As we have mentioned many times before, you can't get something for nothing. President Obama came under heavy fire from both sides of the political aisle when General McChrystal requested more troops for Operation Enduring Freedom - Afghanaistan. President Obama, who had already sent an additional 34,000 troops to the area, gave the order for 30,000 more. Now we have to fund that request.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama plans to ask Congress for $33 billion in emergency war funding for a major U.S. troop buildup in Afghanistan this year, defense officials said on Wednesday.
The money, mainly for the deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and other war costs in the current 2010 fiscal year, would come on top of Obama's expected request to increase the Pentagon's overall budget in fiscal 2011 to a record $708 billion, the officials said on condition of anonymity.
Fiscal 2010 Defense Department funding, including war costs in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as military construction, already comes to $660 billion.
I look forward to seeing the political dodgeball that comes with this request. Those congressmen and senators who are usually the most hawkish on the need for more troops are usually the opposite when it comes time to open the checkbook. And those who opposed the buildup to begin with will most likely use this as another reason why. In the balance hangs our troops who have been given their orders and are just waiting for the means to implement them.
I know we've heard it all before. Commanders on the ground are always optimistic when gains are made. They have to be. With what they and their soldiers deal with daily, pessimism in the face of gain would be demoralizing. We've heard many times before that the tide was turning against the Taliban in Afghanistan, or that Al-Qaeda was on the run. Al-Qaeda has been beaten more times than the Dallas Cowboys. So it is with caution that I read General McChrystal's view today. I can only hope that he is right.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal believes the U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan has already blunted the Taliban's momentum and the tide is turning against the Taliban.
In an exclusive interview with ABC's "World News" anchor Diane Sawyer, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said he believes he is making good on his promise of a "quantum shift" on the battlefield.
Now, just to clarify, General McChrystal is talking about this surge here, with the follow on troops here. Within a month of becoming the new Commander-in-Chief, President Obama made good on his campaign promise to shift the focus to Afghanistan. At the time we had 38,000 US troops on the ground. He immediately sent 21,000 more in March and then another 13,000 follow on troops beyond that number. This almost doubled the forces we had available there. These are the forces that General McChrystal is talking about now. The more recent announcement that another 30,000 troops are on their way is regarding troops that have not yet arrived.
"I believe we're doing that now. I believe that we have changed the way we operate in Afghanistan. We changed some of our structures and I believe that we are on the way to convincing the Afghan people that we are here to protect them," the general told Sawyer.
"We've been at this for about seven months now and I believe we've made progress. It's not a completed mission yet," he said.
McChrystal cited as evidence a meeting he recently held in a river valley in Helmand province, an area where the Taliban has been strong and was one of the first targets of the American surge.
"When I sit in an area that the Taliban controlled only seven months ago and now you meet with a shura of elders and they describe with considerable optimism the future, you sense the tide is turning," he said.
McChrystal had asked President Obama for a surge of troops and warned that the war would be lost if additional fighters weren't committed to the fight. The president agreed to send an additional 30,000 U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan and the infusion of troops is underway. The bulk of the forces won't arrive in Afghanistan until the end of this summer. When the surge is complete, the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan will be close to 98,000.
Again, I don't want to get my hopes up. We've heard it all before. But at the same time, we have been saying for a long time that the fight in Afghanistan could be won if we had the forces to commit. According to the top General there, the tide is turning.
American airports have been rich targets for terrorists since the 1970's. It is not a problem that is new to President Obama. Both Bushes, Reagan, and Carter all faced the same problems. In fact, if you look at the trends, the 1980's were the worst time to travel by plane. The American people did not make this decision. This decision was made by numerous different foreign militant groups for a variety of reasons. But the fact is that our airports have over the last 40 years become the first line of defense against those who wish to do us harm. Our military has been tasked with the job of offense. We have been placed in the position of needing a response. And that is exactly what our current airport security guidelines are - a response to events that have happened.
Anytime a security approach is being designed one has to consider the threat. Whether we are looking at a bank, office building, college campus, preschool, or airport, the threat is the main thing that needs to be considered. Everything else is considered after that. There is no need to buy highly sophisticated cameras, facial recognition software, body imaging systems, and bomb sniffing dogs to protect the local Kinko's building. Unnecessary security at many office buildings will drive away customers. But there is a huge difference here. Their places of work have never been used as bombs to attack other buildings. The threat to airline safety goes back forty years and is very well documented. So when I make suggestions about how we could do the job better, it is with that threat in mind.
