This past Thursday (9 July) the three things which popped up on our local radar. There was an ANP (Afghan National Police) ambush which killed four police and dozens of civilians in Logar Province. Nuristan lost the Bargi Matal district when the Taliban flag went up over the District Administrative Center (DAC). And at 1412 local we had a one round Tinian shot into the American combat outpost (COP) located at the Sirkanay DAC which blew up all their fuel stores and half of their vehicles. These incidents are part of a disturbing set of storm clouds on the horizon; we are heading into heavy weather when the storm breaks we could start losing people and losing them fast.
The ANP ambush in Logar Province was noteworthy because it involved a ruse which added to the destructiveness of the bomb creating a very high body count. They bad guys tipped over a Jingo truck full of wood simulating a traffic accident ahead of a large convoy of ANP vehicles. A crowd gathered, wood is the most common fuel for both heating and cooking and is a valuable commodity in Afghanistan and locals will come for miles around if they think there is an arm load of wood to be had for free. When the ANP tried to navigate through this mess the bad guys blew the truck and it apparently contained tons of explosives. With the truck on its side the blast wave shoot out horizontally instead vertically like it would if the truck were upright. It also creates more shrapnel by throwing bits of the engine, transmission, undercarriage etc sideways. The civilians must have been standing on the undercarriage side of the truck which is why so many were killed. This incident an indicator that the bad guys are gaining proficiency at setting up ambushes. It is also typical that most of the casualties are civilians; it seems the Taliban can kill as many civilians as they like without incurring harsh denunciations from the current Afghan President or international press.
A Tinian Shot is an old sea story in the Marines used to describe a single lucky round which takes out something critical to the enemy. One story has it that the 75mm pack howitzer which was used to signal the landing craft to open fire as the first assault wave churned toward Tinian had the good fortune to see its signaling round disappear down an air shaft into a Japanese ammo dump. The term could also be referring to an impressive one shot kill by a U.S. Navy destroyer who caught a Japanese ship trying to slip away off the coast of Tinian. Whatever the origins if you can launch a single mortar round into a base and blow up half the vehicles and all the fuel that’s a Tinian shot. The bad guys in Kunar Province finally scored one on the American COP outside Sirkanay after six years of trying. Was it luck or skill? Who knows but it is bad karma stuff which portends nothing positive.
Then we have something not yet in the press and that is the loss of Bargi Matal district in Nuristan Province. The US Army has been pulling out of eastern Nuristan and had nobody in the area. This is a good thing in my humble opinion we have no business in Nuristan Province and should leave it for the Afghans to deal with. The fight for Bargi Matal was between the ANA and the Taliban (work for pay type Taliban in this case) and the fall of the DAC means the ANA cannot call for or control ISAF close air support. There is no way the Taliban can mass 300 men to take a DAC if our Tac Air is in the fight. Eight years into this war and we do not appear to have ISAF qualified close air support controllers in the Afghan Army. I could care less about the Bargi Matal district of Nuristan Province – it is controlled by gem smuggling syndicates comprised of Pashtun and Punjab families from the Pakistan side of the border. Gem merchants in Afghanistan are taxed at around 51% – in Peshawar 15% and on both sides of the border that percentage is reduced with proper bribes. Our forces cannot be everywhere and should focus on areas and people who want our help and the tribes of Nuristan do not. The Soviets were putting an Afghan Cosmonaut in space eight years into their Afghan adventure yet we cannot train up FAC’s?
Speaking of not good the Bot and I took a little Recee over the back way into Kabul; the bone jarring Latabad Pass. We have not used that route since the main road was repaired and Shem needed to look the route over for his company. It was in good shape and completely deserted. No security forces, no local traffic, nothing – all the way into Kabul. Not one checkpoint – we just drove through like we were in the desert of the American southwest. With all the concern over security during the elections it is hard to believe that the back route from Surobi to Kabul is wide open with no evidence of any security forces monitoring it.
There is a civilian surge of sorts which I understand is mostly going to the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT’s). The PRT concept is a sound theory that is not paying the dividends required to keep this place under control. This article which concerns my local PRT is a good example of what I am talking about. Jalalabad is a moderately safe area with lots of internationals doing good deeds daily but we do not work or coordinate with the PRT. It is not that the people manning the PRT are the problem they aren’t and they want to get out and work. But their ability to do the mission is crippled by stringent force protection rules. Placing more civilians in these bases will do nothing to increase the amount of sorties or assistance. The constraint is the requirement for robust security detachments and MRAP seats and both those are impediments to providing meaningful aid.
Michael Yon has been in country and hanging out in remote Ghor Province and recently wrote a great piece . The Belmont club picked up on the post and Richard Hernandez (one of my personal favorites) wrote this comment:
“The current plan for Afghanistan campaign has implicitly assumed that the goal of creating a society able to resist al-Qaeda like groups can be reached with the time and resources available. There’s no reason to believe why this must be true beyond the assertion that it is. If Michael Yon’s insight is correct, then the assertion is not proved; and we may be trying to solve an problem of exponential complexity with a polynomial time algorithm; that is to say trying to attain a strategic goal unreachable by the tactical means at our disposal.”
We need a polynomial time algorithm to solve a problem of exponential complexity… I like the way it sounds which is why I read the Belmont Club first thing every morning. Michael’s observations are spot on; this is a big country full of people who have not concept of modernity. We do not have the time or resources to fix all that is broken the key is setting reasonable goals in critical areas where the people want our help and then leaving. Just say no to polynominal time algorithms they have no place in our strategic or tactical thinking.
Speaking of PRT’s, gleaned this from WAPO:
McChrystal, who has spent most of his career in special operations units, is backing a proposal by Adm. Eric T. Olson, head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, to replace the current Navy and Air Force commanders of at least half of the 12 U.S. provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) in Afghanistan with Special Operations officers who served previous tours in Afghanistan and have training in at least one of its two languages, Dari and Pashto.
