Time to follow Bismark's advice and Stop

How Afgan's view America and NATO

Adios, Afganistan

Diplomacy by cruise missile

From the outset of this blog, I have remained a supporter of the efforts of our government and NATO nations to try and change the course of a culture mired in a medieval epoch that retarded it's advancement into modernity and even more troubling and dangerous for humanity, remained a refuge for those who wished to destroy and retard the advancement, that most of the world has seen in the past half-century.

That is why after careful consideration of the events of the past year, coupled with the total lack of progress in changing the political landscape in Afghanistan, and the failure of our own forces to be able to both penetrate the mindset, as well as understand the most basic tenants of the culture they are trying to nurture, has led me to conclude that is is time to stop, and dramatically change course in Afghanistan.

I ignored the call to change courses two years ago, when George Will wrote this in the Washington Post, August 31, 2009.

U.S. forces are being increased by 21,000, to 68,000, bringing the coalition total to 110,000. About 9,000 are from Britain, where support for the war is waning. Counterinsurgency theory concerning the time and the ratio of forces required to protect the population indicates that, nationwide, Afghanistan would need hundreds of thousands of coalition troops, perhaps for a decade or more. That is inconceivable.

So, instead, forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.

Genius, said de Gaulle, recalling Bismarck's decision to halt German forces short of Paris in 1870, sometimes consists of knowing when to stop.

At the time, I took Will to task for abandoning the children, and especially the future generations of young women of Afghanistan to a life with no future.  Several things have happened in the past two years to finally bring me to declare that Will was right in his recommendation to pull back and in a phrase, practice what could be termed "diplomacy by cruise missile." Harsh and unfeeling as that appears, it makes sense that if we pull back, and make it plainly known to whoever ends up claiming to govern Afghanistan, that as long as they don't harbor those factions that threaten the world, including growing opium, or terrorists, that how they govern their countrymen is the choice of the people, whom have proven able to cast off any faction who tries to impose an unpopular rule set. Breaking those conditions, will bring a rain of missiles, or surgical strikes by special Op's teams to eliminate the threat. Hence we would be operating under the same rule set that Afghan's have lived with since before the Age of Alexander the Great.

Several events, including this from Tim Lynch, who's experience in Afghanistan is legendary, and sums up ten years in Afghanistan with three pictures.

Ten years ago, Afghans were thrilled to see us and thought that finally they could live in peace and develop their country

Five years ago they watched us flounder - we stayed on FOBs and shoveled cash by the billions into the hands of a corrupt central government that we insisted, despite clear evidence to the contrary, was a legitimate government - one that had to be supported at all costs. We raided their homes at night and shot up civilians who got too close to our convoys, we paid for roads that did not exist and, because of the "force protection" mentality, most Afghans thought our soldiers were cowards because they never came to the bazaar off duty and unarmored to buy stuff like the Russians did. In fact, every bite of food our soldiers consumed was flown into country at great expense, so in a land famous for its melons and grapes our troops ate crappy melon and tasteless grapes flown in by contractors from God knows where.

Now, they want to shoot us in the face. Except for the klepocratic elite who want us to give them billions more and then shoot us in the face.

We are not innocent in this relation deteriorating to the point that saw our President apologizing yet again for American behavior colliding with the sensitivities of the people of Afghanistan and those of the Islamic faith. The fact that after ten years, we can't seem to educate our own forces about these sensitivities seems to point to a growing lack of discipline and the old saying, CRS, "can't remember shit. The continued desecration of the enemy, add to this perception by a people who have been raised in a culture that has placed their religious icons to a point of veneration beyond the highest of any on earth. Add to that reality, when things spin out of control, and American officers are murdered inside the most secure Afghan government ministry, President Karzi, ignores their deaths, and continues position himself against the US in a effort to survive after our exit.

It is high time we obliged him, the Taliban, and the Afghan people so intent on being left to their own devices. We should announce our withdrawal with clear conditions that hell in it's most vivid images will rain down on Afghanistan or any country harboring the seeds of terrorism. Also that we will provide assistance to any nation that abides by the conditions of acknowledging human rights in their most basic form. I was part of the Vietnam Experience, and our options to influence the aftermath was limited by external forces.  Today, conditions would dictate a different outcome, that would secure our security against attacks like 9/11, by making the source-code country on notice that hell will come their way if they abide those who wish us harm.

Three great reads to ponder over a long weekend

Fall of Tripoli

September arrived with Col. Gaddafi's downfall after several months of battles that saw insurgents, supported by NATO air strikes and newly revealed US support. The blogs also seemed to take on a life of their own, in a reversal of Spring to bloom in the days preceding Fall, with posts that are filled with enough rich brain nutrition as to make an avid reader as giddy as a stallion with a bucket of fresh oats. I picked out a few of the best, to give you a tasty meal for your conscious mind to devour. First off, if you at first don't like the flavor of the article, I challenge you to not only read it but ponder the thesis of each. Then you are welcome to reject it, file it away or post your comments back on the original sites.
The first course is served up by Mark at Zenpundit who raises important points about the latest acronym R2P. No it is not a new Star Wars character, but means Responsibility to Protect the doctrine now being flaunted as the justification for Libyian intervention.

Mark gets right into discussing the doctrine with this introduction.

