Abu Muqawama retains its autonomy and the views and beliefs expressed within the blog do not reflect those of CNAS.
...with some weekend reading:
--The Marines try to do some counterinsurgency in Helmand, but still without any help from Afghan forces. I'm increasingly pessimistic about Afghanistan, and the inability of the ANA to rally (despite previous assertions that they're supposed to be fairly competent) is a big reason why. The situation reminds of a comment made by an officer I interviewed about Iraq in early 2007: "How do you convince someone to fight for their country?" In that light, it's somewhat troubling that the U.S. focus is on expanding the Afghan forces when we can't seem to get many of the existing ones into the fight. Or do the Afghans have a different strategy than the Americans do?
--Robert McNamara passed away this week, and Bradley Graham, author of this hefty tome, wonders whether we'll see a mea culpa from Rumsfeld on Iraq in same way McNamara admitted his failings in the Vietnam War. There's certainly no indication that Rumsfeld is pondering what happened in Iraq; it's hard to see him becoming a tragic, McNamara-like figure haunted by his past decisions. But I agree with Graham's punchline: "More important than hearing Rumsfeld say he's sorry for what he did may be getting a frank explanation of why he did it."
--Is this China's chief counterinsurgent?
We used to call it CAP....... "civilian assistance program" or for those of you who know ..." Winning the hearts and minds"
This is viable when the hearts and minds are winnable. In a fanatic it's not possible. You CAN"T stop the people. Haven't you figured that out yet? You must stop the Ideology. Otherwise you are wasting lives.
I have seen too many wasted. When are you gonna learn?
Many of you may believe that I am "old fashioned " "Obsolete" I am not. I am a historian. I should say, a man who studies war. It was a major element in my life. To "adapt, overcome, and learn", one must understand first what the cause is. I have education, degrees, and family who have to fight your "wars" or live with your "capitulation"
I want my granddaughters and grandsons to understand the cost of freedom. They must pay for it just like I had to.
What I want from you folks is to make sure that they don't die in vain for a "Theory".
When I have to go to a funeral for the generations I have sired because they followed our lead and paid for their own freedom and the freedom of those who couldn't fight, I want to be damned sure that they weren't wasted. The freedom won't be lost.
All that I have learned and all the degrees in the world won't bring back a single life. I have to live with that, and so do you.
This statement stuck out to me....
"Their aim is to combat the insurgency in a new way: Instead of targeting extremist strongholds, they will aim to protect communities from the Taliban. "
There are two things about this comment that struck me. One, it's not new. it's the same thing, different package. Two, if we're NOT TARGETING extremists strongholds, aren't we just treading water until they regroup, find another way to attack us and over run us when we're not looking?
This is my concern. When COIN because the strategy and not a tactic in toolbox of war, we are losing. Keep in mind that these are a patient people. They've been through this a few times. The US has an A.D.D like mentality when it comes to this stuff. We're NOT a patient people. Sure, things may go extremely well for a while, but just how long do you think we're going to commit forces to this region of the world? Once we're gone, because we haven't targetted bad guys and put them on the run, they will return and return stronger than ever.
Hasn't the fact that they've grown stronger since NATO took over just proven that point?
Strike them. Destroy them. Secure the population. Help the government rebuild. Continue to strike all remnants of the enemy and never give up until the ANA can stand on its own.
POM,
Great post.
Thanks for the reminder.
Sorry for sounding depressing but then again..... I have never had a problem saying what matters to me. I have children , grandchildren, and I get tired of bullshit theories, and experiments with my own kids.
I did 16 yrs of service. I'd like to think I paid for them to at least fight a fight they can be ALLOWED to win.
Thank you for the consideration and compassion. That's what is missing in war and peace. Understand , WE have done all we can. Our bodies are used up, Our words are all we have left.
To change the world.
Catch up to the fact that when we are wrong people die.............................. for nothing.
