Obama's Afghanistan

The President has made his decision.  Now it's up to the generals to make the most of it before the liberal dems sound retreat, and you know they're just itching for that bugle. 

A lot of ink has been spilled on the speech, here and around the world.  The men at Blackfive and Ralph Peters at The NY Post have the best take.

As always when I want the straight gouge, I head over to Blackfive, one of the best military commentary sites, imho.  They didn't disappoint...

MCQ had this to say:

if I'm the Taliban I'm absolutely exultant about what I've heard. And I'm immediately into planning a disinformation campaign that will paint the rosiest possible picture in 18 months time.

Meanwhile, my forces are basically on R&R for duration (or concentrating in Pakistan) while I sit back and wait out the withdrawal. And when that last C-17 is wheels up out of Bagram, I'm headed into Afghanistan in force.

Given that speech last night, they must finally believe that Allah truly is on their side now.

Uncle Jimbo, another Blackfive writer, chimed in:

While Grim and I were watching last night this was the best laugh line.

And going forward, the Pakistan people must know America will remain a strong supporter of Pakistan’s security and prosperity long after the guns have fallen silent, so that the great potential of its people can be unleashed.

After the guns have fallen silent? Oh that is rich. These people have been shooting at each other since guns were invented, before that they were stabbing each other, before that bashing each other with rocks. After the guns have fallen silent? I’m not holding my breath.

Those are our soldiers out there; let's pray for a good outcome.  Inshallah...

More Reading:
Ralph Peters (He Flames Obama!)
Der Speigel (German Doubts)
Der Spiegel (More German Doubts)

Afghanistan: Patriotic Dissent

There are no easy answers in the Afghanistan Debate

"I'm not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love," Hoh said.

"There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys."

Matthew Poh, a former Marine Captain and combat vet, resigned his position heading up reconstruction for the State Department in Afghanistan.  He says he can no longer support the war.  

You don't have to agree with his conclusions, but we'd be foolish to ignore the observations of a man with so much in-country experience as we contemplate the way forward.  


Patriotic Americans should hear well-reasoned arguments from all sides

Here's an excerpt from a reader Q & A hosted by WaPo. 

This isn't WWII and there shouldn't be a comparison. No one can kill better in this world than the US military, however, if killing was the means to victory we would have "won" this years ago. This is primarily a political fight.

For more reasoned dissent, see TNR - Bacevich and NY Post - Ralph Peters

Strategic Drift
Poh, Bacevich and Peters, patriots all, point to a strategic drift that started in the Bush administration.  We went in to kill bad guys.  Now what?  Obama exaggerated that drift by appointing a man of action, General McChrystal, and then criticizing him when he took action.  The President's scholarly and leisurely pace isn't helping matters any.  

What is the Mission?
I have faith in General McChrystal.  What I want is to hear a stated goal from our elected officials.  Where will be be in 10 years?  What's the end game?  What does "success" look like?  

Freeing Pashtun women from their shackles sounds nice, but is it in our national interest?

I am not against the Afghan war.  I was there (in a non-combat role) and I believe our efforts have been heroic and noble.  It is important that our government clearly spell out the mission, embrace it, and explain it to the American people.  They owe it to the good men and women who are giving it all they've got over there.
 
WaPo - Matthew Poh
WaPo - Poh Q & A
NY Post - Ralph Peters
David Shribman
TNR - Bacevich

BaracKabuki Theater in Afghanistan

Does anyone really believe he's doing this of his own accord?

Ambassador Eikenberry is counseling the president to not send more troops to Afghanistan, and he pulls some weight.  He was the ISAF commander there for two years before going on to a NATO posting and then retiring to become the US Ambassador to Afghanistan.  He's just the man to cover the president's dithering backside.

Eikenberry described his serious concerns about sending tens of thousands of more American troops to the country without dealing with the corruption and incompetence of the Afghan government, according to U.S. officials familiar with the cables.

Does anyone really believe SecDef Gates is "appalled" by this?