There has been much ado about Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter’s ennunciation of “Responsibility to Protect” as a justification for the Obama administration’s unusually executed intervention (or assistance to primarily British and French intervention) in Libya in support of rebels seeking to oust their lunatic dictator, Colonel Moammar Gaddafi. In “R2P” the Obama administration, intentionally or not, has found it’s own Bush Doctrine, and unsurprisingly, the magnitude of such claims - essentially a declaration of jihad against what is left of the Westphalian state system by progressive elite intellectuals - are beginning to draw fire for implications that stretch far beyond Libya.

This is an outstanding post that really showcases Mark as a master thinker as he adds his own astute comments and links three rebuttal posts to Dr. Slaughter's thesis.

I highly recommend reading Mark's post in full, as well as the linked posts to give yourself a full understand how R2P might come back to do, as Mark suggests.

Who is to say that there is not, somewhere in the intellectual ether, an R2P for the the environment, to protect the life of the unborn, to mandate strict control of small arms, or safeguard the political rights of minorities by strictly regulating speech? Or whatever might be invented to suit the needs of the moment?

When we arrest a bank robber, we do not feel a need to put law enforcement and the judiciary on a different systemic basis in order to try them. Finding legal pretexts for intervention to stop genocide does not require a substantial revision of international law, merely political will. R2P could become an excellent tool for elites to institute their policy preferences without securing democratic consent and that aspect, to oligarchical elites is a feature, not a bug.

R2P will come back to haunt us sooner than we think.

 Read more:
R2P is a Doctrine Designed to Strike Down the Hand that Wields It

US Army

US Navy

US Marines the Premier Forced Entry Team

US Air Force

Next up we visit a topic that is as old as the country itself,when one branch of the military asks the value of continued spending of the bulk of the nation's defense allocation on another branch. This comes in the light of the wind-down of our boots on the ground commitments in Southwest Asia. Chris Rawley penned this inquiring post at Information Dissemination that asks a question that might be on the minds of many, in view of the past ten years war.

A number of interesting learning points have arisen from the Libyan conflict. Foremost among them for me is the need to massively downsize the United States Army. More about that heresy in a minute… Galrahn and Robert Farley have discussed the merits and shortcomings of airpower in relation to the US/NATO/various third-party countries' campaign against the Gadhafi regime. They both make some interesting points. However, what the Libya campaign best demonstrates, or more appropriately, reiterates, is the utility of the special ops-airpower team. And by airpower, I’m referring to service-agnostic airpower in all its’ forms, although biased towards the flexibility sea-based aircraft provide.

Chris's post generated over 145 comments and prompted this update:
UPDATE: To save readers from going through 80+ postings and provide some clarity: what do I mean by "massive" cuts to USA force structure? How about at least 25% of active duty force structure? Honestly, I won't venture to put out an exact number, but I do know that 5% cuts applied to all services across the board is a disservice to national security. Designing a future force for "most likely" scenarios, as well as black swans doesn't mandate that we do things the way we always (or at least recently) have done them. And while 25% may not seem like a large number, when you put it in dollars and manpower, it's pretty "massive."

Read more.
Libya Lessons: Supremacy of the SOF-Airpower Team… Or, why do We Still Need a Huge Army?

This post led to a second post by Rawley after he received considerable feedback and personal emails regarding his raising this topic.

I’ve received significant feedback on this post , ranging from private emails calling these ideas “brilliant” to a blatant dismissal of any arguments that recommend cutting the army by a single soldier. More importantly, regardless of one's opinion on my arguments, the discourse on this topic has been energized. Since my post, a few timely articles were written discussing this debate. Looks like the Army itself is talking about eliminating 10 out of 45 active BCTs, which is just short of the 25% SWAG I recommended (no, I didn’t have inside information on this).

Was I too parochial? Guilty as charged, except that I’m also defending the Marine Corps, Air Force, and multi-service SOF community over the Army conventional force. However, I’m not sure how one can take a position on force reductions without being parochial, unless one thinks that across the board cuts make any sort of strategic sense (I don’t). I was also accused of coming to the right conclusion for the wrong reasons. Fair point, but I didn’t intend to capture all of the reasons that the army should be reduced before the other services in a single post. Those arguments have been made extensively at every draw-down, most recently during the early 1990s, post-Cold War/ODS era.

Read more:
Why Do We Still Need a Huge Army? - Round II


I am an Army guy and hold personal parochial feelings since my days in Army green. That said, we can still have the most lethal conventional force able to meet any commitment at the levels suggested by the Army itself of 35 BCT's. The waste in dollars spent the past ten years prosecuting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has been obscene and should never be repeated. A mean and lean Leviathan force is the best way for us to protect our interests, defend our homeland and be an influence for global good. That means a broad approach that continues to recognize that we are a maritime nation and must continue to be so in order to remain a great power. But also maintain a standing Army honed to a razor's edge so as to dissuade any opponent from trying the unthinkable.

Brain Food for a Sunday Afternoon

Lt Col. David Anderson, Kanani Fong, and family

This Sunday as the Eastern seaboard begins to relax and restore power and pump out flooded basements in the wake of Hurricane Irene, an article in Southern California's Orange Country Register remind us that we are just two weeks away from pausing to remember the day modern America changed forever. The article was penned by my good friend and fellow blogger Kanani Fong, who in addition to being a gifted writer, is the wife of Lt. Col. David Anderson, an Army surgeon who just returned from his second deployment to Afghanistan. Her story told in her own words show the depth of commitment that many Americans have felt to their country and fellow citizens since September 11, 2001. She begins.

