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| Afghanistan: the war within a war | Afghanistan: the war within a war |
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| Having made his name with a book about the catastrophic blunder that was the Iraq war, Rajiv Chandrasekaran is fast emerging as the master 21st-century chronicler of American failure abroad. He insists it is not a position he sought. After Imperial Life in the Emerald City, a portrait of Bush-era hubris and ineptitude in Baghdad's Green Zone, Chandrasekaran says he expected the tone of his Afghan sequel to be quite different. After all, Afghanistan was supposed to be Barack Obama's "good war", fought for the right reasons and the right way. | Having made his name with a book about the catastrophic blunder that was the Iraq war, Rajiv Chandrasekaran is fast emerging as the master 21st-century chronicler of American failure abroad. He insists it is not a position he sought. After Imperial Life in the Emerald City, a portrait of Bush-era hubris and ineptitude in Baghdad's Green Zone, Chandrasekaran says he expected the tone of his Afghan sequel to be quite different. After all, Afghanistan was supposed to be Barack Obama's "good war", fought for the right reasons and the right way. |
| "Iraq, we can all agree upon, was folly of the highest magnitude," says Chandrasekaran, a former Washington Post foreign correspondent who has recently risen to be one of the paper's assisting managing editors. "I think there was a justifiable reason for going into Afghanistan early on, trying to help beat back the Taliban and trying to create a better, more peaceful, society there. But the way the Afghan war has played out has been filled with some grave errors." | "Iraq, we can all agree upon, was folly of the highest magnitude," says Chandrasekaran, a former Washington Post foreign correspondent who has recently risen to be one of the paper's assisting managing editors. "I think there was a justifiable reason for going into Afghanistan early on, trying to help beat back the Taliban and trying to create a better, more peaceful, society there. But the way the Afghan war has played out has been filled with some grave errors." |
| Chandrasekaran's new book is called Little America, a reference to what Afghans used to call the Helmand capital Lashkar Gah when, in the 50s and 60s, US contractors tried unsuccessfully to turn the Helmand river valley into Central Asia's answer to the fertile prairies of the Midwest. It also wryly refers to the US's second chance to try to shape the destiny of southern Afghanistan over the past 11 years, which he contends has been another tale of wasted opportunities. | Chandrasekaran's new book is called Little America, a reference to what Afghans used to call the Helmand capital Lashkar Gah when, in the 50s and 60s, US contractors tried unsuccessfully to turn the Helmand river valley into Central Asia's answer to the fertile prairies of the Midwest. It also wryly refers to the US's second chance to try to shape the destiny of southern Afghanistan over the past 11 years, which he contends has been another tale of wasted opportunities. |
| The book's subtitle, The War Within the War for Afghanistan, reflects the author's near-constant tone of bewilderment and frustration at the petty battles fought between people who were supposed to be on the same side: the Obama administration against President Hamid Karzai, the diplomats against the soldiers, the marines against the infantry, and the Americans against the British over tactics and turf in Helmand. | The book's subtitle, The War Within the War for Afghanistan, reflects the author's near-constant tone of bewilderment and frustration at the petty battles fought between people who were supposed to be on the same side: the Obama administration against President Hamid Karzai, the diplomats against the soldiers, the marines against the infantry, and the Americans against the British over tactics and turf in Helmand. |
| "It wasn't the kind of book I was intending to write when I began travelling to Afghanistan on a regular basis in 2009," Chandrasekaran says. "I thought I was going to write a book about how Team Obama managed to pull it off, to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat." | "It wasn't the kind of book I was intending to write when I began travelling to Afghanistan on a regular basis in 2009," Chandrasekaran says. "I thought I was going to write a book about how Team Obama managed to pull it off, to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat." |
| As it turned out, the book became an account of the very wide gap between the theory and practice of counter-insurgency (Coin, as it is known in US military manuals), a tactic that rose to the fore under Obama and superstar generals such as David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal. The basic idea was that instead of focusing on killing "bad guys", the military emphasis should be on protecting civilians to win their trust and dry up the swamp of discontent and alienation in which the insurgency bred. It seemed to work in Iraq, and in 2009 the generals convinced Obama to give them two years and a surge of 30,000 troops to turn the tide against the Taliban in Afghanistan. | As it turned out, the book became an account of the very wide gap between the theory and practice of counter-insurgency (Coin, as it is known in US military manuals), a tactic that rose to the fore under Obama and superstar generals such as David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal. The basic idea was that instead of focusing on killing "bad guys", the military emphasis should be on protecting civilians to win their trust and dry up the swamp of discontent and alienation in which the insurgency bred. It seemed to work in Iraq, and in 2009 the generals convinced Obama to give them two years and a surge of 30,000 troops to turn the tide against the Taliban in Afghanistan. |
