Operation KALAY : Moving on to “build” in the South

Model Village Approach Operation KALAY – Operation Kantolo

Transcript of video

DEH-E Bagh, Kandahar

June 2009

Professor Thomas Johnson
Architect for “Model Village” Strategy, Naval Postgraduate School

Operation KALAY is based on the premise that we have to have our soldiers operating out of the village level where the Taliban have been operating for the last 8 years. We have to be in the villages 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

If we’re going to find out what the Afghan people really want and if we’re going to be able to move the afghan population away from the insurgency.

After all a common insurgency is basically an effort to isolate the population away from the insurgency. It’s extremely difficult to isolate the population from the insurgents if we don’t know what the Afghan people want.

The Canadians at the Dan district centre near DEH-E Bagh are formulating projects in going out and working with the villagers. One of the very interesting things about this entire operation is that the contracts for the different improvements in the village are being written in such a way that all local people are being employed. So throughout Afghanistan we have major unemployment problems.  Already of a village of a thousand people over 100 are being employed by operation KALAY. 10%, so far, of the village are being employed and this is just an incredible statistic and an incredible action as far as I’m concerned.

Well, operation KALAY when you strip all of the veneer away from the operation it’s basically to find out what the afghan people want and how we can help satisfy their needs and in so doing make the insurgents, the Taliban irrelevant to the population.

I have to give incredible credit to General Vance and his staff as well as the PRT and the other Canadians that are involved in operation KALAY.

Lieutenant-Colonel Carl Turenne
Commanding Officer Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team

The KPRT does a number of operations on a daily basis. We have initiated a new operation, which is called OP KALAY, which focuses at the village, level. The military component provides important enablers to achieve the inter-agency objectives. We provide mobility; we provide force protection, specialist-engineering assets for contracting and dealing with plans and designs of projects. We provide a civil-military cooperation force that assists primarily to bridge the gap as we can be connecting with the population much more easily than the civilian component on the ground and it allows us to connect with the population and achieve the development and governance objectives.

I think it’s important to know that the new approach is not just about villages. The new approach is first and foremost, in my mind, connecting with the population. We need to operate where the population is. And that is especially important for the PRT.

Professor Thomas Johnson
Architect for “Model Village” Strategy, Naval Postgraduate School

Task force Kandahar and the PRT vis-à-vis Operation KALAY are pursuing a number of different projects to be able to help the people’s daily lives. They’re building a very large irrigation canal to help with the food crops and other vegetables in the village. They’re helping to repair mosques, they’re helping to build roads, they’re helping to work on the educational system and they’ve handed out foodstuffs and a variety of other projects. Now these projects aren’t necessarily projects the Canadians have come up with. The villagers, via shuras or meetings with the Canadian representatives, have identified these as needs of the village. So the Canadians at the Dan district centre near DEH-E Bagh are formulating projects in going out and working with the villagers.
The way to be successful in Afghanistan and this counter-insurgency is operating in one village at a time and it will gradually have this sweep across the rest of the villages like a prairie fire. It is critically important that after the Canadians leave, and they’ve been very frank with the village leaders, in meetings that I’ve participated in, in suggesting ‘hey we’re not going to be here forever so let’s start to plan now what’s going to happen after we leave. So I think that their discussions, how CIDA, how NGOs, how the Afghans can take over to be able to fill the void after the Canadians leave. So this model village project is actually sustained over the long term. I think that is absolutely critical. We don’t want to have a project where the Canadians are there we do all these great things and they leave and all of a sudden the Taliban come back into the village and everything goes for naught.

I think that once they see that Operation KALAY is here to help them in their daily needs, I think they’ll warm up.

Generally I think they’ve been well accepted but I think that over the next month or two months, as the operation moves forward I think that you’ll see considerable village support.

As an American I have to take my hat off to the Canadians, I mean the blood and treasure that your country has given to this very gallant enterprise I think is something the entire world can look upon with a smile on their face.