I am appalled by the amount of leaking that has been going on," Gates told reporters
"If I found out who" was involved, he said, "it would probably be a career-ender."

Prepping the Battlefield
This selective leaking, followed by feigned indignation, is called prepping the battlefield, or more fitting to the Obama administration, "propagandizing the masses."  

Yes, during the campaign Obama said this was the right war, but, well...  A president's gotta listen to the smart people and be willing to change his mind...

Bonus:  He gooses the nutroots and loony lefties who voted him into office...

What Next in Afghanistan?

Counter-Terrorism or Counter-Insurgency?  Good People Disagree 

Ralph Peters, a good and patriotic retired Army Colonel with lots of active-duty contacts, disagrees with General Stanley McChrystal's proposed strategy.  Peters is a keen military mind from the General Sherman "War is Hell" school of war fighting who supports a Counter-Terror strategy for Afghanistan that involves less troops and more predator strikes.  His criticism is respectful, giving full props to the general.

Such debates and reasoned disagreements are productive, especially for us non-experts who want the best for our troops and our country.  We need to hear from all responsible corners while tuning out the chickenhawks on the right and the "General Betrayus" screaming idiots on the left.

PRESIDENT Obama faces three options in Afghanistan. Hints from the White House suggest that he's going to choose the worst: a non-decision decision.

The McChrsytal Plan: Surge 40,000 more US troops from a weary Army to renew the failing effort to apply our counter-productive counterinsurgency theory -- which attempts to cure cancer with herbal tea.

The Biden Strategy: Focus ruthlessly on the destruction of al Qaeda and its auxiliaries across the border in Pakistan or wherever they may appear in Afghanistan. This is the counter-terror practice that's worked for 3,000 years.

The "Vote Present" Strategy: Send a token increase of 10,000 or so troops, make cosmetic changes to the mission, try to please everyone partially -- and kick the can down the road.

The evidence on the ground, the lessons of history, and our real security needs strongly favor the Biden approach, but giving Gen. Stan McChrystal the full surge he wants would be far better than "more of the same, with new slogans."

I don't know what to think for sure, but I tend to side with McChrystal because he's the guy on the ground responsible for 100,000 US and coalition troops.  However, Peters does make a good case that though a brilliant tactician and operator, perhaps the general is missing the bigger strategic picture. 

Those quick to criticize McChrystal as a "touchy feely" enemy coddler need to remember he is a Green Beret who has also been through the grueling Army Ranger School.  He spent five years in Iraq hunting down high value targets.  Saddam Hussein and Musab al Zarqawi are his most famous trophies.  His efforts were also key in forging alliances with the Iraqi Sunni Sheiks and turning them against Al Qaieda.

Trade-Offs

There are no crisp, clean solutions here.  If there were, there would be no disagreement.  His emphasis on protecting the locals and being more judicious with airstrikes has been criticized by Peters and others for causing more troop casualties. 

McChrystal wants to erase the locals' perception that we are indiscriminate bombers who care nothing of their life or property.  Blackfive, a blog of military experts who come from the trenches, has an excellent article on General McChrystal's Tactical Directive.  Read it here.  

McChrystal is a special operator so he brings that mentality to his strategy. It includes getting out of the armored personnel carriers and integrating with the locals to protect them and peel them away from the embedded bad guys.  This too will surely bring more casualties, but the counter-insurgency experts say this will eventually pay dividends as the locals grow to trust us and provide intelligence needed to find and snuff the terrorist interlopers.

Part and parcel of this, also criticized by the right more than the left, is the prospect of rehabilitating Taliban fighters willing to lay down arms. 

This is not a stated part of McChrystal's plan, but it goes hand in hand with counter-insurgencies.  Making nice with Taliban fighters who lay down their weapons, rehabilitating them, would be far from unprecedented.  We just did that in Iraq.  The FMLN and the Sandinistas, Central American leftist guerrilla movements we helped El Salvador and Nicaragua defeat in the 1980's, are now unarmed political parties in their respective countries. 

