Afstan: The sainted Dutch, or Mr Smith goes to Uruzgan

The Globe and Mail's Graeme Smith reveals that the Canadians (and Americans) are doing it all wrong compared to the warm and fuzzy neighbouring Netherlanders.

...
The Dutch went into Uruzgan expecting the same kind of bloody welcome that Canadians have found in Kandahar. Both provinces are considered volatile strongholds of the Taliban insurgency. Special forces operating in Uruzgan encountered daily attacks this summer. So the 1,400 Dutch troops that began arriving in early August came prepared for battle.

But the bloodbath never happened. This past week, the first four-month rotation of Dutch troops started to leave Uruzgan after having completed 400 patrols, established two forward bases and started the slow work of building roads, bridges, schools, and clinics -- all without a single soldier killed in action, and just two injuries from hostile forces...

The success is fragile, Dutch commanders caution, and might be partly the result of luck, insurgents focusing on battles elsewhere or the cautious pace of their arrival. But the early results in Uruzgan also suggest that something these commanders call the "Dutch philosophy" is worth a hard look. It's a strategy focused on supporting the local government rather than killing its supposed enemies, talking with the Taliban instead of fighting them, and treading carefully with an understanding of how little any foreigner knows about this untamed country.

Since NATO inherited control from the Americans, the Dutch have been trying to rein in the U.S. Special Forces that still operate two camps in northern Uruzgan, and they've restrained their own troops from any major offensives...

Many of the differences in the Dutch approach are subtle, the commanders say. The Canadians and Americans establish forward operating bases (FOBs) in unstable areas, often building them into fortresses of giant sandbags and razor wire, and using them as a launching point for operations. The Dutch prefer to build mud-walled compounds they call "multi-functional qalas," using the Pashto name for house, designed with a traditional-style guest room for visitors.

The soldiers living in these qalas are expected to visit every household in their own area, measuring 12 to 30 square kilometres, and monitor their needs.

Besides helping the local residents with the basics of survival, the Dutch are trying to serve as honest brokers for villagers whose relatives were captured by coalition forces. If a suspected Taliban fighter is arrested by U.S. soldiers, Dutch commanders will try to find basic information about the detainee, to ease his family's worry...

This is the same Mr Smith who quoted a Taliban spokesman as follows:

"If we attack the Canadians, they call for aircraft and bomb everything in the area. The U.S. only tried to kill the Taliban. The Canadians try to kill everybody."..

Have the Americans changed their spots in Uruzgan? Or maybe Mr Smith didn't notice the seeming contradiction.

A response to Mr Smith at Army.ca:

This article drips the same kind of sanctimonious rubbish that we Canadians have been far too often guilty of slinging at the Americans in the past. You know: that sort of holier-than-thou "we understand the goodness of human nature not like you murderous warmongers, etc etc". So, my first comment on this piece is that maybe now that we know what it feels like to recive this kind of Pollyanna nonsense, we'll get off our high moral pedestal and stop doing it to others.

My second observation is that while the description of the Dutch activities may be accurate, it is certainly a very narrow and wrong description of the Canadian approach, quite badly slanted to build up the Dutch at the expense of the Canadians. Much good work and intelligent approach by the Canadians is completely ignored: I wonder what, for example, our CIMIC and PRT folks would have to say in response. It's easy to sound good in front of an ignorant audience who can't challenge what you are saying. In fact, the author is actually describing a Dutch PRT and comparing to the Cdn BG: a case of apples vs oranges. Why didn't he compare the two PRTs?

Third, Uruzgan is not Kandahar. The situation facing the Dutch is quite different. The offensive operations in Kandahar were needed for different reasons than those which shape the situation where the Dutch are. Not the least of the reasons was the need to break the stranglehold that was being constructed around Kandahar. Kandahar is a much more important symbolic and military objective for the Taleban than Uruzgan is.

Finally, the article is quite selective. He says nothing about the Dutch SP Arty bty that has been happily thumping the s***t out of baddies, sometimes in sp of Canadians. Maybe they weren't around that day.

To close, the Dutch should be very proud of any success they achieve. But hopefully they aren't so naive (as the author apparently is) as to think that if the Taleban wants to drive NATO out of the South, the Dutch will somehow be spared because they are "nice guys". Passively sitting in camps usually doesn't do much to dominate the enemy's decision cycle.