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.
To service members protesting in the Occupy Wallstreet movement: Get Real
On today’s front page of the Stars and Stripes paper, a “sailor” sporting lug-nut sized earrings marches proudly beside a “soldier” whose chin is carapaced under a bushy goatee. The article carrying this photo says that military veterans have joined the Occupy Wall Street movement and some are protesting the much higher wages that “corporate contractors” made in relation to what service members made while in war zones.
First of all, if money is the primary reason that someone is in the military, they should get out. There’re easier ways to make money outside the military. Secondly, the complaint about the contractors is ridiculous, at least in the context of what these protests are supposedly about. Most of the contractors–a huge majority–are former military personnel with specialized skills. The military hires them to fulfill two needs: 1) The specialized, technical skills those contractors possess aren’t easily found in 22 year old E4 Specialists. 2) Force Caps, or the maximum number of troops that Congress allows in Afghanistan and Iraq, hinders operations, and in order to get around that, the billets are filled with contractors whom have to pay for their own insurance, their own house back home. With the contractors level of experience and college education, they’d be making similar money in the military if we counted benefits such as housing, training pay and TRICARE insurance. Plus they could look forward to federal retirement pay. And did military pay go down when we began paying a lot of contractors? Not to my knowledge.
These contractors also almost always have college degrees, or decades experience in a specialized field, such as law enforcement persons training foreign national troops.
I’m assuming that the two people marching in the protest are not currently in the military, because neither met the grooming or dress standards for anyone in the US Navy or Army. And since they are protesting, it may be safe to assume that they are having a difficult time with finances. In fact, below the photo in Stars and Stripes, the writer cites a complaint about service members having a difficult time after service. Why did they leave the military? Even if the military is not the best situation for many people, it would seem better than being unemployed. But I guess our government has made unemployment so comfortable an existence that it’s preferable to a real job with great benefits. And you can always protest in hopes the government will give you the benefits you had when you were working.
Speaking of which. The protesting service members should know that one of the things the Wall Street mob wants, is a free ride through college, and all their college debts paid off by–who else–the government. Otherwise known as all the people who aren’t protesting but are actually working so as to generate taxable income. As military veterans they have access to a fantastic thing called the GI Bill. Have they used it? Or did they throw away a job with no plan for the future?
To tell the truth, I have no idea if the two people in Stars and Stripes are really current or ex-service members. Since ACORN got caught paying people to protest, it would actually be pure genius to pay some people to pose as disgruntled vets, just begging for more dole.
But if they are real, I’m embarrassed for them and by them. If they’re not in the military anymore, I’m glad. If they are they should spend more time studying for the next promotion board so they can make more money. And they got more free stuff in the military than they’ll get anywhere else.
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.
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.
WikiLeaks
The recent classified info dump on WikiLeaks is a violation of the nation’s trust, but it is not a catastrophic indictment of the war effort.
Americans should be concerned that there are people who have high-level security clearances that disseminate information they are sworn to protect. Some have an axe to grind with the military, like this traitor, the very smart but traitorous Army Intelligence Analyst, Bradley Manning, who gave WikiLeaks a Top Secret video of US helicopters attacking and killing a group of people, two of which were Reuters journalists.
Whomever released these files to WikiLeaks is either in desperate need of attention or has an anti-war agenda. Quite probably, the person needs to have a spotlight on himself and justifies his actions with an anti-war meme.
That the recent leaks, from what is now known, are in any way “chilling” or devastating” is beyond laughable. Very little of what is not already widely known was released. People are more offended by the details than by the actual content. It’s like the hamburgers and sausages we eat: We love the taste, just don’t show us film of the process for making them.
Most valuable information is called ”Actionable Intelligence”. That is, intelligence which can be acted on immediately. For instance, let’s say that a credible source tells a Special Forces team on the ground in southern Afghanistan that Osama bin Laden in living in a hole two miles from their location, that they saw him not more than an hour ago and he’s supposed to be there for another day. That kind of information would bring immediate results should a SF A Team move and capture bin Laden. General intelligence, such as “IEDs are the primary weapon used by insurgents” does not give the US information that immediately impacts the war. A compromise in Actionable Intelligence is far more dangerous than compromised general intel. This compromise of an Israeli operation is an example of compromised Actionable Intel.
Information in the released files will be spun in every direction. Many people will be “horrified” by information that is rather banal. But, whatever some may say, it is an undisputed fact that the the files were leaked by people sworn to protect them from release. Those people operate under a cloak of anonymity. What they are doing is not brave, nor does it serve a greater good; most of the information leaked tells little. These people so entrusted, when and if they are found, should be prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law. Not only can’t they be trusted, but their hubris enabled them to believe they were more important than all the other people fighting this war.
