Category: Tim

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Healing Ulcer

After only 90 days of fighting to root out the Taliban from a place they have owned for over a decade, Gen McChrystal called Marjah a bleeding ulcer. That was a harsh assessment given the tenacity of the enemy, the tight rules of engagement, and the limited amount of time the Marines have invested in the fight.  Marjah is still being called “the most dangerous place in Afghanistan” by embedded media, which is, in my professional opinion, not true.  I’ve just returned from a three-day trip into Marjah after being lucky enough to catch a ride with the CO of Regimental Combat Team 1, Col Dave Furness. There is too much information from that trip to post in one sitting so the first dispatch from the trip will cover Marjah.  The other things I saw, such as Senators McCain, Lieberman, Graham, and Gillibrand at the Nawa District Center, will have to wait.

The CO of 2/6, LtCol Kyle Ellison with his boss Col Furness talking to local shop owners in the Marjah Bazaar during his Friday morning walk about. Note the lack of body armor and helmets
The CO of 2/6, LtCol Kyle Ellison with his boss Col Dave Furness talking to local shop owners in the Marjah Bazaar during his Friday morning walk about. Note the lack of body armor and helmets

Counterinsurgency requires boots on the ground when needed and time. The Marines have been at this task (clearing Helmand Province) for nine months, and they are winning. However, it is not easy, and it comes at a high cost in terms of both treasure and blood. Despite this, the one complaint I heard from virtually every commander I spoke with concerned their ability to rapidly employ the most potent tool in their arsenal—money. They feel the clearing is about done, so it’s time to start the “holding’ piece. Holding takes money, and money comes from a disbursment bureaucracy incapable of rapidly dispensing funds.

The first stop in Marjah was COP Shanfield which is named after one of the squad leaders from 2nd platoon Echo 2/6 who was killed in action nearby. This is the COC - 2/6 is known as The Spartans
The first stop in Marjah was COP Shanfield, which is named after one of the squad leaders from 3rd platoon Echo 2/6 who was killed in action nearby. This is the COC, which monitors the squad-sized patrols that are pushed out of this small base 24/7.

We entered Marjah on the afternoon of 11 November, heading directly to one of the dozens of platoon combat outposts (COPs) that dot the Marjah area.  We were heading for an important ceremony, but not one we would wish on anyone else. A painful yet important ritual designed to honor the dead while assisting the living in dealing with the loss of comrades they knew intimately and loved deeply. That is the dynamic of infantry – you know your fellow Marine better than anyone else in the world knows him. You may not always like every member of your platoon, but you love all of them. And there is no doubt in the mind of an infantry Marine that the men he is with will instantly and willingly take suicidal risks to help him if he is in trouble. Memorials are tough, and this one was especially difficult for the very tight 3rd Platoon, Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines because they were saying goodbye to their leader.

1stLt James R. Zimmerman of Aroostock, Maine was killed in action on the 2nd of November 2010. He
1stLt James R. Zimmerman of Aroostock, Maine was killed in action on the 2nd of November 2010. His parents and his wife Lynel survive him.
The universal sign of a tight platoon headed by an exceptional platoon commander is how the junior Marines
The sign of a tight platoon is how the junior Marines feel about their leader. Here, a young corporal in a filthy uniform with a field haircut gathers himself to deliver a tremendous tribute to his former commander.  It was an obvious emotional strain for him, which is normal given the circumstances. The love and respect these Marines had for their platoon commander were extraordinary.  1st Lt. James R. Zimmerman, USMC, will be deeply missed by his friends, family, and Marines.
The firing detail
The firing detail
There is nothing easy about being an infantryman in combat
There is nothing easy about being an infantryman in combat

This was my first visit to a Marine COP, and I wished it had been for another purpose.  Marjah is rapidly healing, but that doesn’t mean the Taliban has given up and gone to ground.

The 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines, is currently responsible for the southern, central, and some of the northern portions of Marjah, which is actually a series of villages organized around a gigantic grid of canals built by US AID in the 1960s.  They are expanding their control block by block by spreading their Marines out into platoon and squad-sized outposts from which Marines constantly patrol on foot. The villains still offer battle, but only on their terms, which means when they fire at a patrol, they have already set up IEDs between their positions and the Marines. The Taliban have learned through bitter experience that Marine infantry maneuvers aggressively while employing precision supporting fires and will close with and destroy those who stand and fight them. The Taliban started to use small arms in an attempt to lure aggressive Marines into mine fields full of improvised explosive devices.  Now, the Marines maneuver to engage the teams with small arms, and then swarm them with other units coming in from different directions or with precision fire from drones.  That’s the purpose of establishing multiple small portions from which to patrol 24/7.

Every Friday the 2/6 CO goes for a tour of the central bazaar. When he started he could make it from his outpost to the ANP post on the far side in 20 minutes. These days he can't make it that far due to the crowds of Afghans who want to stop and tell him two things; 1. they appreciate the Marines and what they have done and 2. Please don't leave and let the Taliban come back
Every Friday, the 2/6 CO goes for a tour of the central bazaar. When he started, he could make it from his outpost to the ANP post on the far side in 20 minutes. These days, he can’t make it that far due to the crowds of Afghans who want to stop and tell him two things: They appreciate the Marines and what they have done, and please don’t leave and let the Taliban come back.
The CO has not gotten far when more residents stop to chat
The CO has not gotten far when more residents stop to chat
The crowds continue to grow and note how relaxed everyone is in a bazaar where this past summer we were dropping 2000 pound JDAMs
The crowds continue to grow, and note how relaxed everyone is in a bazaar where this past summer we were dropping 2000-pound JDAMs
On the way back to base LtCol Ellison stops to present a battalion coin to an Afghan policeman telling him he earned it by always being at his post with his weapon and controlling his intersection like a professional which the Marines find "motivating". This is counterinsurgency 101 in action where small acts of recognition provide huge amounts of motivation
On the way back to base, LtCol Ellison stops to present a battalion coin to an Afghan policeman, telling him he earned it by always being at his post with his weapon and controlling his intersection like a professional, which the Marines find “motivating”. This is counterinsurgency 101 in action, where small acts of recognition provide huge amounts of motivation.
After the bazaar tour it was time for another memorial this one for Staff Sergeant Jordan B Emrick, an EOD technician who gave his full measure while working with a platoon patrol. The Platoon commander who was on point thought he say something in the ground and SSGT Emrick stepped up to assess what the Lt had spotted. It was a command detonated mine which went off as SSGT Emrick squatted to get a good look at it.took the full blast.
After the bazaar tour, it was time for another memorial, this one for Staff Sergeant Jordan B Emrick, an EOD technician who gave his full measure while working with a platoon patrol. The Platoon commander, who was on point, thought he saw something on the ground, and SSGT Emrick stepped up to assess what the lieutenant had spotted. It was a command-detonated mine that detonated as SSGT Emrick squatted to get a good look at it.
The afternoon started with a "strong man" show at the local school. Both Inchon 6 and Spartan 6 were invited by the District Governor
The afternoon started with a “strong man” show at the local school. The District Governor invited both Inchon 6 and Spartan 6.  In this photo, the Sergeants Major from RCT 1 and 2/6 are getting the kids pumped up before the big show.
Waiting for the Parwan performance
Waiting for the Parwan performance
The ANP arrive with the District Governor
The ANP arrive with the District Governor
The show starts with forms from both father and son
The show starts with forms from both father and son
Then some father and son brick breaking on a bed on nails
Then some father and son brick breaking on a bed on nails action.
More bed of nails work
More bed of nails work
The show concluded with the classic "run over the Parwan with a tractor load of police trick
The show concluded with the classic “run over the Parwan with a tractor load of police” trick
That evening we were invited to a dinner in the newly opened restaurant by the District Governor
That evening, we were invited to a dinner in the newly opened restaurant by the District Governor, so we headed downtown again on foot.
Some of the elders from blocks which have recently been cleared also attened the meal - they were there to ask for permission to stand up ISCI teams in their blocks which comes from the District Governors office
Some of the elders from blocks which have recently been cleared also attended the meal – they were there to ask for permission to stand up ISCI teams in their blocks, which comes from the District Governor’s office.
The Marine leaders make it a point to travel into Marjah "slick" which means without body armor and helmets as a show of confidence in local security conditions. But they're not stupid and a fully armed security detail travels with them. A dinner like this attracts things like suicide bombers but there is no way any unknown person would get through the layers of security and into the restaurant. They certainly would have never gotten past these two devil dogs.s
The Marine leaders make it a point to travel into Marjah “slick,” which means without body armor and helmets, to show confidence in local security conditions. However, they’re not stupid, and a fully armed security detail accompanies them. A dinner like this attracts things like suicide bombers but there is no way any unknown person would get through the layers of security and into the restaurant. They certainly would have never gotten past these two devil dogs.

