Pictures of the dead
Yet again, our glorious and supremely eloquent counterinsurgency strategy stands to be liquidated by the foolishness of our troops in Afghanistan.
Really? Photos, published by the LA Times, depict soldiers posing with the remains of a suicide bomber who’d just tried to kill them. Is it the burning Korans and photos of dead terrorists that’s causing us to lose this war, or is the strategy itself the problem?
Let me be clear that the soldiers did wrong. The photos (2 years old, I may add) should not have been taken for the purposes of personal collections. Why? Because it’s the rule. Mostly, just because it’s the rule and soldiers follow orders. A breakdown in the ability of troops to follow the rules results in a mob, not a professional army.
But it was not the soldiers who killed the dead terrorist. He killed himself while trying to kill them. Do we feel the same way about photos photos taken of dead robbers and criminals in the Old West?
How about photos of gangsters and miscreants from the 20′s and 30s? Remember Bonnie and Clyde?
Michael Yon wrote an article saying we shouldn’t blame the media. He’s right. The Soldiers are the first cause of this problem. But how big of a problem is it?
American soldiers in WWII mailed the skulls of dead Japanese back to their ladies:
And frankly, the sight of the dead insurgent is the historical tool used by rulers to crush uprisings. Ask the Romans and Vlad Drakul. Hiding the results of being a terrorist doesn’t help our cause. The message to all young Afghan and Pakistani males should be that this is what you look like when you strap on a bomb and try to murder people.
Let’s get real. This is not an atrocity. This is soldiers breaking an administrative rule. There should be no talk of kicking them out of the military. And, the soldier who gave the photos to the LA Times is a weasel. If he were so concerned, he should have given the photos to his chain of command–years ago. We need a little more outrage aimed at the culture that breeds these self-immolating haters. In any event, don’t ask me or other soldiers to like the people that are trying to kill us. Blog and talk bravely of our philosophy, and cultural sensitivity and all that, but just don’t ask us to hug the dude trying to take me from my kids. Maybe 10 years from now, but not now.
I’ve spent more time in Afghanistan than most. I worked along side young soldiers every day. I never once saw anything like this. I did not witness any heroic deeds, though there are many in the last ten years that have become heroes. But I did witness an incredible adherence to duty, to getting the job done, day in, day out, under very uncomfortable circumstances. 20 year old men doing whatever was asked of them, going without real sleep or hot food for days, sleeping in trucks waiting for a car bomb to drive up. Being dirty for a week at a time. To say that these photos depict some sort of evil culture within the military is just plain stupid.
Leave Afghanistan Now
The burning of the Korans at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan and the subsequent riots and murder of 5 NATO soldiers put all questions to rest about our future in the country. There is nothing more the US can gain in this war. Amid our apologies and groveling, our warped attempts to prove we are not imperialists, the Taliban and crime lords thrive, resting peacefully in Pakistan. And we still pace the floor like Hamlet churning the possibilities through Washington’s mushy head.
The cultural differences between the US and many Afghans are so great, they simply cannot be overcome in a manner that benefits in any meaningful way the US. The country is still largely run by thieves and criminals, and outside Kabul there is little true support for the US effort. Our national prestige is being drained away by the ridiculous “sensitivity” of Pashtun Muslims, whom seize upon any sleight as a reason to engage in mayhem.
Why are we still there? It’s time to leave, and let Afghanistan face the reality it created for itself. A future of crime, chaos, fundamentalism and misery. To the Afghan government and the Taliban: Keep your evil inside your own borders this time.To Washington: Stop embarrasing your nation and its troops with your equivocating and hand wringing. Bring back the pop-up targets you’ve provided for blood drenched, hateful Islamists.
Bring our boys home.
The West is fooling itself when it comes to Islam in the Middle East
“All of us here today understand this: We do not fight Islam, we fight against evil.” ~George W. Bush
“We are not at war against Islam. We are at war against terrorist organizations that have distorted Islam or falsely used the banner of Islam,” ~Barack Obama
Surely we are not at war with Islam. If we were, we’d kill everyone who professed the Muslim faith. The problem with Obama’s and Bush’s statements is that they lead many to underestimate the level to which Muslims in the Middle East and Asia support the jihadists. Throwing out statistics that show only a small percentage of Muslims are responsible for the destruction wrought is a bit like saying that because less than 1% of Americans serve in the US Army, only 1% of Americans support the US military. People fail to realize the power of both the “our team” mentality and religion, especially in parts of the world where the people have little hope in this world and nation states have been shamed in war by America and Israel.
Many people throughout the Muslim world gain satisfaction when the US suffers a setback at the hands of extreme Islam. Otherwise, the extremists could not exist to the extant that they do. Polls throughout the Muslim world show that Muslims in the Middle East support the actions of the jihadists. Most Muslims, even those living is Western countries, support Sharia Law, which is fundamentally at odds with Western values. In a poll of 9 countries, Turkey was the only nation in which a majority of the people said that Sharia should not comprise the law in entirety, or be a “source of legislation.” Pakistanis, despite the billions of military and domestic aid poured into their country by the US, continue to despise Americans. Most Pakistanis also wish that bin Laden was not dead.
People shocked at the recent Egyptian election results should study some history. I’ve long said that Egypt was the spiritual center of jihadism, not Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia made good fodder for the Left because of oil. Egypt, in the poll cited above, had the highest percentage of people that believed Sharia should be the sole root of law.
The Muslim countries that have in recent years received the most American aid are Pakistan and Egypt. Approximately 25% of the money used to fund the Pakistani army comes from American aid. The top recipients of US foreign aid in 2011 are Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel and Egypt in that order. Egypt has routinely ranked among the top nations in the world in the number of dollars given to it by the American government.
