Category: Long War

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Assessing Trust in The Afghan Peace Deal

Editor’s Note: Chim Chim is back with a post on FRI. It has been over a decade since we last heard from him  He is a friend of mine with years of experience in Afghanistan at the higher levels of the U.S. Intelligence community. It is fitting that he once again reaches out to Free Range International to weigh in with some thoughts on the Afghanistan peace deal.

 

Trust. It’s a mysterious term and rarely understood. Per its definition, key attributes exist such as reliability, truth, ability, and strength. Contrary to popular belief, trust is not earned but rather obtained through a leap of faith. It is natural and can easily be broken. When it comes to the Afghan Peace Deal, trust is non-existent amongst the three players involved—The US Government, the Afghan Government, and the Taliban.

But should one look closely at the situation from an historical perspective, how can trust exist? More importantly, who can be trusted most? Better yet, who SHOULD be trusted most?

During the Russian-Afghan War, the United States was heavily involved in supporting multiple Afghan militias fighting against our greatest adversary. We gave and gave and gave but then, once the Russians were defeated, we put on the brakes. It was arguably one of the most devastating moments in US National Security that would inevitably come back and bite us hard.

We made countless promises to the Afghans and never came through with any of those promises which led to a major civil war between dozens of local tribes and militias. This civil war allowed the Taliban to blossom into a major organization which ruled Afghanistan for many years.

Immediately following 9-11, the United States went into a reactionary mode and was quick to invade Afghanistan on the logic that the Taliban were harboring Al Qaeda. Few realize during this time several nation states were providing safe haven to Al Qaeda during this time as Al Qaeda cells were spread across the globe. Another point of contention is the fact that the Taliban were in talks with Al Qaeda in an attempt to push them out of country instead forcing them into safe-haven in western Pakistan.

Our decision was made and teams of special operators infiltrated Afghanistan initiating America’s longest war. We did this with virtually zero ground truth, meaning, we had no sources or assets for intelligence on the ground prior to our invasion. Many whom we initially engaged in combat operations were nothing more than localized militias whom had little if anything to do with the Taliban (Central) meaning we were fighting tribesmen who would later turn to the Taliban due to our own actions.

Immediately following 9-11, Russia became an American strategic partner. We actually relied on Russia’s past to procure our initial network on the ground in Afghanistan.  The one country Afghans despise most, we became strategic partners with.

As time unfolded and upon immediate successes in achieving two goals set forth from US SOF elements (eliminate Al Qaeda’s safe-haven and rid Taliban of government control), a new force was inserted shortly after—the US Conventional military and State Department.

During this time, the United States threw billions of dollars into Afghanistan. It was during this period which continues even today, the United States implementation of a “quantifiable” approach to warfighting which completely overshadows anything qualitative.

America spent billions on programs that had virtually zero oversight. One example is based on school text books in which the United States and our coalition threw an estimated $30 million into the contract however it is estimated less than $1 million worth of product ever entered the country. HeraldExtra.com shows just a portion of the issue in their article titled, Textbooks not arriving in Afghan school.

The vast majority of funds displaced were not displaced. They were handed to local warlords, provincial governors, tribal leaders, etc. But if people want to see who the vast majority of individuals pocketed these funds, just walk down “Millionaire Row” in Kabul where you will find Afghan mansions vacant—vacant because those whom had such homes built have now fled the nation in fear of a Taliban takeover.

Prior to leaving, these local Afghans milked every last penny they could from the United States. It was the easiest way for anyone to get rich fast and rich as in millionaire rich. Simply put, the Afghan power-players created a racket and the United States didn’t care. More interesting is why we did not care.

We did not care about the misappropriations of funds because of the quantifiable war which we created. Those who held the money needed to get rid of it. And they did. And in doing so, they wrote their own tickets of success be it military personnel boasting numbers on OPER’s/EPR’s or State Department, NGO’s, etc fluffing resumes for permanent hire needs upon completion of their time in country.

What the United States did in Afghanistan does not demonstrate reliability, truth, ability, and strength hence, our inept methods in Afghanistan demonstrate how untrustworthy we are in our Afghan mission.

As bad as we were, the locals and politicians also demonstrated a lack of trust.

Afghan leaders saw how much money was going into Afghanistan. They witnessed their pockets flood with cash. They were empowered on a level most Americans should be jealous of. And as crazy as this sounds, many of these Afghans were closely aligned with Russia and Iran.

The Afghan Government was and continues to be incredibly corrupt.

In 2008, an Afghan warlord once said, “You expect us to believe in your own Rule of Law? You want us to trust the newly established Afghan Government’s Rule of Law which you, the Americans implemented? Do you not see how corrupt your own nation is? Look at the case of OJ Simpson.”

Think about this sentiment for a moment. Reflect on what this warlord was saying. You do not need to agree with what was said but think of the perception held. Perception is reality.

Another warlord once explained why the United States tactical intelligence was flawed. He explained that we would hand out cash to “walk-ins” for information about potential Taliban. We would take that information and execute a mission to kill or capture that individual. But what we seldom knew was the “walk-in” was merely in a tribal dispute with the target. And oftentimes, the “walk-in” was actually the one more aligned with the Taliban than the target itself.

The Afghans manipulated the United States every waking chance they could. And, they succeeded in doing what they wished on individual levels as well as within different political parties. Simply put, the Afghan politicians as well as local leaders demonstrated virtually zero reliability or truth which showcases why they were and remain untrustworthy.

The United States knew the Taliban were our enemy in Afghanistan. The Taliban ensured we were never to forget this. Through video’s published online, a plethora of kidnappings, to constantly attacking our assets, the Taliban and the array of Anti-Afghan Forces never led up.

If early warnings existed pertaining a potential attack, the Taliban came through with it. If the Taliban claimed they would allow for a temporary ceasefire, that ceasefire pretty much always happened. If a break of the ceasefire was sent through the air waves, expect the attack. They TOLD us pretty much every single move they were going to make. Their information was reliable, it was constantly set in truth, and they demonstrated over and over again their ability to do what they said. And, their strength came from not just their numbers but rather the constant support they obtained through the Pakistani ISI, Iranian assets, and the Kremlin itself.

If you watch the evening news and see a report on a serial murderer then take a walk in the woods and come across that serial murderer, do you trust the serial murderer’s potential? You would be a fool not to. The point is, trust in an entity you do not like does not mean trust should not exist. Bad people and bad organizations should be trusted to do bad things.

What is difficult to swallow is when we possess trust in something we cherish and realize that which we cherish most should be the least trusted. In the case of the Afghan Peace Deal, maybe, just maybe, it is not the Taliban who should NOT be trusted. Rather, maybe we should be skeptical over the amount of trust we place in the Afghan Government and that of our own.

