American and NATO troops firing from passing convoys and military checkpoints have killed 30 Afghans and wounded 80 others since last summer, but in no instance did the victims prove to be a danger to troops, according to military officials in Kabul.
We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat, said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who became the senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan last year. His comments came during a recent videoconference to answer questions from troops in the field about civilian casualties.
The title is deceptive. There may be Afghans shot at checkpoints but that seems to be a very rare occurrence. Most of these shootings occur in escalation of force incidents involving rear vehicle turret gunners. To the best of my knowledge a VBIED has never been prevented from hitting an ISAF vehicle by a rear turret gunner although at least one died trying to stop one. That brave soldier would have most likely survived had he ducked down inside the MRAP.
ANA checkpoint on Jalalabad Road, Kabul
There is a problem with the concept that a turret gunner can identify, and identify as friend or foe, a potential Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) in time to stop it with machinegun fire. That problem is the OODA Loop which I discussed at length in this post. There is another problem and that is with the rules that American military units most conform to. There is a standing order that every vehicle convoy leaving a FOB must have four MRAP’s and 16 soldiers at a minimum. If the Commanding General wants to preach about getting off the FOBs to protect the population on one hand, but declares that four MRAP’s and 16 riflemen, at minimum, for “force protection” is necessary, then there is a rhetorical disconnect. Is the local environment safe enough to conduct COIN operations or are the atmospherics such that it is reasonable to anticipate a determined IED followed by SAF (small arms fire) complex attack in all areas at all times in Afghanistan? I believe that in the vast majority of this nation ISAF vehicles (especially MRAP’s) can travel without any concern from IED or SAF attack. I would further stipulate that even if they were attacked, a two vehicle MRAP convoy could easily hold its own against the dozen to two dozen Taliban who comprise your average shoot and scoot squad.
It seems like the “route clearance” packages roll out daily to clear routes, which are active because the villains think the route clearance package may be heading down them.
There is another aspect of the article which I find hard to believe – from the article linked above:
The people are tired of all these cruel actions by the foreigners, and we can’t suffer it anymore, said Naqibullah Samim, a village elder from Hodkail, where Mr. Yonus lived. The people do not have any other choice, they will rise against the government and fight them and the foreigners. There are a lot of cases of killing of innocent people.
The Taliban kill many more innocent civilians than does ISAF. That being the case why have we not seen an increase in ANA recruitment from the families who have had innocents killed by the Taliban? Pashtunwali is supposed to work both ways when it comes to things like blood debt.
Finally the article ends, as these things must do, with a shot at the boogeymen of whatever the War on Terror is now called; security contractors.
“A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, Zemary Bashary, said private security contractors sometimes killed civilians during escalation of force episodes, but he said he did not know the number of instances.”
Let me help the good minister out. There was a fatal shooting last spring by two Blackwater guys (they were working for a subcontractor so technically not BW guys in the eyes of the law) in Kabul and both of them are facing 2 counts of murder each back in America. There was an Aussie national from Four Horsemen who shot and killed what he thought to be a legitimate threat and he has been sentenced to death by hanging by an Afghan court and is currently sitting in Poli Charki. Yesterday a Global team out of Lashka Gar was hit by an IED/SAF attack outside of Marjah. They took 3 KIA and 1 WIA claiming to have killed seven villains as they fought to free up their mates hit in the IED blast. That claim is, as these things normally are, inconceivable. The villains tend to stay behind cover and blast away from around 500 to 600 meters after an IED attack knowing that PSD teams will leave as soon as they have recovered their injured or dead. There is no way the Global team would know how many guys (if any) they hit in a quick, fierce engagement of that nature. Those three examples cover all the shootings in the last three years involving Afghan expat contractors.
This is bad news – a magnetic mine attached to a fuel truck which went off a mile away from the Taj. The driver was OK but it appeared some guy riding by on his bicycle was melted literally into the pavement. Wonder if his family will join the ANA to satisfy a blood debt against the Talibs?
The reason that contractors do not get involved in that many shootings is that they do not ride around with machinegunners in turrets who think that they can stop a VBIED by shooting at it in time. That is the way to solve the entire “shoot the civilians” problem for ISAF – remove turret gunners. They have never stopped a VBIED, have killed over 600 innocent Afghans (and a few internationals) and started at least one riot. When force protection policy matches the COIN population centric rhetoric from on high, the numbers of innocent Afghans killed by “escalation of force” incidents will dramatically decrease.
I have been waiting for this; At Afghan outpost, Marines gone rogue or leading the fight against counterinsurgency. It was a matter of time before the losers in Washington DC and Kabul took their bureaucratic infighting public by leaking to the press. You send in the Marines, ask them to do a job nobody else has been successful doing, and what do they get? A shank in the back. My contempt for FOB-bound bureaucrats knows no limit, but at least the reporter presented a fair, easily understood accounting of the debate. Not so for my boy Dexter “call it in” Filkins of the New York Times, which I will get to in a minute. Check out this quote from the WaPo article on the Marines:
“We have better operational coherence with virtually all of our NATO allies than we have with the U.S. Marine Corps,” said a senior Obama administration official involved in Afghanistan policy.
Some senior officials at the White House, at the Pentagon and in McChrystal’s headquarters would rather have many of the 20,000 Marines who will be in Afghanistan by summer deploy around Kandahar, the country’s second-largest city, to assist in a U.S. campaign to wrest the area from Taliban control instead of concentrating in neighboring Helmand province and points west. According to an analysis conducted by the National Security Council, fewer than 1 percent of the country’s population lives in the Marine area of operations.”
Are you kidding me? Better operational coherence with NATO allies than our own Marine Corps? ISAF would rather have the Marines redeploy to assist in the upcoming campaign for Kandahar? Senior Obama Administration official airing out our dirty laundry to the press? Stand by for a rant:
The Marines like the new ATV MRAP which has been purchased for them by congress. It is cool looking, powerful and is better off road than the original MRAPs. Of course it is not as safe as their 7 ton trucks, can't carry the payload or navigate off road as well and costs about 4 times more than a Marine truck. But you get that from congress, and besides, they look cool.
The 36 or so NATO countries operating in Afghanistan have in combination some 83 “caveats” which allow them to say “no” to any request from ISAF they do not feel like complying with. Most of these “caveats” involve active combat and they read something like, “If you ask us to go outside the FOB and fight Taliban (especially at night) we will say no.” This is why you have a NATO-staffed air base in Kandahar with over 20,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen, yet still not enough “boots on the ground” to deal with a growing insurgent threat. The idea that the Marines have to move into the Kandahar area “because that is where the population is” makes as much sense as the Vietnam era debate about forcing the Marines into the Da Nang “rocket belt”. It was a stupid idea then, and it is a stupid idea now. Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan and if there is to be a fight for the city, it is best done with Afghan forces in the lead, not the Marines. The Afghan Security Forces launched a huge operation over the winter of 2008 to bring the rule of law into Kandahar, which seemed to calm the place down for a bit. All they need to do now is replay that operation and stay on the ground when the operation is over.
The Marines have demonstrated that it is possible to do COIN in Afghanistan and they have a huge advantage. They own all the aircraft, armor, and combat service support they need to operate. When they work in areas where tanks or AAV’s are not effective, they dismount the Marines from those units and use them as infantry. The Marines were forced to operate as independent battalions working for the Army back in 2004/2005 in the Kunar Province. That story is told in the excellent book Victory Point by Ed Darack. I encourage you to read it. Pay particular attention to the loss of the SEAL team during operation Red Wings. Had the SEALs let the Marines handle the mission they had planned, or executed the mission the way the Marines planned it, they would have avoided losing almost an entire team (the surviving team member wrote the book Lone Survivor). The men from SEAL Team 10 were compromised on insert that day – clearly lady luck turned her head on these guys. But when you read how and why that mission came about you will learn why the Marines will not allow themselves to be parcelled out and left to the tender mercies of other services. So, they are executing their assigned missions like Marines do, and it is making the other services look bad. To which I say too bad.
I need to add this; the Marines are not alone in the Helmand. They have plenty of American Army, Air Force, Navy, Brits, Canadians, and a French infantry officer who snuck over with the 2nd Marines (he is apparently an exceptional talent and the de facto S3 alpha for RCT 2) working with them. Col Kennedy told me he has a couple of Army SF A teams in his AO and both of them are absolutely first rate, constantly outside the wire, constantly working with the locals, and frequently involved in big fights where they are always outnumbered and out-gunned yet they never lose. He loves his SF teams and, therefore, I love them too. I am sorry Lara Logan did not spend 3 months with them, because her story on 60 minutes would not have been so damn embarrassing for the SF community, and I would not have gotten so much hate mail for blogging it.
The Marines are in the Helmand because that is where the Army leadership who runs the war sent them. The Marines are sitting in Marjah because that is the key terrain for the drug trade, which fuels a good portion of the conflict. They are sitting on the goose which lays the golden poppy eggs and “anonymous sources” now want them to move into the Kandahar area because the 20,000 troops they have there cannot manage to get off their asses and outside the wire? Nothing brings out the long knives like success… here is another example.