After the events of 9/11, the Aviation Transportation Security Act created the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). At the same time this was created, the federal government initiated Operation Noble Eagle. Remember all those Army guys in uniform standing around in the airports with M16's? America began re-thinking the importance of airline safety, with a much stronger emphasis placed on the threat of terrorism. But unlike similar situations in the past, this time was primarily much more form and much less function. I have heard it said many times before (and it is true) that most of what goes on in the airport security process is theater. It's just to make passengers feel better. For instance, those Army guys aren't standing around in uniform anymore.
When the US government saw the need to create the FBI, they wanted only the very best. It took an exceptional candidate with a higher education than what was the norm at the time and a law enforcement background. The FBI "G-Men" were the highest echelon of our nation's law enforcement and we made sure to show that. Likewise when the CIA was created, the American government understood the importance of foreign intelligence operations. We recruited the very best and gave them a training budget that fit their needs. Over the course of our nation's history we have responded to changing security threats with overwhelming prowess. Take a look at the evolution of the Navy's Special Warfare Development Group, the US Army Rangers, or the National Reconnaisance Organization. These groups are all indicative of what our country can do when the need arises.
Transportation Security Officers make between $24,432 and $36,648 per year depending on position and location. At the high end that's $19 per hour. By comparison, a police officer in Hoover, Alabama makes $42,203 per year. Has anyone ever heard of a major terrorist problem in Hoover, Alabama? And the job requirements for the job in Hoover are much more difficult as well. Yes, it is actually much more difficult to get a job working as a cop in Hoover, Alabama, than to get on with TSA. Because of this we see the type of recruits we can expect to hire. Generally, low wage jobs like those at TSA draw in three main types of recruits. One, people who want a career in law enforcement. These are the young kids who are working for a short time until they can get on at a place like Hoover, Alabama. Two, people who cannot get hired on as local law enforcement. Maybe they're overweight, under-educated, or just couldn't make it through the interview and screening process required by most law enforcement agencies. Three, people who just need a job. They just need something for the time being to make the bills and put food on the table and the airport was hiring. We cannot hire career-minded, long term, dedicated individuals. Please note, I am not downplaying the good people who work for TSA. They do a thankless job for low pay with minimal training. But if we want better, we have to pay more and demand a completely different type of applicant. This brings me to my main point.
We need to completely change the way we think of TSA if we expect them to be successful.
We need a complete overhaul. We need to start thinking of TSA as our first line of defense, because that is who they are. Forty hours of training and $12-$19 per hour just isn't going to cut it. The argument can be made (successfully) that they need the same training, pay, and resources given to federal law enforcement. We need to take a page from Operation Noble Eagle and leverage the capabilities of our military. And I don't mean the theater show of a bunch of bored grunts hanging around. Imagine if we had an Army trained linguist scanning about the airport when a couple of guys speaking Arabic/Farsi/Pashto began talking about a high level operative in Al-Qaeda. Imagine if we had a liaison between the local Federal Security Director and the plain clothes investigators of the 902nd Military Intelligence Group. In other words, imagine if we started giving TSA the resources it needs to get the job done right.
Require applicants to have a military background. This is not negotiable. The military teaches discipline and attention to detail higher than any other profession. Pay them what they're worth. If our government has the money to do this then they have the money to fund a more professional TSA. Realize that we are trying to hire the same level of people that other federal law enforcement agencies and defense contractors are reaching for as well. Look for applicants that already have a background in law enforcement, not the guy that just got laid off from Pinkerton or Wackenhut. Then give them the training they need to get the job done right. Provide them with training at FLETC, followed up by specialized training in one of several fields. This could include interview techniques. If they are going to ask you questions about your baggage and your travel plans, they should at least be trained to see if you're lying.
All of this is just a beginning. This is just to get us up to the point where we should already be. Where we should have been long ago. This is a starting point. The funding, leadership, and effort required by our government will show the level of importance we give to the first line of defense. If we continue at the status quo, we can expect the same results we have seen over the last forty years. Please follow up in the comments section with your own suggestions.
One of the forgotten aspects of the war in Iraq (at least by most Americans) is the displacement of Iranian refugees inside Iraq. These people come from several different backgrounds and for different regions. And many times they are not friendly to the current Iraqi government. One such group is being transferred to a Baghdad hotel:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- More than 3,000 Iranian dissidents are set to be moved Tuesday from their refugee camp in northeastern Iraq to a hotel in Baghdad, the Iraqi government said Monday.
