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Old 06-26-2010, 07:10   #1
Richard
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Worse Than a Nightmare (Afghanistan)

Is this the 'pulse' of the people...???

Words recently received from an old friend who has spent over three decades in the region:


I'm presently sitting at the Kabul airport DFAC (not eating, but its where the computers are located, of course) killing off time and waiting for the big bird to take me home tomorrow. I flew in from Khowst province last night. Khowst is a small Afghan province that borders Wazirstan - my location was about 20 clicks from the border (covering infiltration routes) - training some special locals. Also in our area, operating from FOB XXX is an ODA from XX Group - XX Group is also in-country, but didn't run into any of those guys. We'll talk more later about Afghanistan when I get back, but in one word the situation "sucks" - the best we can hope for here is to create a "manageable situation" -- in my view, this will require maintaining a US mil presence here into the next century. This country has never had a stable government, and I doubt the current one has any longevity - once the US mil pulls out, the house of cards will collapse.

...and...

Worse Than a Nightmare
Bob Herbert, NYT, 25 June 2010

President Obama can be applauded for his decisiveness in dispatching the chronically insubordinate Stanley McChrystal, but we are still left with a disaster of a war in Afghanistan that cannot be won and that the country as a whole will not support.

No one in official Washington is leveling with the public about what is really going on. We hear a lot about counterinsurgency, the latest hot cocktail-hour topic among the BlackBerry-thumbing crowd. But there is no evidence at all that counterinsurgency will work in Afghanistan. It’s not working now. And even if we managed to put all the proper pieces together, the fiercest counterinsurgency advocates in the military will tell you that something on the order of 10 to 15 years of hard effort would be required for this strategy to bear significant fruit.

We’ve been in Afghanistan for nearly a decade already. It’s one of the most corrupt places on the planet and the epicenter of global opium production. Our ostensible ally, President Hamid Karzai, is convinced that the U.S. cannot prevail in the war and is in hot pursuit of his own deal with the enemy Taliban. The American public gave up on the war long ago, and it is not at all clear that President Obama’s heart is really in it.

For us to even consider several more years of fighting and dying in Afghanistan — at a cost of heaven knows how many more billions of American taxpayer dollars — is demented.

Those who are so fascinated with counterinsurgency, from its chief advocate, Gen. David Petraeus, all the way down to the cocktail-hour kibitzers inside the Beltway, seem to have lost sight of a fundamental aspect of warfare: You don’t go to war half-stepping. You go to war to crush the enemy. You do this ferociously and as quickly as possible. If you don’t want to do it, if you have qualms about it, or don’t know how to do it, don’t go to war.

The men who stormed the beaches at Normandy weren’t trying to win the hearts and minds of anyone.

In Afghanistan, we are playing a dangerous, half-hearted game in which President Obama tells the America people that this is a war of necessity and that he will do whatever is necessary to succeed. Then, with the very next breath, he soothingly assures us that the withdrawal of U.S. troops will begin on schedule, like a Greyhound leaving the terminal, a year from now.

Both cannot be true.


What is true is that we aren’t even fighting as hard as we can right now. The counterinsurgency crowd doesn’t want to whack the enemy too hard because of an understandable fear that too many civilian casualties will undermine the “hearts and minds” and nation-building components of the strategy. Among the downsides of this battlefield caution is a disturbing unwillingness to give our own combat troops the supportive airstrikes and artillery cover that they feel is needed.

In an article this week, The Times quoted a U.S. Army sergeant in southern Afghanistan who was unhappy with the real-world effects of counterinsurgency. “I wish we had generals who remembered what it was like when they were down in a platoon,” he said. “Either they never have been in real fighting, or they forgot what it’s like.”

In the Rolling Stone article that led to General McChrystal’s ouster, reporter Michael Hastings wrote about the backlash that counterinsurgency restraints had provoked among the general’s own troops. Many feel that “being told to hold their fire” increases their vulnerability. A former Special Forces operator, a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, said of General McChrystal, according to Mr. Hastings, “His rules of engagement put soldiers’ lives in even greater danger. Every real soldier will tell you the same thing.”

