In order to find success in Afghanistan, we'll have to convince the supporters of the insurgency, and the insurgents themselves, that there is more value in supporting the government than the Taliban. General Petraeus is optimistic about that prospect:
"The prospect for reconciliation with senior Taliban leaders certainly looms out there, and there have been approaches at [the] very senior level that hold some promise," Petraeus said Thursday.
Petraeus, the Afghanistan war's commanding general, briefed reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who arrived in the Afghan capital after a stop in Iraq on Wednesday to mark the end of combat operations there. Petraeus' spokesman said the high-levels talks so far have been between Afghans and do not involve U.S. officials.
I hope so, but it is important to remember that the government we are expecting these insurgents to support isn't that credible itself. That may be the largest obstacle to reconciliation and ultimately to success in a war that is already nine years old.
Regardless of whether it was hold, cold, raining, clear, breezy or still, there was one omnipresent inconvenience you could never escape at Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan. Anyone who has ever been on the place already knows what it is I am referring to.
On any given day at KAF, it is certain that the lingering smell of the man-made landmark known as the "shit pond" will be all around you.
For those who haven't been to KAF, the "shit pond" is exactly what it sounds like. There is no septic, sewage or water treatment facility on the sprawling installation. All of the human waste from across the base is piped into one central location, a large man-made lake that could serve as a DNA record of every service member ever deployed to the AO.
By next summer, however, NATO plans to close down the site, which the more couth Jeff Schogol at Stars & Stripes' calls the "poo pond", and replace it with a new water treatment facility:
The infamous lake of sewage at Kandahar Air Field affectionately known as the "Poo Pond" is set to be replaced in June with a new wastewater treatment plant, said Karl Mahon, a spokesman for NATO.
"The current sewage treatment lagoon, as part of decommissioning, will be emptied and then filled in," Mahon said in an e-mail. "Currently, there is no plan for use of this area of the site once decommissioning is completed".
This makes me feel kind of like when we went from black to desert boots in the Army. Yeah, it was nice not having to spit shine boots any longer, but damn it if that wasn't a task that gave the institution character, and younger soldiers needed to spend their time shining boots just like I did.
So while it will be nice for future iterations of KAF dwellers to not have to smell a giant lake of feces everyday, KAF will lose a little bit of its character next year, and those stationed there won't have the character building experience of waking up each morning to the smell of human waste.
The President must make that clear tonight. Though planned combat operations are done, every single one of the 50,000 remaining troops is a combat troop. There's a reason that convoys are called "combat patrols." There could still be casualties. Whether our troops engage in combat will be decided on the ground in Iraq, not in Washington, DC.
Additionally, the war within Iraq still rages on. There is no stable government. There is no long-term settlement among Iraq's factions on issues such as oil-revenue sharing. We are all pleased that the President stuck to the Status of Forces Agreement negotiated by the past administration, and the removal of thousands and thousands of Americans is a good development. But, by no means is this war over.
One need look no further than Somalia and Beirut for what happened at what were supposed to just be peacekeeping operations to know that there are no guarantees. Heck, one need look no further than the last declaration of major combat operations being over and "mission accomplished." The point is, the President cannot and should not use this as a "victory speech," no matter what his pollsters tell him. Should he do so, it's very likely to blow up in his face.
Additionally, the President should look to Iraq for lessons that can be applied to Afghanistan - a war he will surely note was put on the back-burner because of Iraq. While the Iraq surge was a tactical success because American troops are the best in the world, it still is not a strategic success. The surge was never complemented by a surge in diplomatic and political armies, and as such, we just were keeping the cork on the bottle. As attacks mount in Iraq among warring factions absent American forces, that lesson has become all too clear.
The President has made his decision to ramp up troop levels in Afghanistan far past what he promised during the campaign. Many veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq disagreed - favoring a more limited counter-terror operation. But, now that the decision has been made, the President must ensure that the Afghanistan surge is not a military one alone. Unless a non-corrupt and stable government with the confidence of the Afghan people is put into place, there can never be real success in Afghanistan.
The purpose of writing all of this isn't to minimize the accomplishments of this administration when it comes to keeping their timeline for moving troops out of Iraq. Nor is it to be a 'Debbie Downer.' It's my sincere hope - as it is all of ours - that Iraq stabilizes and we can fully remove our troops. And, of course, all Iraq and Afghanistan veterans stand with the rest of America in wanting to see success in Afghanistan.
But, where the previous administration continually blew smoke and painted rosy pictures regarding the wars, this President must deal honestly with the American people. Only by doing so - by being straight about the challenges we still face - can the American people be prepared for the tough road ahead.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-KY) will be speaking tomorrow before the American Legion Convention (color me surprised) in an address that will criticize the Commander-in-Chief without any sense of irony:
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) intends to broadcast his differences with the Obama administration's national security policy in his second major policy address in as many weeks.
The top-ranking House Republican, who supported President Obama's request for additional troops in Afghanistan, will highlight his growing concerns "about how Washington is implementing the new strategy there," a Boehner aide told The Hill.
The would-be Speaker will also focus on his differences with the administration's handling of the broader war on terror.
"He will also discuss the war on terrorism, this administration's handling of attempted terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and its lack of a comprehensive strategy to confront and defeat the terrorist threat," the aide explained.
Remember, this is the same John Boehner that spent eight years carrying water for the previous Administration which had NO strategy in Afghanistan, other than to neglect it and allow it to spiral downward to the situation we have today where even the most narrowly defined metrics for success may be unobtainable. This is the same John Boehner who lead the cheers for George Bush in Iraq where we did nothing but empower Iran and weaken our armed forces nearly to the breaking point while allowing al-Qaeda to reconstitute capacity after initial defeats prior to the invasion of Iraq.
There are legitimate points of criticism for the current policy in Afghanistan. We've articulated many of them here. But on this subject, John Boehner has no credibility and should really just keep his mouth shut. Funny though, his nonsensical ramblings on a subject of which he has no authority will find an audience with the American Legion.
A combined security force captured Zia Ul Haq, who was described as "a senior Taliban commander operating in Logar province and responsible for the facilitation of foreign fighters and suicide bombers into Kabul City," according to an International Security Assistance Force press release. ISAF often uses the term "foreign fighters" to describe al-Qaida operatives.
Haq was detained along with a Taliban sub-commander "responsible for planning and coordinating attacks" and a fighter during a raid in Pul-e 'Alam on Aug. 26.
One day, we'll realize that Obama Administration directives on intelligence and interrogations just don't help us find those that would do us harm. Back to waterboarding and CIA black sites, please.
And may be justifiably so, being that he said some pretty inflammatory things about his superiors, though he didn't name them by names:
Consider it a new version of death by PowerPoint. The NATO command in Afghanistan has fired a staff officer who publicly criticized its interminable briefings, its over-reliance on Microsoft's slide-show program, and what he considered its crushing bureaucracy.
Army Col. Lawrence Sellin, a 61-year old reservist from New Jersey who served in Afghanistan and Iraq prior to this deployment, got the sack Thursday from his job as a staff officer at the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command in Kabul. The hammer fell barely 48 hours after United Press International ran a passionate op-ed he wrote to lament that "little of substance is really done here." He tells Danger Room, "I feel quite rather alone here at the moment."
The colonel's rant called into question whether ISAF's revamped command structure, charged with coordinating the day-by-day war effort, was much more than a briefing factory. Or, as Sellin put it, "endless tinkering with PowerPoint slides to conform with the idiosyncrasies of cognitively challenged generals in order to spoon-feed them information."
Anyone who has worked in a head-shed knows he is correct, and I wish he would have found another target other than generals. Maybe just leaving it at "the cognitively challenged" would have been fine. He'd probably find support from CENTCOM Commander General James Mattis, who once said "PowerPoint makes us stupid."
Some officers don't want to hear any information unless it can be briefed on a slide, accompanied by a red, green or amber status. How do you categorize the nuances of counterinsurgency or conventional combat that way on a daily basis?
Then there is the time required to make pretty slides that would make the savviest administrative assistant blush. Many staff officers spend so much time making slides for a brief that they can't accomplish their regular duties, only to be attacked in that briefing for one of those duties not being classified as "green".
It's really taxing, and it's what leads us to a paradigm where we are trying to fight wars like this:
Norwegian journalist Paul Refsdal was somehow able to score an embed with Taliban forces in eastern Afghanistan. Aside from the utterly asinine commentary from the anchor in the beginning, this is a really insightful peace of journalism:
Here are some observations:
Some will be angry that this guy was hanging out with the enemy, and I can definitely understand that sentiment and even share it, partially. But this video has real value, aside from journalistic and historical value, in the intelligence contained within. This is a recorded display of enemy TTPs. Also, the shots Refsdal took can be used to easily identify the fighting positions of Darwan and his men.
Refsdal seems to not understand the Taliban's penchant for exaggeration. "Killed 30 men with this weapon" likely means fired a couple shots at a FOB. "80 mujaheddin" in "groups of 10" is probably more like 12 in buddy teams. A "stopped patrol" with a "destroyed vehicle" and "troops are killed" likely means they shot a tire out on a humvee.
Darwan says "they do this when they are wounded", referring to indirect fire. Interesting that his perception is that, rather than "they do this when our attack has revealed our position".
Again, I find this video incredibly valuable. However, as they say in the Army, there is a fine line between stupid and hooah. I don't think there's any question as to which of those two categories "white guy embedding with Taliban forces" falls in to (it's definitely not "hooah").
For more commentary on this, check out Spencer and Ex.
G4 has ordered a high-stakes documentary-style reality show that follows a bomb-disposal squad in Afghanistan.
Billed as a real-life version of the Oscar-winning film "The Hurt Locker," the Comcast-owned cable channel has ordered 10 one-hour episodes of "Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan."
The show's producers (unrelated to the team behind the film) secured a special agreement with the U.S. Navy to follow an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit. The show will cover the unit's training sessions in the States and its deployment for several months in Afghanistan.
I have two issues with this. First, I can't imagine this kind of thing being done in any manner other than a trivializing way that makes it look like an episode of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here! We've all seen the way ridiculous reality shows are cut and edited for those with short attention spans. Spinning sparkling graphics, quick cut aways, lack of context, etc. This thing will be craptastic and will surely gloss over the realities and nuances of combat.
