Well, the day after E2 posted the droid post, a new report by Afghan “experts” was released. It is a complete crock, which couples blindingly obvious facts to a set of BS recommendations that are so wrong they can easily be dismissed an reasonably intelligent eight year old child (but not our betters in DC). This low hanging fruit I cannot pass up.
So last July, Kabul was graced with a 72 hour visit from the brain trust of The Center for American Progress. As one might expect from the name of this fine organization, they are statists who want nothing to do with progress – if one defines progress to mean getting things done in an efficient, appropriate manner. No, they came to contribute their brain power and earn their seven digit salaries the new “old fashioned” way – by using their impressive academic credentials and political connections to write up a “point paper,” which contains no insight, no understanding, nothing new, and is, in the end, flat-out, demonstrably wrong. But you get that from your hyper-credentialed betters don’t you?
The CEO of the Soros funded The Center for American Progress, fully connected democratic machine insider and noted Afghan Expert, John Podesta. Remember him when he was Clinton’s CoS? Looks like he’s aged well – rich people do age better than us working folk so bully for this chap. He still doesn’t know a damn thing about Afghanistan.
Here are the blindingly obvious “insights” contained in the report linked above; you ready?
1. Reset the relationship with President Hamid Karzai while still using leverage to advance reforms
2. Clarify the message
3. Support and invest in democratic institutions and forces
4. Support a more inclusive peace process.
5. Shift from a development strategy to a sustainable economic strategy
I kid you not; this is what several million dollars funding buys from DC think tanks. If I need to explain how wrong, stupid, boneheaded, or just plain ignorant these five ideas are, then you haven’t been reading FRI long enough. What the geniuses from the Center for American Progress are touting is to continue down the same path we have been on for a decade. Typical statist bullshit from elites who, by virtue of their connections and political advocacy, will always be immune to the consequences of the disastrous policies they inflict upon the citizenry. So, as naturally as day follows night, this brings me to Harry Truman and the Berlin Airlift.
Co-author Brian Katulis – a Princeton man (who speaks Arabic !!!) and has written many books on the region. Added plus; he was just on Hardball where one of the five viewers watching quoted him as saying “we got to move beyond this addiction to dictators” while discussing his support for the Muslim Brotherhood in taking out Mubarack but he also said that he was against removing the Iraqi dictator Sadam Hussain. “Shut up, he explained” when asked about the clear contradictions. “I went to Princeton don’t you know.”
Message from E2: Stay with him folks, this is not an arbitrary tangent; he’s gonna bring it around.
How did the Berlin Airlift come about and why was it successful? My understanding of that critical period in world history has been wrong for most of my life. Like many of you (I’m betting) the period between the end of the war and the blockade of Berlin was compressed in my memory: war ends, Marshall plan starts, the Soviets dick things up because they are stupid and the new Air Force sorts it all out with an impressive military airlift. That is not what happened.
The true story behind the Berlin Airlift is fascinating in many respects. First, there were three years of flailing about (which makes our efforts in Afghanistan almost appear to be favorable in comparison) before the Soviets started the blockade. Second, the men who rescued the effort from the disastrous, amateur hour, FUBAR exercise that it started out as got no credit, while the incompetent who created the mess became Chief of Staff for the Air Force.
The story behind the Berlin Airlift is the subject of a fascinating book by Andrei Cherny call the Candy Bombers. What I did not know before reading it was that nobody in Washington DC thought that Berlin could be supplied by an airlift. Had the initial, unorganized, caffeine and adrenaline fueled effort started by Curtis LeMay continued, the conventional wisdom would have proved correct.
When Harry Truman asked his advisers what should be done about the blockade of Berlin their answers were uniform across the board: cut and run. Here was Harry Truman – a man considered to be the “accidental president” and also considered weak, indecisive and poorly educated.
Truman has a vice president he doesn’t trust, a secretary of defense who was clinically insane (a fact, not a smartass comment), and every general or admiral he asks tells him the same thing: we can’t do the airlift, we can’t fight the Soviets, we have to cut and run. There were two generals who did not agree with this advice – one was Lucius Clay, a man who never saw one day of combat having been forced to head up procurement for the war effort before being appointed the military governor of Berlin. The other a distinctly unpopular general named Bill Turner, who turned the airlift from an exciting seat of the pants misadventure into an operation that ran like a metronome. Every three minutes a plane landed and every three minutes one took off. If there were more than three planes on the ground at the Berlin airport, somebody was in for a severe ass chewing once Turner determined who was responsible. Clay (like Truman) understood the psychological importance of not cutting and running. Turner was the only man who knew how to organize and run a proper airlift. We owe these two men a tremendous debt but I doubt any of you have ever heard of them before. That is sometimes the price of being a real hero- others get the credit and you get sent home.
The Center for American Progress website doesn’t have a picture of Caroline Wadhams, the third author of this important paper. I thought all upper management had to be treated equally regardless of gender so I googled Caroline, and found plenty of clips of her being interviewed on TV etc… and she appears to be an attractive woman. But she doesn’t have a pic on the executive bathroom section of her current workplace which is odd. This photo pops up when you google her too so I’m going with it. One can never go wrong with a picture of a Marine weapons platoon jocking up for a day of battle
What I find fascinating is that Truman stuck to his philosophical guns in spite of every newspaper, every TV reporter, every flag officer, and every tenured parasite at the Ivy League schools proclaiming him wrong. This reminds me of President Bush and his experience before The Surge strategy was conceived in Iraq. When he asked the Joint Chiefs for advice, what he got is “keep doing exactly the same thing, only better”.
Where are we going to find leaders who will stand on principle, buck against the tsunami of toxic, ineffective advice thrown at them from elites who went to the “proper schools” for the “right credentials”? Why should we listen to three policy wonks who spent God only knows how much of our (taxpayer) money for three days inside an embassy that is as far removed from the real Afghanistan as the playground at the West Annapolis Elementary School? The simple truth is that the number of acceptable endstates in Afghanistan are limited and none of them involve “clarifying messages” or “resetting” (I hate that word now) relationships with President Karzai.
The best we can do is support regional leaders, train up a respectable security force and then get the hell out. We’ve had ten years of relationship resetting and clarifying of messages. What we need now is a leader to articulate in simple terms what we are going to do and when we are going home. And as Harry Truman proved long ago – sticking by the conviction that America is right and stands with the forces of good on this earth is the most effective way to move past the conflicting advice of the elites and into the pantheon of men who truly made a difference in their time. The men in that pantheon stuck to their guns – we need a leader who will stick to his.
Last week I got a treat that was too good not to share; a chance to link up with my friend Col Dave Furness, USMC, the commanding officer of Regimental Combat Team 1 currently deployed to the southern Helmand. Col Furness was heading out to look over the positions of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines (Lava Dogs) commanded by LtCol Sean Riordan, who came through the Marine Corps Infantry Officer Course when Dave and I were instructors there. I needed to see the USAID FPO’s in that neck of the woods providing a perfect excuse to tag along.
LtCol Riordan, Col Furness and Baba T after a 5 hour foot patrol. – We’re hurting- it is just too damn hot – but Bushido forbids the display of weakness on the part of commanders so I had to buck up too or face unending grief from my buddies.
This is why we’re hurting and believe it or not that is a good ten degrees below summer norms in the Helmand Valley
When Dave and Sean first showed up several months ago there was some of hard fighting to do to allow them to penetrate this far south but that turned out to be the easy part. Terrain and vegetation forced the Taliban into linear defenses. They tried minefields in front of their positions in to slow down the advancing Marines. But Marines have helicopters, so they would fix the villains with a frontal holding attack and then fly into their rear and chew them up. The Taliban were quick to adapt and countered with minefields and fighting positions to their rear too. The Marines started flying into their rear to fix them there allowing the Marines to flank the Taliban and pin them against the Helmand River. Fish in a barrel, except for the runners who manage to slip out, ditch their weapons and start walking away. Unarmed men do not fit the Positive Identification (PID) criteria and cannot be engaged. So the Marines let them skate.
Heading out to an isolated patrol base – this picture seems timeless to me – how many times have we seen similar pictures from Vietnam or Korea or WW II?
A few months back as they were pushing south the Marines would run into situations that (for guys like them) are a dream come true. An ANP commander pointed out a village where his men have hit 3 IEDs in as many weeks and each time the villagers poured out with AK’s to start a firefight. A few nights later the Marines blew a controlled detonation on the road to simulate an IED hit and when the villains rushed out with their flame sticks they ran into an ‘L shaped ambush’. No doubt (knowing the Lava Dogs) the villains also met Mr. Claymore, were introduced to the proper use of a machine gun section, and were treated to a 40mm grenade shower from those new and super deadly M32’s. Bad day. Not many survived that textbook lesson on the proper use of an ambush squad, but those days are long gone. The Taliban has run out of options in their limited playbook and have gone to ground but are still planting the IED’s and will still strike at what they consider soft targets but these attacks seldom rise above the level of being a minor nuisance.
