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Where is the United States war in Afghanistan going? Recently, the Trump administration gave Secretary of Defense James Mattis the authority to set troop levels there; so far, rumors suggest that 4,000 more American troops may soon be on their way to Afghanistan. However, this may not be enough; occupying and administering Afghanistan is a herculean task that few empires have ever had success with. The Taliban continue to gain in strength, while ISIS is expanding throughout the country. The Taliban, ISIS, various warlords, and the Afghan government all continue to fight each other.

Writing in the Atlantic, Peter Beinart described the current U.S.-led war there as hopeless: the Taliban are unlikely to cut a deal because time is on their side, and they merely have to wait it out until the United States decides to leave. The United States has been involved in Afghanistan for almost 16 years, making it the longest conflict in its history (with the possible exception of Vietnam, depending on how one interprets the chronology of that conflict). Despite spending more on Afghanistan than on rebuilding Europe after World War II, little progress has been made. It would not be surprising if the Taliban controlled all of Afghanistan within a decade.

Afghanistan is a notoriously difficult country to govern. Empire after empire, nation after nation have failed to pacify what is today the modern territory of Afghanistan, giving the region the nickname Graveyard of Empires, even if sometimes those empires won some initial battles and made inroads into the region. If the United States and its allies decide to leave Afghanistan, they would only the latest in a long series of nations to do so. As the British learned in their 1839-1842 war in Afghanistan, it is often easier to do business with a local ruler with popular support than to support a leader backed by foreign powers; the costs of propping up such a leader eventually add up. The closest most historical empires have come to controlling Afghanistan was by adopting a light-handed approach, as the Mughals did. They managed to loosely control the area by paying off various tribes, or granting them autonomy. Attempts at anything resembling centralized control, even by native Afghan governments, have largely failed.

Afghanistan is particularly hard to conquer primarily due to the intersection of three factors. First, because Afghanistan is located on the main land route between Iran, Central Asia, and India, it has been invaded many times and settled by a plethora of tribes, many mutually hostile to each other and outsiders. Second, because of the frequency of invasion and the prevalence of tribalism in the area, its lawlessness lead to a situation where almost every village or house was built like a fortress, or qalat. Third, the physical terrain of Afghanistan makes conquest and rule extremely difficult, exacerbating its tribal tendencies. Afghanistan is dominated by some of the highest and more jagged mountains in the world. These include the Hindu Kush, which dominates the country and run through the center and south of the country, as well as the Pamir mountains in the east. The Pamir Knot where the Hindu Kush, Pamir, Tian Shan, Kunlun, and Himalayas all meet is situated in Badakhshan in northeast Afghanistan.

A survey of Afghanistans history demonstrates how difficult it is to occupy and govern the country. We first get a clear glimpse into Afghanistans history around 500 BCE, when it formed the eastern part of the Achaemenid Persian empire. Parts of Afghanistan were previously part of the ancient Indian kingdom of Gandhara, a region in what is now northwest Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. Presumably, much of southern and eastern Afghanistan was already inhabited by the ancestors of todays Pashtun (also known as Afghans historically); their Pashto language is an ancient eastern Iranian language closely related to the even more ancient Avestan, the original language of the Zoroastrian scriptures. Afghanistan was relatively lightly populated at this time, as Alexander the Great is reported to have swept through the area with little resistance. Following this, the Maurya Empire from India controlled most of Afghanistan, although a Greek successor kingdom arose in Balkh (Bactria) in northern Afghanistan. Buddhism and Hinduism spread throughout the region during this period. It was only after the collapse of the Maurya Empire and several invasions from Central Asia that the mountains of Afghanistan began to fill up, and acquire its reputation of being the home of many warlike peoples defending their individual turfs. Many of the invaders assimilated into the tribal structure of the Pashtuns, adapting their language.

Various tribes founded empires within the Afghanistan region before breaking up into mini-statelets. These included the Greco-Bactrians, the Indo-Parthians, the Saka (Scythians), the great Buddha-building Kushans, the Kidarites, and the Hephthalites (White Huns). By this time, the region already acquired a difficult reputation. When the Arabs arrived in the region at the dawn of the 8th century, it was a patchwork of small but tough principalities. Attempts to conquer the Zunbils of Kandahar failed spectacularly, the first major setback faced by the Arabs after their great conquests began. An expedition of 20,000 men sent against the Zunbils returned with 5,000 people. It took almost 200 years for Afghanistan to be Islamicized from west to east, a process that only neared completion when Yaqub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar, a Persian blacksmith born in Zaranj, in Afghanistan on the border with Iran conquered Kabul. Even then, the Hindu Shahi dynasty held out for another hundred years in the easternmost parts of todays Afghanistan until conquered by Mahmud of Ghazni (also in Afghanistan) around the turn of the millennium.