The war in Iraq is unlikely to produce a similar result in Cheney for multiple reasons. The first is that Cheney (like every other major leader in the world) has a powerful ego. It takes an unusual type of person to be able to admit 'I was dead wrong' and even in McNamara's documentary he was still less than totally repentant. The second is the fact that Vietnam was the first real defeat of the U.S at the start of the instant communication age (peace with honor crap aside, we lost it). Third, although opposition to Iraq was evident from day one it never really reached the epic protests, shootings, and riots that the 60s did. Fourth is the fact that there has not been an attack comparable to 9/11 in the U.S since 9/11, something that Cheney has taken credit for more than once. Fifth and final in my opinion is the fact that the outcome of the Iraq war will be very different from the assumed outcome of the Vietnam war. In Vietnam the Communist North forcibly reunited the nation and it was seen as a defeat (correctly) of the U.S. In Iraq I get the feeling that most people see it as just another African or Middle Eastern nation with an authoritarian government and lots of fighting.
@ grant.................. where do you get off saying we (the military were defeated?) Thats bullshit of the highest order pal.
@Visitor: In what way is it bull? The supposed U.S objectives (as opposed to the ones revealed in the Pentagon Papers) were to keep South Vietnam from being taken over by Communists. The military managed to kill a large number of people, they managed to bomb a lot of land (including illegal bombings in Laos and Cambodia), and they managed to accomplish effectively nothing in terms of stopping the insurgents or increasing the power of the South Vietnamese government. Further, ignoring the fact that the U.S military failed to end the insurgency for close to ten years there is still the fact that the military was pulled out by 1973 and North Vietnam invaded and reunified the two nations two years later. It doesn't mean a damn thing about your military power if you can't achieve a single objective with all of that power.
When your ally doesn't contribute...when your locals don't show.....there is an underlying vacuum where commitment should exist, maybe? Who really is committed for the presence in OIF and OEF - outside of us and our forces? Where is the wisdom of it, here or elsewhere?
I don't know what it means to the reality on the ground, but there is a real fog of intensity and focus that I haven't felt at Camp Lejeune in a couple years. Almost like there was a break in the storm before more bad weather appears across the sea. The energy and electricity is definitely back in the air. For months the word of the day was "retrograde" in response to Iraq. Now the shift in perspective, and operations, is nearly complete.
After reading POM's post, it was almost like people with his like voice had faded from view for a few moments, now its back. That should never be the case. This is as eloquent as I've heard on the fade from view of the war lately and the human cost that continues.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5153353n&tag=contentMain;contentB...
This will be an interesting march.
Leave it to the CNAS/abu Muqawama bunch to demean our Vietnam veterans. No surprises there. The efforts of men like Mike Thornton, Tommy Norris, Hal Moore, John Ripley and hundreds of thousands of others just couldn't cut it, huh Grant?
Despite the fact that the Vietnamese had been fighting in the jungle since probably before our nation's founding, our troops adapted, overcame, and dominated. They learned to out-VC the VC. The military won Vietnam before the gutless wonders in government ripped defeat from the jaws of victory. Had they been ALLOWED to defeat the insurgency, they would have, sir.
Al-Qaeda Affiliate in Somalia Issues Audio Response to Barack Obama's Cairo Speech
I have to wonder why exactly you're on a blog about counterinsurgencies, when you sound like the rhetoric during the 60s that demanded "more guns, more troops". As the descendant and relative of veterans I have heard a lot about drugs, pointless maneuvers through the jungle involving hundreds of men that managed to find zero insurgents, and the use of chemicals to destroy foliage in an effort to remove the cover (it didn't).