Marjah is no longer the most dangerous place in Afghanistan. That distinction belongs to Sangin, where Col Paul Kennedy is leading the 2nd Regimental Combat Team, in a very stiff fight to secure the area.  The Marines’ approach to conducting the counterinsurgency fight has caused some friction with our allies, who believe they are too aggressive. They are, without question, the most aggressive fighters in Afghanistan, but they are also proving to be the most adept at holding the ground they have cleared. The battalion that proceeded 2/6 in downtown Marjah, the 1st Battalion of the 6th Marines, had a 90/10 IED find rate.  Only 10% of the IEDs targeting them detonated, and the others were either detected by the Marines or (in a vast majority of the time) were pointed out to the Marines by the local population.

Colonel Furness told me there was a Corporal in 3/1 (deployed in the South around Khanishin) who had an uncanny ability to spot IEDs. His squad wanted him on point every day. 49 times there were IEDs placed to target them, and 49 times this Corporal found them first. Know what you get when you find mines targeting your squad 49 times in a row? Probably a lot of love and respect from your fellow Marines, but you don’t get a combat action ribbon because when you find the mines, every time the villains don’t shoot.  Mine blasts are used as the signal to attack with small arms, and the Taliban are not known for their ability to contingency plan, so when the mine doesn’t blow, they slink off. Imagine that, seven months of constant patrols in a kinetic environment, but because you are so good at spotting mines, you don’t get to wear the coveted combat action ribbon. Col Furness isn’t a big fan of that order, but it is an order, so as 3/1 was leaving, he showed up at a company formation and meritoriously promoted the kid to Sergeant. “It was the least I could do – the kid deserved a hell of a lot more… I wish I had 100 just like him.”

Here is another story you don’t often hear. Today, one of the squad patrols from 2/6 was stopped by a local man who wanted to turn in his son for being Taliban. He had told the kid over and over that he did not want him fighting for the Taliban, whom he believes to be un-Islamic.  The father and one of his other sons went to the district center to have their statements videotaped, and after doing so, his son was arrested.

Counterinsurgency is a time-consuming endeavor, and it is particularly taxing on the men and women who are doing the fighting. The question is not can we prevail, but will we be allowed to prevail, and that question can only be answered by our Commander in Chief. The President can only “vote present” on Afghanistan for so long. He needs to tell the American people and our allies what we are trying to accomplish in order to define an end state. The “July 2011 drawdown” of forces is neither a plan, an end state, nor a good idea. It is an abdication of leadership for a meaningless date, predicated on nothing more than political calculation. Our president is rumored to be a very smart man. It is time for him to prove it.

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Inchon

Inchon is the call sign for the 1st Marine Regiment – currently deployed in southern region of the Helmand Province as Regimental Combat Team 1 (RCT 1).  They are  operating out of a large FOB in the middle of the Dasht-e Margo (Deseret of Death) about 50 kilometers from the Provincial capitol of Lashkar Gah, named Camp Dwyer.  Unlike other FOB’s I’ve visited this massive base has lots of room but very few people. The Marines don’t like FOB’s much and having (by design) a lean tooth to tail ratio (trigger pullers to support personnel) this is what one would expect to see.

Camp Dwyer was carved out of the desert last year. Spartan, functional, isolated, and full of Marines who would consider themselves cursed if they had been left in the rear with the gear
Camp Dwyer was carved out of the desert last year. Spartan, functional, isolated, and full of Marines who would consider themselves cursed if they had been left in the rear with the gear

RCT 1 is commanded by another close friend of mine Colonel Dave Furness, USMC, of Columbus, Ohio. Like my friends featured in previous posts, Colonel Paul Kennedy, USMC and Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Kenny, USMC, Dave was on the staff of the Marine Corps Infantry Officer course with me back in the early 90’s. The four of us also commanded recruiting stations in the late 90’s (the Marines take recruiting seriously) and as is often the case in the Corps we would bump into each other in places like Okinawa, Korea or Thailand when assigned to Fleet Marine Force infantry units.

When I arrived at the RCT 1 headquarters building I was shown into a large office where Dave was waiting with a warm smile, big bear hug and man was he a sight for sore eyes. We sat down and Dave started reading me in on his view of the operational situation he’s dealing with in the Southern Helmand. I started taking  notes:

“Timmy planting guys in the ground is easy, I don’t even worry about that, leaving it to the Battalion Commanders. You know what I worry about? The time horizon. That’s my problem because it impacts my grunts and I’m the only guy in this lash-up who can effect it. The main problem we face here is that the poppy has a value added chain. A farmer is given the seed, he is given the fertilizer – poppy doesn’t take much water or care while growing – and at harvest time he is given guys who score the flowers and collect the dope. At the end of the season he is given a portion of the harvest to sell or barter. The dope is then moved, processed and smuggled out of the country. Poppy has a well established added value chain which provides employment for lots of people while making life easy for the farmer. It costs him little to grow and doesn’t take much work. We want to sell him seed and fertilizer for a crop which is difficult to grow and much more susceptible to failure due to bad weather, floods and insects. We want him to harvest it and want him to take it to market and sell it. There are no value added processes to employ other people. There is no cold storage, no food processing plants, no grain elevators, no good roads, and no teamsters to truck produce using economies of scale.  What would you do if you were a farmer in southern Helmand?”

Readers who have been following the Afghan campaign over the years must be depressed at hearing this. What Dave identified as the problem is exactly what military and development experts identified as the problem nine years ago.

Dawn Patrol -Dave, "The Coach" Mike McNamara - who was also on the staff of IOC back in the 90s. Dave was heading to Marjah for meetings and to spend time with his Marines at the pointed end of the spear
Dawn Patrol: Dave, Mike “Mac” McNamara – who was also on the staff of IOC back in the 90s and me. Dave was heading to Marjah for meetings and to spend time with his Marines at the pointed end of the spear.  Is it me or do Colonels look a lot younger then they did back in the day?

We talked about why, after so long, we’re still talking about the problem instead of fixing it but I don’t want to get my buddies in hot water for bitching about how difficult it is to do what should be easy so I’ll move on to something I also found interesting – the time horizon. Like every other commander in theater Dave is frustrated to the point of insubordination with how slow we are at funding and executing projects. More from Colonel Furness:

“I’m not doing much clearing; the 7th Marines (who rotated home a few weeks ago) did all the clearing. Paul (who commands RCT 2 in Delaram) is fighting like a lion up north right now but we’re pretty much policing up small cells of die-hards which isn’t that hard. Marjah is still active but as we expand out of the district center we’re getting that under control. I’m still losing guys, I still take KIA’s and I have had several Marines lose limbs. I hate that, hate seeing my guys get hit but we’re dishing out more than the bad guys can take so the kinetics will die down. What I want for my Marines is a reasonable time horizon for reconstruction projects so they can see the fruits of their sacrifice. I can do the paperwork for 40 or 50 projects which I know will create the value chain needed to beat the poppy and there is no chance that me or my Marines will see any of it done, or even started, even if they get approved and “fast tracked.” My guys are patrolling three times a day, eating Mr. E’s or local chow, they sleep on the deck in the dirt and I want them to see why they are doing this. We like the Afghans; every one of them we talk to asks for two things: all weather roads and schools for their kids. They know they are doomed to a lifetime of hard labor with no chance at upward mobility because they are illiterate, so they want a better life for their children. My Marines who are out there living in the dirt and heat and filth with them want the same thing. But I can’t build schools with my CERP funds, nor can I hire teachers with my CERP funds and working through the regional contracting command to program money for those things is like pulling a diamond out of a goat’s ass. It is just doesn’t happen.”

I wanted to talk war but the warrior wanted to talk value added chains and time horizons. “We’ll talk about that later in detail with the staff, I have a treat for you, lets go see Mac.”

Mike McNamara is one those characters with a story so improbable that you would think he was a creation of Hollywood. In the golden days of Hollywood Mike McNamara, a.k.a Mac would have made a worthy character in any war flick. I had not seen Mac since 1994 and had no idea he was deployed here with Dave.

Mactalk
Mactalk on KNOX News Talk 1310. in Grand Forks North Dakota

Major Mike McNamara, USMCR, left active duty in the late 90’s, moving his family to North Dakota where he has a regular job, coaches the high school baseball team (his Dad managed the Boston Red Socks) serves on the city council and has his own radio show. Mactalk has got to be among the most entertaining radio shows in the nation. Mac is one of the smartest, funniest people I have ever met. That’s saying something too – Jeff Kenny is so funny that The Bot couldn’t eat chow around him. Jeff would come up with totally bizarre observations that were so funny Shem would have soda coming out of his nose or start choking on his food he was laughing so hard.  Mike doesn’t drill with the reserves and only puts on the uniform on when his friends ask him to come run their Combat Operations Center (COC) when they go to war. This is the third time he has been called and it is also the third time a general officer has had to tell the manpower weenies at HQMC to shut up, activate McNamara and send him overseas without delay. Mike will never be promoted past the rank of Major and couldn’t care less – when his buddies call he drops what he’s doing and comes overseas for a year at a time.  Every time.

