New Milestone in the Afghan War

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Commentary by Lt. Colonel John Lewis Cook, USA(ret.)
The war in Afghanistanreached a new, and historic, milestone on Monday, the 24^th of December,2012.  It is ironic that this eventhappened on Christmas Eve, the holiest night in the Christian faith.  We may never know what possessed SergeantNargis, a female veteran of the Afghan National Police, to pick the day beforeChristmas to launch herself into the history of this tragic war, but there isno denying this is the day she became a historic figure.  
It was on this day thatSergeant Nargis pulled out her 9mm standard issue pistol and murdered anAmerican advisor to the National Police in a police station in downtown Kabulat point blank range.  At that point, themother of four became the first female member of the Afghan Security Forces tokill a coalition member in an insider attack, an all too common occurrence inAfghanistan today.  So far this year,sixty-one Americans have been killed in such attacks.  In 2011, the total killed was thirty-five.This trend is clearly going in the wrong direction.
Sergeant Nargis is notjust an average female policeman; she belongs to the elite Gender AffairsDepartment within the National Police Headquarters, the single most importantdepartment fighting for the rights of women across Afghanistan.  This is the department the coalition likes topoint to when discussing the progress we’re making there concerning women’srights.  And this is the department thatis at the forefront of recruiting more women into the National Police andbreaking down the barriers that a male dominated society has put in place forcenturies in an attempt to keep women in Afghanistan is a second class status. 
Since the growing alarmover insider attacks can no longer be ignored, the U.S. Army is developing anew handbook for the troops addressing this issue.  Being careful not to offend the Afghangovernment and President Karzai, this handbook will attempt to lay the blamefor most insider attacks at the feet of the troops for not being sufficientlysensitive to the Afghan culture.  It willlist a number of topics that the troops cannot discuss with their Afghancounterparts.  The list includes thetreatment of women, homosexuality, bestiality, and pedophilia. Any discussionthat could be considered offensive to Islam is to be avoided. 
This was the approachthe coalition planned on pursuing, taking a politically correct stance andwrapping it in cultural sensitivity.  Ofcourse, it required throwing Western cultures and values under the bus but thecoalition was willing to pay that price. It also required the coalition toadmit that practices not tolerated in the West were okay in Afghanistan as longas the “culture and tradition” blanket could be stretched to cover them. 
All of that changed onChristmas Eve and Sergeant Nargis has forced the coalition to develop a newparadigm to excuse what is happening there. No doubt, the coalition spinmachine in Kabul is busy right now trying to mitigate this serious body blow toone of the key objectives we claim we are trying to achieve there, which isimproving the deplorable state of the treatment of women.  However, the usual excuses of insider attackswill not wash in this case.  This attackdid not occur in some remote outpost down range where a clash of cultures isoften used to excuse such attacks.  Thishappened in the heart of Kabul, with no connection between the killer and thevictim.  The only requirement was thevictim had to be from the West. Any Westerner would do in thiscircumstance.  This incident will, nodoubt, be investigated and a report will be written.  The National Police, the organizationSergeant Nargis belongs to, is changed with doing this.  However, a report is not necessary to knowwhat happened. It’s fairly obvious that she was recruited by the Taliban whoreminded her of her duty to conduct a jihad,or Holy War, against the West.  Whenone of the women we went there to help build a better life for her self andother women murders one of our advisors with a weapon we issued to her, andtrained her to use, it’s over. At this point, it’s time to finally realize wehave failed.  No more excuses, simply turnthe lights out and come home.   We need no more milestones to understand this and,God knows, we have an abundance of tombstones. 
About the AuthorLieutenant Colonel JohnLewis Cook, United States Army (Retired), “served as the Senior Advisor to theMinistry of Interior in Kabul, Afghanistan, with responsibility for developingthe force structure for the entire Afghan National Police.  As of 2012, this force totals 157,000.  From March 2008 until August 2012, his accessand intimate associations with all levels of the Afghan government andcoalition forces have provided him with an unprecedented insight into thepolicies which will determine the outcome of the war.  It is this insight, coupled with his contactsand associations throughout Afghanistan that form the basis of Afghanistan: ThePerfect Failure.
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