Category: Long War

More interesting news is coming out of Kabul as the drive-by media continues its impressive efforts trying to explain our Commander in Chief’s continuing dithering on what to do about Afghanistan. His obvious attempt at moving President Karzai out of the way has ended in abject failure straining relations with the Kabul government to the point of breaking and driving Karzai right into the hands of the very people we have been trying to get off the Afghan stage. An excellent explanation on how the administration completely screwed themselves, the Afghans and the rest of us can be found in this Power Line post.

But the stupidity of our current administrations efforts are not what got the blood up this morning….what do you expect from a President with no prior executive experience and Hillary Clinton?  This article from the New York Times about tribes resisting the Taliban is why I’m pounding away on the laptop in a Dubai hotel lobby. Authored by Dexter Filkins the article announces a new strategy to called the Community Defense Initiative which is designed to engage and arm the tribes in the east and south. The article talks about our bearded Special Forces helicoptering into Nangarhar Provinces Achin district with flour and some other nonsense to support the tribal chiefs who have run out the Taliban. It talks about other SF soldiers “fanning our across the country” to engage the tribes and support them in defending their lands and way of life from depredations by the Taliban. Dexter Filkins writes a great article and it is worth reading but unfortunately as in most things published by the New York Times it is complete bullshit.

Chief Ajmal Khan Zaizi who has been featured in a series of blog posts by Steven Pressfield  and is a friend of The Boss. The Boss gave Ajmal a very competent Ghost Team member to start some major cash for work programs in his tribal area on the Pakistan border. We had worked out the logistics of going into the Jaji valley which is surrounded by areas under Taliban control and sent out a query to the local US Army COP about using their LZ to fly our guy out when he was finished. Here is the response we received:

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.

Yes indeed the Jaji Sub Governor has everything under control, the security situation is fine, and the tribes apparently content. That seems to be at odds with everything anybody knows about the portion of Paktia Province which borders Pakistan but there it is. How can the local American Army commander be so stupid you are no doubt asking yourself and the answer is he probably isn’t stupid – he is doing what he has been told to do.

You see the American military is an effective military leviathan which, unlike most other components of American society is focused on one thing – its assigned missions.   Mission accomplishment trumps everything else for the military and they are expected and will forfeit their lives and the lives of their men to accomplish their assigned missions.   The main mission for our military in Afghanistan is to nurture and support GoIRA – the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.  In most places we know and work in the government is more of a problem for the local people than the Taliban. This is a well documented fact which has zero impact on the American military.

Tribal Chiefs like Ajmal Zaizi are focused on their people and must protect them from outsiders who try to take their lands, rape their children, and disrupt the delicate balance of tribal social mores which allow all to live in peace. I have not heard of one reported rape of a child by Taliban but you can find dozens of articles about Afghan Security Forces being accused of that heinous crime with a simple goggle search. So when a tribal chief drives all the unsavory characters preying on his people off his lands who is it that he is driving out?  In Ajmal’s case it was both the Taliban and the GIRoA officials appointed by the Karzai government in Kabul.

Thus a western educated, populist style leader who has been on the run from the Taliban, who lost his father to the Taliban, who has driven out the Taliban, established good order and discipline in his strategic valley and even reached across the border into Pakistan to strike up alliances with the hard pressed Shia tribes located in the Parrots Beak area (didn’t know there were Shia there did you?  Me either but I know how important that is and also how much those people need friends like us) is now considered by the U.S. Army to be an AOG leader.   AOG means “Armed Opposition Group” which means Ajmal is now lumped in with the Taliban and drug barons.

If a tribe is strong enough to stand up to the Taliban it is also strong enough to stand up to crooked politicians appointed by Kabul and their pedophile policemen. In areas with a strong governor and decent infrastructure like Nangarhar Province the tribes do not have problems with Afghan Security Forces because they will tolerate no misbehavior and the governor would be prone to quickly, decisively and one hopes brutally deal with miscreants who rape and pillage the population they are supposed to be protecting. In isolated portions of the country with little infrastructure and a weak provincial government this is not the case and thus men like Ajmal do what they have to do to secure their people and that means driving predatory government and security forces off their lands.