When the Mongols arrived in Afghanistan, they faced so much resistance in the Bamiyan valley, which they besieged in 1221, that the grandson of Genghis Khan was killed. In fury, the Mongols killed most of the valleys original inhabitants: most of the modern Hazara who live there are descended from a Mongol garrison, some of whose men took Tajik wives. Fragmentation ensued again after the weakening of the Mongol Empire.

ahr-ud-Dn Muammad Babur, the first Mughal emperor, managed to get himself a kingdom in Kabul for two decades before conquering India. Most of the Hindu Kush region would remain under loosely Mughal control until 1738 when it was conquered by Nader Shah and inherited a decade later by Ahmad Shah Durrani, who founded modern Afghanistan after Nader Shahs death. Mughal rule over Afghanistan was a combination of control over a few urban centers, and benign neglect coupled with paying off tribes in the region, a formula later replicated by the British. However, Mughal rule was always precarious, as they were faced with constant tribal revolts. An especially serious one from 1672-1677 led by the poet Khushal Khan Khattak was eventually defeated by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, but Mughal authority never extended beyond main roads again.

The Mughal Empire extended as far west as Ghazni and Bamiyan in central Afghanistan; after fighting with the Persian Safavids for Kandahar for decades, they lost it permanently during the reign of Shah Jahan. The Safavids also had to deal with unruly Afghan tribes. Eventually a revolt against the Safavids broke out in Kandahar in 1709 due to Persian attempts to control Pashtun tribes and convert them to Shia Islam. The Afghan revolt brought down the Safavid Empire; although partially checked by the rise of the warlord Nader Shah and his empire, eventually modern Afghanistan was founded in 1747 by Ahmad Shah Durrani, who picked off territory from Nader Shahs descendants in Persia, the Mughals, and the Uzbeks to his north.

Since then, as both the British and Russians have learned, that while it is possible to conquer territory in Afghanistan temporarily, and defeat Afghans militarily in open battle, it is virtually impossible to hold the region down for long, when it is filled with guerrillas, tribes, and castles that can constantly weigh down a foreign power. The people of Afghanistan have nowhere to go, and can fight their whole lives (foreigners, beware in particular of the Kandahar region), a luxury that outsiders do not have. The United States should learn from the history of Afghanistan and understand that escalating the war will have no particular impact on the outcome. Minus a permanent occupationwhich would be ineffective at best, and bloody and cost-prohibitive at worstthe only way to deal with Afghanistan is to deal with its plethora of local powers. And if this means accepting the Taliban, in exchange for a modicum of stability and a promise not to host global terrorist organizations, then so be it. The alternative is an unwinnable, never-ending war.

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Why Is Afghanistan the 'Graveyard of Empires'? - The Diplomat

WASHINGTON, June 29, 2017 NATO will continue to support Afghanistan through thick and thin, the alliances secretary general said in Brussels today.

Jens Stoltenberg told reporters at the conclusion of the Defense Ministerial that the alliance will continue its support to Afghanistan through 2017 and beyond, and that more troops will be sent to the nation for the Resolute Support Mission.

The effort in Afghanistan is international with 39 nations working together to make the nation more secure, Stoltenberg said. Over the years, we have achieved hard-won gains in Afghanistan and many of our women and men have paid the ultimate price, he said. We will always honor their service and sacrifice.

It is important to not lose sight of what has been accomplished in the nation, he said.

Afghan Forces Demonstrate Bravery, Resilience

Today, Afghan security forces are fully responsible for security across the country, the secretary general said. Every day they demonstrate bravery and resilience, leading the fight to defeat terrorists and protect their people.

He reminded reporters that NATO once had a large-scale combat force in the country and now has around 13,000. That number, however, is too low, he added, and the alliance will send a few thousand more troops for the Resolute Support Mission.