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Peace in Afghanistan Inshallah

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo landed in Qatar’s capital city, Doha, today to sign a peace deal with the Taliban. In a rare demonstration of presenting both sides of a contentious deal, the Washington Post opinion section featured dueling pieces that capture this unique moment in time. The peace deal is a clear win for both the Trump administration and the Afghan people. As usual, the devil is in the details, but it appears we are on the way out of Afghanistan.

Barnett Rubin, a senior fellow and associate director of the Center on International Cooperation of New York University and a non-resident senior fellow at the Quincy Institute, outlines the agreement in his WaPo OpEd.

The agreement provides a timetable for troop withdrawal, counterterrorism guarantees, a path to a cease-fire and a process for political settlement. Implementation would also require dismantling Taliban infrastructure in neighboring Pakistan and assurances by external powers that none will use Afghanistan against others.

Mr. Rubin has considerable experience on the ground in the region, and his take on the peace deal (which is that it is a good deal) is identical to mine.

Many of our foreign policy experts and more than a few of my friends caution that the Taliban is not a cohesive monolithic organization, and that negotiators are only speaking for the Quetta, Peshawar, and Miranshah Shuras. This fact is true, but it holds no significance now. The Taliban were able to enforce the peace during last year’s Eid celebration across the country, and I believe they can do so again. Regardless of what my friends and I think, the only thing that counts is how the Afghans feel about the deal.

Taliban fighters taking selfies with Afghan army troops during the Eid ceasefire last year.

The Senior Vice President-elect of Afghanistan, Amrullah Saleh, published his opinion on the Time website. I Fought the Taliban. Now I’m Ready to Meet Them at the Ballot Box is the title of his piece, and that’s a strong endorsement of the process. Amrullah Saleh is the former head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), a former Interior Minister and he survived a serious assault on his election headquarters last July. That assault started with a car bomb and was continued by suicide vest-equipped assault teams. Amrullah Saleh survived by jumping off the roof of his four-story headquarters onto the roof of a neighboring building.

It is reasonable to assume Mr. Saleh had engaged in a running gun battle before escaping to safety; he is that kind of guy.

In another fascinating development, the Military Times published an article today with the headline ISIS taking a beating in Afghanistan, setting  the stage for a potential U.S. troop withdrawal.  Buried deep in the article is this:

The recent campaign in Nangarhar is one example. Effective operations by US/Coalition & Afghan security forces, as well as the Taliban, led to ISIS-K losing territory & fighters. Hundreds surrendered. ISIS-K hasn’t been eliminated but this is real progress,” Khalilzad tweeted Tuesday

Remember, a few posts back, I highlighted this article in the Washington Post about the defeat of ISIS because it failed to mention the Taliban’s direct role? It seems like the first draft of history is up for grabs regarding the defeat of ISIS-K in Eastern Afghanistan.  There is little to gain but much to lose in suppressing the truth. I doubt an experienced reporter would not have known about the Taliban’s role in fighting ISIS-K, so it is hard to figure out why the WaPo would print such obviously fake news.

Regardless, ISIS is now gone in Eastern Afghanistan, and the remaining pockets in the north are now the problem of the Taliban. Who seems to be very efficient at rooting them out.

What I cannot determine is how many troops will stay and what those troops will be doing. If the plan is to leave the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force – Afghanistan (CJSOTF-A) in place to hunt down ISIS and al-Qaeda, that is not going to work. ISIS doesn’t need to be serviced by us any longer, and separating al Qaida trainers from Taliban students is impossible.

If Amrullah Saleh is willing to give the Taliban a chance, and they reach an agreement, men like Sirajuddin Haqqani, who have been at the top of the JPEL for years, will be allowed to go in peace. The JPEL is the Joint Prioritized Effects List, essentially a lethal counterpart to the FBI’s Most Wanted. Allowing the men on that list to walk free, get passports, and travel will be a bitter blow to the people hunting them. But that may be the price of peace.

I have to add that CJSOTF-A will not be able to operate behind the senior vice president’s back. Mr. Saleh has decades of experience working with the CIA and CJSTOF, and he will have a say in what the Americans can and cannot do if they leave CJSTOF-A in Afghanistan.

This deal with the Taliban is how it ends. It is the only way it can end. The only question in Afghanistan was when, not if, we were leaving. The Taliban cannot beat the Kabul government in battle. The Kabul government cannot beat the Taliban in battle. The continued presence of American SF teams, tactical aircraft, and trainers brought the Taliban to the negotiating table, which is the best they could do.  It is up to the Afghans to decide what happens next. It is also time for us to leave.

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Brookings Institute Fires a Broadsid and Misses

General John Allen, USMC (ret), president of the Brookings Institution, lashed out at the New York Times for publishing an Op-Ed by Sirajuddin Haqqani. His article, Sirajuddin Haqqani, Terrorist, was an unfortunate response that reinforces a growing narrative regarding incompetence of the elite, ruling class.

The most glaring mistake in General Allen’s attack on the New York Times was repeating the thoroughly debunked “very fine people on both sides” hoax. The legacy media spread that hoax even though President Trump was talking about people protesting the removal of Confederate battle monuments.  He specifically condemned the white supremacists if you listen to the whole quote.  General Allen is the direct descendant of a Confederate Cavalry officer (I forget his name, but remember he fought at Culpepper), for which he is justifiably proud. I suspect he, too, was not happy about the removal of Confederate battle monuments.  I know General Allen, my boss at the Marine Corps Infantry Officer Course, and I admire him greatly, so it is disturbing to see him trafficking in hoaxes.

Worse was his endorsement of Forever War by implying we should renege on our Peace Agreement with the Taliban. This is his discussion of the Haqqani group:

This organization was and continues to be a central component of the Taliban, a major connecting file into al-Qaida, and a darling of Pakistan’s ISI. The Haqqanis, the Taliban, and al-Qaida endorse a radical interpretation of sharia that deprives women of any meaningful rights, to include the right to an education, and the freedom to pursue their own wants and interests, such as, for example, the legal profession. Countless lives were lost – and many, many more were wounded and otherwise terrorized – at the hands of this group and its peer terrorist entities, and had they not been formally designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism, we would have had little means to diminish their influence and stop their violent activities. And at the very center of this violence was Sirajuddin Haqqani, operational commander of the Haqqani network as well as the #2 of the Taliban.

All of that is true and every bit of it irrelevant if we intend to sign a peace deal with the Taliban. It is none of our business if the Afghans decide to reconcile with Taliban leaders, including Sirajuddin Haqqani. Haqqani is an evil man, and so is Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, who reconciled years ago and ran in the recent presidential election. The notorious warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who has been a member of the Kabul government when he wasn’t in exile dodging human rights tribunals, is an evil man. He was nominally on our side, so he’s a good, evil man, but to the Afghans, he’s little better than Haqqani.