These IED’s kill and maim vast numbers of innocent Afghans, yet rarely inflict casualties on ISAF units. The Marines still get hit by them but have deployed in such a way as to significantly reduce the vulnerability of their line infantry. Know how? By staying off the bog box FOBs and getting into little squad size combat outposts.
This is why the Marines are able to dominate this part of the Helmand Valley. The terrain is flat, places to hide are few, and they have precision weapons systems that reach out and touch people from a long long way away. It is no longer possible for the villains to assemble 200 or 300 fighters like they once did in this area when the British Army first moved in. A force that size would have so many rockets falling on them that local villagers would need shovels and wheel barrows to scoop up what was left for burial. The Brits didn’t have enough manpower, ISR, indirect fire assets, or mobility to really fight in the Helmand. All they had were small units of brave, well trained infantry. Emphasis on brave. They were and are formidable but too few in number to make any lasting difference in a Province as large as Helmand.
Southern Helmand Province is a long, flat narrow area, where the population is confined mostly to strips of land in close proximity to the Helmand River or one of its main canals. The Marines are able to spread out into COP’s (combat outposts) PB’s (Patrol Bases) and OP’s (observation posts) covering the entire AO (area of operation). These positions are manned by junior NCO’s and in one PB the senior Marine was a Lance Corporal. They move positions frequently; every time the Marines set up in a new one of any size local families immediately move as close to the positions as they are allowed and start building mud huts. For them a small band of Marines equals security and the implicit trust shown by this pattern of behavior is something in which the Marines rightly take great pride.
See the GBOSS tower off in the distance? This picture was taken from a PB which also has a GBOSS – they now have enough ISR that the Marines can watch the entire main road which runs through the Southern Helmand
So if the Marines have been kicking ass out there, why is the title of this post “Attention to Detail”?
Brace yourself for a confusing yet illuminating segue.
Back in the early 90’s, LtGen Paul Van Riper interrupted one of our IOC field events because he had been directed to stage a capabilities demo for a visiting member of the British Royal Family. I think it was Prince Andrew, but may have that wrong. General Van Riper is probably best known as the man who destroyed the US Navy in a 2002 “free play” staff exercise. But his reputation back then was as a general who would go” high order” at the slightest provocation.
I recall when he showed up outside the old combat town in Quantico; my fellow instructors and I lined up to render him a salute but for some reason I cut my salute early. He glared at me as if I were a putrid urine specimen. And not just a casual glare – he held it for what seemed like hours as my face worked its way through the various stages of red finally topping out at crimson. I remember observing full Colonels on the side of the road picking up trash (they had apparently been told to have their Marines get this done the day before but didn’t- so now they had to do it). We saw those Colonels because we had to go back and get clean uniforms for our students and ourselves – after five days in the field we were pretty stinky and no member of the Royal Family was going to be forced to deal with stinky Marines.
The General came up with a slick ambush involving a SPIE rig extract which would deposit our students in a LZ just down the road where the Prince could shake hands and take photos. We rehearsed for two days all the while correcting what we thought were very minor issues, but they were defects Gen Van Riper found intolerable. The demonstration came off without a hitch – which we expected because we (the IOC staff) were good at this sort of thing. But we were forced to recognize the 500 rehearsals Gen Van Riper had insisted on had served us well. We had thought General Van Riper a lunatic; his obsessive attention to detail some sort of sick personality quirk but it turned out he was showing us what had to be done for a mission of this nature.
We were wrong to label Van Riper as anything other than a consummate professional despite his prickly personality.
Here’s why: attention to detail saves lives. It is not something that one can turn on one moment and off the next. It is a habitual behavior borne of years of practice, and even more years of serious ass-chewing from those above you who know the business. We had always known attention to detail was critical, but had applied it only when practicing the deadly arts of war. We were masters at running complex live fire and maneuver training which required considerable attention to detail to pull off. However, in all honesty, we just didn’t apply it in the garrison or classroom setting. As young officers we thought we could turn it on in the field because that’s where (we thought) it was important. What Gen Van Riper and the many others like him were demonstrating to us was that we were wrong – you can never turn off attention to detail.
This night patrol brief started with all the Marines gear on the ground. They were then searched by their patrol leader and platoon sergeant and then instructed to put on their gear one piece at a time and that too gets inspected twice to ensure that every member has what he is supposed to have and knows exactly how much ammo, pyro and grenades are with them and who has what. No ipods, tobacco, lighters, matches, dip, snuff, written material of any kind, or any other non essential items are allowed. As every good Sergeant knows you inspect what you expect and these guys know a thing or two about inspecting.
Our first stop on our tour of 1/3’s area was a newly established logistics hub, which was a pigsty. I had never seen Dave ‘channel’ Gen Van Riper before, but I have now, and man, it is a sight to behold. He went high order, repeating over and over that a unit that can’t keep its own little camp in order is a unit unfit for combat operations outside the wire. “If the little things are kicking your ass, how the hell do you expect me to believe you can accomplish the big things I sent you out here to do?” I’m paraphrasing here because between Dave and SgtMaj Zickefoose, so much ass was being chewed that I thought it best to go hide in the MRAP and didn’t even attempt to write down what they were explaining in the harsh unequivocal terms of infantry Marines.
At every little base we stopped in Dave’s cultural adviser checked up on the ANA troops who live and work side by side with the Marines. Their #1 bitch was lack of leave time which RCT 1 had solved by contracting with an air carrier who could move 300 paxs at a time weekly. The Regional Contracting Command came up with a lower bid and that carrier could only move 150 at time and they have never made it in weekly as agreed due to constant maintenance problems. Gee, I’ve never heard of that happening before in Afghanistan. So now getting the ANA their home leave is becoming a problem again. And for the record there has never been a fratricide or anything remotely like that between the Marines and their ANA colleagues. Maybe RCT 1 is just lucky – but I think their just that good – which is better than being lucky.
There was good reason for Dave’s rant. The active fighting has been long over, but the dying continues due to IED strikes and the most important factor in countering IED’s is attention to detail coupled with strict adherence to procedure. As we visited every little PB, COP, and OP in the Lava Dogs AO (there are over 50 of them now), we found that the logistics hub was the exception – each base and outpost we visited after that was spotless (or as spotless as things can be in the desert). Although the Lava Dogs had mastered the art of maintaining a clean and organized patrol base, Dave and the SgtMaj continued to pound home their message: the fighting is over, we have tried every trick in the book to lure them into fighting us, but they won’t play anymore and have gone to the IED. The procedures for mitigating IED’s are well established and well drilled. They cannot be deviated from, no matter how hot it is, how long you’ve been out, or how far away the next available EOD teams may be. We must follow the procedure to the letter, no exceptions, because the lives of your fellow Marines depend on it.
Dave made it a point to ask the young Corporals and Sergeants who run these outposts if they needed anything. The answer was uniform across the entire AO. “We’re good sir but could use some barbells and weights.”
Another PB and another “Hey Sir, we’re good here but sure could use a barbell and some weights”
By day 3 Dave would say “I know you need weights is there anything else I can get you?” “Well sir, we’ve tried about everything we can to keep our generator going is there a chance for a replacement”? If you know the Marine Corps you can guess the answer to that one. I think Dave said “I’ll be getting weights to you as soon as I can” Leaving a grinning SgtMaj Zickefoose behind to explain the virtues of proper generator maintenance in the context of a Marine Corps which prides itself on penny pinching. The white tubs in the foreground are clothes washers – hand crank version – and they work OK. Better than a flat rock for sure.
Military life is often plagued by weak martinets who make the lives of their troops a burden by insisting every rule and regulation be followed to the letter. They use rules and regulations to cover for a lack of confidence in their professional ability to make good decisions; so when confronted with problems they make no decisions, hiding instead behind the letter of the law contained in the UCMJ. Good commanders insist on attention to detail and following established procedures because paying attention to detail needs to be habitual for it to be effective – you just cannot turn it on and off. To quote Col Furness: “Attention to detail and strict adherence to orders is what keeps men alive.” But then, he’s no martinet. As an example: despite rule 1 (no keeping local dogs as pets) you will find dogs on every little base Dave owns. I’m not sure he knows they are there because he tends not to look at or notice them as he walks into these small, clean outposts.