At a force generation conference earlier this month, 15 nations pledged additional contributions to Resolute Support, he said. We also got some more announcements and pledges during the meeting today.

This builds on the commitment to continue to fund the Afghan security forces through 2020. But NATO alone cannot bring lasting security to Afghanistan, Stoltenberg said. We count on our Afghan partners to make good on their commitments, including: key reforms on good governance and the rule of law, fighting corruption and protecting the rights of women and girls.

Earlier today, the secretary general discussed burden-sharing. At both the Wales and Warsaw NATO summits, the allies agreed to spend 2 percent of gross domestic product on security. While it takes some time to reverse a budget trend, the alliance is seeing some results.

Im glad to say that we expect this will be the third consecutive year of accelerating defense spending increases across European allies and Canada, with a 4.3 percent real increase in defense spending, he said.

This means European allies and Canada spent almost $46 billion more on defense.

This is a significant increase which means that we are moving in the right direction when it comes to burden-sharing and defense spending, Stoltenberg said.

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NATO Pledges Continued Support for Afghanistan Mission - Department of Defense

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has been asked by a key Senate panel to identify ways so that India can play a larger role in providing increased and coordinated defence- related support to war-torn Afghanistan.

A resolution moved in this regard by Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan was unanimously passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday as part of the the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA-2018), which approved $640 billion in critical defence spending for Fiscal Year 2018.

"This provision encourages the Department of Defence to identify ways that India can play a larger role in providing increased and coordinated defence-related support to Afghanistan, a critical part of overcoming the current "stalemate" in the fight against the Taliban," said a statement issued by office of Senator Sullivan.

'Encourage Increased Role for India in Afghanistan' was one of the 24 amendment moved and passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee. NDAA-18 now moves to the full Senate for consideration.

A similar version of the bill has also been passed by the House Armed Services Committee and has been sent to the House of Representative.

The two different versions of the bill once passed by the House and the Senate would need to be made same by a conference committee of the two chambers before it is finally passed by the Senate and House. After that NDAA-18 would land on the desk of the US President for him to sign it into law.

Such a move by a key Senate panel comes a few days after US President Donald Trump praised India's role in Afghanistan.

Of late there has been a growing desire of the Trump administration for an increased Indian role in Afghanistan.

India is the largest regional contributor to Afghan reconstruction, pledging at least USD 2 billion toward that effort since 2001.

Continued here:
Pentagon asked to identify larger role for India in Afghanistan - Economic Times

A US Marine walks during an early morning guard shift in southern Afghanistan. (AP Photo / Brennan Linsley)

We walked in a single file. Not because it was tactically sound. It wasntat least according to standard infantry doctrine. Patrolling southern Afghanistan in column formation limited maneuverability, made it difficult to mass fire, and exposed us to enfilading machine-gun bursts. Still, in 2011, in the Pashmul District of Kandahar Province, single file was our best bet.

The reason was simple enough: improvised bombs not just along roads but seemingly everywhere. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Who knew?

Thats right, the local Talibana term so nebulous its basically lost all meaninghad managed to drastically alter US Army tactics with crude, homemade explosives stored in plastic jugs. And believe me, this was a huge problem. Cheap, ubiquitous, and easy to bury, those anti-personnel Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs, soon littered the roads, footpaths, and farmland surrounding our isolated outpost. To a greater extent than a number of commanders willingly admitted, the enemy had managed to nullify our many technological advantages for a few pennies on the dollar (or maybe, since were talking about the Pentagon, it was pennies on the millions of dollars).

Truth be told, it was never really about our high-tech gear. Instead, American units came to rely on superior training and discipline, as well as initiative and maneuverability, to best their opponents. And yet those deadly IEDs often seemed to even the score, being both difficult to detect and brutally effective. So there we were, after too many bloody lessons, meandering along in carnival-like, Pied Piper-style columns. Bomb-sniffing dogs often led the way, followed by a couple of soldiers carrying mine detectors, followed by a few explosives experts. Only then came the first foot soldiers, rifles at the ready. Anything else was, if not suicide, then at least grotesquely ill-advised.

And mind you, our improvised approach didnt always work either. To those of us out there, each patrol felt like another round of Russian roulette. In that way, those IEDs completely changed how we operated, slowing movement, discouraging extra patrols, and distancing us from what was then considered the ultimate prize: the local villagers, or what was left of them anyway. In a counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign, which is what the US military was running in Afghanistan in those years, that was the definition of defeat.

