Untold Stories

A Changing Military Approach to Afghanistan

Pulitzer Center — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:53:15 -0400

Vanessa M. Gezari, for the Pulitzer Center

This is what a revolution looks like.

When 4,000 Marines marched across the dry ground of Helmand Province last week, walking into villages and unrolling sleeping bags to live among the Afghans, you could almost hear the foundation stones shifting beneath the weight of a changing U.S. military. The operation in Helmand – called Khanjar, or “dagger” – epitomized the approach laid out in the Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, co-written in 2006 by Gen. David Petraeus, then an Army lieutenant general, and Marine Gen. James Amos. Yet until last week, the military had never executed this strategy in such textbook fashion. The Marines in Helmand are not just leaving fortified bases for long, exposed foot patrols through enemy territory. They aren’t just spending a few nights camped out in the desert within a secure perimeter. They appear to be moving into the Taliban heartland and taking up residence there, minus the signed leases and cable bills. As the Marines’ commander, Brig. Gen. Larry D. Nicholson said in a much-quoted statement: “What makes Operation Kanjar different from those that have occurred before is the massive size of the force introduced, the speed at which it will insert, and the fact that where we go, we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build, and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces.”

There are many remarkable things about this, but one is that living in Afghan villages greatly increases troops’ physical risk, contradicting decades of history during which force protection has been among the U.S. military’s chief goals. One of the “radical” things about the counterinsurgency field manual, as Sarah Sewell, former head of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and a recent Defense Policy Board appointee, notes in her introduction, is that it “tells American troops something they may not want to hear: in order to win, they must assume more risk.”

Indeed, the manual notes that the conduct of counterinsurgency is “in many ways…counterintuitive to the traditional U.S. view of war.” Among the paradoxes of this recently revived strategic approach: “Sometimes, the more you protect your force, the less secure you may be.”

This has certainly been the case in Afghanistan, and yet “risk” means different things depending where you stand in the chain of command. For a young infantryman, risk is about the daily possibility of driving over an IED, then watching your friend burn or bleed while you wait for the Medevac to arrive. For commanders, it’s also about the larger operational – and importantly, political – risk that force-protection mechanisms like Hesco walls and close air support entail. On Monday, four days after the launch of Operation Khanjar, the new American commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, General Stanley McChrystal, issued a tactical directive that restricts firing from the air at residential compounds except under “very limited and prescribed conditions.” While commanders will be allowed to protect their forces, McChrystal wrote, they “must weigh the gain of using [close air support] against the cost of civilian casualties, which in the long run make mission success more difficult and turn the Afghan people against us.” McChrystal did not downplay the importance of the directive, saying that it calls for “a cultural shift” on the part of the troops. And he made it clear that his own acculturation had already taken hold. Preventing civilian casualties is “a legal and a moral issue,” he wrote, but it also has tremendous operational consequences. “The Taliban cannot militarily defeat us,” he wrote, “but we can defeat ourselves.”

McChrystal’s words sound obvious. For anyone who knows Afghanistan, the Marines' approach in Helmand sounds obvious, too. Yet this is an incredible moment. A field commander in Afghanistan is publicly acknowledging that there is something not just immoral, but incompetent, about fighting a war from a safe distance, while civilians on the ground, caught between two hostile sides, pay the last full measure of devotion for continuing to live on the property they inherited from their parents. For the first time, we are acknowledging that the risk of living relatively unprotected in hostile territory must be shared by Afghans and foreign forces if we’re ever going to convince Afghans that we take their security seriously. For years, Americans, Afghans and soldiers of many other nationalities have been fighting and dying to capture ground they cannot hold. Those deaths should not be in vain, and if this new approach sticks, they may not be. The coming weeks and months will test our willingness to maintain this strategy as casualties mount. The fight for stability is far from over, but eight years into the war, it is at least – finally – beginning.