Loving someone at war is the second-worst kind of missing you will ever experience. The worst kind of missing is if they die. We don’t like to think of it, but we do.

My husband, Lt. Col. David B. Anderson, joined the Army as an active-duty surgeon when he was 52. Since then, this midlife turn of events has taken him to two areas of conflict. First was Kunar, where he was the surgeon in charge of the 759th Forward Surgical Unit. The second, from which he just returned, was in Herat. Both were in Afghanistan.

Deployments have a rhythm: Inhale, he’s here; exhale, he’s gone.

Kanani continues by explaining how she came to be an army wife in what she calls middle age and I call just reaching your plateau. In a few short paragraphs she explains how she has managed to raise their two teenage children and maintain both their home and still find time to lend her support to the troops and their families. Take the time to read the article and visit her blog the Kitchen Dispatch where she will keep you abreast on her life as an Army surgeons wife.

Read more:
An Army doctor's wife explains war at middle age

Rents in the fabric of Globalization

This next post comes by way of Steve DeAngelis who write the Enterprise Resilience Management blog. In this post Steve examines the rents in the fabric of Globalization and what America can do to mend them.

Overall globalization has been a good thing for the world. Millions (if not billions) of people have emerged from poverty's grasp as globalization washed over the shores of the better part of the world during the last several decades. Admittedly, globalization's effects have varied by region and state. Along with winners globalization has created some losers. As a result, globalization's fabric has become threadbare in spots. Jeffrey Sachs, a well-known advocate for the underprivileged and director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, points out, for example, that unskilled labor in developed countries like the United States has been hit hard by the consequences of globalization. ["Tripped up by globalisation," Financial Times, 18 August 2011] Sachs insists, "The path to recovery now lies ... in upgraded skills, increased exports and public investments in infrastructure and low-carbon energy."

Steve continues his post by building off  the original prescription by Jeffrey Sachs, where he brings much needed insight from someone who is fulfilling a calling to help develop a future worth living.

Although I agree with Sachs on the basic thrust of what is required to bring real recovery to the U.S. economy, we differ in some particulars. Sachs, for one thing, believes corporations should be taxed more heavily. I fear that would only make matters worse since corporations would likely send more of their money to tax havens overseas. Clearly, tax revenues need to increase and government spending needs to be reeled in if basic government needs and essential social services are going to be provided; but the best way to increase tax revenues is to put people back to work. Corporations that create jobs should be rewarded for their efforts rather than be penalized. I've argued since the beginning of the recession that more needed to be done to encourage entrepreneurs to start businesses and hire employees. Unfortunately, it looks like politicians are more interested in pointing fingers of blame at each other than they are about trying to work together to stimulate job creation. Getting off the soapbox, let me return to the subject of globalization.

Read more:
The Holes in Globalization's Fabric

Have we reached this point in our history?

Finally, comes this guest post over at Zenpundit written by Pundita who uses an amusing video to introduce and illustrate her point.

The title of this post refers to the punch line in a series of TV commercials in the USA for Sears Optical eyeglasses. The ads feature amusing skits of people in serious need of a pair of glasses, such as the woman who mistakes a police patrol car for a taxicab. But helped along by bravura performances from Tara L. Clark as a blind-as-a-bat cat owner and Squirty as a wild racoon who can’t believe his luck, one of the skits is so funny it’s gone viral on the internet:

Pundita notes the contribution of the master of zenpundit Mark Safranski to the discussion with this comment.

Over at ZenPundit, Mark Safranski has again expressed concern about what he calls an emerging American oligarchy, an elite that’s manipulating the rest of the American populace to accept its rule. Meanwhile, Fareed Zakaria is seriously proposing that America replace its president with a prime minister and Congress with a parliament — with an upper house, I suppose, to be stuffed with Mark’s oligarchs, duly elected of course, so that Americans will stop the troublesome habit of vehemently disagreeing with one another. 

Read and watch for a final desert of brain food.
Missing Something?

Memorial Day 2011

American Military Cemetery Cartage, Tunisia

Cartage,Tunisia

American Military Cemetery, Manila-16,631 at rest.

American Cemetery Luxembourg

Memorial Day is a day to remember those who have given their lives in the service of our nation. For anyone who has served, the day takes on a special meaning because we shared the same bond of service. I have written before of those we remember  on this day. This year, I want to share a passage written by Rick Atkinson author of Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943. This excerpt from the prologue is one of the most moving passages ever put to ink.

Twenty-seven acres of headstones fill the American military cemetery at Carthage, Tunisia. There are no obelisks, no tombs, no ostentatious monuments, just 2,841 bone-white marble markers, two feet high and arrayed in ranks as straight as gunshots. Only the chiseled names and dates of death suggest singularity. Four sets of brothers lie side by side. Some 240 stones are inscribed with the thirteen of the saddest words in our language: "Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God." A long limestone wall contains the names of another 3,724 men still missing, and a benediction: "Into Thy hands, O Lord."