Second is an operational concern. What are they going to show to make this thing interesting? Actual EOD bomb techs dismantling ordinance? The equipment they use and how it works? That will be a great instructional video for the enemy on how to build IEDs that are more complicated to thwart. This thing has a serious potential to endanger the lives of our troops down range.
I realize I'm making a lot of assumptions on the content here, but how else will the show be produced where viewers will actually want to see it? Guy puts on bomb suit (viewed from a distance so as not to show any vulnerabilities the suit may have) and walks towards what may be an IED. Cut to "confessional" of bomb tech saying "yep, I dismantled that ordinance". That would be boring, and anything that would make it not boring shouldn't be shown on television.
Let's hope this thing get's squashed before it ever airs.
This weekend, Commander, ISAF General David Petraeus appeared on NBC's Meet the Press in his first television interview since taking command of forces in Afghanistan. I've snagged some clips of what I feel are some of the most interesting excerpts and would like to offer some analysis.
In an interview broadcast Sunday morning on NBC's Meet the Press, Army Gen. David Petraeus said the U.S. faces the same tough question in Afghanistan today as it did two years ago when it chose to fight the Iraqi insurgency with dialogue as well as bullets.
"That doesn't mean Mullah Omar is going to stroll down the main street of Kabul anytime soon and raise his hand and swear an oath on the constitution of Afghanistan," Petraeus said, referring to the spiritual head of the Taliban. "But there's every possibility of low- and midlevel [officials'] reintegration and indeed some fracturing of senior leadership that could be defined as reconciliation."
This is the most interesting point and I've been saying this for months with some criticism. However, it's a fairly obvious point. We can't kill our way to victory in this conflict. Most of those we fight in the insurgency aren't fierce ideologues. The case is simply that supporting the insurgency has been demonstrably more valuable to them than supporting the coalition and national government. We haven't brought them security, we haven't brought them jobs, we haven't brought them development. The Taliban has offered them death for supporting us. It's a pretty simple equation.
We can't turn the tide on the insurgency until they have a reason to support the national government. If we can get Taliban supporters to see value in what we offer, such as positions within a legitimate national government (legitimacy being a challenge in itself) or other avenues of influence, there may be hope yet.
[When asked what he's been reading, the] general responded that he had recently been reading about the historiography of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and how historians' views of him had changed over the decades.
Gregory responded: "Funny you should say that because I have this quote prepared for you from someone that you admire. It is this. 'I'm not a politician. Never was. I hope never to be.' Do you know who said that?"
After identifying the quote as being from Grant, who did go on to become president, Petraeus added, "Well, I am not a politician, and I will never be. And I say that with absolute conviction."
Yeah, we've heard that before and I hope it's true. Petraeus is a brilliant tactician and I hope his thoughts on his command aren't clouded by future aspirations. He needs to be focused on the task at hand. That being said, a friend of mine with knowledge of inside jokes within the Pentagon has told me that one of the most popular is that "Petraeus's next job doesn't require a uniform", referring to the politician-blue suit of a candidate. We'll see what happens, but either way it's a positive thing that Petraeus is dispelling any current notion of his political future (side point: even if he did plan on it, wouldn't he deny it anyway?).
In his first interview since taking over as head of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus told NBC's David Gregory that when "a lot of us came out of Iraq in late 2008 and started looking intently at Afghanistan, we realized that we did not have the organizations that are required for the conduct and the comprehensive civil/military counterinsurgency campaign."
In the interview, which was conducted last week in Kabul and aired Sunday, Petraeus did not specifically criticize former President George W. Bush, who promoted him to head of U.S. Central Command in April 2008. But the timetable he described left little doubt that he believed the Bush administration inadequately laid the groundwork for integrating Afghan leaders into the allied military structure.
"Over the last 18 months or so" - Bush left the White House 18 months ago - "what we've sought to do in Afghanistan is to get the inputs right for the first time," Petraeus said. "We needed to refine the concepts - to build, in some cases, concepts that didn't exist" seven years after the Afghan war began in October 2001.
Other interesting stories relate to this point: The sky is blue, the grass is green, bears defecate in the wood, dogs urinate on fire hydrants, and the Pope is Catholic.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered that all private security contractors cease operations within the country within four months. AP, via Stripes:
A presidential decree expected to be issued later Monday will detail the process through which the companies should cease operations, spokesman Waheed Omar told reporters in Kabul.
President Hamid Karzai has said repeatedly in recent months that these companies undermine government security forces, creating a parallel security structure. Contractors perform duties ranging from guarding supply convoys to personal security details for diplomats and businessmen.
So, believe it or not, Karzai is actually doing something right that he deserves praise for. Mercenary armies that provide private security services undermine nearly every aspect of the combat mission. Mercenary contractors deserve large portions of the blame for everything from the poor reputation of coalition forces, to even the funding of the insurgency. What's worse, they fall within no jurisdiction for legal accountability.
Personally, I doubt that this four month deadline will be met. However, Karzai has gotten the ball rolling for moving mercs out of that combat zone, and that's a good thing.
Earlier this week I wrote about a new law designed to keep tobacco out of the hands of children also essentially banned the shipment of cigarettes and cigars down range. Well, thankfully the Postal Service is altering the policy:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The U.S. Postal Service said Thursday that it plans to resume shipping care packages with cigarettes and other tobacco to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[...]
"It's a very delicate balancing act to remain in compliance with the law and serve the needs of our customers and in this particular case those brave men and women overseas," Frey said.
The new instructions would allow tobacco shipments to military addresses through Priority Mail, which does ship to deployed troops, with delivery confirmation instead.
Good on the USPS for realizing this problem and correcting it with a quickness. They deserve an attaboy.
This weekend, I found myself unexpectedly outside of my mid-sized Alabama town and in Dallas, Texas. While looking for things to do to fill out this unanticipated trip I noticed that Restrepo, a documentary about an infantry platoon's year in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, was playing. The film has been in limited release and as much as I've wanted to see it, it hasn't played anywhere near me.
Restrepo captures both the misery and the absurdity of combat better than any war film ever seen. If you have yet to see Restrepo, here is your fair warning that you should expect nothing short of a masterpiece. For those who do have experience in combat, be sure you are emotionally and mentally in a place to watch the most realistic depiction of combat you've ever seen, outside of being there yourself.
For me, Restrepo held personal relevance. During the same period that 2nd Platoon, B Company, 2-503rd was in the Korengal Valley, my battalion was at Jalallabad attached to their higher headquarters. We also sent guys into the Korengal and while I didn't personally know anyone from the documentary, there were faces I recognized as guys who came back to J-Bad for resupply or other purposes. There were moments in the film I remember happening back then, like Operation Rock Avalanche and the mass-cas incident with 2-503rd's C Company.
I can't lie, with my personal attachment to the events in the film, it may have been the hardest film to watch that I've ever seen. There were more than a few moments that I sat in my theater seat biting my bottom lip and holding down the lump in my throat. Kate (who posted her own review here) sent me a text after I got out asking if I plan on seeing it again. I said I don't know if I can. No, Restrepo is not an easy film to watch. It is, however, a fiercely important film to watch.
As Kate mentioned in her review, Restrepo does not have a political aim. It doesn't paint Soldiers of mythical heros. It doesn't try to convince you that Afghanistan isn't worth winning, neither does it attempt to persuade that it is a worthy fight. If Restrepo had attempted to do any of those things it would have been of exponentially lesser quality than the film I saw this weekend.
Often, when I'm asked about what it was like being in Afghanistan by civilians, I tell them it was the most fun I ever had being miserable. That probably sounds ridiculous to anyone who has never been deployed, but those who have know exactly what I mean. Yeah, being deployed sucks. It really sucks. But you also develop loyalty and camaraderie with a group of fellow Soldiers who become your only family, and involve yourselves in some of those ridiculous activities imaginable just to maintain sanity. Yeah, my deployment was RPG's flying over my head, not showering for weeks at a time, and carrying a flag-draped coffin onto a C-17. But it was also making professional wrestling style championship belts out of PT belts for our nightly dominos game and blasting the chosen theme song for who ever won the game on a given evening.
That's what combat was like for me, and that is what you see in Restrepo. What's sad is that while the film did take the prestigious Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, it won't even have an outside shot at Best Picture at the Oscars here in America. Last year, as you'll remember, a "war movie" that billed itself as an accurate depiction of combat, yet had no basis in reality whatsoever, took that award. The Hurt Locker is a children's cartoon compared to Restrepo.
Restrepo's brilliance lies in it's simplicity, even though the subject matter is not simple at all. It's a fifteen-month view of the face of Soldiers at war, packed into 90 minutes. It's raw. It's real. It's what anyone who asks the "what's it like question" should see for their answer, and what those of us who already know that answer should see as well.
VoteVets.org friend and reporter for Wired magazine Spencer Ackerman is on the ground in Afghanistan to spend some time embedded with U.S. troops there. This isn't Spencer's first rodeo having done several previous embeds in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Spencer has an interesting write up this morning about what post-surge Bagram looks like. It's a good read for anyone who has been on the sprawling base outside of Kabul:
Step off a C-17 cargo plane, as I did very early Friday morning, and you see a flight line packed with planes. When I was last here two years ago, helicopters crowded the runways and fixed-wing aircraft were -- well, if not rare, still a notable sight. Today you've got C-17s, Predators, F-16s, F-15s, MC-12 passenger planes ... I didn't see any of the C-130 cargo craft, but they're here somewhere.
More notable than the overstuffed runways is the over-driven road. Disney Drive, the main thoroughfare that rings the eight-square-mile base, used to feature pedestrians with reflective sashes over their PT uniforms carrying Styrofoam boxes of leftovers out of the mess halls. And those guys are still there.
But now the western part of Disney is a two-lane parking lot of Humvees, flamboyant cargo big-rigs from Pakistan known as jingle trucks, yellow DHL shipping vans, contractor vehicles and mud-caked flatbeds. If the Navy could figure out a way to bring a littoral-combat ship to a landlocked country, it would idle on Disney.
Expect to wait an eternity if you want to pull out onto the road. Cross the street at your own risk.
Then there are all the new facilities. West Disney has a fresh coat of cement -- something that's easy to come by, now that the Turkish firm Yukcel manufactures cement right inside Bagram's walls.
