Saturday, February 25, 2012

The Tipping Point In Afghanistan?











How can the killing of two American military advisers inside the Ministry of Interior headquarters building, coming at the end of a week of rioting and outrage directed at all Western presence in the country, including the killing of two other U.S. soldiers by an Afghan policeman on Thursday, not be a tipping point in our over-long and increasingly pointless commitment to maintain a NATO coalition mission in Afghanistan?

The New York Times story on today's terrible incident (2 Americans Killed as Afghan Unrest Enters Fifth Day) seems to be the best of the still-pretty-thin accounts to be published so far. It gets right to the point by calling into question "the coalition's entire strategy of joint operations with Afghan forces."   

The order [to immediately pull all military advisers out of Afghan ministries] by the NATO commander, Gen. John R. Allen, came on the fifth day of virulent anti-American demonstrations across the country, and it was a clear sign of concern that the fury had reached deeply into even the Afghan security forces and ministries working most closely with the coalition.

Although there was no official statement that the gunman was an Afghan, in an e-mail sent to Western officials here from NATO headquarters the episode was described as “green on blue,” which is the military term used here when Afghan security forces turn their weapons on their Western military allies.

The killings, which happened within one of the most tightly secured areas of the ministry, add to the drumbeat of concern about a deepening animosity between civilians and militaries on both sides that had led to American and coalition forces being killed in increasing numbers even before the Koran burning ignited nationwide rioting. And the pullout from the Afghan ministries suddenly called into question the coalition’s entire strategy of joint operations with Afghan forces across the country, although General Allen said NATO was still committed to fighting the war in Afghanistan.

ISAF has said very little about the incident, and released no details. However, I notice that ISAF spokesmen and General Allen have consistently referred to the attacker in the singular (using the words "the person" and "the perpetrator" and "the individual," and never 'the person or persons') which makes me think that someone has a fairly good idea of what happened. But maybe I'm reading too much into that wording.

BBC has a few unsourced additional details, such as that eight shots were fired, that the shooting occurred in the MOI's command and control center, and that "the incident followed a verbal clash."

The WaPo's story likewise said that "one of the [unnamed Afghan] officials noted that the shooting occurred inside a secure room at the ministry that Afghan staff do not have access to." I've seen many similar comments today to the effect that NATO advisers work in a small compound-inside-the compound at MOI headquarters.

A few thoughts about all this:

  • I'm sure that a personal security detail must have accompanied the two victims to MOI headquarters, yet there is no mention of them or of any shots they fired in defense. That seems to reinforce reports that the shooting took place inside a secure inner area within MOI headquarters. I assume the advisers would have been closely covered by their protective detail when they were arriving and departing MOI and exposed to armed Afghan policeman and guards, especially after last Thursday's fatal shooting by an enraged Afghan policemen of two U.S. soldiers in the province of Nangarhar.

  • We can be sure that MOI headquarters has plenty of perimeter security, entry access controls, visitor screening, and identification/accountability of everyone in the building. The odds that this attack was committed by an outsider, as the Taliban has claimed, are vanishingly small. Moreover, the attacker was someone authorized to be armed inside the building, or else was able to access a weapon after he got there. He was almost certainly an insider, and maybe even an Afghan counterpart to the NATO advisers.

  • The attacker was able to walk away afterwards unhindered, leaving the [purportedly] secure interior area of the headquarters and going back into the surrounding general work area, and maybe even outside the building before it was locked down. How come? Most likely because he is a senior official who could just blow past MOI access controls and security. Or else he is someone being assisted by senior MOI officials who are now hiding him.

  • The attacker did not leave behind a fall guy to take the blame; for instance, a low-level guard who could be killed and left at the scene with the murder weapon in his hand. How hard would it have been to do that, and avoid a lot of consequences for the MOI? (Maybe that's a cold-blooded idea, but don't tell me the Afghan MOI isn't full of people who would do exactly that without a second thought.) That suggests the attack was spontaneous and unplanned, in accordance with the BBC's report about a "verbal clash" preceding the shooting.

I've seen no statement from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul as to whether it, like ISAF, will withdraw its presence from Afghan ministries and severely limit any movements outside the embassy. I assume it will. What else can it do? So, I guess we'll be conducting the very best diplomacy we can during this crisis without leaving the embassy compound.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Intrigue indeed! great post TSB!gwb

Anonymous said...

On a lighter note: did you notice those "Daring Adventurers" got accepted by US Postal Security after only 6 years! WAPO should hire her to write an advice column for all government employees. She should get extra for the photos! gwb

TSB said...

Six years. Talk about 'snail mail.'

The other thing that strikes me about that is how the Postal Service uses e-mail to send out its announcements to job applicants.

Anonymous said...

TSB!! I got your man!!! Like the White House you have to get the news from AJE! Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, identified the assassin as Abdul Rahman, adding that an accomplice in the ministry building helped him gain access.

Although official reports said two military advisers were shot, the Taliban, known to exaggerate tolls from attacks for which they take credit, claimed four high-ranking advisers were killed.