The local dogs are good for morale, can take the heat better than military working dogs, and have over and over saved mens lives when they accompany their American friends on patrols. Somebody gets them flea collars, a rabies shot and de-wormed and from that point on they are part of the tribe. A martinet would put an end to that nonsense instantly because it is against the rules – benefits to the men and mission be damned. But a commander who understands Napoleon’s maxim “The moral is to the physical as three is to one” he’ll find a way to work around problems like this by applying the spirit, not the letter of the law. Besides, the Marines broke the code on local dogs in Iraq so seeing them on every post here is really no surprise.
So I get onto Dave’s MRAP for a brief from his MK 19 gunner and while he’s talking I’m fiddling with my camera. When he finishes I say “I bet I can shoot that MK 19 better than you can” (click). Is his expression priceless or what? I show him the pic grinning like a village idiot and then it was “Sir, let me try this again; when the big dog starts to bark you unstrap the ammo cans. Then you sit and wait for me to yell for ammo, only then do you break the seal on one can only and hand that can up. Then you sit right back down until I tell you to do something different or that I need more ammo. Got it”? His expression never changed as he went over this for the second time so maybe I’m not so damn funny after all.
As did Gen Van Riper all those years ago, Dave continues to pound into his Marines’ heads the need for attention to detail. When “The Ripper” would rip into us we didn’t have the advantage of combat experience so the context of these lessons were lost on us. Maybe I shouldn’t say “us” but they were on me. I think it was Dave Furness who told me the first time you lose a Marine because he was doing something he shouldn’t or had on him something which he shouldn’t (like an ipod or cell phone that suddenly rings at the worst possible moment) you learn instantly to go Van Riper on them because if you don’t, you’ll lose more in the same manner and that will break you.
Killing the Taliban is the easy part of this conflict because, as I’ve pointed out about 100 times in past posts, they just plain suck at fighting and we have become very proficient in targeting and killing people. Getting the Marines to treat the local people with respect and project friendship and warmth is also easy. The Marines with RCT 1 are in close contact and living with these people 24/7. It is in their nature to smile, give kids candy, treat the injured etc… The only consistent problem the Marines have with the local population is their treatment of dogs and other domestic animals. Yet despite this, the Marines cowboy up, doing their duty as good troops always do.
The only thing the local people of southern Helmand are concerned about, when it comes to Marines, is that they are going to leave. They would much rather see them stay – I hear this from the locals everywhere I go in this Province.
Now the hard part of the job is maintaining focus day after day in the heat, dust, and wind of the Helmand River Valley. This is where experienced combat leadership comes into play. Getting face to face with Marines to hammer home over and over that they must maintain their vigilance, that they can’t get sloppy just because the Taliban won’t play anymore. This is when the hammer has to come out because it is human nature to slack off when the pressure is off. Well, the pressure may be off from the Taliban but it certainly isn’t from the RCT 1 command group. Which is exactly how it should be.
Here’s an update in an attempt to counteract the thoroughly depressing news of Tim going silent. (Anyone who knows Tim in person knows that you can’t actually silence him; he’s still ranting but we’ve turned off the blog-mike). With Kanani’s help, I’ve put this post in Babatim format.
This weekend’s New York Times has several photos of FabFi Afghanistan in this piece on subversive community communication networks. (We’re in the slide set). To be clear, the FabFi project in Afghanistan was not one of those secretly funded projects described in their article (see here where I itemize the bulk of the costs and how they were funded – mostly through personal savings accounts of those who participated and in part through a National Science Foundation grant.) However, the urgency and significance of the project are the same. As long as there’s pressure from those seeking a reasonable life where they can go about their business, there’s hope we can throw a lifeline with these so called undermining capabilities.
New York Times Sunday July 12, 2011
< Insert non-sequitur rant about donkeys and hearing crickets. >
As the director of the Jalalabad Fab Lab and Fab Fi project lead, I’ve been asked several times about how to scale the Fab Lab and Fab Fi experiences to more fully saturate a city, as well as spinning this off into more cities. While I can provide a technical, programmatic answer, Fab Lab/Fi doesn’t solve everything. It’s only one piece: the rest have to develop at the same time. Infrastructure like roads, power, water, schools, teachers, and systems maintenance as well as the user terminals (laptops and computers), people who use them, and the content they’ll consume. It’s crazy to think that there was no cell phone service in the country in 2002 and now it’s pretty solidly working in every major population center (at least when the tower isn’t turned off or bombed). From roads to power to water, the task at hand (officially US or not) was to set off a program that could go from zero to servicing 30 million people in a few years. Imagine colonizing Mars by sending 30 million people first, ahead of the infrastructure. < Insert photo of BabaTim on Mars >
As requested; Baba Tim on Mars
I think there are maybe three kinds of places in Afghanistan:
1. There are safer, quieter places that have known better times and whose residents are working to get back to those better times. There’s still crime and killing but it’s a shocking event when it occurs. 2. Poor, forgotten places that have never known modernization and are harder hit by economic problems (some of which we’ve unwittingly caused). 3. Places like Kandahar with an almost insidious infestation of crazy. Remember those boys you grew up with that would pull the wings off of bugs and set ants on fire? Beliefs aside, an environment like Kandahar doesn’t provide the social pressure that prevents them from growing up into full fledge people-hurting psychopaths.
In the first group are cities like Herat, in the western sector of Afghanistan. BabaTim went to Herat in 2005, and since then it’s continued to grow. It’s plainly ready and asking for a Fab Lab and associated wealth of possibilities. You could imagine a Fab Lab and Training Center there augmenting and strengthening the communications infrastructure with a parallel or overlaid subversive mesh, perhaps through the school system which I hear is quite healthy and respected.
The second group of towns, like Jaghori in Ghazni province, need only to follow the good examples of the first so much the better if there is strong municipal leadership that both welcomes business activities while keeping them in check < insert Big Government vs. Liberal rant here >.
Big government can't do this because it only costs a few thousand dollars to dig concrete drainage ditches which isn't enough money for them to even think about spending. Big Government talks money with a "B" as in billions. Liberlas can't do this knd of work because it involves work. No talking, no sharing of emotions, no community organizing, just work. Dig the ditch, build the forms, mix and pour the concrete and you have flood and some pestilence control. It isn't sexy it isn't fun its just work and the work here never ends.
The third are places like Kandahar, which is our biggest opportunity. Mel King, famous community organizer in Boston, often says that the wheels in the back of the bus never catch up to the wheels in the front unless something extraordinary occurs. Fighting over raisins, road tolls, heck, fighting over fighting, these are the things that they know about. New doesn’t always mean good on it’s own right, but in this case new can simply bewilder long enough for the skinny gimpy-legged kid to grab the football and run. Mixed metaphors, I know. It’s late. Another recent article from educators highlights how the labs are excuses to try something new with rewarding results.
In a recent round of catch-ups with the Afghan collaborators who helped start Fab Lab and the Fab Fi projects in Jalalabad (many of whom were university students when we met), I’m thrilled to tell you that all are gainfully employed in technically enabled positions. A (surprising?) majority have taken the plunge to starting their own technology, logistics, or consulting companies, bravely negotiating the bewilderingly paperwork intensive contracts with ISAF and providing jobs to Afghans. I believe in the need for the private sector to create jobs. < Insert anti-union rant here, take non-related pot shot at Anthony Weiner >
What is the difference between Anthony Weiner and a dead chicken? Nothing - they're both disgusting when stripped of their plumage and they are both full of shit
With the depressingly slow rate of new job creation at home in America, it’s hard not to be extra proud and amazed at their optimism and willingness to give it a go and make forward progress in their little corner of the world. I won’t take credit for their success they were shaped by a long chain of parents, family, teachers, and other opportunities but at least one was nice enough to say that it was his experiences of previously unexpected self-enabled successes in the Fab Lab that was his inspiration.
ps – join me in whining at Tim san to add some unrelated but interesting photos to this wordy piece. Thanks to edits by Kanani Fong of the Kitchen Dispatch.
Fighting season is now on. This year the villains strategy appears to involve deliberate attacks on aid projects and let me tell you something we (the outside the wire aid community) are getting hammered. In the last week a majority of us have had to deal with murders, intimidation, shootings, IED’s, kidnappings and attacks on vendors in all areas of the country. I took some serious casualties on two of my projects and I’m pissed about it but not about to quit. There are more men and women outside the wire doing good deeds then any of you suspect; most are smart enough to keep a low profile and I now wish I were one of them.
It didn’t take long for the incident stats in the south to shoot right back up
This will be my last post for awhile. I’m afraid the blog has become too popular thus raising my personal profile too high. We have had to change up in order to continue working. How we move, how we live, our security methodology; all of it has been fine tuned. Part of that change is allowing the FRI blog to go dark. I have no choice; my colleagues and I signed contracts, gave our word, and have thousands of Afghan families who have bet their futures on our promises. If we are going to remain on the job we have to maintain a low profile and that is hard to do with this blog.
