Author: babatim

Retired Marine, former contractor blogging about the US military in general and Afghanistan specifically
Posted on

Leadership 101

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is never pleasant to observe, especially when it is  an  American President doing the snatching. President Obama was  running strong:

1. He just announced The Dream Team taking over the Afghan campaign,

2. He launched a unilateral direct action mission deep into Pakistan to kill bin Laden.

This  bold move,  in view of  we have seen from President Obama during the uprisings in Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Iran and Libya, was decidedly out of character. Then came  the  press conference, and what should have been a moment of national unity and catharsis has festered into a case study in self-inflicted PR wounds. Only today’s  obituary (courtesy of  al Qaeda)  has managed to quell  most of  what were increasing doubts in this part of the world that OBL is really dead when there was no doubt about it on Monday. Even worse,  the story has  now begun to focus  on the legality of the assaulters shooting an unarmed bin Laden. It seems to me that the president will exit this news cycle with lower numbers then he entered it with, which is a stunning  accomplishment of   incompetence.

I  watched the President’s news conference live on the internet and it was the strangest Presidential announcement I have ever seen. He could have buttressed his leadership role more forcibly had he confined his remarks  to the remarkable efforts of the thousands of people working on this mission for the past 7  + years.    Boasting that his absolute confidence in the military to enact this bold plan was justified when they lost one of their insert birds but still completed the mission, and  extracted all hands without delay or injuries. That would have reflected the boldness of his personal decision for all to see without him saying anything about himself.  But no,  Obama  couldn’t bring himself to  do that…  Then the  team started leaking details about the mission, which even now are  changing daily. They had no need  to  elaborate on  one damn aspect of the mission  -namely:  we sent in the SEALs, they  shot Osama bin Laden in the face, took his body, dumped it into ocean, didn’t take any casualties and left his women and children (minus his adult son) alive. That is all they had to say; the huge advantage  of employing JSOC is that all of them have Top Secret security clearances and cannot (nor would not) leak any details to anyone outside of their elite community. The fleshed out story of what happened will come out  in time but right now nobody needs to know the details. The mission was impressive enough; the less you say the better- especially because we caught Pakistan with their pants down but still need them if we plan to feed and equip the 200,000 or so troops and contractors currently in Afghanistan.

When the Pakistanis said there were no weapons on the men in bin Laden’s compound,  the president  could merely  have replied “Of course the SEAL’s took all the weapons with them, and by the way, that little AK that Osama was so fond of being photographed with? I’m having the SEAL’s fly it down to President Bush as a fitting addition to his Presidential library for the work he did to hunt him down”. How presidential would Obama  appear now if he had said that?

Killing bin Laden is, to use the words of our Vice President, a “Big F___ing Deal”.  It leaves the government of Pakistan with a lot of explaining to do, it enables us to define a more acceptable end state, it should allow us to send in our best civ/mil team (Allen and Crocker) with a plan to scale down our massive involvement in Afghanistan and get most of our people out of here. This raid has  put us squarely  in the drivers seat,  but now it is the Obama administration doing the explaining, changing, rearranging their story, spinning like tops and one has to wonder why?

The United Kingdom Mail Online posted a story this morning which may explain some of the confusion at the top.  Obama took 16 hours to make the decision according to the article; we were ready to go as early as Thursday.  That is not the end of the world – it was a tough decision; a lot of things could have gone wrong.  But the mail story got me (and millions of others)  surfing the net looking for more detail where I found this link on the wall of The Mark Levine Show facebook page.  Check this out:

“I was told in these exact terms, we overruled him. (Obama) I have since followed up and received further details on exactly what that meant, as well as the specifics of how Leon Panetta worked around the president’s persistent hesitation to act. There appears NOT to have been an outright overruling of any specific position by President Obama, simply because there was no specific position from the president to do so. President Obama was, in this case, as in all others, working as an absentee president.”

The link above has popped up all over the internet but I don’t believe it. I think Obama will go down in history as the worst president we have suffered through in my lifetime but even he can’t possibly be as clueless and cowardly as portrayed in the account of an alleged “Washington Insider”. Makes you wonder who wrote those posts and what their political ties are, doesn’t it? It seems that the hosting website has a strong  liberal orientation and the first name to pop into my head was  H. Clinton.

What are these people looking at? We now know it was not the mission and can deduce they were talking to the officers manning the "Bagram Death Star" (the command and control room). Now that the entire story behind the mission is falling apart HJillary wants us to believe she is suffering from allergies. She continues to believe we are stupid and I continue to believe that politicians who fake human emotion because a photographer is shooting film are beneath contempt
What are these people looking at? We now know it was not the mission and can deduce they were talking to the officers manning the “Bagram Death Star” (command and control room). With the story behind the mission is falling apart this “iconic” photograph is becoming a joke

In Afghanistan, the reaction to Osama’s death was the same as it was Salida, Colorado;  nothing. I was in Zaranj when the news broke and aside from being congratulated by my Afghan and Pakistani project managers, not a peep from anyone  around me. Killing bin Laden was a huge victory for Americans because it was personal for us but the Afghans,  having a much more pragmatic view of the event, immediately concluded   that killing bin Laden will make it easier for us to leave. They are correct, but they don’t know how this is going to play out, and neither do I.

It doesn’t have to be this way; we should be letting the successful hunting down and killing of bin Laden re-energize our efforts and refocus our mission while leveraging this impressive achievement with our political “allies” Pakistan and Afghanistan.  But we lost control of the story because the administration has too much invested in the on-going investigation of the very intelligence people who extracted the information  that started this hunt.  The administration has too much invested in the narrative that George Bush and Dick Cheney were off the reservation, acting illegally and recklessly when they set up the enhanced interrogation program. Now the president lectures us about the Osama death photos,  saying “We don’t need to spike the football” that as Americans “we don’t do that”.  Don’t do what?  What the hell is he talking about?

An experienced leader would know a thing or two about how not to let a huge victory go to waste. He would also know that those photos will leak at some point in the future and frankly there is nothing he can do to stop it. President Obama  might well  have used this remarkable event to elevate his stature and to seal another election victory, but only if he was big enough to act like the leader of the most powerful nation on earth.   As the leader,  he could have focused his praise on the people who worked years to put us in the position where we could launch the raid.  Months ago when the mission started to come together, he could have told the Attorney General to quietly drop the investigations targeting the very  people who performed the enhanced interrogations. He could have positioned himself to use this victory as a  blunt instrument with which to forward the goals of the United States throughout this entire region. What other country can work ten years at tracking down one man and when they find him fly stealth helicopters into the middle of another country to shoot him in the face?  We’re so bad ass that we sent sailors to do the shooting – that’s how deep our bench is.

Instead of re-election;  what he is going to get in 2012 is exactly what I believe he wants – he’ll get to be an ex-president. Wealth and affluence  beyond his wildest dreams, surrounded daily by the pomp and circumstance of an ex-head of state, super cool Secret Service detail for the rest of his life, and above all, no responsibility or accountability to anyone other than Barack H. Obama. I’m sure he can’t wait and neither can I.

Posted on

May Day

The ISAF (International Security Assistance Force)  has taken  an unusual step by issuing a warning to all internationals, alerting of coordinated “spectacular attacks”,   kidnapping of internationals, suicide bombings, and all manner of general mayhem  to  kick off  Sunday, 1 May.  To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time ISAF has ever distributed a written warning to internationals at large, it’s also the first time ISAF has used social media to reach out to the general public.  The message came to us via the Afghanistan security contractors Skype group.     Now this  Skype group has  around 150 members, and although skype chatting is stone age technology by military standards, the military has not been able to join our chats in the past.  Nevertheless, witnessing  their use of social media like this is pretty darn cool (and it’s about time too).

The UN has sent all their internationals scurrying  to seek shelter in local PRT’s and declared “WHITE CITY” countrywide.   This means emergency road movements only.    Afghan security forces (ANSF) are out in force  all over  the country. Our  local workers are now  clearly spooked, but  oddly none of them seem to  know of any specific threat.  As I write this,   a frantic effort is  being made throughout the south to confirm that there are no missing internationals as (I’m guessing) the Taliban claim to have one in their possession.

You tell em Joe! One of the current American titans making sure the troops know the he knows what is what
You tell em Joe! One of our current senators making sure the troops know that he knows what is what

This  unprecedented warning by ISAF has migrated into the mainstream media as seen with this “exclusive” published in Reuters yesterday by reporter Paul Talt.  Paul continued the story  in his article today explaining that the May Day offensive is really the start to the summer fighting season.  The Taliban are calling their new operation “Badar” which could mean “out” in Dari or “war” in Arabic….hard to say with the Taliban these days…   One thing is certain,  the Afghans and ISAF are ready for them and unlike big alerts in the past everyone is taking this one seriously.

Myself, Im not too worried,  with my suspicion  being  the current Taliban press offensive is directed more at Afghan fighters and the Afghan people.  If the southern Taliban do in fact launch any major ground attacks,  it’ll be for them what the Tet offensive was to the North Vietnamese;   a total tactical defeat!    It cannot morph into a strategic victory (as Tet did for North Vietnam)    because the legacy media can no longer spin a story that big to  bolster their agenda.  Plus- the Taliban are simply not strong enough to conduct a major military offensive;  they lack the logistical capacity, they lack  heavy weapons, command and control, imagination,   not to mention  the lack of  serious cash  an operation of size and scope requires.