What the Afghans do to reconcile the rift in their civil society is their business. If they want to reconcile with and guarantee the freedom of warlords like Haqqani, it is their right to do so. There are reasons to doubt the Taliban’s commitment to a more inclusive civil process, but it is no longer our concern.

Acknowledging the reality on the ground is essential. The Taliban cannot win militarily, and the same holds true for the central government. Given that context, it is time to let the Afghans work this out for themselves.

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Light at the End of the Tunnel in Afghanistan

Last week, news broke of a possible peace deal in Afghanistan, leading to a firestorm of speculation in the media about what’s going on. The reporting was not consistent, but the consensus is that the peace deal would call for negotiations between Afghans on both sides of the conflict to start next month, an eventual countrywide cease-fire, and a commitment from the Taliban not to harbor terrorist groups like al Qaida, while setting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

A famous quote incorrectly attributed to Winston Churchill, “Jaw Jaw is better than War War” (actually, he said, “Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war,” which makes more sense)  reinforces that this is (potentially) good news. The devil is in the details, and we do not know what “reduction of violence” means to the United States or “withdrawal of U.S. troops” means to the Taliban.

The Taliban are not a monolithic organization but several competing factions. We have been dealing with the Quetta Shura, which represents, but cannot speak for, the other players like the Miranshah Shura (primarily the Haqqani Network) or the Peshawar Shura. That being said, the Taliban did deliver on an Eid ceasefire agreement last year, and that ceasefire held.

Taliban fighters taking selfies with Afghan army troops during Eid ceasefire last year.

We can get a reliable read on what the Taliban considers a reduction of violence in this detailed report from the always reliable Afghan Analysts Network. From the linked report:

Another Pakistani newspaper, quoting an un-named Taleban official, reported that the movement had agreed not to carry out attacks in major cities including Kabul and would not use car bombs and that the Taleban had also offered not to attack US bases and US soldiers, and that they wanted the US to cease air strikes in return. The newspaper said it had learnt “that Khalilzad had urged” the Taleban to agree to more measures, including a halt to IED attacks, but that they did not agree “as they have planted IEDs in many areas and it is difficult for them to remove all [of them].” Furthermore, the paper reported, the US also wanted a pause in Taleban attacks on Afghan government forces’ check posts, “which was also a concern of the Afghan government.”

Senior U.S. military officials (speaking off the record)  in Afghanistan stressed that U.S. counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan against the Islamic State group and al-Qaida will continue, separate from the truce agreement. This is problematic for several reasons, not the least of which is that ISIS-K in Nangarhar Province has been defeated.

Their fighters have mostly surrendered to the government or gone to ground. There are ISIS-K cells in the north of the country, but they are not large or powerful and are in the sights of the same fighters who rid Nangarhar Province of ISIS, and those fighters are Taliban.

The counterterrorism mission in the eastern part of Afghanistan has been focused on ISIS-K (Daesh to the locals) for years. Now that ISIS-K is gone, the Special Forces teams are flying around the province conducting ‘Key Leadership  Engagements’ like the one I wrote about last week. That occurred in the Sherzad district, which is very close to Jalalabad and full of former HiG fighters who have cooperated with the Taliban on and off over the years. They cooperate mainly because Taliban shadow courts settle land disputes quickly and, they feel, reasonably.

The land deed office for Nangarhar Province – some of these documents are hundreds of years old

The time for our SF troops and the Afghan varsity Commandos to be running around district centers meeting with key elders seems long past. The local elders know all about the dysfunctional government in Kabul and will not be convinced it has their interests at heart until the government demonstrates it.

With ISIS-K on the ropes, trying to separate Taliban connected fighters from al Qaida will be problematic. The remaining senior al-Qaeda leaders have successfully gone to ground inside the tribal areas of Pakistan and do not need to move anywhere. Al Qaida has a presence at Taliban training camps and may even run a few, but I have no doubt the Taliban understand the consequences of allowing them to use their territory for international Jihad.

If there are no independent al-Qaida formations, then if you go after them, you are still going after the Taliban.

The incident rate in Afghanistan has plummeted this year. Some of this is due to the pounding the Taliban have taken from American air attacks, which increased dramatically in 2019. Some of this can also be attributed to the Taliban winding down operations as the peace talks continued. The stats below come from The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.

Time will tell, but it seems that the end to American involvement in Afghanistan is near. But if you pull all the training support missions out and leave a Special Forces task force to continue hunting “al-Qaida and ISIS,” it will test, if not break, the fragile peace. We need to pull everyone out and let the Afghans settle things themselves. Continuing night raids and killing bad guys in Afghanistan does not reduce any threats to our homeland. It’s time to admit that and act accordingly.

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American Green Berets Gunned Down in Sherzad District; What’s Going On?

Yesterday, two Green Berets were killed and six were wounded while (reportedly) conducting a Key Leader Engagement (KLE) meeting in Sherzad district. This isn’t reassuring on several levels.

First, it appears the dead and wounded (including the Afghan SF troops with the Americans) were at the hands of Afghan National Army soldiers. From the article linked above:

Additionally, at least six more American troops were also wounded. The high number of casualties (17 as of this reporting) is attributed to the ODA/Afghan combined force coming under fire from a DShK, a Russian designed heavy machine gun which fires a 12.7mm bullet. The wounded have been evacuated to the appropriate field hospitals.

The source explained to Connecting Vets that it is suspected that the Afghan National Army (ANA) was behind the attack, although details are still developing.

From what I can determine, they were attacked by a lone gunman with a heavy machine gun. It is safe to assume (if this proves true) that the lone gunman was a Taliban. They got an assassin into the governor of Kandahar’s security force, who was able to gun down the irreplaceable Gen Raziq. As I wrote, the time and will continue to write, this will happen again. It is obvious that the screening methods in use are not working, and, given my experiences in Afghanistan, I suspect they will never work.

Second, one is forced to ask why we are still conducting KLEs in the badlands at this late stage in the game. What did the SF guys believe would be accomplished? I can’t imagine a good answer to that question, and I have over eight years of experience conducting KLEs in Afghanistan, many of them right there in Sherzad district.

It isn’t easy to understand what is happening in Afghanistan. Nangarhar Province has gone from one of the safer provinces in the country to the deadliest one for American forces. The army had been losing soldiers over the past four-plus years in Nangarhar Province, fighting an outbreak of ISIS along the border with Pakistan.

The Taliban got sick and tired of ISIS deprivations before and rolled into Nangarhar and kicked their asses hard in 2015. Last fall, the multiple Taliban units returned to Nangarhar (probably from Loya Paktia via the parrot’s beak, which is that finger of Pakistan land jutting into Afghanistan at the bottom of the district map below) and beat ISIS like a drum. ISIS was surrendering to the Afghan government last time I checked, and is no longer a threat.