Counterinsurgencies are NOT about winning battles. If they were they wouldn't be labeled insurgencies, they'd be labeled civil wars. You win an insurgency by somehow separating and keeping separate the population from the insurgents. To put it bluntly, yes they "couldn't cut it". They couldn't cut it because they didn't bring victory or even show a real ability to defeat the enemy in the area that mattered most. That is the only measure of whether soldiers did well or not. You're absolutely right that the Vietnamese had fought for over a thousand years (generally against the Chinese)*, and I've never found any signs that they were going to give up this particular war. They certainly were willing to accept fighting against the French from 1946 to 1954 against the French, renew the fighting by insurgents in the South after the elections in 1956 weren't held, and then fight the Americans from 1964 to 1973.
*They also didn't exactly institutionalize fighting in jungles either. We shouldn't presume that they were born to coat spikes with poison in the jungle any more than Californians are born to fight naval battles.
If you can get them internal ANA daily reports on their casualties are illuminating. The ANA takes far fewer casualties than the police (that is well known) but they also take fewer casualties than NATO. The ANA consists primarily of exiled village trouble makers who have no particular wish to fight anybody and they seem to accomplish this goal remarkably well. NATO may want to expand ANSF but who would join? What sensible Afghan would sign up to move away from home to live and work with illiterate village idiots who spend most of their days smoking hash?
Hey POM - where have you been for the last 8 years?
Greetings Abu:
I think you owe Sy Hersh an apology for denigrating his story on Cheney's assassination squads ...in light of surfacing news...
"I want my granddaughters and grandsons to understand the cost of freedom. They must pay for it just like I had to.
What I want from you folks is to make sure that they don't die in vain for a "Theory"."
What, as opposed to dying in the name of "paying the cost of freedom" as though this is any less ridiculous ?
How you gonna get pissed with proponents of COIN theory for the possibility that it will cost lives. This was an afterthought brought in to address the fkup that was post-invasion Iraq, where those lives were already spent in the name of the unspecified freedom threat Iraq posed. You worried someone's gonna start a war to win hearts and minds, or have you really missed the point ?
Tell you what, why don't you teach em the cost of freedom by telling them to save up for a plane ticket to New Zealand instead. They could bear that small cost to live the rest of their lives in freedom. You could devote the time you would otherwise spend with them to considering whether anyone is ever going to send US personnel to war for a reason other than freedom.
"Leave it to the CNAS/abu Muqawama bunch to demean our Vietnam veterans. No surprises there. The efforts of men like Mike Thornton, Tommy Norris, Hal Moore, John Ripley and hundreds of thousands of others just couldn't cut it, huh Grant?"
Huh Lee ? Here's a question, who the fk is "Grant" and when did he join CNAS ?
Ok....
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/13/cia-secret-al-qaeda-plan/
So, the CIA had a plan to kill terrorists?
And we STOPPED THIS PLAN?!?!
WTF?
This is just feeding the idea that COIN is starting to take over as a strategy. If we're not killing bad guys while helping neutral to good guys, we are only screwing ourselves.
I've always considered myself as one of the coindista crowd but this is getting a little TOO touchy/feely for me.
Not to change the subject, but that WaPo story on Afghanistan is well worth a read...
Against that background, the British death toll there just exceeded their toll in Iraq. Some unrest on the home island results.
POM, there are plenty of folks here with sandy boots in the closet. As "academic" as the discussion may be that element is not missing.
"So, the CIA had a plan to kill terrorists? And we STOPPED THIS PLAN?!?! WTF?"
What's the problem with that ?
Up until this point the only thing disclosed about this secret CIA program -- which nobody will confirm what it involved -- is that after being authorised for 8 years it still never got to the point of operating.
So if it really did involve assassinating terrorists, you are asking why did they put an end to the talking about doing that after almost a decade while not actually doing that. Again, why would that be a problem ?
RE: Secret CIA plan
I believe that's the same thing GPC was referring to by way of demanding an apology for Sy Hersh. (Can't tell, I'm losing track of all the revelations and demands for "truth" commissions these days.)
If so, recall that Hersh was a) very specifically claiming Cheney had a military death squad and b) then claimed he never said it in the first place - so unless Hersh was lying, Hersh owes Hersh an apology for calling Hersh a liar, too.