However, a spokesman for Camp Ashraf in Diyala province -- home to members of the People's Mujahadeen Organization of Iran -- called any claim by the government of an agreement with residents "unfounded and untrue."
"Any attempt to forcibly displace Ashraf residents will undoubtedly lead to a massacre and humanitarian catastrophe," Shahriar Kia said in an e-mail Sunday.
About 3,500 people live at Camp Ashraf, most of them members of the Iranian group who have lived there for 25 years since fleeing Iran.
This presents a difficult security challenge for the Iraqi government and the US military. This group was allied with Saddam during their war against Iran in the 1980's. So they are an anti-Iran group, but they are also very pro-Saddam. While almost all of the current Iraqi government is extremely friendly to Iran.
Iran, Iraq, Canada and the United States consider the group -- which opposes the government in Tehran -- a terrorist organization. The European Union removed the group from its terrorist list in January because the group "no longer advocates or engages in armed opposition to the government of Iran," according to human-rights group Amnesty International.
Iran wants to see the camp shut down, and the Iraqi government has said it would close the facility after it got control of the camp from the United States this year.
It seems that the American public has seeen a 180 degree shift over the last year. In December of last year, almost anyone I knew could tell me the casualty numbers and the latest goings on in Iraq. Afghanistan was "that other war." We had been there for seven years and even the most basic of strategies was not yet developed. Now I am seeing the polar opposite. During his campaign, President Obama promised to switch the focus from Iraq to Afghanistan. He also promised to send more troops to Afghanistan. This quote is from July of 2008:
As the Iraq war winds down, Obama said, he wants to see troops redirected to Afghanistan. He said the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda was a war "we have to win" and repeated his call for two more combat brigades in Afghanistan to counteract "deteriorating" conditions.
And now we are seeing this plan put into action. This is Obama's second surge since last February when he ordered the deployment of 21,000 troops. When President Obama first took office, we had approximately 38,000 US troops in Afghanistan. His most current announcement will bring the total to 100,000 boots on the ground. So now to turn the attention back to "the other war." The one in Iraq.
The U.S. military is preparing for its withdrawal from Iraq, and some equipment is already on the move.
The delay in Iraq's national elections, which had been scheduled for January until a political dispute over the election law erupted last month, has posed some uncertainty over just when U.S. troops will begin to leave. The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, said recently that the American military is flexible, and that the drawdown of American forces could start as late as May.
With characteristic understatement, Odierno acknowledged that he's facing a problem that is bigger than just putting troops on a plane and leaving Iraq. "Because I will admit that we have six years worth of stuff that we've gathered here as the U.S. military," he says.
"Imagine if you never went through your garage or attic for seven years," says Col. Gust Pagonis, the Army officer in charge of logistics. "Well, that's kind of where we are in Iraq."
In all, military logistics teams will have to move an estimated 1.5 million pieces of gear from some 300 bases around the country.
Some of the equipment will go to the Iraqi military, but that is a process that involves the Pentagon and the State Department "making sure that what the Iraqis want is something that we're able to give them," Pagonis says.
This is definitely a reversal that I have been waiting to see. Many questions are still left unanswered. But already having doubled the force on the ground since taking office, and promising to send another large contingent, President Obama seems to be keeping with exactly what he said he would do.
It was quite a shock for me to read the news this morning. I live in Utah, in the third congressional district. Jason Chaffetz is my congressman. Utah is the reddest of the red states with an overwhelming republican base here, and Chaffetz is our newly elected, freshman congressman who replaced Chris Cannon. Considering his constituency, he generally promotes the far right base point of view. Also, considering the nature of being a new congressman, this is quite the political limb to be walking out on:
Saying it's time for Republicans to do more than "take pot shots at ACORN," freshman Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz will call on President Barack Obama on Monday to bring U.S. troops home from Afghanistan.
"So much of this is easy, black and white, but Afghanistan is very different and very difficult," he said.
Earlier this year, Chaffetz traveled to the region and said that, since then, he's "become more engrossed in my conviction it is time to bring our troops home."
"I am opposed to nation building, and I quite frankly don't see or understand what victory looks like," he said. "I believe, as most people do, that our military can do everything we want them to do. ... But we're asking them to fight a war that is not very well-defined. And we are asking them to do so with one hand tied behind their back."
