In the Land of the Stoner Cops

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That evening Contreras' men, an Illinois National Guard unit dubbed Team Ironhorse, sat waiting to be briefed by their CO. The dozen men were all scouts, and some were snipers, all trained by their recently killed first lieutenant to be "meat eaters." But the months of daily operations and shitting in bags had taken a toll. They resented being sent on missions that weren't theirs, the neglect they felt, the lack of progress. One sergeant's parents owned a hardware store and sent the team four tow straps to pull their vehicles out of sand and mud because their request through military channels had gone nowhere.

Major Contreras said Ironhorse's mission was to escort the ANCOP to the Nawa area, which a Marine unit was trying to secure so Afghan authorities could take over. He also said guys in police uniforms were harassing civilians. Whether they were impostors or Afghan National Police (ANP)—the ordinary and often corrupt cops that Ironhorse's ANCOP partners looked down on—was anyone's guess. He told his men to plan for seven days in the field. "The reason why we're going down is to put an Afghan face on the mission," he said.

The men looked skeptical. "Duration of mission and number of legitimate police in Nawa and how will ANP get along with ANCOP?" Staff Sergeant Robert McGuire tersely asked without moving or looking at the major. Staff Sergeant Tim Verdoorn complained that Team Ironhorse would be doing the Marines' job. As the major concluded his briefing, McGuire loudly muttered, "It's a cocksuck." After Contreras left, McGuire added, "That was very well thought out." I asked him to elaborate. "Fuel will be the biggest issue," he said. "We don't know where we're gonna live. We're not taking tents."

Contreras had his own worries. The Marines had chosen a school as their base, and British forces in the area had warned against occupying schools. "The Marines are trained to go off a ship, hit the ground, and fucking charge," he told me later. They might not be suited for counterinsurgency.

Counterinsurgency, or COIN, has been in vogue at the Pentagon since the success of the Iraq surge, and its dominance was cemented when President Obama chose General Stanley McChrystal, former head of special operations forces and a recent convert to counterinsurgency, as his commander in Afghanistan. Shortly afterward, Obama promulgated his new strategy "to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan." The primary tool would be COIN.

Counterinsurgency theorists obsessively study "small wars," such as the British war in Malaya, the French war in Algeria, and the wars in Vietnam. The emphasis is on using the least amount of violence against the enemy, familiarity with the local culture, and painstakingly removing popular support for the insurgents. This involves using proxy forces to kill those who cannot be "reconciled," and searching for political solutions that tempt the civilian population away from the insurgents.

In some ways, COIN and the related "stability operations" doctrine are a rejection of the neoconservative focus on military might as the key tool of foreign policy. Just as the neocons ruled the Pentagon under George W. Bush, so it seems that the proponents of "population-centric" fighting now have a preponderance of influence in the Obama administration.

To liberals, these COINdinistas, as they are dubbed, might seem kindred spirits. They emphasize nonlethal means, humanitarian aid, development work, and protecting the civilian population. They recognize that military force alone cannot solve conflicts, and that in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military did not know how to operate in a war where "the terrain is the people." But the end result is still a foreign military occupation—which is not America's stated goal in Afghanistan.

CONTRERAS AND I drove to Sakhi's office at the ANCOP headquarters (the acronym stands for Afghan National Civil Order Police). There was a marijuana plant in the garden, and inside a picture of President Hamid Karzai was flanked by some plastic flowers and a map of Helmand. Sakhi was wearing an ornate shalwar kameez, cream with shiny embroidery, and watching a Bollywood movie. He had thick eyebrows and a short, well-groomed beard. He brought out a pile of kebab and bread and bantered with his guests through Bariyal, a thickly muscled translator known as Shotgun. He was the 2002 weight-lifting champion in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, and like most translators who spend enough time with the Americans, he had adopted their argot. "ANCOP are fucking bad-ass people," he told me. Colonel Sakhi and Team Ironhorse shared the same warrior culture, and the language divide proved easily surmountable.