Mike was set up in the COC like a grand pasha with several computer screens and a few log books arrayed in a semi circle in front of him. He was in the process of planting some guys into the ground who had been foolish enough to start sniping at a Marine patrol. We watched the feed from a Reaper which was loitering about 2o,ooo feet above the doomed Taliban – it was invisible, inaudible, and alert.  The Reaper was hanging Hellfires on its weapon pylons and as we watched it sent one screaming towards four villains when they huddled together next to a wall out of sight of the Marines they had just attacked.

The Hellfire is a supersonic missile but when it makes its final course correction just prior to hitting target it slows to subsonic speed. The sonic boom gets ahead of it so that the targets hear it about 1.5 seconds before it strikes.  Sure enough three of the four look up startled while the fourth immediately started running like he’s in the Olympic finals of the 100 meter sprint.  The three Lookie Lous’ disappear – the sprinter starts to stagger clearly wounded. Within the hour he would be joining us at Camp Dwyer where he received  state of the art medical care and will be kept in the base hospital until well enough to be turned over to the Afghan Army.

The Hellfire is pinpoint accurate with a limited ECR (effective casualty radius).  Designed to kill enemy armor the military has discovered it is the perfect weapon to shoot at human targets because they can take out guys leaning against a wall without any damage to the wall or people standing just a few feet away.

Nobody is safe from catching a ration of good humored ribbing when The Coach is in the room.
Nobody is safe from catching a ration of crap when Mac is in the room.

The morning news feed contained this story: yet another front line dispatch about restrictive rules of engagement. Which was most timely because I asked Mac about that yesterday and I give him the last word.

“This is “smart guy” war dummies get people killed here just like they did in al Anbar Province (Iraq).  The current ROE emphasizes the preservation of civilian life except in extreme cases which is fundamental to winning the civilian population and also fundamental to “winning the peace.” Anybody who doesn’t understand this is either stupid or inexperienced in this business. When our Marines are in contact near structures or civilians and ask us for supporting fires we ask  “are you unable to maneuver?” Answer: “…wait one… then you get “…we’re good, we can still maneuver…”

Even though it’s harder you restrain your firepower allowing the ground force to work the problem while we get attack helicopters, or jets or drones into a position to use precision weapons. The goal is how to keep the pressure on miscreants until you can whack them. This is smart guy war from squad to RCT (Regimental Combat Team) level.

We also use our air assets to do “show of force” runs in order to suppress accurate small arms fire and that works too. There are creative non-kinetic things you can do before you have to drop the hammer. Our Marines are great at exercising restraint; it’s amazing to me to see them do it every day.

My take on those who bitch is that they haven’t studied the ROE close enough to learn the “in’s and out’s”. We run rotatory and fixed wing CAS (close air support) multiple times every day. We understand killing civilians sets the effort back in a huge way… especially when we are beginning to see so many positive signs in the AO. BUT, we know we can protect our Marines and we do. Smart guy war is harder, it demands more from both the Marines in contact and my guys who are just itching to unload ordnance on the bad guys.

I’ll tell you what’s tough and that’s the days after we have had our own killed or badly wounded. Those days are the most challenging in terms of restraint. When we’re evaluating targets on those days you can feel the vibe in the room is different. That’s when the adults have to show up and keep things solid. It’s not easy and it’s not fun but that’s what we’re paid to do; be the adults.”

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The Going Is Getting Tough

The ongoing saga about banning security contractors in Afghanistan continues while the need for them grows to the point that  CNN has gotten a clue. Many big reconstruction projects are grinding to a halt and let me tell you something – the local people are sick and tired of this. We have been at the reconstruction business going on ten years now yet our impact on the lives of the average Afghan has been minimal. In Kabul there is a rising epidemic of Cutaneous leishmanisis which has stuck some 65,000 people, mostly woman and children. Do you know how simple it is to stop the an epidemic of leishmanisis? Start a cash for work program to build concrete floors in every dwelling in the city including all the squatter huts in the hills – it is that simple. We could stop this problem cold for what is essentially chump change in reconstruction dollars.

Yet simple solutions to complex problems elude us; we focus instead on “good governance” or the “Afghanistan water table project” or a dozen other programs which suck up hundreds of millions of dollars while doing not one damn thing for the Afghan people. The Afghan government continues to fail at providing basic services while excelling at hounding outside the wire contractors. Visa’s for internationals working in-country remain impossible to obtain so more and more of us who work outside the FOB’s are heading home. Yet ISAF continues to support the elimination of private security contractors as noted below. I extracted the quote from some article I forgot to bookmark and am too irritated to look for at the moment.

Karzai has said repeatedly in recent months that the companies undermine government security forces, creating a parallel security structure. His desire to ban the private security groups seems to reflect the thinking of the former top American commander in Afghanistan.

Before he was replaced earlier this year for making disparaging comments about the Obama administration, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said “the coalition in Afghanistan has become too dependent on private contractors.”

There is no doubt that the military is too dependent on private contractors – the FOB’s are full of them 98% of whom are not in the security industry. Those of us who are outside the wire  doing the heavy lifting in the reconstruction piece need to be able to protect ourselves. The Afghan security forces are not remotely capable of doing the job and the sad fact is that the only international military force we can count on to come to our aid when attacked are the Americans.

For those of you who think I am exaggerating read this article closely.  If you are a German citizen you may want to skip it because it’s about the response to the Taliban attack on the USAID Implementation partner DAI in Kunduz earlier this year by the German military. As a retired military officer I have studied the innovation and professionalism of the German military during the First and Second World Wars all my adult life. It gives me no pleasure to highlight this story of indifference from a military which was once the best the world had ever seen.

Ghost Team continues exceeding expectations and getting massive numbers of local workers out on the job. Being successful where everyone else is failing is not endearing us to many with the notable exceptions of the military and the Afhgan people
Some people are still able to put massive numbers of local people to work on large reconstruction projects using manual labor. Reconstruction experts can argue the effectiveness of cash for work in   the context of counterinsurgency warfare all they want. We don’t care – we’re doing what we were contracted to do but it is getting much harder for us maneuver around in the contested districts.

Given the train wreck that is Afghanistan at the moment, Nic Lee, who heads the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) has recommended that NGO’s deal with the Taliban to facilitate their projects. That is not as ridiculous as it probably sounds to FRI readers because he is talking about NGO’s not implementation firms.

Nic sees the NGOs (unarmed, non-profits) as neutral and believes that if the Taliban also see them as non-participants in the war they’ll leave them alone. This has been generally true in the east for years. In the South not so much and in the North and West the problem for NGO’s and other internationals has been criminal groups not Taliban.  It’s to the Taliban’s advantage to allow medical clinics and farm projects to run without interference so they can show the locals that good stuff happens when they’re in charge. There’s no upside to harming NGOs and the Taliban senior leaders know it. Criminals and junior Taliban who didn’t get the memo and are another matter.

The problem for NGOs ( Lee does not consider DAI, Chemonics and the other USAID implementing partners including us as to be true NGO’s) is in areas where control is contested and their locals are at risk from kidnappings and IEDs strikes because they are working for infidel invaders. Infidel neutral non-participants bearing gifts are still infidels and there are many areas in this country where they (and their Afghan employees who bear the risk) should not (and mostly do not) go. NGO’s operating deep in contested districts are probably dealing with the Taliban anyway. For many tribes the Taliban flag is a flag of convenience and NGO’s embedded inside Afghan districts know that better than we do. I’m not sure why Nic published advice that is already understood by the target audience but sure to raise eyebrows with the international press. I don’t know him that well but don’t think he’s a publicity seeker so I’m not sure what this is all about.

The bigger problem for NGO’s and the rest of us is Nic’s advice is flat out wrong. The security situation for foreigners living outside the wire changed radically for the worst on August 6th, 2010 with the murder of a eight person medical team who had just conducted eye clinics in the remote Nuristan Province. Dan Terry and Tom Little spent over 30 years living in Afghanistan while bringing modern medical treatment to thousands of Afghans. Despite their decades of experience and close relationships with the tribes of the area  they were gunned down  in what has been describes as the “the worst crime targeting the humanitarian community that has ever taken place in Afghanistan.”

The security situation has degraded too far too fast for NGO’s to operate safely in most of Afghanistan. Ghost Team is now the only viable option for outside the wire reconstruction but that won’t happen because we’re not popular with the USAID preferred contractors or USAID. We carry guns and send in pictures from projects in places nobody else has or would ever go. We never miss a deadline…..want to be popular with bureaucrats? Do not succeed where all others have failed.

Contractors have gotten a bad rap in the press and with the FOB bound portion of our military establishment. Troops at the pointed end of the spear where we do our projects love us and go out of their way to protect and take care of us. But on the big box FOB’s we are not allowed weapons, cameras, laptops, or cell phones.  On every FOB there is an Afghan bazaar plus several military exchanges that sell knives, swords, antique guns, cell phones, computers, cameras, etc… proving again that stupidity never takes a holiday. By contract with the United States Government we are required to have cell phones, cameras and laptops in order to submit detailed reports to USAID program managers living on military bases. But look at what we are not allowed on those bases.