"It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him. ...
"Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on."
Sy Hersh, March http://www.minnpost.com/ericblackblog/2009/03/11/7310/investigative_repo...
“Vice president Cheney does not have a death squad... This is another example of blogs going bonkers with misleading and fabricated stories and professional journalists repeating such rumours without doing their job – and that is to verify such rumours.”" - Sy Hersh, May http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\05\19\story_19-5-2009_pg7_4
But tomorrow is another day.
For Kilo:
I would have hoped that Panetta would have finally put it in effect. Take action and quit talking about it. Of course, I wouldn't expect as much from him. I'm not a fan of Cheney but I think he may have been on the right track with this plan.
All that being said, I may have over reacted. If it's been talked about and never implemented, there was probably a reason.
For Greyhawk:
Well, I'm all for the plan. Let's make that happen. The more dead terrorists, the better.
Here's a better question, who the hell here really thinks that SOF operators whacking aQ members around the globe was:
i) This secret program that only a handful of people in the CIA (NOT including the director) knew about, and
ii) In the planning and "training" phase for almost 8 years, and
iii) Something that never got off the ground.
I mean it's a possiblity that the CIA was training 4th grade math teachers to do this and it really took that long and still failed, but I doubt that's the case.
There's been a lot of shonky stuff going on, but I doubt that this was it.
To give you a measure of where shit ranks in terms of how secret it is, keep in mind that while millions of Americans having their comms intercepted illegally and being data-mined was a-okay with the AG, they were also doing something on the domestic spying front that almost had the entire top of the DOJ resign en-masse when they found out about it. What that program was, we still don't know. But at least we know that was the outcome.
On the other hand, this program here the head of the CIA only found out about 3 weeks ago. So, whatever this non-interrogation, non-surveillence program was, it was something on an order far more secretive than SOF guys doing what 100% of the readers here assume SOF guys do.
I mean seriously, tell me they aren't doing that and I'll break out the caps and the exclamation marks.
Actually, It's kind of hard to think of anything less controversial and secretive than targeted assassinations of aQ leaders. Apart from the obvious Af/Pak drone strikes we have now, we had senior aQ guys getting whacked in foreign countries all the way back to 2002 with that Cole Bomb planner in Yemen.
The whole pizazz of violating a foreign country's space with US forces to carry out an extra-judicial killing of terrorist suspect has been made pretty par for the course for quite some time. Even in much more more civilised countries like Italy where the CIA were snatching suspects, that's the same program that's been running for 20 years.
If this was it, then I can only assume someone's lying about it never operating and we're not so much talking Sy Hersh, but a little more Gerald Posner.
Again, the problem with getting ANA in Helmand is not intrinsically Afghan. There are limits to the deployment of mentored forces that need to be recognized. More here: http://www.snappingturtle.net/flit/archives/2009_07_02.html#006459.
@MShannon: Not all the ANA is as bad as you make out. They are risk-averse because we've taught them that, and because they're all in it for the long haul, not because they're "idiots."
Yes, they have fewer casualties than the ANP; once you subtract the middle-of-the-night massacres of entire police stations, etc., that's not so much the case. Both mentored ANA and mentored ANP have low casualty rates, comparable on a per-man basis to western forces. The unmentored versions of both have high ones. Add 4 western troops to any ANSF detachment and you have access to fires, ISR, casevac, and a reaction force that the unmentored ones don't. The difference in casualty rates you cite is a reflection of the simple fact that nearly all the ANA in combat zones can rely on mentors and very few of the ANP can.
As far as ANA comparisons with western troop casualties, once you factor in the relative numbers of each (2,500+ Western to 1,500 ANA in Kandahar Province) you'll find that differential disappears too. They're doing their share, there's just fewer of them in the higher-conflict areas.
Bruce R: Where are the mentored ANP? I haven't seen any. When was the last mid-night massacre of the police? And how could it effect a 10-1 ration in ANP-ANA casualties? I didn't say they were idiots for being risk averse. I said the ANA was full of village idiots and trouble makers. Similar to the early days of the all volunteer force I imagine.