There on the flightline: the skeletons of new hangars. New towers with particleboard for terraces. A skyline of cranes. The omnipresent plastic banner on a girder-and-cement seedling advertising a new project built by cut-rate labor paid by Inglett and Stubbs International
Oh boy. Can't wait to hear the nuts across the spectrum freak out about this:
WASHINGTON -- The author of the Rolling Stone article that ended the military career of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former top commander in Afghanistan, has been denied permission to join U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
Defense Department spokesman Col. David Lapan told reporters that freelance writer Michael Hastings was rebuffed when he asked to accompany, or "embed," with American forces next month.
Prediction: the extremes on both sides are going to act like this is the Pentagon trying to run Pravda. From both sides, you'll hear that Obama is trying to censor information, only from different perspectives. Either because he doesn't want us to know that the war in Afghanistan is terrible and our troops want to target civilians etc. etc. etc., or because he doesn't want us to know that America's fighting men and women don't want to follow their Commander-in-Chief.
Of course, neither of those things are true. But truth never mattered to extremists.
I never really go on T.V. I've got a face meant for radio. So, every time there is a big national security or Veteran's story in the news I usually get tapped by my employer to go on that medium and discuss said issue. Sometimes its something that will air nationally on NPR or a syndicated show, but more often than that it's local affiliates or regional syndicates and their morning/mid-day talk shows. For those smaller market shows, it's usually left up to me whether or not to do them. There's a reason I say no to most (not all) right-wing or teabagger shows. There's no point in allowing access when you know you the coverage you get will be bad. It's an unforced error.
So, yeah, we need good, honest journalists in the combat zones. But Michael Hastings knows what he wrote and why his embed got denied. And I bet if you asked Hastings if he was surprised, he'll tell you he wasn't.
I've got no problem with Hastings. Any other reporter would have done the same thing. The fault lies with Stan McChrystal and his loose lipped man. What I do have a problem with is those on the extremes that will argue that this is something extraordinary, when it is nothing of the sort.
At a place I spent the better part of fourteen months:
Taliban militants have attacked the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan.
Officials say the militants first launched rockets on the Kandahar airfield in southern Afghanistan Tuesday. They say insurgents wearing suicide vests then tried to storm the base.
The assault sparked an hour-long gun battle, but the attackers did not breach the perimeter.
Afghan officials say an international soldier was wounded in the attack. They say several of the attackers were killed in the fighting.
Taliban insurgents previously tried to storm the Kandahar base in May.
Not to mention on the heels of attacks at Bagram, and less recent attacks at other major outposts in the country.
In a counterinsurgency, an increase in attacks and casualties is expected after an increase in troops. What is troubling is that the attacks are getting more coordinated and increasingly directed at larger targets.
It's Monday morning, and nothing beats starting the week off with the same old broken record: Afghanistan RoE has not been overly restrictive. We simply have a culture within the ranks that discourages nuance and dumbs everything down to a 3x5 card.
What's worse is that the media understands this but still feels the need to write about it with sensationalist headlines that seem to make it appear as though they do not. We have seen this most apparently lately in the discussion as to when and whether General Petraeus would issue new RoE removing the "restrictions" promulgated by General McChrystal.
Of course, though, General Petraeus never stated or insinuated that non-existent "restrictions" would be rolled back, only that current RoE would be clarified. But don't tell that to the Wall Street Journal, who is running with this headline and teaser:
Petraeus Resets Afghan Airstrike Rules
Amid Review of U.S. Strategy, Military Eases Restrictions on Attacks Against Insurgents Hiding in Abandoned Buildings
When I first read that, I assumed I'd be writing today about how the WSJ are simply idiots who do not understand the RoE (the second part of that I still agree with, since the RoE is classified). But upon reading the article, I found that the author does understand what is going on with Petraeus's clarification:
Gen. Petraeus, who has spoken often about how civilian deaths undermine a counterinsurgency effort, is expected to largely keep in place limits on the use of airstrikes. Two senior military officials said Gen. Petraeus would largely keep intact Gen. McChrystal's previous guidance on the use of force-and will emphasize his support for Gen. McChrystal's efforts to limit civilian casualties.
Last week, Gen. Petraeus issued new counterinsurgency guidelines that largely continue the practices laid out by Gen. McChrystal. The guidance tells troops to position their outposts near population centers in order to better protect the population, to be careful that money paid out for projects or contracts doesn't go to the insurgency, and to confront corrupt officials.
Are you doing a double take? Because I know I did.
Yeah, the same article that is teased with:
Military Eases Restrictions on Attacks Against Insurgents Hiding in Abandoned Buildings
includes the graph that says:
Gen. Petraeus, who has spoken often about how civilian deaths undermine a counterinsurgency effort, is expected to largely keep in place limits on the use of airstrikes.
In fact, if you read the entire article, there is not one solitary sentence about "easing restrictions", mostly because those restrictions never existed in the first place. But that doesn't stop WSJ, a Murdoch-owned paper, from leading with a headline that perpetuates the myth that Soldiers are fighting with their hands tied.
And the fish-wrap industry wonders why they can no longer sell papers. Give me a call Rupert, I'll explain it to you.
General (GEN) Stanley McChrystal's recent dismissal has spurred a host of articles that quote US troops complaining about his controversial rules of engagement (ROEs) directives in Afghanistan. The reasoning underlying these complaints usually shows a lack of understanding of counterinsurgency doctrine, an unwillingness to accept its logic, or both. The stubborn refusal of many servicemembers to accept McChrystal's "courageous restraint" directive calls into question our military's suitability for population-centric counterinsurgency.
By now, the reasoning behind the restrictive ROEs is well known: Insurgents depend on support from the civilian inhabitants (whether the distinction between insurgents and "civilian inhabitants" is always meaningful is another question) of their theater of operations. GEN McChrystal termed it "Insurgent Math": Every time you kill an innocent person, you create ten new insurgents (my estimate was three). GEN McChrystal further elaborated that, "Destroying a home or property jeopardizes the livelihood of an entire family and creates more insurgents."
In a June 23, 2010 radio bit titled, "Troops Surprised About Gen. McChrystal's Ouster," NPR correspondent Tom Bowman told his colleague that, "Now, clearly, you know, [the troops] don't want to kill innocent civilians, but they believe their hands are tied in going after the Taliban." It's certainly true that a portion of the troops, perhaps the majority, have no desire to kill innocent civilians. What America is not being honest with itself about, however, is that a significant minority don't really care how many civilians are killed as long as they are allowed to do what they imagine to be their jobs:
"He should be fired," said a 23-year-old specialist who recently completed a deployment in Afghanistan. "Today's rules of engagement in Afghanistan is a Taliban weapon that is commonly used against American forces" (WaPo, June 24).
"We have all of these stupid rules that in the end wind up hurting more people. I mean, hesitation can mean death out here," said a soldier serving in the South (Time, July 7).
Complaining in the infamous Rolling Stone article that the ROEs defeated the purpose of his deployment to Afghanistan, PFC Jared Pautsch opined,
"We should just drop a fucking bomb on this place. You sit and ask yourself: What are we doing here?"
A lot of Americans sympathize with the troops on issues like shootings at vehicle checkpoints (escalations of force [EOFs], in euphemistic military parlance) in which a civilian vehicle is engaged after a servicemember, in a "split second decision," perceives the vehicle to be a threat. Frankly, much of this sympathy is overblown. In most of the EOFs that I witnessed in Iraq from 2003-2006, I could not identify any behavior that was threatening or even unusual for a vehicle in an urban area. Often, the only act that triggered the engagement of a civilian vehicle was the crossing of an imaginary line that, even when marked, couldn't possibly have held the same significance for the driver that it did for the Marine shooting him. I found that a considerable number of Marines were simply unwilling or unable to see things from the civilian's perspective despite being able to rattle off General Mattis' 5-3-5 (which include "First, do no harm" and "Iraqis are not our enemy, but our enemy hides amongst them") without hesitation. GEN McChrystal confirmed that this hadn't changed as of early 2010 when, during a virtual town hall meeting with troops in Afghanistan, he said, "To my knowledge, in the nine-plus months I've been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it." In fairness, McChrystal also acknowledged that his ROEs were sometimes bastardized in the bureaucratic route from his pen to a card in a combat armsman's hip pocket.
Some might say that no one ever said the troops had to agree with the doctrine or should be held responsible for conditions that were essentially brought about by policy decisions. True as this is, the widely accepted narrative is that because of their honor and bravery, the troops are exercising restraint, protecting civilians, and have unimpeachable discipline such that any ROE given to them will be obeyed without question. This assumption, and the limits of imposed discipline generally, clearly need a closer look. Psychologists Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo showed decades ago in separate experiments that ordinary people readily rationalize harming innocents, and a full third of them may even take pleasure in it, when a higher authority takes responsibility for the human cost. No individual factor (e.g., economic class or parental upbringing) accounted for by Milgram or Zimbardo was able to predict this behavior in subjects yet, astoundingly, their findings remain absent as caveats to "honor" and "bravery" in the discourse on military restraint.
A compounding factor rarely addressed by, well, anyone at all, is that servicemembers who kill civilians, whether intentionally or accidentally, will usually escape legal scrutiny. This is partly inherent in the decentralized nature of counterinsurgency - commanders cannot be everywhere at once. It's virtually impossible to fact-check or even identify a falsified patrol report unless relatives of the victims approach US forces and accept all the accompanying complications, from risking yet another EOF to insurgent retaliation to US forces' disbelief. Suffice it to say that I have firsthand knowledge of the regularity with which cover-ups and their many rationalizations can occur below the platoon level. Ask yourself: What's to stop them?
There are many reasons why US troops have such a hard time accepting the wisdom of strict ROEs. It's not that they are uniquely bad or undisciplined. One factor, perhaps the most important, is common to all highly functional militaries: Primary group cohesion, otherwise known as "brotherhood." By the time a combat arms unit deploys to Afghanistan, its members have spent months of hardship in training during which they've forged deep interpersonal bonds. Their desire to protect each other is often valued over (or fallaciously equated with) accomplishment of the counterinsurgency mission:
Marines [in Marjah] had intelligence that insurgents intended to target approaching U.S. forces with 50-gallon drums filled with homemade explosives and metal fragments. But when officers at the command asked for permission to strike from the regional command in Kandahar, they were rejected...The Marines proposed targeting the drums at an angle to avoid damaging the house in case, as one officer noted, "they contained baby milk." Again they were denied. Finally, as the sun rose, a Marine unit began approaching the compound. The frustrated officer, fearful that a detonation would kill the troops, declared the target a case of self-defense. No longer was he required to seek permission. Three Hellfire missiles were launched at the drums, igniting them into a huge fireball, indicating that they were filled with explosives. "You can't fight a war like this," the officer growled [emphasis added] (WaPo, July 9).