This is an ancient place, built on the ruins of Roman Carthage and a stone's throw from the even older Punic city. It is incomparably serene. The scents of eucalyptus and of the briny Mediterranean barely two miles away carry on the morning air, and the African light is flat and shimmering, as if worked by a silversmith. Tunisian lovers stroll hand in hand across the kikuyu grass or sit on benches in the bowers, framed by orangeberry and scarlet hibiscus. Cypress and Russian olive trees ring the yard, with scattered acacia and Aleppo pine and Jerusalem thorn. A carillon plays hymns on the hour, and the chimes sometimes mingle with a muezzin's call to prayer from a nearby minaret. Another wall is inscribed with the battles where these boys died in 1942 and 1943 -- Casablanca, Algiers, Oran, Kasserine, El Guettar, Sidi Nsir, Bizerte -- along with a line from Shelley's "Adonais": "He has outsoared the shadow of our night."

In the tradition of government-issue graves, the stones are devoid of epitaphs, parting endearments, even dates of birth. But visitors familiar with the American and British invasion of North Africa in November 1942, and the subsequent seven-month struggle to expel the Axis powers there, can make reasonable conjectures. We can surmise that Willett H. Wallace, a private first class in the 26th Infantry Regiment who died on November 9,1942, was killed at St. Cloud, Algeria, during the three days of hard fighting against, improbably, the French. Ward H. Osmun and his brother Wilbur W., both privates from New Jersey in the 18th Infantry and both killed on Christmas Eve 1942, surely died in the brutal battle of Longstop Hill, where the initial Allied drive in Tunisia was stopped -- for more than five months, as it turned out -- within sight of Tunis. Ignatius Glovach, a private first class in the 701st Tank Destroyer Battalion who died on Valentine's Day, 1943, certainly was killed in the opening hours of the great German counteroffensive known as the battle of Kasserine Pass. And Jacob Feinstein, a sergeant from Maryland in the 135th Infantry who died on April 29, 1943, no doubt passed during the epic battle for Hill 609, where the American Army came of age.

A visit to the Tunisian battlefields tells a bit more. For more than half a century, time and weather have purified the ground at El Guettar and Kasserine and Longstop. But the slit trenches remain, and rusty C-ration cans, and shell fragments scattered like seed corn. The lay of the land also remains -- the vulnerable low ground, the superior high ground: incessant reminders of how, in battle, topography is fate.

Yet even when the choreography of armies is understood, or the movement of this battalion or that rifle squad, we crave intimate detail, of individual men in individual foxholes. Where, precisely, was Private Anthony N. Marfione when he died on December 24,1942? What were the last conscious thoughts of Lieutenant Hill P. Cooper before he left this earth on April 9, 1943? Was Sergeant Harry K. Midkiff alone when he crossed over on November 25,1942, or did some good soul squeeze his hand and caress his forehead?

The dead resist such intimacy. The closer we try to approach, the farther they draw back, like rainbows or mirages. They have outsoared the shadow of our night, to reside in the wild uplands of the past. History can take us there, almost. Their diaries and letters, their official reports and unofficial chronicles -- including documents that, until now, have been hidden from view since the war -- reveal many moments of exquisite clarity over a distance of sixty years. Memory, too, has transcendent power, even as we swiftly move toward the day when not a single participant remains alive to tell his tale, and the epic of World War II forever slips into national mythology.

Tens of thousands of Americans lay like those above; in cemeteries, unmarked loam and jungle sand, far from the place of their birth. I can attest for every one, that in their youth, none imagined their bones would rest forever so far from home. Today, the nation goes to extraordinary measures to bring their fallen sons and daughters home. For most of the nation, the wars of the past decade have not left them wounded with the loss of a family member or even anyone they have personally known. The lives lost in earlier wars are distant and fleeting, only remembered if those lost were a parent or a relative.

Hopefully, this post and those by other unfettered hands posting scores of tributes on this medium and across the social media, will give pause to everyone to remember how much their current lives were impacted by fellow citizens who gave their lives to insure the freedom of the next generation. I am especially speaking to the millions born and those who have come to these shores in the years since World War II and the wars spawned of the Cold War. Your lives would not be the same without the sacrifice of souls like those remembered above.

So I say, lift your glass just once this long weekend, and pause and utter a small remembrance to those who made it possible for you to have the chance to live in a world of opportunity versus a world of permission. The greatest redemption for their loss, is making sure your life is worthwhile.

Another Strategic Forehead Slapping Moment in Afghanistan

Outpost Restrepo

Korangal Valley

Restrepo

One year ago yesterday, the United States Army closed the Korangal outpost in the Korangal Valley of northeast Afghanistan. This valley was the scene of almost constant combat after an outpost was established in April of 2006 by the U.S. Marines. Over the next four years the valley saw soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade duel with the the local mountain people supported by the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters slipping across the nearby Pakistan border. The valley was the scene for the Academy Award nominated documentary Restrepo and later written about by Bing West. in his best selling The Wrong War.

The main reason given for pulling back and abandoning the valley after two score and two deaths and hundreds of wounded was that the very presence of American forces was causing the locals to join the Taliban. The logic was these clannish mountain people would shun the Taliban and the Taliban would leave. Well folks, get ready for that forehead slapping moment.

The Wall Street Journal in an article last week reported that six months ago in September, 2010 that air strikes were conducted in the valley that resulted in dozens of Al Qaeda fighters and two senior leaders being killed. The article lays it out this way.

In late September, U.S. fighter jets streaked over the cedar-studded slopes of Korengal, the so-called Valley of Death, to strike a target that hadn't been seen for years in Afghanistan: an al Qaeda training camp.