This is the Nangahar province of Afghanistan. Sherzad district is in the east of the Province, and the ISIS threat was centered in Achin district, well to the west. Back in the day, Sherzad was HIG land (not Taliban), but Heckmyter Chu-Hoi’d to the government side a few years back, and it is now a Taliban stronghold.

Despite ISIS being routed  (reported here in the Military Times three months ago), ISIS-K is still being used to justify our continued involvement in Afghanistan. That is ridiculous – ISIS-K was a collection of Pakistani Taliban who were trying to carve out their own little Jihadi paradise in an area that contains the largest talc powder deposit in the world. Threat to the US Homeland? Hardly. Al Qaeda is the same – they have gone to ground and remain unmolested in Pakistan for 18 years now, and do not need to use Afghan soil for anything. The airport in Peshawar is 10 times better than Kabul International so why would any decent Jihadi move from his decades long home in Pakistan?

ISIS-K has been eliminated, and the Taliban now control most of the countryside in Nangarhar Province. Our troops are stationed at the Jalalabad airfield, primarily consisting of aviation and aviation support personnel. There are also two different Special Forces compounds there, which still house one or more Army Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) teams. I understand the necessity of conducting operations outside the wire of a secure base like Jalalabad to keep the threats at a distance. However, I am unsure about the potential benefits of engaging in key leader engagements at this point in time.

This is precisely the kind of senseless loss that is driving President Trump to wind down our involvement in Afghanistan. How do you justify losing 8 Americans and an unknown number of Afghan Commandos on a chin-wagging mission with a bunch of local elders?

As an aside, the only mainstream outlet to write about this is Fox, and their take is focused on the perfidy of Green on Blue attacks. They have (as usual) completely missed the obvious, and the comments section is so clueless it’s depressing. The other outlets are (I suspect) waiting to see what President Trump will say so they can say the exact opposite. Watch and see.

Maybe there are excellent reasons for the mission to Sherzad that we will never know, but I do know there are better ways to conduct KLEs.  It is always better to risk one contractor than it is to risk a dozen highly trained special operators. The counterintuitive thing about that is that an experienced contractor traveling alone into the Sherzad district, wearing local clothes, and in a local vehicle is much safer than 20 soldiers rolling around in four MRAPs.  That is a lesson we refuse to learn, and I think the President, for one, is getting tired of it.

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It’s Groundhog Day for Afghansitan

Fellow Afghanistan Free Ranger Dr. Keith Rose released a podcast the other day describing our current situation in Afghanistan as Groundhog Day. The people of Afghanistan are suffering with no end in sight, which is 180 degrees out from where I thought they would be when I flew into Kabul in 2005.

Using Keith’s analysis (a great podcast) as a point of departure, some dynamics with Afghanistan must be emphasised as our involvement continues. Fans of the international hit podcast The Lynch/Kenny Hour on All Marine Radio have heard Jeff, Mac, and me talk about our campaign in AF/PAK  at length, using blunt terms that sound harsh to those unfamiliar with infantry guy talk.

As I pointed out last week, that podcast (and this blog) has many Afghan fans who know me. Afghans do not communicate with each other in blunt, no-BS terms, but I know they appreciate it when we do. Nothing will freak out Afghan project managers more than saying “inshallah” after discussing a scheduled payday.

Blunt fact number one is that our stated reason for remaining in Afghanistan is a blatant fabrication. The US Government has consistently maintained that we have to stay to make sure al-Qaeda does not come back, establish training camps, and conduct terrorist attacks on the international community from safe havens in Afghanistan.

They already have training camps in Afghanistan. We took out “Probably the largest” one in Kandahar province four years ago. The leader of al Qaeda, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, has had a haven in Pakistan since 2001, and has now (obviously) drone-proofed his lifestyle. Why would he leave Miranshah to live in Khost or Kandahar?  The international airport in Peshawar is much nicer than any airport in Afghanistan; it is served by more international airlines (including Emirates, my favorite) and serves more destinations. Who in their right mind would fly Kam Air from Kabul to Dubai when you can fly Emirates from Peshawar and rack up the sky miles?

Ayman Al-Zawahiri and bin Laden in a file photo released in 2002. I would bet big money (based on the terrain behind them) that this photo was taken on the Jbad-Kabul road just west of the old Soviet hydro dam outside Jalalabad.  There was an al-Qaeda training camp out that way (ISAF still uses it and calls it Gamberi)

You are thinking that terrorists don’t use SkyMiles. Still, I must point out that the largest covert operation ever launched by CIA agents (not contractors, which is the norm) was compromised because the agents used their covert ID to fly into Italy, but had used their personal credit cards to book the flights and hotels. That’s the CIA, which is supposed to be high speed and low drag – the Taliban has to be worse on the operational security.

Blunt fact number two is that the American people, in general, and their military veterans specifically, believe we have done more than our fair share to give Afghanistan a chance, and they blew it, so the hell with them. Clearly, President Trump is looking for a way out and is willing to do almost anything (to include inviting former Gitmo detainees to Camp David for a round of ‘Let’s Make a Deal’)  to end our commitments in the region. President Trump has said we are not getting any return on our considerable investments and asks why we should stay in Afghanistan or Pakistan?

The reasons to remain in the region are no doubt varied and complex. Still, the fact is that as long as we have thousands of servicemen, along with thousands more internationals in the country, we have to keep funding the government in Kabul. The next round of international funding is in 2020, and the funds are tied to anticorruption metrics that have not been met. If the international money pipeline closed suddenly, how do you think the tens of thousands of internationals would get out of the country as the government folds and the security services crumble?

That is a scenario you don’t have to worry about because the specter of Gandamak II will keep funding going indefinitely. Nothing terrifies Western government politicians more than the slaughter of their citizens, for which their accountability is unavoidable. The Taliban will continue to attack both military and civilian targets because they are terrorists, and that is what terrorists do. The Taliban no longer resembles the popular uprising of the religiously righteous in the face of anarchy. They are now narco-terrorists first, Islamic Jihadi’s second, and Afghan nationalists (maybe) third.

The Taliban were once competent enough to protect the people of Afghanistan from anarchic violence, but they are now the source of anarchic violence. Tyrannical rule is bad, but chaos is worse, and many Afghans have lived through both. The Afghan people will side with the side that delivers them from chaos, especially if that side is committed to keeping Pakistan the hell out of the country.