| The trouble was that almost all the conditions in Afghanistan were wrong. Even after the surge, Chandrasekaran argues, there were not nearly enough troops and not nearly enough time. The "civilian surge" of development workers who was supposed to demonstrate the benefits of rejecting the Taliban mostly comprised a random selection of state department bureaucrats with no particular aptitude or passion for the job.Even the motivated and talented found they were forbidden from leaving US bases for health and safety reasons. Absurdly – and the book is crammed with absurdities – they had to fill in lengthy forms whenever they happened to talk to someone from a country on the state department's Security Environment Threat List, which included all Afghans. | The trouble was that almost all the conditions in Afghanistan were wrong. Even after the surge, Chandrasekaran argues, there were not nearly enough troops and not nearly enough time. The "civilian surge" of development workers who was supposed to demonstrate the benefits of rejecting the Taliban mostly comprised a random selection of state department bureaucrats with no particular aptitude or passion for the job.Even the motivated and talented found they were forbidden from leaving US bases for health and safety reasons. Absurdly – and the book is crammed with absurdities – they had to fill in lengthy forms whenever they happened to talk to someone from a country on the state department's Security Environment Threat List, which included all Afghans. |
| Worst of all, the US, the British and their allies were backing the wrong horse, Karzai. The overwhelming majority of Afghans could not abide the brutality of the Taliban. But the venality and viciousness of the warlord network that made up Karzai's power base were often far worse. The police in Helmand, under Karzai's favoured strongman, spent much of their effort extorting money and kidnapping young boys at random and raping them in their police stations, beating up fathers and brothers who tried to rescue them. | Worst of all, the US, the British and their allies were backing the wrong horse, Karzai. The overwhelming majority of Afghans could not abide the brutality of the Taliban. But the venality and viciousness of the warlord network that made up Karzai's power base were often far worse. The police in Helmand, under Karzai's favoured strongman, spent much of their effort extorting money and kidnapping young boys at random and raping them in their police stations, beating up fathers and brothers who tried to rescue them. |
| "So when the Americans came and said: we are bringing you more troops so that we can help bring government men to your communities, a lot of Afghans said: 'Whoa, we don't want those guys'," Chandrasekaran says. "That was a fundamental truth that it took far too long for Washington to understand." | "So when the Americans came and said: we are bringing you more troops so that we can help bring government men to your communities, a lot of Afghans said: 'Whoa, we don't want those guys'," Chandrasekaran says. "That was a fundamental truth that it took far too long for Washington to understand." |
| He is not entirely pessimistic. Once western combat troops depart in 2014, Chandrasekaran believes the Kabul government and its army will just about hold on. "I don't see the Taliban rolling into Kabul any time soon in pick-up trucks as they did in 1990s," he says, but he does predict Afghanistan will be "chaotic and violent for the foreseeable future". The tragedy of Obama's war in Afghanistan, as he sees it, is that the same result could have been achieved at a far lower cost in blood and resources. | He is not entirely pessimistic. Once western combat troops depart in 2014, Chandrasekaran believes the Kabul government and its army will just about hold on. "I don't see the Taliban rolling into Kabul any time soon in pick-up trucks as they did in 1990s," he says, but he does predict Afghanistan will be "chaotic and violent for the foreseeable future". The tragedy of Obama's war in Afghanistan, as he sees it, is that the same result could have been achieved at a far lower cost in blood and resources. |
| Chandrasekaran has seen his share of wasted lives, wading through canals under sniper fire with US marines in Helmand, and on patrol through the IED-infested countryside. In July last year, he was on his way to have dinner with the Afghan president's warlord brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, when he was informed his host for the night had been assassinated. Now on book tour back home, Chandrasekaran has had his fill of foreign wars and he hopes his country has too. Two narratives of bloodletting and futility are enough. "I hope I don't have to write another book like this," he says. | Chandrasekaran has seen his share of wasted lives, wading through canals under sniper fire with US marines in Helmand, and on patrol through the IED-infested countryside. In July last year, he was on his way to have dinner with the Afghan president's warlord brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, when he was informed his host for the night had been assassinated. Now on book tour back home, Chandrasekaran has had his fill of foreign wars and he hopes his country has too. Two narratives of bloodletting and futility are enough. "I hope I don't have to write another book like this," he says. |
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