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.
Afghanistan: Let the bodies hit the floor
A recent incident of friendly fire in which German troops killed Afghan troops riding in unmarked trucks highlights the problems in fighting this war.
How many insurgents did US Marines kill in the Marja invasion? No one knows, it’s classified. But every friendly fire incident or errant Hellfire missile fired from a Predator drone will be reported with excruciating precision.
The primary thing we stand to lose is national prestige, and every friendly fire incident and civilian death chips away at American hegemony. If we win, well shouldn’t a superpower beat a group of illiterate, rag-tag geurillas? If we lose–perish the thought–every backwater despot will want a chance to strut his stuff on the world’s stage.
We should make public enemy body counts. Since Vietnam, the United States has made it policy that it not release body count numbers. As General Tommy Franks stated: “We don’t do body counts.”
I believe it’s time we did release body counts. Americans need to see why our Soldiers are dying, even if it’s only to show that we’re at least making others pay for killing us. Moreover, America needs to show who is actually killing the most civilians. In Iraq for instance, al-Qaeda killed civilians by the thousands, every year of the war. And yet we allowed some in the media and many activists to run with the numbers when it came to civilian deaths. They spun the story to read that America actually killed those innocents. America’s fault was that of failing to exert enough power, not of exerting too much power. And for that catastrophic mistake, we reaped the whirlwind. We tried a quarterback kneel with more than two minutes left in the game, then fumbled and watched our opponent run the ball back for a TD to tie the game. Slapped awake, we sent thousands more troops in clamped down on lawlessness, something we would have done as second nature fifty years prior.
There is of course, no option but victory. The resentful leftists who hoped America would fail in both Afghanistan and Iraq have been discredited. The best way to silence any criticism is to win. Please see how the citizens of Paris reacted when the Nazi goose-stepped through the Arc de Triomphe.
The Hurt Locker
I just finished watching the much raved about movie, The Hurt Locker, today. What, I wondered, could all the hype about a war movie possibly be?
It was difficult, I admit, to be absolutely impartial when watching the film, since I’m in the army and have done EOD work. When the film was over though, I felt that only someone who had never been in the military or done EOD work could think it was a great movie.
First of course, I looked for realism. Give me something besides shiny new equipment, haircuts non-compliant with AR 670-1 and someone holding a rifle like a lawn rake. The film does ok here, but it’s not perfect. For instance, the first scene has Sergeant First Class William James putting on a bomb suit and approaching a suspected IED. The bomb robot’s wagon broke, so the counter-charge couldn’t be carried to the target. Ok. I’ll buy it. Maybe. Probably not. It’s highly unlikely that someone would approach a bomb like that. The one thing–the biggest thing–that they emphasized in EOD school at Redstone Arsenal was that bomb techs must improvise. You use your head to minimize danger. EOD is the tough man’s brain-game. Physical but technical. The team most likely would have brought the robot back and found a way. Instead, William James carries the counter charge to the device, at which time he sees someone with a cell phone. James walks away from the bomb.
But he walks with his back to the bomb.
There must have been lots of technical advice on the set of this movie, because they had all the right equipment. Yet any bomb tech knows you walk backwards for several meters before turning around. All the suit’s protection is in the front–almost all of it anyways. A slow walk backwards would even have had a dramatic effect, so there can be no only-for-dramatic-effect argument. Over and over again, William James eschews the use of the bomb robot to approach, in his bomb suit, another insurgent laid Infernal Machine. William James would have likely found himself court martialed or at least supervising Privates sweeping the dining facility floors . I’ll admit this part of the story was meant to show what an adrenaline junky James was. His team mates ven consider killing him at one point because he routinely endangers them.
The bomb squad likes to use radios near bombs. RF makes some bombs go boom. This movie must have driven active bomb techs mad.
Oh yeah-his team mates. If you think that SFC James had no redeeming values, you’ll be hard pressed to find them in the other soldiers in his team. One, a Specialist, is seeing a psychiatrist because he’s worried about dying in the war. He whines, he fails to pull the trigger when he needs to. He’s paralyzed by the “hell of war.” Right. Director Kathryn Bigelow has this character telling us how bad war is. We’re rarely shown though.