Iranian border post adjacent to one of our projects. The Iranians shut this project down by complaining we were too close to the zero line as well as diverting water flowing into Iran. This is nonsense but will give local government officials something else to argue about during weekly meetings. The Iranians are still restricting the flow of fuel into Afghanistan and there are cross border clashes every now and then. The Iranians apparently provide what help they can to Afghan refugees, look the other way as Afghan males pour over the border looking for day jobs, and facilitate organized drug trafficking while at the same time hanging every Afghan drug smuggler they catch operating outside of recognized smuggling rings. The heroin moves through Iran to Turkey and from there (they hope) into the European market. In reality more and more of the product is being consumed in Iran and Turkey plus mush of the European market for drugs is driven by the Muslim underclass. Iran is trying to destabilize the west with a weapon that does not discriminate between class, religion or skin color and it is backfiring on them in slow motion
Iranian border post adjacent to one of our projects. The Iranians shut this one down by complaining we were too close to the zero line as well as diverting water flowing into Iran. That is nonsense but will give local government officials something else to argue about during their weekly meetings.

My prediction? This- we will see some serious attacks in the eastern portion of the country near the Pakistan border because these villains can more easily mount operations across the border.  I’m betting we’ll see something big in Kunar tomorrow or possibly Paktia Province.  I still think the boys in the south cannot and will not mount large attacks.  But they can dig some more tunnels, making  me wonder  if the effort they put into digging a tunnel under Saraposa prison isn’t also being duplicated under an ISAF base or PRT?    Tunneling under defensive positions is a tactic as old as man and it certainly is  one way of launching a spectacular attack without  loss of  too much manpower.  In reality there just isn’t  much the  Taliban is good at,  outside of jail breaks and suicide bombing easy targets in Kabul.  They  are adept  at settling land disputes in the rural districts too – have to give them that.  The question I have is why are they doing anything at all?

By the summer of 2014,  ISAF is supposed to be gone,  leaving  the only remaining forces   in country attached to the Afghan Army which will   have the  responsibility to continue the fight.    So, for the next three years the Taliban could merely content themselves with  economy of force operations; concentrating on targeting and removing officials from the Kabul government who have abused the public trust, all the  while avoiding fights with western military forces who routinely beat them like a drum.  It’s madness to pit Taliban insurgents against modern infantry because there is no requirement for them to fight, nor can they win.   If they foolishly unmask themselves in large attacks tomorrow,  they are going to  be slaughtered.  If they don’t do anything tomorrow, that is going to worry ISAF because it may indicate the Taliban has finally thought things through and wised up.  The Taliban doesn’t have to fight, it has little to gain by fighting.    Heck, waiting three summers is nothing for an organization which has competent leaders who take the long view on strategic decisions.  We shall soon see, but my money is on the Taliban being stupid and trying to flex its military muscle this summer.  Stupid is as stupid does.

This is what a Central Asian smugglers cove looks like. No bars, no women, no electricity but I did see one old guy with an eye patch. Land pirates just do not generate the kind of romantic vision that Caribbean pirates do.
This is what a Central Asian smugglers cove looks like. No bars, no women, no electricity but I did see one old guy with an eye patch. Land pirates just do'nt generate the kind of romantic vision Caribbean pirates do.

I predict this summer’s fighting will gut the Quetta shura, while  leaving the Peshawar shura pretty much intact.  That is to say, I predict the Taliban getting decisively beaten in the south,  whilein the east,  they fight to a draw.    Regardless, at the end of this year’s fighting season we will have another bout of change in American leadership.  General Petraeus is going to head the CIA, Leon Panetta is  moving  from Langley to head up the DoD, and Marine LtGeneral    John R. Allen comes east to deal with Afghanistan.

The spy guys at the New York Times, feeling that the CIA is safe from being eliminated by the efforts of a 80 year old retiree in coastal California have turned their attention to the impending leadership change and are warning that the CIA is becoming militarized.  Who cares what the CIA becomes as long as whatever they do, they start getting it  right.  If there’s a chance (however small it be) that the CIA could actually develop into an agency which accomplishes its basic mission, then I’m  confident General Petraeus is one of the few men who can lead that change.  When General Allen arrives to Afghanistan he will come with a new ambassador, Ryan Crocker, who has a serious reputation for getting things done.  His posting will be a welcomed relief.

Which brings us to General John R Allen, USMC.  One of the characteristics of the War on Terror which should cause alarm to my fellow Americans has been the performance of our General Officers corps.    As an  institution  that consistently polls as the most trusted in America,  theperformance of it’s  senior executives has been pretty weak.  This is one reason we have been reading of General Petraeus year in and year out since the surge in Iraq.  I don’t know General Petraeus or Ambassador Crocker or Leon Panetta;  so predicting the effect of their new executive positions is impossible.  But I do know General John R. Allen,   whom it was my privilege to work for  back in the early 90’s.  General Allen was the Group Chief for the Marine Infantry Officer Course when I was an instructor there.  He is, quite simply, the best military officer I have ever known and brother,  I have known quite a few.  I could share stories in hopes of illuminating why I feel the way I do,  but nothing I can write would do justice to the man.  He is, plainly put,  the best we have. I’ve never met anyone more impressive and I know a lot of impressive people.  As you will see when the change occurs next fall I’m not alone in my high opinion of General Allen.

Shopping for fresh chicken in a post industrialized reduced carbon foot print society can be fun, rewarding and a great way to stay in touch with your neighbors
Shopping for fresh chicken in a post-industrialized reduced carbon footprint society can be fun, rewarding and a great way to stay in touch with your neighbors. As gas heads past 5 USD a gallon how far away are we from a barter economy?

Now, the skype group is currently pinging off the hook  with reports of the ANP stopping and detaining armed contractors in Kabul.  This is an almost daily occurrence,   mind you all these contractors have proper licenses and paperwork.  The reason this happens daily is stupidity on the part of government officials who are trying to send a message to the international community.  The Taliban is poised to launch some large attacks over the next 72 hours and the reason for that is again- stupidity.  The Taliban have won as much as they are going to win already:  they ought  be spending the next three years on internal growth and administration.  But they are stupid  in their  belief that challenging western militaries is the only way to grow the Jihad.  We’ll just see how the fighting season plays out, but when it is over a new team is going to come in and take  the reins of  this campaign. That new team will be our last chance at achieving an end-state in Afghanistan that justifies the investment we continue to make.

 

Posted on

Victory Day

Well  here we  are, a week away from Victory Day, the third annual national holiday celebrating the martial history of Afghanistan. There is Independence Day in August, which celebrates running the Brits out of the country in the 1800’s. Then, there is Liberation Day in February, which marks the end of direct Soviet  Army involvement. Next week, we pause to remember the days  when Afghans  beat the stuffing out of each other with  Victory Day  – celebrating the defeat of the Soviet backed Najibullah regime in 1992.

High noon in downtown Lashkar Gah - it will be a ghost town like this for at least another week
High noon in downtown Lashkar Gah – it will be a ghost town like this for at least another week

It’s still ‘crickets‘  in the Helmand Province. The last of the poppy harvesters   will return home, sort out their share of paste, rest a bit and then cast around for something to do. It  appears that for most of the adult males in Helmand, fighting the foreigners for pay, is no longer an attractive option.  The WaPo published a story last week about how the United States Marine Corps is wearing out the Taliban the old-fashioned way – by shooting them. This trend is noted  here by the Belmont Club, and here by Herschel at The Captains Journal, and here by the Long War Journal.  This latest article on the martial prowess of the Marines comes at  a propitious  time (even though it was based on a Bing West embed last fall) because my Dad, of all people, sent a new Marine recruiting poster which I can now share-even with  the F bomb-

It is rumored the Pentagon is not too happy with the newest USMC recruiting poster
It is rumored the Pentagon is not too happy with the newest USMC recruiting poster

Turns out that it is not just the Marines who are ‘gettin’ some’ in the Helmand, but also the Brits, who  still have a task force in the province, stationed in and around Lashkar Gah.  The other day, one of their squaddies pounced, literally, on a senior Taliban bomb maker.

 My Muckers were being shot on the ground and I thought, I’m not having that”.  Said Private Lee Stephens, who leaped  from his Warrior armored vehicle to deliver a textbook ‘Flying Clothesline’ takedown on a Taliban who was  hustling to flee from the patrol.  “I jumped out and I grabbed the geezer” said Pvt Stephens;

Good thing he didn’t miss bulldogging the little bastard, otherwise the Brits would be receiving an unending stream of directives from on High about the folly of doing a Superman dives from armored vehicles to subdue motorcycle-mounted Taliban. The Brit press followed up with this story that could have been written anytime over the past 9 years.

 Writing anonymously, the author reveals that the Taliban have dubbed British soldiers “donkeys” who move in a tactical “waddle” because they now carry an average weight of 110lbs worth of equipment into battle. The consequences of the strategy, he says, is that “our infantry find it almost impossible to close with the enemy because the bad guys are twice as mobile”.The officer claims that by the end of a routine four hour patrol, soldiers struggle to make basic tactical judgments because they are physically and mentally exhausted.