My own unit faced a dilemma common to dozensmaybe hundredsof other American units in Afghanistan. Every patrol was slow, cumbersome, and risky. The natural inclination, if you cared about your boys, was to do less. But effective COIN operations require securing territory and gaining the trust of the civilians living there. You simply cant do that from inside a well-protected American base. One obvious option was to live in the villageswhich we eventually didbut that required dividing up the company into smaller groups and securing a second, third, maybe fourth location, which quickly became problematic, at least for my 82-man cavalry troop (when at full strength). And, of course, there were no less than five villages in my area of responsibility.

I realize, writing this now, that theres no way I can make the situation sound quite as dicey as it actually was. How, for instance, were we to secure and empower a village population that was, by then, all but nonexistent? Years, even decades, of hard fighting, air strikes, and damaged crops had left many of those villages in that part of Kandahar Province little more than ghost towns, while cities elsewhere in the country teemed with uprooted and dissatisfied peasant refugees from the countryside.

Sometimes, it felt as if we were fighting over nothing more than a few dozen deserted mud huts. And like it or not, such absurdity exemplified Americas war in Afghanistan. It still does. That was the view from the bottom. Matters werentand arentmeasurably better at the top. As easily as one reconnaissance troop could be derailed, so the entire enterprise, which rested on similarly shaky foundations, could be unsettled.

At a moment when the generals to whom President Trump recently delegated decision-making powers on US troop strength in that country consider a new Afghan surge, it might be worth looking backward and zooming out just a bit. Remember, the very idea of winning the Afghan War, which left my unit in that collection of mud huts, rested (and still rests) on a few rather grandiose assumptions.

The first of these surely is that the Afghans actually want (or ever wanted) us there; the second, that the country was and still is vital to our national security; and the third, that 10,000, 50,000, or even 100,000 foreign troops ever were or now could be capable of pacifying an insurgency, or rather a growing set of insurgencies, or securing 33 million souls, or facilitating a stable, representative government in a heterogeneous, mountainous, landlocked country with little history of democracy.

The first of these points is at least debatable. As you might imagine, any kind of accurate polling is quite difficult, if not impossible, outside the few major population centers in that isolated country. Though many Afghans, particularly urban ones, may favor a continued US military presence, others clearly wonder what good a new influx of foreigners will do in their endlessly war-torn nation. As one high-ranking Afghan official recently lamented, thinking undoubtedly of the first use in his land of the largest non-nuclear bomb on the planet, Is the plan just to use our country as a testing ground for bombs? And keep in mind that the striking rise in territory the Taliban now controls, the most since they were driven from power in 2001, suggests that the US presence is hardly welcomed everywhere.

As for the third point, its simply preposterous. One look at US military attempts at nation-building or post-conflict stabilization and pacification in Iraq, Libya, ordare I saySyria should settle the issue. Its often said that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Yet here we are, 14 years after the folly of invading Iraq and many of the same voicesinside and outside the administrationare clamoring for one more surge in Afghanistan (and, of course, will be clamoring for the predictable surges to follow across the Greater Middle East).

The very idea that the US military had the ability to usher in a secure Afghanistan is grounded in a number of preconditions that proved to be little more than fantasies. First, there would have to be a capable, reasonably corruption-free local governing partner and military. Thats a nonstarter. Afghanistans corrupt, unpopular national unity government is little better than the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam in the 1960s and that American war didnt turn out so well, did it? Then theres the question of longevity. When it comes to the US military presence there, soon to head into its 16th year, how long is long enough? Several mainstream voices, including former Afghan commander General David Petraeus, are now talking about at least a generation more to successfully pacify Afghanistan. Is that really feasible given Americas growing resource constraints and the ever expanding set of dangerous ungoverned spaces worldwide?

And what could a new surge actually do? The US presence in Afghanistan is essentially a fragmented series of self-contained bases, each of which needs to be supplied and secured. In a country of its size, with a limited transportation infrastructure, even the 4,0005,000 extra troops the Pentagon is reportedly considering sending right now wont go very far.