New York Times ace reporter Dexter Filkins assisted by one Mark Mazzetti came out with a piece titled “Contractors tied to effort to track and kill militants“. The story is about two of the biggest anti-military jackasses produced by the war on terror – Canadian “journalist” Robert Pelton and former CNN executive Eason Jordon. They apparently lost a DoD contract due to total lack of performance. I took the piss out of Pelton last year while reinforcing Old Blue at Afghan Quest because of the completely uncalled for ridicule Pelton dumped on a Lieutenant who did not measure up to Pelton’s “man of action” paradigm. Now that whining shitbird is complaining that, We were providing information so they could better understand the situation in Afghanistan, and it was being used to kill people. Bullshit – that is complete nonsense. Why would anyone in their right mind give Pelton millions of dollars to set up a web site? If he did set up a website (I don’t think that he did – that part is unclear) how would he know who was doing what with the crap information he put on it? And if he somehow did come up with anything of worth, why did his contract get cancelled? But the story gets better, Filkins did not rely exclusively on Pelton – he got lots of collaboration from the CIA station chief in Kabul who apparently is feeling serious heat from some sort of “contractor” run program. My favorite action/thriller author Brad Thor took apart this bogus story today on the Big Journalism site – read it here – sour grapes of wrath indeed.
Dexter and his NYT chums need to start doing real reporting and stop phoning in bullshit from malcontents like Pelton and some loser CIA station chief. Here is an example; On Afghan Road Scenes of Beauty and Death, which Dexter wrote last month. I let this one pass when it was published, but now I am pissed so let me perform a 30 second critique. I have driven that road maybe 500 times in the last five years. I drove it before it was even paved and feel I am in the position to correct some of the crap phoned in from by our celebrity reporter… ready? Well hold on a second, you have to read the article linked above so my hasty critique makes sense. OK. Ready?
The “Kabul Gorge” is west of Sarobi, centered on the Mahpar Pass; what you labeled as the gorge is in reality the Tangi valley. Tangi is Dari for “dam” and every valley downstream of a dam is called the “Tangi Valley” which is why there are about 30 of them around the country.
When the British Army withdrew from Kabul in 1842 they went through the Latabad Pass, which is about 7 miles west of the Mahipar Pass. The current Jbad to Kabul road did not exist back in the 1800’s.
It is impossible for vehicles to reach high rates of speed required to “sail through the air” when driving through the town of Sarobi. It is too crowded, with too many turns, and the ANP would not tolerate that kind of recklessness anyway. I have seen plenty of bad accidents on the Jbad to Kabul road, but never seen or heard of one inside the village limits of Sarobi.
Do you see how easy it is to recognize BS when you are not confined to FOB’s or luxury hotels Dexter? The reason I am so upset about the reckless CIA article is it describes operators with backgrounds and experience similar to the several thousand of us internationals who work and live outside the wire. Everyone of us now has a big bulls-eye on our backs. Guess what happened yesterday? An international NGO compound in Lashkar Gah was attacked by two gunmen who had a slew of hand grenades, AK 47’s and one well-designed and constructed suicide vest. The NGO in this compound ran a popular agriculture project and were not involved in poppy eradication or road building – two activities which normally run afoul of the Taliban. Let me make this perfectly clear: it is highly probable that one or more innocent internationals who works outside the wire is going to be targeted and killed because Dexter is carrying water for dumb-as-dirt CIA man and a Canadian shitbird. If I sound like I am pissed off, I am – we now have to dedicate scarce resources which should be going to Afghan reconstruction for counter-surveillance, we need to switch up cars, we now need to vary our movement patterns, and we need to avoid the FOB’s. No more workouts, no more pecan pie and ice cream and a lot more risk because some New York slimy dirtbag is phoning in horseshit in his quest for Pulitzer dust.
Floods like the one which hit Kandahar Province late last month are sudden, fast, and cause a ton of damge to the fragile irrigation infrastructure. That is a ANA truck being rescued from the mud
Now for an interesting outside the wire story. On 24 February Panjawaii Tim was called to the Kandahar PRT to see if he could help mitigate the damage caused by flooding to the irrigation system of northern Kandahar Province. Knowing why he was going, he called the USAID official in Kabul who adminsters the cash for work program Tim and company are implementing to see if he could free up some cash for a massive emergency project. The AID official immediately gave him permission – to the credit of USAID they do work with incredible speed when they have a vehicle in place which is proving successful. Tim arrived at the PRT and was asked how soon he could get workers to clear 36 canals of an estimated 600,00 cubic meters of silt and debris. The conversation went something like this:
PRT SgtMaj (Canadian Army): “When can you get started, eh?”
Tim: “Tomorrow, eh?”
SgtMaj: “No, Tim, I mean when can you really get started, eh?”
Tim: “Tomorrow SgtMaj no shit, eh?”
Three days after being asked to help out Team Canada had 1700 men on the job. That number has increased to over 5600 men working seven days a week.
As promised Team Canada was on the job the next day. Yet they still had to deal with senior guys from other agencies who seemed to be upset by the speed at which they got a massive project off the ground. Every day Team Canada expats are out in the bad lands performing the time intensive task of monitoring and evaluation. As usual, they travel in local garb without armored vehicles or armed PSC escorts (PSC gunmen raise your profile, which increases risk for very little gain in security). They did not have to do this job, they are not paid more cash for taking this additional risk, they could have said no and saved themselves hundreds of man hours of additional work for which (I need to stress this point) they receive not one penny of additional compensation. Team Canada is comprised of mission-focused former Canadian soldiers who look upon these dangerous tasks as yet another opportunity to perform. That is what military men are raised to do – accomplish any and all assigned missions to the best of their ability. You would think for doing this they would receive at least a hearty handshake and an ata boy, not a ration of shit from senior bureaucrats who could not manage to do the same no matter how much time and money is thrown at them.
Irrigation projects are massive undertakings which require constant supervison
The Marines have found a way to do COIN while avoiding the increasing threat from IED’s by getting off the FOB’s, out of the MRAP’s and patrolling on foot the areas they have cleared. A senior DOD official has found a way to provide critical intelligence which our 16 or so national intelligence agencies cannot get from their FOB-bound operatives. Team Canada, ably assisted by USAID managers in Kabul, are able to immediately start work on restoring a critical irrigation system in the dangerous Kandahar Province while putting 5,600 military aged unemployed males to work. What is the common thread in these stories? The long knives coming out to stab these able, hard-working, mission-focused guys right in the back. Mission-focused people and organizations specialize in getting things done with speed and efficiency. Bureaucrats focus on process, procedures, their individual careers and guarding rice bowls. Nothing upsets bureaucrats more than success by anti-bureaucrats who work the system to achieve the results they are unable to deliver.
And let me insert a word about “contractors”. Team Canada, Mullah John, Raybo and their colleagues are the Marines of the current reconstruction effort. There are a few thousand men and women outside the wire getting the job done, despite the myriad of difficulties which all of us work through everyday. But to mainstream media and the do-nothing bureaucrats who infest the FOBs and Kabul Embassies, “contractors” are de facto scum bags. Let me insert this cool paragraph from a column posted by Ed Gillespie today on National Review online which has nothing to do with what I’m ranting about but is connected to the targets of my scorn:
“Thus, it should come as no surprise that in films and on television, trial lawyers are cast as virtuous crusaders while American soldiers are bloodthirsty villains or hapless victims. University professors are almost always noble and underpaid, corporate CEOs corrupt and overpaid. Wealth is only inherited, never created, and people are poor only because they were born that way, never because of bad decisions or behavior. Conservative politicians are usually unbearable hypocrites, people of faith are for comic relief, and our environment is under constant assault by capitalism’s wantonly wasteful ways.”
The legacy media, just like their elitist fellow travelers in Hollywood have constructed a preferred narrative about contractors based on a few bad examples and their own inherently biased world view. Their callous disregard for those of us who accept the risk to get important work done is disgusting. They could give a shit if their agenda-driven screeds lead directly to the deaths of brave men and women who demonstrate more courage and commitment daily than they will in a lifetime. Do you believe that Pelton or Filkins, or Eason Jordon (what the hell kind of name is Eason anyway?) or that fat ass know-nothing CIA station chief would double their work load and triple their level of risk for no additional compensation? Would they even consider it? Of course not…they probably think Team Canada is a bunch of rubes … and in turn I think they are a crew of elitist scumbags who lack courage, commitment, and personal honor.
I remain optimistic about our chances for success in Afghanistan, but as Mullah John remarked after reading my post about the 2nd Marines, “Optimism is a sign that you are not fully aware of the situation.” He said that in jest (I think) because he likes being clever. The three stories above lead me to believe John isn’t clever, he is clairvoyant.
I’m still on the road trying to make my way back to Jalalabad from a big implementation work group meeting in Lashkar Gah. Step one of the journey back was to hitch a ride to Kandahar where Panjawaii Tim promised to pick me up and take me out to his project HQ in the city. It is a large, comfortable place which has something I have been looking forward to… a few cold beers. The plane was late which was annoying – driving around Kandahar at night is risky even for guys like us.
We were delayed getting across the Tarnak River bridge by an American convoy – the bridge was blown up a few days back and the convoy was trying to maneuver around it in the river bed. Michael Yon has the story about the loss of that vital bridge here. It turns out the delay was a good thing because as we cleared the bridge area and headed towards the city the sky in front of us lit up like a flashbulb. “That’s not good,” said Tim as his cell started to ring. The boys back in the safe house reported a large explosion in the vicinity of the Karzai compound about 300 meters west of our destination. Then we saw two more explosions, an impressive sized blast followed by a huge VBIED sized blast, both looked to be near our safe house. Then Tim’s cell phone went dead, which was completely uncool.
