Thank you for your posting and I respect your analysis regarding Major Gant and me.
However, our approaches maybe valid and could result positively, but needles to say that our goals are tailored for the betterment of Afghanistan.
Insha-Allah, we will make every effort to help Afghanistan either in collaborative or individual approach.

However deemed to be the best suited will be approved.
Our job is to just introduce the initiatives.

Thank you and Khoda Hafez,

Khalil

However, Nouri’s proposal is the opposite; it is an advocacy for prospering tribes and bringing peace village by village, town by town and eventually city by city.

Thank you, Nouri Sahib for your wonderful thoughts.

A.Hotak,
Herat, Afghanistan

Your ‘fear is that the farther down [the chain of command] the more it might be resisted by ground commanders’ was inadvertently inspired by the blind faith in the Pentagon top brass’ tacit endorsement and, as a consequence, a loss of confidence in the groundswell support of the right bottom-up initiative.

What Major Gant has failed to realize, is that the main challenge to TES will come not from the US military or Afghan/Pakistani militants, but from Afghan/American civilians, because for those folks anything ‘tribal’ spells trouble.

Gene

Given the example of East and West Germany, if the collapse of the Berlin Wall in the early 1990s has led to the creation of unified Germany, then why a separate state for Pashtuns could not be created by wiping out the Durand Line. “It’s a line whose time has ended November 12th 1993.” I therefore see a much harmonious region as one country of Afghanistan.
The creation of Paskistan from day one was wrong and the regional destabilization is the caused by Pakistan. Therefore, Pakistan should just be bound to Punjab and Sind.
I agree with Nouri, without solving the Durand Line Jim Gant will never win the hearts and minds of the Pashtuns. They cannot see their fellow brethren on either side of the border to have more or less opportunity than one another. This is a tipping point where efforts can be futile.

Jamil Ghelzai
Kabul, Afghanistan

Thank you for your posting.

A great deal could go wrong before the favorable perceptions can be seen to have turned a genuine corner in Afghanistan. But the whole international strategy is now based on the belief that a 10 per cent increase in the objective security and economic conditions in Afghanistan could create a 50 per cent or 60 per cent shift in the public’s perception of their situation. It is probably too early to say that this is now happening. The military campaign has yet to show greater results and the Karzai government has yet to demonstrate that it can put its own house in order and deliver real benefits for the majority of Afghans.
This “One Tribe at a Time” may bear fruit but the notion has to be given further tests. I believe Mr. Gant in heart has genuine intentions and if this to produce results so be it. And if not, I am sure the “Biz Jirgah” will be placed for attest. All intentions should be focused to bring betterments for Afghanistan “Insha-Allah.”

Khalil Nouri

Inertia within the international players, fixated as it is so often on irrelevant and actively counter-productive norms, and bound by a culture of consultancy and often ill-founded “expertise” — such as Mr. Gant who can convince Mr. McChrystal and Mr. Petraeus—is unlikely substantially to change in the short or long term.
Afghanistan has never been susceptible to interference, as opposed to advice which it readily accepted in 1950’s-1970’s.

Tinkering with action plans for reform “One Tribe at a Time” will fail unless it is fully realized that indigenous solutions that work, in however ramshackle a fashion, trump silver-plated foreign strategies every time.

Dr. Farid Khan
Birmingham, England

Ans: Thank you for your kind words and it is an honor my article is of interest to you.

Ans: Absolutely, this is a typical American politics to buy constituent votes for the next upcoming election in order to justify to the average American populace that “we have brought our boys home.” But make no mistake; the window of opportunity could be turned around if a thorough and fundamental adjustment for the mistakes to be addressed. Example, a redefine of Bonn conference should take place instead of the upcoming Karzai ill-fated and wrongly fabricated Jirgah. In this new Bonn type of agreement the cause of Afghanistan’s derailment must be the topic of the agenda and the consequence of Afghanistan disintegration with new emergence of Pashtunistan and redefining Pakistan’s boundary is imminent. A participation of all ethnicities from all tribal spectrum who have no blood stains on their hands should be part of this Bonn type Jirgah. As I said, the upcoming Jirgah being conducted by Karzai is not going to bear any fruits. He is viewed as someone that has no public support and the West is in puppeteer position, which is discrediting NATO and US operations in Afghanistan. So the West should come to their senses by making it obvious that he is not the man to lead, but that could take a lot of effort. The West should shun their idiosyncrasy that Karzai is the best they got. Thee
Please go to my solution 19 in our website http://www.nwscinc.org for how we defined choosing the head of state. This was done way before the election in Afghanistan. You will realize this is how a frivolous election could have been avoided that made Karzai the illegitimate head of Afghanistan. We knew this was going to be the mother of a vote rigging election of all times. The irony is that, it will be the same when Karzai’s 5 year term is going to be over. A revised Bonn conference will definitely buy the trust of the people only if wrong doings to be admitted by saying “we are humans and no one is free of mistakes.”

Ans: Very true, I see it coming when a real Jirgahs are taking place in sacred Moslem mosques. I can fully agree with you regarding the notion of Taliban being in the epicenter of the mosque jirgahs. On the other hand, as you also mentioned, there are Taliban fighters within the tribes and families. The only ones that could distinguish them are the heads of the snakes (tribal elders) and they can give the green light or integrate them within the tribes if prosperous jobs are given to them. Now, our initiative could bring a change for a particular tribe in that concept.

Ans: Yes, there will be a lot of backstabbing and intrigue; this takes a lot of work and a need for an acceptable Pashtun leader who can call for a unity amongst the tribes, but I really have not put my thoughts as how a cure for this can be addressed.