So first we had Fred Thompson saying that the Afghan war is lost, and now we have Rep. Chaffetz calling for a withdrawal. Pass the popcorn, this should be fun to watch.
Kaziah Hancock is a Utah artist who paints portraits of fallen American heroes. She was driving home in early 2003 and heard the story on the radio of a fallen soldier from Utah. It was at that point she decided she would do a portrait of every fallen soldier. Of course, at the time we had a total of about eighty casualties. At the time it was still supposed to be a very short war.
"At the time, we had only been in Iraq for a short while, and we had lost 80 people," she said. "We were still expecting a short war."
Hancock called a friend who owns an art gallery that regularly features her work and who had several "connections."
"I told her I wanted to do a portrait for the families of the soldiers killed, and my friend said, 'Those from Utah?' I thought for about 15 seconds," she recalled. "And I said, 'No.' Is the one from Texas any less important to me? Or the one from New York? I told her I wanted to do them all. I wanted to paint the portraits for free, and ship ... all of them."
"After (painting) 33 of them, I got the idea to form a non-profit (organization) and people could express their patriotism, donate to this cause, and even get a tax deduction. It's mostly the average person who has contributed to the memory of our service people."
The organization she founded is called Project Compassion, Hancock said.
As Richard has noted, President Obama is expected to announce this next week his decision on Afghanistan. General Petraeus has cautioned that this decision should be well thought out and that President Obama was right to take some time. IN 2006, President Bush took four months to make a decision on the surge strategy in Iraq. With that in mind, I wanted to take a look at some of the possible strategies that have been discussed. The first assumes that we have the full compliment of 40,000 troops to work with:
WASHINGTON - Should President Obama decide to send 40,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan, the most ambitious plan under consideration at the White House, the military would have enormous flexibility to deploy as many as 15,000 troops to the Taliban center of gravity in the south, 5,000 to the critical eastern border with Pakistan and 10,000 as trainers for the Afghan security forces.
The rest could be deployed flexibly across the country, including to the NATO headquarters in Kabul, the capital, and in clandestine operations.
As pointed out, this is the most ambitious plan. This includes a comprehensive mission of CT with border control and a training component as well.
If Mr. Obama limited any additional American troops to 10,000 to 15,000, the military would deploy them largely as trainers, with some reinforcements likely in the southern province of Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual home. The neighboring, and opium-rich, Helmand Province and the eastern border with Pakistan, military analysts say, would receive few if any American troops and would remain largely as they are today.
Such trade-offs are part of the discussions under way in the West Wing and at the Pentagon as Mr. Obama and his top advisers debate escalating the eight-year-old war. And they drive home the basic point that while the numbers will dominate the headlines, what is really at stake is how to fight the war.
One thing that has remained unmentioned is the effect any of these strategies would have on the reliance on defense contractors. I have to wonder if more are being factored in or if the extra troops would allow the higher command to end some of those contracts. In either case, here is a small primer on the three main strategies being offered:
If the president approves the full 40,000 troops:
With 40,000 troops, the military priority would be to deploy as many as 10,000 to Kandahar, the desert province abutting Pakistan; its big city, also called Kandahar, is the second largest in Afghanistan. Currently there are about 3,200 United States troops and 1,600 Canadian soldiers in the area. The Taliban control much of Kandahar Province and are contesting control of the city.
An additional 5,000 American troops would probably be sent to the contested Helmand Province, home to the poppy crop that is a major source of income for the Taliban who traffic in opium.
Some 4,000 Marines are now in the area, but they have been unable to secure large parts of the province, including guerrilla strongholds in southern and central Helmand.
Yet another 5,000 would probably be sent to the eastern area that some military planners refer to as "P2K," for the Afghan provinces of Paktika, Paktia and Khost.
Perhaps as many as 10,000 troops would be deployed as trainers with the Afghan security forces, with NATO pledging to send thousands more.
Of course, the president could also decide to send close to 40,000 troops, reduce the number of trainers,or send different sets of troops in waves for different missions. For instance, the 10,000 to Kandahar could be deployed immediately, while the 10,000 for training missions could be the last to go. If the president decides to send 20,000 - 35,000 troops:
The difference between 30,000 and 40,000, military analysts say, is that there might be 5,000 trainers rather than 10,000, and fewer troops to spread flexibly across the country over all, although there would still be a strong concentration in the south.
Military officials say that three-quarters of any additional troops sent, no matter the number, will be working side by side with Afghan security forces in a "partnering" or apprentice arrangement. They will be separate from American trainers, whose job is to put raw recruits through a basic military training regime.