Among the dozens of Arabs killed that day, the U.S.-led coalition said, were two senior al Qaeda members, one Saudi and the other Kuwaiti. Another casualty of the bombing, according to Saudi media and jihadi websites, was one of Saudi Arabia's most wanted militants. The men had come to Afghanistan to impart their skills to a new generation of Afghan and foreign fighters.

Over the past six to eight months, al Qaeda has begun setting up training camps, hideouts and operations bases in the remote mountains along Afghanistan's northeastern border with Pakistan, some U.S., Afghan and Taliban officials say. The stepped-up infiltration followed a U.S. pullback from large swatches of the region starting 18 months ago. The areas were deemed strategically irrelevant and left to Afghanistan's uneven security forces, and in some parts, abandoned entirely.

The article goes on to point out that contrary to military claims, the Taliban and in particular Al Qaeda have maintained their ties and continue to draw recruits from around the world.

Interviews with several Taliban commanders bear out that assessment. The commanders say the al Qaeda facilities in northeastern Afghanistan are tightly tied to the Afghan Taliban leadership. "In these bases, fighters from around the world get training. We are training suicide bombers, [improvised explosive device] experts and guerrilla fighters," said an insurgent commander in Nuristan who goes by the nom de guerre Agha Saib and who was reached by telephone.

The U.S. military has countered that raids by small elite units have been effective in countering the Al Qaeda presence in the valley. But they admit that those forces are stretched thin across the globe.

"We do not have an intelligence problem. We have a capacity problem. We generally know the places they are, how they are operating," said the senior U.S. military official, speaking of al Qaeda. The problem "is our ability to get there and do something."

Read more:
Al Qaeda Makes Afghan Comback!

Where do we go from here. Is this a window on the future of Afghanistan operations? Why did it take six months for this to information to surface? I can't imagine how the soldiers who fought in the valley and especially the parents of the slain feel today knowing that it appears that like the re-occurring nightmare of tactics in Vietnam it was all in vain. Does the answer lie in a Machiavellian or Curtis LeMay strategy of carpet bombing the valley or continued insertion of small forces that sooner or later will take more casualties in an never ending conflict.

A New Friend Sets an Example

The Kitchen Dispatch Blog

Restrepo

Some have said that life in the first decade of the 21st century can take the quote from the classic Charles Dickens book, A Tale of Two Cities; "We live in the best of times and in the worst of times," and make it the mantra that describes our world today. In reflecting on world history, I would contend that it is true of the first part of that quote, "We live in the best of times." The positive changes for most of humanity since the end of the Cold War can be measured with the number of people worldwide who have moved from desperate poverty to gain a foothold on becoming middle-class in their own environs.

Technology designed for conflict has lent itself to connecting people as never before, and led to social and political transparency that makes it possible to be friends and have conversations between the most far-flung locations. This long introduction sets the stage to introduce a blog that I recently added to my favorite list. It is written by a women who after getting to know her appears to be a one person dynamo, who has taken on the challenge of raising a family, after her husband a successful surgeon for twenty odd years, joined the Army Medical Corp and after a tour of duty in Afghanistan, is taking care of soldiers at an army post stateside. In addition my new friend, took on the job of helping publicize the recent acclaimed documentary Restrepo. She also writes an excellent blog The Kitchen Dispatch where she hold forth wise commentary about moving from a surgeon's wife to an Army surgeon's wife and how it has transformed her writer's life. Kanani Fong is not only walking the walk, when she writes about getting involved. She recently stepped up to lead a writers workshop at a local Boys and Girls Teen Center in her community, where she is introducing young people to the joys of writing. She wrote this about her first day back on what she termed "terra firma."

4:00 came around, I braved the outdoor area where the teens were having a snack. I felt awkward and conspicuous.

Approaching a group of 14-17 year olds is always a dicey affair. One doesn't want to appear eager, look matronly , or even more disturbing --come across like an aging hipster. Teens can sniff out a phony in a second. After inquiring whether they were going to join me, several already knew today was the day. A migration started from the picnic tables to the classroom.

Kanani goes on to encourage the students and then explains her approach.

The purpose of the workshop is to introduce them to writing for the fun of it. I think school has a tendency to drill into people what is wrong and what is right. After enough red marks, the students start to give up. The problem is that while teachers are willing to put down a host of rules, they're usually unwilling to admit that every writer has broken them. And so the whole experience for the student becomes whether or not they will pass or fail. Writing becomes just another damned thing they have to do, and usually, they end up hating it. While I will agree that there are ways to communicate more effectively, if someone isn't enjoying the experience, they will never gain the confidence to do it well.

Take the time to visit Kanani's kitchen and not only enjoy reading about how she got these young people to feel the rythem or writing, then bookmark her link and visit her kitchen often.
The Gratitude Post: Feeling like a Teen in the Creative Landscape. Back on Terra Firma

This leads me to reflect on what Kanani wrote about how schools teach and how it might contribute to students giving up. I came across a book review at Economist.com which reviews Not Quite Adults: Why 20-Somethings Are Choosing a Slower Path to Adulthood, and Why It's Good for Everyone by  Richard Settersten and Barbara Ray.

The gist of the review is that.

Most twenty-somethings, however, are “treaders”, who simply replicate the lessons of their poorer, less stable, non-voting and hands-off parents, but to worse effect. The authors argue that when young adults invest in themselves and their careers before taking on the baggage of marriage, children and a job to pay the bills, they are equipped to make better choices down the road, for themselves and as citizens. Having a child too early can be one of the costliest barriers to advancement, whereas postponing nuptials until careers are in place leads to lower divorce rates.