The FOB bound local American military units have little ability to observe or understand what is happening. They rarely leave their bases and when they do they have such large areas to cover that they can do little more than a “drive by” to show the flag or hand out some food stuffs or meaningless trinkets. The Americans have a mission to support GIRoA. Tribes with the cohesion and combat power to drive parasitic representatives of GIRoA off their lands are by default bad guys even if those same tribes are also keeping the Taliban wolf away from their door.

I know that I make this point over and over but feel compelled to point out yet again that one cannot “do” counterinsurgency by commuting daily from a large FOB. The concept of “bearded Special Forces” fanning out all over the country to help the tribal chiefs is a joke. What needs to happen is to put American troops into these tribal areas to live with, train with, and become allies with those tribes. There is no other way and you don’t need “Special Forces” for that mission – regular infantry can do the job with no additional training. The SF guys should shave off those beards anyway – 8 years of incompetently planned and executed “HVT” missions have given them a bad reputation while accomplishing nothing of strategic significance. What the hell is this helicoptering into Achin district by the “bearded soldiers” to pass out flour all about anyway? They could drive into the damn district in less than an hour, rent a nice safe house, move in and hang out for a year or two thus demonstrating a little commitment to the local tribes while simultaneously actually learning something about the place and its people. If they were really smart they would leave the beards, shed the uniform, rent local vehicles and ditch the stupid MRAP’s – that way the bad guys would not be able to target them with IED’s so easily – but that kind of thinking appears to be a bridge too far for the army these days.

The American military is a world leading institution when it comes to developing and using emerging technology.   Unfortunately that technology now allows our bloated, top heavy staffs to micromanage units in the field to an unprecedented degree. The results were predictable back in the 80’s when my Marine peers and I were first dealing with the impact of satellite position reporting systems, radios which actually worked most of the time and commanders who had video screens in their operations centers. What we predicted back then and are seeing today is the stifling of initiative on the ground combined with the removal of the tactical decision making by the commander on the ground. Our OODA loop has now been slowed down so much by the ability of multiple staffs far removed from the battle to insert themselves into the process that we risk becoming as slow and cumbersome as the old Soviet Army. If we do not step away from the computers, comfortable quarters, lavish DFAC’s and get our collective asses out into the field to really protect the population we are going to end up with another mark is the “lost” column. There is no excuse for that.

The best way to view the current state of play in Afghanistan is to start at the top of food chain and work down to what is important.   The presidential election remains undecided and now Abdullah Abdullah has pulled out of the run-off election. Our Secretary of State says that means nothing. I agree but for different reasons; in the end it does not matter who is leading the country – the Afghan government will not be a proper COIN partner and will continue to be part of the problem regardless of how these elections turn out. Conducting a runoff will only give the bad guys more opportunity for mischief while accomplishing nothing.

Another big story from up the food chain concerned former Marine Captain Matthew Hoh who resigned from the State Department because he no longer knew why we are fighting in Afghanistan. As a fellow Devil Dog he will be spared my harsh opinion because that is the way us Marines roll – you want to hear us taking the piss out of fellow Marines you need to be wearing the Eagle Globe and Anchor. The only thing relevant about young Mathew is the level of play he is getting in the drive-by media.

This story is a brush back pitch to President Obama from his friends in the press announcing that the honeymoon is over.   When the story broke Michael Yon and I chatted about it on the net and the first thing I asked him was how many Afghan villages had he visited that  would not be thrilled to see a platoon of American (or ISAF but to the Afghans they are all Americans) infantry move in to stay for a long time? Like me his answer was very few. Michael has been over much of this country often riding along with the Bot or I. I have been in a lot more places than Michael and can name only a few that would not immediately welcome the semi-permanent deployment of American troops. On his most important point Hoh is wrong as wrong can be.