To make matters worse, recruit training in the Army and Marine Corps is purposefully designed to inculcate an unqualified desire in soldiers and Marines to violate powerful psychological and cultural taboos on killing. I don't argue that boot camp should stop training soldiers to kill, but I do assert that conditioning humans to kill fundamentally changes their psyche in ways that cannot be switched off like a light switch when the time comes to perform counterinsurgency. Besides, some recruits join the military specifically because they want to kill people, even if that's not the reason they give their families.
Another reason, for which I have less direct proof but which seems nevertheless apparent, is that US culture is generally very individualistic. Like all militaries, the US military strives to foster a strongly collective orientation. It can't be denied, though, that recruiting and incentives have been tailored to an individualistic population. The late Army of One campaign is the most obvious example. The Post 9/11 GI Bill, which offers the prospect of a full ride in college at the expense of a yet undetermined generation of taxpayers, is another. Self-denying ROEs are a major source of cognitive dissonance for the individually minded:
"If we allow soldiers to die in Afghanistan at the hands of a leader who says, 'We're going to protect civilians rather than soldiers,' what's going to happen on the ground?" said a junior Army officer in southern Afghanistan. "The soldiers are not going to execute the mission to the best of their ability. They won't put their hearts into the mission. That's the kind of atmosphere we're building" (WaPo, July 9).
There are, of course, some servicemembers who do get courageous restraint:
"The guys down here get emotional because friends get hurt, and we see bad guys every day," said LTC Johnny Davis, commander of the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division. "What you want to do is be patient. It doesn't have to be right now. If he is not a threat to you or not giving you effective fire, separate him from the people...Just yesterday we captured a three-man team, with the jugs, the command wire. So, that's how you do it. And you have to be patient, and take them out one cell at a time" (NPR, July 1).
Nevertheless, this key tenet of counterinsurgency has not been internalized across the rank and file, even after all of our setbacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. It seems mighty unlikely that true understanding of courageous restraint will suddenly sink in anytime soon. If the mission is to go on unchanged, our military leadership needs to answer several lingering questions:
If we take Insurgent Math as a given, and even one soldier out of ten finds his way around the ROEs, will the other nine soldiers have a chance to destroy or neutralize more insurgents than he creates?
How should Afghans weigh the chance of being killed by us against the probability of enjoying a stable country when we're through?
At what moral cost comes the eventual outcome of the war? If we take as a given the shaky assumption that the Afghanistan campaign prevents terrorist attacks on US soil, are American lives worth more than Afghan lives?
Nor would institutionalizing restraint guarantee our success. McChrystal himself acknowledged that counterinsurgency is "easy to lose," and locals can be annoyingly finicky when it comes to foreign occupations. What's harder for many people to accept is that escalating force in a people's war ultimately makes victory less likely, not more. The need for strict ROEs is "unfair" in the sense that heeding it will not necessarily endear the locals but dismissing it will probably convince them to support the insurgency. The French in Algeria learned that victory derived from brutally wiping out the FLN was painfully short-lived. As an important mentor once related to me, "The French defeated the insurgency the first three times. It was the fourth time that was a problem." In fact, RAND just released a study adding to the mountain of evidence that "repression wins phases, but usually not cases" of counterinsurgency in the last 30 years. Of course, force ceases to be futile at the genocidal level.
Unfortunately for guys like PFC Pautsch, the US simply does not have enough at stake in Afghanistan to lower itself to just dropping a fucking bomb on the place. Standing by our values is more important even if, yes, we lose the war. It is imperative that military leaders are forthcoming with their civilian leadership (prerequisite is being forthcoming with themselves) about prospects for US success in the current iteration of counterinsurgency versus other options like Columbia Professor Austin Long's counterterrorism proposal; to do otherwise is reckless and irresponsible. For the American citizenship, being that we are the United States and not the terrorists we claim to be protecting ourselves from, it is time to take an honest look at whether our military is cut out for what it has been asked to do in Afghanistan.
KABUL, Afghanistan -- A second U.S. Navy Sailor who went missing in a dangerous part of eastern Afghanistan was found dead and his body recovered, a senior U.S. military official and Afghan officials said Thursday.
The family of Petty Officer 3rd Class Jarod Newlove, a 25-year-old from the Seattle area, had been notified of his death, the U.S. military official said on condition of anonymity, because he was not authorized to disclose the information.
More thoughts and/or prayers go out to Petty Officer Newlove's family.
One of two U.S. sailors missing in Afghanistan since last week has been confirmed dead and his body recovered, a NATO spokesman said Tuesday.
The search continues for the other missing sailor, said Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a spokesman for NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
The two Navy personnel went missing Friday in the eastern province of Logar, after an armored sport utility vehicle was seen driving into a Taliban-held area. NATO officials were unable to say what they were doing in such a dangerous part of eastern Afghanistan.
I don't know what else to add to this. Like all of our K.I.A.'s, this just sucks.
Conservative military scholar Max Boot articulates what I've been saying for months:
[Afghanistan's rules of engagement have] resulted in a handful of highly publicized cases, recycled many times in news accounts, in which troops complain that they were prevented from calling in badly needed air strikes. It appears likely that McChrystal's broad directives, while well-intentioned, were interpreted too bureaucratically and too narrowly by some units. That is something that General David Petraeus and his operational commander, Lieutenant General David Rodriguez, are now studying to determine whether adjustments are necessary.
I'm not pretending that Max Boot stole this idea for me. These are simply the facts and Boot and I, among others, have come to the same conclusion on them-- that is the rational conclusion.
The problem, however, still needs to be fixed. A culture needs to be developed within the ranks where leaders insure that the RoE is understood, with all its nuance, from the regional commander all the way down to the lowest E-1 in a rifle squad. We can't keep dumbing things down to a card that fits in the wallet or breast pocket and expect Soldiers and leaders to then make the most tactically sound decisions. Our Soldiers are intelligent. We have the most professional fighting force in the history of the world. To expect any less of them is an insult to their professionalism and threatens their safety on the battlefield.
Once upon a time, sounds like a fairy tale beginning but even as we've sunk to the depths of incivility in more then our politics in this country, it isn't a fairy tale I assure you. For once there was a closer resemblance to debating issues and cross political party ideology, good or bad, were really discussed seriously.
What do the Vietnam congressional debates have to do with the now, as Sen. John Kerry says "lawmakers' meetings during the Vietnam War offer useful lessons for the discussing the Afghanistan war."
As Spencer notes, calling them a militia isn't accurate, as they are government uniformed and government payed, and likening them to the Anbar Awakening is wrong as well since they are not former insurgents. However, General Petraeus is seeking to install the closest replication of his similar strategy from Iraq that we have yet seen in Afghanistan:
In a welcome step forward for the Obama administration's beleaguered war strategy, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has approved a U.S.-backed plan to create local defense forces across the country in an attempt to build grass-roots opposition to the Taliban, U.S. and Afghan officials said Wednesday.
The program calls for hiring as many as 10,000 "community police" officers, who would be vetted and paid by the Afghan Interior Ministry, according to a senior Afghan government official. Karzai had objected to plans that did not place all elements of such a force under direct government control.
This is going to be interesting to watch unfold. This could either end up being exponentially productive for Afghan governance, or go horribly wrong.
The Afghan National Police are widely seen as corrupt. Dissertation rates have plagued the ANP, and even if those problems didn't exist they are marked as being an arm of Hamid Karzai's Afghan National Government, an entity that is not seen as legitimate by the overwhelming majority of Afghans. These local defense forces will be able to provide security to local populations without being seen as ambassadors for Karzai. It also has the potential to bring security to areas of Afghanistan that might not have any sort of security force anytime soon, as a result of the lack of availability of trainers for national police.
On the other hand, Afghanistan has a long history of fierce tribalism and rule by warlords. Administrators will have to walk a fine line between providing support for local security and facilitating warlordism (did I just make that word up?).
July 13: Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, talks with Rachel Maddow about the history of the relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the different Taliban groups active in the region.
The Army put out a message to soldiers who will receive new MultiCam uniforms for Afghanistan - don't plan on wearing your fancy new duds to the bank at lunch time.
The strict new rules that will govern the fielding and wear of the new Operation Enduring Freedom Camouflage Pattern uniforms are laid out in a June 10 All Army Activities message.
"OCP is authorized for wear in Afghanistan only," the message states. "Only U.S. Army soldiers and members of other services assigned to U.S. Army units operating in Afghanistan are authorized" to wear the new pattern.
I remember when the ACU was fielded, one of the reasons was that it would save taxpayer money on combat only uniforms (the DCU). I guess after burning tons of money facing out the BDU, we're going the other way on that.
U.S. Gen. David Petraeus lauded Pakistan's efforts at battling Islamist militants Monday during his first visit here since taking over as top NATO commander in neighboring Afghanistan this month.
A top American military commander headed for Afghanistan on Tuesday said he would not be surprised by links between Pakistan's spy agency ISI and Islamist extremist organisations, who have established a safe haven in Pakistan's restive tribal region.
Yeah, I get that Petraeus can't get in front of cameras in Islamabad, stand next to the chief of the Pakistani Army, and call the country out for supporting the Taliban if we hope to have a cooperative relationship with that country, or if we ever hope to convince them to stop aiding the Taliban. I just hope that after the cameras were turned off and the journalists left, Petraeus relayed some stern language regarding the ISI to Pakistani officials.
Why are we still in Afghanistan? Let's dissect some of the common myths:
Myth #1: Not 'finishing the job' dishonors our fallen.