Now, zoom out again. Apply the same calculus to the US position across the Greater Middle East and you face what we might start calling the Afghan paradox, or my own quandary safeguarding five villages with only 82 men writ large. Do the math. The US military is already struggling to keep up with its commitments. At what point is Washington simply spinning its proverbial wheels? Ill tell you whenyesterday.

Now, think about those three questionable Afghan assumptions and one uncomfortable actuality leaps forth. The only guiding force left in the American strategic arsenal is inertia.

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Remember something: This wont be Americas first Afghan surge. Or its second, or even its third. No, this will be the US militarys fourth crack at it. Who feels lucky? First came President George W. Bushs quiet surge back in 2008. Next, just one month into his first term, newly minted President Barack Obama sent 17,000 more troops to fight his so-called good war (unlike the bad one in Iraq) in southern Afghanistan. After a testy strategic review, he then committed 30,000 additional soldiers to the real surge a year later. Thats what brought me (and the rest of B Troop, 4-4 Cavalry) to Pashmul district in 2011. We leftmost of usmore than five years ago, but of course about 8,800 American military personnel remain today and they are the basis for the surge to come.

To be fair, Surge 4.0 might initially deliver certain modest gains (just as each of the other three did in their day). Realistically, more trainers, air support, and logistics personnel could indeed stabilize some Afghan military units for some limited amount of time. Sixteen years into the conflict, with 10% as many American troops on the ground as at the wars peak, and after a decade-plus of training, Afghan security forces are still being battered by the insurgents. In the last years, theyve been experiencing record casualties, along with the usual massive stream of desertions and the legions of ghost soldiers who can neither die nor desert because they dont exist, although their salaries do (in the pockets of their commanders or other lucky Afghans). And thats earned them a stalemate, which has left the Taliban and other insurgent groups in control of a significant part of the country. And if all goes well (which isnt exactly a surefire thing), thats likely to be the best that Surge 4.0 can produce: a long, painful tie.

Peel back the onions layers just a bit more and the ostensible reasons for Americas Afghan War vanish along with all the explanatory smoke and mirrors. After all, there are two things the upcoming mini-surge will emphatically not do:

*It wont change a failing strategic formula.

Imagine that formula this way: American trainers + Afghan soldiers + loads of cash + (unspecified) time = a stable Afghan government and lessening Taliban influence.

It hasnt worked yet, of course, butso the surge-believers assure usthats because we need more: more troops, more money, more time. Like so many loyal Reaganites, their answers are always supply-side ones and none of them ever seems to wonder whether, almost 16 years later, the formula itself might not be fatally flawed.

According to news reports, no solution being considered by the current administration will even deal with the following interlocking set of problems: Afghanistan is a large, mountainous, landlocked, ethno-religiously heterogeneous, poor country led by a deeply corrupt government with a deeply corrupt military. In a place long known as a graveyard of empires, the United States military and the Afghan Security Forces continue to wage what one eminent historian has termed fortified compound warfare. Essentially, Washington and its local allies continue to grapple with relatively conventional threats from exceedingly mobile Taliban fighters across a porous border with Pakistan, a country that has offered not-so-furtive support and a safe haven for those adversaries. And the Washington response to this has largely been to lock its soldiers inside those fortified compounds (and focus on protecting them against insider attacks by those Afghans it works with and trains). It hasnt worked. It cant. It wont.

Consider an analogous example. In Vietnam, the United States never solved the double conundrum of enemy safe havens and a futile search for legitimacy. The Vietcong guerrillas and North Vietnamese Army used nearby Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam to rest, refit, and replenish. US troops meanwhile lacked legitimacy because their corrupt South Vietnamese partners lacked it.

Sound familiar? We face the same two problems in Afghanistan: a Pakistani safe haven and a corrupt, unpopular central government in Kabul. Nothing, and I mean nothing, in any future troop surge will effectively change that.

*It wont pass the logical fallacy test.

The minute you really think about it, the whole argument for a surge or mini-surge instantly slides down a philosophical slippery slope.

If the war is really about denying terrorists safe havens in ungoverned or poorly governed territory, then why not surge more troops into Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan (where Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiriand Osama bin Ladens son Hamza bin Laden are believed to be safely ensconced), Iraq, Syria, Chechnya, Dagestan (where one of the Boston Marathon bombers was radicalized), or for that matter Paris or London. Every one of those places has harbored and/or is harboring terrorists. Maybe instead of surging yet again in Afghanistan or elsewhere, the real answer is to begin to realize that all the US military in its present mode of operation can do to change that reality is make it worse. After all, the last 15 years offer a vision of how it continually surges and in the process only creates yet more ungovernable lands and territories.

