US arming Afghan Civilians: A very bad idea

One of the most underrated stories of last week (overshadowed by the roar of thousands of people from Tahrir Square) was a new “experiment” by US forces to bring peace in Afghanistan that can be succinctly summarized in six words - let’s give Afghan civilian some guns. Yes, because what Afghanistan needs is more guns. Aimed at achieving US Military’s greatest strategic objective – get the hell out of Afghanistan – this scheme promises to be part of that long list: schemes that are totally going to blow up in US Military's face.

Officially, “this U.S. experiment gives villagers AK-47s and a three-week training course and encourages them to protect their neighborhoods from the Taliban.” Dreamed up by the legendary General David Petraeus, it is meant to maintain peace in places where the US troops are overstretched. Wait, so not only will you give some random guys guns, you won’t even have anyone to watch over them? Sounds like something Wily Coyote would think up of.

Notice the similarity?

Desperate to get out of the longest-running American War, the US Government brought in Gen. Petraeus last year to clean up the Afghan mess. And the general has obliged with tripling the air bombings and increasing the number of Special Forces “kill teams.” The war became a much bloodier affair last year and with this new idea in play, we can expect even more bloodshed.

This, of course, is not an original idea. Governments around the world have tried to get the civilians to do the dirty work for them. Citizen militias spring up all the time to fight insurgencies when governments fail to. However, I do not know of a single case where they have been successful.

A great example is India where mired by rising Maoism, the state government of Chhattisgarh started pumping money and guns to a militia called Salwa Judum, which the government claimed was an independent movement of people wishing to fight the Maoists. Within months of its arrival, members of Salwa Judum had been accused of hundreds of rapes, murders and looting. The Judum members started killing each other, sold their weapons to the Maoists, abused their power and recruited child soldiers. There were stories of Judum starving out entire villages to get them join the militia. A case currently ongoing in the Indian Supreme Court accuses Judum of "over 500 murders, 99 rapes and 103 acts of arson."

The point is, when you go to a village meeting offering guns to fight the Taliban, first hands to go up would belong to people that you don’t want to give Kalashnikovs. These are people who would be happy to take the guns and use them to commit crimes against unarmed civilians rather than fight the battle-hardened Taliban. For god’s sakes, the poster boy US Military is using to prove success potential of this experiment is Noor ul Haq, a “thief, kidnapper and out of control” according the villagers he is supposed to defend.

Throw in the mix decades-long blood feuds that Afghan tribes love to nurse and rapidly growing drug economy and you have making of a first-rate disaster. My bet is that majority of those AK-47s will end defending a heroin-processing plant, murdering some non-Taliban Afghans or being sold to Taliban for a good price. But hey, what do I know. I am sure if Gen Coyote Petraeus thinks solution to a three-decade-long civil war, with hundreds of insurgent groups and militias involved, is putting more guns in the hands of civilians, he knows what he is doing. Well, I better hope so.

Do read other ways in which US Military is screwing up the War in Afghanistan like wiping out entire villages, paying Taliban, warning Taliban months in advance of its entire battle plan and getting drunk in front of journalists

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