The premise is preposterous. Losing more Americans in pursuit of this mission is not honoring our fallen Brothers and Sisters. This endeavor is not one of national security; we are not 'fighting for our freedoms'; and we are not securing the homeland either directly of indirectly. Many service-members, whether wounded or not, deployed or not......proclaim a sense of duty to be there in the fight. But one needs to analyze the premise behind this. To be sure, there are some who fervently believe that they are fighting the 'good fight'....for our security and freedom. But many others also support the war out of guilt, revenge, ignorance and misplaced patriotism.
The primary basis of support is simply to be there with one's Brothers; a sense of duty to our comrades. I don't mean to denigrate anyone in uniform....before deploying to Baghdad and witnessing firsthand how the war was not being prosecuted as it was being portrayed, I was a quasi-true believer. I understand firsthand the gamut of emotions that go through a warriors mind concerning the justification and correctness of a given cause, when it involves the clash of arms and accompanying loss.
Myth #2: If we leave, the Taliban will simply swarm back in and Al Qaeda will have another sanctuary.
The Taliban, being a disparate collection of semi-aligned tribes as opposed to a monolithic entity, are defending their nation against foreign invasion. This doesn't mean we approve of the Taliban or their ideology....but our opinion cannot be pasted atop a label. What the Taliban fighters believe is what motivates them, it is what is true for them. To insinuate otherwise is putting ones head in the sand. When we leave, the Karzai Regime will surely fall, and either civil war will emerge, or a coalition government will be formed. Possibly a bit of both. The Taliban will play a part in the future of Afghanistan...don't believe me? Even Karzai has expressed such a view in his peace overtures to them:
According to a former senior Afghan official, Mr. Karzai's maneuverings involve secret negotiations with the Taliban outside the purview of American and NATO officials.
"The president has lost his confidence in the capability of either the coalition or his own government to protect this country," Mr. Saleh said in an interview at his home. "President Karzai has never announced that NATO will lose, but the way that he does not proudly own the campaign shows that he doesn't trust it is working."
People close to the president say he began to lose confidence in the Americans last summer, after national elections in which independent monitors determined that nearly one million ballots had been stolen on Mr. Karzai's behalf. The rift worsened in December, when President Obama announced that he intended to begin reducing the number of American troops by the summer of 2011.
"Karzai told me that he can't trust the Americans to fix the situation here," said a Western diplomat in Kabul, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He believes they stole his legitimacy during the elections last year. And then they said publicly that they were going to leave."
The common meme is that once back in power, they would again provide sanctuary to Al Qaeda. This myth is perpetrated without thought, evidence or questioning by the media. After hundreds of hours of interrogations and interviews, we know that there is no love lost between the two organizations. Further, they each have a Islam-based, but separate set of goals and strategy. Finally, the Taliban Regime experienced invasion and devastation once due to that arrangement....somebody show me evidence as to why they would risk that again.
Let's continue.......Al Qaeda doesn't need a country for a sanctuary. That's the fundamental premise of a terror-based organization. They need safe house, not geographic regions. There is no compelling interest for Al Qaeda to return in any numbers to Afghanistan except to attack US and coalition forces. If they did.....unlike our invasion in 2001 where we relied on Soviet maps, we now have networks established with friendly tribes, better cultural understanding, and geospatial knowledge that allows us to locate and target any major presence with impunity.
Myth #3: We have to 'fight them over there' because they 'hate us for our freedoms'.
This myth relies on released statements from Al Qaeda where they rail against the decadent west, infidels and puppets. But interviews and interrogations reveal a different story. Almost to a source, they fight against the west because of the long history of economic and military intervention of Muslim nations, and the installation of dictatorial tyrants. This myth is perpetuated largely because we as Americans shy away from ignominious episodes of our own history. We don't like to be reminded of the darker side of Manifest Destiny, the Philippine Insurrection, slavery, etc...
The information campaign - or as some still would have it, "the war of ideas," or the struggle for "hearts and minds" - is important to every war effort. In this war it is an essential objective, because the larger goals of U.S. strategy depend on separating the vast majority of non-violent Muslims from the radical-militant Islamist-Jihadists. But American efforts have not only failed in this respect: they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended.
American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single-digits in some Arab societies.
• Muslims do not "hate our freedom," but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states.
• Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy. Moreover, saying that "freedom is the future of the Middle East" is seen as patronizing, suggesting that Arabs are like the enslaved peoples of the old Communist World - but Muslims do not feel this way: they feel oppressed, but not enslaved.
• Furthermore, in the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. U.S. actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim selfdetermination.
• Therefore, the dramatic narrative since 9/11 has essentially borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars. American actions and the flow of events have elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims. Fighting groups portray themselves as the true defenders of an Ummah (the entire Muslim community) invaded and under attack - to broad public support.
• What was a marginal network is now an Ummah-wide movement of fighting groups. Not only has there been a proliferation of "terrorist" groups: the unifying context of a shared cause creates a sense of affiliation across the many cultural and sectarian boundaries that divide Islam.
• Finally, Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic - namely, that the war is all about us. As the Muslims see it, everything about the war is - for Americans - really no more than an extension of American domestic politics and its great game. This perception is of course necessarily heightened by election-year atmospherics, but nonetheless sustains their impression that when Americans talk to Muslims they are really just talking to themselves.
The clowns on talk radio quite often rail against the current CinC for merely acknowledging these wrongs, calling it 'apologizing'. But the simple fact remains that we have engaged in a form of economic manifest destiny in the oil rich Muslim region, installed horribly corrupt tyrants through nefarious and undemocratic means and intervened militarily wherever we desired out of perceived economic necessity or Cold War strategic chess. Some of these action weren't completely antithetical to both our security situation or alliances...but what matters when your getting attacked, is the mindset of the enemy. Apology or not, we're being targeted due to the Muslim perception of events....not a patriotic spin of the issue.
Given the logical dissection of the reasons we're still in Afghanistan......what premise makes any sense for staying? My earlier post on Gen. McChrystal forced me to re-think Chairman Steele's remarks. In a very real way, since 2009, this IS Obama's war. He could have shown the political courage and analyzed the truths and myths of our occupation, and chosen a new direction. A direction that would be productive in strengthening our national security as opposed to our current counter-productive stance. A direction that would divert money being spent on Taliban-esque Afghan warlords, and instead secured our borders and port security. But most of all.....a direction that would see thousands of smart, promising and loved Americans still alive...instead of dying for a cause that will likely end in an embassy rooftop evacuation in Kabul.
Restrepo, a documentary that follows a platoon of soldiers in the remote Korengal Valley of Afghanistan, takes you deep into the dynamics of war and those fighting it. The film takes its name from a 15-man outpost, considered one of the most dangerous installations in the country, named after Private First Class Restrepo, a platoon medic that was killed in action fighting to defend it. Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger, the film's producers, directors, and cameramen, spent 10 months in the valley in an attempt to grasp the realities of war and in turn expose it to those back home.
I attended a screening of the documentary July 6 at the New York State Museum in Albany, New York. As I waited in line to sign in, I overheard a woman who works at the museum say, "Well, this is more than the 15 people we expected." If only 15 people showed up for this free viewing, something is truly wrong with our society, I thought. The theater eventually reached its maximum occupancy and an overflow room was setup for more people to view the film. It's always the same crowds at these events; middle-aged white folks, a few college kids, an obvious group of male veterans, and a few female veterans that go unnoticed until they disclose their service when they ask a question. As we waited for the film to start people flipped through Junger's book, "War," and stared at their "Restrepo" posters.
The lights dimmed and for the next 90 minutes a group of strangers experienced a soldier's deployment. From firefights, the odd humor of war, the boredom, the undeniable bond between soldiers, death, a grown man crying, confusion, anger and misery, those in attendance watched as lives forever changed. But did the viewers walk away with a better understanding of a soldier's experience?
For the Afghanistan/Iraq Veteran, you will appreciate this documentary. You will understand the camaraderie, the dark humor, how some things just don't make sense in the military, you will appreciate that it's not all Hollywood-out, and you will get why "Barroom Hero" is playing at the end. The Vietnam Veteran will also find the film valuable. You might also wonder what the difference is between Vietnam and the current conflicts. I say this because this question was asked during the question and answer portion of the evening. Hetherington dropped a quick history lesson that is easily obtainable via Google and the evening rolled on.
Some viewers of Restrepo will leave confused and frustrated. You will want answers to questions this documentary cannot directly provide: "How is success defined in Afghanistan?" or "16,000 civilians have been killed...what are we doing over there?" or "I don't understand how we win?" I think Hetherington nailed it when he said, "You need to see what soldiers do there and digest it. Political opinions just get in the way." Let me clarify, this documentary is a gateway into the lives of soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. They are not attempting to answer your politically driven questions but to give you an honest perspective of their war. Side note, yelling out "Nine years, stupid!" isn't really helping anything.
Some viewers will look at this film and offer statements like, "God bless those who are fighting. Freedom is not free. We left those suckers alone they'd be blowing up our subways." Please think back to a few scenes in the documentary, where one soldiers speaks about how he cannot sleep anymore or when the documentary goes silent, the camera is zoomed in on the soldiers faces, and you are looking into the eyes of a changed man.
The loved ones of those serving will leave with a better understanding of what their soldier went through, and why they may not want to talk about their experiences overseas. Your heart will break for those who admit they have no idea how to they will integrate back into the civilian world, and how war is addictive. A woman asked, "Was it all bad?" After the audience stopped laughing, Hetherington said, "War is a very strange mix of things...love, hate, and brotherhood." Sergeant Brendan O'Byrne, one of the soldiers who appears in the film and answered questions, added, "I had a self-realization that I can't fight anymore. I know it sounds silly...but what I did was important over there."
After Restrepo ended I waited in line to speak with Hetherington. I couldn't understand why most of the questions asked centered on "winning" or why we were over there.Convinced half of the people fell asleep during the documentary, I asked Hetherington, "With all the questions so politically driven, do you believe people are missing the point of Restrepo?" To my surprise Hetherington answered "No." He explained how Restrepo gives every type of viewer something to chew on and gets the conversation started.
Restrepo is a captivating documentary that I believe every American should see, chew on, digest, and then start talking about. Put your politicial views aside for 90 minutes and go deep inside the hearts and minds of those fighting in the Korengal Valley.
"Can he listen no he won't, that's all she wrote, he'll be dead before the daylight shines, but the thoughts and prayers of a million strong might keep this fool from dying..." "Barroom Hero" by Dropkick Murphys.