The boys standing to on the roof of the Team Canada safe house. Of course I did not have my good camera so this shot looks like crap. The four expolsions bracketed this house on three sides and were very close. There was still a lot of small arms fire going off when this picture was taken – seemed to us to be coming mostly from the Afghan security forces.
We were entering the city by then and could see an American QRF force racing towards the area where most of the international compounds, Afghan government offices and the main prison are located. Trying to talk your way through police checkpoints as an attack like this unfolds is a bad idea we switched to plan B. Panjawaii Tim knows Kandahar like I know Jalalabad; he started working his way through side streets, which were full of people milling about looking towards the blast clouds. There were lots of broken store windows – in fact all of them were broken as we worked our way parallel to the main road. We did have to stop once to talk our way through a police checkpoint – it is always funny to see the police react when Tim or I walk up in local garb with our international ID’s and tell the chaps we’re ISAF and need to get through. The Afghan security guys have no idea what to make of us and look like their seeing a Jinn or ghosts when we talk to them. Or maybe they think were crazy for even being there – hard to say.
One of the Team Canada guys is on leave so I was given his kit to use tonight – don’t know what is going on with me eyes in this picture – my pocket camera sucks
Being out and about in local clothes and a beater truck is a huge risk when these attacks go down. We had to get to our safe house, so we had no choice but to push on and with Panjawaii Tim at the helm we avoided most of the hasty blocking positions thrown up by the security forces. If tonight’s explosion had been followed by some sort of direct fire attack we would have aborted our attempt to get home and headed back to the FOB. When we arrived we found the compound at a “stand to” with all hands armed, alert, and calm.
Here is Panjawaii Tim’s report on the incident:
“The first bomb was at the Al Jadeed market: 10 20 killed, unknown number injured; second was a large bomb at the Sarpoza prison. 20 -30 killed and 100 injured allegedly; third was the bomb near PHQ, unknown number injured/killed; fourth was bomb near Mandigak mosque, unknown number injured killed. First bombs lured the ANP response out of PHQ and then they were hit. US and CDN units seen responding with ANSF assets. No reports of a prison break at this time. We heard Taliban propaganda broadcast over a megaphone in our neighborhood within half our of attacks. Many ambulances and other vehicles seen transporting casualties to Mirwais (Chinese) Hospital.”
You know what all this means? It means no sitting on the roof and drinking cold beers with my buddies. It also means that I have to get up in the middle of the night to pull sentry duty. Fucking Taliban; killing civilians for no damn reason, damaging people’s stores and homes for no damn reason, and spoiling what looked to be a good piss up….again for no damn reason. I hate them.
My latest trip included a quick stop in a dusty, sparsely populated corner of Afghanistan where I found my best friend Colonel Paul Kennedy USMC. Paul and I were instructors at the Infantry Officer Course (IOC) 20 years ago, after IOC we were both pulled out of the last quarter of the Amphibious Warfare School to work together on a project for then LtGen Krulak. We later ended up in Okinawa at the same time where we were battalion operations officers (we were still captains then). We both were selected to be Recruiting Station commanders back in the late 90’s when every other service were failing to make their annual recruiting quotas. When it comes to leading Marines and accomplishing the mission, regardless of what that mission may be, Paul is one of the guys I’ll admit is better than I was at leading Marines.
RCT 2 base camp in a remote corner of southern Afghanistan. There was nothing here two weeks ago and there will be a lot more in the weeks to come. Say what you will about the big contractors like KBR but they have learned how to put up a solid camp quickly and there is nothing easy about that
Paul is currently commanding Regimental Combat Team 2, which has around 6000 Marines on its rolls. They will ultimately comprise half of the ground combat power for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (forward) when it arrives in country sometime this spring. Paul has developed into one of the finest combat commanders of his generation. His combat tour in Ramadi, Iraq where he commanded the 2nd Battalion 4th Marines (2/4) was a battle from the start, which has been documented in books by Bing West and Oliver North. He was hard pressed on several occasions, sustaining heavy casualties while inflicting much heavier losses on his attackers. Despite fighting virtually every day during his year in Ramadi he was able to restore city infrastructure, open local schools and he never shot an artillery round or ran tac air into the city.
Paul and the 6000 or so of his closest friends here with him have a very tough road ahead of them. They are taking over towns which have been giving the British army fits over the past years while simultaneously taking on new areas under solid Taliban control. Paul has no intention of using the “penny packet” outpost system currently being used by allied forces in places like Musa Qala. He has no intention of allowing his main lines of communications (LOC’s) to be cut or dominated by the Taliban. He has no intention of leaving his maneuver battalions on FOB’s, nor does he plan to be on his for very much of the next year. He intends to find, fix and destroy every armed group operating in his AO so that he can get to the real mission assigned to him, which is to hold and build. Nobody knows how to use violence of action to take the fight to insurgents better than the Marines.
The MV 22 Osprey is way cool; fast, quiet and no transmission fluid leaking all over your clothes and gear from the overhead. I have never been on Marine Corps rotary wing transport which does not leak transmission fluid all over you. My first reaction was to panic assuming the transmission box was dry but you get used to it after a while.
Paul already has one of his maneuver battalions on deck, the 1st Battalion 2nd Marines (pronounce one/two in Marine speak), commanded by LtCol Mike Manning, a student of ours back when we were on the IOC staff. Mike and his battalion command group spend four to five days a week on operations with joint Marine/Afghan Army patrols, living and sleeping in the rough like traditional infantry. Two of his three rifle companies are out in the boonies at all times. They are not finding too many bad guys in the Naw Zad area, so they spend most of their time interacting with and helping out the local population. As I have said in the past, there are very few places in this country which do not welcome American infantry. The caveat is that the Afghans would prefer the Americans- or British or Canadian or Norwegians to hang around for a year or two to eradicate the conditions that drive the cycle of violence. One of the places I would not have expected to welcome the Marines would be Naw Zad because most of the farmers in that area have fought for or support the other side in this conflict. That makes little difference to the Marines who are more than willing to let bygones be bygones as long as everyone can get along. It is when the local villains decide not to play nice that the true difference between the Marine way of fighting and theirs becomes evident.
Raybo (see below) and 1/2 Marines in Now Zad chatting up the local leaders. Note the number of black turbans and also note that the Marines do not wear body armor or helmets – their weapons are in easy reach which is expected by all participants and no big deal. An armed society is a polite society. This is what COIN looks like; the locals who accepted this shura are responsible for the security of all participants. The Americans are responsible for acting the part of guests. Trust is built upon actions not words.
Western armies have three options upon enemy contact: violence of action in the form of direct assault by heavy infantry, using supporting arms to soften the enemy followed by a direct assault, or using direct arms in combination with direct fire to punish the enemy before withdrawing without making physical contact. The last option, although the most common response by NATO units, is the least preferred. Fire without maneuver is a waste of resources and accomplishes little.
As I have said in the past humans can adapt to aerial bombardment over time but they can never adapt to another human who has come to kill them at close range. Bombs ultimately do not scare humans; humans scare humans. Just as the Koreans and Chinese learned to avoid the “yellow legs” during the Korean War and Somalis learned to fear the “black boots” and the Haitians rapidly figured out not to tangle with the “white sleeves“, the Taliban in Northern Helmand are about to get the same graduate-level education that their southern brethren started receiving over a year ago when Duffy White and his Regimental Combat Team arrived in country. Trying to play shoot and scoot with the Marines is a dead mans game. Use IED attacks on the Marines and they will quickly get “left of the boom” to collect the scalps they are due. The local Talib leaders can stay here and go with the program to reap the benefits of American generosity as we re-build this shattered land or they can leave for some other shit hole to cause mischief or they can try to fight. There are no longer any other options for them in the Helmand Province.
Paul (on the left) with his Benelli M4 12 gauge shotgun in Ramadi talking to one of his company commanders. The Iraqis could handle units which returned fire and withdrew in their vehicles. They could not handle units who dismounted and directly assaulted them. Although counter-intuitive violence of action keeps friendly and noncombat casualties down by forcing villains to break contact quickly making them easier to target with direct fire. Which is the polite professional way of saying smoke their dumb asses.
The Marines from RCT 2 are going to prove predictable too. When attacked they will respond with direct assaults and once contact is made they will not let go until their tormentors are decimated. Direct assaults break the cycle of violence by stripping the bad guys of experienced fighters. Experienced fighters who keep their wits in the face of direct assault are dangerous adversaries. They can cost you a fortune in time, ammo, or blood – the three commodities you never have enough of in combat. Less experienced cadres will do one of three things: stay in place because they are too freaked out to move; break contact and run because they are too freaked out to stay; or quickly surrender because they are too freaked out to fight. Afghans do not have a cultural history of standing firm in battle and slugging it out toe to toe with heavy infantry. Only men of the west fight using that style of warfare, which is why western armies have dominated those of other lands since the battle of Plataea in 479 B.C. I am not saying the Afghan Taliban does not have brave fighters….they do, but brave individual fighters do not a cohesive combat unit make. The shock of rapid, violent assault by multiple platoons from multiple angles is something only a well trained, well equipped, well supported western army can handle. The Talibs of Helmand Province are accustomed to ISAF forces engaging from a 1000 meters out, dropping some tac air or arty on them and withdrawing. RCT 2 doesn’t play the drop ordinance and withdraw game. They play the close with you and stay on your ass until you are dead game.