The story meanders until you wonder: What’s going on? At one point the EOD team is driving through the desert and happens upon a bunch of British Mercenaries. Ah yes. Mercenaries. Like…pirates. Bad… And since they’re bad mercenaries, not only do they shoot two escaping, handcuffed prisoners in the back (of course, this could be done in war, as the prisoners could return to fighting, but we’re reminded that mercenaries are bad when one mutters something about the monetary value of the escapees, then cuts them down with a burst of gunfire), but they simply aren’t very good at fighting insurgents. One of the mercs goes prone with a .50 cal sniper rifle, takes aim on two insurgents in a small shack–and proceeds to miss by three feet. And so does one of the EOD guy who takes the rifle after pirate/mercenary catches a bullet in the gut.
All through the movie, we don’t meet one person with honor. Not one good guy. Oh sure, SFC James likes kids. He plays soccer with an Iraqi kid. But then the kid disappears and James believes Iraqis selling DVDs on base are insurgents. So James goes rogue and starts hunting insurgents on his own. All he manages is to shoot the whiny Specialist in the leg by accident, thus proving to us that: War is Bad. Gee, thanks.
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Now I know I’m being tough on this highly regarded movie. But it won 22 awards. I don’t get it.
The movie gets the uniform right. It’s real army stuff. I was happy with that, as most films do an atrocious job with this, something that seems so easy. Except for the combat patches that the team members wear. All three are deployed with the same unit, but James–of course–is different; he wears a 75th Ranger Battalion combat patch.
In the end, I found that the movie was just about a guy who’s addicted to adrenaline. It took a whole movie to say this. There’s little suspense. The best thing that could have happened in the movie would have been for James to get blown up, end the movie with him being crippled, but somehow continuing in the war.
I think maybe, that papers like the New York Times drooled over this because–like Avatar– it shows military people to be weak, psychopathic, shallow and outright cowardly. Everything a good liberal would believe. Not once does it show the comradeship that comes when men share great physical danger. Not once is there a hint of professionalism. The Soldier’s Creed: I am and Expert and I am a Professional.
The cinematography was top notch so I’ll watch it again, but I think I’ll come to the same conclusions.
War Deniers
George Orwell said that the quickest way to end a war is to lose it.
The left has a way of helping us end wars: They deny they even exist. They’ve mocked the term: “Global War on Terror”. It was a denial of its existence. They fail to see or even feel, the boiling hatred of Wahhabism. And when they do, they join the Wahhabists in blaming America.
Islam is being swallowed by the ultra-violent sects. If it were not so, a man could not walk into a mosque, detonate himself in the name of Allah, and fail to rouse anti-extremist fervor amongst Muslims. Instead, there’s barely a murmur. There are however a few speeches given by the War Deniers assuring us that: “This isn’t really Islam.”
What is it then?
Intensity vs duration
I thought up a pretty good analogy of why the Afghan and Iraq Wars took way too long, and not until we “surged” several times and changed our tactics, did we see real results.
Let’s compare the wars with exercise physiology.
In exercise, two important factors are intensity and duration. As the intensity of your training goes up, the duration must go down. It’s the difference between walking for an hour and sprinting for an hour. You simply can’t do the latter. Too much intensity. Or, you can do 6 repetions of curls with a 50 lb dumbell and your bicep may reach exhaustion. Then try doing pinkie finger curls. You could probably reach 500 and keep going; very little intensity.
And guess what? Intensity trumps duration when it comes to reaping athletic and health benefits. That’s right, Eight, twenty second wind sprints has more hormonal and physiological impact than running five miles. More bang for the buck. As a matter of fact, if you don’t have enough intensity, you’ll see virtually no changes in your physiology.
Same goes for war. Either go hard, or go long. Can’t do both. And if your opponent goes hard when you try to go long, guess who wins? He does.