You have voted to invest tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on a military mission in Afghanistan that many of you yourselves publicly regard as strategically ambiguous. It provokes the question, what is our real vital national security interest there?
The United States is currently attempting to build a nation-state with a centralized government where the local culture has traditionally resisted this and where our Afghani partners are widely regarded as corrupt, repressive, and un-malleable.
We clearly do not have the military or civilian resources to wrangle the Afghani warlords and their militias into a functioning representative government and even with adequate resources, it would require many more years, the loss of many more lives, and the expenditure of much more money that we do not have to shepherd one into existence. It is not a cost that anyone can realistically calculate and no one can be confident of a positive outcome at any time in the near future.
Our assumption is that rescuing Afghanistan from reverting back to a failed state under Taliban control is a necessary element of our strategy against Al Qaeda. Open-source reporting gives cause for skepticism on this point. An August 2009 report commissioned by the British Department of International Development (DFID), for example, indicated that the Taliban is largely motivated by nationalism and resentment of foreign occupation rather than internationalist political objectives. This leads one to consider the possibility that continued U.S. interference in Afghani politics may inadvertently entrench the Taliban into political alignment with Al Qaeda.
To prevent this from happening, a negotiated settlement with the Taliban should be explored. This should entail their non-interference with U.S. counter-terrorism missions targeting Al Qaeda on Afghan territory in exchange for U.S. non-interference in their local affairs. Such a settlement would mean turning a blind eye to their human rights abuses but ultimately the mission of the United States military is to protect our nation from threats to our collective security, not to engage in armed human rights missions in unstable or failed states around the world. In any case, we cannot even rely on our current Afghan partners to respect human rights, making this argument in favor of staying suspect.
Anyone who reads the news reports is aware that regardless of its good intentions, our military does not have enough resources to protect the civilian population against the Taliban, enabling it to strike at will and assassinate those local leaders who work with the United States. This has lead to an ambiguous utilitarian moral situation in which Afghani civilians are perpetually caught in the middle and victimized by both sides. Stability, however harsh, will come when the United States withdraws all military forces not essential to the counter-terrorist mission against Al Qaeda. Over decades this will allow the Afghani people to rebuild their systems of government organically from the ground up and soften the rule of their oppressors in a way that the United States simply cannot through force or political manipulation.
At present the United States is over $13 trillion in debt and rising. The unemployment level in this country is atrocious and our most basic and critical social safety nets are fraying. Most alarmingly, China's political influence over the United States is growing as a result of the hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. Treasury securities it holds. These national security liabilities should outweigh the stubborn pride of our generals and Executive officials as well as the electoral political calculations of Republicans and Democrats, which have so clearly hindered candid and honest debate on these subjects.
It is time for the United States to seriously explore strategic disengagement from Afghanistan in a way that allows our military and intelligence services to effectively execute the counter-terrorist mission against Al Qaeda without becoming bogged down in the local power struggles of Afghani warlords or dubious civilizing missions to which we do not have the resources to properly commit.
Thomas J. Buonomo
Former Military Intelligence Officer, U.S. Army
For Further Reading
Samdani, Mahlaqa. "Rewarding Reintegration: Reaching Out to the Taliban." CSIS; 26 January 2010.
Ladbury, Sarah. "Testing Hypotheses on Radicalisation in Afghanistan." Independent Report for the Department of International Development (DFID); 14 August 2009.
"The al-Qaeda-Taliban Nexus." Council on Foreign Relations; 25 November 2009.
Cruickshank, Paul. "The Rupture." Foreign Policy; 3 June 2010.
Gross said confusion in the field over the existing tactical directive, which seeks to lessen civilian casualties by specifying when force can be used against Taliban insurgents, has resulted in some soldiers feeling as if they are fighting a war with their hands tied.
"I think troops just felt they couldn't do anything," Gross said. "That's just not the truth."
There have been reports of commanders in the field adding restrictions that further limit troops, which prompted Petraeus to order a review of warfighting procedures. Gross said the new directive will tell commanders not to add rules.
This is good. As I've written previously, there is no need to actually change the RoE. Soldier's have every ability to defend themselves, we just have to be more deliberate about how and when we use force. Dumbing nuance down to a 3 x 5 or wallet sized card is what leads ground troops to thinking they aren't allowed to shoot. Hopefully, Petraeus's directive will lay it on the line.
In 2007, my unit was the only American conventional combat arms task force operating in all of Helmand province. Chain of Command was an inherent problem in the region. Who did we report too? The American Commander in RC-East? The British Commander in Helmand? The Dutch Commander of RC-South? COMISAF? As Americans reinforced their numbers in the southern Afghanistan province, the problem has continued. Thankfully, Britain is at least turning over part of her holdings in Helmand to the United States:
London, England (CNN) -- British troops will pull out of the notorious Sangin district of Afghanistan's Helmand province to allow U.S. Marines to take over, British Defense Secretary Liam Fox said Wednesday.
The British forces will redeploy to the central part of Helmand, leading the task force with Danish and Estonian troops there, while U.S. troops are positioned in the northern and southern parts, Fox said.
This will allow greater unity of command and should result in an overall increase of cohesiveness in the U.S. mission.
Rachel Maddow does her show live from Afghanistan, she traveled there last week and the first show was aired last night.
We came to Afghanistan because we wanted to understand whether the American war strategy makes sense, whether the continuing and growing presence of U.S. troops is helping us reach our goals there. President Obama's "uplift" strategy for winning in Kandahar is in full swing -- only it's not about blowing things up but rather opening police stations and trying to create a civil society.
As Brigadier General Ben Hodges told us on a drive through Kandahar City this week, that's a tough bar to reach. Kandahar has run on corruption since the days of ancient traders on the Silk Road paying for safe passage. Hodges said coalition forces need to establish trust between local people and the government, at the level of policemen and district officials.
Iraq, Rapidly becoming the Forgotten War!! There have been 4,729 coalition deaths -- 4,410 Americans, 2 Australians, 1 Azerbaijani, 179 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, 1 Czech, 7 Danes, 2 Dutch, 2 Estonians, 1 Fijian, 5 Georgians, 1 Hungarian, 33 Italians, 1 Kazakh, 1 South Korean, 3 Latvian, 22 Poles, 3 Romanians, 5 Salvadoran, 4 Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, 2 Thai and 18 Ukrainians -- in the war in Iraq as of May 5 2010, according to a CNN count. { Graphical breakdown of casualties }. The list also includes 13 U.S. Defense Department civilian employees. At least 31,860 {31,839 last month} U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon. View casualties in the war in Afghanistan
This will remind more about the workings of the bush administration, and should, but as the article below points out Gen McChrystal won't feel comfortable about it nor should many in the Army leadership as well as the Pentagon at the time. This shouldn't only remind people of just the Tillman tragic incident and fabrication of what took place, but the others already known about as well, in Iraq and Afghanistan, all the cover ups, fabrications and lies! DeJa-Vu of us older vets time!
Featuring candid and revelatory interviews with Pat's fellow soldiers as well as his family, Amir Bar-Lev's emotional and insightful film not only shines a light on the shady aftermath of Pat's death and calls to task the entire chain of command but also examines themes as timeless as the notion of heroism itself. Continued with Video of Director Description
The Pentagon has recommended that the Medal of Honor be awarded to a living individual for the first time since the Vietnam war, for his actions during a battle in the Korengal Valley in the fall of 2007:
The military says the soldier ran through a hail of enemy fire to repel Taliban fighters in a 2007 battle, saving the lives of a half dozen other men. Officials spoke on the condition of anonymity and declined to name the soldier because he is still under consideration for the honor.
I'm anxious to see who this hero is. My unit was in and around Korengal during that period.
General David Petraeus was confirmed yesterday as the Commander, International Security Force in Afghanistan:
Petraeus replaces Gen. Stanley McChrystal, whose three-decade career ended in disgrace because of inflammatory remarks he and his aides made to Rolling Stone magazine.
"Gen. Petraeus is a pivotal part of our effort to succeed in Afghanistan - and in our broader effort to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaida - and he has my full confidence," Obama said in a statement shortly after the Senate's 99-0 vote.
Obama said the Senate's quick action and Petraeus' "unrivaled experience will ensure we do not miss a beat in our strategy to break the Taliban's momentum and build Afghan capacity."
Petraeus is a brilliant scholar of counterinsurgency and an outstanding leader. If anyone can turn the situation in Afghanistan around, it's Petraeus. Problem is, I'm not sure he can do it either (though that is certainly no fault of his). While I certainly hope we can find success in the country, after all I've got a 14 month investment in that fight, sometimes the best man for the job still isn't enough to overcome the insurmountable.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Gen. Stanley McChrystal, fired from his job as commander of the Afghanistan war after more than three decades in the Army, will be allowed to retire at the rank of four stars.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that the White House will do what it can to ensure McChrystal keeps that rank. McChrystal had been a four-star general for just over a year when President Barack Obama demanded his resignation as Afghan war commander because of scornful remarks made to Rolling Stone magazine.
Under Army rules, McChrystal would have had to serve three years as a four-star officer to retain that rank, with its higher prestige and deeper retirement benefits.
I'm not sure how this is going to work, although I'm admittedly no expert on General Officer promotions. I do know Generals must be confirmed by Congress. It would seem as though something like this would need some legislative involvement as well. Regardless, McChrystal deserves it.
Oh, and just to point out AP's asleep at the wheel journalism (not that it's out of character for them), I'm wondering where they got that the President "demanded" McChrstals resignation. Every other media report notes that McChrystal didn't plead for his job, offered his resignation, and his Commander-in-Chief accepted it. Is this a scoop, or is AP just making shit up? I'm guessing the latter.
I'm an avid enthusiast of counterinsurgency doctrine. Not always for it's application in a given conflict, but just the theory and it's implications. Aside from a professional familiarity with the subject, I also spend a fair amount of time reading up on it for pleasure, as well as doing a minimal amount of academic research on the topic.
To be sure, there are plenty of facets of COIN that can by fairly criticized. It requires time, money and man power that is often infeasible or undesirable, for instance. But one thing that isn't a fair criticism is a narrative that has emerged from the McChrystal flap-- that is that McChrystal's Rules of Engagement had been to restrictive. Example:
Down in the ranks, however, the rules are widely perceived as too restrictive, playing into the hands of the Taliban, who appear keenly aware of the regulations. Some troops believe the rules cost American lives and force them to give up the advantage of overwhelming firepower to a foe who shoots and melts back into the civilian population.
