Electricity is the new Government in a Box™

Michael Cohen ups the ante by giving an even more depressing analysis of US policy towards Afghanistan than he did yesterday. Today’s installment is the military’s new thought that electricity in Kandahar is the solution to getting the people of that city to side with the Afghan government over the Taliban (it’s unclear whether this is a complement to or a substitute for Government in a Box™). The money quote:

The top NATO commander in southern Afghanistan, British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, said increasing power in the city will produce a ‘head-turning moment’ among residents and will lead them to rally behind the Afghan government.

Cohen is skeptical, noting a contradiction (surprise!) in US policy:

At the same time that NATO view increasing power in the city as a “head-turning moment” it is steadfastly ignoring the fact that according to the US Army’s own public opinion surveys Kandaharis are almost unanimously opposed to NATO military intervention in their city. Do NATO and US military officials truly believe that providing electricity to Kandahar will serve to outweigh the negative consequences of increased violence that comes from our presence there? How does any increased support for NATO and the Karzai government not get completely reversed if against the wishes of local Afghans we intervene military and kill more civilians?

Cohen has some stiff competition in the pessimism about Afghanistan department. I think that Martine van Bijlert at the Afghanistan Analysis Network actually beats him in this round:

Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan is still based on the idea that many Afghans are “sitting on a fence” wondering which side they will support: the government or the insurgency. It was never a very good analogy, as most people are not really in a position to choose; they move with the currents, they duck when they can, and they fight when pushed too hard. But in Kandahar, listening, it seemed we are far beyond that now. There is increasingly no fence, no two sides. What remains is anger, over opportunities lost, trust betrayed and a country wrecked where it could have been alright.

I have returned from Kandahar shaken. Not because of the blasts and the warnings and the feelings of apprehension, but because of how dark the future looks when I listen to what people have to say. I fear that all the shiny plans will do very little to change that.

Come on Martine, why all the drama? Do you really believe that the Taliban can survive the onslaught of electricity and Government in a Box™?