Two More Must-Reads on Afghanistan

(AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)


The following two articles come from the personal experiences of guys on the ground.

The first article courtesy of the NY Times comes from Jonathan J. Vaccaro who served as an officer with the United States Army in Afghanistan from January 2009 to July 2009.

A villager had come in that afternoon to tell us that a Taliban commander known for his deployment of suicide bombers was threatening the elders. The villager had come to my unit, a detachment of the United States Army stationed in eastern Afghanistan, for help.

Mindful of orders to protect the civilian population, we developed a plan with the Afghan commandos to arrest the Taliban commander that evening before he moved back into Pakistan. While the troops prepared, I spent hours on the phone trying to convince the 11 separate Afghan, American and international forces authorities who needed to sign off to agree on a plan.

You can read his full op-ed "The Next Surge: Counterbureaucracy" here.


The second article courtesy of John Robb and William Lind is a guest column written by a reserve NCO with Special Forces, Mark Sexton. It is based on his personal observations in Afghanistan.

For a non-Afghan or foreigner to understand how the Taliban can subvert a village, we can use a simple social structure model to identify the key nodes of influence within a typical Afghan village. A village can be divided into three areas that most affect how daily life is lived. These areas generally fall under political and administrative, religious, and security. These three areas can be considered key nodes of influence in every Afghan village. Of the three nodes the one that is the most visible to outsiders is that of the Malik and village elders. The Malik and village elders represent the political aspects of the village. A second key node of influence is the Imam. The Imam represents the religious node of influence within a village. A third Local node of influence is the individuals and system of security found within a village. Security is traditionally conducted by the men of each individual village. If one of the parts or nodes of influence is controlled by either the Taliban or the Afghan government in each village, then they heavily influence or control villages and the area.

The full article has some great charts explaining the Taliban's subversion methodology. You can read "On War #325: How the Taliban Take a Village" here.

Finally our original "must-read" posting can be read here.