At a Pentagon news conference Thursday, Adm. Mike Mullen , chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hinted about possible changes in the rules when asked about troops who feel "they're being asked to fight with one hand tied behind their back."
The problem with this narrative is that it assumes that that are strict, hard, fast, black and white rules that the counterinsurgent in the the field must follow. Aside from things like "don't shoot innocent civilians", this isn't really the case. Counterinsurgency is much more nuanced than that. Andrew Exum, (COINdinista, CNAS fellow and Afghanistan Strategy Review participant) makes the case:
, if counterinsurgency as practiced by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps has developed into some kind of rigid step-by-step process, we're not correctly applying the doctrine. Even tactical light infantry doctrine, like FM 7-8, allows for leaders on the ground to shape their tactics and operations depending on variables such as the mission, enemy, time, troops, terrain, civilians on the battlefield, etc. FM 3-24 is no different and in fact stresses the need for leaders to remain flexible and to adapt the doctrine to the war - not to try and force the environment to fit the doctrine.
This is why it agitates me when I hear of complaints from pundits or even from the front lines that McChrystal's rules say you can't conduct night ops, or air strikes or blow up buildings. While it may not be preferable to do those things, in COIN leaders have to evaluate the individual circumstances to determine the correct course of action.
If those kind of hard, fast, rules bother you, don't blame McChrystal or his intent. Blame the culture that has emerged amongst the ranks that encourages dumbing everything down to a check list that can be laminated and shoved in Joe's wallet, rather than encouraging leaders to actually understand the strategy and the commander's intent and conveying it to their subordinates.
Top officials in President Hamid Karzai's government have repeatedly derailed corruption investigations of politically connected Afghans, according to U.S. officials who have provided Afghanistan's authorities with wiretapping technology and other assistance in efforts to crack down on endemic graft.
In recent months, the U.S. officials said, Afghan prosecutors and investigators have been ordered to cross names off case files, prevent senior officials from being placed under arrest and disregard evidence against executives of a major financial firm suspected of helping the nation's elite move millions of dollars overseas.
I wish I had a nickle for every time I've written this: For effective counterinsurgency, we must have a legitimate partner in the host nation government. We do not have that in Hamid Karzai. As long as his government continues to act in such an illegitimate corrupt manner, success in Afghanistan will be, at best, an uphill battle, if not impossible.
Two separate reports, on wartime tragedies, with questions as to why and how they were allowed to happen, aired on Sunday night 27 June 2010 on the Afghan occupation and the soldiers serving there.
Meant to inform of this day, to send you to one extremely dedicated individuals own post, to hopefully send some to search out even more {if you haven't followed the real issues}, for the trolls who won't see these issues on conservative blogs or news? sites, and we probably won't hear a peep on any of the Sunday Morning empty blab shows or news outlets.
More and more, it seems as though the road to high level combat commands runs through Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The recently sacked General Stanley McChrystal is an old hand of the Special Forces Community, headquartered at Fort Bragg, and previously commanded that post's Joint Special Operations Command. Two of his rumored replacements, David Rodriguez and William Caldwell, previously commanded the 82nd Airborne Division. His ultimate replacement, General David Petraeus, command the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd, and later served as the Division's Deputy Commander for Operations.
Today, on Capitol Hill, Lieutenant General Lloyd Austin, who held Battalion, Brigade and Corps level commands at Fort Bragg, is beginning his hearings to replace General Ray Odierno (who served as a Company Commander and Staff Officer in Fort Bragg's XVIII Airborne Corps) as commander of American Forces in Iraq.
But today's hearing isn't focused on the Fort Bragg connection between these individuals. What it is concerned with is a connection that, hopefully, does not exist between McChrystal and Austin:
For Army Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin, nominated to take command of U.S. forces in Iraq, the most important issue at his Thursday confirmation hearing was whether he had ever given an interview to a major magazine criticizing U.S. political and military leaders.
Austin's hearing may be the first in what becomes a new paradigm for military officer's confirmations to high level commands. Previously, hearings have focused on how the nominee sees nature of the conflict and what the officer's plans are for the way of head (mixed with a fair amount of political grandstanding from the committee members, of course). What we may now see is military confirmations beginning to resemble their civilian counterparts. Long vetting processes with records being combed through before the hearing.
VoteVets/VetVoice personnel have spent the last couple of days making the rounds to offer commentary on the comments and ultimate dismissal of General Stanley McChrystal. Below, you can check out Iraq War Veteran and VoteVets.org Chairman Jon Soltz on MSNBC and CNN's Larry King Live, as well as VetVoice front-pager Matthew Alexander on Countdown with Keith Olbermann:
In 2008 Sebastian Junger (The Perfect Storm) and Tim Hetherington dug in with the men of Second Platoon for a year. Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, a stronghold of al Qaeda and the Taliban, has proven to be one of the U.S. Army's deadliest challenges. It is here that the platoon lost their comrade, PFC Juan Restrepo, and erected an outpost in his honor. Up close and personal, Junger and Hetherington gain extraordinary insight into the surreal combination of backbreaking labor and deadly firefights that are a way of life at Outpost Restrepo.
Ever wonder what it's really like to be in the trenches of war? Look no further. Restrepo may be one of the most experiential and visceral war films you'll ever see. With unprecedented access, the filmmakers reveal the humor and camaraderie of men who come under daily fire, never knowing which of them won't make it home. -->-->
UPDATE:More gold from Ambinder, who is dispelling some of the loony conspiratorial bullshit that his been floating around:
Even more about McChrystal: now it can be told. The story about him voting for Obama is not contrived. He is a political liberal. He is a social liberal. He banned Fox News from the television sets in his headquarters. Yes, really. This serves to put to rest another false rumor: that McChrystal deliberately precipitated his firing because he wants to run for President
So let the bullshit end here. To the left, stop making up shit and realize McChrystal for what he is: a great Commander who fucked up bad enough that he had to go. To the right, please finally but to bed the bullshit stereotype that you cannot be a warrior and a liberal.
This morning the President accepted my resignation as Commander of U.S. and NATO Coalition Forces in Afghanistan. I strongly support the President's strategy in Afghanistan and am deeply committed to our coalition forces, our partner nations, and the Afghan people. It was out of respect for this commitment - and a desire to see the mission succeed - that I tendered my resignation.
It has been my privilege and honor to lead our nation's finest.
By the way, remember when I tried to get everyone on the D-Rod bandwagon? Bet you wish you had taken my bet now, don't you?
UPDATE: Noah at Danger Room (where Spencer will be joining the team; good move, Wired.) lays out why McCrystal had to go:
[If McCrystal kept his command,] No general could've taken Obama seriously, after getting dissed so publicly by McChrystal's crew. No captain or sergeant could've been expected to shut up and salute when his superior officer gave an order. The guy at the top didn't respect his commander; why should he?
The culture of accountability so meticulously built up by Robert Gates during his tenure at the Pentagon - gone. The long tradition of civilian control of the military - wrecked.
UPDATE IV: MSNBC reporting that Petraeus has to step down as CENTCOM Commander. I could be wrong, but I'm not sure about that. [Yeah, I was wrong. It happens.]
If the CENTCOM post is open now, that opens the post to basically the same list of names being kicked around to replace McChrsystal.
UPDATE III: OBAMA: McChrystal out. Petraeus nominated as replacement. Change not on policy or personal insult. Respects McChrystal and his service. One of nation's finest Soldiers. McChrystals comment are a distraction. Military's strict code of conduct applies to everyone from lowest Private to highest General. Adherence to Chain and respect for civilian control.
Afghanistan mission demands unity of effort. Can't be sustained without making a change. Welcomes debate, not division. We will break Taliban and build capacity in Afghanistan. Apply pressure on AQ and leadership. Last fall's strategy will continue. Mission is fundamental for people to live in peace and security.
Petraeus and Obama discussed way forward this morning. Petraeus sets extraordinary example of sacrifice in assuming command. Change in personnel, not policy.
Difficult decision. Saddens POTUS to lose Soldier he respects and admires. Thanks to GEN McChrystal for his contribution and success. Look forward to working with Petraeus. THE END.
Having trouble with the feed. If I don't get it up, you can watch the speech at WhiteHouse.gov. We're good.
UPDATE II: MSNBC reports General Petraeus will command U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Curious decision. Will Petraeus continue to command CENTCOM as well? Assumption has to be that he will. That's a thick portfolio.
UPDATE: MSNBC reports that in their meeting this morning, President Obama relieved McChrystal of his command.
At 1:30 PM EST, the President will speak from the Rose Garden regarding the fate of General Stanley McChrystal. We will carry the address live here at VetVoice.
UPDATE VI: MSNBC reports that the President will address the nation from the rose garden regarding General McChrystal at 1:30 PM EST.
UPDATE V: If you are looking to kill some time CNN has a video on likely McCrystal replacements, most of which is bullshit. It includes more than one officer for whom the command would be a step down from their current job. My money is still on D-Rod.
UPDATE IV: On MSNBC, Pentagon Correspondent Jim Miklaszewski is reporting that he spoke extremely briefly with McChrystal this morning where the General stated that he had not yet submitted his resignation.
UPDATE III:The Oval reports that McChrystal's meeting with Obama lasted approximately 30 minutes, after which McChrystal left the White House and did not return in time for the 11:35 EST strategy session.
UPDATE II:WaPo and MSNBC have reported that McChrystal and Obama have completed their meeting and the AfPak strategy session is scheduled to begin later this hour. It is unknown whether or not McChrystal will be present for that session.
UPDATE:CNN reports that McCrystal has already met with Gates and Mullen this morning and is now at the White House to meet with the President. That report also states that the White House has requested from the Pentagon a list of possible replacements for McCrystal.
