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McChrystal: Jobs could quell Afghan violence

The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan says many Taliban insurgents, particularly in the violence-plagued south, could be persuaded to stop fighting if they could find jobs in a stabilized country.

In an interview with USA Today, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said his No. 1 unmet need is to have functioning local governments in Afghanistan and officials who can provide basic services.

Many of the Taliban fight because they are paid to do so, McChrystal said, and they are the ones who might be persuaded to stop.

“What we see are indications that mid- and low-level commanders and fighters have a tremendous interest in trying to reintegrate into Afghan society, working with the government of Afghanistan so that they can go back to normal lives,” McChrystal said in a phone interview from Kabul.

“At the end of the day, what the Afghan people are really looking for is that very basic level of governance provided, obviously, with security,” McChrystal said.

Michael O’Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution, said getting insurgents to switch their allegiance is critical to improving security in Afghanistan.

“Flipping ‘accidental guerrillas’ should be a priority,” he said in an e-mail. “I doubt many Taliban true believers will change sides, but they aren’t the majority.”

Trying to persuade Taliban insurgents to stop fighting would differ from the effort used in Iraq, called the Sons of Iraq or Awakening Councils, which helped curb violence after roughly 90,000 mostly Sunni volunteers acted as local security guards in exchange for cash.

McChrystal warned that strategy has a potential downside in Afghanistan because the country “has a history of having armed groups evolve into bands of warlords.”

“There’s a lot of concerns on the part of the population that we not create that unintentionally,” he said.

His formula is a scaled-down version of what helped in Iraq, combined with “intensive vetting and training.”

McChrystal, who in June took charge of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, will make recommendations by late August or early September on how to fight the war and how many troops will be needed to reverse the Taliban’s momentum. He said the Afghan army, which has about 92,000 soldiers and is scheduled to grow to 134,000 by 2012, will have to expand significantly beyond that. He would not say how many.

About 62,000 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan — twice as many as last year — and the number will increase to 68,000 this year. July was the deadliest month for U.S. and Western troops since the war began in 2001, when U.S. forces ousted the ruling Taliban regime. August is already on track to possibly surpass July’s mark for Western military deaths.

“I wouldn’t say we are winning or losing or stalemated,” McChrystal said about the current fighting. “What I would say at this particular point is that the insurgency has a certain amount of initiative and momentum that we are working to stop and, in fact, reverse.”

Afghanistan is holding its presidential and provincial elections Aug. 20.

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