Good grief…  once more ‘ The Lesson Which Can Never Be Learned‘  is exposed for all to see and none to act on. The optimal load for marching infantry was studied exhaustively and documented extensively during the time of the Roman Legions. One fighting man can carry 60 lbs and march all day and with a 30 lbs fighting load he can maintain acceptable speed, mobility, and striking power without draining his  stamina. Every officer on active duty knows this but none of them can move beyond the “survive-ability aspect” heavy armor brings to the fight. So our PBI (Poor Bloody Infantry) go into battle wearing over 100 lbs of armor.

The lads are both fit and smart and have figured out heavy combat loads increase the chance they’ll be shot due to poor mobility and heat exhaustion. When they do get shot, the armor prevents penetration, which is a testament to the concern their senior officers have  regarding their health and welfare. But then again, forcing men to hump 100+ lbs of gear in a blazing hot desert is a sobering  testament  of just how little control senior officers have over the health and welfare of their men. Marine Officers tell me that congress is to blame for the ridiculous notion that force protection is derived from heavy body armor and large armored trucks.

Men will take significant risks to reduce the loads they carry into battle. The ANA soilder in the background and his ANP counterpart if the foreground have just been in contact with the Taliban but they remain as light as they can possibly be
Men will take significant risks to reduce the loads they carry into battle. The ANA solider in the background and his ANP counterpart if the foreground have just been in contact with the Taliban but they remain as light as they can possibly be, no spare ammo, water, radio etc…  I’m not saying this is smart I’m just saying it is the way it is.

One advantage (for what it is worth) of all this weight is when the lads dive off armored vehicles to apprehend villains the extra mass and weight turn them into formidable meat rockets.

Soldiers loads has been one of the more popular topics for staff college papers since the days when Staff Colleges were invented
Optimal soldiers loads have been one of the more popular topics for Staff College papers since the invention of Staff Colleges.

Having done  some research,   I  find that American Geezers have something in common with British Tommies; they too can say “I’m not having that” and the discussion is over.    Turns out Bing West doesn’t wear body armor or helmet!  He may be on the facility of  the Naval War College, and he may submit reports to the American Department of Defense, but somehow he has reached  that glorious  station in life where he can tell the Marines and the Army to  STUFF IT-   He goes out with whoever he wants, while wearing whatever he wants.    Man, that’s nice work if you can get it!

It is not like being a reporter makes one a non-combatant,  as we were reminded again with the passing of Tim Heatherington in Libya yesterday. Bing West doesn’t have to wear body armor because he’s 70,and nobody expects men his age to walk around  lugging 100 lbs of gear,  and he  has earned his due with the Marines.  That seems perfectly reasonable; what is unreasonable is to expect any man, of any age, to carry around over 100 lbs of armor, water and weapons during combat operations.  We know that forcing men to carry that much weight will cause significant problems;   but the only significant problem senior officers worry about are the  ones which will adversely impact their careers.  They know that we task the PBI to carry too much weight, they know that physical and mental exhaustion leads to increased numbers of our guys suffering enemy wounds and  they know that the men know- which means that the press knows, which is to say everyone knows;  but nobody wants to acknowledge that  what they know- we ALL  know.  The British defense Ministry did what bureaucrats do when confronted by unpleasant facts – they made the shit up and released it to the press:

A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: “The issue of weight carried by soldiers on operations is well recognised and work is constantly under way to reduce the amount carried by soldiers.  “Since June 2010 a number of weight savings measures have reduced the weight carried by soldiers by up to 26 lbs.”

Sure, 26 lbs…color me skeptical, but  prevarication over  the amount of weight trimmed off the fighting infantry misses the point. The lads carry too much weight and suffer casualties because they rapidly run out of steam and sloe down when under fire.

Posted on

Poppy Time

It is Saturday, the 9th of April here in the sunny paradise of Afghanistan and both Kandahar and Kabul are in a UN declared “White City” status as the locals brace for another round of anti-American protests in response to the Koran burning in Florida.  I’m in Kandahar where all is quiet after Thursday’s  spectacular attack on an ANP compound.  Once again the Taliban used an ambulance VBIED to get through police and ISAF cordons, then detonated it inside the incident scene. The Taliban still suck at fighting, but they are getting pretty slick with the tactical planning as of late.

We aren’t too worried about protests in the South – a look at last week’s stats from Sami the Finn at Indicium Consulting shows why:

When the incident rate in the south drops like this there is only explanation; Poppy time
When the incident rate drops like this in the south there is only explanation; Poppy Time

When the poppy is being harvested all other activity around the poppy belt, including Taliban attacks, grind to a halt. Opium prices are at an all time high after last years crop failure and we hear this year the opium sap harvesters will keep 1 man (4.5 kilos) for every 6 man they milk out of the poppy bulbs. A man sells (at current prices) for around US $6000. That is a ton of money in these parts, however gathering up that much wet opium takes the average 4 man team two weeks of backbreaking, dawn to dusk effort. Still every able bodied male in the region is hard at work trying to get a man worth of Opium because when you have 6k in your pocket you can get married. That’s right – sex not only sells but it’s also is a great motivator for unmarried men in societies where the only way to get it is through marriage.

With most of the international press trying to figure out what Obama and Hillary are up to in Africa confusion regarding what’s happening here has reached new levels of strangeness.  Are things going well, or are they going  down the tubes? Is a resurgent al Qaeda a problem, or, (as I have long maintained) is this never going to be happen again in Afghanistan? Is the President of the United States really an inexperienced, doctrinaire, ignoramus, or is he rope-a-doping the whole world by pretending to be incompetent while hatching a wickedly genius plan to bring Americans a healthy economy coupled to a foreign policy which is easily understood to benefit the interests of our country?

One of the things about Marines which irritates the other services to no end is their propensity for festooning their cars with the Eagle Globe and Anchor. In time every ANA vehicle in the Helmand Province will have a Marine sticker on it.
One of the things about Marines (which irritates the other services to no end) is our propensity for festooning personal vehicles and most vertical surfaces with Eagle Globe and Anchor stickers. In time every ANA vehicle in the Helmand Province will have a Marine sticker on it.

Allow me to answers my questions in reverse order: Our POTUS is not rope-a-doping, his crisis management performance  is typical for a man who has been promoted way beyond his level of incompetence for reasons other than experience or consistent superior performance. But that is a lesson we cannot acknowledge because it remains fashionable among our cultural and business elite to emphatically believe affirmative action is a good thing. They want to believe that diversity makes us stronger when everyone who has to deal with “diversity” knows the only way it makes anything stronger is when diverse peoples meet the same standards and compete on a level playing field.

The Taliban are resurgent now, have been for the past two years and will be gaining and holding more terrain, will be inflicting more casualties on ISAF and ANSF, will grow stronger and stronger with each passing year. Worse, it appears al-Qaeda is back which I thought would never happen but then again I thought we’d be making progress by now.

And finally I have no idea what in the name of God we are doing bombing Libya but can guarantee you that when it’s all said and done we’re going to discover this was “doing stupid shit”. Let’s just hope we don’t lose too many people in the process.

In the Eastern portion of Afghanistan we have withdrawn from most of Kunar Province because the military geniuses in Kabul have decided that our presence in the isolated valleys was a provocation, so we declared victory and are packing up to head home. The Hillbillies of Kunar didn’t see it that way and thought our withdraw from their turf was a win for them.  Commanders who are victorious against the Americans seem to attract attention, money, recruits, and (this is new) al Qaeda training camps.  Who would have guessed that????????

Poppy
The poppy turns up everywhere to include the vegetable garden in our compound. Our gardener grows some pretty decent looking weed too. I don’t think he’s a smoker and bet he sells the weed – the three poppy plants out back aren’t enough to produce squat and are there because they look cool

This report in the Wall Street Journal was a nasty surprise to those of us paying attention but not for long. Within 24 hours the MSM was spinning a counter story that included this statement: “Petraeus also said he did not agree with reports that al-Qaida was making a comeback in Afghanistan”.  Well, I guess that’s that but hold on the WSJ story was written by Mathew Rosenberg. I know Matt gets outside the security bubble to dig up his own facts having given him a ride from Jalalabad to Kabul a few years ago.  If Rosenberg is reporting there is a resurgent al Qaeda infesting Afghanistan then I’m going to admit I was wrong about the possibility of that happening. General Petraeus can say whatever he likes but we know he doesn’t know because he has no human intelligence capacity with which to know.  That is the price he must pay for having unlimited funds with which to build little islands of America all over the country, isolating most of the forces completely from the Afghans.

Another classic example of  inside the security bubble propaganda  versus  real outside the wire atmospherics can be found in this April Fools article . Written by James Dobbins, and reprinted by the RAND people for some reason  (I am certain protecting their billions in FOB based contracts has nothing to do with it) Mr Dobbins, a DC insider with a vested interest in blowing sunshine up the rectums of other insiders, tells us that “irrational optimism” is the word of the day for your ordinary Afghan. You see, as bad as things are, they have been so much worse over the past 30 years that, from the perspective of the abused populace, everything is now peachy!