So much of the effort, now as in previous years, rests on an evident desire among military and political types in Washington to wage the war they know, the one their army is built for: battles for terrain, fights that can be tracked and measured on maps, the sort of stuff that staff officers (like me) can display on ever more-complicated PowerPoint slides. Military men and traditional policymakers are far less comfortable with ideological warfare, the sort of contest where their instinctual proclivity to do something is often counterproductive.

As US Army Field Manual 3-24Gen. David Petraeuss highly touted counterinsurgency biblewisely opined: Sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction. Its high time to follow such advice (even if its not the advice that Petraeus himself is offering anymore).

As for me, call me a deep-dyed skeptic when it comes to what 4,000 or 5,000 more US troops can do to secure or stabilize a country where most of the village elders I met couldnt tell you how old they were. A little foreign policy humility goes a long way toward not heading down that slippery slope. Why, then, do Americans continue to deceive themselves? Why do they continue to believe that even 100,000 boys from Indiana and Alabama could alter Afghan society in a way Washington would like? Or any other foreign land for that matter?

I suppose some generals and policymakers are just plain gamblers. But before putting your money on the next Afghan surge, it might be worth flashing back to the limitations, struggles, and sacrifices of just one small unit in one tiny, contested district of southern Afghanistan in 2011

So, on we walkedsingle file, step by treacherous stepfor nearly a year. Most days things worked out. Until they didnt. Unfortunately, some soldiers found bombs the hard way: three dead, dozens wounded, one triple amputee. So it went and so we kept on going. Always onward. Ever forward. For America? Afghanistan? Each other? No matter. And so it seems other Americans will keep on going in 2017, 2018, 2019

Lift foot. Hold breath. Step. Exhale.

Keep walking to defeat but together.

Link:
A US Military Officer Explains Why Another Surge in Afghanistan Is Not a Good Idea - The Nation.

June 29, 2017 Kabul, AfghanistanOn a warm Thursday morning last August, a very odd group of people gathered outside the Abu Fazal mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan. The mosque was the site of a horrific attack in December 2011 that left more than 80 dead. The unlikely group in August included Afghan children younger than 14, two older Afghan men, and a slightly older US man with long curly hair, a golf cap, and a guitar. Much to the surprise of the onlookers outside the mosque, the group broke into a song.

A little loud and a little out of sync with each other, the young members of the Miraculous Love Kids and their American teacher, Lanny Cordola, were performing the song Dont Panic by the British rock band Coldplay. Not that anyone present in their audience of older Afghan gentlemen and a few women knew what it was until a few children sang part of the lyrics in Dari, one of Afghanistans national languages. As the youths sang We live in a beautiful world in the local language, the initially suspicious crowd warmed toward them. Within no time, a small congregation had formed around them, smiling and cheering for the children.

Mr. Cordola, a rock musician, moved to Kabul in early 2016. Before that he had toured with well-known names in music such as Gilby Clarke from Guns N Roses, and he had appeared in a couple of episodes of the ABC comedy Full House as a musician. But everything changed when he learned about two attacks in Afghanistan.

I saw this photo on the news of a young girl in green crying, surrounded by dead bodies. It really moved me, Mr. Cordola says. But when I read about these two sisters ... who were killed in another attack while working on the streets selling scarves, I knew I had to do something.

Cordola hoped that his music could bring healing to child survivors of the frequent attacks and at the outset, he specifically wanted to help the family that lost the two daughters. On one of my visits to their house, I brought my guitar along, and one of the [other] daughters Mursal asked to play it, he narrates. I taught her a few moves, and seemed to make her very happy.

His mission became clear: Thats when I thought, Why not do this teach music? he shares. His venture has been largely self-funded.

In particular, he wanted to work with street children. So Cordola and his Afghan associate, Jamshid Bik, drove around parts of Kabul to talk to such youngsters. They were a bit distrusting at first, so we told them to bring their fathers, uncles, and brothers along anyone who made them feel safer, he recalls. After they started coming regularly, the word got out, and next thing we know we had a large classroom.