Under the partnering arrangement, Afghan troops will share the same bases as the Americans, a defense official said, and although there will be separate sleeping quarters and dining facilities, "they're going to live together, work together, plan together and operate together."
Administration officials estimate the cost of sending 30,000 more troops at $25 billion to $30 billion a year and the cost of sending 20,000 troops at $21 billion a year.
Finally, the smallest number of troops that has been discussed is 10 - 15,000 troops
Under this approach, advocated by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the United States would accelerate the training of the Afghan security forces and focus on eliminating the Qaeda leadership in Pakistan through drone strikes.
Mr. Obama is likely to announce his new Afghanistan strategy in the first week of December, administration officials say.
Despite the attention to the troop number, Anthony H. Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, cautioned that it would be about as helpful to understanding the president's war strategy as counting the number of parts in a Ferrari to determine how it would handle the road.
I am expecting President Obama's announcement to be some hybrid on these three basic strategies. AT the same time, however many troops are sent, I hope President Obama outlines how they will be used, for how long, and what that will accomplish in the long run. For a good primer on Afghanistan 101, check out this pdf file.
FORT BELVOIR, Va. - A Soldier successfully shoulder-fired a "smart" High Explosive Airburst, or HEAB round for the first time Aug. 11 from the XM-25 weapon system at Aberdeen Test Center, Md.
The Army plans on purchasing more than 12,500 XM-25 systems starting in 2012, which will be enough to put one in each Infantry squad and Special Forces team, according to officials at Program Executive Office-Soldier.
"What makes this weapon system truly revolutionary is the ability to target the enemy, pass on this information to the sensors and microchips of its 25mm HEAB round, and have that round detonate over the target," explained Maj. Shawn Murray, a Soldier Weapons assistant product manager in PEO Soldier, the organization responsible for developing the XM-25.
"When the HEAB round explodes, the target is peppered with fragmentation," Murray said. "Our studies indicate that the XM-25 with HEAB is 300 percent more effective at incapacitating the enemy than current weapons at the squad level."
When the plan for the Sons of Iraq was revealed I was highly critical. My main concern at the time was that we would have to continue to pay these groups indefinitely. At the same time, there were no real assurances that the intelligence we were given was real or that we could trust the groups we were working with. As Alex Horton put it, we had "enemies with benefits." Now it seems that the Afghan government and the US military are looking to use the same model in Afghanistan:
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan - The Afghan government and the U.S. military have begun a fledgling drive to lure Taliban foot soldiers away from the battlefield by offering them job opportunities and protection, diplomats and military personnel familiar with the initiative say.
Officials hope the plan, which is loosely modeled on the "Sons of Iraq" program that lured Sunni Muslims away from the Iraqi insurgency, could help pave the way for an eventual Western exit from Afghanistan.
Envisioned as a potential centerpiece of the new Karzai administration, the re-integration initiative is conceived as a bottom-up, grass-roots effort, similar to the Iraqi program, which was widely credited with reducing the level of violence there.
Of course, my immediate concern is what happens when the job runs out, they get fired, or the protection leaves? Karzai has already stated that he wants US troops out and Afghan forces providing security in five years. Will this reconciliation last at that point? And in the meantime, can we trust any information that these guys give us? Can we use them with any confidence in any security operations where American lives will be put at risk? Or do we just have new enemies with benefits?
I would expect that those who supported the Awakening movements in Iraq will come out in support of this policy as well. But as General Petraeus has said, Iraq is not Afghanistan. Also this program is planned as an Afghan-led operation from the beginning with the US, Britain, and NATO forces providing support.
In Iraq, the U.S.-funded Sons of Iraq program got as many as 100,000 Sunni insurgents to stop fighting the U.S., or even take up arms against the group Al Qaeda in Iraq, by forming paramilitary groups. Efforts are underway to move them into state security forces or provide other jobs. U.S. military officers deployed in Afghanistan's south, the Taliban heartland, say they are being encouraged to test similar ideas in the field.
As always, the success of this operation will be dependent on several other factors. And those in the command positions are already taking this into account. First and foremost, Afghan forces must understand that we are not providing an open-ended committment. The US forces will eventually need to leave, and they need to understand that now if progress is to be made.
British Lt. Gen. Graeme Lamb, who arrived in Afghanistan at the end of August to help develop the plan, said a crucial element would be acknowledging that many insurgents believe that the West plans an open-ended occupation of Afghanistan.
