Word: localisms
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...1/12's problems were compounded by a practically nonexistent local government, led by a district governor who insisted on keeping his office at the battalion's forward operating base, rather than among the people. "And then the Afghan army regiment we were supposed to partner with was diverted to Helmand province, for the battle in Marjah," says Brown. And the so-called civilian surge - the civil and economic development component of the offensive, led by the State Department - arrived late and weak. "So the 1/12's been out there, pretty much alone," a State Department official based in Kandahar told...
...steam. He gathered the town elders for a series of shuras and told them about all the goodies that could be headed their way if they agreed to stand with him against the Taliban. By mid-January, he had a written document in English and Pashtu, signed by 12 local elders, promising cooperation and listing the various programs they would soon see. There was the school, of course, and a new medical clinic, and a renovation of the bazaar; there were new police stations, solar-powered wells, paved highways, bridges and irrigation canals...
Actually, the elders - as opposed to the people of Senjaray - seemed more interested in the irrigation canals than anything else. In fact, the two most important leaders - the rather flaccid local warlord who was named Hajji Lala, and the police chief, whose 40 cops were dedicated to the protection of Hajji Lala - were interested in one specific canal. Unfortunately, it was not the canal Ellis wanted to refurbish on the poorer, north side of town. It was on the south side. "O.K., let's walk down there and check it out," Ellis said...
...walk," the local police chief told him. "We have to drive." And so they drove - 20 km west of Senjaray and then south. They were nowhere near town. "You might well ask, Why there?" Ellis says. Well, as it happened both Hajji Lala and the police chief owned farmland just south of the proposed canal. "But who was I to stand in the way of progress?" Ellis adds, dryly. "I could put hundreds of people to work, pay them 600 Afghans [$3] a day." It was the beginning of a partnership. Ellis wanted to prove he could produce. The project...
...turned out, the situation was more complicated than I figured," Ellis says now. In fact, it wasn't a case of local corruption at all. Within days, intelligence collected from multiple sources revealed that several of the town elders had driven across the border to Quetta, in Pakistan, to clear the canal project with the Taliban leadership. "Apparently, they made a very convincing pitch," Ellis says, and his superiors later confirmed to me. "The canal project would enrich the area. It would be there when the Americans were gone. And the Taliban agreed: the project could go ahead, but they...