Mister Hoh stuck to his guns when offered a seat at the big table by the ambassador which showed commendable conviction and character. But the reason the military fights here is because it has been told to fight here. Once that decision is made the men at the pointed end of the spear fight for each other. That is the nature of professional warriors.   If the host nation government isn’t a reliable partner – that is supposed to be a problem for the State Department. But hear me when I tell you the Afghan government is not going to change and it is a bigger obstacle to peace than the Taliban.

The overall security situation is what it is too; which not good in many places. The disturbing attack on a Kabul Guesthouse – which was UN MOSS (minimum operational safety standard) compliant and had some UN workers in residence again shows the bad guys can penetrate the tight security in capitol.

If it was the bad guys who attacked this particular target which just happened to be the UN team shipped in to monitor the presidential elections. Lot’s of people were unhappy about having those do-gooders running around and in this country when people are unhappy about you being here they let you know in unequivocal terms.

Weapons are not allowed in the official UN billets outside Kabul but they are temporary Guesthouses which there were not more internationals killed in this attack.

If the Taliban did this (which I doubt) the attack too is not enough to change the overall security picture. If the Taliban follow up with multiple attacks directed at internationals it would force all of us to operate like we did in Iraq back in 2005 and 2006. That would virtually halt all reconstruction activities until a massive security effort could be designed and staffed. That is not going to happen; all the sides in this conflict and all the surrounding countries are making too much money on the massive effort being expended in support of the Afghan reconstruction endeavor. The Taliban are Afghans and they know how the foreigner gravy train works.

If the Taliban had to strength and ability to really go after internationals they probably would but they don’t. But they can penetrate the Afghan security blanket which covers the capitol and cause all sorts of problems. The only way to prevent that and really the only way to have any real impact at all is to focus our efforts on the Afghan security forces. Our current mentoring efforts are not effective. We do not “embed” with the Afghans really. They are no Afghan liaison officers in any of the tactical operations centers resident in every battalion and brigade headquarters. An Afghan brigade HQ is a map table and a few radios – ours have dozens of people all with computer work stations and large video screens streaming in multiple feeds. We have hundreds of EuPol police officers here doing God knows what. They are not out with the Afghan police and seem to hang out in large purpose built buildings sending each other emails or surfing the internet. Kabul will be safe on the day you see EuPol officers or ISAF military out manning the checkpoints with the Afghans and not one day before that. Until then we will continue to see effective car bombing and armed raids. Check that – I doubt we will see more armed raids because in most of the Guesthouses I know in Kabul there are so many armed internationals that the bad guys would be shredded by the time they made it past the gates.

If we want to rapidly build the Afghan Security Forces the only way to do it is to live and work with them 24/7. We need to adopt them, feed them, pay them, and watch after them. What can a US officer really do when the Colonel he is mentoring cannot feed his own troops because the money to buy that chow is siphoned off by officers above him? If they make a stink about it the Afghan Colonel is sure to be relieved and thrown out on the streets. The current mentors have guys fighting daily while dealing with problems they would never encounter in the American system. They do the best they can to support the unit they are assigned to mentor, but they are not really embedded. They live of separate compounds inside the Afghan compounds completely separate from their charges. Mentoring means leading by example while living and fighting with your host country troops. It does not mean setting up a parallel TOC, camp, cook house, offices, and coffee shop where the Afghans are not welcomed or allowed.

The military is bitching about the fact that the Afghan government is not a reliable partner and a big part of the insecurity problem. This is true but the military can’t change that. They can make the Afghan military part of the solution but not by treating them the way they treat them now. We need to get the troops off the FOB’s and out with their counterparts in the villages. We also need to pull out of areas where the local people do not want our help – which is not that many areas in the country as a whole.

