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Lessons in Sharing
Josh Foust has a good op-ed in the New York Times on interpreters and their importance. The whole thing is good, but one bit is especially worth highlighting:
Earlier this year, I traveled through central Afghanistan as a civilian member of an American Provincial Reconstruction Team. We had a translator — we called her Brooklyn — who had been born and raised in California. During the initial briefing before our convoy set out, however, the team’s commander, an Air Force colonel, demanded that Brooklyn leave the briefing area, referring to her as “that local woman.”
The briefing slides were market “SECRET,” which caused the colonel understandable alarm. Brooklyn, however, had a security clearance allowing her to be present. Perhaps the real problem was that she wore a headscarf, as one would expect a pious Muslim woman to do.
(On the one hand, I am no scholar of Islam and this is really nit-picking, but Josh might get some flack for his expectation that pious Muslim women wear headscarves. It's a matter of some theological debate, as many of this blog's readers know, as to whether Muslim women must wear a headscarf (or more) or whether they are merely expected to dress conservatively. I myself, though, want to focus on the bit about intelligence sharing.)
The intelligence community classifies intelligence products and other documents for some very good reasons. But an enduring frustration of U.S. allies -- both Afghan and ISAF -- is the degree to which we cannot share mission-critical intelligence with allies on account of classification. This is a serious problem, and there has to be both a cultural change as well as common-sense guidance issued by the U.S. military and the intelligence community regarding declassification and overclassification. It remains to be seen whether or not Maj. Gen. Mike Flynn will be able to effect a change in the culture in Afghanistan quick enough.
I guess you could say the same thing about Gen. McChrystal and the operational side of the house...
It would be of greater
It would be of greater concern to me that a journalist was allowed into a SECRET briefing.
But overall, classification and the pain in the arse of downgrading to make material available to other nations (or even insufficiently cleared UK personnel) is a massive burden on time and personnel. Two things that spring to my mind, firstly, a great deal of material is quite rightly very strictly protected indeed and secondly, at least in the UK significant progress has been made in getting high level stuff sanitised, diluted and released to a wider audience (tearlined, to those in the trade), but overall, there is much to be done.
We are eight years into a
We are eight years into a long war yet we have not filled our forces with enough language speakers to be effective in a population centric COIN. Are we so linguistically biased that we are self defeating? Are we so enthralled with technology derived attributes that we are spending millions on machine language translation equipment that can not translate with an iota of sense but provide healthy employment to old colonels and tired thinkers at military commands, forts and offsite jobs?
As the interpreters will probably advise, their clients are left dumb as rocks with no ability to understand their surroundings. They have only the fist full of money as a beneficial attribute.
We are eight years into a
We are eight years into a long war yet we have not filled our forces with enough language speakers to be effective in a population centric COIN. Are we so linguistically biased that we are self defeating? Are we so enthralled with technology derived attributes that we are spending millions on machine language translation equipment that can not translate with an iota of sense but provide healthy employment to old colonels and tired thinkers at military commands, forts and offsite jobs?
As the interpreters will probably advise, their clients are left dumb as rocks with no ability to understand their surroundings. They have only the fist full of money as a beneficial attribute.
Thanks for the plug, Andrew!
Thanks for the plug, Andrew! (I should have said "a pious Muslim woman wearing a scarf is unremarkable," but whatever, right?).
I could not agree with you more about the sharing thing. Marking a weather report NOFORN is bizarre, even if it contains route and unit location data. The incident I'm recounting here happened in a province where an ISAF member country was the battlespace owner -- yet for some reason, relevant information like that was still not only classified but restricted to Americans only.
It's even better when local, non-American interpreters are involved. People tell them this stuff anyway, because it's relevant and pretty obviously not "causing serious harm to U.S. national security" to know the forecast and whether or not RCP found an IED along the route.
Either way, when people get in the habit of sharing useful information that is inexplicably classified, it's a bad bad bad thing. You end up training your people either to ignore or to proactively discount security warnings -- the opposite of good OPSEC.
ChrisUK, I'm not a
ChrisUK,
I'm not a journalist. But thanks, I guess?
In another life. Yes to all
In another life. Yes to all that, they overclassify everything. "Burn before Reading" was a WW 2 joke. Still true today.