There appears to be an inverse correlation between the positive views in a country when measured against the amount of US aid provided to it. The argument of course is that America is trying to show these countries that the US is not the enemy. This method of appeasement is failing. In a poll published by the Washington Post shortly after Mubarak stepped down, 79 percent of Egyptians viewed the US negatively, with 20% saying they have a positive view of the US. This is a sharp decline from the Bush years when 30 percent of Egyptians viewed the US positively.
The problems in giving countries like Pakistan and Egypt lots of money are macrocosmic of what I saw happening in local projects in Afghanistan. The money will always find its way into the hands of America’s enemies because they are the most ruthless, devious and aggressive portions of those societies. They also in many cases have a monopoly on violence, something the state usually lays claim to–if it is not a failed state. In Afghanistan the people were not “all in” for the Americans. They really didn’t care that much, at least in areas far from Kabul, if the insurgents blew up a few American Imperialists. They’d take five bucks to plants a bombs and be on their way. In one fell swoop they’d made a month’s wage, killed some infidels, impressed the locals with their “bravery”, and maintained a semblance of national pride.
Egypt’s Mubarak held the forces of Islamic jihad at bay with the only weapon that works against it: Decisive brutality. As with Saudi Arabia, Egypt was a police state, as much because of the extremists as Mubarak. Only with extreme vigilance could the Egyptian government survive. Frankly, Mubarak may have been the West’s only hope in Egypt, but starry-eyed Westerners with a Democracy fetish ran him off, unleashing a hoard of militants, radicals and young men electrified with a rage whose dynamo was built in 1967 and 1973 during the humiliating defeats of the Egyptian Army at the hands of the Israelis. The effect of these defeats upon the Arab psyche cannot be overstated.
The Arab Spring has generated nothing resembling Western democracy and displays brilliantly the weakness of Democracy itself: People can vote for any horrific idea they choose. Hitler was democratically elected. Muslims have voted and acted exactly how we should have expected them to. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists now hold power. The Salafists in Egypt hold the same views as al-Qaeda and Hamas. Christians are trying to leave the country, fearing for their safety.
The revolutions in Egypt and Libya were hardly induced by only few extremists. In fact,it seems the revolutions enjoyed the backing of millions upon millions of extremists. It is the same sort of thing we saw in Nazi Germany. Many Germans were not Nazis or did not take part in the actual fighting. But most of them wanted to see the Nazis win. And so it is with Muslims in Libya, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. The Muslims there overwhelmingly want to thrash Israel and the United States in any manner they can. If the terror proxies can trounced by the hyperpower or the Jewish state, we can of course expect the “innocent” population of “moderate” muslims to melt back into the woodwork.
Islam unifies people against Israel and the West. As Mark Steyn writes in his book, America Alone, the draw of Western “McWorld” to the average Arab male is vastly overstated. Secularism is about as un-motivational as a Rosie O’donnell workout video. It is meaninglessness and provides no promise of power or life after death, no cloak of righteousness; something that means far more to a poor 23 year old man in Cairo than does the promise of flipping burgers.
Now Israel has a monstrous number of problems on its hand, all coming to bear at once. Iran wants the bomb and is not far off from getting it. Egyptians are muttering that they want the Camp David Peace Accord “adjusted.” 20,000 surface-to-air missiles are missing from Qaddafi’s stockpiles. The current American president’s negative comments about Netanyahu were caught on an open mic.
The vast majority of Muslims in the Middle East are not jihadists or terrorists. But most of them support the actions of extremist Islam when those actions are directed against Westerners or Israelis. Our money and McDonald’s cannot possibly fill the same void that is filled by Islam. And Democracy, as with any form of government, is only as good as the people that comprise it.
So what is the answer? Does America have to kill every last Muslim? Not any more than it had to kill every last German or Japanese. America has only to decisively defeat the front-line troops of Jihad. But decisive victory may no longer be something the West is capable of, despite its overwhelming superiority in almost every facet of military and economic might.
The Arab Spring has not created Arab states that are more stable or less violent. It has provided kindling for another 100 years of Jihadist immolation. Our children’s children will see The Long War continue.
Moral cowardice is the default setting of the European Union
In today’s Stars and Stripes newspaper, an AP article written by Heidi Vogt reports that a recently produced documentary, entitled “In-Justice: The Story of Afghan Women in Jail”. Vogt says that the European Union, which funded the documentary, has decided not to release the film. Representatives state that there is worry about the safety of two women currently imprisoned in Afghanistan for “moral crimes”. These moral crimes include being raped and refusing to marry the rapist, for which one woman was sentenced to 12 years in jail. The other subject of the documentary reportedly ran away from a physically abusive spouse, accompanied by a boyfriend she says she loves but has never slept with. She is sentenced to 6 years. Her boyfriend is also in prison.
Now, it would be one thing to argue that a culture is allowed to enforce its own set of rules without the West forcing it to do otherwise. However to argue that the West cannot make a movie documenting the facts is craven beyond words. The argument that the movie will not show because the safety of the women could be compromised is bunk. The women are serving 12 years in an Afghan prison; that in and of itself poses a safety risk. The argument is silly because it assumes the movie will in some way reveal information to Afghans that is not already known. The facts presented by the movie are, from what I know, no different than the facts that sent these two women to prison. Will the re-release of these facts enrage the prison guards to such a degree that they’ll harm these women?