Let me paste in graph from one of the few organizations that actually gets out on the ground (with expat led teams) to do their own polling. Check this out:

When you get off the FOB and ask people questions face to face you get an idea about how badly things are going
When you get off the FOB and ask people questions face to face, you get an idea why the Afghans are clueless about our motives for being and staying here.

The pie chart above is based on a report by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS).  ICOS is the only policy analysis organization in Afghanistan with expatriate headed assessment teams. They are led by the formidable Norine MacDonald: I ran into them last January while they were in the Helmand Province doing research for this report on the dangers of a draw-down in forces this summer.

I personally don’t think the maneuver units are going anywhere this summer. The United States could easily send half the people deployed to Afghanistan home without diminishing a bit of combat power. Simply clear out all the Equal Opportunity Officers, the Sexual Harassment Officers, career jammers, the jerks who monitor base gyms to make sure nobody wears a sleeveless shirt and the military policemen who make life on the FOB’s such a drag. You could easily cut the intelligence effort in half because Afghan intel is an echo chamber of endemic circular reporting.  And you can close the COIN Academy; setting up a new “innovative” school house is a loser move designed to cover over the fact we have no traction with the Afghan people.  The COIN Academy will never answer that question because you can’t do COIN in six month increments which isn’t really the problem either; the Karzai administration is the problem. But I’ve only been saying that for five years now and am sick of repeating myself.

We’re spending too much money and blood in Afghanistan while achieving very little besides beating the dog shit out of the Southern Taliban. That is something which the Marines in Helmand and the ISAF units in Kandahar can be proud of but it’s not enough. When I look at the train wreck that is the United States economy coupled with the unwillingness of our elected leaders to deal with the mess they made I am reminded (yet again) of the Roman Empire.  Contemplate this quote (hat tip Dan Carlin’s Hard Corps History) from historian Michael Crawford who wrote in  The Roman Republic:

The dangerous developments of the second century BC were then in large measure the result of growth of the Roman Empire providing the oligarchy with wealth which had to be invested making it easy for them to acquire extra land, providing them with slaves to work it and offering no alternative land elsewhere to those dispossessed.  A part time peasant army conquers the Mediterranean and that conquest facilitates its destitution.

The level of debt being generated by our political masters is unsustainable, the amount of spending on the war in Afghanistan is unsustainable, the financial obligations of the democratic run blue states are unsustainable.  Yet our political class continues to demagogue, evade, reward themselves with benefits regular Americans can only dream of, while our military leaders focus on marginal issues like women on submarines or the acceptance of homosexuals (as if they have not always been in the military anyway). Our government leaders focus on everything except the fact we have no money. Our military leaders focus on everything except the fact that we’re losing in Afghanistan. The American people work hard to support their families while sending their children off to fight for a military that is rapidly adopting the liberal cultural mores of the ruling class at the expense of traditional martial virtue.  The men and women fighting here and elsewhere will return to a country where only the elite prosper, where the rules for the political class and the working class are different. They are going to fight like lions to support our constitution while the administration shreds that constitution and  leaves the common folk destitute.

Holy shit I sound like a commie!  Time to pack up the laptop and fly to Dubai where I need to score another visa and a beer or two.  Maybe a few days of sleeping in a real bed will improve the mood a bit but I doubt it.  I see a bad moon rising.

Posted on

Afghanistan Gone Wild

The killings in Mazar-i Sharif followed by rioting in Kandahar, Jalalabad and towns across the country are more than a little troubling.  Joshua Foust posted on the topic expressing concern about the viability of internationals remaining outside the wire which makes me concerned too because Joshua isn’t one to cry wolf..  Registan.net then added  a post by Joel Hafvenstein arguing that the insurgency is not targeting aid workers and the time to talk of pulling out has not been reached.

Kandahar, where protests broke out on Saturday was locked down until this morning by ISAF.  We had our own scare today when a villain walking near the Governors compound spontaneously detonated (malfunctions are as predictable as rain with Afghan suicide bombers) and his partner immediately started running down a side street towards our compound.  He was brought down in a spirited fusillade most of which seemed to snap over our compound walls.  This meeting engagement in downtown Lash apparently disrupted crowds which were gathering in the surrounding neighborhoods for a Koran burning protest.  We dispatched scouts to check out the city when we heard that but they reported the town to be locked down, streets empty and ANSF check points everywhere.  There was a Koran burning protest across the river fronting the main Lashar Gah bazaar but the ANSF won’t let them into the city.  The locals know that a large agitated mob would result in indiscriminate looting of the bazaar so the local elders were in the ANP  HQ by the afternoon complaining bitterly about allowing crowds to form in the first place.

One of the many smaller protests in downtown Kandahar this morning
One of the many smaller protests in downtown Kandahar Saturday morning

The violent protests in Kandahar left at least 8 Afghans dead and caused a complete lockdown of the city by ISAF ground combat units.  I’m ignoring the attacks on the Kabul ISAF bases last Friday.  Attacking them is a stupid, meaningless gesture which puts Afghan civilians caught in the crossfire at much greater risk then the international troops who guard the ECP’s.  The rioting in Kandahar is not a big surprise given the powder keg nature of the city as ISAF and ANSF forces continue to put the screws to Taliban networks.  The attack on a UN Compound in Mazar in which two of the Nepalese guards were reportedly beheaded is a little harder to explain.

The Wall Street Journal released the well researched article Inside the Massacre at Afghan Compound which gives a good account of what happened and why ISAF did not respond in time.  Mazar-i Sharif has indeed always been considered one of the safest towns in the country for foreigners.  Back in ’06 and ’07 when I frequently traveled to Mazar we considered the entire area to be benign and never carried rifles or body armor.  Just as in Jalalabad, a town reportedly hit with Koran burning protests today, the security situation in Mazar deteriorated dramatically during 2010.  I have heard from friends that the armed guards in the UN compound did surrendered their weapons without firing a shot.  That is not a big surprise.  Shooting into a crowd of unarmed people is not an easy thing to do.

The only way to handle a crowd this big and this close would be with CS gas grenades while pleading with ISAF to come to the rescue
The only way to handle a crowd this big and this close would be with CS gas grenades while pleading with ISAF to come to the rescue. This is the crowd outside the UN compound before they went high order. Photo from Sami the Finn

Private Security Companies in Afghanistan are not allowed to have CS or any other kind of grenade (except smoke) in their inventory so the UN guards could not volley CS gas over the walls in an effort to drive the mob away.  Nor could they volley frags and as you can see from the picture above gunfire would have been effective only if they started drilling a lot of people fast.  Most folks in that situation will decide lethal force is an option which will most likely make the situation worse.  Identifying the tipping point when lethal force would be appropriate would have been next to impossible last Friday. Trusting your fate to the mercy of the mob is a plan that could very likely go very wrong but most of us would probably go that route if the alternative is shooting massive numbers of unarmed people.  But not now.

Reuters is reporting:

A senior interior ministry investigator said on Sunday the killers of the U.N. staff appear to have been “reintegrated” Taliban — fighters who had formally laid down arms — although the insurgents have denied any role in the attack.

Over 30 people have been arrested, from areas as far afield as southern Kandahar, western Herat and central Baghlan province, said Munir Ahmad Farhad, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

If all those bad actors converged on Mazar-i Sharif to start a riot it was most likely because Mazar has a reputation as being safe.  It would be much harder to pull off a similar stunt in Lash and we saw how quickly the protests in Kandahar were locked down.  The security forces in contested areas react much faster to large unruly crowds.  In Mazar they were used to how things go in Mazar; they have never locked down the city nor have they ever had to deal with multiple Taliban complex attacks.  It appears the Koran burning provided the perfect opportunity for an organization with motive, money and organization to whip a large crowd out of control.  It would not surprise me if the killers were imported and paid too, but that is speculation on my part.  I note with interest that the Taliban have not claimed responsibility.

I am seeing things the same way as Joel Hafvenstein regarding the Afghanistan Aid effort; I don’t know of any company out here slowing down operations or packing up to go home.  The security situation deteriorated rapidly in the past 12 months except for in the Helmand and Kandahar Provinces where most population centers are solidly under ISAF/ANSF control.  I still think this summer could be a tipping point if the Taliban continue to get shredded in their southern homeland but we’ll have to see.  It may not prove to be decisive in the long term but then again who knows?  It’s going to be an interesting summer.

Posted on

Hotel California Naw Zad Edition

Facebook sent me a reminder about a post that went up 5 years ago and asked it I wanted to re-post it. I did then went to read and realized it was probably one of the better more prescient posts I ever wrote so here it is….back on the front page of FRI exactly 5 years after first being published.  It even has click bait if the form of two of must attractive and gutsy Free Ranges in the land. But the video at the end is disturbing …… those kids are fighting age now.

I ended my last post with an observation about the importance of how wars end.  That was most foolish of me because I was assuming we started bombing Libya with the intention of using the military to achieve an appropriate political endstate (because that’s how this shit is supposed to work).  But that isn’t at all what we are doing in Libya….I’m not sure what we are doing but it has nothing to do with an acceptable political endstate because there’s been no political debate or though given to the matter. It appears we’re bombing Libya because Obama feels we need to bomb Libya. Do you understand how unbelieveably stupid it is to start a war without any clue as to what you want to achieve?  Obama is not only a world class intellectual midget he’s now getting to be dangerous (to the entire world) and where the hell are the fucking Joint Chiefs? I know where they are….their where their predecessors are as documented in the excellent book Dereliction of Duty. Obsequious is not a word that should be applied (ever) to senior general officers but there it is.