We didn't even attempt to dismantle Noriega's political party after the Panama invasion.  It also helps to recall we did not kill every last Nazi and Japanese Imperial soldier.  We prosecuted the criminals and rehabilitated the remainder, who reintegrated with society.

It's Us against Them

The ultimate aim is to split Al Qaeda from Afghan society and kill them or drive them from the country.  It's us against them, and McChrystal want the "Us" to be the Afghan people and our ISAF forces.  McCrystal's "Them" are the Taliban fighters and Al Qaida. 

This is not how things shake out right now, but he believes a patient counter-insurgency strategy can get us there.  Stay Tuned.    

WaPo - McChrystal Plan
NY Post - Ralph Peters
Blackfive - McChrystal's Directive
FT - McCrystal

Lone Survivor: Afghanistan Now

 
Lone Survivor, a book published in 2007, is Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell's story of a 2005 Afghanistan battle. It is highly relevant to the current debate over our involvement in that distant, mountainous land.

I just got done reading Lone Survivor, by Marcus Luttrell. He tells the gut-wrenching story of ill-fated Operation Redwing, a special ops mission in the Kunar Province of Afghanistan that went horribly wrong for Luttrell's four-man SEAL team.

If you want to understand what's going on in Afghanistan, read this book. If you want a white-knuckle story of heroism under unimaginable conditions, read this book. If you want to reaffirm your faith in mankind, read this book. It will make you proud of your armed forces and proud to be an American.


There's a reason why they call them Special Forces
You will come to appreciate just how elite our Special Forces are. Luttrell starts out by giving us his account of SEAL training. Many big, bad, brave men just can't take it and voluntarily drop out as they are pushed beyond the bounds of an ordinary human's mental and physical capacity. Those who survive get pushed even farther, requiring them to reach deeper than they thought possible.

Later, we learn why the training is so tough: Real missions are even worse, especially when things go bad. Luttrell's team found themselves facing off against a teeming, seemingly endless swarm of fierce Pashtun fighters in the worst of conditions on the steep rocky slopes of the Hindu Kush. Once you start reading about the battle, you will not be able to ungrip the book until it's over.

Prayer Works, and Choosing Life has Consequences
Interwoven into the story is a quiet testament to the power of prayer, although this is not a good candidate for the Christian Ladies Book Club, scattered as it is with salty language and blasphemous outbursts common to such men. It is also a story of people, Americans and Afghanis, who choose life amid the violence and then must bear the horrible consequences.

A Rare Glimpse of Afghan Village Life
In the last part of the book, Luttrell provides an intimate, village level view of the Taliban-Pashtun dynamic in the remote regions of Afghanistan. These are a fierce and honor-bound people who dislike all outside intrusions. It is not as simple as us versus them. Everyone is armed, it's all tribal, and the lines between villager and fighter are blurry. It is a symbiotic relation between the Pashtun people and the fighters that spring from them. The Taliban is a potent, but mutant offshoot, and Al Qaida is not a natural ally.

It's Not Hopeless
This is a pessimistic view for those hoping to turn Afghanistan into a Central Asian "Little America." That ain't gonna happen.

But still there is hope. Hope for a patient strategy of prying the Al Qaida foreigners loose, restoring traditional tribal lines, funneling some cash and quality of life upgrades through the chieftains, and otherwise leaving their culture and traditions undisturbed so long as they do not tolerate plotting terrorists among them.

Finally, there is hope for an America that produces heroic lions like these great men of the Special Forces and their brothers and sisters of every race, creed, color, gender and religion who volunteer for the regular forces.  Go read this excellent book.

Group Picture on Left:
From left to right, Sonar Technician (Surface) 2nd Class Matthew G. Axelson, of Cupertino, Calif; Senior Chief Information Systems Technician Daniel R. Healy, of Exeter, N.H.; Quartermaster 2nd Class James Suh, of Deerfield Beach, Fla.; Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Marcus Luttrell; Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class Eric S. Patton, of Boulder City, Nev.; and Lt. Michael P. Murphy, of Patchogue, N.Y. With the exception of Luttrell, all were killed June 28, 2005, by enemy forces while supporting Operation Redwing.