“Not Quite Adults” offers a valuable portrait of the diverging destinies of young people today. In a country that prizes self- reliance and private solutions for social problems, more young adults are doomed to sink. Regardless of where one assigns blame, when nearly two-thirds of the next generation is struggling to find “a secure foothold in the middle class”, everyone ends up paying the price.

Even more troubling is what brought us to the point that such a large number of Americans are not equipped to assume their place in making a productive society. Regardless what the authors see that this is a good thing, I question the long term effects of having such a large precentage of the population treading water, with no plans in effect to learn how to swim. I can't comment on the thesis of the book, but am only reacting to the thread of thought expoused by the review.

Read more:
Left Out in the Rain

The Gangs Who Couldn't Shoot Straight!

Taliban Marksmen Training

Afghan National Army

My apologies to author Jimmy Breslin for borrowing from the title of a book he wrote. But a series of reports from New York Times correspondent CJ Chivers about Afghan marksmanship has a comedic thread only tempered by the occasional lucky shot.

In this first article Chivers uncovers the truth about the fable about legendary Afghan marksmanship.

The recent Marine operations in and near Marja brought into sharp relief a fact that contradicts much of what people think they know about the Afghan war. It is this: Forget the fables. The current ranks of Afghan fighters are crowded with poor marksmen.

Thissimple statement is at odds with an oft-repeated legend of modern conflict, in which Afghan men are described, in clichés and accounts from yesteryear, as natural gunmen and accomplished shots. Everyone who has even faintly followed the history of war in Central Asia has heard the tales of Afghan men whose familiarity with firearms is such a part of their life experience that they can pick up most any weapon and immediately put it to effective work. The most exaggerated accounts are cartoonish, including tales of Afghan riflemen whose bullets can strike a lone sapling (I’ve even heard “blade of grass”) a hilltop away.

Read more:
Afghan Marksmen Forget the Fables

Taliban Gear

Chivers continues to zero in on this subject by taking a closer look at the Taliban fighters and why their rifle fire has been less than stellar.

We plan more posts about the nature of the fighting in Afghanistan, and how this influences the experience of the war. Today this blog discusses visible factors that, individually and together, predict poor shooting results when Taliban gunmen get behind their rifles.

It’s worth noting that many survivors of multiple small-arms engagements in Afghanistan have had experiences similar to those described last week. After emerging unscathed from ambushes, including ambushes within ranges at which the Taliban’s AK-47 knock-offs should have been effective, they wonder: how did so much Taliban fire miss?

Read more:
The Weakness of Taliban Marksmanship

Now just when we all could take a sigh of relief that the fabled Afghan enemy can't hit the broad side of a barn with a shotgun, Chivers offers up this report about the Afghan National Army, the guys who've been the recipients of billions of dollars of training.

Puncturing some of the legends of Afghan fighting prowess has value for at least two reasons.

First, when assessing the Taliban and other insurgent organizations — which few people dispute form a resolved and adaptive force – it is important to be wary of exaggerating their traditional fighting skills, as opposed to their social and political skills, their effectiveness as criminal organizations, and their shift in recent years toward improvised explosives. The Taliban’s shoddy marksmanship also raises questions about how fighting in Afghanistan has evolved. Is the Taliban’s shift toward using improvised explosives an indication that they have learned from the insurgents’ experience in Iraq? Or is it an indication that the Taliban realized that their rifle fire was usually ineffective? Both?

Second, when the discussion turns to deficiencies in the marksmanship of government troops, the conversation has another use. It provides insights into the overall state of the government security forces. And it leads to a natural question: What return has the United States received in Afghanistan on its extraordinary investment in the Afghan National Army? More on that in a moment.

Read more:
Afghan Marksmanship: Pointing not Aiming

Now before we all get ourselves up in a dither about wasting billions in what seems to be an unteachable excercise, we should reflect that our own forces haven't focused on long range shooting skills for decades.
Tactical Tidbits from Afghanistan and The Return of an Old Friend. We can look back at the experience of our own military in trying to teach shooting skills to soldiers post Civil War, when as few as ten rounds per man were allocated for practice per year. It will take decades of training to build a cadre of marksmen, something that might be beyond the scope of our timetable. There may be a third way as explained in this article from the Small Wars Journal by Col. Gary Anderson.

When Ralph Peters of the New York Post and the editor of the New York Times actually agree on something, it is both an unusual occasion and a cause for reflection. In the case of Hamid Karzai, the leader of Afghanistan, we have one of those rare confluences of agreement. Both concur that Karzai has become more of a liability than an asset. His poorly thought out threat to throw in his lot with Taliban in response to Western disapproval, combined with his inept handling of the war, has lost him critical support in Washington and in Europe. Some Afghans think he may have lost his grip on reality; whatever the cause, he has made few friends in recent weeks among those he needs if he hopes to retain power. None of this bodes well for American strategy in Afghanistan. It is one thing to have an unstable ally in a war; we have dealt with shaky allies in the past. However, an ungrateful and unstable ally may well be too much to ask the American people to bear. It may be time to explore a third option between abandoning Afghanistan and enduring Karzai’s ungrateful and demonstrably corrupt regime.