"Well, I'm all for the plan. Let's make that happen. The more dead terrorists, the better."
Ah, the joys of non-judicial assassinations. Lets just skip the whole concept of law, why dont we? I mean, shit, if Cheney thought someone ought to die after torture in a undisclosed location somewhere, Im sure he had his reasons. No need to bother the Congress and other such liberals with it. And if they wanted to kidnap european citizens and abduct them to Usbekistan, hell, us Euro-wimps are just loosers anyway. Screw international law. Right, Coinoperator?
(Does this mean you think that the french can snatch Rumsfeld?)
Bruce R: What I dont understand is where the vaunted afghan special forces are. Its been a big pressjunket over here, how our special boys are teaching their special boys, etc. in Kabul and the areas around. Either they are operative, but off the radar, or they have their hands full in Kabul?
@MShannon:
About 70 guys in my unit (the Cdn OMLT) worked with the ANP in Kandahar Province. Lived, ate, slept, fought. The police they were with did a good job, and their casualty rate was comparable to ANA or Western soldiers. The US PMTs in Kandahar Province did well, too, I thought (although they didn't live with theirs, and a few of their outposts were overrun).
The last reported assault on an (unmentored) police outpost I know of was yesterday, in Faryab Province. 6 ANP MIA. It's still quite a frequent occurrence. It was a regular event in Kandahar Province while I was there. They lost a lot of guys.
(The real trouble with police mentoring is, due to their different standards of training and discipline, the mentor ratio has to go way up. Whereas ANA you can mentor at an 8:1 or 10:1 ratio and get excellent results, with police you're often talking 1 Western soldier for 2 Afghans if you want t count on them to either stand and fight or perform actual police tasks.)
Oh, did I mention most police, even the trained, paid and mentored ones, still don't get more than 1 magazine of 7.62 issued to them at a time, and have no comms other than cell phones? Whereas the mentored police stations and ANA outposts are defensible to Western standards, the ANP are often bunked down in old schoolhouses without locks on the doors, let alone concertina or Hesco. The enemy makes no distinction between the different ANSFs in terms of target value, but ANA and mentored ANP can put up a fight, and the others can't. So yeah, they do die more often.
It doesn't help that the Afghan government has said all compound searches have to be done by ANP, not ANA, so all the door-kickers are ANP by default, too. Tends to push up their booby trap casualty rate, as well.
@Fnord:
Afghan Special Forces (1 kandak per corps) are trained by SOF mentors, not ISAF or OEF mentors per se. Like all mentored ANA, they tend to be reserved only for tasks their mentors are engaged in, as well, and SOF doesn't tend to hold ground. Which means they risk sitting around back at base a fair bit, because a full Commando kandak for all the at-night kinetic stuff that's going to be generated in a corps AO is overkill (especially given that they can't do door-kicking detail as per the above.) Also, they're army assets, not Corps, which means all requests for their use have to be okayed by Kabul and the Afghan MoD, which IAW Afghan tradition always takes a very long time. In practice, I found local SOF often preferred requisitioning regular line ANA (annoying regular line ANA mentors because that was often all the spare capacity they had) to support their ops instead, because the employment restrictions on ANA SF were so difficult even for them.
So no, they didn't get out much that I saw. ANA officers I talked to tended to regard them as something more like Praetorians, ie, instruments of central government influence over the rest of the army. That's not a role that SOF's influencing them to take on, of course, but it is the way some in the rest of the army sees them -- based more on their actions (or lack thereof) than anything else, I suspect. That said, they do certainly seem to be well-trained and other corps may have had better luck getting their help than we did.
Bruce R: I detect a system error. You mean we never trained them to play nice, basically? Oh fer fcks sake...