We tried to fight these wars with too little intensity. We needn’t have begun carpet bombing civilian populations or lighting huts on fire. We did however, need much more closing with and destroying the enemy. We couldn’t take the pain of an intense sprint (read: the pain of CNN reporters interpreting every action as American attrocity), so we’re still doing a funky race-walk. And we looked stupid just like race-walkers do. Our politicians chose to take the most well educated, well equipped, most physically fit infantry in the history of any war (yes–we’re better than the Greatest Generation–our politicians don’t know it, but we do) and make them sing kumbaya.
Only, the Taliban doesn’t know kumbaya. They know how to fight pretty well though.
Afghanistan is not Iraq, but let’s fight to win anyway
The Taliban is indeed a threat to the human rights of the people of Afghanistan. But let’s be honest and clear: It is not to be a Neo-Caliphate.
Upon the invasion of Iraq al-Qaeda committed itself to a type of war that America was ill prepared to wage: A public, full-scale insurgency designed to leach the will from each of our citizens who saw the body counts scroll-daily- across the bottom of 24 hour news channels. Everyday, America lost hope. With each deadly IED blast, our soldiers left earthly confines, civilians shook their heads and questioned if the fight was worth our blood.
Al-Qaeda almost won.
We almost quit. Politicians scurried to the media cameras as quickly as a long-lost relative emerges from anonymity to claim his part of a dead cousin’s will. Shameless populism became the order of the day. The country almost collapsed into civil war. Some say it did. The semantics matter little.What matters is the destruction wrought. The Left gained the impetus it needed to ensure victories in the House, Senate and Oval Office. The Uber-Left blamed Bush and the cliche’ Military Industrial Complex for millions of deaths. In reality, it was Al-Qaeda’s terror regime and resultant disruption of Law and Order that killed so many Iraqis. America’s armed forces scurried to be strong everywhere and got strength nowhere. We needed more war fighters. Patraeus stepped to the front with a plan, which to this day many Democrats deny determined the outcome of the war. It was the Sunni Awakening they claimed. The people had seen enough violence from Al-Qaeda and dropped the dime on Terror Inc. they said. It’s senseless though to claim that more of our men on the ground could have not had an impact.
In Iraq, defeat was never an option. Had America–at the urgings of the Democrats and now-President Obama–retreated, the American global colossus would have collapsed. Al-Qaeda would have gained a firm, oil-rich foothold in the heart of the Middle East. That’s bad.
Republicans and Democrats have Afghanistan both right and wrong. The Republicans want more troops, but deceive themselves into thinking that Afghanistan is of global importance. More troops will help in warding off the Taliban, but more soldiers on the ground will not make Afghanistan an important place to fight a major war. Wasting the lives of soldiers on marginal strategic endeavors is stupid. And we don’t even have the excuse of “you broke it, you fix it” like in Iraq. Afghanistan has always been broken.
The Democrats, too have an incomplete vision of the war. Many oppose more troops, while supporting counter-insurgency. Counter-insurgency will not work, even with 40,000 more troops. It’ll be that much worse with current troop levels. To support McChrystal’s brand of war without massive amounts of troops is an impossibility, especially give the fact that Afghan President Maliki’s government is terminally corrupt–just as one would expect from an Afghan government. No rule of law equals no counterinsurgency equals no democracy.
Positivism moves the world. Pessimists sit in dark rooms wondering, angry at God for not existing. I appreciate Oliver North, General Patraeus and others who, given a mission, set about to make it happen regardless of the odds. Giving up always means failing.
But shouldn’t unbridled positivism be tempered with realistic expectations and cost-efficient strategy? The question is not always Can I? but Should I? There are better ways to do things than what we’re doing now.
An American retreat from Afghanistan would inevitably lead to a declaration of victory by the Taliban. Were it not for the media, their cries of triumph would mean nothing; they would still exist in a country where held-held radios are state of the art technology, possessing little education, and unable to threaten America. And now we do have a responsibility to the people of Afghanistan who we’ve promised American protection. America should not break her promises. But the Taliban is a far cry from the well-funded and educated al-Qaeda network. Hydra-like and possessed of a fervor alien to comfortable, agnostic Westerners, al-Qaeda presented a formidable post-modern foe.