Jeff “Raybo” Radan and I heading into the far reaches of Helmand Province. Raybo was an instructor with Paul and I at Quantico but he got out after that tour and became a hippy. He is now working for The Boss under Mullah John as the USAID implementer for Helmand Province cash for work programs. Like me Raybo is here for the duration and like me his established relationship with the current Marine Corps battle leaders allows him to flatten the complex aid hierarchy which is critical to making complex programs effective.
Although I was able to talk at great length with Paul about his combat experience that was not why he wanted to see me. I have always wondered if the theories about human factors in combat we studied so diligently, argued over so passionately and taught to our students 20 years ago turned out to be true. They did but I don’t want to bore you with that least I catch you know what from you know who. Paul has the combat part of his mission down cold but understands that his band of Killer Angels has a much harder mission than seeking out and destroying their enemies. They need to master the “hold and build”, which is not something combat units train to do. The true mission of RCT 2 is described perfectly in today’s excellent post by Richard Fernandez at the Belmont Club.
“Kaplan describes how in the process of muddling along through intractable situations, the US military has become the master of the possible, simply because they have had to be. Kaplan predicts they may succeed in Afghanistan yet again and that very success will become a poisoned pawn.
The secret to their success, Kaplan says in his article Man Versus Afghanistan, is that the men in the field have discovered what their political masters have long forgotten: legal concepts are not enough. Governance doesn’t just mean installing someone, anyone – let alone someone as corrupt as Karzai- and recognizing them as sovereign. Governance means the ability to harness a population’s aspirations to make things work. To paraphrase Lenin’s famous observation on Communism, counterinsurgency is the freedom agenda plus competence. And the worst thing about the US military, Kaplan says, is that they’ve learned to do it. Kaplan describes how McChrystal has approached the problem and is at some level alarmed at how good at it they’ve become.”
The Marines have the Darth Vader helmet rig too which prevents wind burn while allowing the crew chief to talk over the intercom while leaning outside the bird. This is a Marine CH 53 which is leaking transmission fluid all over us as we hitched a ride north. We always thought that was a good thing because it meant that there was transmission fluid to spare. As big and fast as the 53 E model is the Osprey leaves them in the dust without getting corrosive fluid all over your new kindle which retired knuckleheads like me are prone to pull out and read when bored during long flights.
Mullah John and Raybo who are working the southwest for Ghost Team are going to be helping with the hold and build as they implement a very clever USAID project, which has flat lines of authority, flexibility, and speedy implementation built into the project design. This program is the follow-on to the very small project Panjwai Tim and I did last summer, and to the everlasting credit of USAID, has been reinforced by extra cash. Mullah John has over 10,000 Afghans working in Helmand, Farah and Nimroz Provinces and the only internationals involved are Raybo, an Aussie bloke I don’t know in Farah, and Mullah John. That is an unbelievable accomplishment considering the project started last December. Despite this success the best thing one can say about the other US Government agencies who are responsible for the “hold and build” is that they do not hinder our efforts in the cash for work programs currently being implemented by Ghost Team. The various funding streams for reconstruction, with their associated rules and multiple agencies who manage these complex programs from the safety of big box FOB’s makes the job of executing the “build” portion a supremely difficult task.
A USMC 7 ton truck which is unique to the Marine Corps. It is a powerful truck which can travel off road with ease. It has a lot of ground clearance which mitigates IED blasts because the power of IED’s diminishes by some factor for every inch the blast must travel upwards from the point of detnation. Amy or Keith from MIT probably know the formula but what I know is that the Marines have not lost anyone riding on these trucks to an IED. Better yet the back box can hold a squad plus of infantry who are primed to pour out of the thing and launch directly into the attack in good order. You just cannot do that when getting out of an MRAP nor can an MRAP carry that many men. This truck allows the Marines to do what they do best when ambushed – rapidly take the fight to the villains
What is going to be even more difficult is reinforcing the success of Team Canada and crew as they grow what was once a small cash for work program into a regional reconstruction vehicle. The big boys in the reconstruction biz did not hire a platoon of former AID executives and a squad of retired Marine Colonels to lose business and prestige to a band of small upstarts who have accomplished in months what they have not been able to do in years. The Marine Corps, given their history of innovation, their institutional bias for action and our personal relationships with the current commanders are a perfect match to do effective hold and build.
Last month Chief Ajmal Khan Zazai returned to the Zazi valley. As I wrote about here his first attempt to return home had to be postponed after the local American army commander declared him an AOG (Armed Opposition Group) leader. The reason for this label is that Ajmal and his tribal police ran off the representatives of the Kabul government, sent to the valley a few years back, after those representatives tried to steal tribal lands and in one case, raped a male child.
From right to left Chief Ajmal Khan Zazai, Shah Mohammad and his Tribal Police chief Amir Mohammad moments after they landed in Gardez last month.
The mission of ISAF includes the following:”supporting the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan”. That sounds great on paper but is not always a good idea in practice. The representatives of the Kabul government have a spotty record. Some are good men who want to help establish a functioning state. Others are interested exclusively in lining their pockets and the pockets of their family with as much money as they can get; whether it be through bribes, pay for play schemes or outright theft. The initial political appointees to the Zazai Valley were sent packing back to Kabul shortly after they arrived. So now, in the eyes of the FOB bound American military, the Zazai Valley tribal police and their leadership are considered AOG (just like the Taliban they are constantly fighting). Check out this correspondence between The Boss and the young commander of the closest Combat Outpost (COP) to the valley:
Sir,
Thank you for your message. Any development project in Jaji would be great, but I would like to ensure that it ties into the district development list/tribal development list, in order to ensure that the district leadership is not undermined.
Unfortunately, Ahjmal Khan Jaji is not a tribal leader at all. I do not want you to come into this environment thinking that to be a fact. Additionally, the security force of Amir Muhammad is an illegal force that is not endorsed by MOI.
The facts are that Azad Khan, the Jaji Sub Governor, has a great relationship with the tribes a focus for his district. The ANSF in this area (ANP and ABP) are a professional/legitimate force that does a tremendous job in keeping the best security for the people.
I’ve CC’d my higher HQ, as well as representation to Department of State and the PRT, to ensure that they are tied in to your work. Again, I would love to see development here, but I want you to have the facts and go through the proper channels before beginning work. Thank you for your time.
VR, XXXX
The Zazai Valley is in the southeastern corner of the Tora Bora Mountains; it was known as “The Gateway to Afghanistan” during the Soviet-Afghan war. The valley is key terrain which is currently under friendly control thanks to the efforts of Ajmal and his tribal police force. Steven Pressfield has an 11 part interview with Ajmal which you can find here. It’s interesting reading. Ajmal is a Canadian citizen, a fluent English speake who can describe the enemy situation in his tribal area in clear, concise terms. He clearly is on our side in this conflict and wants some American grunts to move into his area to lend a hand.
The Tribal Police from Zazai Valley in dismounted to clear a known ambush site on foot before allowing the convoy through. They are funded by Ajmal who provides weapons, uniforms, and vehicles. They have no belt fed machineguns, RPG’s or mortars. The Taliban have plenty of each.
The Boss sent a Ghost Team operative named Crazy Horse with the Chief to do the advance work for a USAID funded cash for work programs targeting the Zazi Valley. The Horse is a South African giant (6’5″ 230lbs) who serves in the British Army reserve and is now a resident of Scotland. Like many British soldiers he goes to great lengths to protect his identity. Crazy Horse (his call sign from back in the day) asked that I not ID him by name so from now on he’s The Horse.
As the convoy ferrying Ajmal and company into the Zazi Valley left the Gardez area the Chief met with local delegations at every small village along the route. Not all of them were thrilled to see a 6’5″ Scotsman tagging along. These elders had high hopes nine years ago when we ejected the Taliban. Now they face significant danger from those same dirt bags and have been fighting them without any help or assistance from ISAF or Kabul. How long would it take you if you face similar circumstances to start wondering if you are backing the wrong side in this fight? 5 years, 10, 20? Leaving these guys out in the cold to fend for themselves as they guard critical terrain is nothing short of a national disgrace in my humble opinion.
Prior to his arrival we had asked for a meeting with the US Army battle space owner at the big base in Gardez – that request was denied. But the army figured out that something unique was happening when they noticed large crowds gathering along the route into the Zazi Valley with their UAV surveillance platforms. Once Ajmal arrived at his family compound he stayed up most of the night with the senior members of the 11 tribe shura. The next three days were identical from dawn until well past dusk. He held multiple meetings with 30 to 40 elders from each tribal grouping which lasted around 50 minutes each. Ajmal displayed more stamina, leadership and drive than any one human should be expected to posses. These meetings are not something which you can just head fake your way through – they are deadly serious business concerning the future of the entire border region; and many of his followers are not impressed by the American military or Kabul government. Nobody in the border region of Paktia Province is mistaking ISAF for the strongest tribe.
For three days all day this was the scene at Ajmals family compound. There were thousands of people camped outside waiting for their turn to meet or waiting for their elders to finish so they could head home. The American military noted this assembly when they saw it with their UAV’s and, as is most often the case, had no idea what was happening just a few miles from their closest outpost.
The visit concluded with an election of a new Chief for the Zazi tribal counsel. The tribal counsel includes Commander Aziz Ola’ from Jaji Midan, the Chamkani tribal elders, the Dinda Paton Tribal elders and the District sub governor who is from the area and not an appointee from Kabul. They elected a retired Sharia Judge from the Taliban days by the name of Kazi.