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Afghanistan: Education and the Legacy of War

Shaun McCanna — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:38:52 -0400

Twelve-year-old Nassar. A fourth year student in Kabul who works full-time to support his family.

by Shaun McCanna, for the Pulitzer Center

Decades of war have left an indelible mark on Afghan society. All around Kabul and Afghanistan’s rural areas one can find the rubble of bombed buildings, and Soviet era armored personnel carriers rusting away. Other stark reminders are the thousands of adolescent boys working to provide for their families.

Nassar is twelve-years-old and a fourth year student at one of Kabul’s many primary schools. He attends school every afternoon from one to four-thirty. I met him one morning as he pushed his wheelbarrow along a road on one of Kabul’s many hillsides. He was delivering water to local homes that have been built into the hill’s slope, far from the nearest well.

So what time do you start working each morning, I ask? I work from 5 AM to noon. Then I go home and get ready for school. How much do you make each day delivering water? I make fifty to sixty Afghanis (one dollar to one dollar and twenty cents). Do you do any other types of work? I lay bricks too. When did you learn to lay bricks? When I was eight.

I walk with Nassar as he continues to roll his wheelbarrow down the dirt road, straining under the weight of the many ten and twenty-gallon containers filled with water. As he continues on I ask him what his father does for a living? He can’t work, he has shrapnel in his legs from the war. Do you have any brothers? Yes, one. Does he work? No, he lost his leg.

I visit Nassar at his school the next day. He has a backpack, and a baseball cap, seemingly important items for Kabul’s young schoolboys. But he has no books in his backpack, no paper, and only a single pen. He sits on the floor in a class of over forty boys, listening to the lesson delivered in the afternoon’s sweltering heat. I had asked him if he intended to stay in school through twelfth year, and he said he did. He added that his favorite subject is Dari and hopes to attend university. I asked him why. Because I want to be someone someday.

Learn more about this reporting project http://www.pulitzercenter.org/showproject.cfm?id=110

Iason Athanasiadis released from Iranian prison

Pulitzer Center — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:19:17 -0400

Kelly Mallahan, Pulitzer Center

Iranian authorities released Iason Athanasiadis on Sunday. Iason had been in Iranian custody since June 17, when he was arrested in the aftermath of Iran's disputed elections. Though an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Iason was arrested for "unprofessional" behavior, no charges were filed against him. Iason traveled to Iran on a grant from the Pulitzer Center, and was covering the elections for The Washington Times and Global Post.

The Greek government led the push to release Iason, who holds British and Greek citizenship.

"Iason is a consummate professional," said Jon Sawyer, the Pulitzer Center's executive director. "He brings to his reporting on Iran a deep knowledge of that country's language, culture and people. We welcome his release."

We will keep you updated as we learn more details. In the meantime, read more about Iason's release in this article by The Washington Times.

Here is a tribute post about Iason written by GlobalPost's Charlie Sennott before Iason's release.

The Nieman Foundation and The Associated Press also have pieces on Iason's release.

From the Langtang Himalayas

Anna-Katarina Gravgaard — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:44:02 -0400

For the mountain people of the Langtang region, the recession of the Himalayan glaciers is an unexplained fact of life.

Follow our work here

From Bouddha, Nepal

Anna-Katarina Gravgaard — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:40:50 -0400

Reporting from an Tibetan exile community in Nepal on renewable energy.

Follow our project here

Just Back from Pakistan

Anna-Katarina Gravgaard — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:21:25 -0400

Reporting summary on a trip to Islamabad to report on the status of the Indus water treaty. follow our work here

Iran: "The guest is God's friend"

Pulitzer Center — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:34:40 -0400

Iason Athanasiadis, a journalist reporting from Iran on a grant from the Pulitzer Center, has been in Iranian custody since June 17. The Greek government has taken the lead in efforts to secure his release. The article below, written for Salon by University of Southern California professor Sandy Tolan, tells of Iason's remarkable career and why he has touched so many people, in journalism and beyond. Read earlier posts on Iason's case here and view his work with the Pulitzer Center in Iran, Turkey and Greece.

