Some say the ghosts of soldiers of empires past lurk among the mountains and plains of this desolate country. These ghosts roam past battlefields, preserving their secrets within the “graveyard of empires.” Of course, the graveyard epithet is a misnomer. Empires did not die here; they simply became tired and resigned to the fact that the effort was not worth the reward. This is what makes Afghanistan a dismal, hopeless place; it isn’t the terrain or the continuous war, it is the simple fact that, ultimately, all who come here realize it isn’t worth the trouble. Thus, would-be saviors leave and only the whispers of ghosts remain.
But the ghosts of the mountain shadows are not the only ghosts that haunt this insufferable land. To be sure, these ghosts hide from plain sight as well, but they skulk amongst the shadows of government, hidden by a labyrinthine system designed to bleed empires before they depart. These ghosts suckle at the teat of the foreign money trough like a leech gorging on the blood, the life, of its host despite the fact that the leech needs the host to survive. At some point, the host will be drained of its life-support and die; the leech will die too, but yet it continues as if it cannot help itself. But these parasitic ghosts either do not care or do not realize their long-term mistake. All that matters is satisfying their insatiable appetite, even at the expense of their countrymen and in the face of their country’s demise.
Ghosts permit an appearance of success while slowly strangling the life from it. Ghosts make a PowerPoint slide look fantastic; they provide coalition leaders with positive sound bites, and generally make the KoolAid go down smoother. However, ghosts merely perpetuate a façade. Ghosts represent the pretender that occupies the throne of COIN success in Afghanistan. They silently send a message to the coalition that it is being fooled, that the powerbrokers in Afghanistan will smile and make promises as they take coalition money, only to pad an individual empire in expectation of the inevitable withdrawal of foreigners. It is as it has always been in Afghanistan. Foreigners come and go, leaving money and blood in their wake. The savvy Afghan uses the summer of plenty to build a nest for the winter that will surely come.
So how does the system work? The Afghan government works from a document called a Tashkil. The tashkil is a document that outlines the number of personnel and equipment a particular office is assigned. Every year, the various Ministries go through a process whereby manning and equipment needs are determined in accordance with budgetary concerns. For example, the Ministry of Interior (which handles police forces among other things) might be allotted 10,000 positions based on its budget. The tashkil process seeks to apportion those positions according to need. Equipment is assigned in similar fashion. Routinely, a budget may be increased by coalition government contributions in an effort to satisfy a need that aligns with coalition strategy. In such cases, one of these coalition partners, the US Government for example, will agree to fund a certain number of new positions if those positions are allotted to a particular unit or office. Here is where ghosts sometimes come into being.
Assume that an additional 100 positions, to be spread throughout the provinces, will be funded in this manner. A tashkil is built; positions are assigned, and then filled with particular individuals, although not all positions are filled. Rather than fill 100, only 80 might be filled with the difference in money going to some Afghan official(s) in Kabul. By engaging in a shell game of sorts and moving folks around as needed, it can appear that all 100 positions are filled when in fact, 20 of them are ghosts. Those in power pocket the monthly salary of these ghosts.
Another way this works is that an individual is actually assigned to a position, but he never shows up for work. This happens quite a bit in kinetic provinces as the individual has valid safety concerns. If an individual is appointed as a judge or Huquq Director in a province like Paktika or Helmand, he dutifully attends his training and collects his monthly check, but he never shows up for work – or, he leaves the province shortly after making an appearance, perhaps making intermittent appearances as needed to maintain his cover. He becomes a ghost. Most of the time, these guys are still living in Kabul. On the surface it can seem like this sort of ghost has no support from the Kabul government, as if he’s cheating them as well. However, sometimes an individual who doesn’t even speak Pashtu is appointed to an area wherein Pashto is the predominant, if not only, language spoken by the average Afghan and never shows up for work. Is this an oversight by the Kabul elite or planned? You decide.
It works the same way with equipment. As I type this, I know of a place that currently stores a number of armored SUVs that were turned over to the Afghan government. They have been sitting there for nearly four months, unused. Yet, there are agencies within the Afghan government that are constantly requesting such vehicles from us, and getting them. These unused SUVs are ghost vehicles. What is their purpose? Are they being held for someone’s own use rather than for governmental use? Is some official simply trying to accumulate as many as possible realizing that the tortuous coordination process among coalition members (and even within individual coalition governments) means he’ll likely get away with it?
Why does this happen? It happens because ghosts can get away with it. It happens because politicians, the supposed stewards of American taxpayer money cannot possibly learn about such things when their tour in this warzone consists of a two-week trip through the Kabul social circuit. Recognizing the negative influence of ghosts requires spending some time on the ground with the folks that toil in that environment daily. It requires critical thinking about our desired end state and the strategy that needs to be employed to get there. It requires powerbrokers to care more about doing what is right than what is expeditious or will sell on the evening news. Sadly, too many are more inclined to think about the next election or promotion board. Are they ghosts too?