Every officer in all the NATO forces is taught the Principles of Warfare which are pasted in below:

• Objective: Direct every military operation toward a clearly defined, decisive and attainable objective. “The ultimate military purpose of war is the destruction of the enemy’s armed forces and will to fight.”
• Offensive: Seize, retain, and exploit the initiative. Even in defense, a military organization is expected to maintain a level of aggressiveness by patrolling and launching limited counter-offensives.
• Mass: Mass the effects of overwhelming combat power at the decisive place and time.
• Economy of Force: Employ all combat power available in the most effective way possible; allocate minimum essential combat power to secondary efforts.
• Maneuver: Place the enemy in a position of disadvantage through the flexible application of combat power.
• Unity of Command: For every objective, seek unity of command and unity of effort.
• Security: Never permit the enemy to acquire unexpected advantage.
• Surprise: Strike the enemy at a time or place or in a manner for which he is unprepared.
• Simplicity: Prepare clear, uncomplicated plans and concise orders to ensure thorough understanding.

Not one of these rules are being followed in Afghanistan. Not one. The most important principal above is unity of command but we don’t come close. Gen McChrystal cannot tell his NATO subordinates to do a damn thing they don’t want to do- they will just call home to their respective capitols and tell the politicians to tell them not to do what they were just told to do but do not want to do. We have no mass and therefore cannot really do economy of force operations. Simplicity is a concept all but forgotten by the modern military and nobody can tell you in clear concise terms what the objective or our current efforts are.

The Kabul government will never be a reliable partner but the Afghan Army could develop into an effective force which, inshallah, could help drive Afghanistan into the functioning core of nation states (that should be our objective by the way.) General McChrystal should focus on that goal and continue with his efforts to send the REMF’s home, get off the FOB’s and get more troops into areas where they can protect the population.

I have been in Dubai on a business trip for the past week. The boss is spoiling his talented group of Canadians and I in preparation for expanding out efforts into the most contested districts in the country. He didn’t have to spend the money as my colleagues and I are motivated by the challenge – although staying at the Raffles Hotel in Dubai was pretty damn cool.

Saturday evening my inbox started filling with news of a serious fight in Nuristan.   I checked the wires and found nothing.   I checked again Sunday morning and nishta – I even emailed my Buddy Michael Yon and he too was hearing something was up but but did not know what was happening.   The wires started humming about the attack on two isolated outposts in Nuristan Province about 24 hours after I had first heard about it.   The New York Slimes has an OK roundup of what happened here.   If my information is correct this story contains a “untruth” told by a Colonel – and that is the kind of thing which really gets me worried.   I get worried because I know what happened to our military post Vietnam and would be crushed to see them held in such low esteem and outright contempt by the American public again in my lifetime.   Let me insert an excellent point from a more than excellent post by one of the all time most excellent bloggers “…lying, while advantageous in the short run, is like a drug, temporary in its effects; requiring higher and higher doses to maintain the same effect and is finally self-destructive.” That is from this mornings post on the Belmont Club by Richard Fernandez; a blogger I admire greatly….and I’m stopping with all the “excellents.”

Saturdays attack on two outposts started in similar fashion to the attack last year in Wanat.   The fighters; described as “local militia” by ISAF boiled up out of a mosque and laid siege to the American soldiers and their Afghan counterparts located inside a small forward operating base called ‘FOB Keating” and a nearby smaller Afghan police post.   The fighting was so intense that none of the wounded could be evacuated for the first 16 hours which explains the number of alarming emails I was getting last Saturday evening.   As is always the case when dealing with American infantry be they Marine or Army the wounded who could still fight did fight and refused to be evacuated.   This report from ABC news covered that angle with the amazement one always sees in graduates from elitist American journalism schools when they encounter the selflessness of first rate infantrymen in contact.

At the end of this engagement Pedros flew in and extracted all the Americans and Afghans from Keating which had been completely destroyed in the fighting.   But an Army Colonel quoted in the NYT article said “American forces still controlled the compound, which they share with Afghan security forces.”   This is a perfect example of the attrition warfare mindset which is ingrained in most of our military officers.   Owning the field of battle post fight is a measurement of success in conventional military operations. It is irrelevant in the context of a counterinsurgency.   The only relative measurement of success is how much of the population is on your side.   In the battle for FOB Keating the population was never on our side – they were apparently the ones who attacked us – so why were we even there in the first place? I don’t know the answer but will bet a months pay that we are soon out of Nuristan Province.   As I have said many times before the instability in Nuristan is financed by gem smuggling syndicates which is an Afghan problem.   We have no solutions to offer the Nuristani people except to leave them alone which is all they want anyway.