Iran: "The guest is God's friend"
(Salon, July 2, 2009)

By Sandy Tolan

Jul. 02, 2009 |

Journalism's deepest, most honest contributions inevitably spring from on-the-ground reporting, unencumbered by policy agendas in Washington, London or other foreign capitals. That's what epitomizes the work of my friend and colleague Iason Athanasiadis, and it's why his detention by Iranian authorities, on June 17 when trying to board a flight out of Iran, is so troubling.

Iason, who has written for the Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times and publications across Europe and the Middle East, comes from that breed of journalist in pursuit of something beyond just "the story." To work in Iran, he learned Farsi; to understand its people, he lived with them for three years. His work, as a writer and photojournalist, reflects deep empathy with the Iranian people, an understanding of their historical legacy, and an analysis of the changes swirling around them. Those values lend an independence and credibility to Iason's work that allow him, on the one hand, to produce the revealing photo essay "Children of the Revolution," which captures the hopes of a new generation of Iranians; and on the other, to invoke, in his writing on the nation's history, "Britain's imperialist past and expert meddling in Iran's internal affairs," which "has left most ordinary Iranians nursing a distrust that endures."

Read Sandy Tolan's article in Salon.

Laying Sewers Before the Monsoon

Anna-Katarina Gravgaard — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:56:00 -0400

The streets of Boudha have turned into a muddy puddle as monsoon and sewer water mix while frantic community members work to lay down pipes before the waters rise over their feet.

Learn more about this project at South Asia's Troubled Waters

And join the conversation by sharing your story about water here.

Guinea Bissau: Crack and prostitution, cocaine’s other face

Pulitzer Center — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:57:17 -0400

Marco Vernaschi ©, for the Pulitzer Center

(Editor's note: This is the final dispatch in a series of eight, recounting events surrounding the double assassinations of Guinea Bissau's president and army chief of staff last March and the country's emergence as a 'narco state.')

I drive through Reno, Bissau’s poorest slum, heading to Justino’s house. He’s 16 and a crack addict. Justino started to smoke quisa, as they call crack in Bissau, one year ago with his sister, Sadia. Now they both spend the whole day smoking the drug. Since they started, their old lives vanished. Justino lost his job and Sadia began to sell her own body. It’s 10 a.m. when I park my car in front of their house. Sadia waits by the door, holding her cachimbo, the crack pipe that has become her best friend. All around the house it’s garbage, rotten water and pigs.

This sounds like any other crack story, but there’s a difference: We are in Guinea Bissau, a place where crack was totally unknown until traffickers decided three years ago to target this country.

Sadia’s eyes are lost into the emptiness that surrounds her life. She waits for her brother to bring the drug. He comes with a friend and they immediately start smoking. I sit on the house floor with them. Sadia stretches out on a mattress while Justino and his friend feed the pipe; they start the ritual, which lasts at least 40 minutes.

They completely ignore me. They ignore everything but the cachimbo. Their entire lives revolve around the drug.

The situation in Bissau is particularly sad. There is no prevention, no rehabilitation. The issue is so new that there is no data available. It’s impossible to say how many people are lost in crack addiction. And mostly, there is no consciousness among the people about the long-term effects of this plague.

I meet Sadia and her group of friends at Baiana’s, at night. They are all prostitutes, all crack addicts. They spend most of the time waiting for a client to take them to a brothel. At one point a white, brand new, four-wheel-drive Toyota parks in front of the restaurant. On the doors, the Portuguese flag and the logo from the Cooperacion Portuguesa. The driver and his friend sit to drink some beers when Nadi and Tusha, two of Sadia’s friends, join the men. They will leave a few minutes later, on the jeep.

Prostitution in Bissau is not for locals. Nobody can afford to pay a prostitute, and in the local culture, women cannot refuse a man. All the clients are foreigners. Sometimes sailors from anywhere, but mostly people who work for NGOs, the UN or Embassy employees. Almost every night I shared a coffee with Nadi, Tusha, Sadia, Fatima, Carolina and other prostitutes. They are somewhat proud of their work, and they see crack addiction as a minor issue. Smoking a cigarette or doing quisa – it’s just the same, to them. They all dream of going to Europe – to Spain or Portugal or Italy. Nadi has a daughter who lives in Spain. She had the child with a Spanish businessman who used to travel to Bissau often: she doesn’t live with her child but says she is happy all the same, for the 250 Euros per month she receives from the father. At least she has monthly revenue.