A pig with lipstick is still a pig
According to this report, the Whitehouse has banned the use of the word Islam when it comes to describing or reporting Islamic terrorists.
This doctrine was proven true, when in the Pentagon’s report on Major Hasan’s assassination of 13 US Soldiers could not even mention the fact that Hasan was a fundamentalist Islamic, or that Islam was a prime, motivating factor in his crime. Here is a man who made contact with al-Qaeda officials approximately 20 times, yelled the name of his Muslim god as he repeatedly drilled lead into men he swore to fight and die with–if need be. Major Hasan was some Soldier’s last hope. He treated people with PTSD who have fought in our wars. He betrayed them. He betrayed his nation. If not Islam, what was his motivation?
The coffins of Soldiers killed by Major Hasan
What a slap in the face to the Soldiers who sought psychiatric care from the Army. Instead of worrying about damaged warriors who put their life on the line, the Pentagon and this administration were worried about offending people sworn to kill us.
The reflexive argument is: Well, just because Timothy McVeigh declared he was a Christian, doesn’t mean all Christians want to be mass murderers.
Is this where we’ve come? Do we not know by instinct whom the enemy is? Sure, it is not all Islamic peoples. This is a Great Strawman set up by people who’ve never been in a real conflict. We don’t–and never have–targeted all Islamic people. We’ve protected them when they were the victims of genocide. Does anyone remember Bosnia? Kosovo?
We are targeting the men whom are targeting us, and they happen to be Muslims. If you are Muslim, and are not committed to jihad against the United States, then you are not our enemy. Is it not that simple? Can we not see the degrees between one, lone bomber in Oklahoma City two decades ago, and the onrushing wave of thousands of sworn jihadists? How does the label of Christian terrorist stand against Muslim terrorist? About 15,000 dead people since 2001 is the difference. But our incompetant Secretary of Homeland Security worries about backlash against Muslims. Like that’s the way Americans act. She believes that the average American is a raving red-neck with a 2nd grade education, a trunk-load of ammunition and an urge to kill people with mocha-colored skin. I got news for ya, Janet.
And yet, General George Casey, Army Chief of Staff had this to say after Hasan mowed down his own (we thought) brothers:
“What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here.”
Diversity? Who joined the Army because of diversity? Most people joined the military because of sameness. They hoped that all of the people that they worked with respected America and its values. They knew that each person standing and fighting beside them had raised their right hand and promised to die before giving up the Republic. They joined not because they hoped everyone was different, but because–despite the differences– everyone could function as a team. General Casey said it outright: Being different is more important than the safety and integrity of the Soldier’s unit. General Casey was saying exactly what he thought this administration wanted him to say. Because Democrats are obsessed with diversity.
Who was the enemy in Germany in 1943? Can we call them Nazis? I’m sure not every person registered tot he Nazi Party actually picked up a rifle and shot at our troops.
In 1864, who was the Union Army fighting? Was it ok to call them Rebels? Or did that just make them fight harder and create more enemies?
What exactly would it take to be able to call the majority of modern-day terrorists, Islamic?
Here’s the ironic thing: The terrorists want us to know that they are acolytes of Islam. That’s why they plead guilty in most of the cases against them. They state clearly that they want the West to clearly understand that they knew what they were doing and that they are proud to be fighting in the name of Allah.
And yet the current administration takes the course of an ostrich; it buries its head and hopes its enemies won’t see its gigantic, bulbous body. We’ll drone on endlessly about Guantanomo. Our elites will smack their lips over lattes in smug agreement. But when Soldiers die, Amnesty International is nowhere to be found.
We can expect that the platitudes will keep flying. Political Correctness is worth dying for to some. But it’s an insult to the intellectually honest.
COIN operated politics
Suppose a child is misbehaving. He or she repeatedly throws a fit when told it’s time for bed. A single mom, tired and reminded daily by Oprah-esque talk shows that children should never feel pain, decides that the best course of action is to offer a cookie to the child just before bed. 
She has just made her life more difficult and taught the child that misbehavior brings concession and reward. Now the child will throw fits and get cookies.
This is exactly what some (mis) interpretations of FM 3-24 (The Army field manual outlining counter-insurgency operations) brought us. I knew our efforts in Afghanistan were all but lost when, a few months back at the beginning of the McChrystal surge, I heard a Marine officer tell a reporter: “If I kill one civilian in the course of killing 10,000 insurgents, I’ve just made my job here tougher.” My jaw dropped. You’d think America never won a war by killing its enemies. The sheiks take our money and cooperate with the Taliban. They know that no matter what they do, we’ll be nice. So now America is the exasperated single mom.
