I don’t disagree with the premise that the bulk of the worlds illegal opium crop is coming out of Helmand and is funding at least some of the Talib/al-Q efforts (can’t, I’ve been saying the same thing on line for at least half a decade and its all over my little bloglet), so I think we’re pretty much in agreement there. It’s when they (the UN) start quoting “exact” numbers that I start laughing at them. The UN’s track record for inaccuracy with statistics speaks all too eloquently for itself. (and wouldn’t it make better sense to ignore the farmers while concentrating on the buyers and the wholesale smugglers after the sale, those most likely to have large stockpiles?)

I can’t disagree that the W admin was politically indecisive in certain crucial areas either. While OIF I may be one of history’s pre-eminent examples of the combined-arms blitzkrieg (warts and all), the occupation afterwards was a mess in far too many places and for far too long.

Nor can I disagree with the all too valid point that it isn’t exclusively a D vs. R political issue. More then a few D’s were all in favor of OIF and far too many R’s were against The Surge…

(Oh fer crying out loud, it wasn’t a “surge” it was a counter-attack that benefited highly from the appearance of the SOI. I really wish folks would stop making up new words for stuff that’s as old as warfare itself.)

Regards the entire Pak/Afghan theater, I’m open to being proven wrong but I remain under the impression that much of the indecision regarding that theater had/has to do with the bulk of the logistics running through a thoroughly dysfunctional Pakistan and the somewhat more unpalatable alternatives to that shaky MSR (something else that’s all over my little bloglet).

It’s long been my opinion that we never should have “occupied” Afghanistan in the first place. We should have occupied Karachi.

See, I’m one of those guys that wanted us to hang a hard West out of Iraq fifteen minutes after we yanked Saddam out of his spiderhole, marching the entire OIF task force out by way of Damascus and Beirut, clearing a few more spiderholes along the way. I’ve been openly calling for both small and large scale punishment raids into the FATA, including Quetta since at least ’02, and I still consider marching the entire Coalition task force out of Afghanistan via Karachi (a little Puller and a lot of Sherman) as a viable alternative.

(Corp to the front, the oceans thataway, get going.)

I knew we were at war in 1998. That same year I literally had an Army Captain scream at me that there was no way a handful of SpecOps types could drive the Talib and their al-Q allies out of A-ghan because this “…wasn’t some g-damn Rambo movie!” He’s a 0-5 now and he doesn’t scream at me anymore.

I’ve known that it was going to be a long war and a world war since 2001. The fact is politics on our side of the war, on both sides of the aisle, has contributed mightily towards prolonging this war. So I think we agree again…the will to win just hasn’t been there when it always needs to be.

The current Commander-in-Chief gets his full credit due for the Mini-Linebacker II strikes, for the current surge in other HVT busts, and for allowing the Corp to handle the toughest job. I’m just not sure any of it overshadows his announcing an exit date…yet. Losing Helmand, even part of it for any length of time, can’t help but hurt the Talib. The fact that they really don’t seem to be capable or willing of putting up much of a fight for it beyond imported sniper teams and IED’s says something about their internal state of affairs and that too is to the current Commander-in-Chiefs credit. Unless that UN estimate is even close to accurate, in which case much of this is quite irrelevant.

So…I think you and I might be agreeing past each other on a bunch of points and, uh, I kinda figured you’d know who to call, that’s why I keep reading you guys.

WATCHING,
R

I know exactly who to call What I would prefer is they level the whole madrassa/mosque/compound of the Haqqani Family in downtown Miram Shah, but this is a great score. Siraj was one of the more nastier of the Haqqani brothers, so his loss will definitely be felt for some time to come. I would counter that you can’t be too harsh on Pres. BHO, he did reinstate the UAV drone strike campaign that Pres. GWB has halted inside Pakistan due to Pakistani government protests.

I am certain the UN estimates are less than accurate but having spent some time this past late summer and Fall in central Helmand and Kandahar there is no doubt there is a “$h!t ton” of opium being produced and in storage there. The political debates aside, I only wish for a minute I could share with you the political indecisiveness exercised durng the Bush administration to go after senior Al Qaeda in Pakistan during the eight years they owned the White House. I don’t place the blame squarely on the President but I can’t simply put this quandry into Democrat vs. Republican argument. I think the best description I heard of the situation was the “…last administration refused to do anything about it, and the current administration is incapable of doing anything about it…”

The fact remains the leader of Al Qaeda and his small circle of friends remain safe inside the comforts of our so-called “allies” borders. We have pussy footed around for too long with this issue where you can no longer debate the simple fact there is no real political will to pursue the true enemies of our country. If there were we would have continued military operations into Pakistan a long time ago.