That is the other great unknown: what happens to the safe havens in Pakistan when the Taliban cut a deal with us? The Afghan Taliban claim to be their movement, but they are Pakistan’s puppets, just as sure as the government of Kabul is America’s. Pakistan exerts more direct control over the Taliban than America has ever been able to establish in Kabul. For the past 50 years the Taliban have been Pakistan’s bitch.

The investment in Afghanistan’s human capital came from every corner of the globe, including Burning Man.

America no longer has the stomach for staying in Afghanistan, but that’s too bad; we’re not going anywhere for the reasons outlined above. So, how does this end? I have no idea, but I’m a fan of the Afghan people, and I believe they can, and will, sort things out given time and space. It is arguable if our continued meddling is helping, but that is irrelevant now.  We aren’t leaving and are incapable of staying without meddling, so there it is.

Groundhog Day

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We Are Being Oppressed

I was finishing up a post for the Freq about riot control and migrants when I suddenly discovered I was being oppressed, endnote, just a little, but on all four recognized levels of oppression. This insight jumped out when I looked for information on a topic I know something about. When I first saw it, I didn’t think much of it, but after spending hours on additional research and days thinking it through, I decided it was time to write a post, an important one, free of F bombs (to show I’m serious) in hopes of restoring a sense of calm. Calm is good when dealing with “isms”.

Let me set this up. The discussion was about the requirement to use overwhelming force to remove leaders, agitators, and natural fighters from a rioting mob. I was writing about the Marine Corps’ experience with Haitian and Cuban asylum seekers in the early 90s. The post on that topic can be found here on The Freq website, which I contribute to weekly.

As I was describing how the SNCOs managed their snatch teams, I mentioned the “rule of opposites”, a term first coined by Gavin De Becker, in his world-famous (should be mandatory reading) book The Gift of Fear.

The rule of opposites is frequently mentioned in law enforcement and shooting publications. I searched FRI for that term, and four articles with that phrase popped up. I went to Google to get a hyperlink, and guess what I found?

What are the chances that more people are looking for Native American counseling paradigms than the definition of the most common heuristic used in the law enforcement and firearms training industry? They are zero. The results from that phrase are being manipulated to present material considered more acceptable by the companies running the search engines.

That has little impact on news consumers like me who know what they seek. But what is the effect, over time, of this kind of deliberate manipulation of search engine results?

Remember that references to the “rule of opposites” in law enforcement journals appear just after the examples in the screenshot above. I’m not trafficking in conspiracy theories; I’m just pointing out an inconvenient fact about search engines.

One thing about search engine manipulation: It will not work as planned, and the unintended consequences could be significant. They always are when you launch a clever plan inside a complex system, believing that everything will work out exactly as you think it will.

As I was milling this over while procrastinating, I saw a post about Global Warming by my FB buddy and fellow IMOA Frank Gallagher; look what was inserted below it:

I challenge anyone to go through that climatefeedback.org rebuttal and find one citation that backs their claims in their report. It isn’t easy to decipher their academic speech, but I can summarize their point. It is an argument from authority, and the authorities say that climate change is real, so skepticism is wrong.

The author of Manhattan Contrarian, Francis Menton, is a partner in the Litigation Department and Co-Chair of the Business Litigation Practice Group of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP in New York.  Mr. Menton specializes in complex and technical commercial litigation and has a nationwide trial practice. Mr. Menton is not a climate scientist; he is a demonstrably competent man with a passion for analytics and a refusal to be bullied by “experts”. That is a very American trait, which is interesting because what is, or is not, an “American trait” is now a point of bitter partisan debate.

I don’t care what you believe about climate change. I find the argument from authority approach suspect after living through global cooling, the population bomb, the “running out of food” scare,  the  “you can’t drill your way out of energy dependence” fraud, AIDs, bird flu, acid rain, alar on apples, etc… All of these emerging global emergencies proved to be wrong; and not a little wrong; completely wrong.

This is why I self-identify as a “public defense intellectual” during my weekly gig on All Marine Radio with my fellow expert Jeff Kenney. It’s an ironic dig at the pretensions of self-identification validated through ‘lived experiences’. Mac, Jeff, and I aren’t experts on American foreign policy; we are victims of it, which is why our weekly podcast is so popular.

In a perfect trifecta of outrage, I stumbled upon the new trailer for Top Gun II. I even wrote an intemperate comment a friends FB page about the trailer I was so pissed, but it took me hours to figure out why. And it is not just this:

It’s the premise of the movie that I found so offensive. Cruise is a 30-year Maverick who refused promotion like the other corporate shills and stayed in the cockpit. He routinely flies along the southwestern desert mere feet off the deck and keeps his cat-like reflexes sharp with some vertical ascent high-speed, low-drag move used to invert over a Mig. The admirals admonish him saying he should be in command like them, not bumming around navy fighter squadrons for 30 years, but Cruise knows better, he’s a singleton with his creed. Ultimately, he’ll show them all that he, the anti-social, non-conformist, was right and is the true hero.

We have long known that China dictates to Hollywood what is and is not acceptable for new releases, and Hollywood always complies. It does not work the other way around. The newest Chinese hit, Wolf Warrior II, pits elite Chinese Special Operators in Africa battling former US Marines turned corporate mercenaries for some international evil corporation that I assume is not Google.

Top Gun II is not a movie about naval aviators or naval aviation. It’s not about the American military—nonconformists don’t last there, and “mavericks” fly desks, not aircraft, in the American armed forces. It’s not about traditional American military virtue or an accurate reflection of military culture. The Top Gun movie seems to be about Tom Cruise and making big bucks off nostalgia for another reboot.

The character in the Tom Cruise movie is an anti-American; he is used to show that our traditional values, mores, and systems are corrupt. Read this description of Wolf Warrior 2 from the National Review article linked above:

“In Wolf II, China is the only powerful, responsible, and benevolent world power. Chinese workers help Africans build their economy. Chinese doctors work to discover a cure for a deadly endemic. And the film unabashedly takes several swipes at the U.S. When African and Chinese civilians inside a factory are under attack by rebels and mercenaries, the only good American in the movie, Rachel Smith, a Chinese-American volunteer, fanatically tries to contact the U.S. embassy for help. Leng asks her, “Why are you calling the Americans? Where are they? It is a waste of time.” After she tells him that she tried to reach American government by Twitter, Leng responds that “the Americans are good for nothing.”

Why do I care that Hollywood movies bash America just like Chinese movies?

Consider the following propositions:

  • There is no truth, only competing agendas.
  • All Western (and mainly American) claims to moral superiority over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West’s history of racism and colonialism.
  • There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such standards is an evil oppressor.
  • The prosperity of the West is built on the ruthless exploitation of the Third World; therefore, Westerners deserve to be impoverished and miserable.
  • Crime is the fault of society, not the individual criminal. Poor criminals are entitled to what they take. Submitting to criminal predation is more virtuous than resisting it.
  • The poor are victims. Criminals are victims. And only victims are virtuous. Therefore, only the poor and criminals are virtuous. (Rich people can borrow some virtue by identifying with poor people and criminals.)
  • For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. Being a victim is always better than fighting or defending oneself. But “oppressed” people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors.
  • When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner is to apologize for past sins, understand the terrorist’s point of view, and make concessions.