Actually, if my memory of the reg is correct, you can't just "classify" anything you want, there's actually only certain people in a unit who can do that....in practice everyone just willy nilly marks everything classified and rolls on..not realizing whether they can or should or not, and not realizing they just became the owner of all that until it's destroyed, documented destroyed, etc... I believe the term is "classifying authority". It carries certain responsibilities.
Maybe a reading of that would scare em good. Make the regs work for you for once, instead of against.
Terps.... www.cponefoundation.org --- how to get them out. I think if I cared about my Afghan terps, I'd look into it.
@Bill K,
Uh, Yes to all that...
Hey Foust, since I've
Hey Foust, since I've already read the seed of that piece on your blog some weeks ago, I'd be interested to know you end up writing a NYT op-ed on the same topic. You polish up what you've already written about and submit it and they pick it up or not, or are they surveying writer's sites, picking ideas that they would like to run and contacting you to suggest a piece ?
This blog freaking sucks!
This blog freaking sucks! abu Muqawama needs to either get a clue or let his subscribers take over. This moron is so far off base that its not even funny. Are you seriously a fellow for this CNAS? No wonder our military has taken a nosedive when this cat is crafting analysis.
I agree with everything that
I agree with everything that Abu M. is saying, but it's off-point to the anecdote. The U.S. national had a confirmable "secret" clearance and was entitled to see everything in the brief already. She was kicked out of the brief, according to Josh, because the officer in question was an idiot.
Afghans don't get any of our operational or intelligence info because they don't have secret clearances. Different problem.
Sgt Nowland, This guy Exum
Sgt Nowland,
This guy Exum or whever his name is a tool of the left.
I also wonder why he is sucking up to Foust.
Kilo, Send me an email. You
Kilo,
Send me an email. You can find the contact info on my blog.
The fanbase grows by the
The fanbase grows by the day. . .
Isn't this just the current reincarnation of an age-old problem? Who hasn't had to deal with the OPSEC-vs.- keeping your allies in the loop problem? It shows up in every instance of working with local (and possibly "unreliable") allies.
That all said, pompous twits like this colonel do little to help matters. . .
M
Yeah, I guess they'll let
Yeah, I guess they'll let anyone in the CNAS. This goon must have spent a lot of time under the right desks to get promoted to fellow.
Maybe if I start a blog where I carry the water for terrorists and advocate failed policies I can become a fellow there too!
"Maybe if I start a blog
"Maybe if I start a blog where I carry the water for terrorists and advocate failed policies I can become a fellow there too!"
Or maybe you'll just stick with making vague, whinging, bitchy comments on other people's blogs that interest fkn nobody.
It's not often you realise the internet is lacking a particular information resource, but fuck me could we do with a trolling school or what. It's positively embarrassing the kind of grade school caliber of trolls this blog is fielding. We need to get you little tackers into some remedial shit, see if you can't put your heads together and come up with something worth responding to this side of 2010.
Could someone enlighten me
Could someone enlighten me as to who has ultimate control over drone strikes? Is the CIA solely in charge--can they order strikes regardless of what Gen. McChrystal wants in his overall strategy of protecting civilians?
What kind of BS blog is
What kind of BS blog is this?
Pretentious Andrew Exum who acts like a schoolgirl and kisses the arses of those more important than himself, touts his education, calls himself Mr. Ranger, and pretends he's some sort of expert on whatever (Remember this clown once said that Generals are the ones who used to get beat up in school). I remember Exum from school, and there was no bigger pu**y around.
Are you still gay Exum? Remember Johnny B who used to whip your arse?
How you made it through Ranger school doesn't say much for Ranger school.
Ah, it's Kilo - the tool of
Ah, it's Kilo - the tool of a tool.
This blog puts up crap and when you are confronted, you ignore other ideas (just like Al Gore), or dissenting voices are attacked. If this crap wasn't crap, you all would be defending your ideas, not attacking people like me. You see there is this thing called the real world - and what happens in the real world doesn't necessarily benefit Andrew Exum and the CNAS so they create a make-belief land where wars turn into never-ending business. Problem is, people who are or have been on the shit end of the stick are losing everything so that CNAS can get power. When Exum lies, troops die.
You are weak Kilo and so is your master Exum.
"ChrisUK, I'm not a
"ChrisUK,
I'm not a journalist. But thanks, I guess?"
I see, my mistake.
I'm in full agreement with overall sentiment expressed, in any case.