I do agree with you there is some satififaction in knowing our UAVs and stealth bombers are delivering the “mail” to the enemy who enjoy safe haven inside our “friend’s” house.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/02/us_airstrikes_target.php

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It’s my opinion that Afghanistan’s current prospective fate wasn’t “sealed” until the D party took control of both Houses in 2006, and all but buried with the election of our current C-in-C. It seems to me that the answer was never “more” troops and firepower into the logistically challenged A-ghan theater. It was and remains better trained and experienced troops with “proper” ROE’s, longer tours, and permission to conduct hot pursuits deep into the FATA.

I’m still not entirely convinced that the mini-Linebacker II UAV attacks in the FATA are “the answer” either, at least not by themselves. But they sure are satisfying…

I’ll never be convinced that the UN knows exactly how much heroine is being produced, stored, sold, or used anywhere at all, ever.

THE
DURATION,
R

As I was leaving Afghanistan last December Afghan troops were being flown through Kandahar to one of the main UK bases in Helmand. I would estimate about a battalion’s worth of soldiers. Sadly, I heard (unconfirmed) that many of these troops were thrown together as “volunteers” as there was disagreement within the ANA senior ranks about participating in Operation Moshtarak. You’re spot on brother there is no nationalism within Afghanistan. In my time over there across several years I rarely got the sense that anyone from the ANP, ANA, now defunct ANSF, NDS, or others within the MoD or MoI had any sense of national pride or concern for greater Afghanistan. This is something you didn’t see in Iraq, although the split between Shia and Sunni is great there was and is a great sense of Iraqi pride among the people of that country (although I will leave the discussion about the Kurds for later )

Anyway, like I’ve said before success is perception. Operation Moshtarak will be touted as a success. It will temporarily dislodge the Taliban from that area. However, the greatest challenge remains whish is replacing the security and economic stability the Taliban governed during the past five or more years. I am not fan of the Taliban as they are simple thugs but the local farmers will need to make money from this year’s opium harvest, so let’s wait and see what GEN McChrystal decides to do about the poppy. By the way, any legitimate proposals that we buy the poppy and use it for legitimate purposes has already been proposed. India is the leading provider of commercial poppy for morphine production and there is simply no legitimate demand for more poppy, at least not at the rates the farmers were getting from the drug trade. So, the only clear is subsidizing them monetarily. How long you think our government will continue to spend millions of dollars on subsidizing poppy farmers in central Helmand? My guess is until 2012.

Oh yeah, the rough estimates on converting to an alternative crop that yields the same value as poppy was around 10 years. Does anyone really think the US government will be spending large amounts of money on Afghanistan in 10 years? I am doubtful that will happen, so again we’ve got a nice short term success story here but long term no fix to the actual problem of the so-called “insurgency”….

1) there are far fewer ANA than NATO says- more ghost soldiers, perpetual recruits, deserters etc.
2) the ones they have are often more trouble than they’re worth- divided loyalties, poor motivation, poor training and drug use etc
3) ANA training has not gone as well as NATO would like to pretend
4) ANA commanders are happy to keep their largely non-Pashtun units and themselves in garrison to “train” and
5) some troops have no interest in going to Helmand and would refuse to go if ordered.

That’s how you get ~ one battalion from an army fighting for the security of it’s own country in the “biggest operation since 2001″ designed to “break the back of the insurgency”

However, take a look at Iraq and see how little interest is given that war now by the MSM…good luck finding any information on the frontpages. The once crown jewel of the COIN campaign there — Anbar Province is seeing a recent rise in sectarian violence over the past several months. The “insurgency” is long from over there….unfortunately most Americans (to include our political leaders) know about it. Guess what? Many of the same tactics like paying the enemy not to shoot at us (called Community Defense Initiatives) are being applied ini Afghanistan as they were in Iraq. Bottom line, you cannot create a stable and SECURE state in one or even two US Presidential administrations. There is no precedence of this happening anywhere in history….sorry, I just don’t see longterm STABILITY and SECURITY for Afghanistan on this current course.