That was a list of objectives from Department V of the old Soviet KGB as distilled by the blogger esr on the Armed and Dangerous blog. He goes on to note:

As I previously observed, if you trace any of these back far enough, you’ll find a Stalinist intellectual at the bottom. (The last two items on the list, for example, came to us courtesy of Frantz Fanon. The fourth item is the Baran-Wallerstein “world system” thesis.) Most were staples of Soviet propaganda at the same time they were being promoted by “progressives” (read: Marxists and the dupes of Marxists) within the Western intelligentsia

What I know is that 50 years ago, on this very day, when I stayed up all day and night with my family to watch Apollo 11 land on the moon; the ideas listed above would have seemed alien, absurd, and repulsive to most people — at best, the beliefs of a nutty left-wing fringe, and at worst instruments of deliberate subversion intended to destroy the American way of life.

Joel Kotkin, in his post Age of Amnesia at Quillette, describes the consequences of progressive policies as they are manifesting today:

Liberals like Cass Sunstein suggest that students raised in an atmosphere of homogeneity “are less likely to get a good education, and faculty members are likely to learn less from one another, if there is a prevailing political orthodoxy.” Yet too few university administrators counter these trends. One college President in Canada, for example, justified efforts to tamp down on “free speech” by arguing that doing so created “better speech.” At many schools, professors are now asked to sign “diversity” pledges that eerily reprise the kind of “loyalty” pledges common during the darkest days of the Cold War. This passion for thought control extends even to comments such as “America is the land of  opportunity” or professing to believe in a colorblind society, views which can now be categorized as punishable “microagressions.”

This ideological rigidity has shaped a generation of progressive activists who also now represent the best educated, whitest,and most politically intolerant portion of the American polity. A common tendency among progressives is to designate certain conversations as “hate speech,” an approach to free speech recently endorsed by the California Democratic Party.

That doesn’t sound like trends that bode well for free people. As a self-identified defense intellectual, I believe that the progressive experiment is creating an enormous backlash that will sweep it into the dustbin of history.

It will not happen soon; potential significant setbacks could derail progress against progressives. I am confident that an important political change is at least six years away, but Trump could lose in 2020. If he does, the promises made by the current field of Democratic candidates will spell doom for their party if attempted. My post at the Freq talks about the last time they did that (Clinton’s first inauguration) and the consequences that followed. Consequences the press did not report on extensively and that are hard to find in search engines today. But the consequences were real, and we now have an internet of reliable sources that are not connected with the media or government. The next time around, burying the story will not work.

Change is coming because the one thing you can take to the bank is that our political system is functioning on borrowed time in its current configuration. Reality is going to introduce this change. Let us hope the lesson it inflicts is not too painful.

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Digging for Truth in the Age of Fake News

I have articulated a theory based on two known facts concerning the loss of our newest national hero, Droney McDroneface, to Iran last month. I based my theory on two known facts: the drone shot down was a demonstration model for a program that had been completed. It was, to the Pentagon, an expendable asset, and it was shot down four days after arriving in theater.

To buttress my speculation, I have searched the news for more information about the cyber attack. What I have found is not what I was looking for.

First up is the New York Times, and I have the perfect cartoon to set this up:

On February 13th, the New York Times published this article: U.S. Revives Secret Program to Sabotage Iranian Missiles and Rockets.  The article was based on the current failure rate of Iranian orbital missile launches as seen in the graphic below:

The article states that the CIA has been running a program for years targeting the supply chain for Iranian missile components. It implied that allies such as Great Britain, France, and Germany are cooperating with us on this program. There is something the observant professional knows to be true, but is rarely written about, and that is the CIA’s use of leaks to disseminate misinformation. I am skeptical when I read a story saying the CIA has gotten dozens of parts manufacturers in Europe (where the CIA is less popular than President Trump) to insert flawed parts into a supply chain.

The CIA’s historical record regarding human intelligence is spotty at best. An intelligence operation involving many different people, firms, governments, and international organizations would be an extraordinary achievement requiring extraordinary evidence to be considered believable.

Who needs to sabotage supply chains when you have Droney McDroneface?Then I noted the insertion of legacy media spin as fact to enhance the story’s believability. Here is an example:

When Mr. Pompeo arrived at the C.I.A., there was relatively little nuclear activity underway in Iran. Most of Tehran’s centrifuges had been dismantled under the 2015 agreement, and 97 percent of the country’s nuclear fuel had been shipped to Russia.

There is not a shred of evidence to back that claim. The United States (and the UN) have no idea where the 8.5 tons of enriched Iranian Uranium, reportedly turned over to Russia, is currently located. Hit this link and you can watch YouTube footage of Ambassador Stephen Mull, the Obama administration’s State Department lead coordinator on Iran, tell the House exactly that back when he was testifying before Congress.

It is becoming increasingly challenging to tease facts from the media narrative.  The New York Times does some excellent, in-depth reporting, but they have often been accused of publishing damaging national security secrets. Everyone in the game knows this, which is another reason to doubt that their sources intentionally reveal real secrets. If I were concerned with information operations for the United States Government, I would establish a reliable back-channel feed to the New York Times. That way, I could get them to print deception pieces when I needed that done. It’s not like it’s hard to get a bite from the press these days; any Orange Man Bad angle will do.

Digging deeper into the mystery of Cyber Warfare, I turned to my Facebook buddy and managing editor of the Lima Charlie website, John Sjoholm, who just published Cyber Warfare Now—Tales From the Digital Battlefield. John is a former Swedish Army Ranger and contractor who I consider a trustworthy source, particularly in the cyber warfare realm.

John’s piece had some awesome graphics, like this one. There is some serious evil afoot in cyber warfare.

I was working my way briskly through the piece, thinking it was great stuff, when I ran into this:

One of the premier Russian hacker signatures, Guccifer 2.0 has been tied to the GRU as well. Guccifer 2.0 became known for the so-called “DNC Hack”, the 2016 Democratic National Committee email theft which appeared on Wikileaks.

In March 2018, details from the Mueller investigation leaked attesting that Guccifer 2.0 was in fact a collective of persons working for GRU’s Unit 26165 and Unit 74455. This after server logs revealed that on at least one occasion someone utilising the Guccifer 2.0 persona had failed to activate a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to obfuscate his IP address. It was then revealed to investigators that his connection originated from a computer at the GRU headquarters on Grizodubovoy Street in Moscow.