The new chief of the Zazi Valley tribal counsel Judge Kazi – the headdress is his badge of office
The border area of Loya Paktia which includes Paktia, Khost and Paktikia Provinces is a region where the tribes have relevance. It is also one of the places where a platoon of American troops could make a huge impact on the flow of Taliban fighters and material into Afghanistan. There are 35 Haqqani affiliated fighters and four known Pakistani ISI affiliated organizers in the Zaizi lands which the Tribal Police would be more than happy to run off of if they received a little help. This could be a text book economy of force operation but it would take sending in a platoon (or an A team, or some other similar outfit) and leaving them there with the Afghans to provide actual security as opposed to leaving them locked inside a COP isolated from and of little use to the local tribes.
Ajmal stopped in for a late dinner after driving to Jalalabad from his valley, a dangerous 14 hour trip. He may not look it but he was exhausted
Yesterday I talked with a Washington attorney who had taken a leave of absence from his law firm to spend seven months in the Helmand Province as part of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade. He had been an infantry officer while on active duty years ago but functioned as a civil affairs officer during his latest deployment. He told me that in 7 months he had spent a total of maybe 10 hours inside a vehicle and wore out two pairs of boots walking all day every day to the villages around Naw Zad. By the end of his deployment he and his Marines knew every village elder, every family, every child, and most of the goats and sheep who lived in the area. They knew them on sight, interacted with them daily and when a military aged male showed up in his area who was not a resident they rounded him up immediately to determine who he was, why he was there, who could vouch for him as a legitimate visitor, where was coming from and who he had been with. That is counterinsurgency 101 and you cannot do it any other way then to be out with the people all day and all night and operating on foot. You cannot do COIN by patrolling in MRAP convoys a few hours a day before heading back to the FOB for ice cream, pecan pie and a mandatory head count by the First Sergeant.
The battalion at the Gardez FOB called The Horse to ask if he knew why thousands of people had migrated towards “some compound in the Zazai Valley.” When he told them what was up they asked to meet with him and Ajmal when they headed back to Kabul. The meeting turned out to be a joke. A visibly upset major demanded to know why, if the Zazai Valley tribal police were on their side, had they not reported to the Americans the location of IED’s? Ajmal, by this time exhausted and barely able to talk, explained that they are not in the “sell IED’s to the Americans” business. Reporting an IED for the cash reward is a common money scam in those parts and increases the number of IED’s being made. The only IED’s the tribal police have seen were aimed at them and all those had gone off. He added that if they do gain knowledge of an IED cell on their lands they will bring both the IED’s and the heads of the IED makers to Gardez.
The Americans remain skeptical, Ajmal remains frustrated, Crazy Horse who, like myself, has spent his adult life as an infantry officer is heart sick and I am so fucking pissed off I can’t see straight. It is impossible to be optimistic about the future of Afghanistan unless the military USAID, State Department and all the other organizations with unlimited funding and influence get out of the FOB’s and to live with the people.
My morning email contained a heads up from Mullah John who is home on R&R. 60 Minutes had broadcast a show on the American Special Forces last night and the segment was “disheartening” to quote the good Mullah. After watching it I was left speechless – it was worse then “disheartening,” it was awful. It is hard to know what to say when you see stuff like this but not knowing what to say has never stopped me before so here it goes….
The segment was called “The Quiet Professionals” which of course is a great name for an organization that invites 60 Minutes for a two month embed. Hit the link above to see the piece, because I doubt anyone reading this blog caught it when it aired last night on CBS. It appears to be a 13 minutes of Lara flirting with SF dudes or as a commenter on the CBS website noted about Lara’s narration “It’s like listening to a child explain black holes.”
Lara Logan CBS news chief foreign affairs correspondent
Of course the segment has all the annoying crap one associates with Special Forces – only use first names, wearing sunglasses to “protect their identity” and digitized faces for all the Americans not wearing sunglasses. Does anyone believe that the Taliban is going come to America and hunt these guys down some day? Of course not but the Taliban routinely hunt down ANA Commandos in their home villages but none of them have their faces digitized or identities hidden. Why?
The 60 Minutes crew caught three shootings on film which are all in the segment. The first victim was one of the SF team leaders who was shot during a raid by one of the Afghan soldiers they are training. The second shooting was an Afghan Commando who shot himself in the foot during another raid. The final shooting was committed by a member of the SF team who shot two children who were sitting in the back of a vehicle that was approaching a village where the rest of the team was “catching an important Taliban commander.” He was shooting at an approaching vehicle with a suppressed weapon to warn it to stop… great thinking, but we’ll get to that and a recent shooting of an imam in Kabul last week later.
Everything the “Quiet Professionals” did in this story was (to me) suspect, from shooting at targets down range while Afghans are standing right next to the targets, to screaming obscenities at them, calling them “fucktards” and inflicting group punishment because they couldn’t master the “load, unload” drill, which I know from experience your average 11 year old can master in little under an hour of professional instruction.
Want to know something our ‘elite’ SF guys don’t seem to know? Afghans don’t cuss. To call an Afghan a motherfucker (a word used frequently in every conversation in the American military) is a grave insult that would, in the local context, need to be atoned by blood. I cannot stress this point enough and if, during my frequent forays into the tribal bad lands, I used that word even in jest I would have been killed long ago. One of the secrets that I and my fellow outside the wire expats use in the contested areas is respect for local culture coupled with big confident smiles; that’s why we are able to do what every USG expert contends cannot be done.
I could go through this piece point by point, harping on quotes like wearing beards is “a mark of respect among the locals” which nonsense but why bother? The piece speaks for itself so let’s get back to this shooting business.
Let me set this up; one of the SF team along with an ANA soldier is pulling security on the road leading into a village where the rest of the team is looking for a ‘high value target’ (HVT in mil speak). When an old truck rumbles down the road towards him the SF guy fires ‘warning shots’ from his rifle which has a suppressor on it. When he runs up to the truck he discovers there were two young boys in the back and he had shot them both.
What should the guy have done when a truck load of males is approaching at “high speed” on the rutted bumpy dirt road leading into the village? He should have done what we do – walk out to the road with a big friendly smile, hold up your hand, have them stop and then tell them to sit tight until the Americans are done. It is that simple – the biggest weapon us Americans have in Afghanistan is a warm smile and the ability to at least say “Tsenga Ye?” (“How are you?” in Pashto). I have been in this exact situation about 100 times over the years and so viewed this incident with no small amount of disgust.
What if the truck is full of Taliban? That’s what binoculars are for. A truck full of bad guys is a target easily defeated by two riflemen who are weapons free and waiting for them within hand grenade range. They are in a truck and can’t use their weapons effectively until they are out of the truck. In other words they would be sitting ducks. That is not true if they stop at some distance away and deploy from the truck which is the Taliban MO. But the truck in this instance didn’t do that – it just drove down the dirt road as fast as the dirt road allowed until the kids in the back started screaming and a crazy American popped out of a treeline and started running towards them. The driver is not going to hear shots fired from a suppressed weapon so until he sees something to make him stop the firing suppressed warning shots tactic is pointless.
There is one more aspect to this story which I find deeply disturbing as a military professional. The SF guy whacks a 14 year old kid dead center in the chest with his main battle rifle from less than 50 yards away and when he runs up to the vehicle the kid pops up and starts giving him shit about it? What the hell kind of main battle rifle are we using these days? Don’t get me wrong; I was pleased to see the child survived, as was the guy who shot him, and everyone else involved. But when you shoot someone in the chest with a military grade rifle then that someone is supposed to go down and stay down. Whatever cartridge, barrel length, and suppressor combination that team is using is obviously less than adequate. They should be carrying 7.62×51 mm rifles. If they can all press twice their body weight then they can handle a few extra pounds of proper battle rifle and ammo. They also can probably handle the strain of carrying binoculars too – killing children is bad on morale especially when you could avoid shooting them using standard infantry techniques like making friend or foe determinations with binoculars.
Better yet they may want to consider slowing down enough to issue a proper raid order with brief backs and inspections. You have to be a 10th degree ninja master to pull a two man covering element job by standing in the middle of the road day dreaming about Lara Logan which is how this unfortunate incident started.
Developing unconventional military tactical skills takes years of dedicated training coupled with mission focused outside the box thinking.
Which brings us to the latest bad news from Kabul; the shooting of an important imam who was in his car with a bunch of his children when a convoy driving down Jalalabad road shot him dead. He reportedly failed to slow down when approaching the convoy which is the standard story you hear from ISAF every time they shoot up a car load of civilians. I think the body count is well over 600 at this point and not one of these unfortunates did anything unusual by Afghan driving standards. You can read about that here.
Here is the thing – I can’t think of any incidence in which a suicide bomber blew himself up in Afghanistan with passengers in the vehicle. I also can’t think of a single incident in Afghanistan in which a military gunner successfully stopped a suicide bomber from driving into his convoy. This escalation of force was senseless. I can recall examples when gunners have been killed leaning out of their cupolas exposed while trying to engage suicide VBIED drivers while the rest of their crew survived the explosion. They would not have been killed had they ducked down inside their armored vehicle.
I am as fond of brave fighting men as the next guy and admire the courage those kids showed trying to protect their fellow soldiers. But the escalation of force tactics currently being used are stupid and should be changed immediately. What happened in Kabul is murder – you can not justify shooting a driver who has a car load of children under any circumstance. We have too much history here and should know what a VBIED looks like – this shooting is just as stupid as the shootings involving Italians in Herat last summer, or the Blackwater guys in Kabul last spring.
