Nearly 3 years ago (has it been that long?!) I wrote about an insurgent leader that 1-14 Cav was targeting in the area around the town of Jalula, Iraq. He had claimed that he become an insurgent when in 2004 some US soldiers allegedly shot up a car full of his relatives, killing several of them. I had pointed out that his insurgent involvement was directly caused by our failure at counterinsurgency at the time.
Here and now in Afghanistan I am encountering situations that continue to add to the gray area of insurgent vs counterinsurgent. Some of the detainee packets that come across my desk/computer are of individuals who are only 17-19 years old. That means that when the US invaded Afghanistan, these detainees were about 6-8 years old; they have grown up with the American occupation. What caused them to go over to the insurgents...whether it be Al Qaida, the Taliban, Haqqani, etc? In one of the cases, the detainee's family is influential in the community with no real ties to the insurgency. He was recruited in the high school. The only reason I can see for joining any of the insurgent groups is hatred of the occupiers. But did we do anything specific to anger him?
What does this mean for counterinsurgency?
The only thing for certain that it tells me is that the metric of number of insurgents killed/captured as a tool to determine how well your counterinsurgency fight is going is a false one. More insurgents will always be recruited or created, you can't kill/capture them away.
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