No, the real reason for the EU’s decision is that its timidity in such cases makes the Cowardly Lion look like Prince Eugene of Savoy. It’s afraid not only for the two women, but for itself. For EU members know they cannot stop all acts of terrorism that may result from such a movie. Just ask Theo van Gogh’s ghost. Show a movie the extremists don’t like, and Brussels may be sporting a crater where a subway had once been. But now, as opposed to banning Danish caricatures of Muhammad and having no other excuse than open admission of being scaredy-cats, the EU can proclaim: “We’re doing it for the women!” Better to sweep these two women–and hundreds more–behind the swinging gate of Sharia law. But members of the EU would have no problem throwing Geert Wilders in prison for speaking out against extreme Islam. Why? Who’s afraid Geert Wilders will blow up a train station? As with the choice to bomb Libya but not Iran, it’s easy to wag the dog when the dog won’t bite you. Meanwhile Europe and America keep giving billions to the Afghan government when all the Americans and Europeans should have been giving the government was bullets to kill terrorists. America helped build several multi-million dollar “Justice Centers” in Afghanistan which have either been turned in to over priced warehouses or whose inhabitants practice a kind of justice that would make Adolph Eichmann proud.
What penalty does the “new” Afghanistan pay for its gross violations of human rights? What penalty does it pay when its government pockets half of the money given by America for public good? A single act of lawlessness by an American Soldier is a tragedy; a million acts of avarice, greed, deceit and slothfulness by Afghans is a statistic. The failure of the EU in many, many cases to stand up and demand the destructive habits practiced in Afghanistan be changed has led us to the very spot Europe and America stand in: A swamp of moral and cultural relativity.
Why the most powerful military in history can no longer win a decisive victory
We won in Iraq, against every wish of those who voted for Obama. But America’s military still faces a huge problem.
My encounter with a Pakistani military officer
While redeploying from Afghanistan back to Germany, I passed through Kabul International Airport. Inside the recreation center, several Pakistani military officers played table tennis. They were part of the military partnership between America and Pakistan.
As I sat watching the game, a Pak officer approached and sat down next to me. He inquired about my 101st Airborne combat patch. He told me that the 101st recently left Afghanistan, so he wondered why I was still there. I told him that I’d deployed as an individually attached soldier. In other words, though I was in a combat zone with the 101st, I was on loan from another unit and my deployment cycle didn’t quite sync with the 101st.
The officer was extremely charismatic and smooth. He combined the attributes of Pakistan’s old English military masters with Eastern guile. I’ve read of some other accounts similar to mine. People who meet Pakistani military officers are somewhat beguiled. I was immediately put on the defensive by this officer, but I believe that if it wasn’t for my current job and my experience as a cop, I would have come away thinking: “Maybe we’re just misunderstanding Pakistan.”
We know what Pakistan is up to politically and militarily. Yet Pakistan’s ability to say one thing and do another is unparalleled. I believe Americans, who’ve grown up in a country where trust is common, despite media cynicism, are easily led by such well-honed deceptive skills. This is why our policy regarding Pakistan remains unchanged despite evidence that we should probably take a harder stance.
Admiral Mullen’s recent comments on Pak duplicity ring true to me. But I believe the snake charmers in Pakistan will continue to lead many astray.
Sherman rolls in his grave.
We never learn because the elites in Washington don’t feel the pain of the battlefield.
Alexander in the Af-Pak War
America no longer has the will to fight and win wars. If our enemies are able to weather our airstrikes, we are wholly unprepared at nearly every level to place sufficient pressure on fanatical guerrillas whom find war a preferable state to peace. Never in history has an army enjoyed such a monopoly on firepower and mobility as does America, and yet been so unwilling to use it.
We are blessed by the geographical bulwarks of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and cursed with partisan demagogues in Washington who know little of military history or the culture of war. Perfectly willing to start a war, the politicians don’t want to hear what it takes to win it. No matter how much data multi-million dollar computer networks feed those in the Pentagon and Congress, few of the recipients of that data can feel our wars; the data crunchers and politicos can know the wars, but the visceral sensations of ground commanders and grunts will always be beyond them, as thus we can assume that almost all of their decisions will prove inadequate. When war does not fit into comfort zones or proffered theories, many believe we just need to try harder to make the theories work. Few would question the theories themselves lest horrible answers become truths.
Washington’s elites are safe when we lose. The 25 year old squad leader in Afghanistan is not.
The quaint mythologies of counterinsurgency theorems have us following a Yellow Brick Road paved by Non-Governmental Agencies and State Department aid money. We hoped that Oz was a place where suicidal zealots laid down their rifles and stopped making bombs in exchange for a school house and a new pair of shoes. When the curtain was thrown aside to reveal the Wizard, we saw his bloody hand raised skyward, grasping the severed head of the school teacher. And even when the sheer brutality and power of the Taliban terrorist revealed itself, we refused to believe what we saw. We prefer to think that all men want peace, that brutality doesn’t work, and that killing cannot be the answer. Convenient dreams for those in Washington whose greatest daily danger is a Tweeted revelation of sexual misconduct. We question ourselves whereas the men of old, seeing the world more clearly than do we, quickly identified the problem and dealt with it. Swimming is oceans of information, we find it more difficult to choose proper paths, but the ancient warriors of yore, though lacking technological aids—perhaps because he lacked those aids—instinctively discerned human psychology.
Enter Alexander The Great. Imagine for a moment that future technologies could spring the Macedonian king back to life and the modern social and political delusions that prevent decisive victories in war have vanished by the wayside. Now place Alexander in command of history’s most powerful military and charge him with defeating the insurgency in Afghanistan. First, we’ll have to listen to Alexander give us a history lesson. Contrary to revisionists whom extol the invincibility of Afghans fighters, Alexander was never defeated by the people inhabiting the land we now call Afghanistan. And then he would tell us that his tutor, Aristotle, wasn’t about giving peace a chance; the father of Western philosophy implored young Alexander to force Hellenistic ethnic supremacy upon the world of the barbarians.
