If you want an illustration of successful multinational counterinsurgency and the potential for civilian life in Afghanistan, just look to Marja, says Rep. Bobby Schilling.
“Last year, if you were to go there, what would happen is you would be constantly fired upon, there was a lot of rocket launching happening,” Schilling, a Republican from Illinois and member of the House Armed Services Committee, told Big Peace this week upon his return from Afghanistan. “What’s happened there is our armed services folks have gone in there and basically secured this town.” The markets, he said, are open and safe.
That is a stark contrast with the city of just over a year ago, when allied forces launched Operation Moshtarak to root out the Taliban there and put the breaks on the city’s involvement in the poppy trade. Now, on Schilling’s first trip to Afghanistan, he was able to witness women walking around safely and young children running around giving the soldiers a “what’s up?”
The young children are starting to shed their illiteracy, Schilling said, motivated by watching others do the same.
“It’s kind of a contagious thing that I saw happening in this town,” he said.
But a big reason for that, according to Schilling, is the participation in police and security forces of the Afghans themselves:
“When we first got there last year, it was ten of the NATO folks to one of the Afghans, and now it’s ten to ten. So I think it’s one of those things where people are seeing what’s happened for example in Marja and they’re thinking: Wow, we could do this with our city also.”
What bothered Schilling the most about what he saw in Afghanistan was the participation of the Chinese government–there to purchase iron mines and cash in on the country’s mineral deposits thanks to the security provided by allied forces.
“I don’t like that just because here we are, we’re doing all the hard work, they’re coming in and buying assets rather than sending people to give us a hand to help get this thing under control,” he said.
That’s one reason the success of the homegrown security forces is crucial to the country’s long-term economic growth, so American investors can feel safe doing business in Afghanistan as well:
“Once we can get the rule of law implemented, then it’ll make it easier for an investor to come in there. If you don’t know if you’re going to get your return on your investment, you’re not going to invest. And so we’ve got to get that peace of mind out there and I think that would be huge.”
That job creation from foreign investment would remedy the severe lack of employment opportunities for Afghans–one of the challenges of the transition between a local economy dependent on the drug trade to a healthier, safer job market. “These people want to make a living,” Schilling said. “They’re hard-working people. The problem there is that there’s really nothing for them to do.”
The New York Times reported Tuesday that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called the upcoming spring and summer an “acid test” for whether the gains made in Afghanistan are sustainable.
Schilling agrees with that assessment, though he’s optimistic:
“I think that here in the next couple of months are going to be some big tests, because our troops have pushed a lot of these Taliban folks out and into Pakistan and we’ve secured a lot of the places where they were making a lot of the IEDs, we took over big chunks of where we’ve never taken over before, and so there’s going to be a lot of pushback coming when the weather’s a bit nicer and you’re not getting the rains. So I think the next two months are going to make a big difference on whether we can hold ground.”
With a troop pullback planned for 2014, Schilling said the key to providing security and stability without shouldering the entire burden, leaving Afghans unprepared to take over, has been communication. He said the coalition forces are responsive to the local population’s requests and responsibilities. “I think we’re striking a very good balance.”
The Afghans have given him reason for confidence. He said it was inspiring watching Afghan forces training.
“They’re far from perfect,” he said, “but they’re striving for perfection.”