Flying into the main base in order to catch military flights into the cotested districts where we have projects is now very problematic. Not all contractors live on the FOB and those of us who don't need weapons, cameras, and laptops to do our job. Being on the big box FOB's is most depressing - drive over 24 kph while failing to wear a seat belt and you'll find out why. Most of our old beaters have no seat belts or working odometers which makes us "antisocial" in the eyes of MP's from our allies
Flying into a big box FOB in order to catch military flights into the contested districts where we have projects is now problematic. Not all contractors live on the FOB and those of us who don’t need weapons, cameras, and laptops to do our jobs. Being on the big box FOB’s is most depressing – drive over 24 kph or fail to wear a seat belt and you’ll get pulled over by MP’s. Most of our old beaters have no seat belts or working odometers … this place is crazy

The few contractors who remain outside the wire need protection from the Taliban, from criminals, from the Afghan government and the rear echelon military establishment.  It’s getting damn lonely for us these days and there is no excuse for harassing the few good men who are out in harms way getting projects done on time and on budget.

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What A Mess

I’m not referring to the controversy surrounding the attempted rescue of Linda Norgrove which is currently consuming the news cycle. My experience is that Special Operations folks do not attempt rescue operations without solid intelligence and a well rehearsed plan. I don’t know what happened in Kunar Province last weekend and therefore have no comment. What I do have plenty to comment on is the rash of articles which came out Friday morning about security contractors guarding American bases.  This is the opening from ABC news:

A scathing Senate report says US contractors in Afghanistan have hired warlords, “thugs,” Taliban commanders and even Iranian spies to provide security at vulnerable US military outposts in Afghanistan. The report, published by the Senate Armed Services Committee, says lax oversight and “systemic failures” have led to “grave risks’ to US forces, including instances where contractors have employed Afghan subcontractors who were “linked to murder, kidnapping and bribery, as well as Taliban and anti-coalition activities.” The chairman of the committee, Sen. Carl Levin, D.-Michigan, said the report was evidence that the US needs to reduce its reliance on contractors.

On the small Combat Outposts (COP’s) these guard forces man the outer perimeter only and have to provide their own life support (food and shelter) and they do not go inside the wire of the Army unit they are guarding. They don’t know any more about what is happening inside the FOB’s they guard then any other Afghan living in the vicinity. Local nationals working inside the wire doing menial tasks like emptying port-a-johns, collecting and burning trash, or washing dishes would know a lot more and pose a greater intelligence risk than the exterior guard force. On the large FOB’s the guard forces have barracks inside the post but are a small percentage of the Afghan local national work force and again, limited as to where they are allowed to go. So how is it just the security guards are the ones putting our troops at risk?

I wrote bids for several of these contracts and know they require a minimum of 80% of the guards to come from the local area. When you have remote outposts and need so many armed men who do you think is going to provide them? Now Washington is shocked, shocked that we were paying warlords and other various undesirables for guard forces. When I bid on these contracts our local manpower was coordinated through the district sub governor (which I  recall was another requirement) and not all sub governors are created equal. I’m not sure why the big surprise that some of the people who are benefiting from the fire hose of dollars flowing into Afghanistan are undesirables. I’m also not to sure about the definition of “undesirables” given the number of former warlords connected to the central government. Seems to me we don’t know enough about the Afghan culture to start labeling some war lords undesirables and others patriots.

Sounds like politics and looks like piling on by by the Senate Armed Services Committee who are now supporting President Karzai as he continues his program to dismantle private security companies. It’s nice to finally see some support for President Karzai from the DC crowd even if they are supporting a policy un-tethered from reality.  Accepting the fact that President Karzai is not going away would be the best contribution our elected members can make now.

J
Jalalabad City continues to grow as more families come in from the outer districts to escape Taliban intimidation

Shutting down the security companies makes little sense. Earlier in the month it was reported that the Afghans had shut down several companies to include Xe (Blackwater), Four Horsemen, and White Eagle. This is not true; all four remain open for business and they, like Karzai, are not going anywhere. Those companies don’t need to pay the Afghan government for a business license because they are working directly for the military, Department of State and other international government agencies and are exempt from paying Afghan taxes. The Afghan government is making it hard for internationals working for security companies outside the wire only. They have stopped issuing visa’s so many contractors remain here on expired ones. The companies with government contracts come into the country on contractor run flight that land in Bagram and by pass Afghan immigration so they do not need visas.  Afghanistan isn’t like the United States with foreigners who overstay their visa. In Afghanistan that is a one strike offense that could land you in prison.

Kabul is in turmoil, the North is going right down the tubes; years ago it was easy to operate in most of the country without armored vehicles and international mobile security teams but not anymore. While this is playing out there is a growing sense that the military side of the operation is starting go well.  ISAF has, for the first time, apparently locked down the Arghandab and Panjwai districts around Kandahar City. The Helmand Province is getting quieter week in and week out and the American Army in Nangarhar Province has moved a battalion of paratroopers into the southern triangle to deal with Taliban and their Pakistani cousins who have been operating openly down there all summer. This force projection off the FOB’s is a welcomed change but all the clearing currently being done needs a hold and build effort behind it and that capability is not resident within the Kabul government.

Provincial capitols in the south are not so busy or crowded
Lashkar Gah the capitol of Helmand Province. Provincial capitols in the south are not as busy or crowded as they are in the rest of the country

The situation on the ground is rapidly changing which makes it the perfect time for me to shift to another part of the country where I’m not so well known.  I have moved south and will be joining Ghost Team again for another year of adventure. This year I’m not going to be so candid about where I live or the location of our projects. The days when we could roam about the countryside at will and have my kids visit for months at a time to work with local kids at the Fab Lab – those days are over.

The military seems to be doing what it set out to do. It is too early to know how successful they will be but if they can drive the Taliban out of Kandahar and the surrounding districts they will need help with the build portion. Ghost Team will do our part but we are not miracle workers. We’ll give it our best until the window closes on outside the wire operations for good.

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Meet a Couple of Heroes

Hero is one of those terms which comes up often in reporting about the military. Not every service member is a hero nor is every hero we encounter in our lives associated with the military. I point this out because the label “hero” is at risk of becoming a meaningless cliche as we approach the first decade of what will be a very long war. But I have a couple of hero’s I’d like to introduce as an innovative way to talk about the fog of war as well as the price being paid by the people fighting this conflict on our behalf.

Over a year ago my Dad told me one of my former students from the Infantry Officer Course was at the Tampa VA hospital recovering from a severe gunshot wound.  LtCol Ty Edwards was the senior Embedded Training Team leader, mentoring the Afghan Army’s 2/2 Kandak.  He and his command group were  traveling with an American Army re-supply mission out of FOB Bostick in October 2008 up in the Nuristan Province. The following narrative was provided to Leatherneck Magazine three days after the incident by 1stLt Sean McQuiston and is extracted from an article that can be found here.

“I heard RPG fire ahead of me, but I couldn’t see any bad guys. But I saw the Army humvees ahead of me firing on a hill about 300 meters off to my 2 o’clock, so I swung my turret over and shot maybe 50 rounds in support.

“The Army humvees then drove off, which is their TTP (tactics, techniques and procedures), while the ANA dismounted from their trucks and hugged a berm to the right of us. The ANA vehicles are unarmored; you can’t fight from them.  Lieutenant Colonel Edwards jumped out and went forward  to work with the ANA. I’m still up in the turret, putting out rounds. There’s machine-gun fire coming in on us, but it’s not heavy. But suddenly it increased, and I got hit in the left arm.”

And here is where we enter into the fog of war.  The fire increased on the Marines and their ANA unit because the Army had left the kill zone. That is what they are trained to do and it’s a sound tactical move. All armored vehicles are vulnerable to fire plunging down onto the top of them; sticking around in a kill zone can be risky. The Army unit leading the convoy were not responsible for the ANA vehicles; their job was to move supplies through an area where contact with the enemy was a frequent occurrence. They reacted the way they always react and clearly would not have kept going with their mission if they had known what was unfolding behind them.  LtCol Edwards reacted the way he had been trained to do too. He went forward into the fire to lead the troops he had been sent to mentor because that is what infantry leaders do. With the fire now concentrated on him and his crew he did not make it far and went down when he was hit in the head. Ty was out of the fight, exposed in the open and helpless as a baby; he would not wake up until weeks later. There is no fault to be assessed, no blame to be apportioned there is just the fog of war which will never be lifted from the face of battle no matter how much technology we field.