To the Neo-Alexander, defeating the Taliban begins with an offer to meet insurgent leadership at the bargaining table. And here’s the offer: Submit or die. This language resonates with the Taliban at a far deeper level than does the current Coalition Force offers of reintegration and power sharing. A reasonable man, Alexander offers the Taliban their religion and way of life in exchange for their weapons. The sovereign lines of the Pakistani border mean nothing. They are semi-porous membranes that hold back American power and allow insurgents to move freely to and from their safe havens in Pakistan. In response to each suicide bomber making his way from Western Pakistan, Alexander orders biometric identification through DNA testing, and using covert CIA intelligence cells seeded throughout Pakistan, identifies the village from which the suicide bomber originated. The Macedonian orders B-2 bomber and Reaper drone strikes on all known Madrassas in the village. No apologies are offered for civilian casualties. The retributive strikes are timely and painful. The suicide bombers quickly transform from heroes to sources of great pain in the villages. Soon, being a suicide bomber is disgraceful, not honorable.
The terrorists resort to using their greatest weapon: The media. In response, all media embeds are ordered to leave Afghanistan. Journalists stream into North and South Waziristan, hoping to document American atrocities. Members of the Haqqani Network set up ad hoc repeater stations, hoping to broadcast propaganda from small, handheld Motorola VHF radios. America counters by dropping electromagnetic pulse bombs at random intervals into the tribal areas. These weapons destroy any modern electronic equipment, leaving journalists to their pens and notebooks and Haqqani insurgents to courier communications.
As for terrorist infiltration along the Pakistan border, Alexander knows that not every infiltrator can be stopped. However, it is possible to make crossing into Afghanistan too painful a gamble. Areas along the border are declared free-fire zones. Approximately 5 kilometers on each side of the border are free-fire; that is, since the areas are assumed cleared, anyone in those areas can be fired on. The 5 kilometer range allows for ranges of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan and Haqqani Network rocket fire, such as which killed two American Soldiers at FOB Salerno in May of 2011 (with no punitive action taken by the US military out of respect to our Pakistani “friends”).
Entire villages will be held accountable for the actions of individuals that live within them. Villagers in Afghanistan always know what goes on within the village. Villages where US forces are attacked will be subject to curfews and those found to be involved in insurgent activity shall be given a field trial by US military officers and if found guilty, executed. Special Operations night raids and air assaults will be constant in areas infested with Taliban, al-Qaeda and Haqqani fighters. Protests by villagers about the night raids will be ignored, as most of these protests are spawned by agitated insurgents. The cooperation of local villagers is the goal, but America under Alexander will place the safety of her troops and the destruction of the insurgency above the safety of villagers. Civilian casualties will be avoided when possible, but local Afghans will need to provide intelligence and information to American forces in order to ensure that America kills the right people. Otherwise, the insurgents will merely use civilains as living shields. Cooperation will help both the Afghans and America. The “sanctity” of the people will no longer be assumed; entire populations can be just as evil as individuals. The terrorists will be held to the same standards that the US military is held. All war crimes will be prosecuted in the field if possible.
The shrines of dead al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters will be closely monitored by payed CIA informants. Sympathizers who come to venerate terrorist grave sites will be followed, and at a convenient time, interviewed and their biometric data entered into a huge data base known as BATS–Biometrically Automated Toolset. These people will be placed on watch lists, denied entry to US bases, and denied the possibility of serving within Afghan government security forces for 5 years. Individuals assessed to be of a higher threat level shall be denied access and government work on a permanent basis.
Alexander will reward the friends of America. India, the largest democracy on Earth, will be provided special trade rights. She has earned it. A full embargo of Pakistan will commence. We have treated our enemies better than our friends in hopes that our goodwill would bring them to our side. But they mistook our goodwill for weakness. Those who fought bravely beside us, such as Britain, did not get 4 billion dollar rewards, such as did Pakistan.
Every chance will be given to those in the Federally Administered tribal Region of Pakistan to formally surrender Siraj and Jallaludin Haqqani, the familial leaders of the Haqqani Network. America will make war for a better peace denied her by maniacs. Letters will dropped in each village in North and South Waziristan, telling the inhabitants to give up their weapons and submit to searches of their residences. Aggressive actions taken by Pak military units will result in 5,000 lb GBU-28 Penetrator Bombs being dropped on all Pakistani nuclear missile sites, which have been carefully tracked by the National Ground Intelligence Center and the National Geospatial Agency for years. Alexander–a genius at war–knows that this war will escalate. All wars escalate. But no one can out-escalate the United States Military.
Villages not wishing to submit to search will be given 24 hours notice to evacuate. Then the village will be razed by Fire Support Teams (FIST) utilizing 155 mm Howitzer fire and B-52 Arc Light strikes and tactical airstrikes under the guidance of Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) teams. Not only will there be no apologies for these actions, Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) units will broadcast images of the destruction to other villages, warning them of the implications of resistance.
Anything less than the above guarantees an American defeat in Afghanistan. If our leaders cannot do what Alexander would do, they should save the blood of our Soldiers and Marines and bring them home. And they should never again begin or escalate a war for political gain if they don’t intend to win it.
My time walking through the Old Testament
I’ll be writing several entries on my blog about my experiences in Afghanistan. Look for it soon. It’ll include photos and several vignettes. Not everyone will like what they read; we screwed the pooch on this one.
An article I wrote on Pastor Terry Jones, published in The Gainesville Sun
Pushlished in April in the Gainseville Sun. Originally accepted for publication by The Jerusalem Post, but that’s another story…
My opinions on Pastor Terry Jones, who oversaw the burning of a Koran which resulted in riots and death in northern Afghanistan.