Read more:
A Third Way in Aftghanistan



UPDATE: Uncut: Lessons learned from Six and a Half Years in Afthanistan

Tactical Tidbits from Afghanistan

U.S. Marines shielding an Afghan father and child

The war in Afghanistan has burned in a sporadic fashion, bursting on the news scene whenever a suicide or car bomb explodes in crowded streets killing dozens. The butcher's bill for soldiers and Marines lost in combat has been at a level that only the loss of several at the same time garners any attention by the MSM. Only the most tuned in to military and strategic affairs are aware of the daily efforts of those we ask to step into harm's way.

A few years ago, General David Petraeus coined the most famous phrase of the Iraq War, "Tell me how this ends." when he made an off hand comment in 2003, to author Rick Atkinson who included it in his book, In The Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat. Those words were partially answered this week by a no less critical forum of the war than Newsweek magazine, when they declared Rebirth of a Nation: Something that looks an awful lot like democracy is beginning to take hold in Iraq. It may not be 'mission accomplished'—but it's a start. What does this then mean for Afghanistan? The war is of a different scale; and tactics that worked in Iraq may not work in what many continue to argue, is a template of tribal culture, unbending to the efforts of conquerors for thousands of years.

U.S. Marines meeting with tribal elders

One recent article posted by the editors of the difinitive go to source for information Small Wars Journal who linked this article by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, of the Washington Post, At Afghan outpost, Marines gone rogue or leading the fight against counterinsurgency?

The Marines are pushing into previously ignored Taliban enclaves. They have set up a first-of-its-kind school to train police officers. They have brought in a Muslim chaplain to pray with local mullahs and deployed teams of female Marines to reach out to Afghan women.

The Marine approach -- creative, aggressive and, at times, unorthodox -- has won many admirers within the military. The Marine emphasis on patrolling by foot and interacting with the population, which has helped to turn former insurgent strongholds along the Helmand River valley into reasonably stable communities with thriving bazaars and functioning schools, is hailed as a model of how U.S. forces should implement counterinsurgency strategy.

The Marines have so upset the Army centric chain of command that some are calling their area of operations, "Marineistan." This has prompted retired U.S. Army General and current Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry to declare that, "The international security force in Afghanistan feels as if it comprises 42 nations instead of 41 because the Marines act so independently from other U.S. forces." It seems from this old ex-soldiers prospective that the old interservice rivalry is alive and kicking in 2010. One only has to possess a smiggen of histoical memory to remember how General William Westmoreland put the U.S. Marines up in I Corps as a static blocking force against the DMZ, instead of down in the Meokong Delta where the Marines amphib experience would have paid major dividends. Istead Westmoreland deployed his beloved 9th Infantry Division to turn itself into a riverine force working alongside the U.S. Navy.

TAO for US Marines in I Corp Vietnam

US Military Rifles 1873-2010

Coupled with this story is another post from SMJ, that raises real concerns that the infantry is having trouble reaching out and touching the enemy. "Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afghanistan: Taking Back the Infantry Half-Kilometer" by by MAJ Thomas P. Ehrhart.

Operations in Afghanistan frequently require United States ground forces to engage and destroy the enemy at ranges beyond 300 meters. These operations occur in rugged terrain and in situations where traditional supporting fires are limited due to range or risk of collateral damage. With these limitations, the infantry in Afghanistan require a precise, lethal fire capability that exists only in a properly trained and equipped infantryman. While the infantryman is ideally suited for combat in Afghanistan, his current weapons, doctrine, and marksmanship training do not provide a precise, lethal fire capability to 500 meters and are therefore inappropriate.

Comments from returning non-commissioned officers and officers reveal that about fifty percent of engagements occur past 300 meters. The enemy tactics are to engage United States forces from high ground with medium and heavy weapons, often including mortars, knowing that we are restricted by our equipment limitations and the inability of our overburdened soldiers to maneuver at elevations exceeding 6000 feet. Current equipment, training, and doctrine are optimized for engagements under 300 meters and on level terrain

This is an interesting series of recommendations that clearly states that if you are going to fight at long distances, you need to adapt by resurrecting the lost art of "marksmanship" along with weapons that can kill the enemy. Imbedded in this report are references and a hat tip to the Marines for teaching not only distance shooting, but for using the heavier and more accurate M16A2 rifle.

The Marines are the only service that still qualifies to a distance of 500 meters, though not under realistic conditions.91 They also retained the full size M16A2 rifle when others adopted the M4 carbine. Though it is more lethal, its overall length makes it less practical.

 
The article is a good source of historical data recounting the "Capability of the Infantry from 1917 to 2003."
Stepping further back in history one can review the tactics and efforts of General Nelson Miles who led the 5th Infantry armed with the long range Springfield Model 1873 Rifle in the Infantry in the Indian Wars:1876-1891.
 
 

Closing out this foray into tactics and strategies in Afghanistan is this remarkable series of reports coming from author, historian and good blog friend, Steven Pressfield who recently returned from Afghanistan where he accompanied Marine General James Mattis on an inspection tour. Steve's vivid description of his journey places the reader right alongside him and gives a fresh prospective. Downrange: An Informal Report on a trip to Afghanistan with Marine Gen. James N. Mattis. I urge all to read it and follow the rest of the four posts.
Part Two, Part Three.

Afghanistan, A Cause or A Curse?

