Kill all the cockroaches
I spent the better part of 2008 in Kandahar, Afghanistan as a Public Affairs Officer for a Joint Task Force from the New York Army National Guard. I was in southern Afghanistan right as it started to get really “hot” there. And I’m not talking about the weather. 2008 was when the enemy, or the Taliban as we knew it, was increasing their efforts against US and Coalition troops in the country. It was when more Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) were wounding and killing troops. It was a time when the fight was increasing but the troop numbers weren’t meeting the demands of the fight.
Troops were coming into contact more often while my Task Force was charged with mentoring and advising the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police to become better warriors so they could fight and defend themselves, and thus help create a more stable Afghanistan (so it wouldn’t be used in the future as a safe haven for more fighters who would use it as a platform to come back and attack America).
Soon, there was “green” all across the maps – that meant we had troops protecting and working in those areas. In reality though, sometimes the green meant just two Soldiers were stationed with an Afghan unit. It didn’t always mean we had it covered, or that we had any real strength to protect the area.
When the guys did have a firefight, they killed many enemy fighters. But we had a heck of a time really securing the area. I feel this is because we quickly learned that even if we killed ten bad guys, more “cockroaches” would come out of nowhere to fill the void. It boggled my mind how so many new fighters would ‘come out of the woodwork’ and pick up a weapon where the last man was and prepare to fight for another day. We had stronger weapons, more troops, or so we thought. We had better equipment, better food and Soldier care, and just more of things that were better. Our mission was a good one, one I still believe in. So, why did the enemy, those cockroaches keep showing up to fight? I believed at that time the answer was just to kill all the cockroaches. Just rain down everything we have on them. But there would have been more that turned up to fight too.
As the end of my tour drew closer to being finished, there was a lot of talk among the Generals and the media and the politicians about how Afghanistan just needed a surge, just like Iraq. But it was wholly different, in so many ways. Hindsight shows us that the smaller surge we sent into Afghanistan worked for a while… until the troops started to redeploy and go back home. There was no ground held, secured, for which to build – key components of a successful Counter Insurgency program.
Afghanistan was and continues to be a different beast of a nation. “If they’re not fighting us, then they’ll fight each other,” was another statement I heard and repeated often.
However, there is one thing I believe. You can’t ‘just kill the cockroaches’. Like we’re seeing now in Iraq again and in Syria, and other nations where we are playing a role, where we have a hand, you can’t have a strategy to kill people. There has to be a stronger, diplomatic, multi-faceted, international effort that includes dialogue and getting to the root of the reasons why we so often find ourselves at war. I think as Americans we need to start to have a global discussion with all of our partners to determine what are we really doing, where do we want to go as a nation, what do we want for our children? I have two small kiddos and I’ll tell you, I absolutely do not want them fighting this same war in 13 years when my son comes of age to defend our country. I fear that is where we’re headed.
This country needs to have a level-headed, honest dialogue, without the rhetoric, and the name-calling that honestly calls into question what are we doing? What do Americans want? That includes a discussion with our Middle Eastern partners, our Allies, and others. Regardless of religion. Religion is just the hand-waving over an issue to boil it down for people to make the ‘problem’ easier to understand for them. We’re too quick to slap a name on a problem to place it in its bin. Like, “they’re Muslim” so that’s why they hate us. Conversely, the same thing is also said. It’s not that simple or that easy. We need to work harder and sacrifice for this great country. The time is now. We can’t just keep killing the “cockroaches”.
