elders had insisted that the Taliban keep their hands off a group of Afghans building a dike in the district. When local Taliban “kidnapped two Afghan engineers, the Shinwari elders decided they had had enough," reports Filkins. For the past few months, the tribes have become a counterforce to the Taliban in parts of the Achin District.

According to Filkins, the US military has developed a plan called “Community Defense Initiative,” with the aspiration of encouraging “thousands of gunmen to protect their neighborhoods from Taliban insurgents.” US Special Forces are already involved in providing food and ammunition to groups like the Shinwari and, will in time, provide them with communication equipment, advice, and training. Filkins adds that the US army plants to keep the militia small and limited in scope, focused on “protecting villages and manning checkpoints.” This may be self-delusional.

Filkins’ article offers hope, perhaps unintended, to those who support a US/NATO counterinsurgency policy and may help to justify their argument for an escalation of US troops to Afghanistan. And, unfortunately, it may anticipate another “forever war,” the title of Filkins' award-winning book on his experiences in Iraq. On our side, for what it’s worth, the answer lies not in military solutions but in searching for peaceful and democratic alternatives in the spirit of Malalai Joya. And yet, is it within the realm of feasibility that tribal elders and leaders, those with deep roots in their communities, might represent a potential and positive alternative to the Taliban fundamentalists and the warlords? Perhaps the answer to this question lies in the extent to which they become dependent on outside military assistance.

In the 14th chapter of her book A Woman Among Warlords, Malalai Joya says that Afghanistan needs genuine assistance that would lay the foundation for true independence. She puts it this way:

"Afghanistan needs intervention that will save lives, not intervention that ends lives or destroys people's means to eke out a livelihood. There are a great, small projects run by democratic-minded Afghans,but the money from the Western governments almost never reaches them." Joya then proposes: "A reliable mechanism to monitor and report on the distribution of all aid money is desperately needed, and there must be prosecution when misappropriation and embezzlement of funds is discovered."