Nuno (an alias name) is a Portuguese sailor. He used to work on a ship but was forced to stay in Bissau after he fought with the captain. He asked his family to send him money to come back, but then got lost into alcohol. He’s a usual client of the girls and he has AIDS. He’s always drunk and spends his nights at the Baiana before heading off with two or three girls. The alarming issue is that none of the prostitutes that I met use condoms.

Since cocaine arrived in Bissau crack has spread, prostitution has increased and so has HIV-AIDS. Drug trafficking has destroyed the precarious political stability of Guinea Bissau and destroyed the lives of thousands of people. They are paying the price of Europe’s voracious appetite for coke.

Learn more about this reporting project

See related posts

Reporting Sources:

United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime, Annual Report 2008 (PDF)

"Cocaine Trafficking in West Africa: The threat to stability and development (with special reference to Guinea-Bissau)," United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime, Dec. 2007. (PDF)

Drugs, Organized Crime and Terrorism as the New Threats to Global Security, by Philip de Anders, United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime, Jan. 2008. (PDF)

"Guinea-Bissau: In Need of a State," Africa Report N°142, International Crisis Group, 2 July 2008.

"Guinea-Bissau: New Hub for Cocaine Trafficking," Perspectives, United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime, 5 May 2008. (PDF)

Levitt, Matthew. Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and director of Stein Program on Terrorism, Intelligence, and Policy.

"Organised crime, drug trafficking and terrorism: the new Achilles' heel of West Africa," Funcacion para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Dialogo Exterior. (PDF)

"2008 report of The International Control Board," Analysis of The World Situation: Africa and the Americas.

Ahukharie, Calvario. National Director of Interpol in Guinea-Bissau. Personal Interview.

Ahukharie, Lucinda Barbosa. Director of the Judiciary Police, Guinea-Bissau. Personal Interview.

There are no gay pride parades in Jamaica

Pulitzer Center — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:41:05 -0400

Part of an upcoming project that explores the impact of homophobia and stigma on the spread of HIV in Jamaica.

Lisa Biagiotti is working on signature stories for Worldfocus on HIV/AIDS and homophobia in Jamaica. She reported with Producer Micah Fink and Director of Photography Gabrielle Weiss, both from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Their reports will air on Worldfocus later this summer. Lisa gave the below interview to Thirteen.org.

Q: Gay pride is celebrated across the U.S. every June. Could there be similar celebrations of gay pride in Jamaica?

Lisa Biagiotti: No, there could not be an openly gay pride parade on the streets of Kingston, Jamaica, as in New York or San Francisco. In Jamaica, anti-sodomy laws criminalize sex between men, fundamentalist interpretations of the bible and pride in reproduction contribute to the general disdain and non-acceptance of the gay lifestyle.

The idea of a “glass closet” best describes the public’s expectations of homosexuals, meaning, “We know you’re gay, and we can see you, but stay in that glass closet.” In fairness, Jamaica tends not to be a heavily PDA (public display of affection) culture. You don’t see men and women petting each other or even holding hands in public, with the exception of the dancehalls.

One thing that was interesting was the way homophobia finds its way into the language, in the choosing (or avoiding) of certain “gay” words. When little boys call each other “sissy” names, they say “you’re a battyman.” “Batty” means buttocks and is a derogatory name for a gay man. Saying the number “two” — referring to the anus — is also avoided. We heard a story of a father instructing his two-year-old son to say he’s going to be three. You’d say “come forward” instead of “come back.” If you’re ordering fish to eat, you’d say, “Give me a swimmer or a sea creature.” “Fish” is another term for a gay man.

Continue reading on WorldFocus>>>

Visit the Pulitzer Center’s multimedia website Live, Hope, Love, which explores living with HIV in Jamaica.

Photo: Lisa Biagiotti (right) walks with Ida Northover (left) through an inner city on the outskirts of Kingston, Jamaica.