But there is something else which needs to be said about my view on how to win the Afghan fight using small civ/mil teams embedded into Afghan districts and here it is.   If this war was fought the way I recommend you would have more incidents similar to the attack on Keating.   There is no way to be as aggressive as I recommend (and operate) without getting a team attacked at some point.   When that happens you are going to lose some …dying is part of living and even though every loss is a tragedy to the family bearing that loss on high you have expect and accept the fact that in war you are going to lose people.   Lots of missions = lots of risks; no missions = no risk and for a vast majority of the military units deployed here the later seems to be the rule.   Those who do not want to get off the FOB’s and fight should redeploy back to home station.

Which brings us the reading tea leaves.   It appears that our Commander in Chief has made up his mind what to do in Afghanistan.   He is voting present.   We will not be sending more troops nor will we be pulling any out.   His new commanding general is on record as saying this is not acceptable and for his troubles the good general got to fly to England to get his ass chewed by the President who was coming or going from his failed attempt to win an Olympics bid for the crime plagued, politically corrupt, scandal ridden shit hole known to us Americans as “Chicago.” General McChrystal apparently does not understand the genius of voting “present” (being a man of action and all) and said “waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome.   This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support.”

For speaking a little truth to power the General got his ass chewed and this review from a Bruce Ackerman a purported expert on constitutional law at Yale University, who said in the Washington Post: “As commanding general, McChrystal has no business making such public pronouncements.”

Hey Bruce – nobody cares what our academic “betters” thinks about what a general should and should not do…they know more about political infighting than your entire faculty lounge ….. how do you think you get to be a four star general anyway you dumbass.

Sorry I’m ranting again – but although we are not gettig more troops … we are getting a civilian surge known in State Department speak as “the uplift” which will flood our FOB’s with more civilian experts.   I know some of the men coming out in the uplift and can say without reservation they are smarter than I am about the Stan, more capable than I am at running reconstruction projects and if let lose could make a huge difference. But they won’t be let off the FOB.   Lots of missions = big risks and nobody is into taking risks to achieve a mission which has yet to be clearly defined, properly resourced, or supported by the one man who’s support is crtical – The President of the United States.

Earlier in the week I had one of those trips from hell which make being in Afghanistan such a drag.   The drive between Jalalabad and Kabul takes less than 2 hours on a good day.   Last Sunday the drive took over 12 hours – 9 of them spent sitting in a traffic jam just outside the the Poli Charki pass.   The reason I was stuck with thousands and thousands of Afghans is that the French army had closed the road between Kabul and Jalalabad.   They had (again second time in a week about the 50th time this year) rolled one of their armored vehicles and insisting that no traffic pass the accident scene until it had been recovered.   The vehicle went over the side of the road into a ravine so the recovery required an industrial size crane which did not even arrive on scene until around five hours after the accident.   That is five hours worth of traffic which should have been flowing freely but ISAF does not think that way.   Whatever impact their actions have on the Afghans seems to be irrelevant to ISAF commanders – a mindset which is 180 degrees out from our recently upgraded, improved counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine.

The French were having a very bad day.   They lost a legionnaire in this single vehicle traffic accident, had lost another 12 hours earlier to a lightening strike and two more who were drowned in a flash flood.   A violent storm had scoured the eastern region at around 0530 Sunday morning causing a series of dangerous flash floods.   The French were reportedly out and about at that hour in   “an operation designed to strike at a network of bomb-setters.”

Striking a “network of bomb-setters” normally requires extensive human intelligence,   reconnaissance to verify the intelligence followed by a visit by the direct action door kickers.   Unless the “bomb – setters” are operating off an ISAF FOB or are stupid enough to give up their location and intention over cell phones there is no way the French or anyone else will be able to accurately target them because the recon guys, the human intelligence collectors and the door kickers are all confined to FOB’s and when they venture out they do so in gigantic armored personnel carriers (which tend to roll over on the narrow, mountainous roads of Afghanistan) and are completely isolated from the Afghan people they are supposedly here to protect.   But the French were out and about; off the FOB in the bush doing some sort of operation which is more than can be said for the majority of military units operating in Afghanistan.