Ans: Very true, and I have answered in my article regarding the Brits made the mistake before partition of India and Pakistan by defining the wrong approach for marking the Durand Line in a wrong territory. But their policy then accepted the notion of divide and rule. If a genuine “Pashtun Awami National” leader like Khan Abdul Ghafar Khan to emerge I believe things will change. Knowing the fact that Pakistan is in state of fragility and I don’t see very much hope on those provinces, agencies and Baluchistan. What strikes me the most even Pakistan being in a state of collapse and to spiral further, there is no national unity amongst the political parties. I see a very genuine leader a former and famous cricket player name Imran Khan to lead the country. This could bring a change. We are doing all we can to bring Prince Ali the grandchild of Emir Abdul Rahaman and Imran Khan together for a Pakistan-Afghanistan national dialogue. Our delegation was in Islamabad and Kabul two weeks ago and there are some good intentions from both men.

Ans: I see your point, thank you for addressing it, and let me explain as why we call it a business:
It is an adopted name for the West in particular –congress as the audience– that we are selling the initiative in the name of “Biz Jirgah”, but in fact it is “face to face” tribal interaction where bread and butter could be placed on their table (in Afghani term: on their floor cloth). This is for the street level population where the bulk of the problem is, and they are the ones never seen the good days since the US and NATO toppled the Taliban. What the notion of the business is to put people to work and bring unity within every tribe. I am in close contact with some Pashtun and Uzbek tribal representatives here in the West Coast and they all accept this initiative for their tribes inside Afghanistan. As you know well, every tribe has its own governance and every tribe has to be nurtured in their particular way, and that could turn them away from guns and killings. If I may explain it more broadly; every expat tribal representative has its own tribe inside Afghanistan, and they have brothers, mothers and close relatives that are in need of financial help. Therefore, they will do anything to help their own people inside Afghanistan. For example; I know families that are sending money and computers, cars and even clothes to Afghanistan. So this is a great opportunity for them to help their tribes and therefore we could not name anything else but “biz Jirgah.”

Hope my answers were in your view and if not we will elaborate more.

Thank you my friend,

Khalil

Khalil

As history thought us, Afghans have dealt with Afghans far better than foreigners dealing with Afghans. This true as that the window of opportunity is no longer available and therefore the oxygen for the Afghan solution was already sucked by the war in Iraq and the corruptions within Afghan government.

As Lord Roberts British viceroy to Kandahar recognized this when, at the end of the second Afghan war in 1880 he said, “the less they are able to see us, the less likely are to hate us…..we will have much greater chance of getting the Afghans on our side if we abstain from any interference in their internal affairs whatsoever.”

This is very obvious, and if this is not lessons learned from the British and Russians then how US Special Forces can do something that perceived to be ingenious and never applied previously? What I am reading in Major Gant’s report and as Nouri says only one small clan in Mangwal has been applied and there are no further tests on other tribes then this is just an illusionary concept that may not work.

I believe we are sinking deeper into an Afghan quagmire that the tombstone for the US is being written in the graveyard of empires.

I am thrilled that you are taking the time to publish an article in RT regarding this subject.
Your knowledge about Afghanistan and your desire for the betterment of the war torn country is always obvious in your articles, and I read them with keen interest.
As I said, your analysis and writings are comparable to Ustad Jalal-Udin Rumi and Omar Khyam in terms of broad meanings.

Thank you for your posting and looking forward to read your upcoming article.

Khalil

Your valid word is very convincing.

As Henry Ford Quotes “Coming together is a beginning Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”
I guess the distinguished major and I have been through the first phase and for the second phase, we are not there yet.

Operationally speaking, I believe the window of opportunity to gain the tribes trust per Major Gant’s doctrine is lost. Even though the U.S. is convinced to be in Afghanistan for the long haul, but still the tribes are not going to be swayed with that notion, and they will never be. Viewing this in an Afghan prospective; “foreign powers come and go” and it is a hard sell to convince the Afghans that the US is not.
Placing US internal politics to launch persuasive election campaigns, one must make every effort to sell his/her reelection agendas to inflate voting results, and that will definitely be in collision coarse with foreign politics specifically now in Afghanistan. The internal politics like to see an end to military operation and that is no good news for average honest tribal people who make the social fiber of the society in Afghanistan. Therefore, they are very much taking side towards the insurgency for a survival purposes. I hope I have proven the case that “One Tribe at a Time” cannot be won easily.
However, with our plan, there is no foreign involvement and Afghans dealing with Afghans cannot only break a better bargain than the foreign players but also convincing enough that Afghans are there to stay and live in Afghanistan. I am sure one can easily see the difference.

There is no doubt that the Major has to play it right to succeed and if he wants to comment on this he is more than welcome to do so.

Khalil

T.G.

MV

If you don’t unite the Pashtuns, the centre cannot hold and warlords and tribal militias take over and fill the vacuum.

The US has been trying since Bush to divide the Pashtuns and rule. It’s not working. Whoever ends up the figurehead president has too bargain away too much buying the warlords’ support that the presidency has no power and the cabinet and all ministries turn into fiefdoms to be looted at will. That’s the position Karzai’s in now, but it will be the same if anyone else ends up in the same place.

My hats off to you, Sir!

With gratitude, it is a privilege to read your posting, and thank you for your kind words.

As I was writing the article my view was solely focused for unification—or “YAW-WALI” in Pasto— of combine Gant and Nouri ideas to confront this big obstacle elevating the Pashtun tribes to overcome their destitution that we both have sincere intention to help.

In short, I love the land where my forefathers are buried and I love America, and both Afghan and American lives are too precious for me. That is exactly my justification to be involved and give my best for this cause.

If could be of any assistance to you, I will always be here or there to help.

Sincerely,

Khalil Nouri