This is what a kidnapping set up or Taliban checkpoint looks like. A bunch of guys looking at a mechanical problem which happened to occur in a choke point far away from prying eyes. These guys turned out to be stranded motorists. When I popped out on the road in front of them with the flame stick at the ready (having worked the flanks) they were terrified – but quickly made me as an American and went for terrified to happy to see me in a blink of an eye.
As is always the case the outside the wire internationals are catching it from all sides. In Kabul the Afghans have jailed the country manager of Global Security over having four unregistered weapons in the company armory. When the endemic corruption in Afghanistan makes the news or the pressure about it is applied diplomatically to the central government they always respond by throwing a few Expat security contractors in jail. Remember that the next time our legacy media tries to spin a yarn about “unaccountable” security companies and the “1000 dollar a day” security contractor business both of which are products of the liberal media imagination.
We depend on our two fixed wing planes for transportation around the country. Sometimes we are forced to overnight on one of the big box FOB’s where random searches for contraband in contractor billeting is routine. All electronic recording equipment; cell phones, PDA’s laptops, cameras, etc… are all supposed to be registered on base with the security departments. But we aren’t assigned to these bases and cannot register our equipment. Being caught with it means it could be confiscated, being caught with a weapon would result in arrest by base MP’s. Weapons license’s from the Government of Afghanistan aren’t recognized by ISAF. So when we are forced to land on Bastion or Kandahar myself and the other PM’s have to stay on the plane or risk losing our guns.
This is typical – I foolishly decided to help supervise the movement of 11 excavators across 100 kilometers of the Dasht-e Margo (desert of death). Our first mobility kill occurred 5 kilometers outside Zarnaj. It was downhill from there.
I’m not bitching because I understand why things are the way they are. Both the British and Americans have armed contractors working for them who have gone through specified pre-deployment training and have official “arming authority”. Afghan based international security types may or may not have any training and they certainly do not have DoD or MoD arming authority. A legally licensed and registered weapon is no more welcomed on a military base in Afghanistan then it would be on a base in America. What is true back home is now true here; remember these bases are crammed full of tens of thousands of people so all sorts of problems crop up with such a large population confined to a small area. It is what it is and for us it is much harder to operate. But not impossible.
I guess we’re going the right way; 35 kilometers into the desert, temp around 110 and another broken truck. What are the chances these guys have water and a tarp for shade? Around zero. This is Afghanistan and these guys were back on the road in about an hour – nobody can fix old broken trucks like Afghans do.
Our safety has always come from local people in the communities where we are active. Being armed would be of little value were this not so. Last week when Afghan supervisors from an aid project in the East were kidnapped the local elders commandeered vehicles and took off in hot pursuit of the villains. In my area of responsibility, which covers several provinces, we have around a 90% rate of return for kidnapped personnel from internationally sponsored aid programs (still a rare occurrence in the South unlike the East). Village elders go and get them back with no prodding from us. They do this to keep their end of the bargain and we’re keeping our end too; we’re not stopping projects.
But who, aside from the people directly benefiting cares about our performance? I have spent three years writing poorly edited posts in an effort to describe a way forward that did not cost billions. But our political leaders and military officers would rather be told they could achieve results drinking three cups of tea from a con man peddling news too good to be true. Shura’s are how Afghans solve problems; few of us internationals have the language skill, patience, or reputations required to get things done with a Shura. Sitting down to drink tea while being humble means nothing to Afghans; they have seen enough good intentions and are now only interested in results. When we move into an area, get the lay of the land and then open shop to accept project requests we don’t sit around drinking tea. We need to de-conflict our project requests between the MRRD, local district government, local elders, Marines (if we are in their AO) and USAID. That can’t be done by hours of tea drinking it takes days and days of us traveling to villages or district centers to hammer out compromises. We don’t spend any more time drinking tea than local customs demand.
So now it is time for me to go from blogsphere for a bit. After this contract it will be time for me to physically go. I have a childlike faith in the ability of Gen Allen to come in and make the best of the situation he finds on the ground. Maybe I’ll stick around to see it for myself – we have a long summer ahead and much can change. But staying here means going back to Ghost Team mode.
I want to thank all of the folks who have participated in the comments section, bloggers Matt from Feral Jundi, Old Blue from Afghan Quest, Michael Yon, Joshua Foust from Registan.net, Herschel Smith from The Captains Journal and Kanani from The Kitchen Dispatch for their support and kind email exchanges. Baba Ken of the Synergy Strike Force for hosting me, Jules who recently stepped in to provide much needed editing, and Amy Sun from the MIT Fab Lab for getting me started and encouraging me along the way. Your support meant everything to me; I’m going to miss not being part of the conversation.
This year’s fighting season has started off with a whimper in Helmand Province. On May Day (as predicted) the only action was in Paktika Province where a child suicide bomber violated the latest Taliban public announcement by blowing himself up in a police station. The Taliban had just announced they would no longer allow beardless boys into their ranks and although the Pashtun are a hirsute people I’m not aware of any 12 year olds who can cultivate a beard. On the 7th of May the Taliban launched a two day siege in Kandahar which accomplished little; they didn’t even manage to inflict any casualties on ISAF or the Afghan security forces.
We have never seen this before. The poppy harvest is in (for the most part) the weather is warming up, it is time for the fighting to start but across the region the Taliban remains inactive. Hat tip to Sami the Finn at Indicum Consulting for the stats.
Panjawayi Tim said this is the enduring image of what became known as the 2011 Battle of Kandahar; 24/7 helicopter gunship coverage overhead
Defeating the Taliban in battle in downtown Kandahar is not a victory for the good guys because of the fact they were fighting in downtown Kandahar. The people of Kandahar are the prize for both ISAF and the Taliban; the real estate is meaningless so the fact that the Taliban even mounted this operation is bad news. There are additional reports that groups of Taliban fighters had “foreigners” embedded in them which may, or may not, be true.
It is still amazing to see ISAF throwing around air to ground missiles like this in such a crowded urban area. This strike went into one of the Taliban strong points which were only a few buildings away from Panjawai Tim’s compound.
The Taliban did spend 10 to 15 minutes warning local people near the government buildings to bug out ahead of the fighting which was appreciated by the local population. They then launched a spirited attack, gained a foothold in some government buildings, barricaded themselves inside those buildings and then sat around waiting for ANSF to come fight them which took a couple of days of deliberately cautious fighting. After the assassination of the Provincial Chief of Police, Khan Mohammed Mujaheed, and the jail break at Sarapoza prison, the locals have serious doubts about the ability of ISAF and ANSF to protect them. This summer is going to be the tipping point for somebody and now that the Taliban have reportedly imported foreigners to help them fight they have to fight or risk losing their foreign fighters piecemeal. JSOTF doesn’t take days off, they don’t sleep, they won’t stop and will not run out of money. They go after foreigners like white on rice and Afghans will sell out foreigners in a heartbeat (if the price is right) regardless of which side in this conflict they support. If there are that many foreigners here they have to fight or flee; going to ground in hopes of avoiding compromise by the locals is not going to work.
Outfitting the ANA with M16’s and body armor was a great call. It deprives the Taliban of one of their traditional sources of small arms ammunition while allowing our mentors to operate with troops who have the same level of protection as they do.
So where is the spring offensive? Looks like it’s in the north:
The north is starting to heat up which is not good because there is all sorts of room up there to maneuver and the ISAF forces in the region are not known for offensive prowess
Here are a few recent security reports from last week (AGE =anti-government elements in UN security speak):
On 2 May, Balkh Province, Chahar Bolak District, Timurak Village, at approximately 1830hrs, reportedly 150 fully armed AGE entered to the village and overwhelmed the entire village.
On 6 May, Sari Pul Province, Sayyad District, Khwaja Chargonbat and Khwaja Yagana Villages, at approximately 1300hrs, AGE attacked ANSF within the above villages. There were firefights for three consecutive nights which forced the ANSF to withdraw from the village and AGE captured the mentioned villages. One ANA personnel and one local police were wounded.
On 7 May, Balkh Province, Chimtal District, Hotaki Village, at approximately 2005hrs, AGE fired 15 rounds of mortar towards ANP Posts. One of the mortars impacted on an ANP vehicle and as a result, the ANP vehicle was damaged.