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20110406/NEWS/110409713/1123/opinion?p=all&tc=pgall
Article by Dr. Scott Catino on Afghanistan
My friend and co-worker, Dr. Scott Catino, wrote this article about his observations here in Afghanistan. He and I work together at the Consolidated Stability Operations Center.
http://www.thoughts.com/martinscottcatino/afghanistan-and-the-valley-between-us
Three Cups of Tea shatters into a Million Little Pieces
When I first arrived at Bagram Airfield in 2010 to begin my year-long tour in Afghanistan, Army leadership immediately implored me to Read Three Cups of Tea by Craig Mortenson. It was the way forward, some said. But a fellow intelligence analyst whom I trusted had little good to say about the book. He’d been to Afghanistan and Iraq for several combat tours and he told me the book gave the wrong picture of what was really happening on the ground.
People kept talking about the book, so I took it upon myself to at least learn the author’s thesis. I did some digging and didn’t like what I found. I admit to never reading the book, primarily because much of what I read about Mortenson gave me the impression that he is a huckster with a genius for identifying useful idiots. And indeed, I believe his book created a whole host of acolytes in the military, bulwarked by starry-eyed 23 year old State Department employees who truly believe that if only we throw billions of dollars in the general direction of Islamist fanatics, the insurgency will melt away.
Instead, many of those billions have been wasted, and in many cases provided the Taliban with bullets and bombs. And we kept on making the same mistakes for years. Only now are we beginning to come around and remember that not all men want peace; as Vladimir Lenin stated:
“One man with a gun can control 100 without one.”
In many cases, while our military should have been concentrating on the basics of counterinsurgency in underdeveloped nations (building social structures and trust) we were building redundant structures of concrete and stone that often fell into disuse. When we should have been providing the friendly tribes with the ability to fight the insurgents, in many cases we fawningly erected near useless buildings that could not be maintained, hoping that these would act as scarecrows to the Taliban. Instead the development projects acted as a light to a swarm of hornets. The insurgents moved into many areas where development took place without first clearing the land of guerrillas and began a campaign of punishment and retribution amongst local villagers. Because of this, we lost the trust of some tribesmen. We built inanimate objects and ran away, forgetting that in warrior, tribal societies, it is not material goods that are most important, but the display of bravery, loyalty and honor. It was immoral to ask these villagers to reject the insurgency without providing them with the means to fight it because a well will not protect anyone from a Kalashnikov.
If the recent allegations about Mortenson are true, he lied about what he did in the mountains of Pakistan. But that is not where the damage to our efforts was done. The damage is in the implied effects of Mortenson’s possible fictions; that we can fight terrorism merely by engaging local populations and giving them things, that we don’t really need America’s warrior class in Afghanistan. I saw this attitude with my own eyes even amongst our military, where COIN became a euphemism for never firing a rifle.
Mortenson’s good intentions, if he had any, were not enough and they have cost lives. Apologists for Mortenson (and they are legion), say that even if there are some parts of Three Cups of Tea that are not factual, the thesis of the book is true. That thesis, they say, is that we should be respectful of other cultures and treat people decently even while we fight our wars. Is this new American doctrine? Is it not common sense that we should not create any more enemies than is necessary to defeat the insurgency? This way of thinking was expounded by a much more qualified man than Mortenson in David Kilcullen’s, The Accidental Guerrilla. The effects that Three Cups of Tea has had in our war may be quantifiable by looking at the number of reviews written on Amazon—almost 3000. The Accidental Guerrilla is only worthy of approximately 70 reviews, and yet Kilcullen was the personal advisor to David Petraeus in Iraq. And I don’t suspect that many USAID people have read Kilcullen’s seminal work.
I cannot help but make the comparison between A Million Little Pieces, by James Frey and Three Cups of Tea. The writers of both books targeted a very specific audience and told them everything they wanted to hear about humanity. Mortenson has now admitted that parts of his book are “compressed versions” of what really took place. People who wanted pleasing answers were drawn to Frey’s and Mortenson’s stories and in both cases people in very high places were made to eat their share of crow. Fortunately we have moved forward from easy answers in Afghanistan. Since General David Petraeus took over, he has repeatedly communicated that there is a counter-terror aspect to all counterinsurgencies. Money, though still a weapon system, is a precision weapon, not a Rolling Thunder bombing campaign that makes things worse. In the south, the Taliban is on the run not because of tea time so much as the tough fighting of our troopers who treat locals with respect and decency, discover their underlying needs, and yet hunt America’s and Afghanistan’s enemies relentlessly, killing or capturing thousands of hardcore Taliban fighters.
Not exactly the stuff of Oprah’s Book Club.
Knowing the rules
I read an article written by David Killcullen, one of the world’s top counter-insurgency men. He stated that the populace in a counter-insurgency want to know the rules that have been set in place for them. They want to know their boundaries, what will bring punishment and what will bring reward.
I believe that one of the biggest failures of the last 8 years in the war in Afghanistan is the lack of effort in reporting the real reasons and intentions for America being in the country in the first place. Since General Petraeus took over, there’s been a concerted effort to rectify this, but there’s a long way to go.
As Washington Post writer, David Ignatius points out, according to recent polls, Afghan haven’t a clue as to why Americans are in their backyard.
Nature abhors a vacuum. And so it is with information and propaganda. Whenever Coalition Forces fail to fill information gaps, we can be sure the enemy will oblige. Add to this the propensity of people in the region to believe the wildest of mythology–a neck-tie is a secret symbol of Christianity, Osama Bin Laden is a CIA operative–and you have a formula for unending war. Many Afghans, since they may not have even heard of 9-11, can only assume that America is in-country to do what every other invader has tried to do: Become a colonial power. And since America is primarily a Christian power, we must want to destroy Islam, too. No Afghan tribe that believes these things will ever fully support our efforts. And we need full support if the people are to be the eyes that find insurgents, not just a level of support that takes our money and goes about enabling the Taliban. The Taliban aggressively speads its message and rules through Shabnamah or Night Letters as well as face to face contact. The message and rules? Cooperate with the Coalition and you die. The Taliban has won the information war in to this point in Afghanistan. After researching the subject for an intelligence paper I wrote, I believe it is the number one reason that this war has lasted so long.