This morning, General McChrystal is meeting with the President prior to the scheduled strategy session. He could be out of a job by lunch. Here are some of the McCrystal stories that are kicking around this morning:
The Telegraph reports that McCrystal has, in fact, tendered his resignation. That report is unconfirmed and I'm a bit skeptical of it, especially after yesterday's mix-up. Also, the story notes that two possible replacements are LTG William Caldwell and General James Mattis. I doubt it. This command would be a step down for Mattis, and while my former Division Commander William Caldwell is an able and respected officer, appointing another one of my former Division Commanders, LTG David Rodriguez, makes more sense. He's already in country commanding day-to-day operations in the conflict. If there were a pool, my money would be on D-Rod (as we affectionately referred to him in the 82nd).
Jake Tapper reports that in his apology calls to Administration officials, McCrystal stated that he has "compromised the mission." Sounds to me like a General that is resigned to his fate.
Michael O'Hanlon continues his perpetual douche-baggery in arguing that McCrystal shouldn't be fired. Look Mike, all the things you say about his brilliance, talent, and abilities are true. I've got a great amount of respect for the guy too. But the first thing you learn in PLDC is that when you fail to correct a deficiency, you set a new standard. As a leader, McCrystal just demonstrated that it is okay for Soldiers to openly disrespect their superiors. If the Commander-in-Chief doesn't can him, that is the new standard.
We'll definitely be staying on top of this story throughout the day.
The open disdain and personal ridicule of the President and his advisors by General Stanley McChrystal and his subordinates in the new issue of Rolling Stone leaves only two acceptable options: Either General McChrystal resigns or is fired.
If he has any honor, he'll step down.
I know something about this. In 2006, I worked with two Generals, appearing in national television ads critical of President Bush and his strategy in Iraq. Or, should I say, retired Generals. Major Generals Paul D. Eaton and John Batiste each made the painful decision to leave the military they loved, so they could speak out. To that point, they had held their tongues.
Why?
Because the order and efficacy of our Armed Forces falls apart without respect for the chain of command. Whether it's a grunt respecting his company commander, or a General respecting the Commander in Chief, every single thing is predicated on the integrity of the chain of command. As soon as someone - especially someone as high up as General McChrystal - violates that respect, every single person under him begins to not only question the orders they've been given from above, but is given the signal that it's OK to openly disagree or mock his or her superior.
And, violate that respect General McChystal and his subordinates have. Among other things, the Rolling Stone story reports first-hand that:
* McChrystal was disappointed with his first meeting with the President, and that he feels the President is uncomfortable and intimidated with military brass.
* McChrystal's aid calls National Security Advisor James Jones a "clown."
* Another aide says of envoy Richard Holbrooke, "The Boss [McChrystal] says he's like a wounded animal. Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he's going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous."
* Bolstering that, McChrystal himself, receiving an email from Holbrooke says, "Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke. I don't even want to read it."
* On Vice President Biden, who disagreed with the General's strategy in Afghanistan, McChrystal says while laughing, "Are you asking me about Vice President Biden? Who's that?"
* An aide, mirroring his boss, adds, "Biden? Did you say Bite me?"
Anyone of lower rank would be immediately dismissed if he or she said of their superiors what General McChrystal said, or what he allowed members of his team to say.
This, of course, isn't the first time that the General has been in trouble. Following a very public campaign for his preferred strategy in Afghanistan, which included a 60 Minutes interview that challenged the President, McChrystal landed in some hot water with the President, and was told to cool it. Frankly, McChrystal got off easy.
When General Eric Shinseki testified to Congress about his opinion on the force levels needed to invade Iraq, countering the strategy laid out by President Bush and Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he was forced into retirement. Shinseki, unlike McChrystal, was asked his opinion, under oath, in front of Congress. There's a difference between that professional conversation, and personal attacks on your superiors. Shinseki didn't lead a public campaign to air his views, either. At any rate, McChrystal was given a second shot, where Shinseki was not.
Whether he continued his insubordination purposely, or stupidly and unintentionally, isn't an issue. The issue, here, is that it happened. Again.
I cannot fault McChrystal for believing in his strategy. That's what you want out of a General - someone who gives the President strong advice, and believes what he says. But, what cannot be allowed to stand is when he believes in his strategy more than the command structure and order of the Armed Forces, and his duty to uphold it.
It's clear, now, that General McChrystal is unable or unwilling to work within the chain of command, and set an example for all those who serve under him. That is why I say, if he has any honor, he'll offer up his resignation. And, if he doesn't, the President must fire him.
Well this really sucks. I've always had a ton of respect for General McChrystal, and thought he was a brilliant General. Now, in the same interview where he acknowledges that he voted for President Obama, he and his staff also slam the Administration:
McChrystal and some of his senior advisors are quoted criticizing top administration officials, at times in starkly derisive terms. An anonymous McChrystal aide is quoted calling national security adviser James Jones a "clown," who remains "stuck in 1985."
Referring to Richard Holbrooke, Obama's senior envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, one McChrystal aide is quoted saying: "The Boss says he's like a wounded animal. Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he's going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous."
On one occasion, McChrystal appears to react with exasperation when he receives an e-mail from Holbrooke, saying, "Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke. I don't even want to read it."
U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, a retired three-star general, isn't spared. Referring to a leaked cable from Eikenberry that expressed concerns about the trustworthiness of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, McChrystal is quoted as having said: "Here's one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, 'I told you so.'"
A U.S. embassy spokeswoman said she had no immediate comment on the piece.
The story also features an exchange in which McChrystal and some of his aides appear to mock Vice President Biden, who opposed McChrystal's troop surge recommendation last year and instead urged instead for a more focused emphasis on counter-terrorism operations.
"Are you asking me about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal asks the profile's reporter a at one point, laughing. "Who's that?"
ad_icon
"Biden?" an unnamed aide is quoted as saying. "Did you say Bite me?"
This article broke last night. McChrystal has already issued an apology, and been summoned to stand in front of the Boss on the Oval Office carpet. Today. Yes, he'll be in front of the President less than 24 hours after the press caught wind of his comments.
Clearly, these remarks are out of bounds. He should have known better after the same thing happened to Admiral Fallon after an interview with Esquire, the comments in which read like sweet nothings compared to the McChrystal interview. Even beyond the fact that he should know better is the issue of leadership and professionalism. McChrystal just dressed down his superiors in front of every single Soldier he commands. That's unacceptable for any military officer and regardless of who their superior is.
I think the smart money is on the unemployment numbers increasing by at least one individual this month.
June 18, 2010 The Afghanistan of Mohammad Qayoumi's memory is far from that of a "broken 13th century country," as it was recently described by British Defense Secretary Liam Fox.
Qayoumi, now a university president in America, grew up in Kabul in the 1950s and '60s. It was a period of calm and prosperity - and even optimism - before the Soviet invasion.
And thanks to a batch of vintage photos, Qayoumi has opened a window into that world with a photo essay recently published in Foreign Policy. The images depict a world that is slick, modern - even Western.
The photos show women in demure scarves, but also in pencil skirts and other fashions of the 1950s and '60s. And just as striking is what some of the women are doing: buying records. Back then, Qayoumi tells NPR's Deborah Amos, Afghans favored songs by Western pop singers like Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and Tom Jones.
The possibility of lifting the ban on gays serving openly in the military may cause some Southern Baptist chaplains to reconsider their service, said Keith Travis, leader of the chaplaincy evangelism team at the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board.
Travis, who was an army chaplain for 28 years, was one of more than 40 retired chaplains who sent a letter to President Obama earlier this year, asking him not to lift the ban.
That's an interesting assertion from Travis, since the only active duty chaplain the reporter could find calls BS, and Travis himself states that the church won't require Southern Baptist chaplains to blue falcon service members:
"We are not pulling our chaplains out," he said. "We believe that if God has called someone to military chaplaincy, that's where they should stay."
Army Capt. Darren Ayres believes that God called him to be a Southern Baptist military chaplain, and until God says otherwise, he plans to stay in that role.
"I am not going to leave," Ayres said. "And I am not going to go around and beat people over the head if they are homosexual. We don't do that
Luckily for us, and for the sake of our national security, this is just one of the many differences between the US and the Taliban. We have one of the most brilliant legal documents ever written, the Constitution, which prevents our religious establishment from making decisions about our government and security. Regardless of how much the Southern Baptist leadership wish that wasn't the case, DADT is still going to end.
"The welcome mat for memoirs by veterans of operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom might never wear out so long as they write with the savvy of Brandon Friedman . . . Friedman's take is vivid, frank, precise and dramatic."--Military Times
"Add Brandon Friedman's The War I Always Wanted to the ranks of outstanding non-fiction produced by officers from elite combat units in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Always truthful, often excruciatingly so, The War I Always Wanted rises at numerous points to the level of literature."--Steven Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire
"A Time To Lead confirms the rewarding benefits of military service at a time when such service is experiencing considerable strain. It also includes a comprehensive description of America's current national imperatives, which deserve serious consideration."--General Alexander M. Haig, Jr., former Secretary of State
"This is a primer on leadership forged in battle and by decades of experience. . .This isn't just a book; it's a manual for leading people and living a good life."--Barry McCaffrey, General, USA (ret.)
"Whip smart, sassy, with a mouth as foul as a sailor's, 28-year-old Sergeant Kayla Williams. . .tells what it's like to be a female soldier in Iraq."--Booklist
". . .echoes military memoirists from Julius Caesar to Ernie Pyle."--Publishers Weekly
". . .a shocking, on-the-ground view of one military woman's experience in Iraq."--Bookmarks Magazine
Diaries and comments at VetVoice do not necessarily represent the views of VoteVets.org. VetVoice will strive to remove any illegal material as soon as it is flagged. Similarly, VetVoice will use its discretion in determining whether to remove exceedingly offensive material. However, between posting and removal, any offensive or illegal material does not reflect the condoning or endorsing of said material by VoteVets.org or VetVoice.
Similarly, the views expressed on this website are those of the authors alone. Opinions on this website do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Defense or any of its components.
Paid for VoteVets Political Action Committee. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. VoteVets Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) organization which primarily focuses on nonpartisan education and advocacy on behalf veterans and their families. VoteVets Political Action Committee is a federal political committee which primarily helps elect Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran candidates and educates about veterans and military issues aimed at influencing the outcome of the next election.
Iraq, Rapidly becoming the Forgotten War!!
June 18, 2010 The Afghanistan of Mohammad Qayoumi's memory is far from that of a "broken 13th century country," as it was recently described by British Defense Secretary Liam Fox.