Security in the northern portion of the country has been going down the tubes since 2008 with Taliban influence spreading into provinces that have little or no Pashtun population. Their gains came from a combination of ideology and religion with non-Pashtun peoples who have very few reasons to side with them. Actually they have only one reason to throw in with the Taliban which is this; the Taliban settle land disputes and other legal manners in a way which is perceived by all sides as fair and just. Two of the most experienced journalists working in Afghanistan, Antonio Giustozzi and Christoph Reuter, just released a 64 page report titled The Insurgents of the Afghan North which is a fascinating, detailed account about how the Taliban gained such a large foothold. But 150 armed Taliban running around Balkh Province? That is hard to believe.
Another shot from Tim’s compound
In 2010 joint Afghan/American SF teams started in on the Taliban shadow government and Taliban leaders up North and they had a clean run with only one exception; the targeted killing of “a senior member” of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) Mohammed Amin. They did not get Mr. Amin but ended up killing a prominent former Taliban commander named Zabet Amanullah, who was out campaigning for his nephew’s parliament run. I remember this as being a big deal when it happened but didn’t know the story behind it until this recent post on The AfPak Channel by Kate Clark. Ms. Clark makes an interesting observation in her piece:
Dealing with the U.S. military, it has felt like we are from parallel worlds. Their Afghanistan, where knowledge is often driven largely by signals intelligence and reports provided by a very limited number of local informants, with a very narrow focus on insurgent behavior, and the normal, everyday world of Afghan politics. In the case of the Takhar attack, these two worlds simply did not connect.
This too has been my observation for many years however it is no longer true in the Helmand Province. The Marines are too active inside a population which is limited to the irrigated lands fed by the Helmand River. Their constant patrolling out of an ever expanding series of spartan combat outposts is paying off. They are gleaning the human intelligence that naturally flows from constant contact with local villagers. We don’t have that ability in the north and judging from both of the articles linked above we have done about all we can do.
The SF teams have run the JPEL up north and although the Taliban filled their vacancies, the old home grown local leaders have apparently been decimated. Their replacements are not from the local tribes and are overwhelmingly Pashtun. My prediction (and I’m on a roll with Egypt still up in the air) is that the North will be end up being the test case for the Karzai government and the Afghan Security Forces. With the Helmand on lock-down, our litmus test in the southern Pastun heartland remains in and around Kandahar. If the Taliban have really imported foreign fighters they have a problem. They’re running out of maneuver room and their foreign fighters are soon going start run out of time.
Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is never pleasant to observe, especially when it is an American President doing the snatching. President Obama was running strong:
1. He just announced The Dream Team taking over the Afghan campaign,
2. He launched a unilateral direct action mission deep into Pakistan to kill bin Laden.
This bold move, in view of we have seen from President Obama during the uprisings in Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Iran and Libya, was decidedly out of character. Then came the press conference, and what should have been a moment of national unity and catharsis has festered into a case study in self-inflicted PR wounds. Only today’s obituary (courtesy of al Qaeda) has managed to quell most of what were increasing doubts in this part of the world that OBL is really dead when there was no doubt about it on Monday. Even worse, the story has now begun to focus on the legality of the assaulters shooting an unarmed bin Laden. It seems to me that the president will exit this news cycle with lower numbers then he entered it with, which is a stunning accomplishment of incompetence.
I watched the President’s news conference live on the internet and it was the strangest Presidential announcement I have ever seen. He could have buttressed his leadership role more forcibly had he confined his remarks to the remarkable efforts of the thousands of people working on this mission for the past 7 + years. Boasting that his absolute confidence in the military to enact this bold plan was justified when they lost one of their insert birds but still completed the mission, and extracted all hands without delay or injuries. That would have reflected the boldness of his personal decision for all to see without him saying anything about himself. But no, Obama couldn’t bring himself to do that… Then the team started leaking details about the mission, which even now are changing daily. They had no need to elaborate on one damn aspect of the mission -namely: we sent in the SEALs, they shot Osama bin Laden in the face, took his body, dumped it into ocean, didn’t take any casualties and left his women and children (minus his adult son) alive. That is all they had to say; the huge advantage of employing JSOC is that all of them have Top Secret security clearances and cannot (nor would not) leak any details to anyone outside of their elite community. The fleshed out story of what happened will come out in time but right now nobody needs to know the details. The mission was impressive enough; the less you say the better- especially because we caught Pakistan with their pants down but still need them if we plan to feed and equip the 200,000 or so troops and contractors currently in Afghanistan.
When the Pakistanis said there were no weapons on the men in bin Laden’s compound, the president could merely have replied “Of course the SEAL’s took all the weapons with them, and by the way, that little AK that Osama was so fond of being photographed with? I’m having the SEAL’s fly it down to President Bush as a fitting addition to his Presidential library for the work he did to hunt him down”. How presidential would Obama appear now if he had said that?
Killing bin Laden is, to use the words of our Vice President, a “Big F___ing Deal”. It leaves the government of Pakistan with a lot of explaining to do, it enables us to define a more acceptable end state, it should allow us to send in our best civ/mil team (Allen and Crocker) with a plan to scale down our massive involvement in Afghanistan and get most of our people out of here. This raid has put us squarely in the drivers seat, but now it is the Obama administration doing the explaining, changing, rearranging their story, spinning like tops and one has to wonder why?
The United Kingdom Mail Online posted a story this morning which may explain some of the confusion at the top. Obama took 16 hours to make the decision according to the article; we were ready to go as early as Thursday. That is not the end of the world – it was a tough decision; a lot of things could have gone wrong. But the mail story got me (and millions of others) surfing the net looking for more detail where I found this link on the wall of The Mark Levine Show facebook page. Check this out:
“I was told in these exact terms, we overruled him. (Obama) I have since followed up and received further details on exactly what that meant, as well as the specifics of how Leon Panetta worked around the president’s persistent hesitation to act. There appears NOT to have been an outright overruling of any specific position by President Obama, simply because there was no specific position from the president to do so. President Obama was, in this case, as in all others, working as an absentee president.”
The link above has popped up all over the internet but I don’t believe it. I think Obama will go down in history as the worst president we have suffered through in my lifetime but even he can’t possibly be as clueless and cowardly as portrayed in the account of an alleged “Washington Insider”. Makes you wonder who wrote those posts and what their political ties are, doesn’t it? It seems that the hosting website has a strong liberal orientation and the first name to pop into my head was H. Clinton.
What are these people looking at? We now know it was not the mission and can deduce they were talking to the officers manning the “Bagram Death Star” (command and control room). With the story behind the mission is falling apart this “iconic” photograph is becoming a joke
In Afghanistan, the reaction to Osama’s death was the same as it was Salida, Colorado; nothing. I was in Zaranj when the news broke and aside from being congratulated by my Afghan and Pakistani project managers, not a peep from anyone around me. Killing bin Laden was a huge victory for Americans because it was personal for us but the Afghans, having a much more pragmatic view of the event, immediately concluded that killing bin Laden will make it easier for us to leave. They are correct, but they don’t know how this is going to play out, and neither do I.
It doesn’t have to be this way; we should be letting the successful hunting down and killing of bin Laden re-energize our efforts and refocus our mission while leveraging this impressive achievement with our political “allies” Pakistan and Afghanistan. But we lost control of the story because the administration has too much invested in the on-going investigation of the very intelligence people who extracted the information that started this hunt. The administration has too much invested in the narrative that George Bush and Dick Cheney were off the reservation, acting illegally and recklessly when they set up the enhanced interrogation program. Now the president lectures us about the Osama death photos, saying “We don’t need to spike the football” that as Americans “we don’t do that”. Don’t do what? What the hell is he talking about?
An experienced leader would know a thing or two about how not to let a huge victory go to waste. He would also know that those photos will leak at some point in the future and frankly there is nothing he can do to stop it. President Obama might well have used this remarkable event to elevate his stature and to seal another election victory, but only if he was big enough to act like the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. As the leader, he could have focused his praise on the people who worked years to put us in the position where we could launch the raid. Months ago when the mission started to come together, he could have told the Attorney General to quietly drop the investigations targeting the very people who performed the enhanced interrogations. He could have positioned himself to use this victory as a blunt instrument with which to forward the goals of the United States throughout this entire region. What other country can work ten years at tracking down one man and when they find him fly stealth helicopters into the middle of another country to shoot him in the face? We’re so bad ass that we sent sailors to do the shooting – that’s how deep our bench is.
Instead of re-election; what he is going to get in 2012 is exactly what I believe he wants – he’ll get to be an ex-president. Wealth and affluence beyond his wildest dreams, surrounded daily by the pomp and circumstance of an ex-head of state, super cool Secret Service detail for the rest of his life, and above all, no responsibility or accountability to anyone other than Barack H. Obama. I’m sure he can’t wait and neither can I.
The ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) has taken an unusual step by issuing a warning to all internationals, alerting of coordinated “spectacular attacks”, kidnapping of internationals, suicide bombings, and all manner of general mayhem to kick off Sunday, 1 May. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time ISAF has ever distributed a written warning to internationals at large, it’s also the first time ISAF has used social media to reach out to the general public. The message came to us via the Afghanistan security contractors Skype group. Now this Skype group has around 150 members, and although skype chatting is stone age technology by military standards, the military has not been able to join our chats in the past. Nevertheless, witnessing their use of social media like this is pretty darn cool (and it’s about time too).
The UN has sent all their internationals scurrying to seek shelter in local PRT’s and declared “WHITE CITY” countrywide. This means emergency road movements only. Afghan security forces (ANSF) are out in force all over the country. Our local workers are now clearly spooked, but oddly none of them seem to know of any specific threat. As I write this, a frantic effort is being made throughout the south to confirm that there are no missing internationals as (I’m guessing) the Taliban claim to have one in their possession.
You tell em Joe! One of our current senators making sure the troops know that he knows what is what
This unprecedented warning by ISAF has migrated into the mainstream media as seen with this “exclusive” published in Reuters yesterday by reporter Paul Talt. Paul continued the story in his article today explaining that the May Day offensive is really the start to the summer fighting season. The Taliban are calling their new operation “Badar” which could mean “out” in Dari or “war” in Arabic….hard to say with the Taliban these days… One thing is certain, the Afghans and ISAF are ready for them and unlike big alerts in the past everyone is taking this one seriously.
Myself, Im not too worried, with my suspicion being the current Taliban press offensive is directed more at Afghan fighters and the Afghan people. If the southern Taliban do in fact launch any major ground attacks, it’ll be for them what the Tet offensive was to the North Vietnamese; a total tactical defeat! It cannot morph into a strategic victory (as Tet did for North Vietnam) because the legacy media can no longer spin a story that big to bolster their agenda. Plus- the Taliban are simply not strong enough to conduct a major military offensive; they lack the logistical capacity, they lack heavy weapons, command and control, imagination, not to mention the lack of serious cash an operation of size and scope requires.
Iranian border post adjacent to one of our projects. The Iranians shut this one down by complaining we were too close to the zero line as well as diverting water flowing into Iran. That is nonsense but will give local government officials something else to argue about during their weekly meetings.
My prediction? This- we will see some serious attacks in the eastern portion of the country near the Pakistan border because these villains can more easily mount operations across the border. I’m betting we’ll see something big in Kunar tomorrow or possibly Paktia Province. I still think the boys in the south cannot and will not mount large attacks. But they can dig some more tunnels, making me wonder if the effort they put into digging a tunnel under Saraposa prison isn’t also being duplicated under an ISAF base or PRT? Tunneling under defensive positions is a tactic as old as man and it certainly is one way of launching a spectacular attack without loss of too much manpower. In reality there just isn’t much the Taliban is good at, outside of jail breaks and suicide bombing easy targets in Kabul. They are adept at settling land disputes in the rural districts too – have to give them that. The question I have is why are they doing anything at all?
By the summer of 2014, ISAF is supposed to be gone, leaving the only remaining forces in country attached to the Afghan Army which will have the responsibility to continue the fight. So, for the next three years the Taliban could merely content themselves with economy of force operations; concentrating on targeting and removing officials from the Kabul government who have abused the public trust, all the while avoiding fights with western military forces who routinely beat them like a drum. It’s madness to pit Taliban insurgents against modern infantry because there is no requirement for them to fight, nor can they win. If they foolishly unmask themselves in large attacks tomorrow, they are going to be slaughtered. If they don’t do anything tomorrow, that is going to worry ISAF because it may indicate the Taliban has finally thought things through and wised up. The Taliban doesn’t have to fight, it has little to gain by fighting. Heck, waiting three summers is nothing for an organization which has competent leaders who take the long view on strategic decisions. We shall soon see, but my money is on the Taliban being stupid and trying to flex its military muscle this summer. Stupid is as stupid does.
This is what a Central Asian smugglers cove looks like. No bars, no women, no electricity but I did see one old guy with an eye patch. Land pirates just do'nt generate the kind of romantic vision Caribbean pirates do.
I predict this summer’s fighting will gut the Quetta shura, while leaving the Peshawar shura pretty much intact. That is to say, I predict the Taliban getting decisively beaten in the south, whilein the east, they fight to a draw. Regardless, at the end of this year’s fighting season we will have another bout of change in American leadership. General Petraeus is going to head the CIA, Leon Panetta is moving from Langley to head up the DoD, and Marine LtGeneral John R. Allen comes east to deal with Afghanistan.
The spy guys at the New York Times, feeling that the CIA is safe from being eliminated by the efforts of a 80 year old retiree in coastal California have turned their attention to the impending leadership change and are warning that the CIA is becoming militarized. Who cares what the CIA becomes as long as whatever they do, they start getting it right. If there’s a chance (however small it be) that the CIA could actually develop into an agency which accomplishes its basic mission, then I’m confident General Petraeus is one of the few men who can lead that change. When General Allen arrives to Afghanistan he will come with a new ambassador, Ryan Crocker, who has a serious reputation for getting things done. His posting will be a welcomed relief.
Which brings us to General John R Allen, USMC. One of the characteristics of the War on Terror which should cause alarm to my fellow Americans has been the performance of our General Officers corps. As an institution that consistently polls as the most trusted in America, theperformance of it’s senior executives has been pretty weak. This is one reason we have been reading of General Petraeus year in and year out since the surge in Iraq. I don’t know General Petraeus or Ambassador Crocker or Leon Panetta; so predicting the effect of their new executive positions is impossible. But I do know General John R. Allen, whom it was my privilege to work for back in the early 90’s. General Allen was the Group Chief for the Marine Infantry Officer Course when I was an instructor there. He is, quite simply, the best military officer I have ever known and brother, I have known quite a few. I could share stories in hopes of illuminating why I feel the way I do, but nothing I can write would do justice to the man. He is, plainly put, the best we have. I’ve never met anyone more impressive and I know a lot of impressive people. As you will see when the change occurs next fall I’m not alone in my high opinion of General Allen.
Shopping for fresh chicken in a post-industrialized reduced carbon footprint society can be fun, rewarding and a great way to stay in touch with your neighbors. As gas heads past 5 USD a gallon how far away are we from a barter economy?
Now, the skype group is currently pinging off the hook with reports of the ANP stopping and detaining armed contractors in Kabul. This is an almost daily occurrence, mind you all these contractors have proper licenses and paperwork. The reason this happens daily is stupidity on the part of government officials who are trying to send a message to the international community. The Taliban is poised to launch some large attacks over the next 72 hours and the reason for that is again- stupidity. The Taliban have won as much as they are going to win already: they ought be spending the next three years on internal growth and administration. But they are stupid in their belief that challenging western militaries is the only way to grow the Jihad. We’ll just see how the fighting season plays out, but when it is over a new team is going to come in and take the reins of this campaign. That new team will be our last chance at achieving an end-state in Afghanistan that justifies the investment we continue to make.
Well here we are, a week away from Victory Day, the third annual national holiday celebrating the martial history of Afghanistan. There is Independence Day in August, which celebrates running the Brits out of the country in the 1800’s. Then, there is Liberation Day in February, which marks the end of direct Soviet Army involvement. Next week, we pause to remember the days when Afghans beat the stuffing out of each other with Victory Day – celebrating the defeat of the Soviet backed Najibullah regime in 1992.
High noon in downtown Lashkar Gah – it will be a ghost town like this for at least another week
It’s still ‘crickets‘ in the Helmand Province. The last of the poppy harvesters will return home, sort out their share of paste, rest a bit and then cast around for something to do. It appears that for most of the adult males in Helmand, fighting the foreigners for pay, is no longer an attractive option. The WaPo published a story last week about how the United States Marine Corps is wearing out the Taliban the old-fashioned way – by shooting them. This trend is noted here by the Belmont Club, and here by Herschel at The Captains Journal, and here by the Long War Journal. This latest article on the martial prowess of the Marines comes at a propitious time (even though it was based on a Bing West embed last fall) because my Dad, of all people, sent a new Marine recruiting poster which I can now share-even with the F bomb-
It is rumored the Pentagon is not too happy with the newest USMC recruiting poster
Turns out that it is not just the Marines who are ‘gettin’ some’ in the Helmand, but also the Brits, who still have a task force in the province, stationed in and around Lashkar Gah. The other day, one of their squaddies pounced, literally, on a senior Taliban bomb maker.