I’m all for killing Col Gadhafi because he killed Americans; a lot of them in Berlin and over the skies of Lockerbie Scotland. I expected that Obama would not think through what he was doing but for some strange reason assumed the NSC and Pentagon had a plan (I type that with a straight face..honest) I forgot that the NSC is now headed by a political hack (with no previous military or national security experience)  named Tom Donilon and, being on vacation with my kids, it also slipped my mind that the Pentagon is busy focusing on the things that really matter; force feeding acceptance of openly gay service members and retro fitting submarines to accommodate female sailors.

I can’t bring myself to re-hash the hypocrisy, stupidity, or folly of Obama and his minions when it comes to the multiple crises popping up in the Middle East. It’s too depressing; the White House Bat Phone must be ringing off the hook nightly but we now know nobody has the balls to answer it.  Besides Mark Styen has done the heavy lifting on this issue with an excellent assessment which ends:

But lost along the way is hard-headed, strategic calculation of the national interest. “They won’t come back till it’s over/Over there!” sang George M. Cohan as the doughboys marched off in 1917. It was all over 20 minutes later, and then they came back. Now it’s never over over there not in Korea, not in Kuwait, not in Kosovo, not in Kandahar. Next stop Kufra? America has swapped The Art Of War for the Hotel California: We psychologically check out, but we never leave.

I must add this gem which, as the Bot is my witness, is an almost exact replica of conversations I had over and over during the summer of 2008 with Liberal USAID contractors at the Tiki Bar.  Obama has turned out to be worse than my worst summer 2008 nightmare. It is no longer funny (but the clip below is).

What is happening in Libya would not be important to the US had not Obama involved us kinda sorta. The ongoing revolts in Syria, Bahrain and Yeman are important to American interests but you need to know something about the region to understand that. That type of specialist knowledge is hard to come by in Saul Alinsky seminars, Reverend Wrights church sermons or the Harvard Law School.

While on holiday I saw this article on an airstrike targeting a Taliban commander that ended up killing civilians.  The article also helpfully points out that nine kids were killed in the Pech Valley earlier in the month which prompted the usually hysterics from President Karzai.

I’m not so sure about what the deal was with the Pech Valley airstrike except to point out that I know a few of the attack helicopter pilots based out of Jalalabad and they know just about every stinking inch of the Pech Valley.  I doubt the veracity of the report and will address that in a minute because this story about Naw Zad pisses me off and here’s why.

We got played again by the Afghans and the reason we got played has everything to do with the intelligence shortfalls identified by MajGen Flynn two years ago, combined with a still non-existent human intelligence capability.  Here is why I can say that with near total certainty without knowing a damn thing about what went on in this strike.

The unit that was on the ground in Naw Zad  (1st Battalion 8th Marines or 1/8 in Marine speak)  has rotated home and the battalion now working the battle space has been on deck maybe two weeks.  Battalions who have just arrived are not given a long enough leash to do whatever the hell they want; it is inconceivable that they came up with a “these two cars have a Taliban commander in them” plan and were then able to talk the Regimental Combat Team they work for (and I know its commander well) into letting them smoke two vehicles containing persons unknown with attack helicopters. The Naw Zad Valley is a flat, treeless expanse of high desert.  If the battalion thought they had a Taliban commander driving up or down it why not just stop the cars and grab his dumb ass?

This is what the terrain and vegetation looks like in the Naw Zad valley
This is what the terrain and vegetation looks like in the Naw Zad Valley

When aviation assets attack moving cars which reportedly contain high level Taliban it is a safe bet that the hit is driven by intelligence.  Normally that is supplied by the CIA and normally the hit has to be given a green light by someone from on high (who in the modern military/intel system is never held accountable for that decision).  That’s what normally happens but we all know the CIA doesn’t know shit because they have no humint program and rely on ‘walk-ins’. I would bet money that a “walk-in” targeted this car and the NDS vetted for him and we got exactly identical results for targeting folks based on NDS/CIA vetted ‘walk-ins’. That is how we  killed 27 woman and children attending a wedding in Nangarhar Province back in July 2008. Or when we  killed over 2 dozen children at a wedding party in Kandahar in November 2008, or….I could go on and on.

The common denominator with these botched attacks was human intel fed into the system by “walk-in” informants of dubious background and character or fed to our FOB bound intel people by the un-FOB bound Afghanistan intel people who have scores to settle or land to steal.  How many times do we need to be played by the Afghans before we wise up?  How many innocents have to die before we learn we cannot put all our eggs in the electronic warfare basket and start to develop our own human intelligence capability?

It’s not that hard to get off the FOB and stay off the FOB, my children did it.  Grad students from MIT do it…which reminds me the Synergy Strike Force girls are back in Nangarhar staying at the Taj and doing some super cool medical and social networking stuff.  Jenn’s blog is here and Rachel’s blog is here – Rachel brought her husband Juan Rodriguez along and he’s a pro shooter with a good eye and great glass on his camera – you should spend some time on both blogs. As you can see in the picture below hot chicks can stay off the FOB and roam around with no worries ….why can’t our HumInt teams do the same?

The Girls are back in town hanging out with Bollywood stars and SF A teams - they have been putting up excellent posts and photos for the past two months
The Girls are back in town hanging out with Bollywood stars and SF A teams – they have been putting up excellent posts and photos for the past two months

The Pech Valley

Earlier in the month ISAF was accused of shooting up 9 teenagers in the mountains of the Pech River Valley.  The Army attack helicopter pilots who work that part of the country have memorized (it isn’t a big valley) every attack point in the Pech Mountains where it is not unusual to see Taliban fighters who are very young. Remember the video of a 12 year old boy cutting the head off “an American spy”?  Or the herd of teenagers rolling boulders into the road behind American vehicles during the battle at Ganjgal?  Army attack pilots don’t light up people in the mountains for no good reason so there is no doubt in my mind that if they smoked 9 teens it was because they were carrying weapons. Karzai knows this as he does that the gum cameras will provide the answer to any questions he has. Notice how he never asks for the gun camera footage…that’s because he’s getting upset to score political points.

Were he a great leader, a man of integrity and one who listens and cares about the Afghan people what he should be upset about is the video pasted below. This video horrified (and I mean horrified) my Afghan staff.  I didn’t intend to show it to them but one of the cooks heard the music from the video and walked into my office to see why I was playing Jihadi music.  Within minutes the whole staff was watching in mute horror before wondering off in stunned silence tears running down some of their cheeks. This video is what should be concern the Afghan elites but it’s not…why?? I suspect the elites can’t extort cash out of the Taliban over videos like this or over dead civilians so why bother them.  The Americans – they pay and pay and pay.  And look what they have wrought.

Posted on

Crickets

Crickets as in “I hear nothing but crickets” is the word of the day for Regimental Combat Team 1 (RCT 1) based in Camp Dwyer and controlling the southern districts of Helmand Province.  I needed to do a little district level coordination last weekend and was able to catch a ride to Marjah with my good friend Col Dave Furness USMC, the CO of RCT 1.  He was heading there to host a CODEL (congressional delegation) and agreed to let me tag along if I promised to not talk to talk to any congressmen.  That’s an easy promise to keep so once again I got to ride with the Marines across the Dasht-i-Margo (desert of death) and into the fertile Helmand Valley River town of Marjah.  The chances of us getting attacked while en-route?  Zero.  Chances of hitting an IED?  Just about zero.  Crickets – the Taliban have taken the winter off and their stay behind IED teams are failing miserably.  Know why?  Because the Marines when faced with tactical problems have turned to tactical solutions.

How cool is this? The M32 40mm grenade launcher - finally something to replace the M203 which was a dog. Imagine being a young infantry Marines living the dream and able to walk around with a super high speed low drag weapon which the Taliban have already grown to hate>
How cool is this? The M32 40mm grenade launcher – finally something to replace the M203 which was a dog. Imagine being a young infantry Marine living the dream at the pointy end of the spear and able to walk around with a super high speed low drag weapon. And this is one lethal piece of kit which can shoot 6 well aimed 40mm grenades in 2 seconds.  The Taliban learned very quickly not to let Marine infantry get too close to them (which they routinely do anyway) and now when Marine infantry gets within 150 meters they have to contend with dedicated grenadiers who will soon have HELLHOUND and DRACO thermobaric rounds.

Last summer Wired magazine had a pretty good article about the DoD Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) and the cat and mouse game they’re playing with IED attackers.  Given the size and complexity of the American military these guys are operating as fast as one can expect but they are too far removed from the battlefield to help front line infantry deal with IED cells that vary  dramatically in effectiveness and methodology.  As I mentioned in the last post when line troops want to get actionable intelligence the only dependable option is to get it themselves.  Likewise when the Marines need tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP) to battle Taliban insurgents the tried and true method is to figure it out on their own and pass on what works to the units coming in behind them.