In a land rife with illiteracy, getting the word out is a huge task. But it is doable. When I visited a refugee camp in Afghanistan, I saw 25,000 inhabitants whom were ripe for Taliban picking. I made sure when I spoke with the camps leader to ask him why he thought America was in Afghanistan. I also told him that he needs to tell all of his people that America is here to fight al-Qaeda and trans-national terrorists, that American soldiers don’t want to spend years in his country; they want to go back to their family and friends. But we needed his help.
Every leader that interfaces with various tribes in Afghanistan should have a list of things that they tell the people. On that list should be an explanation for American presence and the rules that the people are expected to follow: Do this and we help you. Do this and we kill you or arrest you. The messaging should also include a laundry list of all the horrible things that the Taliban does, and a negation of the myth (propagated as much by Western media as the Taliban) that Americans kill more civilians than the insurgents do. All of this should be SOP with every engagement.
What I think of the war in Afghanistan now
After having spent four months in Afghanistan and seeing much of the war from the inside, some may wonder if my opinions of the efficacy of fighting there have changed. In short, they haven’t changed much.
While I do see the benefit of having some foot print in the country, I also see that the country’s leaders and outside influencers in Pakistan are playing both sides in hopes that when the US leaves, the Taliban won’t have any grudges. Their actions form a self-fulfilling prophecy and enable the Taliban to continue maintaining some legitimacy.
I want to dismiss the myth that Afghan fighters are incredible guerrilla warriors, able to defeat our troops because of their years’ experience in this kind of fighting. In fact, the Taliban and Haqqani fighters get severely smashed every time they confront US troops. Obliterated. I’m talking 40 bad guys dead, and 0 US dead on several occasions since I’ve been in the country. The way they kill our troops is by paying some dupe with no job to plant a bomb on a road and then detonating it as we ride by.
So why can’t we win? I have several opinions on this. First, we must define what winning is. I think in some ways, we have won. Al-Qaeda is almost non-existent in Afghanistan. The Taliban in many areas is reduced to a loose crime syndicate. And America is still a great place to live. If we read the memo that directed then-General Stanley McChrystal on the objectives of this war, the goal was to “degrade” the Taliban. We’ve done that.
But the one conclusion that I’ve come to that means the most to me is this: Democracy is a reward. Democracy is not a cause, it is the result of doing the right things. The people of Afghanistan have not earned Democracy because they refuse to change the way they do business. And they must suffer the consequences. The people of Iraq have earned the right to reap the benefits of Democracy (much to the chagrin of the Left) , as they demonstrated in the Anbar Awakening. To ask that Democracy be the cause that brings success to Afghanistan is like buying a teenager a new BMW in hopes it brings him a sense of responsibility.
I must point out that General Patraeus has made it clear we only need to make Afghanistan “good enough”. We don’t need to make it Switzerland, as he quipped. He is absolutely correct, and I do think that a good enough Afghanistan is in reach. But until the problems in Pakistan are dealt with, good enough is not possible. Our military leaders know this.
This is not a military failure. The military has defeated the Taliban on every battle front, though I don’t think we’ve been nearly aggressive enough. There’s also the problem of defining the enemy himself. Any guy can pick up a Kalashnikov and call himself Taliban, just as any person could now call himself a Nazi. So when do we know the Taliban has been defeated? The problem at this point, does not have a military solution. It is a Rule of Law problem and the result of cultural failure. The military part of the problem had been solved. The puzzle that remains is the endemic collapse of stabilizing social structures within Afghanistan. Chaos begets chaos. Corruption fathers corruption.
The War on Terror has not been a failure. Al-Qaeda suffered a massive strategic defeat. It’s plans are consistently disrupted, its fighters arrested or eliminated, many of it’s leaders killed or facing trial. The Taliban barely has a corporeal existence in Afghanistan, but its ghost remains in the form of criminal gangs and warlords. There are very real and positive results that’ve been gained from ignoring the defeatists. And we should continue to fight Islamic extremist. It is a fight that will continue in some form for the rest of our lives. That does not mean it’s not worth fighting. And the whining of the Left over this fight will also continue. We should throw them a couple of bones, like allowing gays in the military or legalizing pot. And then we should ignore them.
Our lesson should be that nation building while under fire is a bad idea. You don’t fix social structures while the enemy shoots at you. You smash the enemy, grab as much power as you can, than build. In most places you have to let everything burn out before you move in, and that can take generations.
The fact is, we’ve reduced the threat to America by fighting in Afghanistan. We just shouldn’t be giving the teenager a new car.
Back for R+R
After three days of little sleep, I’ve finally made it back to Germany for R+R. I always experience altered mental states when I come back from the field, and of course my deployment is much longer than any field exercise. The experience is usually a combination of a heightened sense of smell, euphoria, and a dream-like sensation–as if I should wake up at any time and find myself in tougher conditions. I’ve surmised before that this state, combined with a much lower tolerance for alcohol and massive jet lag for Soldiers who have to go back to the continental US, may contribute to the problems some Soldiers have upon their return.
I feel great, though I do have to keep reminding myself I’m on leave, that I don’t have to get u and be somewhere. That I don’t have to put on ACUs or carry my weapon. My wife and I have a trip planned to the Edelweiss lodge in Garmisch, Germany, in the Alps.
Here’s a few pics of myself and my happy family:
My beautiful wife, Donna, and I.
