Federal Judiciary

Long Hot Summer in Konduz -- By: Vincent G. Heintz

In 2008 I worked in the Konduz River Valley, known locally as the Valley of Four. The mayor, a former Taliban government minister, told me that the name (Chahar Darreh in Farsi) was a tribute to the four groups -- Tajik, Uzbek, Turkomen, and Pashtun -- that have lived together for decades in the valley, a floodplain dotted with mud-walled villages.

The valley is isolated. To the west, a desert mountain range separates it from the thriving city of Mazar-e-Sharif. To the north, east, and south, the snake-like Konduz River cordons off the valley from Konduz City and the Ring Road. The only river crossing is a rusting bridge built by Communist engineers in the 1970s. The bridge?s pilings are sinking slowly into the mud, buckling its I-beams.

At the time, I was commanding a team of 16 U.S. Army combat advisers tasked with developing the Afghan police force in the valley. We worked with them during security patrols and helped foster communication with the valley?s people. Their ranks included a few who were corrupt, lazy, or ignorant, and a small lethal germ of Taliban infiltrators, but most served earnestly and bravely.

A growing number of Americans reject our mission in Afghanistan as a conceited attempt to foist ?our way? on people who, because of ethnicity or religion, want no part of it. These voices come both from pacifist quarters, as in the instance of Sen. Russ Feingold, but also from some on the traditionally hawkish right. Conservative pundit George F. Will, former terrorism prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, and others dismiss the counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan as a foolish distraction from our war against al-Qaeda. These skeptics would have us hope that somehow, without benefit of the intelligence that can be obtained only by working on the ground with the local people, cruise-missile attacks and Special Forces ?ninjas? will protect us from al-Qaeda, obviating the need to secure Afghanistan. This is a breathtaking proposition. It is the very same ?over-the-horizon? approach that set the stage for 9/11. But viewed from the distance of air-conditioned think tanks and newsrooms, the prospects for rule of law in the sweltering Konduz River Valley and in the rest of that broken country must seem dim indeed.

To be clear, our goal was not and is not to establish some kind of perfected Jeffersonian democracy, which seems to be the straw-man argument responsible for much of the noise level over the past week. Instead, it is to assist the Afghans in building government institutions responsible to the people and dedicated to protecting them, with the desired end being the popular disgorgement of the insurgents and terrorists in their midst.

Despite the grim assessments of some analysts that Afghans are not capable or desirous of living under the rule of law, our team witnessed the valley?s police becoming competent and resolute, earning the respect of local people of every group and sect. Warnings began to flow in from citizens about IEDs. People increasingly called the mayor to report impending attacks, which we were able to disrupt with some quiet, proactive foot patrols in partnership with the police. Threats against a girls? school were met with surgical arrests by the district?s plainclothes National Directorate of Security, aided by tips from villagers. We provided funds to expand the main school in the district center, a critical alternative to the fundamentalist madrassas nested in the remote corners of the valley; the people sent their kids (girls as well as boys) in droves, creating the welcome problem of overcrowding. Attacks against road contractors stopped when the elders, the mayor, and the police established a neighborhood watch.

Even when the corrupt machinations of Kabul politicians led to the installation of a warlord as police commander, progress halted only temporarily. The valley?s elders and the mayor protested to the governor, and young police officers helped me document for the provincial police commander that the new chief was a thug who had brokered a détente with the Taliban. With the political and diplomatic conditions set, very early one morning my team and the Afghan police quietly unseated this gangster and his illegally armed bodyguard. Within days, the young men of the Afghan National Police were back on patrol.

The police and people of the valley were responsible for this progress, but they could not have done it without our help. I am grateful to my commanders for giving us nearly seven months in the valley. This allowed us to master the local culture, personalities, and geography. Those who are fixated exclusively on counterterrorism will be happy to know that our time in the valley generated intelligence that was eagerly consumed by other Army elements with responsibility for hunting down leading terrorists.

The instant that we developed a basic level of skill in our tiny force of 56 police officers, however, we were ordered to another district. We left the police of the valley alone to face a ruthless enemy of hundreds moving in a population of over 100,000, a command decision driven not by a tactical judgment but by the force of simple math: There were and remain insufficient numbers of U.S. combat advisers to provide continuous coverage in key districts to sustain the counterinsurgency campaign.

Since then, security in the valley has collapsed. Schools have been leveled. Packs of Taliban and foreign fighters prey on the citizenry. Last week an air strike by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) against a Taliban position in the valley reportedly led to civilian deaths. If, in the course of a counterinsurgency campaign, our forces must resort to using fighter jets to do the work of infantrymen and police, then, even when legally justified, we have lost the initiative. The reported number of civilians killed was probably wildly inflated, but the propaganda victory handed to the enemy cannot be overstated.

Konduz Province is the hottest place in Afghanistan. More than a few times last year I thought that the daily August highs -- routinely in the 130s -- would reduce me to just another footnote to the old Farsi proverb about the summer heat: ?If you want to die, go to Konduz.? But we didn?t die. My team dealt with the heat and the mud and everything else the valley had to offer until we were reassigned. The Afghans of the valley live in that heat all summer long. They cannot quit.

The question that we face as a nation is whether we will quit.

General McChrystal has told President Obama what needs to be done on the ground. Now the president must decide. He can triangulate and take half-measures and ask in vain for more help from our allies, as we have done until now. He can walk away, either outright or under the political cover of some timeline and the illusion that advanced weapons technology and Special Forces superheroes can contain the al-Qaeda threat. Or he can deal with the political heat and do what it takes to protect the Afghans and ourselves.

The description of what it takes may be found in the teaching of Korean War historian T. R. Fehrenbach: ?You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life -- but if you desire to defend it, protect it and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men into the mud.?

-- Vincent G. Heintz is a reservist and a member of Vets for Freedom. He served in 2001 at Ground Zero, in 2004 in Iraq, and in 2008 in Afghanistan. In civilian life he is a lawyer in New York.

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on September 11, 2009 (boomark / email).