There really need to be a discussion on SFs role in COIN, if thats the game we are actually playing right now. The Good Cop role seems to be a missing part of their reportoire. To be brutal, thir best mission right now would be to rescue Afghan kidnap victims now and again.
For better and for worse, in military capacity development the mentored force necessarily takes on the characteristics of the mentoring organization. We can't help them become something we're not. That includes our command structure. So in practice, the German-mentored portion of the ANA had caveats that restricted its use, the Canadian-mentored portion was road-bound due to insufficient helo lift, the SOF-mentored portion operated outside and somewhat apart from the normal command framework, etc. When we sort our stuff out, they will be able to start to, as well.
@COINOperator.....
Dude, if Operation "Play Nice" is only just getting to your neck of the woods, you've been fortunate so far. Welcome to the New Big Fuzzy Pink Bunnies Army, pal. That's just how Big Army rolls these days. You wanted attention in Astan? You got it.
I think you might have been on a suicide watch list if you were in the same war I was in Arakia 06/07.
Elf gone wild
Extract about Lawyers....
"The Lawyers: Silent Enem Leges Intra Armas (the law is silent in war).
The law must be sent packing from the ranks, or the ranks can pack up and the lawyers can face the enemy (n.b Mr. Biden). This circle could not be squared by Cicero 2000 years ago (above quote) and still can't be even by the most "morally evolved" Ivy Leager. "
@Fnord: " Ah, the joys of non-judicial assassinations. Lets just skip the whole concept of law, why dont we? "
Yes, please.
Fnord, think of the alternative, contained within the very phrase - perhaps you want judicial assasinations? Fnord, the entire point of labeling what would normally be heinous actions like killing, bombing, arson, kidnapping, torture, murder under the rubrics of "war" or "intelligence" is to make it clear that the normal rules are suspended, with the understanding that it's never acceptable otherwise, and the law must remain clear of such matters . You want it legal? Really? Would you want the Oslo Cops to have the same tools as your soldiers, your intelligence people? You want the courts involved? A really strong argument can be made Oh Son of Vikings that the Nazi's weren't really dangerous until the Nuremburg laws.
Keep the law, the cops, and the courts clean of these matters. Or we'll all be under the terror laws, and the methods used to prevent it.
These things have always been necessary, and will continue to be necessary. What's not necessary, and what's to be avoided at all costs to preserve our Liberties and Freedoms is to not make these terrible things legal. And as far as any CIA anything, if I'm in the CIA I'm on the phone to my lawyer more than I am my pussy ass, political whore bosses.** Of course it never went anywhere. Most govt projects requiring a risky decision don't.
[**That's for you Panetta, you whore. You are charged with the Defense of America, not with pandering to your loony base, or salvaging Sister Mary Nancy Pelosi's reputation. **]
For Fnord:
I never came right out and called the Euros wimps....
First of all, this is not random snatch and grab operations. There must be actionable intelligence that drives the operation. It is my opinion that this is NOT a judicial issue, it's a military issue. It's part of the "unrestricted warfare" scenario that I personally think we should embrace.
There is no reason to bother Congress with killing terrorist leaders. I didn't have to notify Congress when I killed shooters in Baghdad. Same thing.
Do you understand why, if we actually did kidnap people and take them to other countries, we had to do that? Because liberals in America would cry foul and want the terrorists to have rights. If you are a terrorist, you have the right to meet Allah face to face. Period.
I'm not going to be soft on these guys.
Oh, and for the record, yes. If France wants Rumsfeld, feel free to snatch him. Of course, I have no problem saying that because, well, they're French....which goes back to my first sentence.....
@ Fnord (not to gang up on you, really, the arguements need to be countered)....
Snatching Rumsfeld? The French? Dude, these are the guys who torpedo-ed Greenpeaces boat. And unless they've changed their laws allow for terrorists to be tried by military tribunal, basically a court martial. They can go and snatch themselves.
Not to mention their history as a colonial power.
Why do you want the French to do it? Why not Norway? And then what? Your at war with Talib/AQ. You gonna put your King in the dock over that?