Remember the rules of the
Remember the rules of the internets -- in particular: don't feed the trolls, it means that they win.
Well sorry as hell witto
Well sorry as hell witto kilo but I happen to agree with duke. you are the piss poor tool of a piss poor tool. This blog site supports terrorist groups and tries to make em look like cuddly helpless people.
So anyone critical of this
So anyone critical of this blog and its theories are labeled "trolls" and are to be avoided? Not very helpful for someone seeking to learn about COIN. That does sound like Al Gore and his global warming deniers. From what I have read here, any time I see COIN challenged on abu Muqawama, I don't see anything defending it, unless distortion counts.
Rising to the defense here,
Rising to the defense here, I'd say it's not the critiques that are "trolls." More like the eloquent works of Maddod .45 or Sgt. Nowland. . .
I'd also ask exactly what you mean by "challenging COIN." COIN has become this catchall where it really isn't one. COL Gentile is right in pointing out COIN isn't a strategy; I think that pejoratively using "COIN" as a substitute for "an intensive application of population-centric counterinsurgency tactics and operations to achieve a particular goal" is more than a little unfair.
Besides you're not necessarily critiquing "COIN," you're critiquing the idea that employing it in Afghanistan is the way to achieve specific national goals. . .
M
Whoops, that last was me -
Whoops, that last was me - sorry to steal the thunder, TFC.
M
Why are PRT's still being
Why are PRT's still being led by USAF personnel?
The thing that cracks me up about the PRT CDR's comment about the "local woman" is that most of the Mission Essential folks I have met are American or heavily Americanized. He's never met a lady wearing a head scarf in CONUS?
On Abu M.'s actual point,
On Abu M.'s actual point, the first impediment when I was there was Afghanistan was not part of the GCTF coalition (Pakistan was), so that any ISAF personnel were legally prohibited from sharing any classified operational or intelligence info of any kind with them, including sub-metre imagery, any UAV imagery with imbedded telemetry, etc. It also effectively prohibited Afghan senior officers or terps from entering any of our CPs or headquarters buildings. RC(South) was somewhat obsessive on this score. Anyone know how are we making out on getting the Afghans into the alliance?
ad hominem = troll
ad hominem = troll
Quite.
Quite.
Our friend Blue wrote a
Our friend Blue wrote a somewhat related post on grappling with the mind set Josh describes.
http://afghanquest.com/?p=345
Comment by Duke on September
Comment by Duke on September 22, 2009 - 10:37am
"This blog puts up crap and when you are confronted, you ignore other ideas (just like Al Gore)"
I assume Al Gore is on the same list as Andrew Sullivan as the list of people Obama must confront over Afghanistan policy for no apparent reason other than it would make an insane person happy.
Yeah, but maybe we've been quick to dismiss your alternate ideas about policy recommendations visa vi fellatio.
Always best to claim your dissenting opinion is being marginalised for differences in opinion *before* calling someone a cocksucker in lieu of mentioning that alternate policy. It just looks better and you less bipolar.
"You see there is this thing called the real world"
LMAO... yeah come visit sometime.
Comment by Troll First Class
Comment by Troll First Class on September 22, 2009 - 12:41pm
So anyone critical of this blog and its theories are labeled "trolls" and are to be avoided?
Hmmmm... that's an interesting POV.
You suck cock.
Back to you champ. Let's hear your respond to my critique of your objection to people being misidentified as trolls. See if you can address my argument in bullet point.
If ad hominem equals troll,
If ad hominem equals troll, then Foust is the definition of a troll. His blog is one ad hominem comment after the next. He represents the very worst of what blogs have to offer. A TROLL that attacks people who don"t agree with his impoverished images of Afghanistan based on a few weeks living on FOBs with his Human Terrain colleagues. I hear that even the HTS finally discovered his games and finally fired his ass. Serves the Troll right!
What Are you thinking?????
What Are you thinking????? Don't you understand the we have only been allies with Afghanistan for a few years? Why then would we share clasified intel with someone we dont know if we can trust yet? That's like me being expected to trust someone to drive my car after having just met them.
Actually, Fred, as mentioned
Actually, Fred, as mentioned above, they're not technically GCTF allies at all, or at least they weren't as of April. Pakistan was, though. And it's kind of hard to coordinate joint action in the same battlespace if you can't tell your "ally" what you know or where you're going, don't you think?
sharing is really important.
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