The problem is that the focus of the French (and every other unit here except the US Marines) is completely internal.   Closing the most important route in Afghanistan for an entire day is too stupid for words.   When that happens all the traffic jams up every bit of lane and shoulder on either side of the accident scene.   The Afghans trapped in this scrum cannot get food or water or turn around and leave.   The woman cannot get out of their vehicles and enjoy a bit of fresh air – they are stuck packed (and I mean packed) into small cars or vans where they must sit and bake in the sun unless a male relative happens to be there and agrees to walk them off to a side ditch somewhere to go to the bathroom.

The reason it seems reasonable to the French Army to close the most important road in Afghanistan is the same reason the US Army continues to roll through downtown Jalalabad instead of using the brand new high speed truck by pass which is faster and safer for them.   Their focus in exclusively internal.   They plan all operations, movements, and interactions with the Afghans (when they manage to get off a FOB) based on what is easiest and safest for them with no consideration of the Afghan people.   This is an “effects based” opinion based on what I see daily.

The only military unit I have been able to personally observe while planning future operations was the US Marine Corps 2nd MEB.   The Marines were asking the Boss and I about cutting military roads so they could avoid adversely impacting the local people in the Helmand Green Zone.   Their focus was exclusively external on what was convenient for the Afghans not what was easiest for them.   This may explain why they have taken such a large chunk of the Helmand River Valley and dominated it with little to no post assault fighting while the British army is unable to walk 100 meters off their combat outposts in the same river valley without getting blown up or in a fire fight.

As the security situation in Afghanistan continues to degrade it is most frustrating to see that our military is completely unable to break away from its risk adverse, zero defects, careerist mentality.   I never thought it would be easy for our attrition warfare oriented military to learn the decentralized and risky business of fighting a proper counterinsurgency but I did think we would figure it out given enough time and money.   But we are not even close.   General McChrystal knows what needs to be done – our very own counterinsurgency doctrine also spells out how to fight in the COIN environment but our military is hobbled by Colonels and Sergeants Major who are motivated exclusively by what is good for their careers and reputations.   Careerist sycophants will never think outside the box or try something new least they fail.   Failure is not possible when you do exactly what the man before you did regardless of what is happening outside the wire with the Afghan people.   No way to measure that so it cannot count against you on your combat command officer fitness evaluation right?   The US Marines seem to be breaking this mold but they are not here in enough strength to make much of an impact and thus are irrelevant in the big picture.

ISAF is here to bring security to the people of Afghanistan so they can re-build their economy and infrastructure.   But ISAF can’t protect the people of Afghanistan – they cannot even protect themselves.   The reality is that we have this backwards – it is the people of Afghanistan who are able to provide the protection and security us foreigners need to operate outside the wire.   All we need do is demonstrate commitment to the people thus providing a reason for them to believe in us and support our mission.

That is why my son and I can travel around as freely as we do – the people protect us – they warn us if danger is about – they look after us when we walk around the bazaars. The reason the people protect us is because everyone in Jalalabad knows who we are and what we are doing and they appreciate it. In Gardez the Taliban came to several of our projects and asked what was going on.   The local people told them in no uncertain terms that the rehabilitation of their karez’s and canals was the first good thing which has happened to them since the Americans came and that if the Taliban interfered the people would fight them.   The Taliban did not interfere and I suspect many of them were working on our projects – 6 bucks a day is good pay for unskilled laborers in Afghanistan.

Our FOB’s are full of men and woman who would love to have the freedom to operate like we do so they too could make a difference.   I recieve emails from them daily.   But our military system will not let them off the FOB’s, out of the body armor, or out of the large stupid, dangerous MRAP’s.   Instead we continue to bring “security” to the local people at the point of a gun.   How stupid is that?