His interpreter, who will soon be immigrating to the United States, was the first to reach him and apparently shielded Ty as Lt McQuiston rallied the ANA to put out suppressive fire so the senior corpsman could work his way to him. The Army QRF (Quick Reaction Force) from Bostick arrived behind a curtain of heavy weapons fire to grabbed the wounded and they rapidly got Ty into the medical evacuation system. Lots of heroic men and women did heroic things to keep Ty alive and allow him a chance to recover. Everyday Quick Reaction Forces (QRF’s) thunder off the FOB’s into harms way all demonstrating the fortitude and bravery that should make us all proud.  It comes with the job and is, in some respects, easy to do when you are part of a tight infantry unit.

And for men who thunder off FOB’s into harms way without hesitation or fear know that the heaviest weight they could ever be asked to carry is to sustain the virtues of a great infantry leader for a lifetime when fate deals you a bad hand.

Meet LtCol Ty Edwards, USMC and my father MajGen J.D. Lynch Jr, USMC (Ret)
LtCol Ty Edwards USMC and my father MajGen J.D. Lynch Jr, USMC (Ret)

Those of us who know Ty and understand his background expected him to run into the fire to rally men under his charge (regardless of their nationality).  That is not terribly impressive to us. What is impressive is to see him now. Ty got hit, he lost the use of the right side his body, his speech is impaired but his mind is sharp and the left side of his body gets stronger as week in and week out he exceeds the goals established by his physical therapist.  He will walk again, of that I’m certain but it is going to take years of blood sweat and tears to get there. Ty is on a mission. He has children to raise and a wife to emotionally support so he has to demonstrate by personal example, every day, how a good man overcomes hardship, how a winner never quits, and why it is important to live like a Marine regardless of severe physical limitations imposed in the prime of life.

I was trading emails with an old friend who had been the battalion surgeon for  1st Battalion 8th Marines back in the early 90’s when I was the operations officer.  My buddy Barney is a big lib which was great because we were a hard deploying unit and there is nothing better than having a smart guy like Barney around who would argue with me for hours about politics and modern culture. He was a great advocate for his side despite being wrong 100% of the time in my humble estimation.  Even better (and what can be better than having your own lib to argue with) he could suck up bad weather and long hikes while maintaining a sense of humor which made him an especially valuable medical officer. When our conversation turned to friends in harms way I told him about Ty and also that my Dad visits Ty every week when he goes in for physical therapy. Barney wrote back the following:

My observation is that with time dedication to tragedy fades among  most—except those directly touched (9/11 comparison here in NY).

That comment by Barney got me to thinking about my Dad and how happy I was that he makes this weekly visit with Ty.  Much as Ty reacted by instinct that fateful October day two years ago my Dad too responded by instinct when notified via the retired Marine chain that there was a fallen infantry officer who would benefit greatly from a visit.  The reason this makes me happy is that I love my Dad and I know as we talk over how Ty is doing during our not frequent enough phone calls that my Dad is benefiting from this relationship as much if not more than Ty is.  Like Ty my Dad lives by a code which is easy to understand but very hard to follow.  Staying true; demonstrating strength in the face of adversity, endurance when faced with unending commitments; living by the code without complaint or hesitation…it is a beautiful thing to witness.

Ty Edwards and family with Gen Amos - the assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps
Ty Edwards and family with Gen Amos – the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps

I’m sorry my former student and brother Devil Dog was shot but I don’t feel sorry for him.  I feel awe at how well he faces this trail without complaint, struggling every day to set the example for his children, his wife and his fellow Marines.  He is taking on an increasingly heavier load of reading and correspondence which will eventually lead him back into gainful employment.  He will walk again.

Many of us in the profession of arms are asked to step into the hero’s role for a brief period of time, its part of the job.  Very few of us are asked to take that mantle permanently and all of us are afraid that when called in such manner we will be found wanting.  Ty has been called, he has not been found wanting and like a true hero is contributing positive karma to the people in his life.  One of them is my Dad and for that I am truly grateful.

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Five Hundred Meter War

Herschel Smith at the Captains Journal has put up a great post which addresses a topic near and dear to my heart; infantry tactics. The post is The Five Hundred Meter War  and I want to reinforce Herschel’s point with some observations.

The tactical argument being raised by Herschel is the alarming trend of engaging in long range fire fights without even attempting to close with and destroy the enemy. The mission of American infantrymen (according to FM 2-21.20 The Infantry Battalion) is “to close with the enemy by means of fire and maneuver.”

Aggressive maneuver combined with active patrolling keep the enemy off balance. The army demonstrated this in Kunar over the last few weeks. The first graph below is from the week of the Camp Blessing battle and the second from the week of the elections.

Remember a few months back when I posted about the new army battalion at Camp Blessing in Kunar killing over 100 fighters in the Marwa valley? Here is the incident rate for the week that the fighting started
Remember a few months back when I posted about the new army battalion at Camp Blessing in Kunar killing over 100 fighters in the Marwa Valley?  Remember I was hoping this signaled a shift in operational focus away from drive by COIN visits to killing the villains who had unmasked themselves all over the Province? Here is the incident rate for the week that the fighting started.  In order to generate security incidents you need living and breathing insurgents and there were not too many of them left after the Army took off the force protection handcuffs and started getting after it. Graph is courtesy of Sami the Finn who is the Senior Information Analyst for Indicium Consulting.

 

Here is this weeks stats and the spike is due to the Taliban and HIG efforts to disrupt the election. If you watched the embeded video you probably caught that the troops on that mission were heading to a polling center for some reason and yet look at the stats for the week that those polls were open (actually most in Kunar were closed) It would appear that months of effort to facilitate voting in the Kunar Province was a complete waste of effort
Here as the stats from last week note the spike which came from Taliban and HIG efforts to disrupt the election. If you watched the embedded video you probably caught that the troops on that mission were heading to a polling center for some reason and yet look at the stats for the week that those polls were open (actually most in Kunar were closed) It would appear that months of effort to facilitate voting in the Kunar Province was a complete waste of effort

The incident rates above clearly  demonstrate a point made over and over by Herschel Smith and many other military bloggers have made and that is incident rates drop when kinetic activity increases. It also demonstrated the folly of running down a road to visit sites for a brief period of time and then returning to the FOB.  Yesterday a British national working for the development firm DAI was kidnapped right off the main Abad to Jbad road. She was moving in a two vehicle convoy of low profile Toyota Corollas which is normally a safe mode of travel as long as the people inside the Corollas can pass as locals at first glance. This method of blending in is not a good idea if the convoy is going to be static for any period of time allowing local spotters to get a good look at the passengers. There are internationals in Afghanistan who can fool a trained observer with local clothes and a local style beard but they don’t fool anybody once they start walking. Their gait does not resemble how Afghans move because westerners do not spend their lives squatting on their heels.

I do not know the woman who was kidnapped that well but can say she was one of the more experienced and savvy operators in the eastern region. The company she works for, DAI, is one of the “big boys” in the reconstruction business and although they are not as nimble or fast as we are they are still damn good. So here we are in the middle of the surge and the security situation has never been worse.  If the security situation continues to degrade it is just a matter of time before all of us reconstruction types pull up the stakes and go home. I think I am speaking for the outside the wire community when I say (to ISAF)  “it’s time to get off the FOB’s and into the fight….or we’re done here.”

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A New Way Forward?

We were under UN restricted movement routine last week (for the first time in five years) which provided the opportunity to digest a report from The Afghanistan Study Group entitled A New Way Forward. This report was great news for me because if think tanks are paying big bucks to people who write so poorly and know so little then maybe I can get a job in America and stop spending 11 of every 12 months out of the country. Any think tankers out there who have an opening drop me a line – I’ll be your huckleberry.

Fortunately I don’t have to take this report apart as a genuine regional expert, the formidable Joshua Foust, has already done that over at Registan.net.  Take the time to read his post here; it is, as usual, well written and spot on. With the heavy lifting already done I wanted to focus on the one part of the Study Group report which I find alarming and that is the amount of money being spent.  This is from the summary of the Afghanistan Study Group report:

The U.S. war in Afghanistan is now the longest in our history, and is costing the U.S. taxpayers nearly $100 billion per year, roughly seven times more than Afghanistan’s annual gross national product (GNP) of $14 billion.

100 Billion US dollars per year. That level of expenditure will not be sustainable for much longer so in the spirit of offering solutions instead of highlighting problems I am going to try and articulate a real New Way Forward.  The first step to limiting the amount of money being spent while reducing the number of troops deployed in theater is to eliminate the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT)  program.  PRT’s are based on FOB’s, staffed by hundreds of personnel and completely focused internally.  The commander of a PRT who is often an officer from the Navy or Air Force will get one fitness report (FitRep) in his/her career where they are commanding troops in combat.  The problems that would prevent these commanders from getting a superior fitness report (which is the only way they will be promoted and retained in the service) are all things that happen inside the wire. Sloppy admin, poor vehicle maintenance, problems with CMS (classified material storage and handling) lost gear or (heaven forbid) lost weapons, excessive boy/girl drama, failure to conduct required annual training like suicide prevention, sexual harassment, AIDS awareness (to name just a few) and problems getting mid to senior level NCO’s to professional schools….all these things and many more will ruin a FitRep. What will not ruin a Fitrep is failing to accomplish anything of significance outside the wire which is the primary mission of the PRT’s. The reason that is irrelevant is because there is no way to measure what is happening outside the wire with any precision because to know what is happening outside the wire one has to be outside the wire and riding around in hermetically sealed MRAP’s doesn’t count.