Sakhi strongly believed that most Taliban were locals, working on farms, firing when they had a chance, then throwing down their weapons and taking up a shovel. He warned that the Taliban had planted at least 100 IEDs in Nawa. IEDs had been responsible for the majority of American and British casualties in Afghanistan and a few months before had claimed Team Ironhorse's lieutenant and a staff sergeant, as well as an interpreter and an ANCOP officer. It happened last February when First Lieutenant Jared Southworth and Staff Sergeant Jason Burk­holder went to examine an IED the ANCOP had discovered. They asked for an ordnance disposal team to destroy it because they worried civilians would get blown up, but were told to mark the location and move on. The ANCOP officer dismantled the IED anyway, but a second one beneath blew up. Ironhorse spent an hour picking pieces of their friends off the road and out of a tree.

First Lieutenant Southworth had been very passionate, his men told me. He believed he'd come to give Afghan kids a better future and he loved what he was doing. He paid Afghans $150 for pointing out IEDs. A rich aunt sent him the money. It was unusual but it worked, his men said. Back in Illinois, they had been told they would be on a large base in a safe job, but Southworth knew different. He informed them they were going into the shit. He spent more than a year preparing the team as best he could, sending them to sniper school, scout school, combat lifesaver school, mountain warfare school. He gave a speech to the men just prior to deployment, warning that some of them wouldn't make it back.

Mindful of IEDs, Contreras told Sakhi that Ironhorse would go through the desert to avoid the main road. The Marines would meet them to guide them to the schoolhouse base. But Sakhi had still not received his written orders. He asked Contreras to tell the American police-training headquarters in Kandahar to email the deputy minister of interior. The next day Contreras went to see Sakhi again. "The Marines are giving me a lot of problems because of the delay," he said. Sakhi was still waiting for supplies. One of the major operations of the year, the military's big push to ensure Afghanistan could hold its election, was being held up by red tape.

TWO DAYS LATER they finally got the order to go. Sergeant McGuire was in command of the lead National Guard Humvee. The gunner up top shot pen flares that went pop like a gun at cars that got too close. McGuire asked if I was sure I wanted to be in the first vehicle, which would be the first one to get blown up by IEDs. Sakhi asked that the Americans' armored vehicles take the lead because his vehicles would be blown to shreds.

As we drove south the ANCOP stopped in front of every culvert to search both sides. It was slow progress. Some of the police trucks got stuck in the deep, soft sand. When we reached the Arghandab River, the ANCOP drivers started playing NASCAR, speeding around each other, nearly crashing. Two of them got into an argument about the driving and one raised his rifle. This had happened before, Sergeant Verdoorn later told me. Once, on the base, two of the ANCOP had drawn their pistols on each other. "There was blood in their eyes," Verdoorn said.

Two Marine Humvees met Ironhorse across the river. We were in a thickly vegetated area of farmland, trees, and narrow canals. Helmand is the wealthiest province in Afghanistan; it has an irrigation system, some electricity and paved roads, and some of the best agricultural land in the region. It is the world's largest producer of opium poppies and a great place for a self-sustaining insurgency.

Sandbags lined the top of the schoolhouse. Hundreds of Marines wandered around shirtless wearing green shorts and kicking up dust. They slept on the ground outside or in classrooms that smelled of sweaty feet. A Marine captain thanked Contreras for bringing the ANCOP. The lack of an Afghan face had been their weak spot, he said. Nawa had been quiet for a few days. "The Taliban left to lie low," he said, "but this is their breadbasket, so they're not likely to give it up."

The next morning Contreras met Marine Commander William McCollough at Patrol Base Jaker, a partially constructed brick building that was a short but tense walk from the schoolhouse. McCollough told Contreras that in the town of Aynak, 14 miles away, they had discovered a "rogue" police unit that was extorting the locals. Nawa's chief of police, Nafas Khan, sat in on the meeting. He had a long beard and a long, nervous face. The Marines described him as a local mafia boss. Team Ironhorse suspected he was keeping his men's salary for himself, forcing the police to steal for a living. Khan denied that the police in Aynak were under his authority.

After Khan left, McCollough told Sakhi that he should supplant the rogue police. The Marines might have to fight to get to Aynak, but once there, McCollough said, they would meet with locals in a shura, or council. Team Ironhorse's Staff Sergeant Randy Thacker was dismissive. "These shuras are just a bitch session," he said. "They'll complain about cops shaking them down. The major will make promises and the ANP will come back and go back to the same ways." He'd seen it before: When Ironhorse and the ANCOP came in, towns that had been abandoned would slowly repopulate, and when they started to hand things back over to the ANP, residents would flee once more. The ANP were the only face of the Afghan government most people saw, and it was often an ugly one.