I don’t know John well enough to know his political leanings, and I acknowledge that the Mueller report may well make this claim. What I also know, for a fact, is that the data breach on the DNC server was an inside job. The data transfer rates were too high. The narrative has always ignored this point, which is how it finds its way into legitimate reporting by guys like John. This is from the website  Knowledge is Good:

The time stamps contained in the released computer files’ metadata establish that, at 6:45 p.m. July 5, 2016, 1,976 megabytes (not megabits) of data were downloaded from the DNC’s server. This took 87 seconds, which means the transfer rate was 22.7 megabytes per second, a speed, according to VIPS, that “is much faster than what is physically possible with a hack.” Such a speed could be accomplished only by direct connection of a portable storage device to the server. Accordingly, VIPS concluded that the DNC data theft was an inside job by someone with physical access to the server.

The truth is that Muller and the FBI never examined the DNC servers and have no idea what was or was not on them. A firm hired by the DNC did the reporting concerning the data breach. I assume whoever included the time stamp did not realize that it invalidated everything that followed regarding “Lucifer 2.0.”. But it did, and it is the one fact that cannot be explained away, so the narrative moves on knowing their story is false, but that you won’t care because Orange Man Bad.

For two years and counting, the American public debate has been focused, by our media and elites, on a story concocted out of thin air, and paid for by the DNC, concerning the legitimacy of our elected President. While that has happened, our economy, stock markets,  and jobs have grown while federal taxes have dropped. North Korea is not launching missiles over Japan or South Korea. Iran’s missile control systems are crippled, the European powers are escorting their tankers through the Persian Gulf, which caused the Iranian President to accuse the United Kingdom of being “scared” of Iran’s military prowess.

Things appear to be on a positive trend, which defies the predictions of imminent doom by our credentialed elites, featured prominently in the recent resignation of the British Ambassador to America. The reason President Trump is so popular with the American people is that he is not a politician or one of the credentialed elite. He is getting things down while pissing off all the right people.

For progressives, virtue signalling has replaced civic virtue. This is how open borders and giving free health care and a college education to any person in the world who wants to come here becomes acceptable rhetoric.

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Afghan Security Forces adopt a potential Game Changer

In the news last month was a story announcing the most significant tactical adaptation in the history of the Afghan Security Forces. The international media company AFP broke the story with this article: Under US pressure, Afghan army starts closing checkpoints. The article was reprinted in various legacy media outlets. Stars and Stripes ran their reporting more in-depth, and the subject disappeared from the news cycle without further examination or comment. This should not be, as it is a fundamental change in how Afghan Security Forces are handling a resurgent Taliban.

For eighteen years, Western military advisors to the Afghans have repeatedly pointed out that dispersing manpower out in small, poorly built, militarily unimportant, easily overrun checkpoints is a pointless waste. The Afghans counter that small forts flying the Afghan flag demonstrate to the people that the government holds that area.

The photographs below are from one of the better-organized checkpoints I encountered during a road trip with Ralph Ward, a.k.a. The Skipper. He was heading into Nuristan province to blow an ammo cache the ANA had uncovered, something he normally does not do, which is why I was tagging along.

Approaching a checkpoint in Nuristan province. Can you tell its be there for awhile?

Billboards in English in Nuristan….weird right?

Regarding ANA checkpoints, this one was not in bad shape. There were around half a dozen guys hanging out, none in uniform, no visible defensive works, and no bullet holes despite this post being in (at the time) the most kinetic province in the country.

The boys had a stash of motorbikes that I can promise you they did not buy ….another big problem with checkpoints.

In 2016, the American military estimated that there were 8,400 Afghan police and army checkpoints in the country. Despite insisting that the Afghans start closing them, the number of checkpoints grew in 2017. It is obvious these poorly manned, undefended, far flung, unsupported positions contribute to low morale, high rates of desertion and high casualties. In fact, a week after this policy was announced, Afghan Security Forces suffered 23 KIA’s in two attacks on checkpoints, one in Ghor and the other in Logar provinces.

If it is so obvious that these checkpoints are a bad idea, why do they proliferate? The motorbikes in the picture above are a hint, and here is another:

Me best mate Shem and I are looking over an ANP checkpoint on the Jalalabad -Kabul highway

The checkpoint Shem and I are looking over had reported they were overrun the night prior and fired all the rounds on hand to drive off the Taliban. The building, on all four sides, is pockmarked with bullet and shrapnel holes, as the structure pre-dates the Soviet invasion. None of the battle damage on this building was new, and not one piece of brass could be found on the ground. The troops (all Hazaras from Ghazni province) were obviously selling ammo and AK rounds, at the time, for 65 cents each on the black market.

When soldiers “benefit” at their checkpoints, they are expected to kick a percentage up. It’s similar to the mafia, or at least the Sopranos version of the mafia, and that is the main reason the Afghans have refused to take them down.  Afghan police and army officers assigned a certain area have normally paid serious cash for the position and expect a return of their investment. The practice is so common it doesn’t require footnotes (but here’s a link anyway). I have been told that this is changing as younger officers in the Afghan Security Forces reach ranks of responsibility. I hope so, I’m a big fan of the Afghans.

Here is the 02 Unit setting up a snap checkpoint outside of Jalalabad. This is how checkpoints should be run.

If the Afghan Security Forces are now willing to forgo revenue from their checkpoints to focus on offensive operations targeting the Taliban they have crossed the Rubicon in military professionalism. Time will tell, but this is the most positive development I’ve seen regarding Afghanistan in a long time. Inshallah, it is a sign of a tide starting to turn.

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Reality Interferes With The Narrative In Afghanistan

The war in Afghanistan took a catastrophic turn for the worse when General Abdul Raziq was assassinated last Thursday (18th of October). He was killed after attending a regional security meeting with the commanding general for the NATO forces in Afghanistan General Scott Miller. The Kandahar provincial intelligence chief, Gen. Abdul Momin Hussain Khel was also killed. The governor of Kandahar, Zalmai Wesa, and Gen. Nabi Elham, a senior police commander responsible for several provinces were also hit as were two unidentified Americans. At this point it is a safe assumption that the wounded Americans were from Gen Miller’s PSD team. They’re high end contractors, not American military and so their names may never be reported as contractors are not normally included in DoD personnel reporting procedures.

