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

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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