@COIN-OP7,
"Because liberals in America would cry foul and want the terrorists to have rights. If you are a terrorist, you have the right to meet Allah face to face. Period."
Only if Allah is the name of the cabana boy they're buggering on the Bermuda Beach. The GITMO inmates have more rights than you do under UCMJ - like recourse to the courts. And the Majority of them have already been repatriated. We got extended instead.
Uh, I guess you have been away.
Yo, POM:
It' was called the "Combined Action Program"....Lookee HERE for their Web Presence.
Fasteddiez.
And for all you Lawfare enthuiasts - Good News! Your mob lawyer, er terrorist lawyer Atty General is considering going ahead with "probes" into whether the CIA exceeded it's DOJ instructions on enhanced interrogation. And President David Copperfield is considering, er dabbling into investigating Afghan's for the killing of Taliban POW's.
If you haven't played the Investigation-thon game....well let me put it this way. No Harm, No Foul, Bullshit.
If you're in the game, better go purchase litigation insurance. And get to know these guys. Whether you agree with them, or not.
Antidote to the ACLU
M Shannon, the ANA suffers considerably more casualties than the ISAF. See page 24 here: http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/1230_June%C2%AD2009Final.pdf
Still haven't completed reading it. On important point to remember is that the vast majority of Afghan violence is in three out of 34 provinces: Helmand (10 1/2 attacks/day, Kandahar 4 1/2 attacks/day, Konar 3 1/2 attacks a day)
page 23 of http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/1230_June%C2%AD2009Final.pdf
So the real question is are the ANA pulling their own weight in these three provinces.
Konar seems to have quality ANA who are taking heavy casualties and contributing significantly to the fight. (I would note that 4-203 ANA bde, which would help fully resource Konar has been delayed to augment 201st, 207th and 205th ANA.)
Bruce served with 205th ANA (Canadian mentored) in Kandahar and says they are okay. I wonder about the quality of the British mentored 205th ANA in Helmand province. My sense is that the ANA is punching below their weight in Helmand.
Ibn Muqawama, why are you pessimistic about the ANA? Other than because of their small size and limited funding?
Let me ask a specific question; does anyone here have any evidence that 203rd ANA Corps (the best quality out of five Corps) is not fighting with dedication and skill? If the answer is no, then how can someone imply that the ANA isn't fighting for their country?
I put an extra letter in my link.
THIS should work.
PS the site tries to show a welcome home to GI's scene at an airport video
but only the sound can be heard in Firefox.
"Do you understand why, if we actually did kidnap people and take them to other countries, we had to do that? Because liberals in America would cry foul and want the terrorists to have rights. If you are a terrorist, you have the right to meet Allah face to face. Period."
All I know, folks who served next to friends of mine had to evacuate a norwegian citizen because we had a US snatch team in the Plaza hotel back in 2004. (Mullah Krekar). Tecchnically speaking, that would have ment war between the US and Norway. If youre not able to do shit properly, better not do them at all. If you get so blind yo start arsefcking allies in order to score points, then you have lost the path. I can see plenty reasons why people like me ought to be rounded up and put in camps, we hamper the synergy. Im on a frickin list that causes me to get thrown out of countries in advance of demonstrations. You really want to go that path, all the way, in order to fight " terrorism"? Where folks just disappear, and noone knows what happened to them?
I never trusted Cheney. Never did, never will. US unilateralism seems like a stupid position to me. I still think law is a relevant factor.
For Visitor:
First of all, we can agree on one thing. I've never really trusted Cheney, either. IMHO, he is the atypical politician.
I would rather snatch one person and be wrong, than NOT snatch one person and 3,000 more people die. The only reason there is unilateralism is because the U.S. had the courage to step up.
Again, I'm just saying...