"After the attack, Rahman informed us by telephone that he was able to kill four high-ranking American advisers,'' Mujahid said.

In a post on his official twitter account, Captain John Kirby, a US defence spokesman, said there had been "lots of speculation on today's attack in Kabul; we do not know who killed ISAF members or why".
(Of course they are exaggerating! They remember Viet Nam.) gwb

Anonymous said...

TSB: Did you notice the statement by our Commander In Chief? It was something to the effect of: We remain comitted to working with our Afghan partners to eliminate Al
Queada from Afghanistan. After 11 years of not knowing who the enemy is there we might just as well keep pretending we don't know. Maybe a super comittee? Why don't you offer to go have a beer with him? Send him that bubble test? gwb

Anonymous said...

February 25, 2012, 3:36 PM (WSJ)
.
FBI Turns Off Thousands of GPS Devices After Supreme Court Ruling

Damn TSB! Now what do I do about that gps device you told me I could put on the longview PD car? I can't even remember what number car I put it on! This is hilarious!gwb

TSB said...

GWB: I never believed that Taliban claim for the Kabul shooting, since they would have had a martyr video. Today the Afghan MOI put the blame on a 25 year-old junior officer, whereabouts unknown.

We'll see, but I don't really believe the MOI's explanation that the shooting went unnoticed for an hour because the advisers' office was "soundproof". The room likely met DOD criteria for sound privacy, but that is way short of soundproof. A pistol shot in a confined space makes more than enough noise to alert people anywhere nearby.

Anonymous said...

I agree TSB: This reminds me of the Bin Ladin caper... there are a lot of fuming embarrassed officials who are busy saying stuff but you can't really count on any of it yet. gwb

Anonymous said...

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175508/tomgram%3A_adam_hochschild%2C_antiwar_critics_forgotten_on_oscar_night/

TSB! Adam Hocschild has a new book on WWI. I've been reading his book on the first great civil rights movement: stopping the British slave trade for 3 weeks now. It's fascinating to read his stuff because it's told thru the recollections and papers of the people who actually did it. Power and money don't care what people think until enough people think it. That's why our politicians seem like such puppets today. great writing! gwb

Anonymous said...

TSB: It looks like the antidote to an Afghan tipping point might be a segue to Syria! "Forget that war, look, we started another one." gwb

Anonymous said...

Thank goodness inflation is so low because some things are going up quite a bit! gwb

http://freebeacon.com/trashing-tricare/
Obama to cut healthcare benefits for active duty and retired US military

Anonymous said...

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/bradley-manning-nominated-nobel-peace-prize_631996.html

TSB! gwb is for the gay PFC! Let's see what Federale thinks!

Anonymous said...

TSB: NOW is see where you got that! It was Rand Paul who said he'd be delighted to be Romney's VP. I was talking about the invisible guy. I can't see why Ron Paul isn't the obvious selection. He brings excited crowds of 20-35 yr olds and (ie students and the barely employed) along with all the anti-corporate boomer contingent. Most importantly those two wives are both adorable! With those three behind him nobody will bother asking Mitt about his taxes. gwb

TSB said...

Right - it was Rand, not Ron. I got them confused.

Anonymous said...

uh, no, @8:46, the best place for English speakers to get Afghanistan news is not AlJazeera, but YouTube, and after that, Twitter's not too, too terrible, with bsarwary one of the more reliable tweeters, or better yet, a Twitter list on Afghanistan that has multiple sources helps catch news, though not the real insightful stuff like you can get by YouTube

Anonymous said...

Good point! I wish I could figure out how to twitter. gwb

Anonymous said...

Here is your jobs bill TSB!

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/staffer-refers-mustache-bill-committee-without-congressmans-consent_632956.html

I asked someone to check about this on twitter and the word there is that this bill was actually a request from some shadowy government bureaucrat and Gillette.

gwb

TSB said...

The 'Stache Act, I love Hill staffer humor! We need Burt Reynolds to testify for it and push this bill over the top.

Anonymous said...

TSB: I missed this classic! (tomdispatch) General John R. Allen, the U.S. war commander in Afghanistan, issued orders that couldn’t have been grimmer (or more feeble) under the circumstances. Only a decade late, he directed that all U.S. military personnel in the country undergo 10 days of sensitivity “training in the proper handling of religious materials.” gwb

TSB said...

It's always good to see people learning somethng new. After eleven years in Afghanistan, a gizillion dollars spent on intelligence analysis and 'human terrain teams', etc., and all that endless training and mentoring of locals, we are now getting around to realizing that Afghans are cultural sensitive about their Korans. General Allen deserves another medal for this latest victory.

Anonymous said...

TSB: I hope you are sitting down. This writing (about the turning point)is by an 8th grade yearbook editor. This kid could be a great prospect when you are ready to turn over the reins! gwb

http://findingmytribe.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/best-lede-ever/#more-3301

Anonymous said...

TSB: Too bad Iraq's Maliki went for Abrams tanks and F-16's instead of drones. For a lot less money he could be figuring out who is doing this stuff. (and maybe kill their #3?) gwb

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/03/2012356231575710.html