Afghanistan, like the physical mass of her landscape, continues to defy the best intentions of military forces arrayed within her artificial borders to wrest a people who for the past 2500 years have chosen to live by a code dictated by conditions of tribal custom kept safe from intrusions by the geographic characteristics of a desolate landlocked society cutoff from outside influence. The challenge of trying to impose Western style democracy in the span of less than a decade is meeting with a resistance that first confounded the Bush Adminstration and continues to suck the Obama Presidency into it's moral and ethical quicksand.

The central question is Afthanistan a cause worth pursuing, or a curse that will continue to eat at the fabric of resolve until America and their allies quit leaving a vacumn for the Taliban to return? Will quiting become an example to others who see profit in the strategic defeat of the great powers. Can America singlehandedly manhandle 28 million people, 15 million of which are under 30, into the modern world without destroying the tribal culture. These questions have kept the midnight oil burning in Washington for over two months and right along side, the soft glow of monitors have reflected the thought of experts from all corners of the spectrum.

I am no expert and will not pontificate on what we should do or not do. It troubles me as someone who willingly fought for a cause that at the time seemed just, will again see thousands of American and families from many nations, stand over their childrens graves and wonder what hath their nation done to waste their childs life.

In a continuing effort to inform, I offer the following posts that reflect the breadth of this issue.
First from the field>Michael Yon who up until a short time ago was embedded with the 2 Rifles of the British Army in Helmand Province in Afghanistan. The British became sensitive to Michael's honest reporting and ended his embed. He wrote this troubling post.

In 2008, I was trekking in the Himalayas in Nepal preparing for a return to Afghanistan. A message came from a British officer suggesting to end the trip and get to Afghanistan. Something was up, and I didn’t bother to ask what. Days of walking were needed to reach the nearest road. After several flights, I landed in Kandahar and eventually Helmand Province at Camp Bastion, Afghanistan. The top-secret mission was Oqab Tsuka, involving thousands of ISAF troops who were to deliver turbines to the Kajaki Dam to spearhead a major electrification project. The difficult mission was a great success. That was 2008. During my 2009 embed with British forces, just downstream from Kajaki Dam, it became clear that the initial success had eroded into abject failure. And then the British kicked me out of the embed, for reasons still unclear, giving me time to look further into the Kajaki electrification failure.

READ MORE: Afghanistan: Electrification Effort Loses Spark

To illustrate that all is not lost, we turn to the United States Marines and this measurement of progress that prove the Marines the most innovative of our forces, have made since being deployed to the same Helmand Province that Michael Yon reported about above. It is heartening that the Marines are again proving as they did in Vietnam with their Combined Action Program (CAP) that success means getting up close and knowing the people you are tasked to protect.

There’s No Substitute for Troops on the Ground by Max Boot, New York Times Opinion

“I hope people who say this war is unwinnable see stories like this. This is what winning in a counterinsurgency looks like.” Lt. Col. William F. McCollough, commander of the First Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment, is walking me around the center of Nawa, a poor, rural district in southern Afghanistan’s strategically vital Helmand River Valley. His Marines, who now number more than 1,000, arrived in June to clear out the Taliban stronghold. Two weeks of hard fighting killed two Marines and wounded 70 more but drove out the insurgents. Since then the colonel’s men, working with 400 Afghan soldiers and 100 policemen, have established a “security bubble” around Nawa. Colonel McCollough recalls that when they first arrived the bazaar was mostly shuttered and the streets empty. “This town was strangled by the Taliban,” he says. “Anyone who was still here was beaten, taxed or intimidated.”

Small Wars Journal sponsored this essay by Dr. Tony Corn. Toward a Kilcullen-Biden Plan?

At this particular juncture, the U.S. simply cannot afford a 500 billion dollar open-ended escalation. Nor can it opt for an incremental (“middle road”) strategy which would fail to create the psychological effects required in both the West and Afghanistan.

A temporary 40,000 surge is doable, but only if the core of the Obama strategy is a “Kilcullen-Biden” plan combining convocation of a loya jirga domestically with a regionalization of the Afghan question diplomatically. Let’s go massive for a limited time, and “clear, hold, and build” as much as we can. If it does not work, a regional negotiation provides ample cover for a drawdown.

Rounding out this weeks discussion is this post from It's The Tribes Stupid! where Steve Pressfield continues his interview with Afghan tribal leader, Chief Zazai. Here a little taste of this informative interview.

Welcome back, Chief Zazai, after last week’s break in our ongoing, multi-part interview. As you know, we took that space last week to post an open letter to Gens. Jones, Petraeus, McChrystal and Adm. Mullen, alerting them to your formation of a Tribal Police Force in the Zazi Valley and asking for help in aligning that force with the American troops (10th Mountain Division) whose Area of Operations (AO) includes your district. Respect for confidentiality prevents me from publishing particulars, but I’m happy to say that we got an immediate response and that it was just what we hoped for. The top U.S. commanders are listening. More on that as it develops– and as confidentiality permits. Now back to our talk!

READ MORE: Interview with a Tribal Chief #4: Warlords and Taliban

This week will bring more news and comment along with the solemn knock, followed by the mournful cry as another family learns that their son or daughter has fallen in the dusty gravel of far off Afghanistan. I learned first hand that war is every bit as exciting as Patton described, and as hellish as Sherman penned. For many in Afghanistan, the lure of conflict is a rite of manhood, exploited and provoked by both sides who seek to impose their own brand of governance on a people who have lived for centuries as if they were the only people on the earth. The answer lies somewhere far down the road, alas, a road strewn with the corpses.