These PRT members are on their way to a village just outside our largest airbase in the region with a IT specalist to try and network computers donated to a local school years agp
Captain Christian Balan, who teaches  digital forensics at Burlington’s Champlain College in civilian life, heading towards a school just outside the massive Bagram airbase to trade his tech skills fixing the computer lab in hopes of generating good will and cooperation.  Photo by Spencer Akerman of the Danger Room blog

 

This story published last month in the Danger Room blog is a great  example. Nine years into the conflict and a group of soldiers are just now bringing their tech skills to bear in order to gain cooperation from villagers located just outside the wire from Bagram. Captain Balan (pictured above)  is a 55 year old reservist who is trying something new because past experience taught him the regular “Key Leader Engagement” techniques yield nothing. He is using his civilian techie skills to engage the villagers in another way. Read the article and note how after visiting the village he is all psyched up to go back and tune up their computer lab. This is what I mean by letting our troops loose to stay outside the wire and develop the situation using their initiative, drive and skill sets. But again there is a huge problem illustrated in the picture above and that is the body armor, rifles, security team etc… when it is right outside the wire from the biggest base in Afghanistan. Compare and contrast what you read in the article with this:

 

My son Logan doing the heavy lifting during the intial instal of the Jalalabad Fab Fi network.
My son Logan doing the heavy lifting during the initial install of the Jalalabad Fab Fi network.

 

25 simultaneous live nodes in Jalalabad. That's a new high. The map can't even keep up!
The Jalalabad Fab Fi network created by the MIT Fab Folk, maintained and expanded by local teenagers. This program does not cost the American taxpayer one dime.

 

The boys at the Jalalabad Fab Lab came up with their own design to meet the growing demand created by the International Fab surge last September. As usual all surge participants who came from the US, South Africa, Iceland and Englad paid their own way. Somebody needs to sponser these people.
The local Fab Fi club members at the Jalalabad Fab Lab came up with their own design to expand the Fab Fi network using US AID cooking oil cans (or “found objects” in geek talk)

In August of 2010 American soldiers are taking baby steps within a stones throw of the Bagram Airfield but two years ago a bunch of grad student volunteers created a wi fi network which now envelops Jalalabad.  What do you think soldiers like Captain Balan could do if they too had the freedom of movement that we have?  I am willing to bet you would see massive amounts of projects like the one he is attempting all over the country which, in turn, would bring cooperation from the local people while letting the modernity genie out of the bottle.

Here is another example of spending massive amounts of money while bringing zero benefit to the local population:

The local airfield has about a dozen Federal Firefighters to augment the Air Force crash and rescue crew
The local airfield has about a dozen Federal Firefighters to augment the Air Force crash and rescue crew

In the past expeditionary base fire fighting was a collateral duty assigned to base troops just like it is with the crew on Navy ships.  Now we deploy federal firefighters to perform this task which is fine; federal fire fighters are useful individuals who attend multiple schools where they receive first rate training.  If we are going to spend over a million a year to deploy each firefighter we could get much more return on investment by letting these guys spend their days with the local Afghan fire and rescue crews. They don’t need some sort of high speed mission to accomplish daily – they could drive around and look for places where they can help out. They could be busy all day every day teaching people all sorts of useful things while spreading goodwill and good karma. Every night they could return to base where they would be available when needed in the event of a conflagration. They don’t need to be armed, they don’t need body armor, they don’t need a powerpoint mission brief, they just need to drive off the base and do it. If they needed experienced guides to make them feel more comfortable they could ask the ladies from the La Jolla Rotary Club who are here right now supporting the San Diego Sister City program.

This ultra sound machine was donated to the Jalabad Teaching Hospital some years back and like most of the machines we have donated was broken. A grad student from the Synergy Strike Force who here with the La Jolla Rotary club sister city program got the directions, figured out what was wrong and fixed it in about 3 hours. She was then presented with a list of broken machines which she started repairing. Using the internet and a large support network of geeks from America she was able to repair about 90% of the machines in less than a month. What do you think a crew of federal firefighters could do given similar circumstances? I know exactly what they could do - fix 100% of the machines while finding all sorts of other things to improve. We're paying these guys six figure salaries to work out in the gym everyday - they get bored and we get no return on investment.
This ultra sound machine was donated to the Jalalabad Teaching Hospital some years back and like most of the donated machines it was broken.  Kate, a grad student sponsored by the Synergy Strike Force who is here with the La Jolla Rotary Club which is the driving force behind the San Diego Sister City Program got the manual, figured out what was wrong and fixed it in about 3 hours. She was then presented with a list of broken machines which she started repairing. Using the internet and a large support network of geeks back in America she was able to repair about 90% of the machines in less than a month. What do you think a crew of federal firefighters could do in similar circumstances? I know exactly what they could do – fix 100% of the machines while finding all sorts of other things to improve. We’re paying these guys six figure salaries to workout in the gym everyday. They get bored and we get no return on investment while the people we are supposed to be protecting only see American military forces when they tie up traffic and force them off the road.

There is nothing hard about finding “A New Way Forward” all that is needed is the application of common sense while allowing simple principals to guide the deployment of forces on the ground. I spent twenty years in the Marines preparing for contingencies like the one we face in Afghanistan. At no time did anyone ever suggest the way to fight them was to build FOB’s – store 90% of your deployed forces on those FOB’s and put those people to work slaving over powerpoint slides for the daily commanders update brief. Nor did we ever consider something as patently stupid as putting ship drivers or C-130 pilots in charge of reconstruction teams which have more equipment, personnel, money and a larger tactical area of operations then an infantry battalion. When you do that kind of thing you end up with The Helmand Food Zone Fiasco. Its time to send the PRT’s home and to give that mission to Ghost Team and other outside the wire contractors who operate in similar fashion. They are  accomplishing more while costing a fraction of a penny when compared to the PRT dollar.

Which brings us to a topic many of you have been asking me about and that is Koran burning threat by an obscure pastor who has a 50 member flock. Obviously the ruckus raised by our main stream media over this threat caused those of us in Afghanistan a lot of problems. However it is hard to take the Secretary of Defense or General Petraus seriously when they warn how inappropriate it is to burn this book when last year our military burned boxes of Dari and Pashtun translations of the Bible which had been sent to Afghanistan by a Christian organization. Why is it OK to burn the Bible and not the Koran?  The only person of prominence to address the Koran burning issue in a clear honest fashion was Sarah Palin who said this:

People have a constitutional right to burn a Koran if they want to, but doing so is insensitive and an unnecessary provocation much like building a mosque at Ground Zero.

As I listened to the response by our dinosaur media, military leaders, and President to the Koran burning threat I longed to hear them address this topic in clear honest language. This they cannot do and I am left with  just one conclusion. Our elites think the American people are stupid. They insult us with their Quisling like knee jerk reactions and selective outrage when talking about sensitive matters concerning Islam. Nobody needs to tell me how dangerous it is to burn the Koran in a highly publicized manner – my colleagues and I are at much greater risk from the fallout of that act than any military person stationed in Afghanistan.  But I’m an American citizen; I do not knuckle my brow, bend my knee or bow before any man for any reason at any time.

Obama breaks his neck for America

Nor do I selectively apply the freedoms granted to me by God and enshrined in our constitution. We are a free people but freedom requires eternal vigilance with the steadfast devotion to principle. All men are equal under American law, all religions are equal too so none deserves nor can be granted special status or consideration. Why is it our ruling class elites and their henchmen in the media have forgotten this basic component of the American way? When I explain my view to the Afghans I work with they understand exactly what I am saying and why…and they respect the message. I’m with Sarah Palin on this one; at least she isn’t treating the American people like a bunch of know-nothing bumpkins.

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Rocky Road

As the summer started I was optimistic that we would see indications that we are gaining ground in Afghanistan but that has not happened. Incident rates are skyrocketing which is not a bad thing if it is our side initiating the incidents but this too is not the case. While ISAF is conducting more raids and presence patrols they do not seem to have learned how to conduct these operations while managing the perceptions of the population we are supposed to be protecting.  By projecting force off of FOB’s and then pulling back into them when the kinetics are done we create a vacuum after every operation.