Remember this photo from last year?
Remember this photo from last year?  That is the CO of 2/6, LtCol Kyle Ellison, giving a coin to one of the more exceptional ANP officers.  At the time Kyle told him the coin was a token of his appreciation for the professionalism displayed by this officer who is always at his post with his equipment every day without fail.
Look at him today and note the addition to his uniform. 2/6 is long gone - Marjah now belongs to 3/8 but that coin Kyle presented last year means something to this officer and Kyle doesn't pass out many coins which makes the award very special. I was really happy to see this officer again and also see how much he values the coin
Look at him today and note the addition to his uniform (the 2/6 coin attached to his left breast pocket). 2/6 is long gone – Marjah now belongs to 3/9 but that coin Kyle presented last year means something to this officer.  I was good to see him again and also see how much he values the coin.

The Taliban learned that they need two obstacles in front of them when they shoot at Marine patrols and the most common obstacle used is a bunch of IED’s buried in choke points in front of large, deep irrigation ditches.  The Talibs believe that the two obstacles will give them the 30 or so minutes it takes to get air or rocket delivered ordnance targeting them. That was a good plan during the heavy kinetic fighting around Nawa and Marjah when the Marines first arrived.  But the Marines have been here a while now and seeded this vast AO with little patrol bases.  RC Southwest averages 500 patrols daily and those patrols identify and record every compound; recording if they are occupied and by who which is a moving target as families continue to flow back into the villages.

Every patrol submits a fire plan which includes on-call firewalls that  have been pre-planned by the Ops officer Mike (Mac) McNamara and the RCT-1 Air Officer shop.  A firewall is fire coordination measure to clear the air space and near space of all obstacles so RCT can fire HIMAR rockets.  It takes a good 20 minutes to set up a firewall if you are running on the fly.  With pre-planned firewalls when the squad leader calls for fire support – Mac sends a text message to the Direct Air Support Center (DASC) declaring Firewall XYZ in effect. The DASC says “roger that” (unless they have to move assists out of the way which may delay the affirmative a few seconds) and RCT 1 has a firewall.  Knowing if the nominated target is an abandoned or occupied compound speeds up the clearance too which is the whole point of the intensive patrolling and census taking.  Every compound in the AO has an alpha numeric designator and the battalions update their lists daily due to the number of families who are moving back.  What once took 20 minutes can now be done so fast it’s stunning.

Col Dave Furness greeting arriving congress members at the COP in Marjah. Both Dave and Paul Kennedy - the CO of RCT 6 which was based in Delaram last year are
Col Dave Furness greeting arriving congress members at the COP in Marjah.  The delegation is completely jet lagged at this point and would instantly fall asleep if subjected to powerpoint briefs. Day trips like this not only keep them awake and active but become just about the only thing they remember from a weekend visit.  
LtCol David Hudspeth,CO of 3/9 with Representative Kathy Castor D-FL in the Marjah bazaar.
LtCol David Hudspeth,CO of 3/9 with Representative Kathy Castor D-FL in the Marjah bazaar during last weekends CODEL.  

The Marines on the ground still have to contend with the IED’s and the Taliban seed IED’s everywhere which, as you’d imagine, does not endear them to the local population.  To cope with the flood of IED’s, most of which function by pressure plates and have very small magnetic signatures, required new tactics and a special tool, which in typical Marine fashion, was designed by a Gunnery Sergeant, fabricated from materials purchased in local bazaars, and paid for out of pocket by the troops. I’m not going to describe the tools or TTP for now because they are effective and need to stay that way as long as possible.

I missed something I really wanted to see on this trip and that was the monthly NCO symposium.  Dave came up with the idea after seeing the turnover between two sister battalions from the 1st Marines 3/1 and 2/1.  3/1 had a strike to find ratio hovering around 90% during their 7 months in theater and 2/1 who is now 5 months into their deployment has pulled out over 400 IED’s at the cost of 2 WIA and 1 KIA. This was due to an uncommonly planned, organized and executed turn over package based on every bit of front specific knowledge 3/1 had gleaned during their tour.  Using the turnover as a template Dave and his staff started a monthly training symposium for the squad and fireteam leaders from all his battalions designed to facilitate cross decking of the best practices and procedures.  I’ll have to wait a month or two before I can get back and attend one of these and man am I looking forward to it.  It’s a great idea to focus time, attention and limited resources on the young leaders.  It is also worth the investment to get them in front of the principal staff members who clear their calls for fire requests and the Regimental Commander who encourages any and all questions and will sit in the classroom all night to answer them.  Face to face is the best way to get things sorted out and with an endeavor as complex as war things need to get sorted out frequently.

The CODEL heads out to the bazaar. There has been more rain over the past three weeks in Helmand Province then there has been over the previous 3 years. When the congressmen landed one of them asked where the bathrooms were - there are none on this combat outpost just piss tubes inserted into a neutral corner and three wooden boxes with toilet seats bolted on them. Piss tubes and thunder boxes - things congressmen will not soon forget.
The CODEL heads out to the bazaar. There has been more rain over the past three weeks in Helmand Province then there has been over the previous 3 years. When the congressmen landed one of them asked where the bathrooms were – there are none on this combat outpost just piss tubes inserted into a neutral corner and three wooden boxes with toilet seats bolted on them. Piss tubes and thunder boxes – cheap, effective, and something most congressmen have never seen before or want to see again.

There is hard fighting ahead but I just do not see how the Taliban is going to be able to do jack in the southern Helmand Province.  The Marines treat every foot of ground outside their COP’s as if it contained an IED and yet they figured out how to move and move fast through the mine fields.  The Taliban can’t sow anymore mines than they already are sowing and it wouldn’t matter if they did.  The Taliban can’t train effectively, they can’t improve their rudimentary command and control, they are rarely able to coordinate among themselves and they didn’t spend the winter lull learning how to shoot.  They’re guns are old and worn, their ammunition a mix of dodgy 3rd world crap, re-loads, and what they can buy on the black market.  (C.J. Chivers of the New York Times, has been writing extensively about the guns and ammunition used by all side in this conflict and his piece What’s Inside A Taliban Gun Locker is worth a look.)  The Taliban are not going to emerge from their winter off with enhanced capabilities but the Marines will.

The summer fighting season will be here in a matter of weeks.  In RCT 1’s AO the Marines have used the lull in fighting to push out to the fringes of the Green Zone.  There they still occasional gunfights and IED’s continue to take their toll but not that often.  The Marines expand their area of influence while patrolling constantly; the SF guys continue to raid.  Dave told me the HVT raids are a big help and the targeting precise; he’d  be happy to see a lot more (I stand corrected B).  He also told me the raids are coordinated with him so again there seems to be a big shift in not just the ROE but also the TTP.

Nobody is sure what to expect when the poppy harvest is in and the fighting starts again in earnest but I’m predicting the southern Helmand will see limited fighting because the Taliban lack maneuver room, lack good rat lines, and are now isolated from a large percentage of the population.  The fighting this summer is going to be in the north outside Sangin, Musa Quala and Naw Zad.  If the Marines break the Taliban up there and the army/ISAF units in Kandahar continue to press the Taliban out of the green zone the villains are in real trouble. This could be the tipping point but for it to matter countrywide we need the will to hang on and repeat this process in the places like Khost, Paktia and Kunar. That’s not going to happen but still, giving the Taliban a serious ass whooping right in their front yard is a morale booster for the men. It also will give the Afghans space to unfuck themselves and it they don’t take this opportunity to do so then…….what can you say?  It’s going to be a real interesting summer but right now the word of the day in the southern Helmand province is crickets.

Posted on

It Takes A Clue

Nothing will sour the morale of combat troops faster then the realization that the commander at the top receives frequent visits from the Good Idea Fairy.   Which is a good start point for explaining why  General Stanley A McChrystal took to the pages of Foreign Policy last week to explain the unexplainable.  The story starts with McChrystal’s observation that the SF tier 1 guys found  al Qaeda difficult to collect, fix and target because they were so decentralized.  So McChrystal made up his  own “network” and his centralized, vertically integrated, fixed chain of command network beat the AQI with their horizontally integrated decentralized chain of command.  I’m not buying that about Iraq but the focus of the article was how this genius system was implemented in Afghanistan by the regular military and what do you know the “mo better” network has since delivered us the current spate of good news about the Taliban getting tired of fighting.

BGen Jody Osterman with the Sub Governor of Naw Zad district Sayed Murad touring the Naw Zad bazaar last week
BGen Jody Osterman with the Sub Governor of Naw Zad district Sayed Murad touring the Naw Zad bazaar last week

The article linked above and all the other recent reports stress that the rift between the Taliban fighters and their leaders who are safely ensconced in Pakistan stems from the losses being inflicted on them in the Helmand and Kandahar Provinces.  The pressure being brought to bear on the fighting Taliban has very little (if anything) to do with the nighttime high speed low drag tier 1 special forces raids designed to “decapitate” Taliban leadership.  The whole decapitation strategy is suspect as numerous observers have noted over these many years of SOF raiding and I ask again if somehow a military adversary managed to “decapitate” our leadership would we be weaker or stronger?  Wait that is a stupid example and missing the point (as B correctly observed in the first comment on this post).  The first commenter on Gen McChrystal’s article says it much better than I can:

This essay is interesting in that it describes an effort that for all its success was limited to an extremely small (and disproportionately resourced) line of operation. The author portrays this as an inclusive endeavor while it was decidedly not inclusive in many respects. My experience in working with the General’s Task Force is that it was the most difficult organization to work with in theater and it only functioned as a network if you or your organization were willing to completely subordinate yourself, your resources and your mission to his very narrow line of operation. Most of the time his line of operations, while very important, was not the primary or most important line in the country or region. In the end establishing the Iraqi government as legitimate and enabling its organs to function as designed proved to be the decisive operation

HVT raids do produce results but it seems to me that what has brought the fighting Taliban to their knees is hard fighting infantry who have moved in with the people and deprived the villains of maneuver room while killing ever increasing numbers of them using ROE completly different from the horseshit inflicted on them by McChrystal.