When you live behind walls everything on the other side of those walls is a threat. When you isolate your forces from the population you are supposed to “protect,” then your forces have no ability to distinguish friend from foe; threat from normal routine or the good from the bad. Gen McChrystal can gob on all he wants about the importance of “COIN” and, “getting to know the people” blah blah blah…. it doesn’t matter because he sets the operational rules here and under his rules no conventional American troops can leave a FOB unless they have at least four MRAPS and 16 riflemen. How are you supposed to, “protect the people” if you can only roll around in large road-bound convoys? How can you, “protect the people” if every night all your people have to be back on the big box FOB’s eating ice cream and pecan pie?
These SF guys are supposed to be the ones who know how to operate outside the big bases with the local population but did you notice where they are living? On a big box FOB; isolated and removed from their Afghan charges – which was obvious because none of them spoke a word of Dari or Pashto. My children can get through formal greetings in both Pashto and Dari and they were here for just a few months – it’s just not that hard to learn these things when you live in the local environment. Those SF teams should be out here free ranging with guys like The Bot, Mullah John, Panjiwai Tim and myself. They are good troops being poorly served by commanders who keep them isolated and removed from the people they are supposed to be protecting. They will never be able to gain the situational awareness required to do real COIN if they remain confined to the Big Box FOBs. That is the real story, and as usual CBS missed it.
Jalalabad finally has some winter weather with much needed rain. The Hindu Kush has sparse snow on their peaks; the weather has been unseasonably mild and dry so far this winter. A dry winter is a disaster in a parched country that relies heavily on small scale farms to feed its people. So the rain is good but only if it stops soon. Nothing is straightforward in Afghanistan even when it comes to rain – a few more days of this will render most of the housing structures unstable. Houses made of mud bricks do not handle the wet well.
It is good to see the Army using the truck bypass and avoiding the congestion of downtown Jalalabad – good for the Army who has a clear route with good observation, and good for the locals who have enough traffic congestion to deal with daily
Yesterday Dexter Filkins filed an interesting story on the recent conversion of the Shinwari tribe to the Afghan government side of the conflict. The Shinwaris have around 400,000 or so members in the southeastern portion of Afghanistan and are a major tribe. They have openly declared themselves to be against the Taliban which is a significant political victory for the Karzai regime but will have limited impact on the ground. They have a strong tribal militia that has no problems running Taliban off their lands. Throwing their prestige behind the government is one way to avoid having their tribal militia disarmed and declared illegal. I wonder if that represents a more pragmatic approach to using the tribes by Kabul?
I have learned from a State Department Foreign Service Officer (who worked the deal) that this announcement was brokered by the Army battlespace commander in conjunction with the Department of State. That is most encouraging and demonstrates the utility of allowing professionals from our Foreign Service to slip outside the security bubble and engage tribal leaders directly. As hard as I am on our State Department this move deserves nothing but praise and respect.
The Tribes of Nangarhar Province. The vital route one runs along the south side of the Kabul River which is just south of Lal Pur District in the east to Jalalabad in the western portion of the province.
The Shinwaris control the area in and around the Route One corridor and it is vital to their collective interests that trade flows smoothly. As Dexter noted in his piece, the American SF team from Jalalabad flew into the Mahmand Valley to offer support last summer (Mohmand is the tribe; Mahmand is the valley and Dexter got them wrong…need to stop in the Taj and chat us up Dexter – we’ll get you sorted). I commented on that story at that time bitching about commuting to the village from their FOB.
I have since learned that the CJSOTF (Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force) teams wanted to stay out in the villages, but the “battle space owner” did not want CJSOTF teams operating in the Shinwari territory for reasons unknown. On a side note, the mission of CJSOTF is primarily to partner with “indigenous” forces in order to prosecute what’s known as FID missions – Foreign Internal Defense, i.e. partnering with the local security forces to counter an insurgency). SF teams are a perfect economy of force option which can, if done in enough places, have a significant impact on local security conditions and perceptions. But they cannot do FID off a FOB – something General Petraus pointed out in Iraq years ago.
This is what a large tribal shura looks like – the Shinwaris meeting at Farmi Hadda. Good thing it wasn’t raining last week.
ISAF continues to confine itself to large bases while manning static outposts (some located in indefensible valleys) in key regions of the various provinces. Their focus is on resupplying these positions, responding to periodic attacks on the vulnerable outposts, and supporting the frequent patrols who venture from the outposts to engage local leaders. Their biggest threat is from IED’s because they are road bound in a country with few roads. The counter IED battle includes paying cash to locals when they alert ISAF to IED’s. Do you think that might be incentive for locals to set off an IED every now and then in an effort to raise a little spending money?
Despite self imposed force protection there are units working exceptionally well with local tribes. This excellent article about Army Captain Michael Harrison is a great example. However, Captain Harrison is the exception – he was requested by name by his brigade commander because he had served a tour in Kunar Province and was effective at engaging local villagers. There are not that many rifle company commanders who have that unique qualification.
The small cohort of company grade military leaders with successful tribal engagements under their belt are rarely sent back to the same area they worked in prior only a few are stationed here at any given time. From that small cohort fewer still will find themselves in the same area they once worked and none will have the freedom of action currently enjoyed by CPT Harrison.
Yesterday morning there was a reported IED attack on the Surkh Rod Chief of Police, who is a spitting image of Stonewall Jackson, only bigger. Much bigger than me, with long grey beard and the hard eyes of a man who has known battle all his life. Surkh Rod District has some issues, but targeting the COP this close to Jalalabad – and one who has a pretty solid control on things in his area would have been a serious escalation in villanery. Turns out there was one IED that detonated about 400 meters behind a joint ANA/ANP patrol. They reportedly found another at the scene. The IED was small and poorly sited – there is no shrapnel damage to the tress across the road and minimal damage to the road bed.
The blast energy from this IED was 180 degrees out from the road. This is not unusual in the east and I, wish it were more common in the south where IED’s are much more effective.
We found the joint patrol a few miles away where they were searching every vehicle and all passengers heading towards Jalalabad. They said six men were in the field, pictured above with a cell phone, and that they had command detonated the IED. The patrol turned around and engaged the men who ran off and they found another IED which they said “was just an IED” and they weren’t sure where it was at the moment. The machine gunner spoke pretty good English and they were running a very professional checkpoint. The kind of IED attack they described is indicative to us of IED makers who want to turn in their products to the military for cash.
These checkpoints function very smoothly when they are done correctly. We think the reason they are joint is because the ANP do not have a great reputation, while the ANA is held in high regard by most Afghans. The presence of ANA troops at hasty road checkpoints is a good way to let the local people know this in an above board security screening where everyone gets searched and baksheesh is not welcome.
Jalalabad was on lock down for the international community today. Declared a “white city” by the UN due to two reports; one of “five female BBIED (Body Borne Improvised Explosive Device) bombers who are looking to strike important targets” and one concerning reporting “spectacular attacks,” while President Karzai is in London attending an international conference. There has never been a female suicide bomber in Afghanistan to the best of my knowledge and there is no historical correlation to President Karzai attending international meetings and “spectacular” attacks. We aren’t buying it.
We ignored the White City warning and carried on with our daily routine. International reconstruction specialists cost the taxpayers of America over $1000 per day, so locking them down for no reason is a very expensive mistake. The military knew the principal threat spooking the UN security people was bogus, but they don’t talk to each other much. Both the UN and the military are operating inside huge bureaucratic closed loops – neither organization has the capacity to get into the local environment to conduct real time assessments. Only the small fries in the reconstruction business: JICA, CADG, CHF, etc… pay attention to White Information because they have to in order to operate. The large bureaucracies react to bogus intel which flows around the closed, insulated loops because their analysts deal with emails not people.
Speaking of money our army had taken to shuttling personnel between the airport and PRT in helicopters. You could walk between the bases in less than 15 minutes or drive it in 5. Does the military honestly believe that the 200 meters of Route 1 separating their bases is so dangerous that it warrants flying helicopters between them? Of course not – but flying in helicopters is easier than running four vehicle MRAP convoys and every time a soldier drives outside the front gate of a base he has to be in a four vehicle convoy with at least 16 riflemen. Who the hell can afford to spend money this way? Helicopter crashes in Afghanistan routinely kill two to three times more military members than the Taliban has ever been able to kill even when they mass their best fighters against isolated positions held by only a handful of Americans. Why is flying in a helicopter safer than a 15 minute walk or 5 minute bus ride? In large bureaucracies cost efficiency and common sense are not part of the operational paradigm.
There are people getting it right on the ground right now and they represent the only feasible way forward. But small fries have no champions in Washington and getting the job done right in areas where the big boys are floundering is not proving to be relevant at this time. One can only hope it gets relevant in the near future.
The attack on Kabul yesterday was yet another demonstration of how inept the Taliban are at the planning and execution of a simple raid. The attack has been described in the press as “audacious” and “brazen” which is true. All their attacks in downtown Kabul are conceptually bold military moves; but they accomplish nothing. A better description of their performance would be incompetent. Seven heavily armed attackers – one in a bomb-rigged ambulance killed three policemen and two civilians, one of them a child. They failed to make it onto their objective retreating instead into the most popular market in downtown Kabul which they then destroyed. That is a dismal performance by a raid force which had gained complete surprise when they unmasked themselves in Pashtunistan Square. Dismal isn’t even strong enough to describe how poorly the Taliban executed the raid – how about “more stupid, incompetent and wasteful of personal time then a Nancy Pelosi press conference?” That doesn’t really roll of the tongue but you get the idea inshallah.