Eva with Daddy
Eva with Mommy
Emily--Greek for endless energy...
If there was a cookie jar, Eva's hand would be in it
Edelweiss
Quick Post: Jalalabad
My team and I flew off to Jalalabad. our job is to evaluate Surkh Rod District, which is just outside of Jalalabad. Jalalabad is a model city. ISAF commanders want to use the “Ink Blot” method to slowly build off from successful municipalities. So our job is to find out what’s right with Surkh Rod District, and what can be replicated in other districts.
I can tell you right now that the difference between Surkh Rod and Sayed Abad, a place I travelled to about 6 weeks ago, is astounding. In Sayed Abad, we took mortar and rocket fire every night, and Taliban fighters engaged one of our Route Clearance Teams right outside a FOB gate. Sayed Abad is an insurgent stronghold, and I’ve assessed that the overall state of the insurgency can be measured by what is occurring in the district.
Surkh Rod is host to some of Afghanistan’s cultural elite, whom bring money and business to the area. From what I’ve seen, all the talk about greed and corruption that come with the business world is simply a way to ignore the true power of business: It keeps people busy, let’s them hope for a better future without using a rifle to get it, and it feeds people. Where people don’t work, read or have roads to travel on, they kill to pass the time. Where they do have those things they fight only to keep them.
Signing off for now.
Afghanistan deepens my patriotism
Some like to claim that America is built on greed and corruption. That all’s that’s needed to make lots of money is an overriding love for money.
After seeing Afghanistan and getting a picture for what’s happening here, I can honestly say that most people in the US don’t understand real systemic and cultural corruption. The only side that many people are on here is the side that can pay them the most money, NATO or Taliban. Or the side that threatens them the most.
Almost daily, in my week of flying around Logar and Sayed Abad Districts, the areas I was in were attacked by rockets, and RPGs. One time, a US route clearance team was attacked by a group of insurgents right outside the gate of the FOB I was staying at. For almost an hour, I could hear small arms fire before the insurgents were finally driven off.
There is virtually no one that can be trusted in this country.
The distrust of Americans is largely born from Taliban and HIG terror. Fear works. Guns work. Propaganda works. Nothing will happen here until security is established. We hand out money, build roads, schools, waterworks, electrical grids, but still the Taliban move in at night and threaten the people. Cooperation with NATO and ISAF means death. The fear is more powerful than our gifts. And even when we can get the tribes to cooperate for more than a day, their military simply does not have the tradition of discipline that ours does. We were blessed by the Prussians. Afghanistan is cursed a warrior spirit combined with no regard for order.
If we win, it will be by an inexorable crawl to victory. Nothing will be quick. And we still need more troops. 100,000 more probably. That won’t happen. So we’ll do everything right here, but have no promise of victory. We need to be in more places at once.
But now I know just how much is right with America.
Myth: The United States created the Taliban
A common misconception, wantonly cultivated by liberals who think America deserves all the bad stuff she gets, is that the US created the Taliban by supporting the Mujihadeen in their fight against the Soviets.
In fact, nearly the opposite is true.
The evolution of the Taliban and al-Qaeda is exceedingly complicated, primarily because they are not state actors, but smaller groups of religious zealots acted upon and acting through many states.
I’ll simplify for the purposes of this blog and because I have so little time.
The Taliban initially began as a religious student movement, which erupted when former Mujihadeen commanders and fighters committed a series of atrocities during the civil wars that ensued after the Soviet defeat. While some Taliban actions occurred as early as 1994, it was Mullah Omar that gave the movements coherence when he seized the Cloak of the Prophet in Kandahar and declared himself commander of the faithful. From there, the Taliban essentially went on to become the victor of the Afghan civil war. For all of their brutality, they at least represented law, and they were consistent as well as brutal in the application of that law.
Again, stacks of books have been written on the matter of Afghanistan. But let me just say, that saying that the US created the Taliban by funding the Mujihadeen is a massive over-simplication and obfuscation. There were afterall, lots of Mujihadeen who were not Taliban. Most of them, actually. To say we created the Taliban would be akin to saying that Columbine High school created the murderers Klebold and Harris. Yes they went to school there. Yes, the school fed them lunch and taught them. But they did that to others who didn’t commit mass murder, too.
The accusation that we helped bad people and they came back to bite us is an obsfucation also. We helped lots of good people too. Some bad people were in the mix, and as bad people tend to do, they crushed the weak. The eduacted and moderates fled the country.
So, the Taliban is a separate entity from the Mujihadeen, though there are members of the Muj in the Taliban. The actions of the Taliban are only an example that the world always has its bad players and you deal with them as they come along. Pakistan, the ISI, Saudi Arabia, all of these entities funded the Taliban directly, and indeed backed their ideological vision of Sharia for all.
Rockets at Airborne
Last night I stopped into the chow hall for a bowl of chili. It was about 2030 hrs and I planned to head to bed after eating. The chili was pretty good, too. With only a few spoonfulls remaining in my bowl, a siren sounded somewhere on FOB Airborne, Wardak District. Some people looked confused, until a voice came over a loud speaker telling everyone to head for bunkers.
I stood up, dumped my bowl in the garbage on the way out. Some people still stood around in disbelief. Who’d want to kill them?
Once outside, there was momentary mayhem. The FOB is blacked out at night. No lights on the outside of buildings. Only the momentary beam of light from small flashlights cut swaths through the darkness. Some one ran into me in the dark, spraying with what I think was soup.
There was a loud bang I’d estimate about 50 meters away from my position, a a huge flash backlit the mountains on the horizon.