My Muckers were being shot on the ground and I thought, I’m not having that”. Said Private Lee Stephens, who leaped from his Warrior armored vehicle to deliver a textbook ‘Flying Clothesline’ takedown on a Taliban who was hustling to flee from the patrol. “I jumped out and I grabbed the geezer” said Pvt Stephens;
Good thing he didn’t miss bulldogging the little bastard, otherwise the Brits would be receiving an unending stream of directives from on High about the folly of doing a Superman dives from armored vehicles to subdue motorcycle-mounted Taliban. The Brit press followed up with this story that could have been written anytime over the past 9 years.
Writing anonymously, the author reveals that the Taliban have dubbed British soldiers “donkeys” who move in a tactical “waddle” because they now carry an average weight of 110lbs worth of equipment into battle. The consequences of the strategy, he says, is that “our infantry find it almost impossible to close with the enemy because the bad guys are twice as mobile”.The officer claims that by the end of a routine four hour patrol, soldiers struggle to make basic tactical judgments because they are physically and mentally exhausted.
Good grief… once more ‘ The Lesson Which Can Never Be Learned‘ is exposed for all to see and none to act on. The optimal load for marching infantry was studied exhaustively and documented extensively during the time of the Roman Legions. One fighting man can carry 60 lbs and march all day and with a 30 lbs fighting load he can maintain acceptable speed, mobility, and striking power without draining his stamina. Every officer on active duty knows this but none of them can move beyond the “survive-ability aspect” heavy armor brings to the fight. So our PBI (Poor Bloody Infantry) go into battle wearing over 100 lbs of armor.
The lads are both fit and smart and have figured out heavy combat loads increase the chance they’ll be shot due to poor mobility and heat exhaustion. When they do get shot, the armor prevents penetration, which is a testament to the concern their senior officers have regarding their health and welfare. But then again, forcing men to hump 100+ lbs of gear in a blazing hot desert is a sobering testament of just how little control senior officers have over the health and welfare of their men. Marine Officers tell me that congress is to blame for the ridiculous notion that force protection is derived from heavy body armor and large armored trucks.
Men will take significant risks to reduce the loads they carry into battle. The ANA solider in the background and his ANP counterpart if the foreground have just been in contact with the Taliban but they remain as light as they can possibly be, no spare ammo, water, radio etc… I’m not saying this is smart I’m just saying it is the way it is.
One advantage (for what it is worth) of all this weight is when the lads dive off armored vehicles to apprehend villains the extra mass and weight turn them into formidable meat rockets.
Optimal soldiers loads have been one of the more popular topics for Staff College papers since the invention of Staff Colleges.
Having done some research, I find that American Geezers have something in common with British Tommies; they too can say “I’m not having that” and the discussion is over. Turns out Bing West doesn’t wear body armor or helmet! He may be on the facility of the Naval War College, and he may submit reports to the American Department of Defense, but somehow he has reached that glorious station in life where he can tell the Marines and the Army to STUFF IT- He goes out with whoever he wants, while wearing whatever he wants. Man, that’s nice work if you can get it!
It is not like being a reporter makes one a non-combatant, as we were reminded again with the passing of Tim Heatherington in Libya yesterday. Bing West doesn’t have to wear body armor because he’s 70,and nobody expects men his age to walk around lugging 100 lbs of gear, and he has earned his due with the Marines. That seems perfectly reasonable; what is unreasonable is to expect any man, of any age, to carry around over 100 lbs of armor, water and weapons during combat operations. We know that forcing men to carry that much weight will cause significant problems; but the only significant problem senior officers worry about are the ones which will adversely impact their careers. They know that we task the PBI to carry too much weight, they know that physical and mental exhaustion leads to increased numbers of our guys suffering enemy wounds and they know that the men know- which means that the press knows, which is to say everyone knows; but nobody wants to acknowledge that what they know- we ALL know. The British defense Ministry did what bureaucrats do when confronted by unpleasant facts – they made the shit up and released it to the press:
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said: “The issue of weight carried by soldiers on operations is well recognised and work is constantly under way to reduce the amount carried by soldiers. “Since June 2010 a number of weight savings measures have reduced the weight carried by soldiers by up to 26 lbs.”
Sure, 26 lbs…color me skeptical, but prevarication over the amount of weight trimmed off the fighting infantry misses the point. The lads carry too much weight and suffer casualties because they rapidly run out of steam and sloe down when under fire.
It is Saturday, the 9th of April here in the sunny paradise of Afghanistan and both Kandahar and Kabul are in a UN declared “White City” status as the locals brace for another round of anti-American protests in response to the Koran burning in Florida. I’m in Kandahar where all is quiet after Thursday’s spectacular attack on an ANP compound. Once again the Taliban used an ambulance VBIED to get through police and ISAF cordons, then detonated it inside the incident scene. The Taliban still suck at fighting, but they are getting pretty slick with the tactical planning as of late.
We aren’t too worried about protests in the South – a look at last week’s stats from Sami the Finn at Indicium Consulting shows why:
When the incident rate drops like this in the south there is only explanation; Poppy Time
When the poppy is being harvested all other activity around the poppy belt, including Taliban attacks, grind to a halt. Opium prices are at an all time high after last years crop failure and we hear this year the opium sap harvesters will keep 1 man (4.5 kilos) for every 6 man they milk out of the poppy bulbs. A man sells (at current prices) for around US $6000. That is a ton of money in these parts, however gathering up that much wet opium takes the average 4 man team two weeks of backbreaking, dawn to dusk effort. Still every able bodied male in the region is hard at work trying to get a man worth of Opium because when you have 6k in your pocket you can get married. That’s right – sex not only sells but it’s also is a great motivator for unmarried men in societies where the only way to get it is through marriage.
With most of the international press trying to figure out what Obama and Hillary are up to in Africa confusion regarding what’s happening here has reached new levels of strangeness. Are things going well, or are they going down the tubes? Is a resurgent al Qaeda a problem, or, (as I have long maintained) is this never going to be happen again in Afghanistan? Is the President of the United States really an inexperienced, doctrinaire, ignoramus, or is he rope-a-doping the whole world by pretending to be incompetent while hatching a wickedly genius plan to bring Americans a healthy economy coupled to a foreign policy which is easily understood to benefit the interests of our country?
One of the things about Marines (which irritates the other services to no end) is our propensity for festooning personal vehicles and most vertical surfaces with Eagle Globe and Anchor stickers. In time every ANA vehicle in the Helmand Province will have a Marine sticker on it.
Allow me to answers my questions in reverse order: Our POTUS is not rope-a-doping, his crisis management performance is typical for a man who has been promoted way beyond his level of incompetence for reasons other than experience or consistent superior performance. But that is a lesson we cannot acknowledge because it remains fashionable among our cultural and business elite to emphatically believe affirmative action is a good thing. They want to believe that diversity makes us stronger when everyone who has to deal with “diversity” knows the only way it makes anything stronger is when diverse peoples meet the same standards and compete on a level playing field.
The Taliban are resurgent now, have been for the past two years and will be gaining and holding more terrain, will be inflicting more casualties on ISAF and ANSF, will grow stronger and stronger with each passing year. Worse, it appears al-Qaeda is back which I thought would never happen but then again I thought we’d be making progress by now.
And finally I have no idea what in the name of God we are doing bombing Libya but can guarantee you that when it’s all said and done we’re going to discover this was “doing stupid shit”. Let’s just hope we don’t lose too many people in the process.
In the Eastern portion of Afghanistan we have withdrawn from most of Kunar Province because the military geniuses in Kabul have decided that our presence in the isolated valleys was a provocation, so we declared victory and are packing up to head home. The Hillbillies of Kunar didn’t see it that way and thought our withdraw from their turf was a win for them. Commanders who are victorious against the Americans seem to attract attention, money, recruits, and (this is new) al Qaeda training camps. Who would have guessed that????????
The poppy turns up everywhere to include the vegetable garden in our compound. Our gardener grows some pretty decent looking weed too. I don’t think he’s a smoker and bet he sells the weed – the three poppy plants out back aren’t enough to produce squat and are there because they look cool
This report in the Wall Street Journal was a nasty surprise to those of us paying attention but not for long. Within 24 hours the MSM was spinning a counter story that included this statement: “Petraeus also said he did not agree with reports that al-Qaida was making a comeback in Afghanistan”. Well, I guess that’s that but hold on the WSJ story was written by Mathew Rosenberg. I know Matt gets outside the security bubble to dig up his own facts having given him a ride from Jalalabad to Kabul a few years ago. If Rosenberg is reporting there is a resurgent al Qaeda infesting Afghanistan then I’m going to admit I was wrong about the possibility of that happening. General Petraeus can say whatever he likes but we know he doesn’t know because he has no human intelligence capacity with which to know. That is the price he must pay for having unlimited funds with which to build little islands of America all over the country, isolating most of the forces completely from the Afghans.