We are sinking more and more deeply into the fetid quagmire of Afghanistan and neither the president nor General Petraeus nor anyone else has the slightest clue about how to get out. The counterinsurgency zealots in the military want more troops sent to Afghanistan, and they want the president to completely scrap his already shaky July 2011 timetable for the beginning of a withdrawal.

We’re like a compulsive gambler plunging ever more deeply into debt in order to wager on a rigged game. There is no victory to be had in Afghanistan, only grief. We’re bulldozing Detroit while at the same time trying to establish model metropolises in Kabul and Kandahar. We’re spending endless billions on this wretched war but can’t extend the unemployment benefits of Americans suffering from the wretched economy here at home.

The difference between this and a nightmare is that when you wake up from a nightmare it’s over. This is all too tragically real.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/op...26herbert.html

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02
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Old 01-14-2011, 16:34   #2
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just got back

I just got back and pretty much agree with both commentaries. Although I would add I don't think we should take the gloves off as much as just leave. I don't think what we are doing there is improving American national security interests- in fact, we're probably hurting our interests by continuing to waste money better invested internally.

I think the Afghans can handle what they need to handle, I think we're building American systems that won't last when we leave, and I don't think AQ will come back if we leave...
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Old 01-14-2011, 16:57   #3
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What do you gents think would happen if we left except for SF?
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Old 01-14-2011, 17:01   #4
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What do you gents think would happen if we left except for SF?
You'd have a bunch of dead SF guys.
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Old 01-15-2011, 07:12   #5
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What do you gents think would happen if we left except for SF?
I think you'd have a lot less power point briefings!

There are a lot of folks who think we can send most of the conventional combat guys home right now, keep some trainers and support folks and enough conventional might to support what the government wants to do, and enough SOF to strike at AQ (not Taliban) targets- and our national security would be just fine...
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Old 01-15-2011, 10:26   #6
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Originally Posted by bailaviborita View Post
I just got back and pretty much agree with both commentaries. Although I would add I don't think we should take the gloves off as much as just leave. I don't think what we are doing there is improving American national security interests- in fact, we're probably hurting our interests by continuing to waste money better invested internally.

I think the Afghans can handle what they need to handle, I think we're building American systems that won't last when we leave, and I don't think AQ will come back if we leave...
Amen.
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Old 01-15-2011, 11:41   #7
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Thank you for your insight.
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Old 01-15-2011, 11:50   #8
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Originally Posted by bailaviborita View Post
I just got back and pretty much agree with both commentaries. Although I would add I don't think we should take the gloves off as much as just leave. I don't think what we are doing there is improving American national security interests- in fact, we're probably hurting our interests by continuing to waste money better invested internally.

I think the Afghans can handle what they need to handle, I think we're building American systems that won't last when we leave, and I don't think AQ will come back if we leave...
I agree...you cannot 'teach' a form of democratic Govt. to a people with no traditions of the same to build upon. It goes against their traditions, history and more importantly experience.
I'd leave with a basic warning to Karzai...."Good luck, we've done what we can, hope it works out....and, btw, if you harbor terrs that target us we will come back and kill everyone because we realize you've decided to side with our enemies"
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Old 01-15-2011, 20:30   #9
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First stop calling it a country. It has no Government and no borders. Is just a region with a bunch of different tribes living with in it's space. Astan will never have stability. Just let the bad guys take over. Then every five years we go in and kill a bunch of them.
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Old 01-15-2011, 22:29   #10
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Best statement!!!

The U.S. has been
Quote:
playing a dangerous, half-hearted game
for many years, if not the whole time.

kgoerz, so true!!
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Old 01-15-2011, 23:41   #11
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Why won't AQ come back if we leave? Is it that it is too hot and would further draw unwanted attention or is it that the population is against them?

I am not suggesting that they would, I am genuinly interested in this.
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Old 01-16-2011, 08:46   #12
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Why won't AQ come back if we leave? Is it that it is too hot and would further draw unwanted attention or is it that the population is against them?

I am not suggesting that they would, I am genuinly interested in this.
They might- but it is an assumption. Many people (including ISAF, some politicians, and many think-tanks) state it as fact: if the Taliban takeover and/or we leave- AQ will naturally come back, set-up training camps, and resume bombing our cities.

