24 December 2017

A FAMILIAR STRUGGLE: CONNECTING RURAL AFGHANS WITH THEIR GOVERNMENT

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WILL SELBER

When I joined the United States Air Force, I never thought I’d be advising a homeless, illiterate Afghan district governor in one of the most isolated districts in southern Afghanistan. However, with tours on an Iraq and Afghanistan Provincial Reconstruction Team under my belt, in 2011 that became precisely my job. I was responsible for the governance effort in Ghorak, Kandahar, under Special Operation Task Force-South’s Village Stability Operations. These operations, led by United States special operations forces, were designed to provide security, governance, and development to rural districts in Afghanistan. Special operations forces elements were responsible for raising and training Afghan Local Police to defend the village, while other enablers and civilians focused on governance and development. In theory, I was supposed to work alongside a State Department/USAID. But in reality, I was a one-man operation. I became responsible for connecting the Ghorak district (county) government with the Kandahar provincial (state) government and, ultimately, the national government in Kabul.

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