A great example of this would be Naw Zad which is currently home to the headquarters of Charlie Company 1st Battalion 8th Marines.  The rest of the battalion is handling Musa Quala which, like Marjah, was infested with Taliban but is now safe enough for the battalion commander to walk around the bazaar without body armor and helmet.  The Captain at Naw Zad (and he’s there on his own because he’s that good) is surrounded by Taliban.  He has an area of influence which he is constantly expanding and he does this with aggressive patrolling.  He has the clearance to shoot 60mm mortars and run rotary wing CAS guns (Cobra or Apache gunships employing their guns only; rocket or Hellfires have to be cleared) without coordinating with his battalion COC.  He has no problems at all with the current rules of engagement and has never been denied fires when he has asked for them.  He doesn’t get second guessed, he doesn’t get micro managed and his example is proof that the rules of engagement have been “re-defined” radically.  For readers who are not familiar with how badly McChrystal’s ROE hampered forces in the field read this recent post by Herschel Smith on Ganjgal.  Success in the South has nothing to do with ninja night raids and placing a good percentage of the tactical intelligence piece behind a classified curtain where only the tier 1 headhunters can use it.

I was able to spend a lot of time talking with the officers and men currently serving in Naw Zad and here is what they bitch about:  They don’t like the weight they are forced to carry and strongly feel the use of  body armor should be determined by the mission and enemy.  Wearing it in blistering heat or while climbing the massive mountains is so physically debilitating that they have felt on several occasions that they were unable to defend themselves. Many of their Marines are suffering chronic stress fractures, low back problems as well as hip problems caused by carrying loads in excess of 130 pounds daily.  “We’re fighting the Mothers of America” said one; if we lose a Marine and he was not wearing everything in the inventory to protect him that becomes the issue.  Trying to explain that we have removed the body armor to reduce the chances of being shot is a losers game because you can’t produce data quantifying the reduction in gun shot wounds for troops who remain alert and are able to move fast due to a lighter load.  We are all required to read Soldier’s Load and the Mobility of a Nation but it is clear nobody understands it.

I used to bitch about the same thing 20 years ago and it is reassuring for us old timers to see some things never change.  It is also really nice to hear that the bitching is not about restrictive ROE and meddling from on high which is all my old buddy Jeff Kenney talked about while leading the Eastern Region ANA embedded training team.  His Marines were the ones killed at the Ganjgal fight and let me tell you something – he was bitter to the point of despair about it but sucked it up because that is what high caliber professionals do in this business.

Capt Ben Wagner
Capt Ben Wagner, second from right, in the Naw Zad bazaar

Captain Ben Wagner, the CO of C1/8 is one of the many young officers in the Corps born of battle.  He was a rifle platoon commander in the first battle for Fallujah.  He lost a lot of Marines and had to halt the attack and pull back an experience which no doubt left a deep impression.  He told me (paraphrasing here folks as I’m not a great note taker)

“I can push north or south and run into Taliban controlled villages who will put up a stiff fight but I don’t want to fight for something I can’t hold.  Instead of focusing on the Taliban we focus on the population which is why it is so busy around here at night.  We patrol every night using machineguns and sniper teams in the mountains for overwatch.  In the morning at first prayer we make it a point to walk past the mosque in whatever village complex we were working the night before.  The message is simple; you guys can sleep tight because we’re out every night all night watching over you.”

During the time I spent in Naw Zad over 200 famlies came into the Marines zone of influence from Taliban controlled territory.  I wanted to talk tactics and hear war stories but all the Marines wanted to talk about was reconstruction.  They have cleared more bad guy territory then anyone thought possible and now the entire 1st Division is focused on getting the economy going so they can move on.

High tech is expensive to develop and deploy but inexpensive to defeat. The devil Taliban are throwing flocks of trained birds against the GBOSS to try and blind the Marines
High tech is expensive to develop and deploy but inexpensive to defeat. The devil Taliban are throwing flocks of trained birds against the GBOSS to try and blind the Marines. (Just kidding) I made that up but you do see the birds sitting in front of the lens sometimes when scanning the area with the GBOSS and I find that really funny.

And guess what?  Move on they shall because we are apparently finishing up with the “stability” phase and moving onto the “transition” phase of the Afghanistan campaign right on schedule.  This move is based on the successes of the past year along with glowing assessments of progress across the board for all ANSF organizations.  One of the Chim Chim’s was in the VTC where this was announced so I’m getting the scoop first hand. There has been real progress made over the past year yet most of that progress is limited to two southern provinces.  While Chim Chim was listening in to the announcement of transition from on high suicide bombers were attacking the Jalalabad branch of the Kabul bank just over a mile away.  In Jalalabad City the Provincial Council has laid siege to the Governors Compound, bussed in armed supporters from the various warlord factions for some low scale rioting, launched a half ass RPG attack at the PRT compound last Thursday night just to let the Americans know they are unhappy and demanded that Gov Sherzai go away because all the promised swag for not growing poppy never materialized.  None of this chaos seems to be of any concern to the army brigade stationed in Jalalabad because they have a network.

They have a giant SIPR network full of the latest “classified” intelligence.  You have to be a special cleared person to see “classified” intelligence which is much better than unclassified intelligence because…. well … cleared people put it into the system and they are smarter than everyone else because they’re cleared.   The situation in Jalabad is a perfect example of McChrystal’s  network in action.  The network is reality for the army in the east and if the drama happening just a few miles away isn’t on the network they don’t have to respond to it.  See how fiendishly clever McChrystal was?  Let me provide a hypothetical example and I stress hypothetical as I have no idea how these systems function but have spent years observing the “effects based” results.

ISAF watch officer: “Hey Pecan Pie we’re hearing Karzai is sending a 10 man delegation to diffuse the armed standoff outside the Governor’s compound to stop the Provincial Council  from throwing the Gov out and naming one of the warlords as governor”

Duty Officer  Pecan Pie: “What’s the date time group on the message about armed groups outside the Governor’s compound?”

Watch Officer:  “There is nothing in the system on it; my terps are watching footage from earlier this afternoon  on Tolo TV News.”

DO Pie: “If there is nothing on this in the system what do you want me to do?”

Watch Officer “Oh I dunno; but if Governor Sherzai gets thrown out of the province and decides to return home to Kandahar where he will have to re-arm and re-fit his militias to protect hismself from Karzai’s brother I bet a lot of stuff will be in the system along with the words “incompetent, catastrophe, and who is responsible”.

DO Pie: “Well that is as it should be I guess but I’m reviewing my commanders instant action matrix and there is nothing in it about the overthrow of a governor by the Provincial Council; my intel section has gone up as high as “Oracle” level but found nothing about this so called news story although we can see a lot of armed people in the streets with our UAV’s but again nothing in the system to tell us what it all means.”

Networks are modern fool’s gold for ground commanders; networks promise to do the heavy lifting while you sit back on the FOB eating the pecan pie. The only way to get the intelligence required to do COIN is by getting it yourself.  Every infantry commander worth his pay knows this which is why they (on the rare occasions such things happen) are drop jawed stunned when useable intel filters down to them from on high.  It doesn’t take a network – it takes somebody with a clue, lots of good infantry, and the intestinal fortitude to take tactical risks for strategic gain.  That last trait is the exact opposite of having the intestinal fortitude to cover up the friendly fire death of a former NFL player with a silver star and concocted heroic story.   I wish McChrystal would have the decency to act as an old general should and just fade away.

Posted on

Thugs, Mobs And Education

The news this week has been dominated by the Lara Logan story. Ms. Logan was the subject of   the most popular post in FRI history which can be found here. Reactions to the news that Lara was subjected to “a brutal and sustained assault and beating” have cost at least one knucklehead his job when he tweeted dismissively about what exactly those seven words mean. We don’t know what happened to Ms. Logan that day and it will be up to Lara Logan to set the record straight which is what some in the media are calling on her to do. You can read another account of a woman from the international media covering the same story on the same day at the same time here.   As she points out she was lucky, she was scared and I doubt she will ever place herself in a similar position. Ms. Logan has my heartfelt sympathy as does every human victim of mob violence. The specifics of the assault aren’t interesting because there is nothing for us to learn from them. Large crowds celebrating the overthrow of a repressive government are inherently dangerous in all times and in all places. Reasonable people avoid them.