All of those are a chain of assumptions, and many analysts have written that they are bad assumptions- or at least assumptions that are not worth banking the amount of money/troops/and effort we are to make sure they don't happen. There's also the thought that if they DO come back- they'd be more targetable and it would cost us much less, we'd get more of them, and it would be easier to hit them there as opposed to being in Pakistan, Somalia, Indonesia, etc.

And that's another crux of the argument: AQ is arguably more of a threat against us in other places- but, although we may be targeting them through SOF and intel assets- we're devoting much less treasure to those- yet getting a bigger bang for our buck there.

But- to get to the main point: I would submit that the Taliban had a very tenuous relationship with AQ and that today they are very different than what they were prior to 2001. They probably wouldn't want to come to power in certain places and then make a group welcome that they know would invite U.S. retaliation and interest. There are many places in Afghanistan that- given the chance- they will fight ANY outsiders- to include AQ. And the Taliban aren't a monolithic entity either- many are local powerbrokers using the Taliban moniker for their own local interests.

So- I'd conclude that if we left, that the Taliban would only gain power in a few places- and that most of them would probably strike some sort of agreement with Kabul to stay alive. I'd conclude that AQ wouldn't be welcome back. And I'd conclude that if AQ did come back in whatever form/# they would- we could easily target and wipe them out in Afghanistan in the foreseeable future (assuming we keep some SOF, trainers, advisers, money, and logistics support to the ANSF).
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Old 01-16-2011, 10:23   #13
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This is why I come here, to hear opinions from the tip of the spear. Thanks again!
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Old 01-16-2011, 10:35   #14
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They might- but it is an assumption. Many people (including ISAF, some politicians, and many think-tanks) state it as fact: if the Taliban takeover and/or we leave- AQ will naturally come back, set-up training camps, and resume bombing our cities.

All of those are a chain of assumptions, and many analysts have written that they are bad assumptions- or at least assumptions that are not worth banking the amount of money/troops/and effort we are to make sure they don't happen. There's also the thought that if they DO come back- they'd be more targetable and it would cost us much less, we'd get more of them, and it would be easier to hit them there as opposed to being in Pakistan, Somalia, Indonesia, etc.

And that's another crux of the argument: AQ is arguably more of a threat against us in other places- but, although we may be targeting them through SOF and intel assets- we're devoting much less treasure to those- yet getting a bigger bang for our buck there.

But- to get to the main point: I would submit that the Taliban had a very tenuous relationship with AQ and that today they are very different than what they were prior to 2001. They probably wouldn't want to come to power in certain places and then make a group welcome that they know would invite U.S. retaliation and interest. There are many places in Afghanistan that- given the chance- they will fight ANY outsiders- to include AQ. And the Taliban aren't a monolithic entity either- many are local powerbrokers using the Taliban moniker for their own local interests.

So- I'd conclude that if we left, that the Taliban would only gain power in a few places- and that most of them would probably strike some sort of agreement with Kabul to stay alive. I'd conclude that AQ wouldn't be welcome back. And I'd conclude that if AQ did come back in whatever form/# they would- we could easily target and wipe them out in Afghanistan in the foreseeable future (assuming we keep some SOF, trainers, advisers, money, and logistics support to the ANSF).
Thank you. I havn't thought of it like that, but it makes a lot of sense.


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busa This is why I come here, to hear opinions from the tip of the spear. Thanks again!
I couldn't have said it any better.
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Old 01-16-2011, 11:02   #15
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The TB are a homegrown Afghani entity - AQ is a foreign agent who inserted themsleves into and were allowed [for whatever reason(s)] to thrive relatively unmolestedly in territory 'presumably' under TB control.

The unilateral actions of AQ brought the wrath of the free world down upon the TB as a collateral effect of our efforts to defang AQ...and it has not been a pleasant experience for them or their supporters.

After the last decade and IF the TB returned to power in Afghanistan, I suspect they would have little desire or internal national support to even consider inviting the return of AQ and a renewal of the problems they brought to the TB.

I agree with BV - a return of the TB = a return of AQ is an 'assumption' which IMO doesn't necessarily ring true.

Richard
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