Apr
07
2009
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Talking to the Taliban & Other Enemies |
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Written by JD Johannes
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Wednesday, 08 April 2009 |
"I was tired," Firas said when I talked with him last October in Baghdad.
Firas, a former Jaish al Mahdi Special Groups commander, had been on the run from coalition forces since the summer of 2007. By the late summer of 2008, he was ready to throw in the towell and work with the coalition.
Firas was one of many 'good enough' bad guys who have decided, at least for then, to sort of work with the coalition.
Prior to flipping sides, Firas was a wanted man. He never slept in the same place twice and was barely one-step ahead of U.S. Soldiers for months.
Firas opened up communications with the soldiers and they cautiously started to work out an agreement.
Talking with the enemy is nothing new. It is as old as warfare and almost required in counter insurgency.
In the original counter insurgency, Julius Caesar's campaigns to put down rebellions in Gaul, Caesar regularly recieved ambassadors from the rebelling factions.
In the Roman Civil war, Caesar corresponded with Pompey.
Caesar also made a habit of enlisting soldiers of conquered armies into his army.
In Baghdad, during the surge, I saw Lt. Col Patrick Frank call up JAM leaders on their cell phones. Captain Brian Ducote would talk with Sunni and Shia assassins, letting them know that they could turn themselves in, or face his soldiers on the streets of West Rashid.
What these conversations all had in common was the position of strength. Caesar always negotiated from a position of strength. Lt. Col. Frank and Capt. Ducote were speaking from a position of strength. The were dictating the terms. Firas, when he approached the U.S. Army Battalion in Rashid did it from a position of supplication and self preservation.
In President Obama's new AfPak plan, the section "Encouraging Afghan government efforts to integrate reconcilable insurgents", states:
"While Mullah Omar and the Taliban's hard core that have aligned themselves with al Qaeda are not reconcilable and we cannot make a deal that includes them, the war in Afghanistan cannot be won without convincing non-ideologically committed insurgents to lay down their arms, reject al Qaeda, and accept the Afghan Constitution."
This will require talking to the enemy. The key is that the talking cannot be just to talk. It cannot be done from a position of weakness, it must be done the way Ducote and Frank and Caesar it--from a position of power where the choices are clear, quit, join us, or face off against us and suffer the consequences.
In the Victorian era, British officers like Robert Warburton, who managed the Khyber pass for 18 years, held the tribes accountable for miscreants in their midst. Warburton fined the tribes when their members got out of hand and made it clear that the tribal Maliks were responsible for keeping their clans and territory in order.
Warburton and others used the same technique Lt. Col. Steve Russell used in Tikrit--I can come here with the hand of friendship or with a pistol, the choice is yours.
Or, as in the message Marine General Mattis is reputed to have sent to Iraqi tribal leaders: "I come in peace. I didn’t bring artillery. But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I’ll kill you all."
But, you must be willing to use the pistol. You have to back up your position of strength with lethality and effective COIN operations.
The Soldiers and Marines know how to do this, they have done it before. The component required for the President to fulfill is to employ enough combat forces on the ground and to back up the Soldiers and Marines with the same metal they display while outside the wire.
The enemy reads the New York Times, they watch CNN. They will take the President's measure and if it is lacking, if they think he will blink first, if he shows any signs of weakness, then the Soldiers and Marines though operating from local strength, will be in a strategically weak position to offer and enforce the ultimatums needed to flip those Taliban fighters who can be reconciled.
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