Chim Chim sent this photo of the attack, taken from the Presidential compound. There was zero chance of the seven attackers getting anywhere near this compound yesterday.
The best chronology of yesterday’s attack was filed by Dexter Filkins of the New York Times. As an aside, he filed an excellent outside-the-wire style piece on his efforts to help the schoolgirls who were attacked by men on motorcycles throwing acid in their faces last year. It is a long story with an ending so typical for Afghanistan, that it is iconic in my book. I have mentioned Mr. Filkins once in a previous post where I took the piss out of him for reporting from inside the US Military security bubble. After reading A School Bus for Shamsia, I take it all back. He is developing a sense for this conflict which few dedicated reporters have developed. He could develop into the main stream media’s Michael Yon if he invested the time required to develop his own situational awareness.
View from inside the Presidential Compound. The mobile security team from the compound had joined the fight in the opening moments.
In military tactical terms, yesterday’s attack is classified as a raid. Raids are designed to attack soft targets which are not prepared for and do not expect direct attack. Getting onto the objective without being discovered is the easy part of most raids. The hard part is withdrawing your force back to friendly lines – a problem which was not relevant to the Taliban attackers who had no plan or intent to escape once they committed to the attack. The execution of a successful raid requires meticulous planning and preparation, including multiple, detailed rehearsals in order to condition men in contact to function with speed and purpose and ultimately, achieve the difficult task of getting back across friendly lines.
The attackers had no supporting arms to coordinate, no aircraft, no inter-squad communication, no higher headquarters communication, and apparently, no real plan. One of them gets shot trying to bum rush the guards outside the Central Bank and detonates himself; a cluster of 3 to 5 invade the Faroshga Market, tell the locals to leave and barricade themselves on the upper floors where they are eventually killed; and then an ambulance, which has slipped through the security cordon, detonates in Malik Asghar Square inflicting the only KIA’s during the entire event. So the big raid ends up destroying the new market downtown, which the people of Kabul are proud of because it is resembles modern shopping stores like they see on TV. The seven man Taliban raid force could have done dozens of walk through rehearsals on the very objective they were going to attack to tighten their assault plan time-line down to the second. But they didn’t because when it comes to military tactical proficiency they suck which indicates that they do not have organizational strength expected from a third rate High School football program. I’m talking about American football here folks – football which requires players to use their opposing digits – and a third rate High School team would be expected to learn something about the game after 8 years of playing it. The frigging Taliban are as stupid as the day is long.
The day's attacks started in Jalalabad, not Kabul, with a single rocket launch towards the Jalalabad Airport. It hit tree branches just after launch, detonating next to a local farmer's house. This is the fuse and motor nozzle.
Damage caused by the air burst, which was due to gunner error - hitting trees with a 107mm rocket - morons I swear...
The usual victims - a small farming family just trying to get by. The Taliban's ineptitude with modern weapons increases the risk for normal Afghans who normally would not be targeted or affected by the war.
Continuing with the day’s theme of “stupid Taliban attacks” we headed east to an ambush site near the Torkham border. If this were in fact an insurgent attack it would be very bad news for us reconstruction types. There are places known for Taliban attacks and places where we expect no Taliban activity due to the number of tribal inhabitants who will not allow fighting Taliban into their areas of influence. We had several Reports that a fuel tanker had been hit in an ambush in an area where we expect zero Taliban activity so we needed to go talk with the locals around the ambush site to figure out what was up?
This truck was hit by an RPG, but only after it was drained of fuel.
The RPG went straight through the empty tanker. The warhead did not arm because the shooter was too close. You can see the fuse imprint clearly where the rocket punched out of the tank.
Turns out one quick look at the truck and we did not need to talk to anybody. As is the case in over 60% of fuel tanker attacks in Afghanistan this was a case of fuel theft. We ran into some Pakistani’s who work for the trucking company and were also investigating the reported ambush. They said they had not heard one word from or about their driver and his assistant. Fuel thieves – they are as stupid as the Taliban completely unable to come up with a good plan and execute it.
The raid in Kabul yesterday was meaningless. It will have minimal impact on the Kabul government and the internationals who work with them in the various ministries. It was just one of the many security incidents which are a normal part of the daily landscape in the contested portions of the country.
The day which started with a poor rocket shot, followed by a key stone cops style raid, and a blatant fuel theft ended with the report of a large bomb located on private property just outside of Jalalabad:
More stupidity - a homemade bomb which failed to function
It was HME (home made explosive) which was mixed so poorly it could not be detonated. The blasting cap blew, but the bomb was a dud. ISAF tried to blow the bomb in place – but it still did not go – just a low order “poof.” Amateurs. It appeared to be directed at local people and no doubt, the latest shot in an ongoing land dispute.
The Taliban have been fighting us for over eight years and yesterday’s raid was the best they could do, given their vast combat experience? That raid was a fiasco, which indicates to me we have time… a lot of time to get this thing right. All we need is the will.
Friday started with a disturbing report – a fuel tanker attack on the Jalalabad side of the Duranta Dam tunnel. Ambush teams operating less than a mile from the Taj! Not good news, so after the incident scene cleared out we went for a look-see.
This turned out to be a traffic accident, resulting in a large fire, which is a routine event on Afghan roads.
A trucker had hit an old leaky fuel truck and the resulting spill caught fire. The various civilian security services had got the story right by late afternoon after issuing an alert for an armed attack inside the Jalalabad movement box just hours before. The local military folks did not know what had happened until we gave them a heads up while clearing the scene.
The cause of the accident
If this had been an ambush of tankers with RPG’s, as initially reported, it would have had an immediate effect on the international reconstruction programs throughout Nangarhar Province. It would not have impacted American or Afghan military convoys on the road, nor slowed the flow of commercial traffic, but it would have showed an alarming amount of cooperation between insurgents and local people. That kind of cooperation, were it ever to occur, would lead to an exodus of most of the 50 or so internationals that operate in and around Jalalabad. The few who remained would have to harden – which costs money, lots of money. That reported attack represented critical white information concerning local atmospherics in a very key portion of the human terrain environment.
Here comes a US MIL convoy. Maybe they had no idea about a prior reported attack and thought this was a typical traffic accident - who knows? They were obviously not curious about the burned tanker or crowds of by-standers. And I'll bet a month's pay they did not note or report on what should have been an urgent white information CCIR (Commanders Critical Information Requirement).
Fuel recovery - it takes a village to do anything in this country.
Today’s little drama illustrates in real time how our military is ignoring the effort to maintain situational awareness via the active collection of white information because of their focus on “red intelligence.” Tracking and targeting active combatants is what the military is designed and trained to do. It is also what they have been doing for the past 8 years. Generals McChrystal and Flynn can write all the papers they want explaining why this approach is missing the point and counterproductive. Historically, radical military change comes in the face of or after defeat. That will not happen here – the Taliban could not in a thousand years engage in a set piece combined arms battle with any ISAF military. They could not stand up to the Afghan Army either, with their tanks, artillery, gun ships, experienced leaders, and international mentors.
Focusing on the population – that takes getting out and living with the population. There is no other way. This is supposed to be what we are now doing with our military operations.
And there they go, no doubt straight through the city instead of on the truck by-pass, but what are you going to do? SOP's are SOP's.
You can see decentralized, white information-focused operations at work in the chaotic areas bordering the large military installations in the south. All trucks entering any ISAF base have to sit in lots, known as “cool down” yards, way off post for at least 24 hours. The trucks bring with them butchers, bakers, tea houses, mechanics, and assorted other small shop keepers. ISAF keeps a close eye on these areas where multiple base agencies have some jurisdiction. The Marines have security, the Brits are the local law enforcement. There is a constant stream of trucks, military convoys and civilian vehicles. The Marines are from a dismounted tank company who left their big beasts back home to come out as part of the Brigade Support Unit (BSU.) The BSU is built around an artillery battalion because the Marines do not really have Brigade Support Units, except for on paper, and when one mobilizes it is better to build it out of an existing battalion.
Brit MP's in the shanty town which has sprung up outside a main base; they appeared to be looking for somebody.
The Marines out organizing the local merchants for an impending move. They have learned quickly how to get these things accomplished by getting Provincial government buy-in and support for their base expansion efforts.
The Marines who keep an eye on this lot have a remarkably deep understanding of who the regular shop keepers are, where they came from, and in some cases, what they were doing before. That is because they are bored being assigned to a base defense role and spend a lot of time out there because they can. This will pay big dividends in a few months when all these people will be forced to move across the highway when the base expands.
The Brit MP's were on the trail of something moving rapidly through the butchers, bakers, PCO shops and tea tents.
Strykers heading out to the highway
105 cannon mounted on a Stryker - that is a pretty cool looking piece of gear.
On the hunt - the Brits are off to another part of border area to continue their mission.
If a young sergeant and a squad of dismounted tankers can master the civil terrain nuances of this sprawling, unregulated township outside one of their bases, do you think they could accomplish the same in a village cluster a little further to the south? When we are able to deploy like that, we will be able to obtain the white information needed to conduct a counterinsurgency. At that point we will have started down the track to winning in Afghanistan. Until then, we our wasting time, money and people.