What gets my blood boiling about this story is that CBS sat on the story for five days and only released it when other news outlets were about to do the same. I have no idea why CBS sat on the story and suspect it has more to do with the report that the crowd was yelling “Jew, Jew, Jew” then any concerns for Ms. Logan’s privacy. CBS has an agenda and when confronted with facts running counter to that agenda it reacts like every rich, powerful, arrogant, liberal organization in the world; it ignores the story or spins the details.

Navy Commander Martin Sepulveda with Zarmina and her sister Sharifa. Zarmina who is 12 or 13 years old is the local school teacher
Navy Commander Martin Sepulveda with Zarmina and her sister Sharifa. Zarmina who is 12 or 13 years old is the local school teacher

Which brings us to the protests by the Wisconsin state teachers union. If you want to read some professional liberal spin on the topic here it is from CBS news. If you want the truth you need to hit the blogs; Wisconsin native Ann Althouse is a good place to start and you can find her blog here. The people of Wisconsin, after years of democratic fiscal insanity. decided to bring the adults back to power. The new Governor, Scott Walker, introduced a bill that will dismantle the 50 year-old collective bargaining agreement for public employee unions. It is not like he has any alternatives; every majority democratic state in the union and most of the European Union has the identical problem; gold plated obligations to state employees and no money to pay for them.

I find the reaction from the teachers unions, public employee unions, and state democratic representatives to be repugnant. The crowds descending on Madison behaved like a bunch of thugs which is in stark contrast to the Tea Party movement. I’ll leave the political commentary to others but I have to point something out about the American educational system. The vast majority of state teachers union members should be fired because they have clearly failed to provide an education to our children. I’ll let Mark Styen make the point:

I think if you had to name one institution, which is probably the biggest structural defect in Western societies right now, and the one that places the biggest question mark over the future of Western civilization, if there was one institution you needed to take apart, it would be the education system.

There is no education system in Afghanistan but there are millions of kids who dream of becoming literate. So let me tell you a remarkable story about a little girl with an aptitude for languages and a desire to better herself and her   community through education.

Sgt Barbra Rangel, Zarmina and
Cpl Jessica Costilla, Zarmina, Sgt Barbra Rangel, and Sharifa

The Marines have built a school in Naw Zad but there are no female teachers in the area. The local people want their daughters to receive an education so a brave little girl has stepped in to fill the gap. Every evening at 1900 hours (7:00 pm) Zarmina’s father brings her and her sister to the Marine combat outpost and drops her off with the Female Engagement Team (FET). They spend an hour or so going over a reading, writing or a math lesson and the next day Zarmina teaches those lessons to other girls in Naw Zad.

I asked Zarmina’s father if I could put her picture and story in the blog and he proudly granted permission. Zarmina and her family are all in. The Marines came here; drove the Taliban out and told the people they will protect them for as long as it takes to bring lasting peace. If we pull out early the fate which awaits Zarmina and those like her from the Taliban is too horrible to contemplate. It will make whatever the mob in Egypt inflicted on Lara Logan seem tame in comparison. Zarmina and her sister have bet everything on the Americans seeing this through to the bitter end. The Marines are game – they won’t quit but they don’t have a vote in how this turns out. It is politicians like those in Wisconsin who abandoned their posts to thwart the will of the people who will decide if we stay or go. Recent history regarding peoples in war torn lands who have bet their lives on America sustaining her commitment to them is not positive. The odds are Zarmina and her father bet on the wrong side.

If you believe in prayer send a few extra ones topside for Zarmina and the children of Afghanistan. With friends like us those kids are going need all the help they can get.

Posted on

Naw Zad

I just did something today which would have been suicidal 10 months ago. My colleague Little Mac and I, in the company of a Marine tank officer and Naval surface warfare officer (he’s a fires guy by trade) just strolled around the town of Naw Zad with no body armor, no helmets, no riflemen escorting us, munching on local bread and handing out candy to the kids. We are safer here than we would be in downtown Chicago. Naw Zad was once the third largest populated area in the province. By 2007 the civilian population had fled the area and there was nobody here except bad guys and a few hard pressed British and Estonian infantrymen.

This was the main street of Naw Zad bazaar a year ago. Offical USMC photo
This was the main street of Naw Zad bazaar a year ago. Official USMC photo

 

Naw Zad bazaar today

Fox company 2nd Battalion 7th Marines (Fox 2/7) arrived in Naw Zad to reinforce the Brits in late 2008 and were able to expand the security bubble but not by much.   The Brits, Estonians and Marines fought side by side to expel the Taliban from this fertile valley but were hampered by restrictive ROE pushed down from on high by senior officers in Kabul who lacked common sense and experience at counterinsurgency warfare. The Marines and their allies lost a lot of men because they did not have the mass or firepower to do the job correctly.   Way back then there was a lone voice in the blogsphere pleading with all who would listen to free up the combat power and let the Marines in Naw Zad fight.   His name is Herschel Smith and his posts at the Captains Journal can be found here.   It is worth your time to read them all.

Another view of the Naw Zad bazaar today

In the   summer of 2009 the U.S. Marines had deployed the 2nd Expeditionary Brigade to Afghanistan and their first move was to clear out Naw Zad and the surrounding hamlets of all Taliban. The 2nd MEB was commanded by BGen Larry Nicholson who I was fortunate to serve with as a young Lieutenant back in the 80’s. He had his own Tac Air, his own artillery, his own rotary wing transport and gunships and he had his own ideas about how to fight.  He didn’t have to go to the powers that be in Kabul or Kandahar because he didn’t need anything from them. He seeded the high ground overlooking the rat lines running into Naw Zad with sniper and recon teams in June. They immediately started collecting scalps and then on 2 July 2009 he launched Operation Khanjar dropping 2000 grunts onto Naw Zad and the surrounding villages to finish the Taliban off. The Taliban reacted as they always do when faced with superior forces – they broke contact and ran…into the sniper teams.

Fighting in the town of Naw Zad and its adjacent hamlets is long over. The Taliban can’t muster the manpower or firepower required to drive the Marines out so we are now deep into the “hold & build” stage of the operation and it is slow going. Every brick, piece of steel, bag of cement and all hand tools have to be trucked in from Camp Bastion or Lashkar Gah. My old battalion 1/8 has has deployed a rifle company (C 1/8)   to Naw Zad for the past six months facilitating the hold and build while expanding the zone of safety further into the hinterlands. Actually the rifle company headquarters is based here with what looks like a platoon or so in the district center proper. The three rifle platoons are working areas to the north and southeast.

The Dahanah Pass which is around 5 kilometers to the south. The ANP/Marine outpost on the left hand finger was in contact when I took this picture. It was a typical Taliban nusciance attack - they still really suck at fighting but they are getting better with the IEDs
The Dahaneh Pass which is around 5 kilometers to the southeast of Naw Zad. The ANP/Marine outpost on the left hand finger was in contact when I took this picture. It was a typical Taliban nuisance attack – they still really suck at fighting but they are getting better at planting IEDs

The roads to the south of Dahaneh are controlled by the Taliban. They cannot stand and fight the Marines like they do the army in the east because there aren’t enough of them, the terrain doesn’t facilitate ambushes, and they can’t run to Pakistan for sanctuary. So they use IED’s… a lot of IED’s which, as IED’s do in Afghanistan, strike disproportionately against the civilian population. In order to get building material into the valley local truckers insist on being escorted by Marines. The Marines know the Taliban are going to plant IED’s and they literally walk the convoys into the valley. The 65 kilometer trip from Bastion to Naw Zad takes two days; most of that time is spent waiting for the engineers to blow IED’s which have been seeded ahead of them.

In 6 months the Marines have lost 3 MRAP's but no men to IED's
In 6 months C1/8 has lost 3 MRAP’s but no men to IED’s

 

50% of the IED's made by the Taliban fail to function or blow up at some point in the deployment cycle. One metric of success for the Marines is the number of them which are pointed out or dug up and turned into the Marines. They are not paying money for these and each morning at the District Governors compound IED's are turned into the Marines for destruction
50% of the IED’s made by the Taliban fail to function or blow up at some point in the deployment cycle. The remaining 50% go into the ground.   One metric of success for the Marines is the number of them which are pointed out or dug up and turned in to the Marines. They are not paying money for these but still each morning at the District Governors compound IED’s are turned into the Marines for destruction

The villains have deployed countless numbers of IED’s targeting the Marines of 1/8. Only three of them scored hits but none have resulted in a fatality.   One can only wish IED’s were so ineffective in other areas of Helmand Province.   The Naw Zad area has been cleared; the hold and build underway. The Marines who are here would like to be somewhere else – preferably a place where the Taliban will stand and fight them.  Infantry Marines, even after ten years of constant deployment, still hunger for a good fight.   But that is not to be for 1/8 as they are stuck in place to do the hold and build. There was a time when Marines were dying here and there needed to be a lot more thrown into the fight. Now Marines are fighting and dying in other places like Sangin and they need more of their brother devil dogs to back them up.  Now many of the folks I correspond with are starting to see what I was talking about when I opined that you need a hold and build force working directly for the ground commander. This is where contractors can save money, time and lives by freeing up the gunfighters to do what they do best. Kill villains, protect the innocent, and unmask the evil who prey upon the population.

Verified by MonsterInsights