So, stay in Afghanistan but attack known Taliban strongholds with full military operations. Special Operations cannot win this war anymore than airpower can win it. It’s a full-spectrum operation, and that involves moving in Tanks and Strykers that are resistant to IEDs and small arms fire. We have once again committed to war on an unproven premise, but it’s better to win than lose, regardless of the reason for being in the fight in the first place.
America’s military has never failed when their chains were removed. There is no political reason, as in Korea or Vietnam, to hold our men back. Only wrong perceptions by our politicians who fear CNN’s cameras more than our enemies fear M-16 assault rifles keep us from ending this quickly.
Foster tolerance, friendship and cooperation amongst those who desire it. Punish and relentlessly pursue those who refuse peace. It’s a simple formula that Rome practiced for 700 years with unmatched historical success. Should we find a leader with courage, America would have little difficulty in convincing the Taliban that peace is better than war.
Will Iraq fall back to chaos when America leaves?
In this article , Dick Cheney states concerns about possible insurgents waiting for the imminent US withdrawal from Iraqi cities. While the article’s title: “Cheney fears Iraq withdrawal will ‘waste’ U.S. sacrifices” insinuates that Cheney is against the withdrawal, I think he is only expressing concerns that most people have.
It’s unlikely at this point that another insurgency will take hold in Iraq. Al-Qaeda lost the minds of the people, which is the only real thing terrorism seeks to gain. In fact, at this point, with the Iraqi army trained up by the Americans. it may be that violence goes down when we leave the cities, and at the very least, it won’t be Americans that are the targets of suicide bombings. Narrowing the target selection of terrorists to Iraqi forces and civilians will even further erode the insurgency’s chances of gaining a foothold.
With a properly trained Iraqi security force and the American strawman gone, we can expect Iraq to move forward as a viable democratic state in the Middle East.
Soldier commits fratricide
Not surprisingly, the hottest story on the web right now is the horrible slaying of five US Soldiers by one of their own.
It really bugs me though, that the common thread in all of these types if bylines is that somehow the war itself is causing these breakdowns. Look, the average day, week month and year of deployment in this type of war is boring. You’re in a country, “inside the wire” of your FOB (Forward Operating Base) and you just want the smells, sounds and sites of your own land. There aren’t bombs going off next to you every day.
Wilburn Russell was a communications specialist with the 54th Engineer Battalion, stationed here in Bamberg, Germany. He wasn’t going toe-to-toe with Jihadists.
I’m here to tell you a horrible secret: Soldiers love fighting. They love killing the enemy. I won’t lie to you. They love even more, helping people and building schools that make people happy, but don’t ever think that there isn’t something about fighting that makes a warrior want to stay a warrior. He just learns to properly channel his desires. It’s difficult to be good at something you hate. You learn that strength must be tempered with justice.
What drives many to the edge, is boredom. Boredom creates too many thoughts.Thoughts become nightmares. Nightmares can become realities mingled with blood.
The media will want us to believe that this is a problem associated with the war. In reality, it is a problem associated with being human. Sgt. Russell had problems. Many people do, and do not resort to mass murder. Russell was a short timer. He was almost done with his tour. It seems that if the war were the problem, the small amount of time he had remaining to fight it would have soothed the pain. I suspect the source of his pain was much more complex than even war.
Left-wing media outlets have tried this type of thing before. And they got spanked for not checking the facts. Remember this one, by the New York Times? It’s a huge article, and it’s size contributes to its ability to convince. It turns out though, to be The Big Lie.
The truth? The Department of Justice’s studies into the matter show something quite different: Veterans between the ages of 18-24 commit homicide at about half the rate of the civilian populace in the same age group. Other age groups show lower rates, too.
Even Obama’s Department of Homeland Security has jumped to the easy conclusion that veterans become so tainted by war, that there is a significant danger of them becoming terrorists.
What do you suppose Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's views on the military are? Does she really strike you as someone who's tough on terrorism?
This will continue, no matter the facts. There’s a point to prove: War’s bad.
No kidding.
Mr. McGovern, with all due respect…
George McGovern, Democratic candidate for president in 1972, has this to say about our troops in Iraq, and what the Obama administration should do about it. He says bring them home by Thanksgiving of 2009.