It is our politicians who’ve politicized our military, not our generals. We laud civilian control, but ignore that it is in fact the generals who are the experts. While they do not make policy–nor should they–they should be listened to. But they hardly ever are until it’s too late. The case of General Eric Shinseki is the obvious lesson. He told Congress we needed “several hundred-thousand troops”. Then he got sent to the locker room.
So we moved from Rumsfeld’s ”Shock and Awe” (EBO, or Effects Based Operations), which hoped laser-guided munitions would make people drop dirty Kalashnikovs, to COIN. Both offer dreamy visions of near-bloodless war. In the first case, we can destroy our enemies’ “critical nodes” and make him combat ineffective. In the second case, we can give billions of dollars to locals sheiks and never have to pull a trigger. In both cases people forgot to refer to the history books. German bombing didn’t kill English determination, and American and English bombing of German railroads and ball bearing factories, while helpful, did not stop the Wehrmacht–only a titanic wave of soldiers from both sides of the Rhineland did that.
The politicization of military operations has many deleterious effects, but the most prominent is “either/or” thinking and rhetoric. We must either protect civilian populations at all costs (even at the cost of losing) or we must carpet bomb villages with no military value. Those are the only two options to COIN operated politics. The Marine officer’s statement about 10,000 insurgents vs. 1 civilian is classic either/or thinking (ideology really).
It seems that our mid-level officers misinterpreted the COIN manual. During the Iraqi surge under General Patraeus, airstrike frequency massively increased. He understood that while killing innocents is undesirable and hurts our effort, he also understood that being overrun by al-Qaeda was a much more direct route to getting our rears–Read: heads– handed to us. And he understood that ultimately his responsibility is to the American Soldier. Politicians value votes much more than Soldier’s lives. If they only understood that even under the best conditions, COIN offers only long wars, which are politically unsustainable. One statement that Patraeus made in recent testimony before Congress is that counter insurgency does not prevent us from actively targeting terrorists for destruction. One politician, encapsulated by either/or, asked why we don’t go to a pure counter-terror strategy.
A thousand history lessons cannot blunt the razor-sharp arrogance of theoreticians. While they give us romantic platitudes about the genius of Hannibal, Scipio and Napoleon, they’d have us believe that–just like the failed McClellan–we can go about victory by circumventing attriting the enemy. They hate William Sherman because his methods were not nice. And yet they cannot give me an example of any wars won with bribes.
Liberal McChrystal eaten by his own
Rumor has it that General McChrystal was an uber liberal who went so far as to ban Fox News from his office. This would explain why he’d let self-proclaimed ambush artist Michael Hastings into the fold and why Obama gave McChrystal the job in the first place.
Here’s Michael Hastings proving he’s scum in an interview with GQ mag:
But “The dance with staffers is a perilous one. You’re probably not going to get much, if any, one-on-one time with the candidate, which means your sources of information are the people who work for him. So you pretend to be friendly and nonthreatening, and over time you “build trust,” which everybody involved knows is an illusion. If the time comes, if your editor calls for it, you’re supposed to fuck them over”
The Left may hate us, but we won’t let them down.
“I’ll never let you down, even if I could. I’d give up everything, if only for your good….when your education X-ray cannot see under my skin, I won’t tell you a damn thing that I would not tell my fans. Now roaming through this darkness I’m alive but I’m alone, part of me is fighting this, but part of me is gone.”~Love Me When I’m gone, Three Doors Down.
They’ll hate you in secret and in the sacred halls of Yale. But don’t ever think they won’t ask you to do their dirty and tough work. The uneducated, they say–that’s who you are. They have no honor, only wry and sarcastic smiles. They know what’s best for you.
In reality these are only people who have experienced no pain in life. They’d melt were they exposed to a week of a what a Soldier or Marine has to do on a daily basis, fighting against the worst the world has to offer, receiving only the sneers of Nancy Pelosi in return.
We need not romanticize the American Soldier. We’ll call him what he is: A stoic, rough warrior who has little time for political semantics or philosophical banter. He’s too busy and too tired, the bullets are too real, the explosions too powerful. Yes, they’ll hate you, but they’ll ask you to kill our enemies–and you won’t let them down. You never have. The American Soldier, from the 17 year old conscripts of Vietnam, to the picket fence fighters of WWII have always killed more than they’ve been killed. It’s only the politicians, whose vague understandings of human psychology, warfare and the nature of the Will, have improperly used your skills and wasted your lives.
But you’ll get blamed in the end.
When they send you places you shouldn’t be, if you are fighting evil–which now you are–than fight hard and never give up. Don’t think about what others will say–follow your instincts and conscience. The Monday Morning Quarterbacks will question your actions from their desks. They’ll go shopping and buy a new plasma television.
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