The aftermath of a brief reportedly violent demonstration on the Jalabad/Torkham road yesterday morning
The aftermath of a brief reportedly violent demonstration on the Jalabad/Torkham road yesterday morning

Earlier in the week a joint Afghan/American SF team raided a madrasa in Sarracha village which is next to the massive airfield/military base in Jalalabad.  They hit the madrasa at night and arrested five men described as mullahs or madrasa students (depends on who you ask). The next morning a large crowd closed the main highway between Jalalabad and the border and threatened to start burning cars and throwing stones at the police. The police responded in great numbers but when they arrived a local candidate for Parliament was on hand calming the crowd down and swearing “he will not rest” until he has talked with the Governor and ISAF and the police to get the people detained released. As it was approaching 100 degrees and this is Ramadan the crowd said OK and dispersed. By the time I got there the police were gone and only a few men remained who were clearing the road of rocks. My terp JD and I asked what had happened and were told the American SF had raided the Madras and taken five students and then they tore up the Koran. I burst out laughing at that one as did JD who immediately called bullshit and asked the guy how he could say something so stupid. The man started laughing too – everyone in this country knows that neither US or Afghan troops are going to touch let alone destroy a Koran.

The fuel tanker fleet continues to use anti bording parties topside only now they are in place from the Torkham border all the way to Kabul.
The fuel tanker fleet continues to use anti boarding parties topside only now they are in place from the Torkham border all the way to Kabul.

Here’s the thing – why is an Afghan political candidate managing the perceptions of a raid we conducted on a village less than a mile from one of our regional bases? Pashtunwali works both ways and if these people are harboring villains then who is accountable for that?  I’m not advocating rounding people up and sweating them I’m saying the elders should be called into the mosque for a shura with the district governor and both Afghan and ISAF military representation and forced to explain why they can’t keep their house in order. If that seems a bit confrontational then both sides can explain their positions and everyone can talk for hours to reach some sort of understanding. Allowing insurgents into a village puts the village at risk because ISAF and the Afghan Army seek insurgents out and hit them aggressively. The potential for collateral damage is significant and the responsibility for that damage has to rest on those who allow targets into their midst. We are using all carrots or all sticks depending on geographic location. In Kunar Province ISAF fights daily while delivering aid programs but in Nangarhar Province we swoop down in the middle of the night and take away suspected insurgents and leave. This allows various actors with their own agendas to fill the vacuum we create with whatever message benefits them. Kunar gets the carrots while Nangarhar gets the stick and I’m not sure why that is. Until ISAF wises up and starts calibrating their operations to gain the maximum effect from every offensive action we are going to continue to get played by Afghan elites.

 

Now the villains have switched up hitting tankers heading into Kunar as the transit Jalalabad towards the Bishood Bridge. This was a spectacular attack as the driver hit the gas when his truck blew up in an attempt to outrun the flames shooting out of the back. He didn't make it but did leave a trail of burning fuel for the entire length of the main downtown area.
Now the villains have switched up their tactics hitting tankers heading into Kunar as the transit Jalalabad towards the Bishood Bridge. This was a spectacular attack as the driver hit the gas when his truck blew up in an attempt to outrun the flames shooting out of the back. He didn’t make it but did leave a trail of burning fuel for the entire length of the main downtown area.

 

ISAF needs to think through these night raids. They do not attempt to manage perceptions because the SF teams doing these raids don’t give a damn about the perceptions in an area they’ll visit once in a lifetime. In the last 72 hours we have had 16 rockets and 6 IED attacks in Nangarhar Province. One of these IED attacks killed the sub governor of La Pur district at the gates of the Governor’s compound. Was it Taliban who did this?  Who knows?  The local people know that the Sub Governor had been spending time in Kabul trying to get his son released from jail. His son has been incarcerated for two months since he copped to killing one of his cousins over a family dispute. A crime he may or may not have done himself.  Nothing here is linear or simple and  it is common for the son of powerful men to take a fall knowing their father will get them out of prison. There are lots of scores to settle in Afghanistan and the Taliban are not the only actors settling scores.

 

Today 5 trucks were destoyed in a gas station a few miles to the east of Jalalabad by a single limpet mine attack
Today 5 trucks were destroyed in a gas station a few miles to the east of Jalalabad by a single limpet mine attack

 

One mine - quickly attached from a passing motorcycle was all it took
One mine quickly attached from a passing motorcycle was all it took

 

It appears that the intial explosion caused a massive fireball which wiped out the men siting in the station office. Over 70% of civilian deaths in Afghanistan are caused by the various insurgent groups
The men siting in the station office were not injured but the flaming fuel destroyed the office which was downstream of the tankers.  Nobody was killed this time but over 70% of civilian deaths in Afghanistan are caused by the various insurgent groups

 

There is another mine attached to one of the trucks parked in the background but it failed to function. Being that Friday is a day off the Skipper is, as usual on a call in the boonies and will have to get this one when he finishes. The Skipper is a "man of the book" and tells me "evil never takes a day off and niether do I"l
There was another mine attached to one of the trucks parked in the background which went off shortly after I took this picture. But the truck was full of water and didn’t burn so the ANP immediately arrested the driver and his assistant for fuel theft.

The tanker wars continue as you can see above but to what end? It could be the “broken windows” theory of terrorism where the bad guys seek to keep constant pressure on the civilians with nuisance attacks in highly trafficked areas creating the perception of tactical freedom of action or it could be fuel company wars.  Who knows?  I don’t and I am pretty sure ISAF doesn’t either.

This is the start of a higly charged meeting between the Rodat district sub governor, the police chief and the station owner. The topic of the meeting is easy to guess - why can't the government protect people from this sort of nonesense
This is the start of a highly charged meeting between the Rodat district sub governor, the police chief and the station owner. The topic of the meeting is easy to guess – why can’t the government protect people from this sort of nonsense.

The summer is coming to a close, the surge is on, the bases around Afghanistan are packed with military and contractor personnel yet for the average Afghan things continue to go right down the toilet. Make no mistake we are still in a shooting war and in a shooting war a commander has three forms of currency he must spend; money, blood and time.  The various insurgent groups are spending blood – we are spending tons of money and time. The problem is that the Taliban has a vast surplus of fighters while we are running out of both money and time. ISAF is hamstrung for two reasons; the first is risk aversion and lack of initiative. The bloated staffs which expand exponentially are completely focused on the unimportant.  If powerpoint briefs could bring the Taliban to bay  (and they could if we could inflict a few on them daily – they are worse than water torture) then we would already be home. Anyone who has been anywhere near the ISAF HQ in Kabul speaks of a dysfunctional culture so bizarre that Hollywood could never do it justice. The giant staffs which inflict so much pain and misery on those below them are a self inflicted wound and that is on the US military. The second factor the military can do little about and that is the Karzai government.  Check this out:

After the corruption scandals, Karzai criticized U.S. war strategy and ordered private security companies out of Afghanistan within four months. He also signed off on the forced retirement of his official in charge of the Anti-Corruption unit.

We put pressure on the Afghan government about the corruption – they put pressure on the international community operating outside the wire who in turn put pressure on their respective international governments. That is not a recipe for success. This news about the CIA paying members of the Karzai administration who are currently under criminal investigation is a great example. I have no problems with doing what it takes to accomplish the mission but we have been at this for a decade and it seems to me if the information we paid for was worth a damn the ISAF J2 would not publicly complain about the complete lack of relevant intelligence and the current security stats wouldn’t look like this:

AGE is UN speak for anti government elements and as you can see they are operating at an all time high
AGE is UN speak for Anti-Government Elements and as you can see they are operating at an all time high.  Hat tip to Sami the Finn at Indicium Consulting.

I correspond almost daily with American troops in Afghanistan,  They are a frustrated crew. I hear the same thing over and over – “take the handcuffs off and let us off the FOB; we know what to do.”  I’m not the only one getting this message and hope those on high are thinking about what they’re hearing from the pointed end of the spear because we are running out of time and we are running out of money.

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The Dog Days of Summer

I am overdue on updating all of you on local atmospherics in the rapidly destabilizing Nangarhar Province.

I also recently did another episode of The Aloyna Show where I took a SWAG at who I think is responsible for the murders of the international medical team headed by Dan Terry and Tom Little – the interview is below:

I think it is fair to say that I did not have much more to say on that topic because I remain stunned at what happened to my friends. And the bad news just keeps getting worse….The villains set up and took a shot at The Skipper last week and damn near got him.

 

They lured The Skipper and his boys across the bridge into Kunar Province with this fake bomb - it was full of sand and rocks.
They lured The Skipper and his boys across the bridge into Kunar Province with this fake bomb – it was full of sand and rocks.

 

Then they blew a remote controlled IED (RCIED) under his truck. It was in a plastic jug like the fake bomb the energy from the blast when 360 degrees doing little damage to the Skippers ride.
Then they blew a remote controlled IED (RCIED) under his truck. It was in a plastic jug like the fake bomb the energy from the blast went 360 degrees doing little damage to the Skippers ride.

 

The local militia and ANP showed up - everyone was vbery upset that The Skipper was attacked and nobody could imagine how such a device was planted right there next to the bridge. No idea
The local militia and ANP showed up – everyone was very upset that The Skipper was attacked and nobody could imagine how such a device was planted next to the bridge.