Picture on Right: GM2 (SEAL) Danny Dietz, of Littleton, Colorado, killed in Operation Redwing

Operation RedWing - Lt Murphy
American Special Ops - Operation Redwing
Patriotic Websites of America - Dietz
Sepia Mutiny

Lessons from 20th Century Wars: Go Big or Go Home

There is no such thing as a humane war. Indulging in such fantasies, with CNN enforcing the rules, has made the world a more dangerous place.

GANJGAL, Afghanistan — We walked into a trap, a killing zone of relentless gunfire and rocket barrages from Afghan insurgents hidden in the mountainsides and in a fortress-like village where women and children were replenishing their ammunition. (Source: Jonathan Landay, a real battlefield reporter for McClatchy)

David Warren, trenchant thinker and writer from Canada, observes that "The Second World War was the unfinished business of the First World War."

Germans were left with the possibility of believing that they hadn't really lost the war, that they had been somehow cheated at Versailles, that in the upshot of their military aggression they were somehow victims not perpetrators...
This is precisely what made the Hitler phenomenon possible in Germany. And it was the bitter experience of 1945 -- the unconditional surrender of Germany, in the ruins of Berlin -- that ultimately cleansed the German nation of militarist ambitions.

Is is no longer possible to just go in and completely wipe somebody out in a fiery, bloody carnage. Gotta protect their dignity, can't kill any "innocent" civilians whose skirts the "brave fighters" are hiding behind. Nobody gets their ass beat anymore, and that's the problem.

We rained down fiery hell on Germany and Japan, followed up by an allied land invasion, full occupation, and execution of the guilty. Look at them now... They don't wanna fight no more.

War is Hell
That's how you take the fight out of people. A little inhumanity up front saves a whole lot of it down the road.

That is what General Tecumseh Sherman meant when he said "War is hell." He believed it should be hell in order to teach the belligerents a harsh, bloody lesson that would make them think twice before starting something again.

Ralph Peters explains:

It isn't just that war is hell. It's that war must be hell, otherwise why would the enemy ever quit?

We are no longer permitted to visit hell upon our enemies. They can take us on and live to fight (and brag about it) another day. We had better learn to pick our fights: Go big or go home. Otherwise, we're just wasting peoples' lives.

Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell, lone survivor of Operation Redwing, said it best:

If you don't want to get into a war where things go wrong, where the wrong people sometimes get killed, where innocent people sometimes have to die, then stay the hell out of it in the first place.
-- Marcus Luttrell, Navy Seal, from Lone Survivor, p. 313

Further Reading:
Newsweek - McChrystal
WaPo - Rajiv Chandrasekaran
NY Post - Amir Taheri
David Warren
Byron York - Afghanistan

Victory Through Retreat

In a strange Orwellian turn of events, the US Army has announced it's new plan for victory in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChristal will issue orders for U.S. and NATO forces to break away from fights with militants hiding in Afghan houses.

According to US Military Spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith " if there is a compound they're taking fire from and they can remove themselves from the area safely, without any undue danger to the forces, then that's the option they should take,"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31492098/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

Having spent close to 25 years in the US Military, I have to admit this is a new one to me. Sounds to me that, in an effort to appear closer to our European allies, we are taking one from the French playbook.

I honestly wonder how much of this comes from Gen McChristal, because it smells excessively like the over-control of boots on the ground by unqualified political appointees, much like Vietnam and McNamara's "active-role" management philosophy. With this kind of philosophy we'd still have 160,000 troops sitting on the beaches of Normandy staring at the Germans in beach houses.

One must raise the question, if they aren't there to engage enemy forces, what the hell are they doing there? If military engagement is no longer an option, then by all means bring the troops home and send in the peace corps if you want to build schools or hospitals.

This strategy, offered in the context of a military exercise would be laughable... it's not so funny when you have friends and fellow Americans there.

