# VANGUARD Article - Tribal politics: Why we must understand the human terrain



## Eye In The Sky (23 Oct 2008)

I was poking around the Vanguard magazine website today after reading thru the May/June 2008 edition hardcopy where I found an interesting article.  Having never been to Afghanistan (yet), my knowledge on the inner working of the country and people are very limited

I was hoping maybe some folks with the DTBT t-shirts would be able to comment on the accuracy of this article. 

Article Link

*Tribal politics: Why we must understand the human terrain *  

The Afghan conflict that the United States, Canada and other NATO countries find themselves embroiled in will not be won through military kinetics (or by pulling the trigger). Enemy body counts are not only ultimately irrelevant, they can also be counterproductive in a conflict involving an honour-based, revenge-driven Pashtun population. 

When we kill a Pashtun foot soldier (usually an illiterate 18-22 year old probably raised in a Pakistani refugee camp) all of his male kinfolk immediate become our enemies. Indeed, the Pashtun tribal mores – Pashtunwali – would demand that all male relatives take up arms to revenge their fallen brother/son/father. The Pashtun, who make up the Taliban, have a saying: “Kill one enemy, make ten.” The death in battle of a Pashtun invokes an obligation of revenge among all his male relatives, making the killing of a Taliban guerrilla an act of insurgent multiplication, not subtraction. The Soviets learned this lesson during their misadventures in Afghanistan during the 1980s when they killed over a million Pashtuns but only increased the number of Pashtun guerrillas they faced by the end of the war.

The paradox of the Afghan conflict is that it is a war in which the more people you kill the faster you lose. This also has important implications for collateral damage. Although few if any insurgencies have ever been won by killing insurgents, this remains the primary strategy. Kinetics in Afghanistan are not the answer.

Complete article on link


----------

