You Can't Kill 'Em All

We need more bribes and less killing.

The CIA has used Viagra, among other things, to bribe Pashtun chieftains. James Joyner has good commentary on this subject at his blog, OTB.

Knives, tools, and operations for family members were all bargaining chips. This is how things work in that part of the world. An excerpt from the WaPo describes the Viagra transaction with a powerful tribal chief in southern Afghanistan. He was 60 years old and had four younger wives, you can figure out the rest.

Once it was established that the man was in good health, the pills were offered and accepted. Four days later, when the Americans returned, the gift had worked its magic, the operative recalled.

"He came up to us beaming," the official said. "He said, 'You are a great man.' "

"And after that we could do whatever we wanted in his area."

This is how we should solve the Waziristan problem. Waziristan is that lawless area in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) that borders Afghanistan. This area has become the big hideout for all the bad guys in the region.

Presidential candidate Obama spoke of going into the area with military force to clean it out. That won't work, notwithstanding the sporadic missile strikes to take out some terrorist ensconced there. No, we need to bribe them to behave and stop hosting terrorists.

Waziristan does not consider itself part of Pakistan, as the various regions and city states of Afghanistan have little loyalty to Kabul and feel no patriotic fervor for greater Afghanistan. These are tribal people living in places like Orgun, Ghazni, and Tarin Khowt just trying to make a life for themselves like you and me, only under drastically more austere circumstances. It is a Hobbesean world where life is nasty, brutish and short. In a game of daily survival, concepts like good, evil and terrorist fall by the wayside.

We can't kill 'em all
Nor do we want to. The vast majority of people living in these places are not combatants and just want to be left alone. And the ones who could be considered combatants are fighing on their own territory after all.

We need to bribe the bigwigs with cash and services so they can make life better for their people. If we do this while maintaining our known military power at a distance, the Taliban or any violent paramilitary organization will lose because they can no longer compete with the rich locals and there are no infidels to fight. All we should require in return is that they not harbor terrorists and not fight against the larger state of Pakistan or Afghanistan.

This sounds very simple, but it's not; and it would require years of quiet, low-level work by intelligence agencies and Special Forces. It would also involve paying money to "bad" people, which the BBC and MSNBC would loudly and smirkingly report. And there would still be killing, because there would still be bad guys, but it would be more focused because of local cooperation. The past few years in Iraq provide an example.

The situation in Central Asia will never be perfect (as if things are perfect in North America or Europe!), but solutions that work within the culture of the region are within our grasp. Billions in bribes beats billions in bullets, bombs and lives.