~Finntann~

Memorial Day Tribute: Operation Enduring Freedom

Mural at the Bagram Pax Terminal: This is a tribute to all who have fallen during Operation Enduring Freedom. Live a Life Worthy of Their Sacrifice.

KANDAHAR

I saw it for the first time from the window of the plane
We touched down I looked around, history called my name
There’s a prison made of mud and wire, the roof is caving in
It’s where they put the ones who wouldn’t listen
But they’re listening now, and looking down,
on Kandahar

We attacked them in October, we paid them back in spades
We swung the hammer from the north, a people fierce and brave
And the Taliban, made their last stand
We broke down their walls and chased them out
We spilled our blood and guts upon the ground,
at Kandahar

The Greeks were there before us, Alexander led the way
The Persians brought their fire and their gods
The Mongols swarmed out of the north and brought their cities down
Then the Arabs came, and gave their God a name,
in Kandahar

The Russians, Persians, Mongols, and the Greeks
Our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines
Their blood is crying out from the ground
Their souls echo off the mountains way out loud
in Kandahar

Holiday Destination: Afghanistan!

That's right. Cathedral mountains, crystal blue lakes, 5000 years of history... Afghanistan has it all.

I've spend some time there, and I always thought it would be a great tourist location if it weren't for people trying to kill you.

Seriously, Breitbart reports that Afghanistan has established its first national park, and there is talk of attracting tourists to the relatively peaceful Bamiyan Province.

You Can't Kill 'Em All

We need more bribes and less killing.

The CIA has used Viagra, among other things, to bribe Pashtun chieftains. James Joyner has good commentary on this subject at his blog, OTB.

Knives, tools, and operations for family members were all bargaining chips. This is how things work in that part of the world. An excerpt from the WaPo describes the Viagra transaction with a powerful tribal chief in southern Afghanistan. He was 60 years old and had four younger wives, you can figure out the rest.

Once it was established that the man was in good health, the pills were offered and accepted. Four days later, when the Americans returned, the gift had worked its magic, the operative recalled.

"He came up to us beaming," the official said. "He said, 'You are a great man.' "

"And after that we could do whatever we wanted in his area."

This is how we should solve the Waziristan problem. Waziristan is that lawless area in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) that borders Afghanistan. This area has become the big hideout for all the bad guys in the region.

Presidential candidate Obama spoke of going into the area with military force to clean it out. That won't work, notwithstanding the sporadic missile strikes to take out some terrorist ensconced there. No, we need to bribe them to behave and stop hosting terrorists.

Waziristan does not consider itself part of Pakistan, as the various regions and city states of Afghanistan have little loyalty to Kabul and feel no patriotic fervor for greater Afghanistan. These are tribal people living in places like Orgun, Ghazni, and Tarin Khowt just trying to make a life for themselves like you and me, only under drastically more austere circumstances. It is a Hobbesean world where life is nasty, brutish and short. In a game of daily survival, concepts like good, evil and terrorist fall by the wayside.

We can't kill 'em all
Nor do we want to. The vast majority of people living in these places are not combatants and just want to be left alone. And the ones who could be considered combatants are fighing on their own territory after all.

We need to bribe the bigwigs with cash and services so they can make life better for their people. If we do this while maintaining our known military power at a distance, the Taliban or any violent paramilitary organization will lose because they can no longer compete with the rich locals and there are no infidels to fight. All we should require in return is that they not harbor terrorists and not fight against the larger state of Pakistan or Afghanistan.

This sounds very simple, but it's not; and it would require years of quiet, low-level work by intelligence agencies and Special Forces. It would also involve paying money to "bad" people, which the BBC and MSNBC would loudly and smirkingly report. And there would still be killing, because there would still be bad guys, but it would be more focused because of local cooperation. The past few years in Iraq provide an example.

The situation in Central Asia will never be perfect (as if things are perfect in North America or Europe!), but solutions that work within the culture of the region are within our grasp. Billions in bribes beats billions in bullets, bombs and lives.