The local butcher, propane, tire repair store.
There is a fad in the first world called “low impact environmental living.” Afghans are masters at real low impact environmental living: no refrigerators, no electricity, no cardboard packages or fast food bags, and if you’re lucky, a trucker will have a large bag of dried buffalo dung for sale to cook your food over. If somebody could just get these people access to the internet they could make a fortune selling carbon credits to Algore and friends.
The string of failures starting with the Jihadi attack on Fort Hood by an American Army Major, followed by the fiasco of incompetence demonstrated by multiple agencies in the Christmas Day undie bomber attempt, followed by the CIA FOB Chapman attack were huge strikes. Three strikes, but nobody is out because that is the nature of bureaucracies. The only time large bureaucracies hold individuals accountable for major failures is when they can pin the blame squarely on a junior member – that is the way it is.
Major General Michael T. Flynn, USA has followed up his blunt criticism of the intelligence portion of our Afghan operations with a solid paper, co authored by Captain Matt Pottinger, USMC, and Paul Batchelor of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), on making intelligence relevant in Afghanistan. These men are at the forefront of the counterbureaucracy battle fighting against the tide of mediocrity that has defined our military efforts to date. I am compelled to point out that the picture on the cover of an Army general officer who is engaging some key elders while wearing body armor, helmet, SUNGLASSES, and with a rifle strapped to his chest is illustrative of exactly how not to conduct COIN. I don’t know if that was done on purpose or not, but the last thing a general officer should be doing is showing up in his Ivanhoe armor and a rifle strapped to his chest to talk with local leaders. No body armor, no helmet, no rifle, and certainly no sunglasses is how a senior leader demonstrates calm, trust in his men, and physical courage in this environment. My kids who have spent months at a time here could tell you that.
Adapt: Riding around in large armored SUV's is not adapting. Bullet proof vehicles seem safer, but in a country where the villains plant IED's large enough to flip a LAV or open ambushes with RPG's these vehicles are targets. Adapting means low profile so that you blend in with the ground clutter making it difficult to be recognized or targeted.
The Flynn paper defines the problems plaguing our efforts with insight and clarity. The authors describe the efforts of several battalions who have gotten it right. They focus on the 1st Battalion 5th Marines, who after clearing Nawa of Taliban focused on identifying local centers of gravity which they could influence to improve the security situation on the ground for the local Afghans. This is an important distinction – they focused on making the environment safe for the people, not for them, which in the context of Afghanistan military operations is not the norm. ISAF forces focus their effort on “red” incidents not “white” information. Red incidents mean IED strikes, which is to say the entire effort of most units is to find and kill IED syndicates, so they can drive around in their MRAPS without losing people. White information is all about the human terrain on the ground, i.e. who is in charge of what, what are the major concerns of the people, what factors are degrading security for the average Afghan etc… White information can only be gained by sustained contact with the local population which is exactly what 1/5 did when they settled into Nawa after clearing out the Taliban.
Decentralize - Afghans operate commercially that way nation wide. In secure areas where there is a sustained ISAF presence the markets thrive. This is not a point which is lost on many Afghans.
Faced with rifle companies spread thinly on the ground and without access to buildings, computers, internet, or even reliable electricity, the Marines adapted by spreading their intelligence thinly and tasking the rifle companies to provide the atmospherics needed to gain an understanding of exactly what was impacting the local population so they could deliver security customized to the needs of the Afghan villagers. In a summer which saw a dramatic increase in casualties from IED’s countrywide, the Marines of 1/5 drove down the IED incident rate to zero. The local people actually chased off Taliban IED teams themselves. That is nothing less than astounding. There were similar successes posted by American Army battalions which are highlighted in the paper too. But I have to add that kind of success cannot last forever in an active insurgency – there were loses in Nawa this week to IED’s.
Harden: Living outside the wire in the south forces one to adapt to the situation as it is. Adding three feet to the exterior walls and topping them with concertina is not practical for outfits like ours because it costs money we do not have and draws too much attention. So we harden and this is just phase one - when we are done anyone coming over the walls will face a nightmare of razor wire, tangle foot and aggressive dogs.
This white paper is full of good things but all good things must come to an end and at the end of this paper there are no good things which I can detect. As the new Obama surge comes into the theater it will bring with it massive new headquarters – a MEF forward for the Marines and an airborne divisional headquarters for the Army. Of the 30,000 additional troops thrown into this fight, at least 5,000 of them will be found in these two headquarters units alone. Adding layers of additional bureaucracy to the already bloated, essentially useless staffs here now will render the immanently reasonable suggestions contained in Gen Flynn’s paper moot. Which brings us back to the consistent pattern of failure which defines the Central Intelligence Agency, The Department of Homeland Security, and the National Security Council. Eric Raymond at the Armed and Dangerous blog defines the problem succinctly:
“When I look at the pattern of failures, I am reminded of something I learned from software engineering: planning fails when the complexity of the problem exceeds the capacity of the planners to reason about it. And the complexity of real-world planning problems almost never rises linearly; it tends to go up at least quadratically in the number of independent variables or problem elements.
I think the complexifying financial and political environment of the last few decades has simply outstripped the capacity of our educated classes, our cognitive elite, to cope with it. The wizards in our financial system couldn’t reason effectively about derivatives risk and oversimplified their way into meltdown; regulators failed to foresee the consequences of requiring a quota of mortgage loans to insolvent minority customers; and politico-military strategists weaned on the relative simplicity of confronting nation-state adversaries thrashed pitifully when required to game against fuzzy coalitions of state and non-state actors.”
There are few things in the world more complex than the web of Islamic extremist organizations currently at war with the governments and peoples of the west. One of those things that is more complex is the situation we now face in Afghanistan. We are supporting Afghan government officials who may or may not be more of a problem then the Taliban, we are trying to engage the population based on tribal affiliations which are not always clear or relevant, and we are identifying, targeting and killing “commanders” who have proven to be easily replaced. William McCallister, in an interview by Stephen Pressfield does the best job of defining the complexities of the Afghan human terrain:
“Tribal identities exist in Afghanistan, but local communities and interest groups may not necessarily organize themselves based on these identities. Individuals tend to define themselves in terms of a group identity. A qawm, or solidarity group, is a collection of people that act as a single unit, which is organized on the basis of some shared identity, system of values, beliefs and or interests. It can describe a family group or reflect a geographical area. It can specify a group of people united by a common political or military goal under one jang salar or martial leader. Members of a village; the inhabitants of a valley; a warlord and his retainers; a strongman and his followers; a bandit and his forty thieves, or the local chapter of the Taliban are all aqwam (plural).”
More Harden : Lash the protector dog: fast, smart, mean as a snake, and like most Afghan dogs, friendly only to foreigners. He is less then a year old, and already the king of the compound. We have decentralized an important part of the compound defense plan - the running fast as a horse and biting the shit out of you part - to Lash
Afghanistan is a complex place where the situation on the ground can range from actively hostile to completely benign depending on the district, valley, town our isolated village. An intelligence system designed to collect against a peer level threat with its associated defense, intelligence and political structures is not the optimal organization to employ in the counterinsurgency environment. Add to that system layers and layers of additional bureaucracy and the results are a system designed to fail. This comment from FRI regular E2 paints a bleak picture for the intelligence specialists assigned to the FOB’s.
“I read MG Flynn’s paper as well, and while he makes some excellent points, he failed to mention that part of the reason our intelligence sucks is that all our collectors are mostly stuck on the FOB. That’s why we’ve become so hooked on technical intelligence. The kind of relevant intelligence that Flynn yearns for comes from meaningful interaction with the populace, period. In my experience with Afghans, especially Pashtuns, if you suddenly roll up into their village with your MRAPs, Star Ship Trooper suits, and “foreign” interpreters (even if your terp is from Afghanistan, if he’s not from the neighborhood, he’s “foreign”), they will tell you two things: jack and sh*t. We are reminded constantly that Afghanistan is a country broken by decades of war; no one trusts one another. But trust is only obtained by building meaningful relationships with people, and our current force protection policies make the process of building rapport impossible. As I sit here at my desk, on an unnamed FOB in Regional Command East, I would dearly love to grab a few of my soldiers and head out to the local market to see what’s going on in town today. Perhaps I could report back to my leadership that local farmers are concerned about a drought next year because of the light snowfall this winter, or that the mullah down the street is preaching anti-coalition/government propaganda. I’d get this information from shop keepers and kids that I’ve built a relationship with over the past few months. But I cannot just walk off the FOB because that would be the end of my career. Instead, I’m going to check out BBC.com, call a couple guys I know like Tim, and continue to be disgruntled that I have NO idea what’s going on outside my FOB.”
Now here is the thing – as poor an effort as we seem to be making there are more then a few places where district level governance is developing into an effective effort. I am almost certain that back in late 1986 the Soviets had won the Afghan War. They were already committed to pulling out by then and nobody was really assessing the situation on the ground with an eye towards staying. But as often happens in a counterinsurgency war, they had won, but did not know it. I mention that only because it is impossible to say with certainty just how good or how bad we are doing in Helmand or Kunar or Paktia. The only meaningful measurements are found at the district level which means sustained engagement. If we can get off the FOB’s and do that….who knows? I bet that when the tipping point comes we will not see it. If ISAF can adapt by decentralizing their forces off the FOB’s and hardening in every district center it will change the trajectory of this war.