Insurgents were tossing rockets at us. I moved to the nearest cement bunker. Outside the door, several local national kitchen employees stood clumped together, the few that were inside not moving far enough into the protective shell to allow everyone in. People seemed confused. Even some Soldiers looked as if they’d just been woken from deep slumber. I knew they hadn’t. They just couldn’t believe they were being bombed.
“Move the f$%^! inside!” I pushed through the people and into the shelter, telling the people blocking the way to let others in. I was irritated. We’re in a war zone and these people were surprised. No amount of TV or violent movies could have prepared them for real aggression. It seems most had never experienced the system shock that comes when violently confronted.
Katyusha rocket
I estimated that we were hit by rockets because of the flashes seen in the distance. And there was the almost campy whistle before the explosions. The rockets were most likely the old Soviet model Katyushas, capable of being fired from single, man-portable stations, or mass fired from trucks.
“I really hope QRF (Quick response Force) hoses those fuckers,” I muttered. I felt anger. Some one had ruined a perfectly fine bowl of chile.
I could hear the grumble of distant helo rotors. Hunter-killer gunships already in the sky, not more than 15 minutes after the attack. Someone said they could see tracer fire from the mountain top, likely small arms used in hopes of scoring a big kill. QRF vehicles flowed up and down the road leading to FOB Airborne, search lights sweeping. I imagined the insurgent hugging the ground, hoping to be missed. But I’m sure the IR and night vision scopes on the gunships didn’t miss them.
Then I could hear the roar of twin-engined F-15 Strike Strike Eagles overhead, the same ones that wake me from my sleep at Bagram Airbase, shaking my whole room with raging afterburner. They’d been called in to drop bombs that could verily thread a needle from 30,000 feet.
After an hour in the bunker, we poured out. Later we were told that 4 rockets hit inside our compound, though I haven’t heard that anyone was hurt. Though I’m sure the bad guys on top of that mountain didn’t make it out alive.
Afghanistan
I arrived in Afghanistan almost two weeks ago, flying into Bagram Airfield, then moving to Kabul and finally back to Bagram.
I was transported by semi-covert convoy from Camp Julian to ISAF HQ. I’ll leave the description of the vehicle that I travelled in out of this writing for security purposes. Armed men, contractors working in one of the world’s most unstable countries packed in around me, each carrying Serbian M-92s, 7.62mm, shelled in body armor, sleek Oakleys covering their eyes. We moved through streets packed bumper to bumper with cars and shoulder to shoulder with people. Garbage floated everywhere, piles of random junk stacked high on the sides of the road, craters from IED blasts gaping at us.
I gained a sense of hyper-alertness. Only a few months prior, insurgents killed several officers with a Vehicle-born IED just down the road from where we were driving. Though our vehicles were non-descript, the people somehow knew who we were. I could tell by their looks. I know that look from my days as a cop. The simmering distrust, the envy, the sniggering smile. They knew we were ISAF.
Every few hundred meters we would get sought in a knot of traffic, the bearded driver would swear. “Why’s he taking this fucking route?” Referring to the vehicle in front of us. Every time we stop, I watch for bulging robes, wires sprouting from sleeves, and stumbling gate and blissfully high face of an insurgent, high on heroin, ready to visit paradise. My doors combat locked, the heavy, hidden armor of our vehicles..can it resist a suicide bomber up close? No way. I know better. I imagine a holy warrior, perhaps only a few days prior a dirt farmer, striding up to my door, my last vision: his thumb depressing a plunger. I’d be blown out the other side of the vehicle, my insides liquified if my body held together at all.
We stopped. We raced. We clenched our weapons. But Kabul only winked at us. At anytime she could kill us. But not today. It would be too easy, no fun. Better to play with the mouse before it dies. As we drew closer to ISAF headquarters, it was as if the chaos and dirt melted away. I saw the Afghan police officers suddenly appear pressed uniforms, where only a couple of kilometers before , they appeared dishevelled, unshowered. A sense of calm and order arose as we approached the NATO base. It was an oasis from the anarchy that grips Afghanistan.
Since then, I’ve flown Blackhawk to several districts. What’s the war like? Well, let’s just say that American power and ingenuity are plainly evident on our bases, but Afghanistan’s tribalism, warlordism and primitive state rule the hinterlands. Behind our walls, we are invincible. The foolish man who hopes heroism will come in the form of an arching mortar round into an American base is quickly annihilated in a shower of 30mm cannon, belched from the nose of Apache gunships. Sometimes, they manage to get in, but their losses are catastrophic and for the most part, the insurgents have given up attacking our bases.
But the roads are a different story. Kidnappings, murder, theft. These are the tools of the Talib highway man. And don’t think of this as Taliban against NATO. It’s NATO against Chaos. Just because a man is Taliban or HIG does not mean he kidnaps foreigners for ideological reasons. He may just want money. He may be doing the bidding of his boss who wants regional control.
They are a giant mob, and we’re the cops. The mob is feeding on its moment of freedom, on its rage, rolling itself into a juggernaut-snowball. Only order–any order–can stop this. I don’t know if we can “win”. but I sense that if we leave, hundreds of thousands of civilians will die in the struggle to fill our vacuum. And we won’t be left with anything that amounts to a peaceful, liberated Afghanistan.
Travels
As some know, I’ve been deployed to Afghanistan. I’m preparing a travel blog, but I’ve been extremely busy and expect to be for a while longer.
I’ll be sure to send you dispatches soon.
See this movie: Restrepo
This looks to be an outstanding documentary by Sebastian Junger, author of, The Perfect Storm and his new book, War.
Many Americans do not understand what a force for good that American Soldiers are, what other people in other countries think of the US Soldier. He is their protector. They run to him and away from the Taliban and al-Qaeda. No matter how many times we see photos of Abu Graib, the world knows who the good guys are.
Now if we could only convince so many of our own citizens…
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