The Skipper wasn’t injured in this blast –  nobody was which would make one think that maybe it was a warning. But for those of us who live with this shit daily it is impossible to figure out what is going on. They could have set that bomb for The Skipper expecting it to blow him to kingdom come, they could have set it up to just make noise because he’s The Skipper and they want to warn him he is no longer welcome. They could have screwed up the HME (home made explosives) recipe. There is no Taliban proficiency matrix with which to judge attacks because of the wide disparity in competence between various Taliban units. Look at this article from The Atlantic; even the Lib media is figuring out that we are fighting a bunch of clowns. Of course that brings the real question to mind which is why aren’t we beating the snot out of them but I’m going to leave that alone for now.  From the Atlantic article linked above:

“Nowhere is the gap between sinister stereotype and ridiculous reality more apparent than in Afghanistan, where its fair to say that the Taliban employ the world’s worst suicide bombers: one in two manages to kill only himself. And this success rate hasn’t improved at all in the five years they’ve been using suicide bombers, despite the experience of hundreds of attacks or attempted attacks. In Afghanistan, as in many cultures, a manly embrace is a time-honored tradition for warriors before they go off to face death. Thus, many suicide bombers never even make it out of their training camp or safe house, as the pressure from these group hugs triggers the explosives in suicide vests. According to several sources at the United Nations, as many as six would-be suicide bombers died last July after one such embrace in Paktika.”

There was an attack on the safe-house of one of the security firms in Kabul last week involving two suicide bombers. They popped up well inside the new Kabul “Ring of Steel” checkpoint system (which seems designed to harass internationals) and opened fire on the exterior guards in front of the Hart Security compound. The Hart guards returned fire for a second or two and locked themselves inside the compound as did the exterior guards outside the gates of every other compound on that street. The attackers ran up to the Hart gate and one positioned himself to blow the gate while the other moved back about 20 feet. When bad guy number one blew down the gate, bad guy two also perished because 20 feet of stand-off is inadequate for powerful suicide vests. Almost funny right?

As the fighting season continues the good guys are losing more land and population to the various insurgent groups operating in the country. Teams of doctors are being murdered in the remote provinces, attacks are launched inside the ANP “Ring of Steel” (or Ring of Steal as JD and Haji jan call it) and where is the focus of the Afghan government?  On private security companies of course… yes why not?

Now is exactly not the right time to make all PSC’s illegal and let the ANP and ministry of the interior (MOI) provide security to convoy’s, military bases and internationals working in the reconstruction sector.  There are not enough men in the Afghan security forces to go around and their proficiency in preforming these tasks is suspect (to put it politely). But forget that – the real question is how much is this going to cost. We already pay for the ANP and ANA – if they are going to provide mobile and static security then I guess the millions of dollars being paid to private companies will no longer be needed right?  Wrong. The MOI is planning to charge PMC rates to augment the millions given them by donor nations. One can predict with 100% certainty what will happen if President Karzai goes through with this crazy scheme. The logistics pipeline will start to rapidly dry up, internationals will be unable to move without their (mandated by their insurance) expat security teams and their projects will ground to a halt. Military operations will have to be suspended because there will not be enough Afghan Security Forces to both fight and provide theater wide static and mobile security support.

For companies working outside the wire in the reconstruction sector the absence of international PSD teams will also impact their ability to get insurance (required by contract law) for internationals at reasonable rates.  At exactly the time that internationals operating outside the wire need to be armed the laws are changing to make it illegal for internationals to be armed. How are we supposed to operate now?

I’ll leave you with a translation of the new presidential decree on PSC’s so you too can puzzle at it’s meaning with the rest of us:

Decree Translation
President of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan About dissolution of Private Security Companies
# 65
17.08.2010

Article 1:
Based on point 3,4 article 64 and 66 of Afghan constitution in order to fight the corruption, provision of security for all citizen, avoiding the public disorder and misusing the weapon, uniform and military equipment by private security companies which causes the tragic incidents. After legal and necessary assessment about dissolution of internal and external private security companies within four months I approve the following points.  

Article 2:
Individual volunteer members of private security companies, if they are qualified can be reintegrated with or without weapon, ammunition, vehicles and other on-hand equipment after registration into the police lines and ministry of interior affair is assigned to complete the reintegration of abovementioned companies and finalize it according to the timeline.  

Article 3:
The supplies and equipments of foreign private security companies which have already been registered in ministry of interior in case of transportation in initial signed protocol should not belong to government. After agreement of companies MoI, MoD and NDS should purchase the supplies and equipment and the residential visa of companies’ personnel should be cancelled.  

Article 4:
In case the companies do not agree to sale the equipment their residential visa’s should be cancelled and they can take their supplies and equipments with them out of country.

Article 5:
The internal and external private security companies that are not registered in MoI and established arbitrary, should be abort as illegal security companies and their supplies and military equipments to be confiscated in accordance to the law.

Article 6:
Embassies in Kabul, foreign consulates in provinces also international organizations, NGOs and economic organizations that are active around the country can have their self belonged private security inside their compounds, that should not be allowed to move outside the relevant compound and the size will be determined and registered by MoI.  

Article 7:
Ministry of Interior is assigned to provide external security for all embassies and International organizations, NGO in Kabul and in provinces, provide necessary facilities in registration and issuing license for weapons and equipment individuals private security organizations as mentioned in article five of this decree and provide security for all logistical transportations of international troops from province to Kabul, districts and vice-versa in cooperation with MoD and NDS.  

Article 8:
This decree is valid from the issuance date and the implementation is MoI responsibility.  

Hamid Karzai
President of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

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The Good Don’t Always Die Young

The Godfather of Free Range International – the man who pioneered the techniques, tactics and procedures we use to travel in remote districts was executed last week in Badakhshan Province. Dan Terry had been living in Afghanistan with his family for decades.  He was fluent in both Dari and Pashto, and despite knowing him for over 5 years, I don’t know really much more about him other than he was a humble man who was not comfortable talking about himself. I met Dan in 2005 when he was in Kabul through my physician friend Dr Keith Rose who also volunteers his expertise in Afghanistan. I learned later he was in town because he had brought in several children for free cleft palate surgery provided by the excellent CURE hospital in Kabul where they were his wife Seija head the nursing department. Dan was a religious man who used his love of God as inner strength to help lift up the poor he chose to live among – he had no interest in recounting his years of aid work for attention or pay.

When we were starting out in the security business he taught us how to operate safely, how easy it was to travel around the country (as long as you didn’t have big armored SUV’s) and how to seek food and shelter in remote districts if we ended up on foot for some reason. Dan taught how to operate as a westerner in Afghanistan; be true to your word, speak openly, greet warmly, and always smile.

om right to left Dan Terry, Dr. Keith Rose, and one of Dan's Drivers. This photo is a few years old and taken in front of the CURE hospital. Dr. Rose is one of those self funded doctors (in his case a plastic surgeon who fixes cleft palates and builds ears and noses for kids who had theirs removed by the Taliban) volunteering at the CURE hospital in Afghanistan.
One of the volunteer surgeons and Dan Terry outside the CURE hospital in 2006.

The story  about his loss broke yesterday after authorities recovered the remains of Dan and seven international doctors who had conducted an eye clinic in Nuristan Province. The team decided to take the longer, harder route back to Kabul through Badakshan Province because that part of the country is relatively free of Taliban gangs.

Press reports indicated that the local people warned Dan and Tom Little (team lead and another friend who’s been here for more than 3 decades) that the woods they were going to camp in were not safe but they went as planned telling the people they were doctors and that the Taliban would not molest them. That last fact has been true for many years in Afghanistan. Despite this precedent the Taliban claimed credit for this multiple murder but I find that hard to believe. Afghan Taliban groups don’t do that to western doctors who are traveling in harms way, unarmed and unafraid, to treat people in remote districts. At least they never have before.

Dan’s wife Seija is the director of nursing at CURE international and also makes long trips into the bad lands to bring modern midwife techniques to a population of women facing the highest childbirth mortality rate in the world. Dan and Seija, who raised their daughters in Afghanistan, worked for the United Methodist Church’s General Board of Global Ministries which is an ecumenical NGO based in Central Asia.

There are few men as selfless, patient, kind or as good as Dan Terry. So often it seems in life and especially in war that the good go first. Dan wasn’t a young man, he had lived a long life but he was, to all who knew him, a good man.

Dan was exceptionally gifted at operating outside the wire in the most remote areas of Afghanistan. He was the Godfather of Free Rangers and now we are forced to determine if the deteriorating security situation is going to allow us to or operate in the open. Clearly Dan thought he had a solid plan to get in and out of Nuristan Province. This time the plan failed and the manner in which his team was murdered portends poorly.  This is yet another indicator of how fast the security situation is changing in Afghanistan.  If there is any indication that things will turn around soon I’m not seeing it. Goodbye and God Bless to Dan and his crew…we are better people for having known you.

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