Oxblog points to a Washington Post article by Peter Baker, who has been covering Afghanistan since the US ousted the Taliban. Sometime back he met a Hakim Taniwal, an Afghan who had formerly been a sociology professor in Australia, seemingly bent on a suicide mission. Taniwal had a commission in his pocket from President Karzai appointing him governor of a province. Unfortunately the governor's mansion was occupied by a warlord whose retainers were armed to the teeth. Taniwal was nevertheless determined to take possession and Baker never expected to see him alive again. "Dead man walking". It didn't quite turn out that way.When I saw him again here two weeks ago, he was sitting in the provincial governor's office and the warlord was somewhere in the countryside, out of power, his militia largely disbanded. I reminded Taniwal of our first meeting, when he could not even get into the governor's house because it was occupied by the warlord's family and dozens of his thuggish guerrillas, bristling with Kalashnikovs and grenade launchers. Taniwal looked at me and smiled. "Things have changed," he said with satisfaction. In Indian Country, the smaller the tactical unit, the more forward deployed it is, and the more autonomy it enjoys from the chain of command, the more that can be accomplished. It simply isn't enough for units to be out all day in Iraqi towns and villages engaged in presence patrols and civil-affairs projects: A successful forward operating base is a nearly empty one, in which most units are living beyond the base perimeters among the indigenous population for days or weeks at a time. |