Anand: I checked the casualty reports of 203 Corps for July and so far they report 5 WIA. That sounds low but it may be correct. My sense from following NATO and ANSF casualty reports is that ANA and NATO casualties are about the same and about 1/6 of the police. Your documents page 24 appears to support this. This year at the current rate adjusted for the seasons that will be about 350 for NATO and the ANA each and about 2000 for the various types of police.
Don't overlook Khost , Paktya and Paktika as centres of increasing violence. I'd rate Khost as worse than Kunar for effective violence as opposed to simply number of attacks. What is often overlooked is the "quality" of the attacks versus numbers of incidents. For example I think the number of IDF rounds fired in total and the % that hit a target is more important than the number of IDF attacks.
KTHXBAI - you f*king id... ok, young lives at stake. Deep breath.
"A really strong argument can be made Oh Son of Vikings that the Nazi's weren't really dangerous until the Nuremburg laws.
These things have always been necessary, and will continue to be necessary. What's not necessary, and what's to be avoided at all costs to preserve our Liberties and Freedoms is to not make these terrible things legal.
That's for you Panetta, you whore."
You don't get to be the only one who is free and at liberty, Mr. Elf.
MONSTER FAIL
Coinoperator
"Do you understand why, if we actually did kidnap people and take them to other countries, we had to do that? Because liberals in America would cry foul and want the terrorists to have rights. If you are a terrorist, you have the right to meet Allah face to face. Period.
I'm not going to be soft on these guys."
You first, Coinoperator. Please stand around at the grocery store, or take a leisurely walk out to pick up your newspaper.
I don't think you guys actually are US citizens. Maybe I'm wrong, but, if so, the grammar school civics class must have been out of action when you were young. (...mumble...)
M Shannon, what is your impression of 203rd ANA Corps? How about the 1st Brigade in the Corps?
Can 203rd ANA handle its battlespace with 4 combat maneuver brigades and 12 combat battalions to the point that ISAF can draw down in the East?
I've seen nothing to suggest that a US draw down in the east can occur soon or that ANA can replace them. The reliance on US air support is too great to imagine a draw down until the ANA has FACs, more copters, armoured vehicles with ECM and it starts to operate in smaller groups.
M Shannon, I am not talking about a withdrawal, merely a gradual draw down. The SOCOM, ANSF advisors, combat enablers, and a smaller conventional presence will stay in the East for some time.
Advisors can operate FAC on behalf of the ANSF.
My thinking is that 201st (including the Capital 111st division HQs) and 203rd Corps will each need one super embedded ISAF combat brigade. In addition RC East will need another two combat brigades to super embed with the ANP.
My view is that the underfunding of the ANSF is a major problem. See page 65 of: http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/1230_June%C2%AD2009Final.pdf
US aid for the ANSF is dropping from over $7 billion in 2007 to $2 billion in 2009.
The ANAAC in particular needs much more long term funding. They need to order more helicopters and two squadrons of light attack turboprop aircraft (Korean K1, AT-6B or the EMB-314 Super Tucano/AT-29.)
Comment by Coinoperator07 on July 13, 2009 - 8:00pm
""I would rather snatch one person and be wrong, than NOT snatch one person and 3,000 more people die.""
First of all, one's got nothing to do with the other. The only terrorist attacks of this type on US soil didn't require anyone getting snatched in order to discover them. They just required the existing NatSec agencies to do their fkn job. The only people who could have been snatched off the street and slapped around that could have changed the outcome there were wearing US uniforms.
I can't explain this in any way better than Rotten.com does...
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/crime/terrorists/ramzi-yousef/
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/crime/terrorists/ali-mohammed/
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/crime/terrorists/mohammed-jamal-khalif...
Second, read this and see whether you feel the same way....
http://tinyurl.com/mj7joe [TPMmuckraker]
Or more to the point, tell us if you support some US citizen getting disappeared to help stop an attack.... when history tells us that this is only going to be needed because 17 other leads were ignored and someone in US law enforcement has handed Ramzi Yousef a suitcase full of bombmaking manuals.
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