"We have an opportunity to reset the conditions," Lamb, former deputy commander of the Multi-National Force in Iraq, said in an interview at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization force headquarters. The vast majority of Taliban foot soldiers, he said, are "misguided -- they have fought well for a bad cause."
Indeed, Brig. Gen. Mark Martins recently stated that 80-90% of the detainees at Bagram are not Taliban diehards and would probably work with US forces if given the right conditions. Considering that I do not want an open-ended committment in Afghanistan and I do not believe that permanent bases there are in either countries' best interest, I am hoping this operation is successful. But with many dependancies and many questions unanswered, I will be very cautious before proclaiming any kind of success. A successful mission is like a safe landing. One you can walk away from.
As President Obama has been weighing his various options on Afghanistan, many on the right wing have accused him of dithering, or not acting fast enough. Many are concerned that President Obama is taking too much time weighing, planning, and deciding, and not enough time acting. The common right-wing meme is that while President Obama waits, soldiers are dying. But the commanders in the field are not the ones saying this. In fact, it is quite the opposite. I have already written about Ambassador Eikenberry, a retired Lt. General who commanded US foreces in Afghanistan in 2006-2007. He is now the US envoy in Afghanistan and he has recommended against adding more troops. Now General Petraeus is also cautioning that this decision should not be rushed:
WASHINGTON, Nov. 13, 2009 - The time President Barack Obama is taking to nail down the strategy in Afghanistan is time well spent, the commander of U.S. Central Command said today.
Army Gen. David H. Petraeus spoke at the Navy Memorial here as part of the American Veterans Center Annual Conference. He based his words not only on his current experiences, he said, but also on his experiences as the commander in Iraq.
In Iraq, getting the right strategy was just as important as the surge in personnel, the general said. "The real key in Iraq was the surge of ideas, not just the surge of troops," Petraeus said. "Yes, the 30,000 additional troops that ended up being deployed during the surge enabled us to ... implement time-honored counterinsurgency concepts more effectively and more rapidly than we could have."
As attention shifts to Afghanistan, Petraeus said, people must remember that Afghanistan is not Iraq.
At the same time, General Petraeus recognized the various difficulties and unique issues faced in Afghanistan, some of the mistakes of the past, and the need to take all of these situations into account.
All this goes into the president's decision on the strategy in Afghanistan and the number of forces needed to institute it, Petraeus said, and he added that the decision-making process is good and healthy for the leaders and the country.
When the Iraq and Afghan strategies were first formulated in this administration in March, he said, the process was rushed. The current process has allowed Obama to engage in forming the process in a way he did not before, the general said.
"There have been very good debates, very good discussion," he said. "This is the kind of intellectual discourse you want. It does sharpen your thinking. It does expose differences of opinion. It helps you come to grips with the assumptions."
The president has committed an enormous amount of time to the process, and it is an appropriate use of his time, Petraeus said. "This decision will be forthcoming pretty soon, perhaps when he comes back from the Asia trip, and then we will all press forward," he said. "And I think we will do so with enormous benefit from having had these discussions."
As President Obama weighs the decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan, Ambassador Eikenberry the US envoy currently in Afghanistan opposes such an increase. Eikenberry cites rampant corruption as the main reason for his decision.
The U.S. ambassador in Kabul sent two classified cables to Washington in the past week expressing deep concerns about sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until President Hamid Karzai's government demonstrates that it is willing to tackle the corruption and mismanagement that has fueled the Taliban's rise, senior U.S. officials said.
At the same time, the president must also make sure the government of Afghanistan does not expect an open-ended committment. The US is willing to stay as long as it takes, but not any longer. There have been numerous suggestions from the right-wing that any withdrawal from Afghanistan is considered a defeat, even if that withdrawal is 15 years from now. This led to a statement released from the White House:
"The President believes that we need to make clear to the Afghan government that our commitment is not open-ended," the statement said. "After years of substantial investments by the American people, governance in Afghanistan must improve in a reasonable period of time."
In other words, we're not willing to stay forever and we want some kind of return on our investment. If we continue to stay without seeing improvements in the Afghan government, that is not acceptable. But there is another piece of news that is also noteworthy. Most of those who are following events in Afghanistan are familiar with General McChrystal's request for 40,000 more troops. But this was just one of several suggestions given.