Today more than 60 children participate, the classes taking place in a large apartment rented by Cordola in central Kabul. Parents rarely accompany the children now, although he adds with a chuckle, Some of the mothers and fathers have also picked up the guitar and sat for a lesson or two.

A key factor in families acceptance of the music lessons is the fact that they provide stability and a routine. And in addition to music, Cordola and his team of volunteers teach the children English and other subjects. Jamshid also teaches them the Quran, which also encourages parents to send their kids to us, Cordola notes.

Working with Mr. Lanny has been a very fulfilling experience, says Mr. Bik, Cordolas interpreter and colleague. I am going to be here for as long as God wills me to be here.

Of course, the undertaking hasnt been without risks. As an American in a postconflict and conservative country, Cordola has to be mindful of the security situation and local values. Ive heard some stories that people werent happy with what we were doing, although I havent faced any direct threats, he says.

Playing U2

Most of the songs that Cordola picks for the children are in English, and he has some verses translated into Dari. He chooses songs that he feels the youths can relate to.

Take the U2 song Pride (In the Name of Love), which is about Martin Luther King Jr. I used that song to explain to them about civil rights, he says, noting pragmatically, I dont assume they retain a lot of what I tell them, but it is a lot of seeds being planted.

We pick songs that speak to the universal human condition, which they have experienced at a harsh level, Cordola elaborates. But the youths, he admits, usually prefer the noisier songs.

Indeed, a recent class has a lot of high-pitched singing. The children, mostly girls, are thrilled to have guests and demonstrate some of their best moves on the guitar. Thirteen-year-old Mursal, the girl who lost two sisters in an attack, takes control of the crowd, shouting over the din, Give me a D minor! Soon, all the youngsters organize themselves and are following Mursals lead. (Many Afghans go only by a first name.)

I love coming here. Mr. Lanny is my qahramaan, she says at the end of the class, using the Dari word for hero.

For Mursal and her friend Breshna, these classes are more than just an extracurricular activity; they are a way to leave behind the evils and misery of their daily lives. My father is a drug addict, and a few months ago, he abandoned us, Mursal confides. We dont know where he is, but my mother is a strong woman; she is a policewoman. She provides for my four siblings and myself, she adds with pride.

Both girls plan to finish school and go to the United States for further studies. Mursal wants to be a music teacher like Cordola. And Breshna says, I no longer sell scarves on the streets. I play guitar, study English here on the weekends, and I go to a school on weekdays.

The girl in green

Still, a few children have dropped out of Cordolas classes because of family pressure. Its a constant struggle, he says with a small sigh. But he is sure he can turn things around and recalls an incident with one of his first students, Tarana the girl in green in the photo, a picture taken right after the attack at the Abu Fazal mosque.

Although Tarana started attending Cordolas classes, her father didnt approve and wanted to put a stop to it. Cordola invited him over for a chat. Her father came to one of our classes, sat through the session, and even picked [up] the guitar and inspected it, Cordola recalls. Convinced that this could be a positive change for his daughter, who spent a few hours every day selling trinkets on the streets, he agreed to let her attend. Today Tarana, age 14, leads some of the classes for the younger children.

Cordola often collaborates with local artists to give the children exposure to a variety of local art and music. Weve conducted classes with Ramika Khabiri, one of Afghanistans first female rap artists, he notes. Theyve also teamed up with ArtLords, a peace organization working on cultural development in Afghanistan.

I first met Lanny and his kids during one of their practices, and I could see the impact the music had on those children, says Omaid Sharifi, cofounder of ArtLords. The organization collaborated with Cordola to paint a mural of Mursal holding a guitar at the very location where she lost her sisters.

What Lanny is doing giving these children a safe place to grow and heal through music is innovative and effective, Mr. Sharifi says.

The deteriorating security situation does not deter Cordola. In fact, it pushes him to work harder. There are terrible things happening, but we elect how we respond. I choose to respond with hope, he says. Unlike most foreigners working in Kabul, Cordola has no exit plans, even after the bombing May 31 that killed at least 150.

I will only leave if I feel that my presence could adversely affect the kids, he says. Till then, I will live my life like a great song.

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Develop Africa is committed to sustainable development in Africa through education and other means. Take action: Sponsor a child.

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From 'Full House' to Afghanistan: an American teaches street ... - Christian Science Monitor