Olson and McChrystal believe that the Navy and Air Force officers, who typically have backgrounds as pilots, navigators or ship commanders, lack the necessary experience. “We want to have the smartest and most culturally aware officers in charge of the reconstruction teams,” said the senior military official in Kabul.
But the other services have been reluctant to give up the PRT mission, and Mullen and the four service chiefs are scheduled to meet next week to discuss the issue.
My perception is being managed by somebody to think COMSOCOM wants PRT commanders to be CORDS-style province advisory team leaders and senior advisors. Exactly who they would be advising is not clear to me. The governor? The ANA Province Chief? The ANP Province Chief? All of the above?
Six field grade billets in BFA have to be negotiated amongst the JCS. Something is wrong with that picture.
Off topic, but have you heard who those guys were that killed Matiullah Khan down in Kandahar two weeks ago?
It was Afghan SF elements that killed Gen Matiullah. Based out of Gecko in Kandahar City. An Expat PSC eye-witness backs this up. Initially locals believed that it was US SF that were involved, then later on the truth came out the no ISAF elements were present when this occurred. Local opinion still believes the Afghan SF were acting on “orders from the Americans” however.
It was good to see you before I head off Tim-san. Keep doing good work, and who knows, i’ll probably be back over here sooner than later.
Thanks, Tim from Panjwayi. That tracks with RYP’s comment at Ghosts of Alexander.
Afghan SF elements based out of Gecko could be indig special operators assigned to the ANA 201st Commando Kanak, or they could be former Afghan Security Forces working Force Protection as ASG’s at Firebase Maholic.
I guess it all depends on what the S stands for.
When is the political machine going to learn that they do not have the handle on running a war. We are not going to win against the shadow armies of the Taliban. We were defeated in Vietnam, and the rules of war established by the Chinese have never been followed by our modern Forces.
Great post Tim, and it had some really cool thought provoking items in it. Especially the contractors for the ‘hold’ and ‘build’ phase.
To me, the key component of this is sustainability of operations and a unity of effort. Will units that continue to cycle in and out leave a positive impression on the minds of the local populations, or will the locals just get pissed that they have to keep working with someone new several times a year? Kids are the same way, and if you keep moving them around from town to town or school to school, then there is no familiarity built and social relationships are not as strong as they could be.
Contractors could be set up to manage a region for years and the local populations could depend on that group for ‘staying put’ because it is in the contract. Having a group stay for long term will also increase that organization’s learning capability, and thus become really knowledgeable of that area and all of it’s nuances.
Finally, whatever group that stays put, (military or civilian) must be driven by the two things that will bring them success. Kaizen (continuous improvement) and customer service/satisfaction. All your work in that region can be for not, if the customer (local populations) are not satisfied. And with the proper application of Kaizen to all levels of operation, services given should only be better over time, not worse.
Here are some quotes from a recent Washington Post article about the Marines and COIN in Helmand.
Marine commanders believe that working with police and local government officials will help their credibility among the residents of Nawa. But some in town do not share that view.
“We cannot trust the government or the Taliban,” Zary Sahib, the leader of the town’s mosque, told McCollough. “We can only trust you.”
And
As a Marine patrol walked through the bazaar on a recent morning, its presence prompted a group of men sipping tea in front of a motorcycle repair shop to voice concern — not that the Americans had arrived but that they might depart before the Taliban had been vanquished.
“If you leave, everything will be the same,” a middle-aged man who called himself Sayed Gul told McCollough. “If you guys stay for a long time, everything will be fine.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/11/AR2009071102815_4.html?sid=ST2009071102862
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 07/13/2009 News and Personal dispatches from the front and the home front.
While putting SF commanders in charge of the PRT’s seems to be a step in the right direction, why don’t we go the whole way and just put them in charge of conventional units? Having done time on both the SF and conventional sides of the house here in AFG, I can attest that conventional leadership here just DOES NOT GET IT.
Thank you…..excellent post
Bush Fought the Iraq War by the Bible and Look What Happened???
The tragedy of the Bush years and the killing of more than 1,000,000 people is that not only did our leaders abandon common sense but so did many Americans.
Hitler’s religious beliefs and fanaticism
(Selected quotes from Mein Kampf)
compiled by Jim Walker
Originated: 28 Nov. 1996
Additions made: 07 July 2001
People often make the claim that Adolph Hitler adhered to Atheism, Humanism or some ancient Nordic pagan mythology. None of these fanciful and wrong ideas hold. Although one of Hitler’s henchmen, Alfred Rosenberg, did undertake a campaign of Nordic mythological propaganda, Hitler and most of his henchmen did not believe in it .
Many American books, television documentaries, and Sunday sermons that preach of Hitler’s “evil” have eliminated Hitler’s god for their Christian audiences, but one only has to read from his own writings to appreciate that Hitler’s God equals the same God of the Christian Bible. Hitler held many hysterical beliefs which not only include, God and Providence but also Fate, Social Darwinism, and ideological politics. He spoke, unashamedly, about God, fanaticism, idealism, dogma, and the power of propaganda. Hitler held strong faith in all his convictions. He justified his fight for the German people and against Jews by using Godly and Biblical reasoning. Indeed, one of his most revealing statements makes this quite clear:
“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”
Although Hitler did not practice religion in a churchly
War Is Boring???
Passage Exodus 15:3:
3The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.
Passage Psalm 144:1:
Psalm 144
1Blessed be the LORD my strength which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight:
i know this is a old post.but a very good,well done wright up.with good insight. from the time of this post to now.has it gone from bad to worse.or holding.? thanks.