Two in the heart, one in the mind

Remember when I said that sometimes putting Taliban thugs under a thin but permanent layer of dirt was an effective way to win the hearts and minds of the southern Afghan population?

And remember how some of the chattering class fawned all over the kinder, gentler Dutch approach?

Well, as it turns out, some of the local Afghans seem to agree a bit more with me, and a bit less with the Dutch and the doves:

"We're surrounded by the Taliban," Harmdullah told an audience Saturday that included the military alliance's southern commander and two members of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's cabinet.

"We need more security."

His appeal was echoed by the mayor of Terin Kowt, Mohammed Kabir, who added there needs to be more protection for schools, especially a girl's school, in the town, which is nestled in amid soaring, snow-capped peaks.

Both statements were polite rebukes of NATO's tip-toe approach to the Taliban in the sparsely populated province Oruzgan, north of Kandahar.

...

The approach in Oruzgan -- spearheaded by the Dutch and the Australians -- can best be decribed as war lite. The partners concentrate on winning the confidence of locals by keeping a low profile and never entering villages where they haven't been invited.

Unlike Canadians, Americans and British in provinces to the south of them, the Dutch and Australians have not aggressively patrolled far beyond the provincial capital or sought out extremists in the hinterland.

Counterinsurgency and nation-building is an art, not a math problem; there is no definitively right or wrong answer. But it seems that ordinary Afghans understand what many of the Canadian academic and political elite do not: firm and aggressive security measures must remain an integral part of fixing Afghanistan.