On the eve of his nine-day trip to Asia, Obama was given a series of options laid out by military planners with differing numbers of new U.S. deployments, ranging from 10,000 to 40,000 troops. None of the scenarios calls for scaling back the U.S. presence in Afghanistan or delaying the dispatch of additional troops.
Ambassador Eikenberry is a retired Lt. General who commanded US forces in Afghanistan from 2006-2007. He retired from the military as a senior general in NATO this past April and was sworn in as ambassador to Afghanistan the next day. This highlights the difficulties in strategy for that region. The answer to any problem is not always to throw more troops in. If that were the case, why stop at 40,000? Various pieces of the puzzle must be put in place before any new troops would be beneficial to the wider effort.
I just wanted to take a moment and thank those who are now following VetVoice on Facebook. As of today, we now have 100 followers! Please take note of the nice little Facebook widget that Richard has posted on the side of the page. Hopefully, this first 100 followers is just the beginning.
Much has been made of the decision to close the detainee camp at Guantanamo Bay. Proponents of the plan point to its use as a recruiting tool by AQ and other militant groups around the world. On the other side, many state that closing the prison is just an unneeded expense that will not resolve anything. In the middle of the two arguments, however, one point is often overlooked. That is the question of whether or not the US military can do it. Is it actually a feasible solution, and are there plans in place to carry it out? That question has now been answered:
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- The military can comply with a White House order to empty the detention center and clear all 221 war-on-terror captives off this remote base "with 10 days notice,'' the prison camps commander said Tuesday.
Navy Rear Adm. Tom Copeman told The Miami Herald and Fox News in an interview that his 2,100-member team of guards and other support staff can meet President Barack Obama's Jan. 22 closure deadline right through the eighth anniversary of the establishment of the controversial prison camps.
"If they say on Jan. 12, 'Move them out,' we can meet the deadline,'' he said, "given the proper amount of logistical support.''
There are not a lot of detainees left. The facility which once held over 500 prisoners, now only has 221 left. Of those, 17 have been ordered as set free by a federal judge.
There has been a contentious debate as of late regarding the need to send more troops to Operation Enduring Freedom. On the one hand, those who support a counter-terrorism mission argue that more troops are not needed if we can define a straight CT mission there. On the other hand, those who support a population-centric COIN approach are saying we will need numerous more troops over a much longer period of time. It all depends on the strategy. Simply vanquishing various terror and militia groups does not require super-heavy manpower. However, if we want to build roads, bridges, schools, cement factories, electrical substations, government-run hospitals, and water treatment plants, that will take a lot longer and a lot more people. But for now, there is already a start on the increase of troops:
President Obama announced in March that he would be sending 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. But in an unannounced move, the White House has also authorized -- and the Pentagon is deploying -- at least 13,000 troops beyond that number, according to defense officials.
The additional troops are primarily support forces, including engineers, medical personnel, intelligence experts and military police. Their deployment has received little mention by officials at the Pentagon and the White House, who have spoken more publicly about the combat troops who have been sent to Afghanistan.
The deployment of the support troops to Afghanistan brings the total increase approved by Obama to 34,000. The buildup has raised the number of U.S. troops deployed to the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan above the peak during the Iraq "surge" that President George W. Bush ordered, officials said.
Regardless of which strategy (CT/COIN) is eventually followed, I see this as a positive development. Groups like engineers and intelligence personnel are force-multipliers that ground forces can leverage in combat operations.
For those familiar with the Truman National Security Project, or for those who have participated in Operation Free, it is common knowledge that our military is analyzing the links between climate change and national security. Recently, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James T. Conway commissioned an energy audit in Afghanistan in an effort to determine how US Marines could be more energy efficient. DARPA, the US defense research agency, has been developing solar powered systems for the military, to reduce the need for a constant supply line of fuel and batteries. The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) also runs a Natural Security blog.
The Central Intelligence Agency announced plans to launch a center on climate change to examine the potential security risks of environmental issues.
The CIA said it was working on its new Center on Climate Change and National Security to examine the national security impact of environmental issues such as population shifts, rising sea levels and increased competition for natural resources.
CIA Director Leon Panetta described the center as an effective support tool for U.S. lawmakers examining international agreements on the environment.
"Decision makers need information and analysis on the effects climate change can have on security," said the director. "The CIA is well positioned to deliver that intelligence."