Gen. Abdul Raziq in 2015. He had survived dozens of attempts on his life before the attack on Thursday. Photo by Bryan Denton for The New York Times

General Raziq was from the Pashtun Adozai Achakzai tribe in Spin Boldak which is a port of entry with Pakistan. The tribe has always opposed the Taliban and Raziq had lost several members of his immediate family to the Taliban over the years. He got his start as a border guard at age 17 and steadily advanced through the ranks the way all warlords rise to prominence in places like Afghanistan. He was ruthless, efficient, a natural leader with a knack for making money; he hated the Taliban and was relentless in driving them out of his area. That attracted the attention of the American Special Forces and the CIA who mentored him for years. By  the time  the Americans pulled out Raziq was a general officer who was responsible for the security of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban.  He locked Kandahar down, making it one of the safer cities in Afghanistan and he did it the old fashioned way; he didn’t take prisoners.

For this the foreign policy establishment condemned him. The most positive establishment spin is summed up well in a paragraph from a 2016 Foreign Policy article:

Considered by many as a “special case” due to his outsized and abnormal means of exerting influence and holding power, Raziq serves the interests of the state-building elite by crafting an image of strength and stability in southern Afghanistan, even if that comes at the expense of accountable governance, human rights, and long-term stability. Raziq road the coattails of a coterie of ruthless warlords empowered by western intelligence and security organizations like the CIA, U.S. Special Forces, and NATO military allies. He is a leading figure in the Achakzai tribe, a major power bloc along the southern border and strong auxiliary security component through formal and informal militias. Raziq grew up in Spin Boldak in southern Kandahar, and was mentored by strongmen such as Gul Agha Sherzai, Ahmad Wali Karzai, and Asadullah Khalid, who protected Raziq from prosecution when 16 Nurzai tribal members were murdered in 2006. Numerous stories link Raziq, or men working for him, to human rights violations, torture, and murder of prisoners. While such stories of abuse are disquieting, it seems even more alarming when Raziq openly boasts of such acts. In the summer of 2014, Raziq, along with other Afghan security officials, issued a take no prisoners directive: “My order to all my soldiers is not to leave any of them alive.”

There are very few military leaders who, if lost, cannot be replaced. Ahmad Shah Massoud was one and Raziq is the only other when it comes to modern Afghanistan. His loss is a crippling blow in a year that has not seen any positive news concerning the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). ANSF is taking casualties on the battlefield that are unsustainable. We have no idea what their true desertion rate is but can assume it’s not good in those formations that have taken a beating all summer long.

The most important election since 2001 in continuing despite sporadic attacks in polling sites. In Kabul a suicide bomber detonated inside a polling station in northern neighborhood of Khair Khana killing at least 10 people. The station is inside the upgraded Kabul Ring of Steel which is yet another failure on the part of the Kabul security forces who are being mentored by the Turkish army.

The established narrative is that the US and her allies are going to stay in Afghanistan and continue to train Afghan forces while helping them fight by providing enablers in the form of brigade level operational support, fixed wing close air support and ground to ground rockets. Over time the increasing proficiency of the ANSF’s combined with the casualties being inflicted on the Taliban will force them to realize they cannot win and thus come to the peace talk table.

Here’s a news flash for the credentialed elite who are leading our efforts in Afghanistan: the Taliban already know they cannot win. They don’t have to win, they just need to keep doing what they are doing and that is controlling the population where they can and pressing the government forces in the rest of the country. They don’t have to win to get what they want which is a degree of autonomy in the areas they control and  the areas they control seem to be increasing.

Any hope that the Taliban is going to reach an agreement with the government on anything other then their own terms is fantasy which you can see by their behavior. In 2011 the Taliban opened an office in Qatar to conduct peace talks. The US asked that they not do is use the name of the old Taliban regime in Afghanistan which was the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The day the office opened they put up their sign identifying themselves as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and that is what they are called to this day. Does that sound like a group who are looking for a way out of continued fighting? Of course not and they’re winning anyway so why even bother with negations?

There is a lot going on in Afghanistan and it is being driven by one simple fact: the burn rate for operating the ANSF and the central government is unsustainable.  The aid dollars that run the country are going to dry up soon but our operational strategy for Afghanistan is playing the long game. If we can keep the Afghans in the fight long enough they should, according to historical statistics, prevail.

Eric Prince has been in Afghanistan seeking local support forces plan to introduce contractor trainers down to the battalion level along with contracted air crews and air frames for close air support. President Trump also inserted a powerful player into Kabul in the form of U.S. Special Advisor Zalmay Khaliizad who was the ambassador to Afghanistan when I arrived in Kabul back in 2005.

Zalmay Khalilzad is popular with the Afghan people but I remember him mostly for the introduction of the SNTV election system which is why the elections going on today will be a gigantic mess. I wrote about this in 2011 saying: SNTV stands for single non-transferable vote and it is one way to ensure that opposition political parties cannot be formed or sustained.  Afghanistan went to the SNTV system after some sort of back room deal was cut between Karzai and our ambassador at that time Zalimay Khalizad.  Khalizad is an Afghan-American, fluent in the local languages who served here as Ambassador before being sent to Iraq to be the ambassador in 2005.  He did not last long in Baghdad and is now heading his own consulting agency at a time when an Arabic/Pashto/Dari speaking US Ambassador would be of great use to the administration.

If you want to read some in depth, original reporting on the inherently flawed Afghan election system check out this outstanding piece by Mattieu Aikins.

Kahlizad is not sitting around Kabul waiting for something to do. One would assume he is working closely with the ambassador and General Miller but who knows? He’s a deal maker and problem solver who had been known to go his own way for reasons unknown which is what I think the SNTV incident clearly shows.

I also hear, although I’ve found no verification yet, that China is most interested in assisting the Afghan military with tons of equipment, aircraft, trainers and both combat and combat service support. The combat service support piece is, to be honest, about 10 times more important than contractors advising at the battalion level. And I think having contractors take on that role is a good idea, particularly in the cost effectiveness category.

The Chinese, like Mr. Prince, are also interested in mineral extraction which can only be accomplished with significant infrastructure development that can only be accomplished if people stop blowing things up and shooting at the ANSF.

Unlike Mr. Prince the Chinese are self funding, and there are more of them, but my understanding is there is significant pushback from both the US and India on the matter. Which may not, in the long run, matter because the donor money has already started to dry up and that trend will continue. If the Chinese really want to come into Afghanistan and invest in both security and natural resource development I don’t see a better option.

As long as Secretary Mattis and General Dunford remain in their respective positions both the Prince and Chinese plans are D.O.A.  But both Kahlizad and President Trump are practical men who are not afraid of counter narrative options. The narrative is a product of elite thinking and the billions spent on credentialed elites, both in and outside the government, to think, has not produced in reasonable path forward. What the elites don’t think about is the fact that they have little idea what is happening in Afghanistan  outside the wire of our embassy and military installations. If they could get their brains around that and mitigate it maybe reality and the narrative would come in closer alignment.

But that ain’t happening and I do not believe the elites narrative will survive much more contact with reality.

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