Another classic example of inside the security bubble propaganda versus real outside the wire atmospherics can be found in this April Fools article . Written by James Dobbins, and reprinted by the RAND people for some reason (I am certain protecting their billions in FOB based contracts has nothing to do with it) Mr Dobbins, a DC insider with a vested interest in blowing sunshine up the rectums of other insiders, tells us that “irrational optimism” is the word of the day for your ordinary Afghan. You see, as bad as things are, they have been so much worse over the past 30 years that, from the perspective of the abused populace, everything is now peachy!
Let me paste in graph from one of the few organizations that actually gets out on the ground (with expat led teams) to do their own polling. Check this out:
When you get off the FOB and ask people questions face to face, you get an idea why the Afghans are clueless about our motives for being and staying here.
The pie chart above is based on a report by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS). ICOS is the only policy analysis organization in Afghanistan with expatriate headed assessment teams. They are led by the formidable Norine MacDonald: I ran into them last January while they were in the Helmand Province doing research for this report on the dangers of a draw-down in forces this summer.
I personally don’t think the maneuver units are going anywhere this summer. The United States could easily send half the people deployed to Afghanistan home without diminishing a bit of combat power. Simply clear out all the Equal Opportunity Officers, the Sexual Harassment Officers, career jammers, the jerks who monitor base gyms to make sure nobody wears a sleeveless shirt and the military policemen who make life on the FOB’s such a drag. You could easily cut the intelligence effort in half because Afghan intel is an echo chamber of endemic circular reporting. And you can close the COIN Academy; setting up a new “innovative” school house is a loser move designed to cover over the fact we have no traction with the Afghan people. The COIN Academy will never answer that question because you can’t do COIN in six month increments which isn’t really the problem either; the Karzai administration is the problem. But I’ve only been saying that for five years now and am sick of repeating myself.
We’re spending too much money and blood in Afghanistan while achieving very little besides beating the dog shit out of the Southern Taliban. That is something which the Marines in Helmand and the ISAF units in Kandahar can be proud of but it’s not enough. When I look at the train wreck that is the United States economy coupled with the unwillingness of our elected leaders to deal with the mess they made I am reminded (yet again) of the Roman Empire. Contemplate this quote (hat tip Dan Carlin’s Hard Corps History) from historian Michael Crawford who wrote in The Roman Republic:
The dangerous developments of the second century BC were then in large measure the result of growth of the Roman Empire providing the oligarchy with wealth which had to be invested making it easy for them to acquire extra land, providing them with slaves to work it and offering no alternative land elsewhere to those dispossessed. A part time peasant army conquers the Mediterranean and that conquest facilitates its destitution.
The level of debt being generated by our political masters is unsustainable, the amount of spending on the war in Afghanistan is unsustainable, the financial obligations of the democratic run blue states are unsustainable. Yet our political class continues to demagogue, evade, reward themselves with benefits regular Americans can only dream of, while our military leaders focus on marginal issues like women on submarines or the acceptance of homosexuals (as if they have not always been in the military anyway). Our government leaders focus on everything except the fact we have no money. Our military leaders focus on everything except the fact that we’re losing in Afghanistan. The American people work hard to support their families while sending their children off to fight for a military that is rapidly adopting the liberal cultural mores of the ruling class at the expense of traditional martial virtue. The men and women fighting here and elsewhere will return to a country where only the elite prosper, where the rules for the political class and the working class are different. They are going to fight like lions to support our constitution while the administration shreds that constitution and leaves the common folk destitute.
Holy shit I sound like a commie! Time to pack up the laptop and fly to Dubai where I need to score another visa and a beer or two. Maybe a few days of sleeping in a real bed will improve the mood a bit but I doubt it. I see a bad moon rising.
The killings in Mazar-i Sharif followed by rioting in Kandahar, Jalalabad and towns across the country are more than a little troubling. Joshua Foust posted on the topic expressing concern about the viability of internationals remaining outside the wire which makes me concerned too because Joshua isn’t one to cry wolf.. Registan.net then added a post by Joel Hafvenstein arguing that the insurgency is not targeting aid workers and the time to talk of pulling out has not been reached.
Kandahar, where protests broke out on Saturday was locked down until this morning by ISAF. We had our own scare today when a villain walking near the Governors compound spontaneously detonated (malfunctions are as predictable as rain with Afghan suicide bombers) and his partner immediately started running down a side street towards our compound. He was brought down in a spirited fusillade most of which seemed to snap over our compound walls. This meeting engagement in downtown Lash apparently disrupted crowds which were gathering in the surrounding neighborhoods for a Koran burning protest. We dispatched scouts to check out the city when we heard that but they reported the town to be locked down, streets empty and ANSF check points everywhere. There was a Koran burning protest across the river fronting the main Lashar Gah bazaar but the ANSF won’t let them into the city. The locals know that a large agitated mob would result in indiscriminate looting of the bazaar so the local elders were in the ANP HQ by the afternoon complaining bitterly about allowing crowds to form in the first place.
One of the many smaller protests in downtown Kandahar Saturday morning
The violent protests in Kandahar left at least 8 Afghans dead and caused a complete lockdown of the city by ISAF ground combat units. I’m ignoring the attacks on the Kabul ISAF bases last Friday. Attacking them is a stupid, meaningless gesture which puts Afghan civilians caught in the crossfire at much greater risk then the international troops who guard the ECP’s. The rioting in Kandahar is not a big surprise given the powder keg nature of the city as ISAF and ANSF forces continue to put the screws to Taliban networks. The attack on a UN Compound in Mazar in which two of the Nepalese guards were reportedly beheaded is a little harder to explain.
The Wall Street Journal released the well researched article Inside the Massacre at Afghan Compound which gives a good account of what happened and why ISAF did not respond in time. Mazar-i Sharif has indeed always been considered one of the safest towns in the country for foreigners. Back in ’06 and ’07 when I frequently traveled to Mazar we considered the entire area to be benign and never carried rifles or body armor. Just as in Jalalabad, a town reportedly hit with Koran burning protests today, the security situation in Mazar deteriorated dramatically during 2010. I have heard from friends that the armed guards in the UN compound did surrendered their weapons without firing a shot. That is not a big surprise. Shooting into a crowd of unarmed people is not an easy thing to do.
The only way to handle a crowd this big and this close would be with CS gas grenades while pleading with ISAF to come to the rescue. This is the crowd outside the UN compound before they went high order. Photo from Sami the Finn
Private Security Companies in Afghanistan are not allowed to have CS or any other kind of grenade (except smoke) in their inventory so the UN guards could not volley CS gas over the walls in an effort to drive the mob away. Nor could they volley frags and as you can see from the picture above gunfire would have been effective only if they started drilling a lot of people fast. Most folks in that situation will decide lethal force is an option which will most likely make the situation worse. Identifying the tipping point when lethal force would be appropriate would have been next to impossible last Friday. Trusting your fate to the mercy of the mob is a plan that could very likely go very wrong but most of us would probably go that route if the alternative is shooting massive numbers of unarmed people. But not now.
Reuters is reporting:
A senior interior ministry investigator said on Sunday the killers of the U.N. staff appear to have been “reintegrated” Taliban — fighters who had formally laid down arms — although the insurgents have denied any role in the attack.
Over 30 people have been arrested, from areas as far afield as southern Kandahar, western Herat and central Baghlan province, said Munir Ahmad Farhad, a spokesman for the provincial governor.
If all those bad actors converged on Mazar-i Sharif to start a riot it was most likely because Mazar has a reputation as being safe. It would be much harder to pull off a similar stunt in Lash and we saw how quickly the protests in Kandahar were locked down. The security forces in contested areas react much faster to large unruly crowds. In Mazar they were used to how things go in Mazar; they have never locked down the city nor have they ever had to deal with multiple Taliban complex attacks. It appears the Koran burning provided the perfect opportunity for an organization with motive, money and organization to whip a large crowd out of control. It would not surprise me if the killers were imported and paid too, but that is speculation on my part. I note with interest that the Taliban have not claimed responsibility.
I am seeing things the same way as Joel Hafvenstein regarding the Afghanistan Aid effort; I don’t know of any company out here slowing down operations or packing up to go home. The security situation deteriorated rapidly in the past 12 months except for in the Helmand and Kandahar Provinces where most population centers are solidly under ISAF/ANSF control. I still think this summer could be a tipping point if the Taliban continue to get shredded in their southern homeland but we’ll have to see. It may not prove to be decisive in the long term but then again who knows? It’s going to be an interesting summer.