We've already seen the problems that population shifts and increased competition for food and water have caused in Somalia and the Niger Delta. It's good to see the CIA is staying ahead of the curve here. The next thing you know, soldiers will be trying to replace JP-8 with a homemade biodiesel. Wait, they're already doing that.
As I read the news from around the world, especially RGWOT hot spots, I notice a wonderful trend. More and more key AQ leaders are getting the opportunity to claim their 72 virgins. While this is a wonderful opportunity for them, I also have to commend the members of the US armed forces for helping them along their much-anticipated and well deserved journey. Take for example, the story of Al Qaeda operative Saleh ali Saleh Nabhan:
Intelligence sources have confirmed to the Somali government that Saleh ali Saleh Nabhan was killed, Information Minister Dahir Mohamud Gelle said Tuesday.
U.S. special operations forces used a helicopter to fire on a car Monday in southern Somalia, killing several people, including one they believed was Nabhan, U.S. officials told CNN earlier.
Nabhan, 30, was born in Kenya and had been tied to attacks that included the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, according to the sources.
President Obama signed off on Monday's operation, a senior U.S. official said. The United States had been monitoring the situation for days and had intelligence that Nabhan was in the area, the U.S. officials said.
Nabhan is believed to be an associate of al Qaeda member Harun Fazul, who was indicted in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies.
But this is not all. Recently several AQ operatives have been making their final journey with Mr. Nabhan. Take a look at these notes from Democracy Arsenel:
* al-Qaida is under heavy pressure in its strongholds in Pakistan's remote tribal areas and is finding it difficult to attract recruits or carry out spectacular operations in western countries
* "Core" al-Qaida is now reduced to a senior leadership of six to eight men, including Bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to most informed estimates. Several other Egyptians, a Libyan and a Mauritanian occupy the other top positions. In all, there are perhaps 200 operatives who count.
* Lethal strikes by CIA drones - including two this week alone - have combined with the monitoring and disruption of electronic communications, suspicion and low morale to take their toll on al-Qaida's Pakistani "core"
* European Muslim volunteers faced a chaotic reception, a low level of training, poor conditions and eventual disillusionment after arriving in Waziristan last year.
* The most significant recent development is evidence that al-Qaida's alliance with the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan is fraying
* The failure to carry out spectacular mass attacks in the west since the 2005 London bombings has weakened the group's "brand appeal" and power to recruit.
These are all good indicators. AQ continues to weaken, loses ground, and suffers in recruitment.
This past week, 150 veterans from all over America gathered in Washington DC for the launch of Operation FREE. I was pleased to be able to attend. We started off with a dinner at the Doubletree Hotel in Crystal City and guest speeches to open the event and explain what we would be doing the next day. We were honored to hear from Jon Powers and various fellows from the Truman National Security Project. It was a stunning scene to witness 150 veterans from all over America come together for a common cause. Numerous veterans from VoteVets.org and Veterans Green Jobs were represented. If you have not taken the time to check these groups, I highly recommend that you do. VoteVets.org has been a strong force in pushing veterans legislation and they were a driving force behind the new GI Bill. Veterans Green Jobs has been working with homeless veterans in a tree planting operation and recently received a contract to weatherize buildings in southern Colorado which will employ numerous out of work vets.
The second day of the event kicked off early at 6:15 AM. This was troublesome to those of us who had stayed at the Skydome lounge late the previous night. We then proceeded to George Washington University to hear from guest speakers and receive a little communications training. We were honored to hear from Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn (Ret) and learn about effective communication from some of the best trainers in the industry.
After leaving George Washington University, we then proceeded to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building of the White House. This was my first time ever inside the White House. We had a briefing from a number of honored speakers including Carol Browner and Senator John Warner. Senator Warner's speech was amazing, driven, and passionate. He spoke of returning home from World War II and from Korea. He spoke of the changing public perception of the military over the last 50 years. And he spoke of the close ties between climate change and national security. I have posted the full briefing here for anyone who wishes to see it. The video is an hour long, so most will not wish to sit through it in its entirety. I would recommend at least watching Senator Warner's speech. It starts at 21:07.
After leaving the EEOB, we proceeded to Hart Senate building to meet with a number of different senators and discuss the upcoming climate change legislation. I accompanied a group from Veterans Green Jobs as we met with Senator Mark Udall in his office. It is always a pleasure to meet with senators and representatives. Senator Udall was humorous, extremely supportive, and right on point. As I was meeting with him, over a hundred other veterans were meeting with other senators, legislative aids, and policy advisers. Operation FREE has begun.
"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
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