Mr. McGovern believes that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have something to do with the world-wide recession, and also thinks that the wars are responsible for Islamic terrorism.
McGovern offers me no solutions other than retreat. He recalls American relief when troops were recalled from the Korean War, but his comparison falls flat when he registers the number of American casualties in the Korean War: 38,000. He speaks of the tens-of-thousands of Iraqi deaths. But he ignores that it was Al-Qaeda’s death squads that made it the group’s policy to kill as many civilians as possible in order to discredit the American military. And he must overlook the fact that American soldiers willingly signed up for their duties when they raised their hand and swore the oath. Of course, they didn’t want to die, but quite a few of them wanted to make the enemies of America die…
Even the war in Afghanistan is troublesome to McGovern. And he has called for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq for several years now; it seems that whatever motivates McGovern’s agenda, the safety of Iraqis is not one of them. I know he remembers quite well what happened to the people of South Vietnam when the last Americans were airlifted from the embassy roof in Saigon. Soon the North Vietnamese swarmed south, killing millions. The Hippies marched for peace and we watched our friends die. The 3 million souls lost under a maniacal Saddam don’t seem to give McGovern any second thoughts; only America’s shortcomings.
As for the “decline of our moral standing in the world”; I don’t buy it. MSNBC buys it–but not me. I live in Europe and talk with Germans often. I never get any anti-American sentiment. Not once–and I’m a soldier. American jounalists hate America much more than Europeans do.
The former senator states that he is sure that all of our problems with terrorism stem from our involvements in the Middle East. Osama bin Laden agrees with you, Mr. Senator. It’s the mantra of Al-Qaeda. Bin Laden says we must leave Saudi Arabia, a nation whose government wants us there.
Mr. McGovern, with all due respect, this war has been being waged for 1300 years. When it ends, when the Arab nations, whose 40% illiteracy rates stagger an entire race, finally collapse under a mass of ignorance, and are then consumed my their own ravenous mythology, then we’ll have peace.
Al-Qaeda did it, not America
I was at the book store flipping through blogger/journalist Michael Yon’s new book yesterday.
All I can say is: If you have an interest in the Iraq War–buy this book. Yon’s blog link is on my blog-roll and you can check out some of his other contributions to war journalism. I was stunned at some of the photographs Yon captured while in Iraq at the peak of the fighting. Photos of men in the mid-fall after being struck by 7.62 rounds. Puffs of powdered cement as bullets skipped of walls right next to US soldier’s heads.
Yon is a former member of the US Special Forces–and he’s virtually fearless. I like him too because he’s been criticized by both the Left and the Right. I can appreciate someone who doesn’t find it necessary to pander to carry on. As Yon says, if you want to make money writing, tell people what they want to hear. If the war in Iraq matters to you though,–tell the truth. Leftists hate him because he was the first to report that the surge worked and that US soldiers were not raping and pillaging. On the other hand, twice Yon has been kicked out of military units because he pissed off some colonel.
By reading this book, you'll see that the Iraqis knew who destroyed Iraq: Al-Qaeda did.
Yon is not an appologist for Bush. He does not hesitate to call Al-Qaeda what it is, though. Evil and in need of destruction. He documents over and over the un-reported events that show what Iraqis really think of America: That we saved them from a horrible regime.
One Iraqi who thought he was going to die , as he lay bleeding begged soldiers to cut his heart out and bury it in America. Iraqi boys dream of becoming US soldiers. One Iraqi man said: “Look what Al-Qaeda has done to my country.”
That statement caught me off guard. I knew it intellectually, that it was not America causing the violence. But to see the words from an Iraqi changed the meaning for me. Al-Qaeda, bent on establishing a Neo-Caliphate ruled by absolutists, recruited former Baathists and set about to ruin everything. And aided by our own media, they almost succeeded. Insurgents killed anyone they could in order discredit America. And yet we were blamed.
It’s a bit like blaming a woman’s rape on the fact that she wore tight pants or a short skirt.
Now that Obama is president however, Time magazine is making statements like ” Afghanistan: Why failure is not an option.”
Slow learners them folks. But Afghanistan’s not as important as Iraq was and is. Time wants it to be because their president thinks it is.
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